/* Rant Begin */

Uncle Sam really has it in for us this year... I feel like my bank account got sucked into a blackhole called I-R-S.

Why couldn't we list puppies as a dependent or a deduction?

/* End of Rant */

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Tags: tax, irs, 1040, puppy, Uncle Sam, deduction, finance

I've been missing the boat on a lot of recent stories for this blog... the price I pay for having a day job.

Notable Notables and associated Thoughts:

• South Park vs. Scientology: Recent blow-ups between Isaac Hayes aka Chef, Matt and Trey Stone (creators of South Park), Comedy Central, The Church of Scientology and the denizens of Tom Cruiseland, have made lots of news. Follow the link for more info on all of the above. Definitely the best quote in all this hubub comes from the South Park boys themselves: "So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!"
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• XP on MacIntels contest won but other options out there: Also making it's way through the blogosphere... Two guys from Cali have made a custom EFI bootloader and associated process for making a MacIntel dual-boot capable on a single hard drive. Many drivers including Video drivers still need to be worked out, but there are many people working on those and we're only a few days away from fully functional MacIntel XP systems. Photoshop on XP/MacIntel has already been shown to beat any current Core Duo system out there that's made for XP based on scripted benchmarks [Gearlog link]. This is pretty cool stuff, but I would hate to reboot everytime I wanted to use the few Windows apps/games I would need. Personally I'd much prefer the Virtualization/Emulation approach using Q (freeware open source "Virtualization/Emulation" software akin to Virtual PC). The Q on MacIntel people are currently working on a Kernel Xtention (kext) that would access the Core Duo's virtualization capability rather than using a processor emulation scheme similar to Virtual PC or Rosetta (what Q currently uses). The result of that would be Windows XP (or Vista or any x86 virtualized OS) running on top of OSX at near native speeds. Imagine running XP games/apps in a window next to OSX windows without slowdown on your brand new MacBook Pro. Now THAT would be my cross-platform solution of choice. The current implementation of Q unfortunately is still stuck in Emulation land and suffers accordingly.
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  Tags: scientology, chef, southpark, Matt stone, Trey Parker, XP, windows, mac, macintel, coreduo, onmac, kext, macbookpro, virtualpc

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I submitted my RickyCam widget to Apple yesterday, and it's been accepted!
Here's a link. I wonder how many Chihuhua fans will find it through the Apple Widget archive.

In other Ricky news, he has some new roomates for the next week. My brother's going away on business and asked my wife and I to take care of his hamsters Winnie and Mandy. Ricky has taken a quick liking to them, but perhaps not in a "good way." The way he looks at them when I hold him up to the aquarium is similar to how we look at the Lobster Aquarium at the local Red Lobster, "I'll have that one... or maybe that one." He even licks his chops while pawing the glass. It's to the point that Ricky likes taking "peeks" at them while eating his own food. My wife even calls them "Snack 1" and "Snack 2" when talking to Ricky. No to worry though, the Aquarium (or should I call it a terrarium) is situated out of reach above our file cabinet. Well within view for little Ricky, but out of reach.

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Tags: ricky, rickycam, chihuahua, pet, dog, webcam, widget, apple, dashboard, hamster

I received my new 160GB 2.5" perpendicular HardDrive and an mobile firewire/usb case yesterday via FedEx. Once I had my PowerBook cleaned up with Cocktail and Diskwarrior, I initialized the new HD through the external case/firewire and ran CarbonCopyCloner for the rest of the day.

Last night after having a little Battlestar Galactica mini Season Finale gathering, I swapped the new drive into my PowerBook. It wasn't exactly a difficult process, but it wasn't for a novice either (and definitely not for the faint of heart). The detailed instructions on iFixit.com were a GREAT help, as were their "Screw guide" PDFs which when printed, provides a nice way to organize the different sized mini screws I had to remove from the PowerBook. Good thing I opened it up because there were dustbunnies and embedded crud everwhere. Some of the screws were loose too from long term temperature creep.



The operation was a success and now I'm blogging from my newly re-invigorated PowerBook! The fit and finish weren't marred (which is important with the Alu PB) and it even seems "tighter" and more "solid" now since I was able to make sure all the screws and fasteners were factory tight again. The new HD is much quicker feeling then my old dying one, and it's dead silent (old one became loud, whiny, and clanky).

