:: Al Abut ::

Sunday Afternoon At Crissy Field

2010-04-25T17:37:00.001-07:00

(posted via email)

Lunch In Burlingame

2010-04-17T14:16:00.001-07:00

(posted via email)

Brunch At Fred's In Sausalito

2010-03-27T14:24:00.001-07:00

(posted via email)

Cosmo in Dolores Park

2010-03-14T15:45:00.001-07:00

Cosmo's baby teeth are coming out!

2010-03-11T12:11:00.001-08:00

I've been bringing the little guy to work this week while everyone else is at SXSW. I was playing with him just now when I noticed something rolling around in his mouth that looked like gum and it fell out when I tried to pick him up. It was one of his teeth!

Here's Why You Need An iPad

2010-02-13T00:57:00.001-08:00

Credit: Joi Ito

Because for many geeks, their travel bags look something like this hideous mess. An iPad and iPhone can replace 90% of this crap, including the laptop and light reading.

Hagia Sophia Without Scaffolding!

2010-02-10T10:41:00.001-08:00

“Well, almost. In fact the mass of girders and planks which for 17 years have almost managed to detract from the awesomeness of the ancient cathedral’s central space are much reduced and moved towards the rear. In their place we can see the extraordinary and recently-discovered cherubim on the North-East dome-support, and generally get more sense of the incredible vastness of the structure. The reconfiguration ought to last all year, as part of the 2010 Capital of Culture project, which is trying to enhance visitors’ experience while injecting energy into the ongoing restoration work.”

From the cornucopia.net travel website.

A foreigner's view: the Hagia Sophia was my wife's favorite landmark from our Turkish honeymoon last year, even with all the scaffolding. It's massive and awe-inducing - it definitely makes an impression. I'd love to see it again now that they've moved the restoration equipment around to reveal new artwork.

Here's what one section without the scaffolding looks like:

Credit: Wikipedia

Walking around Ocean Beach with Cosmo

2010-02-06T11:33:00.001-08:00

(posted via email)

Apple's New iPad Includes A Kickstand

2010-01-27T12:26:00.001-08:00

Check out Apple's site for more pictures and a slick 7 minute video on the new tablet computer:
http://www.apple.com/ipad/

(posted via email)

Walking around Mission Dolores

2010-01-24T01:16:00.001-08:00

I love how freshly rain-scrubbed the streets were while walking Cosmo and picking up breakfast from Katz Bagels this morning.

Looking east down 16th Street towards Valencia

Credit: Wikipedia

According to the Wikipedia entry, the Mission San Francisco de Asís is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco.

The Artist-Xchange Gallery has some interesting stuff in the windows.

Where Giants Dance and Crash in Japan

2010-01-21T04:35:00.001-08:00

Credit: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Sumo wrestlers performing the opening ceremony on Jan. 11 at a tournament at the Kokugikan, Japan’s national sumo stadium in Tokyo.

As amazing as my trip to Japan was a few years ago, I didn't get to do two things: watch sumo wrestling or eat sushi. The sushi part is especially embarrassing to admit - it's like going to Germany and not having beer or schnitzels - but I was so busy eating all the other types of regional Japanese food that I'd never heard of.

Credit: Jpatokal

Monjayaki before cooking, with mentaiko (cod roe) and shiso (perilla).

I'm going to rectify both of those things the next time I go and yes, I will definitely go again - it was one of the most unexpectedly beautiful places I've ever been.

More pictures of sumo wrestling below are from a travel article in the New York Times.

Credit: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Wrestlers stand by for bouts that are usually over in a matter of seconds.

Credit: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Each tournament lasts 15 days, with the lowest-ranking entrants beginning competition at 8:30 in the morning. The audience grows as the day progresses, with the top two divisions competing from midafternoon until around 6 in the evening.

Credit: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Championship sumo tournaments are held six times a year, rotating among Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka.

Credit: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

A spectator eats pickled vegetables from a lunch box.

Credit: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Sumo figurines for sale at a stadium gift shop.

(posted via email)

Color theory - quick reference poster

2010-01-21T03:35:00.001-08:00

A poster for a typical color wheel, with a focus on explaining basic design choices (like cool vs warm colors) to non-designers. Higher resolution and PDF versions are available at:

http://www.paper-leaf.com/blog/2010/01/color-theory-quick-reference-poster/

(posted via email)

James Leland's amazing photos

2010-01-19T07:03:00.001-08:00

Take a look at these gorgeous pics by my friend James - the man has an amazing eye.

I could go through these all day. Check out more on his site:
http://jamesleland.com

(posted via email)

Apple to Show Off Its ‘Latest Creation’ Next Week

2010-01-18T22:42:00.001-08:00

"Unless you’ve been living on another, Internet-deprived planet for the last year or so, you’ve probably got a pretty good idea what this is likely to be: the unveiling of Apple’s long-awaited, breathlessly hyped tablet computer. The device promises to hasten the extinction of paper, solidify Apple’s advantages in the mobile computing market, cure hunger and finally broker a peace between Jay and Conan."

From the New York Times:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/apple-sends-out-invitations-for-a-product-unveiling/?em

Clinton and Bush team up to aid Haiti

2010-01-18T06:36:00.001-08:00

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush walk toward the Rose Garden at the White House.

From an article in the New York Times, Obama asked former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush to lead private-sector fundraising:

"We should never forget the damage done and the lives lost, but we have a chance to do things better than we once did; be a better neighbor than we once were; and help the Haitian people realize their dream for a stronger, more secure nation."

They answered the call by creating The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and pledging that 100% of donations go to relief efforts.

(found via John Gruber and posted via email)

Link from @smashingmag on branding

2010-01-16T13:46:00.001-08:00

A basic overview yet good overview of all the bases you need to cover when coming up with a brand identity from scratch.

Smashing Magazine (@smashingmag)
1/16/10 12:39 PM
5 Branding Basics Every Logo Designer Should Know - http://bit.ly/4ZiLgb

You need a good product more than you need a good brand but having both together can be a potent combination. I just saw a duo last night on Shark Tank that nailed a deal because of an awesome yellow monkey logo to go with their ingenious new hand cleaning product.

(posted via email)

Your Official Invitation to Become a Bollywood Producer

2010-01-16T04:02:00.001-08:00

Holy cow! Literally!

Check out what my friend Tyler's been up to - he's in India turning a friend into Bollywood box office sensation and making a documentary about it along the way. How rad is that?

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tyler MacNiven
Date: January 15, 2010 11:52:25 PM PST

I am breathing in hot steam clouds of chai tea from the street stall next door. The rumbling of 2-stroke rickshaw engines fills my head. I don't remember the last time I changed my tshirt. A street dog is gnawing at my ankle. This is Mumbai, India.

Here's the thing..

Deep down within each of us is a Bollywood music video producer clawing to get out. Your fascination with over-sized sunglasses, running around trees in the rain, and breaking into spontaneous song and dance at the dinner table...is no accident. Close your eyes as you read this email, and imagine that special place in your heart that yearns to leap through fields of technicolor tulips dressed in over sized yellow saris wearing lavender lip gloss. Take a deep breath. Yes, it is time. You are ready. Ready to become a Bollywood music video producer.

Some close friends and I have been in Mumbai, India for the last 5 weeks working on a documentary called Big in Bollywood. We are tracking the success of our actor pal Omi as moves from Hollywood Zero to Bollywood Hero. He stars in the recently released film 3 Idiots, which has smashed all box office records and become the largest grossing Bollywood film in history. When Omi landed in India a month ago he was just your average Jaihoe. Now, only three weeks later, he can't walk down the street without fans circling him to snap cell phone pictures and shake his hand. It is truly a remarkable moment in Indian cinema, and we have had our cameras rolling from the start.

We intend for this documentary to be your introduction to Bollywood, and the only natural way to end our film is with an over-the-top Bollywood-style music video featuring us. We've already had the song composed by some talented local artists. For several thousand dollars we can arrange a full production outfit with onset location at an insane James Bond-villain mansion, crew, crane, costumes, and a dozen backup dancers...and shoots it this weekend! This is where your internal Bollywood producer wakes up. You can open your eyes now. We are asking our friends and family for $20 each to help produce the next Bollywood hit. I know I'd pay 20 bucks to see you embarrass yourself in a Bollywood dance number. Would you do the same?

Here's a video plea if you need more convincing: http://www.youtube.com/user/iambillbowles?feature=chclk#p/a/u/0/Ur2amKT8SK0

click here to go to our paypal donation page. (note: the money gets sent to Bill Bowles)

Many thanks in advance! You're internal producer can confidently sport those over-sized Italian sunglasses now.

India says hello, and the dog at my ankle growls its regards.

Chicken tikka masala!

love always
Tyler

again....click here to go to our paypal donation page. (and if you're not seeing this email til Monday...it's not too late to donate!)

(posted via email)

Cosmo and Coco

2010-01-16T03:44:00.001-08:00

I'm so lucky I got this on tape - it's literally the first time Cosmo (the little white one) ever played with another dog in his short life. This happened about a month ago at SF Puppy Prep in SOMA, after about three visits. We were so worried about whether Cosmo would ever get socialized! It's changed his attitude ever since from a shy quivering mess into a confident little dude that thinks he's six feet tall :) and now it's hard for us to remember him as any other way.

I cannot recommend SF Puppy Prep highly enough and tell all my friends about them - it's like magic, like I got a whole new dog!

http://sfpuppyprep.com

(posted via email)

Cosmo napping in Yesi's lap

2010-01-15T22:18:00.001-08:00

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Pretty much his favorite thing to do is sleep in Yesi's lap while she's wearing pajamas. Lucky for him, this is going to be a three day weekend!

(posted via email)

Tesla Model S

2010-01-15T21:50:00.001-08:00

I cannot wait for this thing to be in my garage, especially now that I read on Autoblog that Tesla's working with the government to create battery-changing stations for long distance trips. I'd love to skip the airport during the holidays and zip between SF, LA and SD in a nice quiet electric car instead.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

(posted via email)

Al's Low Carb And Gooey Eggplant Parmesan Recipe

2009-01-13T06:42:00.000-08:00

Last night, I tried an experiment and made up my own recipe for eggplant parmesan, and afterwards, made a couple of friends curious with this status update on twitter and facebook: "proud to have scored a perfect 10 (not my words!) on tonight's dinner, so maybe I should publish the secret recipe I invented :)"

So here it is! Warning, this may be low-carb but extremely buttery.

Ingredients:

eggplant (duh)
parmesan (DUH)
butter
pepper or cracked pepper
provolone
fresh mozzarella (the real stuff - you know, the kind you see sitting in plastic tubs of liquid over by the rest of the fancy cheeses. string cheese does not count!)
two tomatoes (go for the yellow kind if you can find it, it's super sweet and firm)
optional: one of those big bags of broccoli and cauliflower and the ziplock steam bags

Directions:

First, you take an eggplant, cut it into big thick horizontal rings (like burger patties) and pan fry or saute them in boatloads of butter and cracked pepper. The eggplant's really good about absorbing all of that butter, so it's hard to burn it, but still keep an eye out. Takes just a few minutes.

At the same time, fire up the oven to 350 degrees. Or, if you want that San Francisco tiny apartment feeling and would like to replicate my exact setup - fire up the toaster oven.

As if you didn't have enough to do, warm up some marina on a different little sauce pan. Try to pick the kind w/ less than 5 grams of carbs - it's usually the fancy-actually-Italian kind, not the Americanized Ragu and all of their extra added sugar. But even the Italian stuff isn't good enough, so we've got to doctor it up a bit. The secret is to mix in some parmesan (it thickens it up) and to add your own herbs, like oregano - the stock stuff straight out of the can is made to appeal to absolutely everybody and is therefore a bit average, not quite spicy enough. A former coworker of mine mentioned some super-insulated relatives in the midwest that consider spaghetti to be ethnic food - don't be these people, make it tasty.

Bonus points for NPR nerds: watch this video of Malcolm Gladwell speaking at TED and explaining the art & science behind making spaghetti sauce for the mass marketplace. Do not do said video watching while cooking. Or go ahead, I won't be liable for your kitchen burning down.

One more thing to do while Our Friend The Eggplant is still doing God's work by absorbing every last drop of butter: cut the tomatoes and mozzarella into thick rings also.

Once the eggplant rings are nice and soft, here comes the construction project. Put down a cooking sheet on a baking tray and carpet bomb a layer of Pam onto the fucker like you're going to fumigate the place. Then, layer in rings of eggplant with different ingredients sandwiched in, like so: eggplant, mozzarella, eggplant, tomato, eggplant, provolone, eggplant, etc. That's probably as high as you can go, about 3-5 layers of the stuff, before it starts to topple. Bring the saucepan over and cover each towering eggplant sandwich you made (I got two big ones and two small ones from one bigass looks-like-Quentin-Tarantino's-giant-head eggplant).

Then, just when you thought you were finished, completely cover the top ring layer with parmesan. You can use the fancy shredded kind but for some completely unfathomable reason, I actually prefer the shitty mass-produced grated kind. It's kind of inexcusable for someone that worked a few hours a week at a cheese shop in Hillcrest a few years ago just to learn more about the stuff - I'm sorry George! - and I can't explain it. Best part about working in a cheese shop: on the shifts that George and I worked together, we'd occassionally order some pizza and grate some fresh parmesan on it directly off of one of those big semitruck wheel-sized blocks it comes in. No joke, they use chainsaws to cut the stuff at the creamery where it's made.

So yeah, as I was saying, completely cover it in parmesan, completely. I mean turn that bottle upside down and spank it hard, make a little caked-up circle of the stuff sitting on top.

Put the whole creation in the tiny toaster oven and curse the rental agency that won't fix the stinky oven in the kitchen. I mean, wait about 20 minutes. No rush, you can even turn down the heat after 20 and leave it on "warm" like I did for about 10 while reparking the car. It's like making ribs - the oven part just makes everything nice and gooey.

Throw some veggies into one of those microwaveable steam bags for a side dish and wallah! You're done!

Back From Our Honeymoon

2008-10-01T00:48:00.000-07:00

That's right, we got married and we're back in San Francisco. What a great end to the summer! The wedding itself was amazing and you'll just have to take my word for it (pictures by our photographer Josh are coming soon and the videos will be a few months later). We also had an absolute blast in Turkey on our honeymoon. Yesi loved the place and my relatives loved her, so things went as well as I'd hoped.

Well, except for the massive ear infection that had me curled up in a fetal position for a week and gave Yesi a chance to practice her nursing skills by injecting me in the butt with pain killers every morning. That's another story.

There's about three thousand pictures to process (no joke!) from the entire trip and so for now, here's a teaser - a set of 29 photos on Flickr from our trip to Çınarcık, a small coastal town across the Sea of Marmara from Istanbul. I've posted a few sample photos below too, go to Flickr to see the rest. Enjoy!

Now Even Our Wedding Has A Website!

2008-05-11T23:28:00.001-07:00

I'm proud to announce our wedding date, location and website:

http://alandyesi.com

I'm looking forward to the big day and kicking off yet another new life chapter with my best friend. It's going to be great!

Sorry for the mystery and lack of details - we've got our head's down planning this thing while simultaneously going through physical therapy (we both had knee surgery in the last two months, both on the same knee!) and of course working like crazy, as always. Life is busy but good and we'll have more info soon!

Um, Hi

2007-10-18T22:53:00.001-07:00

Hello blogging, my old friend… wait, we're still friends, right? Hello? No, wait, don't call the cops, I'll change, I'm different, I promise!

Time to blow the dust off this site again, it's been ages. I wonder what you're all up to? Me, I've been working like a crazy person and trying to keep my head on straight. I'm even trying out a new personal assistant named Sandy (a review) to manage everything and she seems to be really helpful so far. Yesi is working too, at the CPMC hospital in Pacific Heights and under a pretty steep learning curve as well. I've transitioned all of my keeping-in-touch-with-friends duties to Facebook (my profile) and even got my mom to join up. And yes, I've kept the weight off that I lost late last year.

And as for where my head is at this exact specific moment, I filled out one of those email questionnaires that I typically ignore. I have no idea why I was in the mood for answering all these questions but I was and it was fun!

