Andy's Blog

Dog-in-lap, #2

We didn't get too many photos from our Christmas get-together, but I think that Sara got this one of Scout and I, watching a commercial on the Tee-Vee:

Scout likes the commercials because often-times, animals are used to sell products. Scout doesn't approve of this practice, so he has to charge the TV and bark at them.

Good dog, that Scout.

-Andy.

Dog-in-lap, #1

A few weeks ago, we had Mike's net.bachelor party at Chris and Tanya's house. I didn't take that many pictures (was too busy shooting my friends in the head in Urban Terror), but I did manage to snag one of Chris teaming up with Zoey in Quake III:

Take that, Internet -- another shot of irrepressible Zoey-infused cuteness!

-Andy.

Preparing for MWSF 2006

Due to earlier events, I haven't had a chance to blog about this until now, but I bought a pass for MacWorld San Francisco in January of 2006, so I will be attending the keynote and the show floor. I plan to blog the conference again (like I did last year), so all of my non-nerd friends will want to tune this blog out on January 10th.

My primary motivations for going are:

1. because I can,
2. because I didn't get into the live keynote area last year, and I want to try harder to do so this year,
3. and, I need to take advantage of the "benefits" of living in California -- including living close to the Moscone center. I probably won't always live in Cali, so I have to get my mac nerdery on while I can.

And now, for my pre-show predictions. The rumor-mill has been running rampant with speculation, and while I have been reading every rumor that I can, I don't think that all of them are true. Here is the list of things that I think are "a lock" to see at MWSF 2006:

1. BIG numbers from Apple's sales over the Christmas season. Lots and lots of Macs, iPods, songs, and videos sold. There will be much rejoicing among the faithful.
2. New iPod Shuffles - The iPod Shuffle hasn't been updated in a year, and it is due. While there is an outside chance that Apple could simply phase-out the Shuffle in favor of a 1Gb Nano, I don't think that they will. Instead, I think that they will improve upon the shuffle. This isn't going to be easy -- because they can't fall into their usual pattern of making it "hold more storage and/or be smaller". I think that the Shuffle is already as small as it is going to get (barring some huge advance in battery technology), and if they give it more storage it will start to intrude on the Nano. Plus, having to shuffle through more that 1Gb is somewhat insane.

   Instead, I think that the Shuffle might receive minor physical tweaks (improved rear switch), color choices, and possibly some sort of display. I'm thinking something like the OLED displays that Sony is using on some of their MP3 players.

3. New iLife and iWork - iWork was introduced at MWSF last year, and iLife seems to be on an every January upgrade cycle. I'm not sure what sorts of specific upgrades these application suites will receive. The only application out of the whole bunch that I really use is iPhoto, so I can only speak to that. What I would like to see:
   • Robust tagging support - like what Flickr has. Also, it should be super fast to apply tags and ratings to pictures -- all keyboard driven, as fast as I can see a picture, recognize it, and type.
   • Apple-supplied integration with other web sharing services like Ofoto, Flickr, Gallery, etc.
   • Sorting based on arbitrary image properties in the EXIF data. Also based on image size.
   • Integrate with iSync to automatically suck pictures from my camera phone into iPhoto.
   • Automatic facial recognition, like what Riya is doing.
4. Upgrades to .Mac - I really like the idea behind .Mac, especially back from when it was announced. But it has really stagnated -- I think that there is a lot of room to innovate here, but Apple hasn't been doing it. Instead, .Mac is rapidly being overtaken by Web 2.0 services (Gmail, Flickr, etc.). Apple needs to move fast if they want to save .Mac. I think that there is still some room to do something great -- the current state of browser technology is crappy enough, that having real client software, integrated into the OS, to drive different web services will be way better than what anybody else can offer.

   So, get to it Apple! Bring on the blogs, wikis, automatic RSS notifications for website changes, robust picture tagging and sharing, collaboration, etc. Make it Web 2.5.

5. A sneak-peak at Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard - This is pretty iffy, but I think that Jobs might shed some more light on the next release of Mac OS X. It will probably be a teaser, with the technical "meat" being saved for WWDC '06.

Now, regarding the possibility of seeing new Mac hardware (i.e. Intel-based macs), I think the odds of that are kindof low. While it would be a nice surprise, I'm not banking on it. I don't doubt that Apple is working on Intel-based macs even as I type, but whether or not they will be ready in time for MWSF is anybody's guess. Especially since they won't be ready until Steve says they are ready, and he can make that decision right up until the last minute.

But still, even without Intel-based Macs, I expect that this keynote is going to be a lot of fun. :)

-Andy.

Technorati Tags: .Mac, Apple, MWSF, Riya, Flickr, Macintosh, iPod Shuffle, iLife, iWork

Merry Christmas to Andy, from Andy

So, in typical "guy" fashion, I left all of my christmas shopping until very nearly the last minute. I managed to get everything done during the course of a four hour shopping sprint today, which is great. What is not so great (from my wallet's perspective), is that I was bitten by the "impulse purchase fairy", and picked up one of those new-fangled Nokia 770's at CompUSA:

My initial impressions, after mucking around with it for a bit this evening, is that this little device is going to be a worthy investment. The screen is pretty amazing (as you can tell from how macnn.com looks), yet the device is super tiny and light weight.

