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Steve Jobs recently made some comments about the amount of books people read (i.e. very few) in a discussion of Amazon's Kindle. A few years ago a friend of mine told me that he doubts if half of American adults had ever read ten books all the way through and on their own. I tend to agree with both statements, and it's quite saddening if the numbers are even close to the truth.

So today I ask you this:

I expect these numbers will be slanted by the fact that people coming here are above average intelligence ((Internet users tend to be above average intelligence - I'm making no claim that readers of my site are otherwise uniquely intelligent simply because they come here.)) as well as inquisitive ((Most technology types are inquisitive.)).

I put some time in with Burnout Paradise today. I feel I've gotten the hang of it thus far. I'm still pretty bad at some of the events that end in the mountains, but I popped online for awhile and spend an hour or two playing competitive/co-operative three-player challenges.

The game is getting a lot of flak because it's an "open world" and you can't re-start events you've lost just by pressing the menu - you have to drive all the way back to the beginning. This is apparently different from all previous Burnout games, but having never played them, I don't really mind. I think the open world thing is pretty nifty. It let me wander around and find all 11 parking lots (only after earning the achievement did I discover a handy freakin' map of all the parking garages). I'm sure it might get annoying when you only have a few events left, but eh - so what.

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Following this and this, I must say that the improvements Time-Warner has made are noticeable. Never before in the six months prior to the change would this have been possible:

Now all that's left is for Time-Warner to re-route some internal network stuff so that we're dumped onto the Internet from Canton, OH rather than routed through Adelphia's systems through New York and West Virginia. Ping times should drop just a bit when that happens.

I'm going to keep checking speed for the next few weeks, though less frequently. However, I consider this case "closed" for now. I still wish Time-Warner would communicate with customers better, though - that's an issue with them that I can't close.

So today I discover that PayPal seemingly never expects two separate married people to have separate PayPal accounts but share a credit card and a checking account.

In other words, they're holding some of my wife's money hostage. She can't verify her account because I'm already using them to back my PayPal account.

Imagine the trouble polygamists face.

LAME.

Could be tomorrow, or certainly in about eight days, that Apple will release Aperture 2.0. Anyone willing to post some rumors or predictions (not wishlists, which even I have done to death)?

My only prediction at this point is that we're going to see some really tight Flickr integration. My reasons for guessing at this are mostly private, but the public reasons would include the recent AppleTV update that integrated with Flickr.

Post your rumors and/or predictions in the comments below.

P.S. Leave an anonymous name if you'd like, but please still leave a valid email address. It won't be given to anyone, but I may want to send you an off-the-record email.

The Quoter plugin for WordPress has served me well for quite some time, but it has a bug.

If I simply type <blockquote><p>something here</p></blockquote> in the comments, Quoter incorrectly adds an attribute line (i.e. "Erik J. Barzeski said...").

I've spent a little time looking at the code, but I haven't yet figured out how to solve this, and the plugin itself hasn't been updated in years. If anyone else knows how to fix this bug, please share here.

I'll post an example comment that displays the problem.

Back in December of 2006 I wrote a little entry comparing the DirecTV DVR to the TiVo. The DirecTV HD-DVR (the "HR20" as I'll call it from now on) has improved dramatically since then. Many people experienced a lot of growing pains with their HR20s, but aside from having two shows wiped out early on in testing, I am happy to report I never had any problems.

The topic of DirecTV's DVR came up recently on Twitter, and I promised to give an update. This is that update.

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My primary account is an admin account. I tried setting up a special "admin only" account and reverting my standard one to a plain old user, but the constant authorization requests to do darn near everything got so annoying I switched back.

I realize it's a bit less safe, but especially now with Time Machine (and still with my daily backups to yet another hard drive), I feel safer in "living on the edge" a bit. Additionally, I'm very safe with downloaded files, and the last time I opened an email attachment from an unknown source it was a Windows virus written in VBScript that I opened in BBEdit about six years ago. 🙂

So, I ask:

As I (thought I'd) mentioned before, I bought another copy of Office:2004 (Teacher/Student) edition on Black Friday and took advantage of two deals: a $100 rebate (Best Black Friday Deal Ever) and a free ($6.99 S&H) upgrade to Office:2008 (Super Suite Deal).