A random girl approaches you asking for your name, you say . . .
This actually happened to me two nights ago. She was a prostitute in the mission district having a huge loud argument with someone that was probably her pimp and soliciting clients at the same time, random dudes walking by. I was pulled over on the sidewalk putting something in my backpack and she came up to me and tried to chat me up. I didn't answer, just smiled and ignored her like I do any sales pitch, just like the hand cream lotion and cell phone cart people at the mall, then she went away.
What's the last thing you put in your mouth?
Cold leftover camomile tea.
What does your last text message say?
It's from facebook: "San Diego Pix (San Diego, CA) has requested to add you as a friend. Reply 'a' to add or 'info' to get profile."
The last song you listened to?
Black Cow by Steely Dan, on my musician friend Ed's profile page.
Who do you trust with your life?
My girl, but only in a decision-making capacity, I don't want her operating on me or anything.
What do you say if someone tells you you're gorgeous?
Get out of here.
What do you hate about your school?
Sheesh, I don't have time to rip open old wounds and get into all the different things I hated about UCSD - it was basically a really hard version of a vocational school and not a real "college" - but talking to Lori reminded me of something I loved - the BEAUTIFUL athletic fields and active intramural community. UCSD has genuinely student-centric sports facilities, rather than the spectator-centric stadiums suitable for a pro sports team that you find at larger Division I schools. The north fields in particular have grass like a smooth carpet and the RIMAC gym and arena complex is frigging awesome.
How often do you curse?
Every fucking day. I'm one of the rare people that actually likes having a potty mouth. It's more real, not like the tie-wearing whitewashed shit that passes for human interaction at a typical workplace.
Do you trust all of your friends?
Um, trust them with what? Secrets? I don't really have any and don't miss the drama from the times in my life when I did.
Have you ever talked on the phone while in the shower?
Yes. Years ago. I think I was desperately waiting for a date to call or something and knew she'd call right at the worst moment, but I prepared for Murphy's Law and conquered it!
When was the last time you were in love?
This morning, I was watching a tv show about cars and there was this gorgeous... oh wait, just kidding, tonight when my girl made fish tacos for dinner.
Are you afraid of falling in love?
Nope, do it all the time. I've always done it way too damn much and too often, ever since high school, but now I found a safe outlet and she takes it like a champ :)
Would you stop talking to your friends because of a new friend?
I did that all this year, it's a new friend called Working Like A Goddamn Demon and she's a jealous bitch.
Fill in the blank. I love __
my new haircut. I've had long hair for years now and been tying it back into a ponytail for ages - I finally ponied up for a decent trim that cost more than $5 and it's medium length and out of my face now!
What is a goal you would like to accomplish in the near future?
clean my closet.
How many kids do you want to have?
I like the make and buy combo - make at least one and adopt another. If I'm going to have kids, I definitely want them to have siblings. It's actually kind of a big deal for me to even think about having kids - it's not like it was a given for me or something I particularly aspired to do.
Would you make a good parent?
Yeah, I think so, because I'm just starting to realize how nerdy I am and that I still get interested in stuff like the subjects my fiancee's nieces study at school, so the hypothetical Kids Of Al would have a study partner.
When was the last time you received flowers?
Oh holy crap, I don't know. Maybe in college after a play? I just gave some yesterday though!
What is your worst habit?
Hmmm, worst as in most frequent? Or one that I hate the most? Most frequent: getting to work late. Not that they care but I'd really rather be there early and leave at a decent hour. The one I hate the most is that I've got a pretty nasty temper whenever I actually let it get out of control, but thankfully that's pretty infrequent.
Honestly, what's on your mind right now?
Gotta go to bed! Getting up early to drop her off at work.
If you could go back in time and change something, what would it be?
Honestly, I don't know where it came from but all this year, I've been thinking about something from ages ago. Back in high school, I withdrew my application to Brown (even though I made it to and went through the interview stage!) because I didn't think my parents could afford it and I also didn't appreciate how good a school it was. I didn't even know it was ivy league! For some reason, I've wondered lately if I wouldn't have taken college for granted like I did at UCSD and had a totally different experience if I went to somewhere way far away rather than in my hometown, taken the experience more seriously as a life transition. I feel like I've only just started to grow in that way since moving out of SD 2 years ago. So I'd go back in time and tell high school Al to get into Brown and then worry about the consequences and how you'd afford it. Stop being so overly concerned about what will happen before you try anything in life and just do it!
Shoe size?
9 1/2
What are you wearing right now?
Flannel pajama bottoms (I've only just appreciated how awesome pajamas are this year) and a tshirt.
Righty or Lefty?
righty.
Can you make a dollar in change right now?
I think so, there's laundry money in a jar over the fireplace.
Best place to eat?
Osha Thai has the best green curry and maybe I'll have it for lunch tomorrow! MMMM. Oh wait, snap, I forgot, on weekends that my fiancee works, I like to treat myself to an Indian buffet because she can't eat that stuff.
Who did you steal this from?
The famous Courtney Mclean! Or is McLean? I always forget. I think it's the first, the second looks kinda Mcdonalds-ish. The brash lion!
What is your ringtone?
An old phone ringer.
Favorite juice?
Don't really drink the stuff. But I used to inhale gallons at a time of orange juice back when I did.
Have you had the chicken pox?
When I was in preschool? Kindergarten? Something like that. I ripped off one of them and ate it :) I still have a tiny scar from that to this day, next to my nose.
Have you had a sore throat?
yeah, totally, all the time, stupid allergies.
Ever had plastic surgery?
no, although I used to really hate my nose all through my twenties.
Who knows you the best?
Yesi, my lovely fiancee.
Do you wear contact lenses or glasses?
Neither - better than 20/20 vision in fact. I always wow people that give me the eye chart test and read the bottom row super fast just to show off.
Been to Mexico?
Yep - it's called growing up in San Diego.
Did you buy something yesterday?
Other than food, let's see... a bunch of personal hygiene stuff to leave at work.
Did you get sick today?
No, but I did yesterday and am still sick today. I think it's a stomach flu or food poisoning, totally sucky and bad timing - everyone from work is cranking through the weekend for a new thing we're launching Monday.
Do you miss anyone today?
Yeah, my mom, just thought of her because I was wondering if she was lonely, my dad went abroad again.
Did you get in a fight with someone today?
No, I try not to do that on Saturdays.
Last persons bed you laid in?
My own.
What did you do last night?
Tried to watch some tv shows I downloaded but fell asleep early instead.
Are you comfortable around the opposite sex?
Yeah, pretty much. I used to have nothing but girl friends in high school and college, had to make a real effort to make guy friends. I'm happy to say that I have a pretty good mix of both genders now.
Who do you think will repost this?
Oh good question! No idea among my bloggy friends but probably my friend Kirsten amongst my myspace buddies.
Are you happy right now?
Yeah, sure, why not. A little overworked but I'm starting to fall into a good groove about finding my place in this gold rush.
Are you hungry?
Yeah and it sucks because I'm about to go to bed! I'll have a big breakfast instead.
Are you a forgiving person?
Honestly no, I hold a lot of grudges. I've always been really bad at that and am trying to be better about it.
Are you talking to someone while doing this?
Not for the second half.
What are you about to do right now???
Brush my teeth, go to bed!

Behind The Music

2007-06-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

I noticed a new profile picture on my friend Diana's myspace page this morning and thought it might have an interesting backstory. Little did I know.

me: have fun in providence, you jet setter!

me: and btw, where did you take the pic for your myspace headshot? looks cool.

diana: the one where I'm sitting at my desk? it's at work, taken by the creepy guy who always takes photos of me.

me: oh, haha, I expected a mini-story of a beautiful moment.

diana: it was pretty beautiful, I was working on a porn ad.

The Strokes - You Only Live Once

2007-05-29T23:28:00.000-07:00

I love the latest music video for The Strokes - it's inspired by 2001, one of my all-time favorite movies and quite possibly a flick beloved by every visual designer.

And on a personal note, The Strokes really take me back to a specific happy time in my early to mid-twenties, when I had just started working full-time at UCSD. I was making a living doing what I loved, something I had previously only done as a hobby or part-time student gig; good rock music was finally back on the airwaves after a long dark period of stagnation; I had my own office to rock out in while learning fun web stuff; and since my office was separated from the rest of the admin staff and in a biology research building, I ended up making friends with a bunch of the graduate students that worked nearby. We played sports together, like soccer and floor hockey, and incredibly, we also all shared many of the same musical tastes, so we went to see The Strokes down at Soma (San Diego's legendary punk and hardcore concert venue) and The White Stripes (my favorite band) at UCSD's RIMAC arena (best concert ever). Really good times.

related topics on the web: music, video, ucsd, sandiego, friends

Redesign In The Works

2007-05-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

Okay kids, time to bring the design eye for programmer guy - I'm redesigning my website and would love some feedback:

I've been noodling on this for about a week. Those of you that I've already bugged about it have seen previous versions and hopefully will find the latest to be tighter (no one's seen them before this morning).

Line up the bats and have it, please, I definitely appreciate design crits. This is the most public I've been about my design process and the open source-inspired approach has been pretty fun so far!

related topics on the web: design, webdesign, graphicdesign, redesign

Digital Photography Goes To Hell For A Day

2007-05-15T17:36:00.000-07:00

What is the world coming to today?

Kicking off the madness this morning, Derek Powazek, a standup guy and one of the cofounders of JPG - a photography magazine I love and a startup I almost joined back in Nov - left his baby that he started from scratch with his wife Heather because another cofounder tried to erase the story of how the magazine got started by the husband and wife superteam. Then, as if that wasn't enough, one of Flickr's most popular photographers found out a poster company stole some of her photography for a profit of thousands of dollars and when she complained about it, what did Flickr do? They decided to ban her original photos for her troubles, of course!

WTF is up with all this drama, censorship and power-tripping? I'm having Web 1.0 flashbacks.

But it looks like there might be some serious Web 2.0-style payback, at least for JPG - the publicity from the faux paus has already resulted in droves of paying subscribers cancelling their subscriptions, deleting their accounts and deciding to stop contributing their stories and pictures. That's a pretty serious blow towards a business model that rests entirely on the idea of fostering an active and involved community. Whether it's a death knell or not remains to be seen (the magazine is projected to do $2.5 million in revenue during its first year, according to some accounts) but it was fascinating to see the power of digg firsthand - the commenters on the thread actually counted down the number of subscribers on JPG's home page as people removed their accounts.

Update: Paul tells his side of the JPG story. My take: putting aside the generally cool tone of the writing and the neutral CEO corporatespeak (avoiding a sense of ownership with a lot of "we" this and "we" that), Paul flatly denies that anyone tried to rewrite the story behind JPG's creation but without giving any reason why Derek would leave his own company. But here's the really creepy part: I think I may have caught Paul in a lie, because although JPG's about page currently mentions both the early pre-8020publishing issues and Heather's involvment, Google's cached version from May 9th is noticeably different and doesn't have any of that verbiage at all. Tsk tsk.

related topics on the web: jpg, jpgmag, flickr, photography, censorship, powazek

My Rock Star Friends

2007-04-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

This is probably the flat out funniest and raddest IM reply I've ever gotten in my life:

alperabut: dude

alperabut: I saw a $200k Porsche Carrera GT yesterday

alperabut: getting serviced at a run down used car place

alperabut: how funny is that?

friend: hold on, I'm banging a chick right now

friend: (seriously, she's putting on a school girl outfit in the bathroom right now)

friend: but, I do need to talk with you...can I call you later?

alperabut: HAHAHAHA

alperabut: best IM ever

alperabut: sure, call me

alperabut: let me blog that?

friend: ok, but take my name off

alperabut: I will, for sure

friend: and not like alxxxabut

alperabut: haha

alperabut: my name's not don

alperabut: go get em, tiger

What a nerdy stud. I mean, who stays on IM when they're getting some?

related topics on the web: friends, funny, IM

W3C Yeah You Know Me

2007-03-12T19:55:00.000-07:00

It's official, I'm one of a gazillion "invited experts" for the HTML working group of the W3C, the internet standards body that basically created the world wide web as we know it. In theory, it means that I can help shape the HTML standard while it gets ratified by 2010. In reality, I'll probably just be a list lurker and keep in touch with developments while the geniuses hammer stuff out, especially since invited experts only participate in discussions and don't have voting powers.

Either way, I'm super super stoked to be involved in any capacity. I've been evangelizing, giving talks about and using web standards at work for a long time but until now, I've always felt like I was looking from the outside in, trying to divine what the future direction of markup would be from scant information. The W3C has been a bit of a clubby ivory tower, with members sponsored by giant corporate employers that can easily afford the $10,000 annual dues per representative and more importantly, had their own intranet-centric agendas in mind rather than interoperability with the internet at large.

In recent years, the various flavors of HTML have been on the brink of sliding into irrelevance while the standard has been sitting nascent and other markup-based developments have been gaining steam instead, such as MXML for Flex, XAML for Vista, and various types of programming similar to HTML/CSS/Javascript to create widgets for Apple's Dashboard, Google Desktop's Sidebar, Google's personalized home pages, Vista's gadgets, Yahoo! Widget Engine (Konfabulator) and the Netvibes Universal API. This developing ecosystem is very exciting, not the least of which is because the line between web and desktop applications are blurring - developers can start to use the same skill set across multiple mediums, sometimes even at the same time, in the case of Apollo.

Even more importantly, the vacuum of development on the HTML standard spurred the creation of an alternative standards body called the WHATWG in 2004, created specifically to address this need and as a response to the slow development of the official web standards monitored by the W3C. The greatest contributors were Google, Mozilla Foundation, Opera Software and Apple Computer, trying to push forward with HTML innovations and to create a new HTML 5 standard while the HTML 4.01 specification languished, unresponsive to the recent advances in web browsers like Safari, Firefox or Opera.

So in the face of such a furious pace of activity, the W3C has finally decided to fight for its place in the modern web scene by opening up the new working group to the very developers that will end up implementing their work, instead of staying a closed group like they have in the past. Membership as an invited expert is free and open to the public! I don't envy the role of the discussion moderators trying to form consensus but in the end, this can only be a good thing.

The best part is that this happens in the midst of my transferring from one Flash job to another. Irony.

Oops, that last bit was the big news I was hinting at in a previous post. Ok, I'll have more details later :)

related topics on the web: w3c, html, standards, webstandards, markup, programming, webdesign

The Swedish Chef Loves The N.R.A.

2007-03-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

I've got some big news to announce but I don't feel like typing it up on such a beautiful Sunday - don't worry, it's good news, I'm just being lazy - so here's a funny video of the Swedish Chef to cheer up your Monday morning instead. The late genius Jim Henson did the voice acting and animated the head, while the equally talented Frank Oz did the hands.

I started looking up Muppet videos today when I saw the news that Disney has created free-roaming audio-animatronic Muppet robots that are capable of seeing and talking to tourists - how rad is that? There's no wires or a visible puppeteer anywhere in sight, just a gaggle of kids crowding around and interacting with two of my favorite characters: Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his freaky speed-addicted little assistant Beaker. See the LA Times article on them for more reading and the Youtube video of them in action, also embedded below:

related topics on the web: muppets, funny, video, youtube, guns, cooking, robots, animatronic, Disney, Disneyland, CaliforniaAdventure

Left Field

2007-02-07T09:12:00.000-08:00

My friend Kelly asks one of life's eternal burning questions.

[16:02] Kelly Abbott: hey, can you tell me what all the hub-bub about emo is? it's not a term we used to describe music when i was into terms for describing music. I listen to emo streams on last.fm and it all sucks.

[16:03] Kelly Abbott: where the fuck did emo come from?

[16:03] alperabut: ha

[16:03] alperabut: such a great question!

[16:04] alperabut: I've wondered the same thing and never axed anyone aloud

[16:04] alperabut: I've heard stuff in the emo genre that I used to listen to back in the day but had no idea that it was emo, back then anyway

[16:04] alperabut: didn't hear about it until the last few years

[16:04] alperabut: could it be a rebranding effort?

[16:04] alperabut: labelling a music genre after the fact?

[16:07] Kelly Abbott: it's terrible

[16:07] Kelly Abbott: all of it

[16:10] alperabut: ha

[16:10] alperabut: give pandora another whirl

[16:10] alperabut: music snob

[16:39] Kelly Abbott: it's not last.fm that sucks

[16:39] Kelly Abbott: it's emo that sucks.

elsewhere on the web: IM, friends, funny, music, pandora, last.fm, lastfm

Macworld Photos

2007-01-10T00:53:00.000-08:00

To go along with my youtube videos from earlier today, I've also put up a small collection of pictures of the apple tv and iphone from lunch today on Flickr. Enjoy!

elsewhere on the web: appletv, phone, iPhone, apple, mac, macworld

Youtubing The iPhone

2007-01-09T15:12:00.000-08:00

I grabbed my skateboard and jammed over to Macworld at lunch to check out Apple's super hot new products, the iPhone and Apple TV. I took a bunch of pics and also uploaded two video clips to Youtube - a closeup of the iPhone rotating and another of the throngs of people surrounding the iPhone - neither of which get across how impossibly thin the phone is in person. Extremely lickable! I'm definitely getting one in June.

elsewhere on the web: phone, iPhone, apple, mac, macworld, video, youtube

Thinking About Food

2007-01-07T15:17:00.000-08:00

Fellow 3ones member Christian Spinillo is a big foodie and linked to a Rolling Stone article about Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer and apparently the poster child of immoral world domination. Seriously, the atrocities described in that piece make Fast Food Nation look soft in comparison.

The article reminded me of something I realized only recently - there's a big difference between organic food and humane treatment of the animals used to make the food. Those two labels don't necessarily mean the same thing and you really have to hunt sometimes to find food that's both.

I was thinking about that Sunday morning because I had grilled up some bacon that I got from Trader Joe's and the long laundry list of positive qualities on the front of the package was really impressive - no nitrites, no hormones or antibiotics, all vegetarian feed, free roaming pigs, etc - which probably was intended to be good marketing catchphrases for a newbie hippie foodie like me. And it worked. On the other hand, when I'm at Safeway shopping for eggs, I always feel like I have to choose between organic eggs that are the products of grain-fed chickens without antibiotics and the ones from free range uncaged ones that are being fed who-knows-what. I can never seem to find a brand that's both.

What adds to my trepidation is that I know that a lot of these newfangled so-called organic companies are actually rebranded versions of BigCos like Coca Cola and since big evil corporations will cut whatever corners they can find, stuff that is labeled "organic" might still be the same old factory-based inhumane treatment as always. So if something doesn't explicitly say what the animals were fed or the conditions they were raised under, you can pretty much be confident in assuming the worst.

There's another reason to shop according to a moral compass - that bacon from this morning tasted sooo good... it was absolutely yummy. It's also the reason why some of the expensive cheeses I like are so damn tasty - they come from tiny little farms where they treat the cows or goats like queens, with plenty of fresh grass (not grains!) and only seasonal milkings. An example is Cypress Grove Chevre, a little family-owned company that makes the popular Northern Californian cheese Humboldt Fog.

Great, now I'm hungry.

elsewhere on the web: food, organic, health, lifestyle

Going To Macworld, Oh Yeah

2007-01-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

I'm going to Nerdvana in less than a week, to the Macworld Conference & Expo! That's right, be jealous.

The image on Apple's home page today is getting me totally amped up for what kind of goodies might be coming down the pipe.

Ohboyohboyohboyohboy...

I have a feeling that there's going to be some pretty big announcements and the rumors are flying hot and heavy, like the ones about the much-anticipated iPhone. But regardless of new products, I'm looking forward to taking my sweet time to explore the giant exhibitors area this year, since I only had about 30 minutes last year when I went for the first time on a friend's borrowed pass.

Speaking of borrowing, does anyone want to use my pass for one of the days that I don't go? I mean, this thing is like four days long and I'm definitely not taking the whole week off. Also, for anybody that wants their own pass, they're pretty cheap - I've got a coupon code so you can get the same early bird $25 price that I got (it's up to $45 or so now).

elsewhere on the web: apple, mac, conferences, macworld, macworld07, macworld2007, macworldexpo, macworldexpo07, macworldexpo2007, conference, fun, tech, technology

Unsubmitted To JPG

2006-12-30T17:35:00.000-08:00

Update: I got an email from JPG Magazine that my photo was removed as a submission for the "9 to 5" theme and although I was really disappointed at first, I cruised through the rest of the pics in the submission gallery and I have to admit that they're all pretty much of people doing real work, not just blowing off steam at their workplace like mine. Hey man, it's not my fault web developers make boring photo subjects :)

Oh well, next time. And thanks for all the votes! It's definitely encouragement to go take more pics and submit again - it was fun to watch the votes rack up.