This should definitely hold me over until the next revs of the MacBook Pros come out, hopefully with a proper DL-DVD drive (or even BlueRay), a faster larger perpendicular HD, and most importantly, the Merom based duocores.

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Tags: crash, apple, powerbook, macbook, repair, ifixit, merom

I've updated my photo site with two new Galleries: FAAFiversary for March 5, 2006 and Vagina Monologues. The FAAF one is for the 1st Anniversary of Fish and a Flick (check the link for details on what Fish and a Flick is). The second one is for the New School's production of The Vagina Monologues. My wife participated in the role of "The Angry Vagina" which I can attest is a fairly accurate assessment. Her monologue was actually closer to "Sarcastic Stand Up Comedian Vagina" than actually angry.


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Tags: faaf, ninja, ny, photo, vagina, monologue, newschool

One of the sites I run, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch show website, has a poll I setup to see who the audience thinks should win Project Runway on Bravo (finale is tonight). On monday, Donny had Heidi Klum and the three finalists here for his show (The Big Idea airs on CNBC weekdays at 10pm and 1am ET). Currently it looks like Santino Rice is in the lead with Daniel Vosovic running a very close second. Chloe Dao is far behind on the poll so far.

From site traffic I can see that Santino's fans (directed from his personal blog/website) are definitely making a presence.

Please head over to the poll and vote if you have an opinion either way. The poll will end in a few hours (before the end of the day).

Also, if you have the means and are a fan of Project Runway, we're selling an Autographed Portfolio on eBay for charity (proceeds go to AutismSpeaks). The link to the auction is also on The Big Idea website.

UPDATE: I'm taking the poll down in a few minutes, so it looks like Santino ended up at the top of the heap.

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Tags: project runway, deutsch, autism, santino, daniel, chloe, heidi klum

Our little pup has had a bad 2 weeks. It started with him finding a mini Mounds Bar which ended up giving him diarrhea for 5 days (and making his butt hurt to the point he rubbed it on the rug). After that he developed some allergy (probably to the rice we mixed in his food to help with his diarrhea) that made his skin red and itchy. We took him to the vet for his regularly scheduled shots (a distemper shot and a vaccine) who prescribed him a bottle of 5mg Prednisone pills to be administered at 1/2 pill 3 times a day.



He no longer has diarrhea and his skin is much better now, but the medicine (an internal cortisone steroid) has made our little monkey CRANKY... and I mean REALLY CRANKY. He's been growling, biting and being generally ornery. Now that we're weaning him off of it, he seems to be coming out of his funk. Chihuahuas can be aggressive enough without having "Roid-Rage" exacerbating the behavior.

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Tags: ricky, chihuahua, pet, dog, steroids, prednisone, diarrhea

I finally discovered the primary problem with my PowerBook's HardDrive. During the times it made the loud screeching start/stop noises (usually when I was moving the laptop), I also had to hard reboot a few times from a crash. This results in a corrupt Spotlight index sometimes. A corrupt Spotlight index will keep trying to reindex in a never-ending cycle that results in the pauses I've been seeing with the "eternal spinning beachball." Others in various forums also experienced Spotlight index corruption from the 10.4.4 OSX update and carried it over to the fixed 10.4.5 (which fixed most people's spotlight corruption problems). It's from those forums that I found the answer to my short term problems.

To fix the corrupt Spotlight Index, I used a utility called Spotless which let me delete and rebuild the Spotlight Index and reenabling any messed up settings for Spotlight. After that and a reboot, all was (mostly) well again...

I'll still have to upgrade my HardDrive soon, and I'm glad I made the backups I did (I'll have to backup again of course). The fact that my HardDrive had been screeching days before still weighs heavily on my head and I know that it's just a matter of time before it spins its last "Death Spiral." I've decided that the most cost effective option would be to just order a 160GB perpendicular drive 2.5" HD that I can install myself. I'll just use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my current drive to the new one on a firewire connection. Hopefully that will solve my short term system problems. I'd definitely prefer to upgrade to the later MacBook Pros (next revision, probably based on the Intel Merom 64bit mobile chips) than the current one so this HD swap is the best solution for now.

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Tags: spotlight, apple, spotless, corrupt, harddrive, powerbook, carbon copy cloner

Murphy sure likes to lay down the law at the most inopportune times...

