Mistakes
Brand’s Pace Law: In haste, mistakes cascade. With deliberation, mistakes instruct.
from Edge.org, via Kottke, via Boing Boing
Power to the People
I hate powerbricks. It used to be that when you bought an electronics device that used an external power supply, it came with a giant block that plugged directly into the outlet. These were not power-strip friendly, and gave way to the powerbrick. The same giant block, only now moved halfway up the cord between the outlet and the device. The are clumsy and unwieldy. There has got to be a better way.
For example, when I visted my parents recently, I took along a few toys… Powerbook, DV Camcorder, Firewire HD. After shooting some video of my son playing with one of his gifts, I decided to whip up a little short with iMovie. Of the three devices, only the Firewire HD requires the powerbrick at all times; the Powerbook and the camcorder have batteries. Of course, these are normally in varying states of discharge, so I usually plugin in everything when using them together. This means three lumpy bundles of brick+wires in my computer bag, and three bricks taking up tablespace or getting under feet. It’s alot of bother.
Around the house it’s worse. Cellphone cradle. Scanner. Wireless Router. Sherri’s Palm Pilot. Everything has bricks. And whatever doesn’t usually has the old oversized plug. For every new gadget, get a new brick. And they’re almost never compatible.
Why have bricks at all? Well, the power in your wall outlet is around 115V AC. About right for lightbulbs and hairdryers, not so great for integrated circuits. For reasons I won’t go into, AC power is much better for transmission over the power lines that bring power to your home. Computers and gadgets of all sorts are designed for DC power… usually between 4.5 and 12V worth. The powerbricks convert the power from your wall outlet into what your device wants. This tends to generate heat, and a bit of space for the transformer. By separating this functionality into the brick, you remove weight and size from the device, and reduce heat dissipation issues. And if the brick dies, it’s much easier to replace.
Of course, everyone seems to use a slightly different voltage, or a different plug configuration, etc. What I’d like to see is a new spec… the Universal Power Bus. For example, any device that can accept a standard voltage and draw no more than a standard wattage could use UPB. It would feature standardized connector, for attaching a UPB-compliant Powerbrick. But here’s the good part… since everything is standard, you could replace the brick. For example, a PC could have a few UPB ports built in to take advantage of the PC’s power supply. Or you could buy a UPB Power Strip… a device the size of a couple of paperbacks that could sit under your desk or on a shelf and supply connections for 5 or 6 UPB devices. Airports and hotel rooms could offer UPB recepticles, allowing any compatible device to be powered or recharged with any UBP cord.
Now, I’m no electronics expert. I’m sure I’ve glossed over or missed some important details. I’m sure device manufacturers have reasons for differing power requirements for simliar devices. But I’m also betting many of things things could be solved. Here’s hoping someone will try. Like the rest of my site, this idea is Some Rights Reserved - released under Creative Commons Licence. Go on, build it!
Reorganization Complete
The dust that raised in my last post should have settled by now. I’ve created a few new categories for this blog, to take some of the strain off ‘Miscellany’. If you can’t find something or if anything seems broken, please contact me.
One of the posts that I moved was my explanation of How to Install XEmacs via Fink on OS X Panther, which was the fourth post in my series on my upgrade to Panther. It also happens to be the most popular post on my site right now. It seems I’m the number one Google hit for the search ‘install xemacs fink panther’. (Note to self: WOOHOO!) I really, really didn’t want to kill my only claim to fame by breaking the URL Google was linking to. The redirect plugin for Blosxom did a fine job of letting me set up 301 permanent redirects for all of the pages moved.
Here’s a couple of tips for using the redirect plugin most effectively. First, if you are moving a single post, instead of putting this in your redirect config file (assuming your primary flavor is named .html):
OldCategory/story.html=>NewCategory/story.htmlUse the following:
OldCategory/story=>NewCategory/storyThis will handle the story no matter what flavour is used (including trackbacks).
Secondly, when you move your files around, don’t forget to move your comments! If you are using the writeback plugin, your comments are stored under the writeback directory in your plugin state directory. Each post’s comments are stored in a separate .wb file, in a directory tree that mimics your blosxom categories tree. Any file move for a post requires the corresponding move for the writeback.
Pardon Out Dust
Please pardon out appearance while we work to make your blog-reading experience at jclark.org more enjoyable!
Which is to say, I’m going to be doing a little reorganizing of categories. When around half of your posts fall under “Miscellany”, well, maybe you need some new categories.
Because my permalinks contain the category names, this will break some permalinks. However, the URIs on this site are rather shy and want desperately to be cool. And I just can’t let the little guys down. So, any post that changes, and gets a new permalink, will also maintain its old permalink via the magic of the 301 Moved Permanently HTTP Header. This bit of magic is in turn brought to Blosxom via the magic of Fletcher’s handy little redirect plugin.