Submission To JPG Magazine

2006-12-22T01:51:00.000-08:00

Update: darn, my photo was removed from the submission gallery - apparently it wasn't exactly work-related enough.

I just submitted the photograph below to the next issue of JPG magazine, for their "9 to 5" theme:

If you like it, take a second and ~~go vote for it~~! There's also a short little story about it on the jpgmag site, about what the captions behind the players' heads say and how they got there.

Man, it's fun to shoot film again, although this pic was shot back in Halloween and I haven't developed any rolls since then. I think I need another trip to Photoworks to process some film.

elsewhere on the web: work, photography, photos, jpgmag, fun, friends, work, magazine,

My Friend's Nephew

2006-12-12T15:19:00.000-08:00

Guys, I'm hoping we can pull together to help out an art director friend of mine - his little baby nephew got injured and is in the hospital. The little dude is only 6 months old. It would go such a long way if you could find even a little bit of cash to fork over:

http://www.dropcash.com/campaign/rv3gen/mateo_vargas_benifit_fund/

From the website:

"I am starting a donation fund for my nephew Mateo Vargas and his mounting medical bills. Mateo is a 6 month old boy struggling to survive injuries sustained on 12-6-06. Mateo’s family is also trying to cope with paying bills while staying by his side in the hospital. Mateo’s father Max Vargas and his mother Maria Martinez need help supporting their 4 other children while Mateo is in critical condition, especially now during this holiday season. Any money you can spare would go a long way to help out Mateo and his family. Thank you so much for your time and donations."

As an aside, my friend Rich is one of the coolest people I know, an honestly good guy, on top of the amazing 3D stuff he does here at my work. He recently moved back to New Mexico and telecommutes from there just to be near his family and to help out another sick family member. Rich has the right priorities in life and he's never complained to me even once about whatever cards his family's been dealt - he just sacks up and supports those that are close to him. So it'd mean a lot if such a good and giving person could have others come to his aid instead.

elsewhere on the web: fundraising, donotation, charity, emergency>, humanitarian

Wrapping Up November

2006-11-21T23:04:00.000-08:00

I've had a bit of radio silence the last few weeks, here's what's been going on lately:

poker/vegas - I'm still thinking about what an awesome time I had and it probably deserves a separate writeup of its own. a couple of guys at work started talking about finally doing a "bro trip" sometime in 07 too - that would be rad if it comes together.
atkins - I lost another 5 pounds last week, bringing my total loss for the month since I started to 16. That was a welcome relief after hitting a plateau for a big fat zero pounds lost or gained the week before, which was a tiny bit demoralizing even though I knew that it was probably because I finally added exercise to the mix. Even better, I'm a pound under the weight my doctor wanted to be at when I see him for the next checkup and a month ahead of schedule, so I'm on track to lose even more by the time I see him hopefully.
adobe max - I was still intending to post what a crap conference it was, but honestly, once I had to do a post-mortem for work on the things that actually were interesting and useful, I realized there might be some good info in there after all. so look for an upcoming post about that.
Point Reyes - I took a Saturday day trip on the motorcycle out of the city, finally, and went to a gorgeous place called Point Reyes based on the recommendation of an SFist blog post about the area. I hadn't gotten out of the city for a long time, since the spring, and it was so worth it, an incredibly beautiful stretch of land just north of the city. I definitely need a bigger bike for this kind of stuff, although it was fun riding regardless - coming back on highway 1 involved a 30 mile stretch of road so curvy that I was in second gear for most of it and even scraped a foot peg on the ground on one of the turns!
AS 2.0 - I'm finally jumping into actionscript 2.0 in preparation for the even bigger jump to actionscript 3.0, which has an extremely Java-like syntax. I'm starting to use it for little pieces of day work and now in personal stuff on the side - it most definitely is a huge mind shift in some ways to go from a procedural to OOP language, but in other ways I think it's really easy for Flash developers to grok OOP because we already understand and manipulate "objects" for a living. very fun, a little hard at times, it's great to be a newbie again.
Isabelle's fundraiser - my girlfriend Yesi's sister is running a marathon and raising money along the way for a great cause, blog post about that to come soon too.
Yesi's graduation - she's wrapping up nursing school and graduation is just around the corner! I can't wait for her to be done, she's done so well and gotten such great references that I feel like the Bay Area health care industry is her oyster.
photography redux - I'm shooting film again and loving it (my friend John Dick called it a warmup to one of those big honking digital cameras - I can see that) but also hating it (no preview or review makes me feel like I'm flying blind and I only just last week figured out how to put these on the web, I'm going to do it when I get back).
halloween madness - I didn't go out or celebrate the occasion this year, but I didn't realize that they go big for halloween here and that party central passes right in front of my doorstep. I've got a little bit of film and some camera pics of the insane crowd at the bart station trying to make their way through my neighborhood to the Castro. I felt like I was part of the school of salmon making their way upstream, part of an estimated 250,000 people to make their way to that part of town.
pandora - I'm still in love with this damn web app. My latest trick is to use the quickmix to shuffle amongst stations, it's a pretty rad feature. I pick mellow stations for background aural fuel while working and kickass stations based on artists like James Brown for fun occasions like poker.
persepolis - I picked up a graphic novel for the first time in ages and went to see the author Marjane Satrapi at a book signing, over at Booksmith in the Haight. I didn't end up getting the book signed, the line was way too long and I don't really see the point, actually. that night ended up being pretty fun - I met up with Diana and a few of her off-work friends to enjoy a couple of pints of Guinness and play pool with some locals. I haven't picked up a cue in years and it was pretty fun, it gave me a taste for more.
skateboarding again - I picked up a custom-made skateboard for the first time in several years and got into the groove of skating to work. I've been doing it for just over a week and was getting along incident-free until I ate it twice on the way to work last Friday. So ever the the thoughtful nerd, I picked up some wrist guards last night to wear under my sweatshirt and low and behold, I ended up needing to use both of them this very morning when I went SPLAT! right in front of the bart station. Thankfully, the wrist guards worked as advertised and I came away nearly intact, with just a minor scrape on the elbow. It's a hell of a lot of fun and my left knee feels great, it's a lot less walking to work now.

That's about it! I'm looking forward to an awesome Thanksgiving weekend and hope you all have a great time too, remember to be thankful for what you have. Speaking of being thankful, Saturday is Yesi's birthday and I'm hoping to put together something really fun to show her how thankful for her I've been this last year. We're going to have a great time at the Getty in LA, it's one of our favorite spots and I don't think we've gone since last year or possibly even longer ago. I'm really looking forward to it!

Twittering In Vegas

2006-10-31T00:53:00.000-08:00

I'm back from the Vegas trip and still recuperating actually :) because I went big, wrapping up the last day and a half by staying up 48 hours with a 3 hour nap break. I did okay poker-wise, ending up cash positive for the week with some monster winning sessions at the MGM Grand. A coworker today confirmed that they have a soft poker room there - his buddy is on the WPT tour and came up as a pro in Vegas taking tourists at MGM's loose games. I got to hang out with fellow 3ones brother Christian Spinillo for the first time - it was great to actually finally meet one of my digital tribe face-to-face. He also did pretty well poker-wise the last time we talked, mainly at the Palms I think. The Adobe conference itself was hit and miss - I'm putting together a presentation with the coworkers that I went with, so I'll repost here later this week or next for the nerds.

Also while I was away, I sent status updates via my Twitter page. Twitter is a neat service, one I've been utterly addicted to in the last few months. Looking back on the updates I sent during last week's trip, they give a little bit of a hint of the rollercoaster ride that was last week:

doing one last crucial batch of laundry before heading to Vegas for the bigass Adobe conference.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/47407

walking through my neighborhood pre-dawn like a thief in the night and commuting out to SFO. And starting to get excited for the week's adventures.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/47551

totally repulsed by all the sales and marketing types I'm meeting at the Adobe conference. My three coworkers and I have made ZERO geek friends here.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/48456

enjoying my winnings after my first poker session ever in Vegas, about to head back for more.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/48645

walking around the Caesar's mall with Christian from 3ones while he does hubby shopping duties.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/49138

finally sitting with some genuine sharks at Caesar's poker room and just barely staying even while watching them bully everybody around.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/49353

just waking up from a 3 hour nap after an all-night poker session, about to go on an even bigger bender for 24 hours with no sleep until I fly back.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/50227

wishing Kelly Abbott was playing poker with me here in Vegas - I've only been robbing strangers until now.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/50562

just leaving SFO - even the air is better here. So glad to be back from the smokey hell that is Vegas, regardless of winning at poker.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/51030

finally home and ready to crash. My tank is on E like a procrastinating slacker going into finals week. Or so I've heard.

http://twitter.com/alabut/statuses/51056

If you want to try out being a Twitter buddy, send me your email or phone number and I'll send out an invite.

So yeah, I think I sucked it up and did Vegas right. Not only that, I did all the partying while kicking off the first week of the Atkins diet, and the first two weeks are way hard. No caffeine, no alcohol, a boatload of water - it was like a detox. I've been meaning to kick caffeine for over two years and the withdrawal wasn't as bad as I thought. Then again, I was away from work and didn't have to do any programming or anything else as intensive as that. Plus the buffets really help in crafting together exactly the meal you want. It's going to be a challenge to keep it up now that I'm back in town and have to do some cooking. That's a whole other post though, probably in a few weeks with a status update.

Man, it is so damn great to be back home.

elsewhere on the web: twitter, lasvegas, adobemax, adobe, macromedia, conference, flash, vacation, poker

Vegas Baby, Vegas

2006-10-23T22:46:00.000-07:00

I'm heading out 5am tomorrow morning to go to the Adobe MAX Conference in Las Vegas. I'm kinda excited because it's several firsts for me - first work-related conference in a few years, first work trip at the new job, first conference trip with fellow Flash developers, and a biggie, my first trip to Vegas since I started playing poker a few years back.

Just for a little bit of nostalgia, I peeked through my archives and came across a few related posts from over two years ago: a trip to Vegas with my girlfriend Yesi for her sister's bachlorette party, my first as an overage adult actually and the last one before this trip; and playing poker at Trav's place after he built his first table.

A lot has happened in the years since those blog posts were published. A short selected list:

The bowling alley I mentioned (sunset bowl) was shut down. A San Diego institution for over 50 years, it has been or is about to be razed and turned into condos.
Our little home poker crew has played every week solid, with few exceptions, and even started their own website to organize the games, discuss the local poker scene, put together trips and share stories and tips. (Not sure if I should link to it - what do you say, Trav?)
Trav went beyond his previous project of making a new poker table - he made an even better table and an entire room to go with it, with a fridge in the corner, poker-themed signs and posters, and a bottle opener built into the wall. The guy goes big.
The poker site I cut my teeth on for free play back then - pokerroom.com - shut down their U.S. operations and is no longer taking American bets as of last weekend because of a new anti-gambling law. I love being treated like a second grader.
Most importantly, Yesi and I have been going steady with nary a hiccup or cross word the entire time. It's easily the most drama-free relationship I've ever had, so devoid of stress that I take it for granted all the time. Well, most of the time :)

Looking back on my blog posts from way back when I started this thing, I realized something else too: boy, I used to cuss a lot, huh? I wonder if I use less foul language now or have only trimmed it back from my blog posts...

I hope you all have a great week, it's probably radio silence for me until next week. There's some good parties planned for the week nights and I'm staying an extra day after the coworkers fly back on Thursday, planning on going big with a poker marathon and giant tournament bender until I fly back Saturday morning. I can't wait to test the Friday stupid tourist scene and see if I'm one of them or have some skeelz after all. Wish me luck!

elsewhere on the web: adobe, macromedia, flash, max, conference, lasvegas, poker

Killer New Feature: Recent Music

2006-10-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to some seriously good music lately and discovering all kinds of new stuff thanks to Pandora, so I added something to my blog that I think is pretty cool: a little widget to help share what songs I'm listening to.

If you scroll down the sidebar on the right side of any page on my blog - like, say, the post from back in February about finding out about Pandora - you'll see a section titled "Recent Music" and short list of songs and dates. The song titles link to a page where you can listen to a sample, start listening to the whole thing by starting a station in Pandora, or buy the song on iTunes or at Amazon. The date is when I bookmarked it as a song I like.

The list of songs comes from my free account at Pandora. A quick intro on what Pandora is - it's an incredibly awesome music player, with its awesomeness derived from how much new music you discover on it. The way it works is that you give it an artist or song title and it automatically makes a streaming radio station of similar music. Then, as it plays, you can give songs a thumbs up to play more like it, or a thumbs down to play less of it. Two thumbs down for an artist and they never play in that station again - banned for life. You don't have to rate any songs, it'll play regardless, but it's fun and addictive to be a pretend DJ. Imagine being able to reach into your car stereo and telling the radio station to change their lineup! You can make up to 100 stations, all tailored to what you like.

I use Pandora at work to listen to some soothing music when I need to concentrate and at home, I've got these new kickass speakers (for only $30!!!) that make it a barrel-full-of-monkeys fun to check out new stuff.

elsewhere on the web: Pandora, music, blogging, sharing, rss

My First Youtube Clip!

2006-10-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe a gadget geek like me is this late to 1) getting a decent cameraphone and 2) putting up a clip on youtube. It seems like I'm gaining all my geek cred late and in batches these days...

Anyway, here's a video clip from last Friday's outing to Josh's art show I went to with Diana's roommates Rosanna and Elouise. That's right Diana, that's what happens when you go back to Fresno for a weekend - everyone you know parties together at cool artsy events with free food and alcohol. Oh yeah.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any pics or video of Josh or his kickass studio, The Local 303, since I'm still getting used to having a super cool phone fit for a pinja. Here's a photo album of the studio under construction and at the previous open house.

Awesome Weekend

2006-10-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

I had a great trip to San Diego, it was a perfect way to unwind from working hard the last few months. Big thanks goes out to birthday boy Trav for putting together Saturday's wine tour - it was good to catch up with friends and to get mildly trashed, er, I mean, try out new varietals, at our second ever wine tour.

Yesi and I tasted some great stuff at the South Coast, Thornton and Callaway wineries. Even though we didn't go overboard with the wine purchases (we bought a whole damn case of Almond Champagne last time), we still picked up super yummy bottles of Muscat Canelli and Merlot Rosé from South Coast. Everyone seemed to agree that their stuff was clearly the best of the afternoon, especially the Rosé - a little group of us cracked open two bottles in the courtyard while waiting for everyone else and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

The wine was so good that Yesi almost came to blows with a new friend Tommy over accusations of theft. No, seriously, you should have seen it. Each got ahold of a handle on either side of a shopping bag and were wrestling in an escalating tug-of-war, while Tommy's friend Mark and I laughed our asses off and stepped aside to let the fiery Hispanic duo duke it out. Instead of watching the impending brawl, however, I ended up diverting disaster by finding Tommy's missing bottles of the treasured Rosé in the overhead bin of the tour bus. You should have seen his face. And that was just the first stop of three!

We met some really interesting new people on the tour. Mark of the aforementiond Mark and Tommy duo pulled a hilarious stunt by pretending to work at the second winery we visited and checked the IDs of anyone trying to get in. Not only did absolutely everyone fall for it and bust out their driver's licenses, but did so 1) no matter how Yoda old they were and 2) stayed completely oblivious to both the people right next to them taking their pictures and the peanut gallery of people cracking up ten yards away.

Props go out to Carolyn and Ed for going on the wine tour - it was great seeing them again and we've had a lot of fun on all of my San Diego trips this year. It's been a great year for them - Carolyn got promoted to Creative Director (am I allowed to say where?) and Ed's band The Thicket and his solo act are both starting to take off, playing gigs on both coasts. And also really big props to Ingrid for making it out to Bluefoot on Saturday night even though her friend's car broke down. In TJ!

Overall, I had a great few days, a perfect mix of time spent with family, friends and my girl. I even snuck in a SoCal moment in the sleepy little neighborhood known as Ocean Beach, just an hour before my flight, with fried oyster tacos in my belly and sand between my toes. It was an insanely gorgeous day, the kind of sunny paradise you have to leave to appreciate.

Stay tuned for pics later this week.

elsewhere on the web: wine, Rosé, Muscat, Merlot, winetour, sandiego, oceanbeach, Temecula, vacation

Saturday Night In San Diego

2006-10-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

I've talked to most of my San Diego friends a few weeks ago about coming down this weekend and I've finally nailed down an itinerary. We'll be going out to a new bar called Bluefoot, formerly a dive bar named Wolf's that's been spruced up, complete with outdoor seating. It's on the corner of Upas and 30th - here's the exact deets:

3404 30th St.
San Diego, CA
92104
[google map]
phone: (619) 756-7891

Let's try to meet by 9:30pm. You can come whenever you want, obviously, so here's my cell if you don't see me when you get there: (858) 603-1820.

I've never been there before - it's really new and has only had it's liquor license a few weeks - but it sounds like a hot new place to go based on a tip by my friend Aaron East. I said I wanted someplace chill but not boring, kinda like Airconditioned before it got crowded, and this is the place he recommended. Here's a review in sigonsandiego for more background info.

And oh yeah, I'm writing this from my phone while waiting in the allergist's office - how nerdy is that?

elsewhere on the web: bluefoot , sandiego , bar , nightlife

Eye-Fi: Give Your Camera Wi-Fi Connectivity

2006-10-02T05:47:00.000-07:00

I usually don't forward signups for beta stuff because there's usually so many damn things to try out, but the upcoming Eyefi card is something I'm genuinely excited about. It's not yet-another-web-2.0-widget-thingy website - it's hardware, an sd memory card with built-in wifi, intended for digital cameras to automatically upload images to a computer through a normal wireless network. I signed up for the mailing list back in April when I saw the Techcrunch review and just like Michael Arrington wrote up, I'm getting one the second it's available.

I can see the Eyefi card being super useful - no more messy cables at home, no more "sorry, I can't just dump these pics on your laptop without a USB dingledongle" excuses, just plain photo sharing fun. I could have used one of those cards as recently as two weeks ago, when my mom visited and we took a bunch of pictures around town - we could have dumped all of them on my computer right before she left. And I wonder if I could beam a pic to a friend's Treo?