The $100 rebate check has already arrived (and been cashed), but I'm still waiting on Office itself to arrive. The folks at MS have confirmed the receipt of my forms and have thus far said only:

We have received and processed your proof of purchase for this offer. The order is now currently on back order since the software is not yet available to ship. The expected release date for Office 2008 for Mac is around the end of January. Once the product is available to the retail market your order will be processed and the order will be shipped. Once the order ships you will receive an e-mail confirmation and it should arrive within 3-10 business days. If you have any further questions then please let us know.

It hasn't shipped yet (no email yet), so I sit and wait. Every day I must use the non-native (Intel) Entourage 2004 I cringe.

P.S. Reminder to self to check the "502 user" thing I've seen mentioned in, well, only one place.

I've been using iPhone's Mail application on this trip (I didn't want to bring along a computer), and I must say, I'm rather disappointed in its behavior. It largely boils down to the fact that deleting messages is an incredible pain in the ass. If the app supported spam filtering (or even some basic filters), I probably wouldn't have a single complaint, but without spam filtering I do.

At the very least, I want a method of mass selecting blocks of messages to delete. Going one-by-one is frustrating, and oftentimes over EDGE you'll get warnings that messages couldn't be moved to the trash, and that you have to delete them all over again. Lovely.

Every deletion requires either two motions (tap/tap or swipe/tap) or a waiting through a long "suck" animation if you choose to hit the trash icon to delete.

Yes, the answer could very well be "filter on the server side," but that's not always feasible. In my case, I turned off SpamAssassin on the server side because it was becoming increasingly ineffective.

This is about 1/3 of the building… which is quite literally 1/2 mile long from end to end. The PGA Merchandise show occupies the entire building.

Today is the last day of the show. Tomorrow: a special thing with Titleist.

I knew Orlando had an upside-down building for the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, but the theme appears to be spreading.

This shot's actually from yesterday. I am in Orlando, FL for the 2008 PGA Merchandise Show. I've not mentioned it because the wife doesn't like all four of my blog's readers to know I'm gone. 🙂

Sadly, this is after adjustments, as the iPhone has no way to control aperture, ISO, or shutter speed. 🙂

Time Capsule
Great idea, good price, but it won't fit into my network without being redundant. I may still get one depending on the feasibility of a few options (see the end of the linked post).

Revised AppleTV
Great idea, good price, but it won't fit into my network without being redundant. My receiver's 3 HDMI ports are already in use ((Xbox 360, DVR, up-scaling DVD player)). If the AppleTV had the ability to upconvert DVDs, I'd pay another $100-150 and I'd replace my DVD player. If the AppleTV could bridge its Internet, I might make it fit. It does neither.

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My current home network is pretty simple:

1. A white dome AirPort Extreme (APE) in my office hooked up to cable modem.
2. An AirPort Express (APX) in my kitchen that extends the range of my network. I could probably do without this.
3. Another APX in the TV stand, connected to an ethernet hub, which connects my Xbox 360 and DVR to the network.

Unfortunately, I'm stuck in a situation where upgrading to include an AppleTV and/or a Time Capsule simply doesn't make much sense. I'll be caught in redundancy or wasting technology.

Redundancy
The AppleTV does wireless but can't bridge via its ethernet port, so I'd still need the APX. Similarly, Time Capsule doesn't do anything AppleTV-like. In either case I'd have two Apple wireless devices right next to each other below the TV.

Waste of Technology
Even if I eliminate the desire for an AppleTV, I shouldn't upgrade the base station to a Time Capsule (or even a plain 802.11n APE) because the APX doesn't do 802.11n.

Ideally
If AppleTV supported bridging via the ethernet port, I'd buy one of those and a Time Capsule. I would replace the domed APE with the TC for laptop backup and the APX in the living room with an AppleTV. I would remove the APX in the kitchen as it'd be unnecessary with the added range of 802.11n. BAM, all my devices would work and I'd be on an 802.11n network with an AppleTV and backups.

That one teeny little feature is holding me back.

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