For the past few days, my Powerbook has been acting "funny." Strange pauses during normal use/activity, longer HardDrive read/write times... and as of two days ago I started getting loud stop/start sounds from the HardDrive. These aren't the usual "clickity click whine" startup sounds, but actual "SCREECH, buzzzzz, click click whine" sounds. My wife and dog were startled when they heard the sounds from across the apartment. Needless to say that this does NOT bode well for the old portable workhorse. It's had its fair share of bumps, dents, and bruises, but it has always trudged through with aplomb. Now it sounds like my laptop HardDrive is on its last legs. I did the prudent thing and made multiple backups using Apple's Backup utility, made copies of my work files (which I keep on an external portable drive anyway, but I wanted to be safe), and made multiple backup Vaults in Apple Aperture to save my precious photos.

At this point my Powerbook is again running "ok" but with the occasional slowness/hiccup. I know the problem isn't fully gone and am weighing my options. I know what you're thinking, "prime time to get the new MacBook Pro eh?"... but my current budget (saving for a trip to Asia this May) says, "I don't think so." Besides, most of my pro Apps still do not have released Universal versions (most important being Final Cut Studio and Aperture). Luckily my work was in the process of ordering me a Quad G5 PowerMac workstation and Cinema Display already, so if that arrives soon I won't be in a lurch at the office (I've been using my laptop as my primary workstation for the past two years... Video Editing, Photoshop work, Motion and Flash). And with my files backed up, my personal files, photos, emails, contacts, calendars , etc. will all be safe. But it still would suck royally if I had to do without my PowerBook for an extended period of time.



Another option I have is to get the HardDrive replaced/upgraded at MacResQ. They have a good program with 24hour turnaround shipping time. Prices are still fairly high, but at least they are cheaper than a new MacBook Pro. Besides, I really really wanted to get the next revision of the MacBooks which I assume would be coming in 6-8 months. If I do go with this option, I'll wait until the Quad arrives and is setup. I may even wait until after my Asia trip if my PowerBook lasts.... but maybe I shouldn't take the chance. Given the money, I would probably prefer the MacBookPro option, but budgets have a tendency to rear their ugly heads.

Now the reason for the title of this post is that my PowerBook wasn't the only gadget I had that screamed for "Mommy." My new Qtek 9100 phone had a fit yesterday when its battery gave out and I tried to charge it using one of those portable alkaline battery chargers for miniUSB Peripherals. These things are sold as accessories to the HTC Wizard based phones (like my Qtek) at most online phone shops, so I thought it would be cool to have. I don't know if it was the batteries I used (Energizer Max), or the fact that the phone needs specific power requirements to actually charge (5.5v, 1Amp... some chargers for miniUSB are 2amp and aren't suited). It looked like it was starting to charge, but ended up fully discharged instead... and I mean DEEP discharged. As in "won't even startup when plugged to a computer." I wasn't near my AC charger and feared that my new phone was dead, so I went to a T-mobile store to pick up an MDA spare battery and charger (T-Mobile HTC MDA is the same hardware as my phone). They unfortunately didn't have the battery, but they had one travel charger left. After getting back to the "in-laws house" (we were doing laundry), I attached the charger, and suddenly the phone came back to life.... SORT OF.

I wasn't able to go into Phone mode, or even see my programs. It kept giving memory full errors. Checking memory from the system settings said that I had plenty to work with... uh oh. I was freaking out at that point thinking that my phone had gone the way of the dodo. I let it charge for awhile and then did a Hard Reset (brings back factory defaults, and essentially wipes the slate clean by reformatting the storage memory).



Luckily I had purchased SPB Backup earlier last week and was able to restore my software up to that point along with all my settings and contact/calendar info. I re-installed the software I've been playing with the past 2 weeks (after the last backup), and then came up with the same Memory error and dead pda/phone again. A-HA!!! It turns out my RegistryTweaking software was to blame (I recently updated it with a "fixed" version... apparently not). So again I Hard Reset, this time using a deeper Hard Reset sequence that actually formatted the Qtek (it actually brought up a character display saying Formatting FAT... DOS geeks among us would be smiling at this point). After bringing it up to date with the last backup, and installing my programs/games from the last two weeks minus the Registry Tweak program (but including an updated SPB Backup) I made sure everything was working and performed a new full Backup just in case. At that point it was 1 in the morning and I needed sleep. I didn't reinstall my Overclocking utility and the associated programs to make sure it runs whenever the phone comes out of sleep and haven't decided if I should risk using that again. This experience scared me a bit so I think I may play it safe with the system tweaking utilities for my phone for awhile.