It looks like the card will be pretty easy to use from other in-person reviews (Scoble, LaughingSquid). From their FAQ page:

Q: Will I need to upgrade my camera for the Eye-Fi card to function correctly?
A: No camera upgrade is required. If your camera has been qualified by Eye-Fi, the card will “just work”.

The beta program hasn't quite kicked off yet - I should get a press kit when it does and I'll post more info when I do.

elsewhere on the web: eyefi, camera, photography, digitalphotography, gear, tech, geek

My New Shoephone

2006-09-25T02:22:00.000-07:00

That's right, I got a new phone!

I've been using my current phone for several years, well beyond the two year contract I signed up with. In fact, it was the first cell phone I ever had, after years of holding out and making fun of everyone else. The phone was fairly small and top of the line at the time, but now it's a little junker with a cracked screen and several broken features that never quite worked right, like web access and MMS messages.

No more. Now I have entered the future. Not only have I replaced my old phone, I've massively upgraded to a serious geekout gadgetfest. After waiting out the birthing pangs of the pda/phone's initial years, a broken microphone on my old phone finally convinced my cheap ass to upgrade to a Verizon XV6700, one of the more powerful Windows-powered smartphones out there. That and the fact that Yesi is on Verizon and we'd have unlimited minutes to talk about our favorite TV shows.

Several questions probably pop into mind for those that know me well: 1) it seems very un-Mac-like for me to get something running Windows rather than the simpler and more elegant Palm OS, doesn't it? And 2) if you're going to go the Windows route, why the bulky XV600 instead of the smashingly popular Treo 700w?

Web and Flash development. Can't really get experience building mobile content without an adequate device to test on. Plus new Macs run Windows anyway, so you can always get around any compatibility issues that way. Not that I'm really worried about that - all of my critical needs that would get most people locked into the Office Mobile suite are actually served by websites like gmail, google calendar, google spreadsheets, writely, etc.
A huge Sidekick-style slideout qwerty keyboard and much bigger display. Using a phone for computing-style tasks is hard enough as it is, no need to make it any harder by trying to type on microscopic keyboards and scrolling around tiny screens. Read jk's experiences switching from a Treo to an XV6700 for more on that. Also, the specs are pretty impressive, especially the processor speed - a comparison to the Treo and another phone is halfway down this XV6700 review page.

First impressions:

The keyboard is insanely fun to play with. EVDO is nice, using wifi at the local coffeeshop is even cooler but about the same bandwidth, so cool points wear off after a while. It's a nice backup plan though, since I've already had two dropped EVDO connections on the first day. Mobile web browsers have come a long way and are actually useful now. Most sites are actual HTML pages that look a lot like the desktop versions, it's not garbled WAP nonsense. The physical shape and size is not bad, it's not as big as you'd think - surprisingly, it's still pocketable. I guess my impression of these bigger phones was stuck from back when I first played with an HP iPaq back at UCSD, this giant brick of a thing that was unwieldy to say the least. Even with the XV6700 being one of the larger phones in the market, it still feels much slimmer in comparison.

The biggest takeaway is that it's just such a smile-inducing pleasure to send text messages on this thing after getting used to the torture of typing T9. I'm going to be updating my Twitter page and texting friends to the point of annoyance, I'm sure.

I showed it off tonight to my friend Diana to make her jealous and she turned it around on me instead, compared me to her sister's crackberry-addicted boyfriend. They apparently took it away from him once just to watch him jones for a hit of email. Note to self: buy a sturdy tether for when I'm around rascals.

elsewhere on the web: phone, cellphone, cell, mobile, mobileweb, Verizon, XV6700

Insane In The Ukraine

2006-09-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

I got in touch with my friend Chester today, who I met while during a short stint at Lambesis last year. We hadn't talked in a while and it turns out him and his wife went abroad for a great vacation. Wanderlust-inducing description below:

[14:20] alperabut: what's new with you? any theater action?

[14:23] Chester: not other than ushering every two months or so. travelled to Ukraine with my wife in June. best 2 week vacation ever

[14:23] alperabut: nice!

[14:23] alperabut: ukraine, kinda random?

[14:25] Chester: Elisa (wife) became friends with a Ukrainian student a few years back when she was at college and they've stayed in touch. The friends parents still live in Ukraine, so as we were thinking of somewhere we wanted to travel, the possibility came up and we made it happen.

[14:26] Chester: here's more photos than you'll care to look at: http://chestermclaughlin.com/photos/Ukraine-All

[14:27] alperabut: man, I love getting off the beaten path like that

[14:27] alperabut: what was the most surprising thing about the trip?

[14:31] Chester: How the breakup of the Soviet Union and the subsequent fall of communism left so many industries and services "out in the cold" so to speak. There is a lot of infrastructure (both physical and social) that ceased to operate once communism wasn't paying for it. The most visible example was empty and unfinished buildings and factories... just sitting there falling apart. Street lights that never light up. Some roads falling into disrepair. This phenomenon exists mostly outside Kiev. Kiev was VERY functional, beautiful and logical.

[14:32] alperabut: wow, sounds like there's some great urban photography to be had, as horrible tourist-centric as that sounds

[14:34] alperabut: so the whole country felt kinda ghost town-like?

[14:38] Chester: not at all... that's why the empty buildings and unfinished projects seemed so odd. There was so much life and and so many people everywhere. They just tended to revert to more old world living styles. Here in the US, people don't hang out in front of their house, and in a lot of areas you don't see people unless they're walking to/from their car or you happen to be in the same building with them. There, people walked, biked, sat, talked anywhere and everywhere. Chickens and goats and gardens occupied peoples time, and there was a very strong sense of neighborhood. The town I was staying in is still referred to as a village from time to time... very interesting "contradictions" over there

[14:45] alperabut: wow, that sounds rad

[14:52] Chester: I want to clarify that since I spent the majority of my two weeks in Chyhyryn, my commentaries only pertain to that small area. What I saw of Kiev and other parts of Ukraine rival some of the best cities in the US. Here's more info on where I stayed. they have a very rich history.

[14:52] Chester: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chyhyryn

[14:54] alperabut: awesome, it actually makes me want to visit

[14:54] Chester: fresh butter and sour cream rule

Mmm, fresh butter and sour cream...

elsewhere on the web: ukraine, Chyhyryn, photos, tourism, vacation

My Top Ten TV Shows

2006-09-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

I noticed an interesting thing last year about my television watching habits. When I moved to a studio apartment in Hillcrest, I decided to try a little experiment that ended up going the entire year that I lived there - I decided to try not having cable tv, not even basic. I wanted to see if I’d read more, concentrate on freelance work, have more peace of mind, whatever.

What ended up happening, however, is that I ended up downloading tv shows instead of just plopping in front of the boob tube and searching for anything remotely interesting. The number of shows I actually cared about and tried to regularly watch went up rather than down. Maybe it was because watching without commercials was a different experience, maybe that I could watch them whenever I wanted was the main factor, but probably the biggest contributing reason was that I could see what else was actually popular with viewers (rather than what the tv companies were advertising the hell out of) and discover diamonds in the rough, like a show I completely overlooked when I had HBO the year before, The Wire. The Wire is a great example of finding something cool during this phase of my life - after having practically given up on tv as a medium for years and watching more movies instead, The Wire turned out to be my favorite tv show of all time by a far margin. I can’t wait to see where this fourth season goes.

Anyway, with the summer reality tv shows winding down and the fall season ramping up, here’s a few lists of what I’m watching now.

Top Ten

These are tv shows I am utterly addicted to and have to catch right away, as soon as I can download them.

The Wire - the best show ever created and I’m so glad to see that Jason thinks so too. I actually don’t think it’s for everyone, now matter how much I like it - there’s just too much of a learning curve. But boyohboy does it pay off when all the little strings come together.
Prison Break - it’s like a little puzzle unfolding with each episode, with each one fitting into the larger season-long puzzle. With each season being a puzzle that fits into oh never mind you get the idea.
Lost - puzzles of an even more complicated sort, this show is about as addictive as it gets. And that’s not even including The Lost Experience that’s being going on all summer on the internet and elsewhere. I’ve got several friends (cough cough) that have recently gotten hooked thanks to the DVDs and are cranking through the first two seasons in marathon sessions.
24 - do your thing, Jack, I’m along for the cheeseball ride. Is this the season that finally breaks out of our own borders and goes international? The ending last season seemed to imply going abroad, what with Bauer on a slow boat to China (literally!) and beat up senseless by his captors.
The Office - cheesy Americanized version of the British classic? Sure, but whatever, I’m hooked. It really started taking off when it forked from the BBC version and the uniquely American episode about race relations at the workplace had me rolling, it was totally golden. And yes, I’m curious to see what happens to Jim and what’s her face.
World Series Of Poker - the classic show is just as good as ever, as the phenomenon continues to explode worldwide. It’s how I get my fix when I’m not playing.
Project Runway - the reality tv show format has found it’s groove with this and my next four picks. They’re essentially game shows but modelled around the naturally-occuring competitiveness in our careers, with contestants using their work skills to prove their worthiness in their respective industries. It just rings more true and is something that I can relate to more than trying to find a frigging coconut or voting people out of a tribe. Sheesh, at least people have a goal to work towards in Survivor - what the hell is the point of Real World again?
Top Chef - makes me hungry and inspires me to actually cook and/or get out to good places to eat. Way better than Iron Chef because at home, nobody has that much knowledge or a team of people to bark orders to.
America’s Next Supermodel - pure and mountain fresh catty goodness. Extra bonus: defeats the stereotype that models just stand there and look good for photoshoots - only the craftiest and hardest-working girl tends to go forward in the rounds, whereas the “just stand there and look pretty” chicks get eliminated fairly quick. Plus extra points for every time Tyra looks draggish.
The Contender - I never really got into boxing until watching Sergio outthink everyone last season on his way to the title. The man quoted Sun Tzu for Pete’s sake.

Top Five Runner Ups

These are shows that I wouldn’t quite say are my super duper all-time favorites, but I like them enough to try to catch when I can.

Top Gear/Fifth Gear - the way car shows were meant to be. There’s never been an American show that has ever come close to being as good (or relevant to me personally) as these two, even though one is a ripoff of the other. With crazy segments like pitting sports cars against fighter jets or powerboats, what’s not to like?
Flip This House - one of my dream hobbies-to-turn-into-a-career is becoming a house renovator and flipper. Sort of like George Costanza becoming an architect.
Small Space, Big Style - I actually like small spaces - instead of feeling claustrophobic in them, I feel more snug and cozy. Plus they’re usually cheaper, so you just have to get more creative.
Professional Poker Tour - this is an up-and-coming contender to the WSOP and WPT tournaments series, it’s actually pretty interesting. I’d put it ahead of WPT and approaching WSOP in terms of quality of play and editing.
The Unit - usually not my style (military, CBS, jingoist) but written by David Mamet, so I gave it a shot and got mildly hooked.

Former Top Shows

Shows that I used to be addicted to within the last few years that have lost their luster.

Queer Eye - I loved this show, but it’s run its course and all the episodes seem to blur together now.
Nothing else comes to mind, so let’s just call this the Queer Eye Memorial List Of Formerly Great Shows.

So that pretty much wraps up my list. What are you watching?

elsewhere on the web: tv, television

When Did Linux Become Cool?

2006-08-23T01:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll admit it here: I've barely ever dabbled with Linux and only for the geek cred when I did. I'm coming out of the nerd closet to say that the most I've ever done is throw Fedora on an old junker just to say that I could. I've recently been tempted to play with Ubuntu, given the buzz about having a slick look and being easy to update, and I also have a growing desire to make sure all of my data gets saved in open formats that avoid lockin, so there's a gentle and growing itch to play with free software. But again, I have to say that it's never really risen above the level of a mildly passing interest.

To put it bluntly, I've never considered any Linux distro to be 1) useful for getting work done (OS X is good enough for my greenhorn-to-intermediate unix needs, thanks) or 2) fun. Yeah, fun - the absolute worst part has been that the UI always seems to suck. Even with the new flavors out recently. Seriously, what is with all the brown, Ubuntu? It's like a great big digital poo dump on my monitor - I feel like I need to call someone in to clean off the screen.

But I'll be goddamned if this isn't the most jaw-droppingly cool UI preview video I've ever seen - hang on for about the 2:30 mark for when it really gets nuts, with high quality dvd playback overlapping between different spinning virtual desktops:

That clip is so cool, easily blowing away Vista and even outshining all of the Leopard previews except for maybe Time Machine. Yes, something cool, from the free software nerds.

Could this demo be old hat to those with virtual desktops? It could be, I have no idea - fast user switching is all I've ever played with and it's been a bit on the slow side.

By the way, I was going to post to a similar example from Apple's upcoming Leopard operating system, but it looks like the google video got taken down. [Update: see the Youtube version below] It's too bad, you really should have seen it, it was pretty sweet - it showed off the combination of Expose and Spaces, from the perspective of the Spaces overview mode with the narrator dragging files from one pane to another. Hard to describe but very cool and yet still nowhere near as cool as the Linux UI preview above.

Update: The google video of Spaces and Leopard that got taken down has been reposted to Youtube, embedded below for your viewing pleasure:

elsewhere on the web: OSX, macosx, apple, leopard, linux, ubuntu, xgl, xgldesktop, UI, opensource, freesoftware, video

Welcome Email Subscribers!

2006-07-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

Update: Hey email subscribers, sorry for the double post. I'm still new to sending out newsletters and screwed up yesterday - the post is in its entirety below...

This is a quick test of some new functionality on the site: publishing blog posts and email newsletters at the same time. Thanks to all those that have signed up so far - some of you got on board quite a ways back and it was a great excuse to get in touch with old friends.

This quick note is also to let everyone know I'm alive. Just a little ping on your radar, if you will, since I've been so remiss lately. It seems like I let the blog go neglected every spring! I've been cranking away at work and wrapping up my first big project, so I'm looking forward to my schedule finally lightening up a little bit. But man, I've been having an extended case of writer's block during what little free time I've had, like I talked about with Ingrid today:

[12:53] alperabut: man, I miss writing

[12:53] alperabut: I wonder if it helps to have a regular publishing schedule and/or agenda

[12:53] electromute: you just don't have time now?

[12:53] alperabut: I don't know! whether it's time or motivation

[12:54] alperabut: I've just been so busy crunching down at work

[12:54] electromute: yeah

[12:54] alperabut: I think I've felt some kind of weird pressure as my audience has grown, like I should have something more worthwhile to say or something that appeals to everyone

[12:54] alperabut: I need to shut that nonsense out and just try to please myself...

[12:54] electromute: i know, it's tough

[12:54] electromute: it's the same reason I have trouble writing in the first place!

[12:54] alperabut: totally!

[12:55] alperabut: when you just start getting big enough to start getting feedback, you start to unconsciously wonder whether what you're writing appeals to those people

[12:55] alperabut: I think it's a learning process you have to go through - how to please people by forgetting that you're writing for anyone other than yourself and what you find interesting

elsewhere on the web: IM, friends, writing, blogging, writersblock

SF Protest March

2006-05-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

Update: For those that got this post in their email or feed reader earlier this week, I made a mistake about the name of the protest. I accidentally wrote the title of that horrible movie A Day Without A Mexican instead of A Day Without An Immigrant. It definitely wasn't intentional, it was simply an embarrassing slip. Considering that my girlfriend Yesi is Salvadorian, I was a Poli Sci major at our nation's largest border town, and (most importantly) I'm a huge soccer nut, I'd have to be quite the numbskull to not notice that Latino immigrants are from a wide assortment of countries and I didn't mean to imply the opposite at all.

Today at lunch, I cruised down to where the city-wide A Day Without An Immigrant protest marches were all converging, since it was only a block from work. It was packed but wow, I had no idea how much! When I was at the street level, I only had a hunch about how big this thing was. I knew it was tens of thousands of people - you just don't realize the scale of something like that until you see pictures.

My little contribution was to wear a name sticker that said "Immigrant" on it all day, since I am one. It was just the funny little conversation starter with coworkers I'd hoped it'd be. I thought about taking the day off but around here, that would have been preaching to the choir. If I was in San Diego, on the other hand...

It was wonderful and inspirational to go to, something so exciting and hopeful that it's difficult to even put into words. Seeing all those bright happy faces, seeing the solidarity of the Mexican lunch place next door being closed, the loud drums resonating up from the streets to our 12th floor and demanding to be noticed - it was simply great.

My friend Oso has an in-depth discussion of what the day means and more usefully for non-Spanish speakers like myself, a roundup of Spanish language blogs commenting on the issue. And be careful not to stereotype - one of his friends and regular commentators runs the Hispanic Pundit, a conservative political blog (he's noticeably silent on this issue, though).

(pictures and links via boingboing)

elsewhere on the web: adaywithoutanimmigrant, protest, march, SanFrancisco, immigration, InternationalWorkersDay, MayDay, GreatAmericanBoycott, ElGranParoAmericano, Boicot, ElBoicot, NothingGringoBoycott, HR4437

How To Hack Together A Local Music Podcast

2006-04-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

I like this simple podcast hack, it's a great way to get some fresh new tunes that are geographically relevant and it takes about a minute to set up.

Go to podbop.org, enter your city name, copy the link to the RSS feed.
Go to Odeo, scroll to the bottom right of the page, click on “add a feed”.
Paste in the URL from step 1.
Enjoy! The resulting page is your personal media player of music by bands that are coming to your town, skewed towards indie pop and alt rock. Click play and jam away.
(optional) Mail your URL out to friends and share your tastes - you can even send out the URL of individual songs.

Here's the one I made this morning that I've been listening to while getting set up at the new office today: http://odeo.com/channel/96528/view

elsewhere on the web: music, podcast, hack, events, localmusic, podbop, odeo, indie, indierock, indiemusic, indiepop, altrock

Triple Booting Macs

2006-04-18T00:59:00.000-07:00

Following up on my last post on dual-booting Macs, it looks like the OS hacking community hasn't sat still. Not to be outdone by Apple's Boot Camp, OnMac.net has developed a triple loader where you can boot into OS X, Windows or Linux.

This falls more into the “very cool, but um, why would I want to do that?” realm than the “holy Christ on a bike!” type of news like Boot Camp. Furthermore, I suspect that Linux distros on Macs are going to suffer the same fate as Windows - for most people who try Macs, alternative OSes will be something to be transitioned away from slowly and at their own pace as they become used to the vastly superior OS X, or as Jon Gruber put it, Windows is the new Classic.