Expect more nerdy ramblings as I play with my new toy.

-Andy.

Technorati Tags:
Nokia 770

My Mom and Uncle Mike at Bears camp

My Mom and Uncle Mike, at Bears camp in Bourbonnais, during the summer of 2004:

They are accompanied by the some of friends of Joanne and Mike, Matt.

-Andy.

The Wake

It occurred to me today that the purpose behind a Wake is not so much for mourning, but more so that you can see, in terms of pure volume, the number of people who will miss the person who has passed away. Well, there was a large volume of people who passed through the funeral home where my Uncle Mike was today, so that should tell you something.

It told me something. Something that I have always known on an instinctual level, but that I've never really pondered in my conscious mind:

Michael Baubkus was a pretty kick-ass guy.

By that, I mean, life dealt him one nasty curve ball, but he never let it get him down. I mean, I never heard him complain about being in a wheelchair, or lament his station in life. But, what I learned today, is that it wasn't just that he never complained around me, it was that he never complained at all. Period. And that is pretty amazing.

I could go on and on about my uncle, but there is one thing in particular that I do want to write about. When I first heard that he had died, I didn't really know what to think, or what I was going to say about. But as the days have passed by, things have started coming to me, bit by bit.

Earlier this year, when my wrists really started hurting, I was pretty upset about it. I felt the tailspin of "oh, I'm never going to be able to work again, I'm not going to be able to live the life that I want to lead, my life is over, and so on". There were a lot of things that got me to stop thinking those dead-end thought, but one of the primary ones was the example of my Uncle Mike. When I thought about my problems with my wrists, I immediately thought of the physical challenges that Mike faced every day. But yet he had a job. And a house. And a loving wife. And two dogs, some fish, and a parakeet. And it wasn't just that he had all of this stuff and was miserable. It is that he was reasonably happy, and he fought with the hand of cards that he was dealt, and he improved his situation in life. And all of these other things came to him through all of that hard work.

So far, I'm only about a quarter done with my life. And I've been thrown some curve balls by life, sure, but nothing truly major (yet). But I know, deep inside, that if my Uncle Mike can handle the volley that life sends his way, then I can too.

-Andy.

Uncle Mike racing Kate

Of all of the pictures of Uncle Mike at the wake today, we liked the one of him racing Kate the best:

That has to be from 10+ years ago, but I still remember that 4th of July.

-Andy.

The perils of technology: cell phone head

There are many perils associated with technology that one must navigate in the modern world. The other day (while at Union City with Mike), Kevin highlighted one of the many heretofore unseen perils -- cell phone head:

Now, some bright spark need to develop some sort of "cell phone head un-impressioner". Hopefully in the form of an aerosol spray.

-Andy.

DSL Downtime

So, to add complication to everything else that is going on, Kevin's and my DSL connection went down last night. It all started a few weeks ago, when Kevin got onto his latest kick, which is to try and do his own server/MythTV/Linux box. I told him that if we wanted to do his own Internet thing, he could buy a cheap Ethernet switch, and peel off his own slice of Internet before it goes into my server/router/NAT/firewall, redefine.

And of course, because Kevin does everything that I say, he went out and bought an Ethernet switch, to go with the new machine. With DSLExtreme (our ISP), we have like 8 static IP addresses. So last night (before heading out to the movies with Pratima and Kalpana), I went on DSLExtreme's website, and added a second static IP address to our account, for Kevin.

And that is when the trouble started.

I think something like 10 minutes after I added that second IP, our Internet was down. Of course I didn't notice for a few ours, since I was out. And by the time I did notice, it was late, so I just went to bed, hoping it would be all better when I work up.

Well, it wasn't. So I called tech support today, and they told me they would check the line, and call me back in 30 minutes.

Well, they never called back. So, approximately 12 hours later, I called them back, but this time, from Illinois. After the tech support guy spent some time messing around, he said that there was a problem with the router (which I surmised on my own), and that he would call me back in 30 minutes after he escalated the issue.

This time, he actually did call me back, but unfortunately, it was an instance of "good news/bad news". The good news was that he fixed the router. The bad news is that he changed my IP address. This is bad, because I don't have any out-of-band way to get at redefine, in order change the IP configuration of my machine.

But luckily, as it turns out, I do have out-of-band access to redefine -- Kevin. Thankfully, he was at home, and I walked him through re-configuring redefine, and so now I am back in business.

Woo-hoo! Geek tax paid. Thanks Kev.

-Andy.

Going back to Illinois

After wrapping up the Thanksgiving holiday, I spent about four and a half days in California, before I decided to turn it around and head back to Illinois. The reason for such a quick turn-around is that one of my Uncles, Mike Baubkus, died unexpectedly on Thursday morning.

At this point, I don't really have a whole lot that I want to write about. My folks told me that I didn't have to come back to attend his services, but I knew it would be much harder being 2,000 miles away then being there in person. I know that this is going to be a rough time for me and for my family, but one thing about us is that we are resilient, and a lot of that resiliency comes from how we interact together, as a group.

So, while I'm not exactly look forward to this trip, I know that it's what I need to do. And I'm sure that I'll have more to say about this after it is all over.

-Andy.