There may be some periods where a link is broken; you might even see some old posts showing up in the RSS feed again. Sorry in advance… Please Pardon our Dust.
Ten Items or Less?
Saw this at the local supermarket:
I’ve gotten used to seeing boxes of floppies (remember those?) CR-R media, and even the occaisional mouse at the grocery store, but a USB hub?
I’m such a geek; my first thought was, “I’ve gotta blog this!”
Colorful
EasyRBG’s Color Harmonies tool is a great way to find colors that work well with other colors. While the site’s main focus seems to be matching real-world colors to RGB colors (you can search for paint colors from dozens of manufacturers to match a particular RGB color), the harmony tool looks like a fantastic way to develop color schemes for a web page.
Unlike Pixy’s color scheme tool to which I’ve linked previously, it does not have a color wheel; you must input your initial RGB values in decimal, hex, or decimal percentage. It offers more colors per scheme, however. Next time I revamp my site layout (soon, I hope), I plan to use both sites.
(via The Tao of Mac)
We’re with the Band
Contrary to my previous post, I will not be at the nearest Apple Retail Store on January 16 to purchase iLife ‘04, including the brand new GarageBand. Why not? Because I just ordered it from the Apple Store, with delivery “by 1/16″. I also grabbed the Jam Pack.
This is my first time ordering from the Apple Store. I’m interested to see if they arrive by the 16th. I also got free shipping. Not sure what the cutoff is, but it’s more than $49… It wasn’t free when iLife was the only thing in my shopping cart.
I had considered buying the $99 49-key USB Keyboard that Apple is selling, but I’ve decided to wait and shop around a bit. After all, I’ve got nine days.
I Shall Call Him… Mini Me
So I’m still watching Steve Jobs give his Keynote at Macworld. He just announced the iPod Mini. He stated that they are going after the “high-end ($199)” Flash-based mp3 players, which typically have 256megs of RAM (est. 60 songs). The mini will have 4 gigs of RAM memory (est. 1000 songs), will be the size of a business card, will be 1/2″ think, features the standard iPod interface, and will be compatible with the standard iPod dock. It will cost $249. Ooops.
This is one slick looking piece of hardware, and Jobs stated that $249 vs. the stated competition, i.e. $199 high-end flash players, is the best $50 you’ll ever spend. He did a nice breakdown of the market, showing that 31% is the target competition. But I still think they might have mis-calculated. For another $50, you can get least expensive full-sized iPod… which, Jobs announced, is now 15gig: (vs 10gig before) for the same $299.
Either way, they’ll be in store in Feb, and I do plan to check one out.
Oh, and they come in colors.
Update: The Tao of Mac has a nice summary of everything in the keynote.
Update 2: I may have been giving too short a shrift to the coolness factor. They are wicked cool… but if they had a 2 gig version for $149, I’d buy one for my teenage daughter, so she could use iTunes Music Store. At $249, that’s still a bit high for something a kid may lose… or drop.
Update 3: I changed “4 gig of RAM” to “4 gig of memory”, since I don’t think Jobs mentioned what kind of media is in the iPod mini. My guess is some kind of mini-drive. Flash would be too expensive.
Update 4: Confirmed - iPod mini uses hard drive storage. (via Daring Fireball)
Play that Funky Music, Whiteboy
Today is the day Mac fans have been waiting for… Steve Jobs’ Macworld Keynote. I didn’t get to jump into the streaming broadcast until an hour and 15 minutes had gone by, but I did tune it just in time to see the unveiling of the newest iLife app… GarageBand. This thing is incredible… not sure I could describe if it I tried. It goes on sale Jan 16, and I plan to be at the nearest Apple store (an hour away) that day. Hundreds of Over 50 software instruments, thousands of professionaly cut loops, instant recording, vinatge guitar amps… Incredibly cool.
I think the streaming link above will offer playbacks after it’s all over… definately check out the on-stage demo with Steve Jobs and John Mayer rockin’ out. I’ll be catching up on the hour+ I missed. When it’s done.
Think Before You Speak
Sam Ruby is conducting a test to see how people feel about being required to preview their blog comments prior to posting them. Since Sam’s test system seems to be only allowing preview, and not post, I’ll comment here.
I prefer to see my comments in preview before I post… I am a notoriously poor typist, and often think faster than I type. I usually end up tweaking posts on my blog two or three times immediately after posting, because I’ve never gotten around to adding preview to my web-based posting system.
Am I less likely to be spontaneous? I doubt it. I didn’t have to take time out to register; I can start typing as soon as I read your post (or another comment). The only difference is, I’m asked to read my own work before others do. This might make me reconsider something I typed, but probably only if it was prone to moderation anyway. Will it help with comment spam? Can’t hurt.