Month: January 2007

Monday, 22 January 2007

2008 Presidential Candidates as Tech Gadgets

by Garrick van Buren 2 Comments on 2008 Presidential Candidates as Tech Gadgets
  • For being really attractive, an expected move forward, and making it fun to improve ourselves
    John Edwards = Nintendo Wii
  • For being a really good solution with enthusiastic support, but never quite feels right
    Dennis Kucinich = RIM Blackberry
  • For showing us what we all know the future looks like but still making us wonder if now is the time
    Barak Obama = Apple iPhone
  • For being expected and reliable
    Hillary Clinton = Tivo

LATER
Keep the comparisons are rolling into the comments…Al Gore = Ubuntu = awesome.

Sunday, 21 January 2007

Saturday, 20 January 2007

Putting the Digital Video ‘in’ Digital Video Recorder

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Putting the Digital Video ‘in’ Digital Video Recorder

Back in December 2005 I wrote:

“Now, despite the TiVo being a Linux box and hooked up to my network – I can’t easily send video to it. To be clear – I don’t want to get video off it – I want to put video on it. Easily. As easily as setting up a Season Pass.”

This morning, I read this from Mark Cuban:

“Can user generated content be uploaded to cable or satellite companies and then delivered as regular TV to be played back from a settop box or DVR.” – Mark Cuban

It’s nice to see these ideas gaining traction with those more familiar with delivering video than I am.

Friday, 19 January 2007

BitPass Bites the Dust.

by Garrick van Buren 1 Comment on BitPass Bites the Dust.

Just received and email from Bitpass.com saying they are no longer:

Dear Valued Bitpass Merchant

We want to thank you for your past business, however due to circumstances beyond our control, we are discontinuing our operations…”

“On January 26, all US Bitpass Buyer accounts will be closed and we will begin the process of refunding all unspent monies to the accountholder”

Kinda sad, I remember Scott McCloud was using BitPass to sell access to his online comics.

As of this writing, BitPass.com has yet to reflect this development.

Backing Up with rsync, iCal, and Applescript

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Backing Up with rsync, iCal, and Applescript

This morning marks the completion of the first full backup I’ve done in quite a while. But not the last. For the past 3 months, I’ve been working on an automated backup system – so I no longer need to wonder if things are backed up. They are. In at least two places.

A little background:

  • I only have Macs in my house. One of them…the Mini, acts as a server
  • I’ve got a StrongSpace account. Not that this makes much of a difference, any accessible volume could work the same (I’m intrigued how S3 might work into the mix as well).

The backup system is tiered;

  1. Every couple of days, the “client” Macs, the ones that get used everyday, backup to the Mini with
    rsync -aE --exclude='.*' /usr/bin/ssh /[path to source folder (see below)]/ [username]@[url of local server]:/[path to your backup directory]/

    I’ve got these all wrapped up in a single backup.sh file, with a line for:

    ~/Library/Application Support
    ~/Library/Mail
    ~/Library/Keychains
    ~/Library/Documents/Projects
    ~/Library/Documents/Palm
    ~/Pictures
    ~/Desktop

  2. Then, the Mini backs up the client folders to StrongSpace.
    rsync -rltvz --exclude='.*' /usr/bin/ssh /[path to client backup folder]/ [username]@[url of online server]:/[path to your online backup directory]/
  3. I’m using SSH Keys (the /usr/bin/ssh in the strings above) to automate the login (see MagpieBrain for instructions on setting this up).
  4. On all the machines, the backup.sh file is wrapped in an Applescript
    do shell script "/Users/garrickvanburen/Documents/Projects/RSYNC/garrick_backup.sh"
  5. The Applescript is called from an alarm in iCal, like this

What’s your backup strategy?

ELSEWHERE:
David Roessli takes a different approach.

Mistaking Relevance for Trivia

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Mistaking Relevance for Trivia

Last night, I had bad dream about attending a live recording of a radio program.

From what I can remember, the point of the show was to dismiss highly-personal communications as trivial while a panel of teen girls shared the melodramatic relationship unfolding within their MySpace pages.

While “trivia” (or gossip) might not be the most noble of messages to share, the vast majority of our gestures are just that. In Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language – Robin Dunbar posits that we talk for gossip. Gossip being as much about relationship as primates grooming each other.

I suspect gossip comes right after spam in volume of daily email. I don’t think this is bad – especially with good filters. Filters we don’t really have yet, filters that consider anything not relevant to me now as spam (“news”, “gossip”, “trivia”, and otherwise).

Not having those filter yet is mostly OK – because we don’t yet have the quantity of publishers that demand it. Tomorrow – when news/gossip/trivia is published block-by-block – we will.

ELSEWHERE:
“Truth #2: What viewers/readers deem important is often far different than what we judge important.” – Terry Heaton

Thursday, 18 January 2007

Garrick is at MPR’s The Loop Tonight

by Garrick van Buren 2 Comments on Garrick is at MPR’s The Loop Tonight

I’ll be in the audience of tonight’s recording of MPR’s The Loop: Digital Divisions.

Hopefully I’ll see some you there as well.

My notes and thoughts from the event:

  1. All the chairs are filled. A good cross-section of Minnesotans. Far more diverse in age, background, and ethnicity than the last time I was here at MPR HQ.
  2. They made fun of the usual suspects – without any sense that the iPod is the same as the Walkman and the transistor radio before it, that text messages have a lot in common with telegrams, and that being transported to another world in books is somehow not exactly the same as Second Life.
  3. There were 100 people in the room. Maybe 10 were on mic for the 90 minutes we were there. Like the elderly gentleman next to me, I too, expected more of a discussion, less of a performance. It would have been more interesting to actually have a discussion.
  4. Blah. Feels like an opportunity squandered.

ELSEWHERE:
Jesse Ross feels differently.

Huge thanks go out to Jeff Horwich (Host of In the Loop) for stopping by and leaving an excellent comment. I think there are some fairly simple ways to dramatically minimize the risks he identifies, while increasing the value of people attending the program. I’m reminded of Unconferences and the notion that:

“The sum of the expertise of the people in the audience is greater than the sum of expertise of the people on stage.”