Once you lower the previously high switching costs to the point where people can sample different OSes like cheeses on a platter instead of having to fully commit to one entire restaurant over another, they'll be better able to judge for themselves whether they like what they taste or not, maybe start trying new fancy custom cheeses that were hand-made with love, rather than sticking with the soulless tired old workhorse mild cheddars that are pumped out of a factory like glue or plastic chairs. Trying new things at your own leisure is so much less stressful than the old way - having to read reviews in the paper and to guess where you might have a good time based on what so-called experts think.

elsewhere on the web: Mac, Apple, Windows, dualboot, OSX, hacks, OS, boot, bootcamp, linux, gentoo, engadget

Monday Mini-Vacation

2006-04-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

When I was freelancer all last year, one of my favorite things to do was to IM friends at work and torture them about the fact that I was in my underwear or cooking on the George Foreman grill or whatever aspect of running a home-based business that I was enjoying at the moment. It was great to relapse into that for a day.

Al Abut - hey hey

Al Abut - weekend's not over is it?

Al Abut - my whole work is shut down until we move offices to the new building, just enjoying my mini-vacation and trying to torture my friends

supahdon - is it odd to have dreams where you're in vegas and phil gordon is calling you

Al Abut - only if you're phil gordon

Al Abut - then you'd be an egomaniac

Al Abut - hey, can I blog out our little IM today?

supahdon - which part

supahdon - the phil gordon thing?

supahdon - or the 'i'm not working, so i'm better than you'

Al Abut - both, and now, including this :)

supahdon - heh, alright

Al Abut - if I could think this shit up on my own, we wouldn't be friends...

elsewhere on the web: IM, funny, friends, vacation, work

Buy My Friend's Macs

2006-04-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

My friend David is selling both his 15" G4 powerbook and a loaded Powermac G5 to make room for a Macbook Pro in his arsenal. They both look like pretty good deals, especially the G5 with 3 gigs of RAM and Applecare.

elsewhere on the web: apple, mac, powerbook, powermac, G4, G5, sale, forsale

Personal Finance Makeover

2006-04-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

Update: Whoops! Fixed a broken link to my new year's resolutions. This stuff wouldn't make much sense without it, would it?

The personal finance blog iwillteachyoutoberich has a wonderful and insightful series on giving yourself a financial makeover for the new year (intro, part one, two and three) and I've found it to be invaluable in the last few months. It is a must-read, filled with a simple list of practical tips. The timing couldn't have been better, as the series is perfectly in line with a common theme amongst several of my new year's resolutions: mastering my personal finances.

Personal finance is a particular challenge for me, an area I've wanted to improve for years. I've always been one of those kinds of people that did their budgeting by the seat of their pants, relying on gut feelings about where they are and what they needed to do in the short term. Setting monetary goals and then working towards them by keeping track of expenses and forecasting what my future revenue streams had to be... that just never really was "me" and I thought I could get out of ever having to do that by either getting rich or marrying a pennywise girl. I occasionally had the nagging feeling that my outlook might be the very thing holding me back from the financial independence I craved, but the feeling never popped into a fully-formed realization. I did a pretty good job of making sure that my salary kept going up at a decent clip every year and I figured that meant that I'd eventually earn enough that everything I wanted in life would simply fall in place without ever having to sit down and plan it all out, but I realized at some point in the last few years that the equation wasn't in my favor. I was in a treadmill where my expenditures kept creeping upwards at the exact same rate as my earnings.

Something clicked this year that made me want to improve that part of me. I can't explain exactly what the impetus was - it just happened. Everyone's ready for change when they're ready for change, I guess. Picking up the Idiot's Guide To Getting Rich (2nd edition) over the holidays was also a good motivator - despite the book's get-rich-quick title, it's really just a treatise on good financial habits. And both the idiot's guide book and the iwillteachyoutoberich have the exact same starting foundation: track your current expenses to understand where you are. You can't figure out how to go forward until you know where you stand.

And looking back on my resolutions for 2006, I see something interesting: they all appeared to be different when I was first writing them up, but after spending the last two months tracking my finances and writing down every penny I spent (for the first time ever), I see all of the goals through a different lens. Now I see that many of the things I want to accomplish rest upon having a solid grasp of my personal finances as a foundation before I can do anything else. And I have a feeling this goes for many of my life goals that go beyond just this year. This is perhaps perfectly obvious to most people, it's just never something I realized before.

Keep up the good work, Ramit!

elsewhere on the web: review, personalfinance, finance, makeover, budget, money

Review: Microsoft Foldershare

2006-03-26T19:56:00.000-08:00

So I'm working well into a Sunday night - don't shed any tears, it's a fun project - and during a brain break, I stumbled across a great little app called Foldershare that looks like it might make certain data-synching headaches go away. Even weirder - it's made by Micro$oft! For reals! Okay, technically they got smart and acquired a smart little fish to add to their mangled "Windows Live" framework, but whatever, the app itself is pretty cool.

Om Malik reviewed Foldershare last year and also posted an update about their commitment to the Mac client.

Foldershare is a free beta app that automagically synches folders across different machines, even OS X and Windows. Think of it as a networked drive, but 1) uses the entire internet as its local network and 2) has true synching. In other words it's not just a fancy client-side version of server-side data storage, or FTP For Dummies, it doesn't require you to manually drag stuff in a common folder on one machine and then drag it back out again on another (although you can do that). Although I could be wrong, I've been watching online storage startups for a little while now (Michael Arrington's review sums it up nicely) and this is exactly how most of them seem to work. Instead, Foldershare will run in the background and automatically pop files created in a pre-existing folder on one machine onto a folder on the other, and it'll go both ways too.

For example, on the Windows box at work, I've got a folder full of pics of Audi RS4s in all their hi-res glory. I use a shareware app called "John's Background Switcher" that uses all the pics in that folder to randomly swap out my desktop backgrounds. I've got a similar batch of photos for the exact same purpose on my powerbook, except it also has photos of motorcycles and the Ford Reflex concept car in addition to completely different RS4 pics. Once I fired up Foldershare on both machines and logged in, I specified which folders to synch and then blammo! I had the photos of both computers on each.

And if you stop to think about it, it's also acting as a data backup solution. Each photograph went from being saved on one machine to being on two (there aren't any server-side copies of the data because it's a P2P app). If my powerbook were to die (which it very well could do), those photographs are now backed up on the work machine and vice versa.

Can you imagine what kind of fun you could have with a home network? Your files would fly around a fast local wifi network without needing to get on the big bad internet at all. Every single machine would be a music or media server, have all of your work files, whatever. I really could have used this last year, when I had 4 computers bouncing around the apartment. Two were old laptops doing single purpose things they could handle, like downloading TV shows or playing music, while I worked away on my iBook doing web work and had a Windows box for IE testing purposes and occasionally batch processing photos in Fireworks. You can imagine the file synching issues.

This all got started because my work is moving offices in April and we were advised to save or backup any local files we had. These pics are the only thing I really need to keep with me, so my first geeky inclination was to zip them up and upload them to my own personal server for later, but man, that seemed like a ginormous pain in the ass. Especially since I'd have to go through the whole process again every time I saved a new photo. In comparison, this was totally painless to setup and now it'll maintain itself without any further work. Well done, Foldershare people - you have at least one new fan today.

More reviews:

FolderShare at Chastney Towers - stick around to the end for a great "Foldershare saves the day" story about how Graham forgot his sermon at home and logged on from the church computer to grab it from there.
keep your PCs in sync with FolderShare - more in-depth review by JK about how he uses Foldershare.
The Sony U- the original UMPC? - JK makes an interesting observation in the comments thread; he's going to use Foldershare to keep his Origami-style mini-computer synched to his home network.

elsewhere on the web: review, foldershare, microsoft, useful, free

Podcast: The Abraham Lincoln Logs

2006-03-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I realize how funny and weird my friends are. My buddy Brett Jackson started up a funny political podcast that showcases his unique Monty Python-like view of the world, as well as his excellent radio voice.

alperabut (1:51:06 PM): abe lincoln

alperabut (1:51:07 PM): good shit

alperabut (1:51:10 PM): who knew?

imbrettjackson (1:51:15 PM): Who knew?

alperabut (1:51:21 PM): apparently you

alperabut (1:51:28 PM): what a find!

imbrettjackson (1:51:46 PM): All I had to do was ask, too.

alperabut (1:52:35 PM): hanging out with the dead presidents - you fucking scenester

imbrettjackson (1:53:10 PM): I met him at a club

alperabut (1:53:35 PM): booting black tar heroin in the alley behind the bathrooms

imbrettjackson (1:53:51 PM): Pine tar heroin - but yes

alperabut (1:54:54 PM): I knew it - I've seen his type before, they're all the same

elsewhere on the web: IM, friends, funny, politics, political, podcast

OS X/Windows Dual Boot

2006-03-16T11:00:00.000-08:00

Update: Holy shit! Apple just released Boot Camp, their own Windows boot program and obviates the need for going through the lengthy hacks below. I wonder if the blogosphere pressured them into making it?

Oh my goodness, this is rad. Even though you knew it was going to happen at some point, it's still cool to see it finally happen. Link below via Jay Schreiber:

Contest won: WinXP boots on Intel Mac

“The contest for the first solution to boot Windows XP on an Intel-Mac has been won, according to a post on the official website. The contest had offered a cash reward of nearly $14,000 for the first successful solution...”

Digg has another dual-booting link as well.

I'm wondering if it'd be worth trying out an open source Windows Media Center-style setup? It could be fun to get a little Mythtv action going on a quiet and small Mac Mini if you don't wanna spring the dough for an Eyetv rig, especially since I'm planning to get a Mini anyway.

Mmmm, I dunno about that - free is cool but the new eyetv2 integration with video ipods looks killer.

elsewhere on the web: Mac, Apple, Windows, os, dualboot, hack, macmini, mediacenter, contest, news

Totally A Girl

2006-03-13T11:14:00.000-08:00

alperabut (10:46:53 AM): you bought real fur?

alperabut (10:47:03 AM): omfg, we can't be friends now

electromute (10:47:06 AM): it's not a fur jacket

electromute (10:47:09 AM): it just has a collar

electromute (10:47:16 AM): dude, it was on my honeymoon in italy

electromute (10:47:19 AM): i'm allowed!!!

electromute (10:47:26 AM): the collar comes off

alperabut (10:47:20 AM): hahaha

alperabut (10:47:26 AM): you *are* a girl

This was kind of unexpected from my technonerd programmer friend Ingrid. Next thing you know, she'll be saying she saved money because it was on sale.

Update: Wow, I was just kidding about the sale thing, but I totally called it, transcript below:

electromute (11:16:13 AM): oh, btw, it was a totally cheap jacket

electromute (11:16:20 AM): like $30

alperabut (11:16:17 AM): ha

alperabut (11:16:36 AM): I was right, you were going to tell me that it was on sale...

alperabut (11:16:43 AM): I gotta add that into the post...

You know, after talking it out with Ingrid and looking over the posts above, I realize there's an implication in there that I don't know if I like: that women nerds are somehow less girly and that it's so surprising when they actually are. I'll have to tackle that some other time.

elsewhere on the web: IM, friends, funny

My Next Mac And Work Setup

2006-03-08T17:00:00.000-08:00

Update: ooo, a hot top from Billy - looks like some dudes figured out how to upgrade the Mini's chip.

Backstory And Motivation

I'm using windoze at work and a super crappy ancient 500mhz powerbook at home. The first is inefficient and moderately capable, the second is completely unacceptable and was only intended as a backup computer for my old ibook, which was stolen in October.

I'd like to have a smooth setup like a coworker of mine: a single machine that I can tote around from home to work (like his powerbook) and that I can connect from home with. That last part is non-trivial because all of our firewalls and whatnot get in the way of remote desktopping with a Mac, so instead of getting a Wintel that can, I'd rather have a Mac powerful enough for Flash development so I could just vpn and suck down only the files I need. I've already had two sick days so far in the 3 months since I've started and what's killing me is that both were ones were I didn't feel up to going to work yet could have been productive from home.

I was in heat about the MacBook Pro but it's not worth it for me unless it's in a completely maxed-out configuration and that would be like 3-4k at least. Another option is to get a super cheap windows laptop just to remote in with and let the horsepower of the work machine do the heavy lifting, but that only solves the "working from home" problem, not the "having a cool home computer to do other fun stuff with" problem. Now that I'm pretty settled in at the new job, I'd like to get certain side projects underway. You know, the usual: cure for cancer, world domination, making the ultimate fembot, etc.

My Planned Solution

I'm thinking about getting a dual processor Mac Mini - it would be small enough to tote around like a laptop (especially with this custom Tom Bihn bag), powerful enough to do Flash and graphics processing stuff, cost about 1.4k with all the options and the best part, it would be a great future investment because it could be retired gracefully by being reborn as a home media center and connect to a (currently non-existent) tv in the (currently non-existent) living room.

So that's the plan. I'm anywhere between 1 to 2 months out from realizing it, since I've got to get a place in the city first and then schlep all the peripherals up from San Diego.

elsewhere on the web: Apple, MacMini, TomBihn

My 30th

2006-03-01T13:26:00.000-08:00

So, um... I'm, like, old now - here's the Flickr photos from my 30th. It was Carolyn's bday too - there's pics of her and friends in there as well. (That's not Carolyn on the right - that's Yesi)

Thanks to everyone that came out, it was good seeing friends again. I'd like to think I have something deeper to say about the fact that I'm 30 now, but honestly? I don't feel any different. It was just a good excuse to party!

Looking back on my last birthday, I ushered out my last year of being young and stupid with a bunch of work instead of partying. This year looks like I'm going to be able to relax a little more and enjoy the fruits of my labor instead. Just a hunch.

And on a side tangent, I've noticed that my coming down to San Diego feels like an event, since people make an effort to come out that might not if I didn't live in San Francisco now. You really don't realize how many friends you have until, well, until you actually do realize. These are friends that I might have seen individually over the course of a couple of months if we were in the same town and now I'll see them all at once on one night. The downside is that it's hard to catch up with everyone at once, especially late at night in a loud nightclub. Lesson learned: next time I come down, Friday March 17th, we're going out to some place cool and chill - Crush in Hillcrest.

elsewhere on the web: birthday, party, alabut, 30, airconditionedbar

Does Google Pages Suck?

2006-02-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

Update: I removed some linkrot and replaced a broken link to the announcement that Frontpage was killed off.

I saw Google Pages pop up on the del.icio.us “popular links” radar earlier this week and Drew McLellan's reviewed it already.

Signup was painless, editing was painless, publishing was painless. The resultant markup? Painful.

Is it just me, but why is the initial report about each new web publishing tool the same old goddamn refrain? What is this, nineteen-ninety-fucking-eight? When the hell are tool-makers going to start respecting the markup that comes out under the hood instead of just the surface-level appearance?

I'm officially out of patience when even Google gets this shit wrong. I was rejoicing about Frontpage dying earlier this week and the relief was short-lived - we're making some of the same mistakes all over again, but hey, it's okay because it's on the web daddyo and that makes it cool, dontcha know?

elsewhere on the web: Frontpage, Google, Pages, webstandards, markup, html

Pandora Rocks So Hard...

2006-02-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

...that words cannot express it. Pandora has been rocking my shorts for over a week now and it just keeps getting better. The Imaginary Shapes? Girls Against Boys? Maxïmo Park? Beat Happening? Where the hell have all these good bands been hiding?

It's the same emerging-from-a-musical-slumber feeling I had when playing with the iTunes “people who bought that also bought this” feature. And the kicker: it's free.

elsewhere on the web: music, Pandora, web2.0, TheImaginaryShapes, GirlsAgainstBoys, gvsb, MaxïmoPark, BeatHappening

I'm About To Go Postal

2006-02-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

alperabut (9:14:53 AM): hey kid

GoogleAlexis (9:15:01 AM): hey you

GoogleAlexis (9:15:05 AM): what's shaking?

alperabut (9:15:35 AM): my belief in human kindness

alperabut (9:15:56 AM): because I want to slap down the annoying programmer to my left already and we're barely starting the day

GoogleAlexis (9:16:00 AM): lol

GoogleAlexis (9:16:04 AM): the one that won't shut up?

alperabut (9:16:08 AM): oh god yes

alperabut (9:16:43 AM): if he butts into one more conversation or walks around to look over my shoulder to see what I'm working on one more time, I'm going to slap him down a flight of stairs

elsewhere on the web: IM, friends, funny, work

A Question For James

2006-02-06T11:58:00.000-08:00

This goes out to James Leland: considering the conversation we recently had about creating that “dirty look” entirely in the computer, would you consider this latest piece by Red Labor to be beautiful?

elsewhere on the web: RedLabor, dirty, webdesign, photography, friends

Feeling The Love

2006-02-06T09:53:00.000-08:00

alperabut (9:10:41 AM): hey

alperabut (9:10:44 AM): I just got an IM

alperabut (9:10:53 AM): what's your "I love you man" all about

jdsd525 (9:12:09 AM): Nothin.

jdsd525 (9:12:32 AM): Just incase you had forgotten and were feeling unloved.

alperabut (9:13:17 AM): ha

alperabut (9:13:17 AM): !

alperabut (9:13:19 AM): awesome

alperabut (9:13:23 AM): who needs enemies...

elsewhere on the web: IM, friends, funny, JohnDick

Podcasting From The Grave

2006-02-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

smallworldpdcst (7:52:31 AM): could you please vote for The Mister Mark Show podcast. i'm really trying to grow this show despite the fact that the host is dead.

smallworldpdcst (7:52:37 AM): well, i'm trying to spread the gospel. his stuff is just too good to let fade away.

smallworldpdcst (7:52:49 AM): please vote here

Wow, now that's a dedicated podcaster - not even death slows his output rate. You gotta vote for that.

elsewhere on the web: podcasting, podcast, death

Showing My Southern California Roots

2006-02-02T17:43:00.000-08:00

alperabut (5:17:03 PM): can I tell you something nerdy?

electromute (5:17:13 PM): of course!!

alperabut (5:17:18 PM): I feel like I'm sitting at the cool kids table everytime I put craigslist.org in the address bar without having to put the city in front of it

alperabut (5:17:32 PM): it's sort of like a "new york is the capital of the world" snobbiness without the new york

electromute (5:17:43 PM): HA!

alperabut (5:17:44 PM): not that I'm a San Franciscan by any stretch of the imagination

electromute (5:19:10 PM): well.....

electromute (5:19:14 PM): who is?

alperabut (5:19:34 PM): um

alperabut (5:19:36 PM): I dunno

alperabut (5:19:47 PM): anyone that says "hella" with a straight face?

electromute (5:20:21 PM): heh

elsewhere on the web: IM, socal, california, sanfrancisco, culture, craigslist

Housecleaning

2006-01-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

My apologies in advance for those subscribed to the feed: it might become a bit cluttered and useless over the next week. You might have noticed some burps of old content over the weekend - due to a change I made in the settings for Blogger, I have to go through my old posts and do a bit of semantic xhtml housecleaning. Apparently there were giant blocks of text that looked like paragraphs but actually just had a bunch of break returns littered about.