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Tags: crash, apple, powerbook, macbook, macresq, windowsmobile, hardreset

Everywhere on the blogosphere these days is Origami this and Origami that... The latest buzz is that Intel and Samsung have something cooking for Microsoft's Origami announcement on March 9th. The consensus is that Origami is most likely a Windows XP Ultraportable Tablet standard with emphasis on wireless everything (accessories, communication/networking, etc.).

I'm actually much more interested in what Apple could do in this space. Apple's Newton was ahead of it's time and obviously underpowered by today's standards. With all these patents cropping up on Digg and Engadget related to multi-point touchscreen interfaces and combo screen/imaging/sensor devices, Apple HAS to have something up it's sleeve. They're even hiring new people to work on the Finder (finally!).


found on AppleCollection...

What would really be cool is if Apple released a product that combined a Video iPod, PDA/ultraportable Comp with a streamlined version of OSX. Throw in BlueTooth, WiFi (Airport Extreme..sorry), and a multi-point touch screen interface and we've got ourselves a winner! Throw in a Quad-band GSM phone with 3G networking and we're talking "Game-Over" for the competition.

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Tags: origami, apple, vpod, ipod, videoipod, tablet, touchscreen

I recently got a new Qtek 9100 Windows Media 5 phone/pda. This phone is manufactured by HTC under the Wizard codename and is available through resellers under the names of i-Mate K-Jam, Qtek 9100, O2 Xda mini S, Orange SPV M3000 ,T-Mobile MDA Vario, Dopod 838, Cingular 8100/8125 and Vodafone VPA II compact. It's feature packed with Outlook for email/MMS/Text Messaging, Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Windows Media Player, WiFi, GPRS/EDGE, Bluetooth, InfraRed, 1.3Mp Camera with flash, a dualcore processor (albeit a bit slow for a few apps like Skype, but that's easily remedied with a common overclock utility), built-in stereo miniSpeakers, a miniSD slot (I have a 1GB card in there now) and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Of course it also acts as a phone with the usual speed dial custom buttons, contact lookup, and speakerphone. It also supports voicecontrol of apps and voice dialing. It charges/syncs via a miniUSB port on the bottom and supports file transfers through BlueTooth and Infrared port. You can even hook it up to your network using WiFi and control your PC through Terminal Services. Surfing the Web and accessing my dotmac account worked perfectly through 802.11b and g type WiFi networks, and through T-mobile's EDGE connection.



The coolest feature is that it goes from Portrait mode to Landscape automagically when you pop out the keyboard. The Windows Mobile 5 platform supports tons of applications and games (including some incredible 3D games at the PSOne level). I've even ripped a few DVD's and was able to store Windows Media versions of The Incredibles, Godzilla Final Wars, and Revenge of the Sith with room to spare on the miniSD card. The quality of video playback was amazing on the screen (which is bigger than the current video iPod's).

One of the most amazing things about this phone is that with all those features, it's still smaller or similar size to the CrackBerry's, Palm Treos and many other smartphones.



My only caveat so far is that I had to customize vCards from Apple's Addressbook, migrate them to my office PC's Outlook 2003, and finally transfer the contacts with MS Autosync to the phone. I'm currently waiting for MarkSpace to update their popular MissingSync software to support Windows Media 5 devices. Once that's available, then I'll be able to sync my contacts from Addressbook, calendars from iCal, and whatever else I choose through Bluetooth with my Mac.

All in all, I'm very happy with my new phone.

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Tags: Missing Sync, windowsmobile, phone, pda, qtek9100, htcwizard

Welcome to the new NEW Jedi's Lair. I've decided to change things a bit with some new blogging software (RapidWeaver in this case) and some new things for the site. I actually tried out various site building software apps for the Mac including iWeb and Sandvox, but I finally settled on RapidWeaver because it had a ton of third-party supported plugins/themes and it pretty much meets all my needs.



I'll keep blogging about random subjects like Photography, Gadgets, Celeb news, Movies & TV stuff and of course Ricky (our crazy Chihuahua), but hopefully the new site structure and tools will help simplify my site. Expect to see a lot of experimentation with the site and updates to my Photo site for the next few weeks.

You can still access my old site here.

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Tags: blog, rapidweaver, sandvox, iweb