Category: Technology

WordPressed

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment

Looks like the comments done went and shut theyselfs off again, dagnabbit. All this new-fangled technology ain’t worth a warm bucket ‘a spit, you ask me. It’s a helluva world when the damn’ software makes the meatware’s decisions without so much as a by-your-leave.

A casual search through the WordPress forums finds many references to this issue, but no solutions. And since VeloNews.com is also a WordPress construct and has many of its own interesting gremlins, I’m not certain that upgrading to v3.0 of the software will solve my problem.

Anyway, the yak factory should be back in business, for recent posts, anyway. When this happens the only way to re-enable comments — which are supposed to be permanently enabled for everyone who has had one previous observation approved by the Sultan of the Sandbox, to wit, Your Humble Narrator — is to go into every post, click the comments-permitted box, save the post, rinse and repeat. Life, short, etc.

Until the next time, then, you may fire at will.

Hot times in Dogpatch

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
Little Al' is fine for light work, but for heavy lifting I'm gonna need something bigger.
Little Al' is fine for light work, but for heavy lifting I'm gonna need something bigger.

Got a little busy around here all of a sudden, and the madness will continue today with various deadlines involving ’toons and words. Plus it’s gonna be about a thousand degrees outside. Well, 94, anyway. And me with no air conditioning. Oh, the humanity.

Colorado’s typical speed-shift from 60-something to 90-something is always a shock to the system. The cats and I spend the first few days of summer sprawled on the floor, licking our butts and coughing up hairballs. Ain’t nothin’ but a party.

Meanwhile, in cooler climes, The Black Turtleneck Mob is expected to announce the impending arrival of many pricey, shiny objects today at the Worldwide Developers Conference in Gay Bay. Items to look for include a new-and-improved iPhone plus iPhone OS 4, perhaps refreshes to the Mac Pro and Mini series, and various bits of this, that and the other.

The New York Times will be live-blogging Steve Jobs’ keynote speech this morning. I’m not all that interested, frankly, though I am in the market for a new laptop. When my Internet croaked yesterday and I had to leg it over to Dogtooth Coffee Company for their free wi-fi I learned pretty quickly that I’m not going to be able to easily work the VeloNews.com website using a 12-inch G4 PowerBook. Ain’t nearly enough screen real estate on that bad boy to operate a WordPress blogging platform the way the VeloNewsers have that sucker tricked out. It runs this site just fine when need be, but we’re talking a skateboard compared to a White Freightliner here.

Thing is, I’m not all that impressed with Apple’s quality control lately. My 2006 2GHz MacBook Core Duo blew up its hard drive in under three years of extremely light use and still emits an annoying processor buzz and sports a fiddly trackpad; it has been demoted from committing journalism to running our home theater setup. And a photographer pal just completely detonated his 2-year-old MacBook Pro while on the road — probably a fried logic board.

So I dunno. Maybe it’s time for something completely different. I can pick up a 2.2GHz Intel Core Duo Dell Inspiron 15n running Ubuntu Linux for $579, which is about half the price of the low-end MacBook Pro. Any Linux geeks in the audience with experience running a WordPress blog? Feel free to speak up in comments.

Flowers, Fiore and foolishness

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
From the backyard, near Chairman Meow's resting place.
From the backyard, near Chairman Meow's resting place.

Ooo, shiny objects: Apple has finally updated its MacBook Pro line. There’s even a shot of some nameless bike weenie in Specialized kit under the “Performance” tab. Kinda looks like Chris Horner. The universe may be trying to tell me something here. Probably that I don’t make enough money to buy all the shiny objects that catch my eye.

Meanwhile, in the reality-based community, the flowers are starting to pop up. They’re pretty, too. Plus they’re free.

And finally, scribbler Mark Fiore wins this year’s Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. Good stuff. I bet he can afford a new MacBook.

Scrambled Easter eggs

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

Up from the grave he arose,

With a mighty triumph o’er his foes

And a corncob pipe and a button nose

And two eyes made out of coal.

Hm. I seem to have scrambled my religious holidays again. No wonder the Easter Bunny didn’t leave an iPad under my pillow in exchange for that tooth.

OK, ’fess up, now — how many of you crazy kids rushed out to score iPads yesterday? I won’t make fun of you, I promise. You can trust me; I’m in the media.

If you had one and were able to figure it out in time for the Tour of Flanders this morning, you’d know that Fabian Cancellara crushed Tom Boonen to win the cobbled classic. Dropped him like a used syringe on the Muur, he did. But you might not have been able to watch any of the live video feeds ’cause they’re probably Flash-based, which makes the iPad hork. Pray for the rapid expansion of HTML5.

Launching (i)Pad

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

In comments Steve O’ is placing bets as to whether I’ll be buying an iPad. Sad to say, if any Dog-catchers are staking out the Briargate Apple Store in hopes of throwing a net over me, they’ll be disappointed.

I’m pretty much in agreement with former Apple marketing guy Guy Kawasaki, who told The New York Times: “The first 5 million will be sold in a heartbeat. But let’s see: You can’t make a phone call with it, you can’t take a picture with it, and you have to buy content that before now you were not willing to pay for. That seems tough to me.”

Well said. I think the iPad is a nifty little toy with a wealth of possibilities, but in its infancy it’s clearly more about consumption than creation, and I already feel a tad overwhelmed by the wonders of the digital world, thanks all the same.

If I were to spring for some new technology in the iPad’s price range, I might go for a netbook Hackintosh, if only to drive myself further around the bend with technical problems. A guy can write and edit on the run with one of those.

Meanwhile, the NYT is live-blogging today’s iPad mania. That’s about as close to one as I intend to get. For now, anyway.

• Late update: Jesus, Apple’s marketing department must love the media foofaraw over the company’s every product release. Every major daily and most of the minors sent the troops out to cover today’s iPad feeding frenzy. Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, told the NYT that he estimates Apple will spend $77 million promoting the iPad. Uh, why, exactly? Why buy what everyone’s giving away?