This hasn't really mattered until now, but lately I've been applying classes to paragraph tags to do different things (e.g., class="update") and also need Blogger to create the right underlying structure for more advanced microformat markup I'm going to do later, like book reviews, event recaps and more structured blogging stuff like that.

Guidelines and howtos:

Resolutions For 2006

2006-01-04T23:31:00.000-08:00

Life passes most people by when they're busy making grand plans for it.
- George Jung in Blow (2001)

For the first time ever, I'm finally writing down my resolutions and posting them online. The idea is that if I post it somewhere public, I can refer back to it throughout the year to realign priorities and gauge progress. I meant to do this last year and kept thinking back to how much of a motivator it would have been.

I Am Jack's Utter Determination

So here we go:

Finish the Ruby self-tutorial series - it was one of the casualties of my whirlwind freelancing lifestyle all of last year and I think the combination of returning to full-time work and moving to a new city where I hardly know anyone will open up a lot of time for side projects.
Document more learning projects after the Ruby series - I already hinted earlier that I might do something similar for Rails with the pickaxe book and other topics altogether.
Build at least two working and public Rails apps - I've already got a short list of itches I'd like to scratch.
Explore teaching, lecturing and writing opportunities - my lecture last July at UCSD marked 4 consecutive years that I've been presenting at Campus LISA and I have to admit that it's a lot of fun. I'm curious to see what life would be like if I gave a concerted effort to doing more of the same.
Check out user groups in my new town - here's a hint as to where I am both geographically and interest-wise.
Write at least one blog post a week - time to more consistently practice what I preach. Plus it'll be a good way to stay in touch with friends and family from back home.
Go to the gym four times a week - twice a week for cardio, twice a week for weights.
Get completely debt-free. I paid off my credit cards in 2005, this year I'm going to finish paying off educational loans, the motorcycle loan I took on in Oct and the massive one I'm about to take on from the Apple Store after I find a place.
Go salsa dancing with my girl - we started lessons last year, taking a few more and then putting it into practice at clubs would be cool.
Take at least one international trip, probably to Turkey to see family and tour the touristy spots with Yesi, also hopefully to Germany when my dad should be there and we can go to a World Cup game. Possible extra: motorcycle tour around Germany with some folks I met in my safety class.
Do a weekly budget and finances review.
Cook at home at least three times a week.
Take either a drawing or singing class.
Research options for grad school.

There's also a few more random tidbits on my 43things list, but not all of them are specifically for this year.

This is going to be such a fun and busy year.

elsewhere on the web: resolutions, 2006, goals

Happy Holidays!

2006-01-01T00:51:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note to let people know that yes I'm alive and that I hope everyone has had a wonderful winter holiday season. 2005 was a pretty big year for me:

Had a second straight awesome year with my awesome girl.
Met a bunch of great new friends while freelancing and contracting all around San Diego.
Got to know an extended cast of friends even better while keeping up our weekly poker game all year.
Kept the bowling flame alive for a third straight year with my bros Trav and Mark - not even the shutdown of our beloved Sunset Bowl could keep us down.
Stayed in touch with my longtime web design bros Brett, Jason and John, even though all four of us spread out all across this frigging country.
Met a ragtag group of funny and smart creatives on the 3ones mailing list thanks to list mommy Kelly Abbott.
I moved to a new city.
I left freelance work and went full-time at a new job.

Yep, you read those last two right :) and I've got big news for the few that I haven't had a chance to tell in person. I'm going to have to devote ink to it later, when things settle down a bit. I don't even have a place yet - I'm writing this from an Extended Stay Hotel as it is.

I hope you've all had a marvelous year too and may the next 365 be just as great.

elsewhere on the web: 2006, holidays, newyear

Wow, I'm Videoblogging

2005-09-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

Did you know that photo-sharing websites are branching out into sharing video clips too? Neither did I until I tried it out on this post - I swear it took like two seconds to link to a short clip of my girlfriend's nieces enjoying the sunshine at the Getty garden. Here's a photo album of the museum visit too, for kicks. (you can't see the video in feedreaders like Bloglines - Jusspress requires iframes to display them, for now)

Upload Video at JussPress.com

And uh, no, I haven't forgotten to do a catch-up post explaining what the hell I've been up to for the last 5-6 months. For now, let's just say 2005 has been one of the busiest years of my entire career so far, okay? More on that later.

elsewhere on the web: video, videoblogging, vlogging

UCSD Campus LISA, 2005

2005-07-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

Update (11/2/05) - I just realized the link to my presentation is broken because I switched hosting companies and then had my iBook stolen before I could repost the slides to the new server. I'd also recorded the audio and was going to put that up as well, to give the visuals some context. Man, what a shame.

Welcome Campus LISA audience members! Here's the slides for my presentation, Blogging: Not Just For Diaries Anymore. I'll post the audio from the lecture sometime within the next few days as well for those that couldn't make it, since I don't think the slides stand up by themselves.

It was pretty fun to see old friends and present in front of a group again, since I haven't done either of those things in quite a while, definitely not since I put my web designer nose on the freelancer grindstone. I left UCSD in late October of 2004 after several years of working there straight out of college and a lot of people I ran into didn't even know that I'd left - the whirlwind of this lifestyle made it feel like I hadn't been back in at least twice as long!

elsewhere on the web: blogging, presentations, slideshows, ucsd

Ruby Self-Tutorial, Day 3 of 21: Containers

2005-03-30T09:42:00.000-08:00

(note: this is part of a 3 week series)

Day 3 - Containers

Update: For those of you reading along online without the book (is this series actually interesting to anyone without it?) you get an extra fuzzy warm bonus for this chapter and this chapter alone: Chapter 3 is online in its entirety at the publisher's website. These are obviously very intelligent and handsome people.

This was an interesting morning - I sat down to do homework and realized they did quite the bait and switch scam on us poor greenhorn saps: we're going to be learning about shipping containers and sea lanes. I thought this was a book about programming? What's this crap about containers?!?!?

Today we look at objects whose only purpose in life is to hold other objects. Containers make programming more convenient in the same way that grocery bags make it easer to get your food home from the store: They reduce the number of objects you have to handle and the number of names you have to remember.

And a special note for those of you following along in real time: I'm going to have to post two days of homework today, since Blogger has been ~~biting my ass~~ having some trouble with their excellent free service and experiencing server slowdowns during a server upgrade.

Results

[to be updated later in the day after completing the chapter]

elsewhere on the web: Ruby, programming, learn, tutorial

Ruby Self-Tutorial, Day 2 of 21: Hello, Objects!

2005-03-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

(note: this is part of a 3 week series)

Day 2 - Hello, Objects!

Today is a brief intro of the concept of objects in Ruby.

We will be spending this day learning about objects in Ruby, designing them, creating them, examining them, give them names, and teaching them tricks.

Thankfully, it looks like they keep the OOP rhetoric down to just a few paragraphs, long enough to segue into it for the newbies, short enough to jump right into the material for everyone else. The concept of "self" and "other" objects are first up and definitely need explaining, then it goes into classes and methods for them.

Results

Before explaining what objects themselves are, we dive back into another 4-5 paragraphs on the OOP movement itself and where it went wrong, or as they succinctly sum up, Objects were supposed to make things easier for everybody, but somehow they turned into just one more weird concept to trip over. Methinks that sentence is interesting. It's not just another anti-OOP rant, it's something more nuanced: it's not the concept of using objects that's made previous OOP languages difficult to learn for most and unwieldy for all, it's the specific implementation. [1]

Jumping into using the first object, we use the biggest one of all to get comfortable with the concept: self. It seems to be analogous to this in other languages I've used, since it can mean different things depending on where you use it. Again, to be explained better in later chapters. And oh how rad was the self.methods - generic_methods line?

After self, we made our first simple object, playfully called other. This chapter seemed to have a tongue-in-cheek "philosophy" theme applied throughout and it particularly helped when moving to explain how classes and instances worked:

Look at it this way: What we have created is not a philosopher, but a school that produces philosophers. It is those philosophers, and not the school itself, who know how to philosophize.

And there you have it: very simple and easy distinction between classes and the instances spawned from them. Classes are a way to mass-produce objects and objects do stuff. An instance is a particular object made from a class. There are some best practices sprinkled in between the explanations as well: start a class name with a capital letter. It'll save your sanity and readability later.

One surprising section was the detailed explanation of Localized Scope - is the concept really that different from other languages or counter-intuitive to those new to programming in general? I was surprised at the amount of airtime this got. Whatever, I'm sure there's stuff I'm fascinated by that's old hat to others. I really did like the analogy of "local variables are like pronouns" though, it's the clearest explanation I've seen yet. In fact, all of the analogies throughout the chapter have been funny and useful. I know different chapters have different contributing authors, so I don't know if Mark or a ghost writer did this very important section but regardless, kudos on one of the smoothest intros to OOP I've ever read.

Homework

#1 worked like a charm and it was actually kind of fun: it doubled as a neat intro into refactoring. For those even greener than I to programming: refactoring is the art and science of going through code that works and cleaning it up to make it even leaner. In this example, we removed superfluous variables.

#2 was even more refactoring and believe it or not, I got an answer that's different from the book:

me: puts ClockWatcher.new.double_report
them: puts((ClockWatcher.new).double_report)

What did I say about refactoring being fun? I got my first taste of POLS: not knowing how to do something, taking a shot at it, seeing the line work as intended. Like it read my mind...

#3 was about localized scope - calling the methods of "Frank" while in the "Joe" object doesn't work, since we've only learned about local variables so far, not ones with global scope. Patience, that'll come later.

Useless Personal Observations

During the examples, I noticed a cool side effect of using IRB in the command line was that it would match the line numbers in the book if you followed along closely. It was a great way-finding aid when jumping back and forth from the screen to the book.

The book also explains that IRB increments to both show the "line number" and the level of nesting within the program. Anything above 0 for the last numeral means it's waiting for you to complete something so it can evaluate. This is a handy way to avoid one of the most common headaches in markup and code, misspelled/absent closing tags or end arguments. It's such a big deal that Joel Spolsky looks for this in interviews, whether candidates close their functions properly even when writing code down on paper.

Some signs of a good programmer: good programmers have a habit of writing their { and then skipping down to the bottom of the page and writing their }s right away, then filling in the blank later.
- The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing

Actually, he used to look for this, he doesn't anymore now that he told the whole damn world by writing about it. Thanks, Joel, now everyone's a good programmer, great.

Well, maybe you need to know other things too. Still, just that one tiny quick tip has helped me a lot: write out the opening and closing tags at the same time, e.g. for markup you'd write <p></p> before filling it in with whatever, or in Javascript, a function should look like someFunction(){} and then you can cram your genius in between the curly braces.

I had a minor problem with the scripts saved into text files rather than entered directly into the command line: the first line with the weird hash marks and directory path - #!/usr/bin/env ruby - was supposed to make it so you didn't have to type "ruby" in as a command every time you want to compile the code, but it didn't work for me. I had to write "ruby foo.rb" every time I wanted to see foo.rb's output. I thought maybe the problem was that the directory path it's referencing doesn't exist - there isn't an "env" subdirectory in /usr/bin - but chopping that off doesn't help either. Is there something OS X-specific I need to do to get this damn thing to work?

Update: it's all good, I now feel like a very cool command line ninja. A little. Scroll down to the comments to see Russ helping out with a quick OS X tutorial on making your Ruby scripts run.

[1] An even further tangent about needing languages that are flexible and amenable to a lot of changes: rapid iteration and quick prototyping are the cornerstones of two prominent methodologies in the last decade, extreme programming and interaction design. Yes, they have their differences and most people only know about one or the other just because of their background and skill set (designer or programmer), so they don't usually learn anything about the other side other than seeing a few flamefests online. The fathers of each movement even provided an entertaining dual interview showdown where they hashed out their differences, but despite all this teapot tempesting, it's important for web developers to see similarities in their rapid fire approaches. The type of applications we make are such a car crash between two much older and formerly distinct industries, graphic design and software development, with useful best practices to glean from both. Notice I only said applications - that's only one branch of web design. The design of content-heavy sites, for example, is also influenced by fields such as journalism and library sciences.

shoutouts: Garrick's Day 2
(are you learning Ruby and blogging it out too? let me know)

elsewhere on the web: Ruby, programming, learn, tutorial

Ruby Self-Tutorial, Day 1 of 21: Getting Started With Ruby

2005-03-26T21:40:00.000-08:00

(note: this is part of a 3 week series)

For Those About To Rock

Here we go - I've been itching to get this project started for weeks and the big day is finally here. I completely blanked on it being Easter Sunday though, so if y'all can put that aside and get started with me anyway, I'll try to forget that the U.S. lost to Mexico in a 2-1 nailbiter this morning. Man, it was a World Cup qualifying match too, we really needed that. Although they came on strong in the second half, they just looked plain sloppy in the first. Being Turkish-American, at least I can take solace in Turkey winning against Albania.

Day 1 - Getting Started With Ruby

The good news is that today is a relatively light day, as to be expected from an introductory chapter. From the book:

Today we'll talk some in general terms about what the Ruby language is, find out where to get it if it's not already installed, and take our first simple programming steps.

I can help out with getting Ruby installed for those of you without it - which means mostly Windows users since OS X kids already have it - by pointing you to Curt Hibbs' tutorial on Ruby On Rails. You don't have to go through the whole thing if you don't have the time (it really does give you a neat little taste of the power of Rails) and can just jump down to the section on "Installing the Software". That's how I got Ruby, Ruby On Rails and MySQL installed on my Win box and it was painless. Believe me, I'm no UNIX software-installing expert and it went fine.

Results

Today starts off with a bit of an intro to the characteristics of Ruby, as opposed to the more historical descriptions in the previous Introduction chapter. Since anyone actually doing the course is obviously someone that knows enough about Ruby to be interested in learning it, there's no need to preach to the choir too much - we're already sold on it, thanks. However, there's some points that stood out worth commenting on.

First, the assertion that Ruby is "Small And Intuitive". The word "intuitive" is a bit loaded - different things are intuitive to different people - but the concept of a "small" language is interesting. The definition offered is that Ruby is small because it doesn't require a lot of memorization, which implies that you can learn just a few things and go all crazy combinatorial with them. Now that intrigues me a lot and I'm totally sold on the idea of simple yet powerful, the philosophy of using simple things that combine to produce complex results. It's very Stephen Wolfram (A New Kind Of Science) and Steven Berliner Johnson (Emergence), like simple recursive mathematical formulas that produce beautiful fractal patterns or many tiny stupid ants that build smart colonies of incredible sophistication, complete with cemeteries, landfills, gardens, livestock farms and heating systems.

This section also introduces the concept of POLS - the principle of least surprise, asserting that Ruby avoids the frustration of those with "Do What I Mean!" stickers plastered on their monitors.

Ruby is an object-oriented programming (OOP) language. I won't open the can of worms of whether that is clearly a good thing or not, I'll just say that I'm a fan and observe that the OOP concept is familiar to Flash developers, since our code can actually target specific objects on the screen and not just the abstract concept of an object. I've found that really helps in going from procedural languages to wrapping your noggin around the OOP workflow. Manipulating the DOM with Javascript is similar, since you're targeting a specific piece of markup in a web page. According to the authors, Ruby's "internal logic" (whatever that means) implies that despite similarities to Perl, Ruby is more like a pure OOP language called SmallTalk. Considering the praise heaped on languages like SmallTalk and Lisp by the likes of uberprogrammers Dave Thomas (Programming Ruby) and Paul Graham (Hackers And Painters), this comparison made me pay attention to the rumblings I've been hearing about Ruby being immensely learnable yet powerful. Maybe it's not hype after all, eh?

Writing the first script was interesting! At the end of each line, I had to slap away my right hand from the keyboard with the left: I was trained like a monkey to put a semicolon and it was a difficult urge to resist. Resist it I did, though, and then smile to myself after realizing the keystroke was superfluous. I had a brief hallucinatory flashback of all the stupid semicolons I'd typed before, a line of pixels stretching out to a distant horizon behind me, my right index finger tapping out a constant stream of the buggers. All the wasted seconds and energy I'd spent, imagine what that adds up to!

Playing with the dot notation of accessing methods (string_variable.length, string_variable.reverse) was a welcome familiarity from Actionscript and Javascript.

The string reversal reminded me of a bit of trivia: my full name backwards is Tuba Repla. What's yours?

I much prefer the #{variable} way of introducing variables into a string rather than the ", variable, " equivalent. For example, this:

print "Backwards, it reads #{user_input.reverse}.\n"

Reads better to me than this:

print "Backwards, it reads ", user_input.reverse, ".\n"

I never really liked breaking up the double quote marks, it just felt wrong and made the damn things to hard to read. The first line is how I see the problem in my head - the sentence isn't broken up into strings and variables. Ah well, inherent readability amongst languages is an endless debate, no need to trigger it here, put your guns away.

The Using Ruby Interactively section was very cool. It was like having a little conversation with my iBook. No saving a text file, flipping over to the terminal and then running the damn thing - you just enter it right in and watch it run runnity run. The book says this is a great technique for testing out sections of code. For me, it was also a nostalgic reminder of how I got hooked on programming in the first place, way back when I was a little kid typing BASIC commands into a Texas Instruments console hooked up to the TV. Write a few commands and bam, watch it print stuff to the screen. There's always been an intermediary step - I haven't done it directly in the command line in years! I feel the same sense of play as I did back then too! Okay, I'm officially gushing too much.

And thanks to that exercise, I now know that I'm running Ruby version 1.6.8 on the little guy. I have no idea how current that is and don't even come close to caring; I can upgrade it later on if need be.

IRB was rad, it's like the "use tracer bullets" methodology of the Pragmatic Programmer book. Tracer comments are something every Actionscripter is familiar with - it's a life saver when isolating the effects of a section of code. IRB is like that, but throughout the program, on every line of code. My program's riddled with bullets!

The link to the eval.rb script is broken - download it here instead: http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~slagell/ruby/eval.rb

Here's the related and useful explanation of what the hell eval.rb is and how to use it. It's just easier to see what it does (color coding the output in your terminal window) and takes but a second to try out.

Homework

You fire up irb and enter a bunch of lines into the command line, while observing the resultant output, then there's 9 simple questions afterwards. I got 6 right, 1 wrong, 2 blank-cause-I-don't-know.

I got number 4 wrong - I mistakenly remembered irb as saying that the string "99" was less than "100" and rationalized it as being because "99" had less characters than "100". The correct answer is that "99" is greater than "100", since strings are compared alphabetically and 9 is greater than 1 in that sense, just as "Wilma" is greater than "Fred".

I blanked on number 6 - I wasn't sure if "hubba " * 2 would come out as 12 (a 6 character string times 2) or "hubba hubba " and the answer was the later, "hubba hubba ". Multiplying a string replicates and concatenates it.

I also didn't know number 7, which says that <=> gives -1, 0 or 1 as values, rather than true or false. To be explained in later chapters.

More Useless Personal Observations

Something I noticed while doing the homework: I love that you put a question mark at the end of a command that's asking something. It feels so human - sometimes we make statements while talking, asking questions at other times, it goes back and forth. That's called a conversation.

After posting this morning's chapter summary, I drove down from my girlfriend's folks place in Sylmar (north Los Angeles) and didn't settle in to read the chapter until 9pm. I'm happy to report that doing the reading, completing the exercises and writing it up took no more than an hour and half, so the workload definitely looks manageable so far. If any day was going to test whether real life was going to derail the course, today was a good candidate: wake up with a twisted neck on a couch made for midgets to a full and bustling house on Easter Sunday, watch a World Cup qualifier, catch up with some client work and drive for several hours.

Granted, we're just dipping our toes in easy material so far, let's see how challenging later chapters get, but I still can't resist: w00t!

shoutouts: Garrick's Day 1

elsewhere on the web: Ruby, programming, learn, tutorial

Ruby Book: I'm Sure Pickaxe Is Great

2005-03-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

I've been getting a lot of enthusiasm and feedback thrown my way since announcing my Ruby learning project and one consistent point raised has been about how great the Dave Thomas book on Ruby is. I said as much in my initial post but it was a bit longish and the point may have been buried in there: I agree, the book looks like a winner, I loved "Journeyman to Master" and the pickaxe will definitely go in my library. I just don't think it's best for initially learning the language and the "one chapter a day for three weeks" format of the Sams book that we'll be using fits the blogging experiment much better than a reference book. If I knew Ruby well enough to estimate how long each chapter would take in order to slice them up accordingly, I'd already know Ruby!

From what I gather (and there was a bit of support along those lines in my thread at the Ruby Google Group), Dave's book is more for people that are already programming for a living in other languages and looking to transfer their skill sets. That's not me! I'm coming at it from the client side and looking to expand my design chops into including the backend too, at least for the majority of projects that I do. My clients have been very happy with the interactivity that comes with adding a "News & Events" section to their sites with weblog tools - they feel so empowered over their content, like it's not just some scary technical thing that an expensive expert has to dissect but something approachable that they can lovingly maintain. This isn't a level of service that they expect to get for a small to mid-sized project, especially not something that looks good (you're a designer? and a programmer?!?!?) and I want to give them more of that feeling.

So, to sum up, I need more of a beginner's book, with an eye towards the pickaxe for getting even better later. Who knows? Like I said in the "Future" section of my initial post, if this proves useful to me and others, maybe I'll repeat the experiment again for other books.

And can someone tell me why they keep calling it pickaxe? Anyone? Please?

elsewhere on the web: Ruby, programming, tutorial, learn, books, toread, reference, pickaxe

Learn Ruby In 3 Weeks

2005-03-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

Update: I put the wrong end date, it's been corrected below. What a jackass... And the series resumes tomorrow - I've been sidelined with backed up client work and a major cold. Looks like I've got a lot of ground to make up to stay on schedule. Ah, that's what weekends are for: working.

I've decided to learn the Ruby programming language over the course of 3 weeks - anyone wanna learn along with me? I'm going to blog out every day of my progress throughout and leave the commenting on for group participation. Here's the details.

Book

I'll be using Sams Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days. It's pretty widely available, whether at your local megastore or online. If you do decide to get it from Amazon, I'd appreciate if you click through the referral link from my site before ordering just to support the project in a small way. No one's asked this, but just to be clear: it doesn't tack on any extra charges, it just gives me a tiny cut for passing on customers.

Schedule

The starting date is about two weeks from now: Sunday, March 27th, 2005. That should give people enough time to get the book. I'll blog out every day of the course (including weekends) from then until ~~Saturday, April 9th~~ Saturday, April 16th. And for any geeks following along in San Diego or visiting during the weekend of the 9th, I'll also be hosting an end party to celebrate, an informal get together at a bar or coffee shop nearby - more links and details later on.

Format

You don't have to have a blog or even a server to participate. I'll make a post every morning summarizing the chapter's objectives and then I'll update the same post later in the day with a description of how it went for me, with the comments area left open the entire time. Just stay tuned to the main page of my weblog or subscribe to the RSS/Atom feed and you're cool.

Participation

The posts will have commenting turned on and anyone can leave their own notes about how it's going for them: enthusiasm for the new language, questions about stumbling blocks, links to more resources - it's all fair game. You don't need a blog to join along, although those that do should feel free to give shoutouts to their sites, preferably in the comments rather than emailing me. Actually, give yourself a mention even if you're not blogging it out!

You also don't have to have any specific hardware or server setup - Ruby runs fine on Windows, Linux or OS X and unless I'm mistaken, all the exercises will be done on your local computer.

Motivation & Background

I'm a professional web designer who just recently went out on his own after many years of working away full-time at UC San Diego. My skill set is primarily client-side and I'd say I'm firmly in the intermediate programming camp, with advanced skills in non-traditional languages "real" programmers turn their noses up at (Actionscript, XHTML/CSS, XSLT) and semi-newbie status with server-side scripting (like my case study section or simple email forms for clients' contact pages) that they tolerate only a bit more. And that's fine - I don't and am not looking to make desktop software or giant backend apps, the kind of stuff that runs your accounting department and backs up your servers. I want to make great websites, from beginning to end.

Inspiration

Kottke's book club experiment (initial post and review), with a post announcing the McSweeney's book he wanted to read and an end post announcing that he was done. It was yet another neat application of the blogging medium to a new collaborative project - not only was there a sense of going through something with others, but I picked up a good read I probably never would have otherwise and got back into comics for the first time in a long time.
Tantek's writeup (overview and much more useful commentary) of Tim Berners Lee's "Weaving The Web" - I got a lot more out of the book than if I had read it without his insight.
Mark Pilgrim's "Dive Into Accessibility" was a huge influence on me when I was first learning the ropes of standards-based web development and I found the 30 day format very digestible.

Future

I'm curious to see what this'll be like and might consider doing it again. For example, the next logical step after learning Ruby is using the Ruby On Rails framework/library/whatever. Due to a clear O'Reilly tutorial, I've already installed it, played with it and seen the light - it was fun, something I've also heard a lot about learning Ruby in general. There's a "Four Days on Rails" PDF out that looks cool and even more promising, Dave Thomas (no, not the Wendy's guy, the one that wrote the fabulous, inspirational, highly influential and immensely readable "The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master" tomb) has already written a book on Ruby (already in second edition) and is in the final stages of writing a book on Rails titled "Agile Web Development with Rails", due out in July. Branching out to other areas is definitely possible too, whether to even more foreign territories as a newbie or topics where I can give more of an expert viewpoint, like CSS or Turkish soccer :)

Summary

So that's the project and I'm excited to get it underway! Feel free to leave a comment here to say hello. I've got a few friends lined up already and hopefully there'll be a good-sized group of people doing this at the same time, but the beauty of the time-stamped blogosphere is that at the end of this, there'll be a resource standing there for anyone that comes across it later and decides to run the gauntlet too.

elsewhere on the web: Ruby, programming, learn, tutorial

A Little Background

2005-03-03T23:01:00.000-08:00

I started programming when I was about five or six years old.

People sometimes think I'm bragging when they hear me say that, or like on Tuesday morning when it came up in a meeting, they give a surprised laugh and wonder how something like that could come about. It's neither bragging nor especially weird, it's just a little insight into who I am. When it came up earlier this week, we were looking over some work from my portfolio and they seemed to be trying to reconcile the work they were seeing with the fact that it was from someone "self-taught", a label that just seems so dirty to me for some reason. You'd never want a heart transplant from a self-taught surgeon and neither would I, so I prefer "autodidact" and that seems to help me sleep at night. I'm comfortable enough around computers that I created my career as a web designer because of the fact that I'm an autodidact, not in spite of it. I was trying to explain that this was perfectly normal, that I didn't need a college degree to do what I do and we all just learn on the job anyway. In fact, the only programming courses I've taken since high school were the ones I took at UCSD because they were easy A's and one of the best Java programmers I've ever met was also a UCSD political science alum like me.

And let me clarify - I don't necessarily consider myself a programmer now, since it depends very much on who I'm talking to. If I'm hanging out with Jude and the rest of the guys from my old job back at UCSD's Biology Computing Services, who drink steaming hot Java and SQL everyday, then I'm not one in that strict traditional sense, someone who'll build your custom accounting and payroll systems. They're the type of guys that love to elucidate why server-side scripting and client-side Javascript and Actionscript aren't real programming languages. Something about compiling and data types. Yeah, go talk to them, my eyes glaze over too.

When I think about how young I got started, it's something I consider a bit personal and embarrassing sometimes, but most of the time I don't feel anything; it's just how it was. A high school friend of mine talked about his father in similar terms - he was so young when his dad died and his mother and three older brothers did such a good job looking out for him that he never knew what it was like to be raised otherwise, it's just the way things were.

I started at about the same age that I also graduated from kicking a soccer ball around with my mom at picnics to playing on a real team. That doesn't feel weird either - I just happened to be raised around soccer and computers and children are sponges, so there you go. Nobody ever seems to get weirded out about the soccer though, as if getting worked up about kicking a ball around was any more sane or ultimately useful. I still love soccer but whenever I stop to think about it, it makes about as much sense as spotting trains.

The first computer I had was a Texas Instruments console that I plugged into the TV, just like a Nintendo, which I wasn't allowed to have. The TI was okay in the eyes of my parents because it was educational, with clunky cartridges filled with math games where you had to solve problems as they fell down the screen before they hit the ground and exploded. More importantly, you could program the thing. With a real programming language, BASIC. High-level, but real.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't write any programs that drew fractal patterns or solved problems that stumped eccentric physicists with strange hair. They were about as complicated as you'd expect a first grader's creation in any medium to be, about as good as their drawing or singing, which is to say not very. I wrote one that flashed "Go Team Go" repeatedly, for example. But like any other endeavor at that age, you're judged by how well you're not expected to perform as a little being of elfin height and therefore the "Go Team Go" program was good enough to show off at school for show and tell. Lugging that big machine into class, taking time before the presentation to hook up the cables to the TV on the big black rolling A/V rack that every American grade schooler can identify at a hundred paces, explaining what my computer and the program was to the class before the bell rang and they ran home - I still remember how important and happy I felt.

What's noteworthy is how your present experiences and identity wash your memories until they fit how you think things happened. I think of myself now as a very literary and articulate person, overly good at English (stuffily verbose really (some might tire of my working John Stuart Mill into lunchtime conversation (pretentious nested asides like this don't help either))) and constantly working on my Turkish to keep it as fluent as I can be. I definitely don't think of myself as a shy wallflower, anything but. Yet back then, I was. I spoke Turkish and was still learning English, my second language that I just picked up a few years before. I probably even had an accent. I was the new kid at school, transferred in sometime in the year and not really in any particular group. I even liked to sing, bold enough to audition for some kind of school choir. All of those things are such a huge divergence from who I now think of myself as, alien characteristics that I've unconsciously identified as "not me" for so long now that it's hard to remember being otherwise, especially not as the exact opposite.

It's almost sad to think about what a bookworm and technophile I was for my age. Sure, okay, curiosity is wonderful and those early experiences laid a great foundation for who I am today, but still, I wonder sometimes. I can still remember my rudimentary efforts at creating artificial intelligence to keep me company, although I didn't think of it as AI or a friend substitute. I'd program the computer to answer or ask questions in a certain scripted queue, so I'd type "How are you?" and it would reply, "Just fine, thanks! What about you?" and I'd write back, so on and so forth. I don't remember if I got far enough along to create a choose-your-own-adventure level of complexity, with conversations forking according to the answers. I seem to remember starting to do that in junior high and running out of patience.

There's been strains of myself that I do identify with too, little threads running through my life that I find joy in looking at, like the story that my mother only recent told me that paints me as psychotically friendly, despite the language barrier. When we moved to our new house in Scripps Ranch, she didn't speak English, didn't know anyone in the neighborhood and I was only five, so you can imagine her alarm when I went missing one day very soon after we moved in. Turns out I went halfway around the cul de sac, knocking on each door along the way, introducing myself and asking if they had any kids my age. Apparently I finally struck gold around house 7 and my poor exasperated mother found me there later, happily playing in the back yard with a little girl named Wendy. I was either too new to English or too young to explain where I lived when her mother would ask, so she didn't know what else to do other than to let me go on playing and I was happy to oblige.

So why is it that the warm and familiar feelings of "ah ha, see, I've always been this way" is in such sharp contrast to the surprise and even melancholy in discovering differences in who you thought you were? The excitment of finding familiar personality themes even applies to learning about other people's backgrounds. I lived with my grandmother in Istanbul for a summer about 6-7 years ago and one of my favorite conversations was when she explained how headstrong my mother was as a high school senior, forgoing college after graduation and jumping straight into the workforce instead. And probably rebellious too - my mother's mother pushed her hard to go to a university because her family didn't allow her to go back in her day, despite being one of the smartest in her class, so my mom probably did what any bullheaded teenager does - the opposite of what your parents are trying to cram down your throat. Doesn't matter that she ended up seeing the light decades later and got an art history degree from Mesa. In fact, she's addicted to classes there and is always taking something every semester. Listening to my mom's obstinacy, I felt a sense of kinship knowing that we were alike.

No answers here and I guess I'm not really looking for any, just a few ruminations that felt worth exploring today.

elsewhere on the web: alabut, childhood, computers

Micropayment Ecommerce Is Finally Here

2005-02-28T15:43:00.000-08:00

I just gladly donated $30 to Jason Kottke's bid to make his website a full-time job.

I love this to a nearly unexplainable degree, this ecommerce for the new generation:

Single publisher, no support or tech or sales or design staff. He's like the Knight Ryder, without that crusty old guy.
He's working on making a personal site a professional one that pays the bills entirely.
He's not selling a physical product like other similar sites that have made a go at self-sustaining small web businesses (Scott Andrew's songs or Clip-N-Seal's useful invention). He's just selling his thoughts, himself if you will, his take on technology, the world, politics, whatever.
He's also looking to be member-supported, like a NPR for the 21st century. He's not plastering the site with advertisements like other blogging/informational small companies that tax your patience for the benefit of a corporate dollar (like Engadget - Jesus, what's with the annoying animated Flash ads? I thought that was supposed to be for clueless newspaper sites only). Instead, his site is a ruthless meritocracy - it'll live and die by what the visitors find valuable. As I heard Tom Petty explain at a concert once as to why he didn't accept corporate sponsorship, which was followed by the roaring applause of the entire stadium: “This concert was brought to you by you!”

Very, very cool.

There's another site that has been doing pretty well from this member subscription-supported business model and that's the Mac news-oriented Daring Fireball, which I also visit regularly and has a great fan base. Jason's venture looks to be even more interesting, as his topic is inherently less of a niche market.

Is this the future? Who knows but probably not all of it, just one aspect of many to come. Not many of us have the audience that Jason does, even though his audience isn't as much of an accident as it might look: his writing and thinking has been leading-edge, relevant and most of all, constant for years now. It's like the Morgan Freeman quote I love from yesterday's Oscars, where someone asked him if he was surprised he won and he replied:

I started out at the age of about 15 to be a movie actor . . . I was always trying to be a movie actor . . . this isn’t serendipity in terms of me being here. This is the fight I’ve been fighting all my life.

Jakob Nielsen (we all love him unconditionally, right?) got me thinking about the micropayment thing years ago and it looked for a long time like it would be one of his futurism theories that would take hold decades later than originally intended, if at all. Even though this business model still isn't exactly what he described, there's enough similarities (advertising doesn't work on the web, locked in rates of subscription are wrong too, lots of people paying small amounts adds up to big money) to be the closest thing out there to what he invisioned and I'm glad to see that I was wrong about any form of this kind of commerce thriving so soon.

elsewhere on the web: blogging, ecommerce, web2.0, web20, inspiration, micropatron

My Last Year Of Twentysomethingness

2005-02-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

So I turned 29 today - happy birthday to me! This isn't a big retrospective post, just a little flag in the ground so I don't feel bad about letting the occasion go unsaid. My girlfriend and family tried to celebrate, but the former was too busy taking care of me while I've been sick with a monster stomach flu all week and the latter was sick too, so Yesi was the only one in any kind of mood for it at all. We're all going to have to get together some other time, maybe later this weekend. If my stomach is up to it, maybe some kind of Indian lunch might be cool or even Italian, now that I found out that one type of seafood my girlfriend isn't allergic to is calamari, one of my favorite types of food. Come to think of it, we haven't properly celebrated my mom's bday either, so that's another good reason to go somewhere as family.

My girl and I had a very relaxing day and she did whatever I wanted to do - slept in, did a million loads of laundry, curled up on the couch and watched a film I really missed seeing in the theaters and had totally forgotten about: Ghost In The Shell 2. Yes, of course it was awesome.

I have a lot to be thankful for. It's been an interesting year to say the least and this next one looks like it won't disappoint either, what with all of the career and personal changes that have been gelling together lately. And hey, a public statement: if I ever get my act together enough to calm my life down a bit, I'm finally going to have a little house party I've been promising my friends for quite a while. I live in a great studio in Hillcrest but I haven't really had anyone over since I moved in about six months ago - changed jobs twice, self-employed and working like a dog, yada yada - so it'd be nice to finally invite some friends and have them help celebrate all the great stuff going on. Until then, a virtual toast! Cheers!

elsewhere on the web: birthday, alabut, 29, retrospective

This RSS Feed Is Moving

2005-02-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

A little bit of housekeeping - my RSS feed is moving and I'd like to ask a few of you, dear readers, to update your blog readers accordingly. Some of you won't have to, read on to see which camp you're in.

The link in the "Subscribe" box in the sidebar and in the meta section of my blog pages point to this link at Feedburner as the preferred source for RSS updates of my content. It's been that way for quite a while. The problem is that some enterprising and overeager blog aggregators (like bloglines) dig up the actual feed itself in addition to that one and people have no way to know that it's not the preferred one anymore. This hasn't been too big of a problem until recently, as I've become more and more addicted to Feedburner's per-post stats on what people are reading and finding worthwhile, i.e. clickthrough-worthy.

To make it worth the few kilojoules of effort to make the switch, let me entice you. You'll get some extra features not in the regular 87 octane feed, things you may not have even known you were missing, such as:

Daily del.icio.us links - Feedburner takes all of the links that I found interesting and that I bookmarked with del.icio.us during the course of the day, batches them into one big list and makes a single post out of that. Think of it as a little daily newsletter about what my web surfing has turned up.
Flickr photos - anything that I post to my Flickr account automagically goes into my Feedburner feed too. You get to see through my eyes.
Optimized data format - you feel like switching newsreaders? Don't know if it supports Atom, RSS 2.0, 1.0, Bulgarian smoke signals? No problem, those geniuses at Feedburner detect what kind of feed you need and serve it up accordingly. No more format wars, at least not in my house.

I'll get a few perks too:

Decreased server load - the feed is cached and served up from Feedburner's servers, so I don't get a million hits a day from automated requests while people leave their blogreaders open. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Increased reliability - every once in a blue moon, I'd say about once or twice a year, I find that my alabut.com server is down. I only put up with this madness because of the ridiculously low cost for a hosting plan with no bandwidth restrictions, a very rare bird. My site being down is scary enough as it is, but it'd ease the pain a little if I knew people could still get my info regardless and that the server issues were invisible to them.
Permanence - I'll never have to ask anyone to update their link to my feed ever again. No matter where on the server or even to another domain I move my actual feed to, the address for the Feedburner link will always remain the same.
Audience information - I get all kinds of traffic stats on the feeds, with the per-post info being especially useful. Now I can see how many people are out there, how many of them click through to the site itself, which posts get clicked on most, among other data, all of which hopefully leads to...
...better content, making me a better and more relevant writer, since I'll be able to see what rings a bell or not. For example, this post about super useful things I've recently found has been my most popular so far and opened my eyes to the idea of doing more short posts like that, just big ol lists of useful links. Wait, del.icio.us already does that. But for different stuff. Well, you get the idea.

If my bloglines data is a rough indicator, I'd say about half of you get your feed straight from the tap, as it were, and the other half get it from the fancy newer bottled source. Hopefully I can get everyone switched over without anyone deciding it's not worth the effort :) and I can't guarantee that I won't move the actual non-Feedburner file to a less public location in the near future to hide it from bad robots, so you've been forewarned - please update your readers!

elsewhere on the web: Feedburner, Atom, RSS, blogging

Smoking And Nature, Brilliant!

2005-01-28T10:08:00.000-08:00

This rant is brought to you by Flickr - click on the image for a larger view of the Japanese cigarette billboard discussed below.

So I posted this image of a cigarette ad in the Tokyo subway to my new favorite toy, Flickr, the photo-sharing and community website that's as addictive as crack laced with heroin, with a little note about how the prominent use of the color green was a conscious choice and I got this question from a passerby: "What effect does green have?" That prompted the four paragraph rant below, enjoy:

Green means nature, health, relaxation... everything that smoking is not! It has a very soothing effect on the picture, a calming tone. Green is not a color that annoys you and jumps to attention, like red or orange or even yellow.

I heard a funny piece on advertising once, I want to say it was by George Carlin, I can't remember. The gist of it was this: advertising is about lying. And not just lying, but telling the exact opposite of whatever the truth is. For example, what do you see when you see a TV commercial for airlines? Everything it's not for most of us: spacious seating, friendly attendants, tasty food, smiling passengers happy with their trip... you don't see the jerk seated in front of you lowering his seat into your lap and crushing you in place, the robotic attendants that have to deal with the rude flocks streaming in and out every day, the person next to you cranking open the window shade to blast you with blinding sunlight when it's the nighttime leg of a long flight and the cabin lights are dimmed to let people sleep and readjust their body rhythms, the nasty prison grub they dare to call food, the sloppy bathrooms you'd never use otherwise, etc. Flying was a magical and expensive thing to do before, now it's going the way of trains and buses. I still get nostalgic when I watch “North By Northwest” and see what travelling in style used to be like. All of this is an example of the kinds of things which marketing departments dare not show - the truth - and is an image they try to reverse. The problem is that you can't reverse something just by pretending it's not that way.

Maybe that's why the best advertisements actually tell the truth for a change. Here in the U.S., there's a very popular TV ad series called "The Truth" that shows what smoking is really like and I remember how shocking it was to finally see someone tell it like it is, even though the ads didn't have any new information. And there's an even more interesting trend lately - the products that work the best seem to get popular without any advertising at all and for some it's even a conscious choice to check out of the whole marketing rat race: Amazon, Google, Flickr, Blogger, etc. Quick, what's a better search engine, Google, Yahoo or MSN? Google. Which ones do you see ads for on TV? Yahoo, MSN. Some have even done their homework before discarding traditional advertising: Amazon did some test ads in major TV markets in the U.S. and didn't see any benefit whatsoever, so they yanked it, didn't go national and never repeated the mistake.

So it's not an accident - someone chose that patch of grass, laid out a model to relax on it, thought about how appealing all of this would look to stressed out city people rushing through the subway tunnels, all to achieve a desired effect.

elsewhere on the web: advertising, graphicdesign, marketing, cigarettes, smoking, photography, Japan, subway

Memories About Nonsense

2005-01-26T01:29:00.000-08:00

I went through my archives (no, they're not up yet) and added Technorati Tags to a few of them to categorize them a bit more, resulting in an unexpected trip down memory lane for me. It's like when you're cleaning your closets and get distracted with sentimental old stuff. Here's a few posts from the last two years that made me reminisce, in reverse order:

Aug 04 - Texas Hold Em Notes - Excited about my first winning night and a fun time on Trav's home-made table.
Aug 04 - Whiplash! - Snowboarding pics made me realize that I've had to put aside ski trips for at least the second year in a row this year, what a travesty.
Aug 04 - My Friend Travis - Totally sick casino-style poker table, put together by a true craftsman.
Sept 03 - She Must Have Been Raised By Wolves - Funny story about some idiot girl.
April 03 - My First Post - Wow, I didn't even know that I was coming up on two years of doing this until just now. I should have a party.

elsewhere on the web: alabut, blog, retrospective

Consumer Overkill, Japan-Style

2005-01-24T16:53:00.000-08:00

So my buddy John Dick invited me to join a group of photographer friends of his and partake in their homework, consisting of a topic handed out on Friday and pictures posted to Flickr or somewhere else online by Sunday night. This week's theme was "obsessive consumerism" or "consumerism gone wild" or something like that, you get the idea, and I went digging through one area of my archives that I thought would have a lot of potential: my trip to Japan during summer 2003. Boy was I right! I only got halfway through the almost two thousand photos when I drew the line and said I have to go to bed, then culled 33 pics from the ones I'd put aside and posted them in this photoset (or just click through the image in this blog post).

A disclaimer: looking through the photoset today, I just realized that it might look like I had a negative outlook on the consumer-oriented culture there or had a bad time - nothing could be further from the truth! I had a wonderful time and the people were so friendly. The capitalism only looked funny because it was in a different context, allowing for things to be seen that are already here and under our noses back home but that you grow accustomed and blind to. This photoset is just but one lens through which you can view my trip and there's way too many pics from the trip to post all of them in order to give a fuller picture of the amazing time I had.

elsewhere on the web: Japan, photography, travel, consumerism, 3ones

Get On The Flickr Train!

2005-01-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

Update Again: I uploaded more poker photos to Flickr and made a set out of them, complete with descriptions. Click on the image or go here to see all seven of them, leave comments, etc: Trav's poker by candlelight

Update: I forgot to include my Flickr home page, here it is: http://flickr.com/photos/alabut/

My first Flickr post - rock on! Click on the image for a larger view.

For those that don't know, Flickr is a photo sharing service that is very geek-friendly, allowing you to do things like publish RSS feeds, batch upload images from iPhoto and like I did here, post images simultaneously to both your Flickr home page and your weblog. I'm loving how the feed to this blog is becoming more and more of a collection point of all of my interests, with all of these things automatically spliced into it: photos through Flickr, sites I find interesting and my commentary on them with my del.icio.us bookmarks, and my written ramblings about digital and offline activites through Blogger.

This shot is from a weekly poker game my friend Trav has been running since August and the power went out about an hour into this week's game, so champs that we are, we went on playing by candlelight. I didn't do so well, but it was still an entertaining night - Greg Willis picked my pocket for a healthy sum with a starting hand of two five offsuit - he flopped quad twos for Chrissakes! - and I had a really embarrassing showdown with Travis, embarrassing because I misread my hand and thought I had two pair (which would have milked him for all of his money) but instead I actually only had a pair of Aces. So did he, with a better kicker and I had to buy in again. Ouch.

elsewhere on the web: poker, photography, Flickr

Things That Rock Me

2005-01-12T11:12:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note on things that I've found to be the new hotness as of late, in no particular order:

Basecamp - rediscovered the coolness of this recently after leaving UCSD; it might be even better suited to my work situation now. Free to get started, cheap to upgrade.
Transmit - the world's best FTP client for the Mac. I just paid good money for it - I know, I know, I actually paid for something - that's how good it is! I was first turned on to Panic Software when reading their riveting account of building Audion, the app that almost became iTunes.
del.icio.us - I've waxed poetic about this already to friends online and off, so I'll just say ditto.
RSS Digest - the combination of this with del.icio.us has opened up my mind to all kinds of exciting mini-projects - God Bless The Web 2.0.
Bloglines - information overload = almost cured. I was practically bordering on a nervous breakdown from using anything else and believe me, I tried several apps.
IKEA - my place is slowly becoming the shit, thanks to these Swedish design gnomes. We are the Design Within Reach generation and they are one of the flag-bearers.
The Casbah - “The Only Cool Place In San Diego”
The Post - it's like being bored at home and finding out the neighbor next door just invited you to a cool party. Hawt.
Getting Things Done and 43Folders - I'm in the beginning stages of having my brain scrubbed clean by this cult.
my iBook - thanks to Panther's transfer feature, upgraded painlessly from my 12" with the G3 chip to the 12" G4 about a month ago - things have been running so smoothly that I forgot I even changed hardware.
Quicksilver - it's like an extension of my thoughts, what the combination of Spotlight and Dashboard promises to be in Tiger, but here right now instead.
Poker - I look forward to the Texas Hold Em game every week; I feel a Vegas trip coming on.
Blogger - every once in a while I stop and realize how cool this tool is.
Flickr - I don't even have a digital camera, yet I'm hooked. That's saying something.

Tiny Change That's Actually A Precursor To A Big Change

2005-01-03T15:57:00.000-08:00

I've updated the logo on my portfolio site to reflect the new year - the 04 has been changed to an 05. My website has been averaging about one redesign a year and I usually do it around the holidays, so you may be wondering if that's the extent of it.

Not by a long shot. I've got a big redesign in the wings that I just finished last week and that I'm really happy about, big because it does something that I've been mulling over for quite a while now - it merges this here Nonsense weblog with my portfolio site into one, functionally and design-wise. It's long overdue and I can't wait to unveil it, although I'm going to have to wait until at least tomorrow since I'm working on a client project that will finally conclude in the morning. Until then!

Unimaginable Devastation

2004-12-29T03:37:00.000-08:00

Everyone's heard the news and our hearts go out to the victims - now's the time to give whatever you can to the tsunami relief effort: ~~Red Cross/Crescent~~ → even easier, give to Amazon, see update below.

Update: there's a solution to the "I want to give but I'd be embarrassed to pick up the phone and waste their time for a measley $5" problem, as well as the "I hate to say it but these charity sites are hard to use and I don't have half an hour to stress out over their crap designs" affliction - Amazon has come through in a huge way. Probably the easiest and most effective way to help ever created is now up - Amazon has set up 1-Click tsunami donation and is available from the home page if you misplace the URL. This is appropriate since the relief effort is apparently the largest in human history and every little bit helps, even if you give the $5 minimum. Remember, the news reports say that cash is the most useful thing you can give - there are huge hidden costs to physical items like clothes and food, since it requires shipping halfway around the world and distribution, rather than simply buying what you need there - and the long tail says that a lot of people multiplied by each person giving a little bit equals a huge number.

Del.icio.us Integration And Hacking

2004-12-25T18:10:00.000-08:00

My traffic logs showed something interesting: looks like Mitch Wagner mentioned this here blog in his article explaining del.icio.us - welcome visitors from internetweek and desktoppipeline! I met Mitch at the San Diego webloggers brunch last week and our little group hit it off pretty well, with del.icio.us especially being a big topic of excitement. For those of you curious about how I used it to integrate the list of links on the right, I wish I could say it involved some kind of genius programming skills on my part, but no - it's a stunningly easy process and well-described by Jeff Veen. I followed Jeff's instructions step by step a few weeks ago and within five minutes, I had my own custom-tailored link drop on my blog.

I've been addicted to the power and simplicity of del.icio.us ever since, especially considering all of the interesting ways you can hack it up for your own purposes. People have been getting pretty novel with it - you can use it to categorize your blog posts, start a community of photography nuts, make a visual diagram of your interests, all kinds of nut job cool things and I'm sure this is all just the tip of the iceberg. Feel free to subscribe to this blog or even to my del.icio.us page itself to see what else I dig up as I play with it even more.

One caveat for you web standards Nazis like me: RSS Digest's javascript can give hiccups to validators. I was using tinyurl to get around that and hide all the ampersand-encoded nonsense, but I think their service has been down this week. So including del.icio.us feeds with the javascript version of the method above has this one minor drawback, the only one I've seen so far. The only reason I'm not using the (probably cleaner) php version is because my server won't see an index.php as the default file in a web directory.

Merry Christmas

2004-12-24T02:30:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here sleepless but happy, flush from last night's big winnings at the weekly poker game, on the couch at my girl's family's place in LA, lots of great gifts given and received, tasty leftovers beckoning from the fridge and more fun planned for the rest of the weekend as well. Good times - hope all is well with you and yours!

Interesting Spam

2004-12-18T15:41:00.000-08:00

I just got out of the weblogger meetup this afternoon and sat down at the Starbucks down the block to do some work and what sort-of-on-topic message do I see in my inbox?

[image removed due to a server mishap]

I think I'm good, Byoung, thanks, but it's nice to see your spam is a little more relevant than the usual body enhancement offers. You're getting warmer!

Dorks Unite!

2004-12-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

Well, at least long enough to have a drink and say something interesting.

It looks like the San Diego community of webloggers has finally gotten its act together enough to plan another little occasion, 1pm this Saturday at the Lamplighter. The illustrious Joe Crawford is moving to LA and it'll probably be my last chance to see him again for a while. Isn't that the way it goes? I've noticed that in the last few years - I don't get off my ass to hang out with people until they're about to leave town, like when Brett left for design school in New York or Michelle left for business school in Berkeley.

The Meetup.org thing has had ups and downs in this town, so who knows if this thing'll be an ongoing thing, which doesn't matter really, since one-time things have their appeal too, like geek dinners by Scoble or the BD4D multimedia events. It's like wine - some things taste better when of a rarer vintage.

related links, photos and blog posts elsewhere on the web: sandiego, bloggers, meetup, geek

Daring Fireball - In The Real World!

2004-12-09T14:20:00.000-08:00

Whoa, haven't posted in a month... lots going on, but this isn't the catching-up post that it should be. No, just a quick note: I'm sitting here at the Living Room in Hillcrest trying to wrap up some work and a piece of the blogosphere jumped into my wavelength in a way I'm not used to at all. A cute little family settled down together a few couches over, a couple and their young daughter, and the dad is wearing a Daring Fireball t-shirt! I just had to tell him how cool he was and that I'd never seen one in real life before. So there are cool people in San Diego...

Mmm... del.icio.us Tastes Great

2004-11-11T23:57:00.000-08:00

Just trying out some more blog tool goodness - this is a test post to see if I can pull Merlin's del.icio.us bookmarks out as a list of headlines from his feed and slap them into my sidebar, thanks to Jeff Veen's little how-to. I really didn't see the hype behind del.icio.us until I installed the A9 toolbar in Firefox and started annotating web pages with the "Diary" feature, which was way cool. Right off the bat, I started wishing I could share my finds with friends or export out that data for other uses, which is when I started to see the light about what del.icio.us was trying to do. We'll see if the hype was worth it...

BTW, Merlin runs the outstanding productivity-focused blog 43Folders, a very addictive repository of tools and lifehacks.

Update: holy shit, that worked like a charm. Next up, replace Merlin's links with my own, surf the net like usual during one of my morning rounds, bookmark pages and annotate quick notes about interesting stuff, and then watch them automagically pop up on my sidebar! I can tell I'll be sucking on this del.icio.us crack pipe for a while.

EX, UX, UCD, ID... WTF?

2004-11-08T16:02:00.000-08:00

No, no, I'm not starting another pointless what-the-hell-do-we-call-ourselves debate (note: I like "web designer" just fine, thank you) but I'd definitely like to see some consolidation in methodologies. That's why I appreciate this: User Experience Diagram Rationalization, a cute amalgamation of 4 prominant web guru charts into 1.

Also, there's a home-grown event that's trying to get the Experience Design bus running again and it looks fun: AIGA XD3 on November 18th, featuring Stardust.tv and put together by our own John Dennis for the local AIGA chapter.