July 2009 – Brandon Moeller

Links galore

GEEK + TECH

Where’s the $10 million, Google? : http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=466&doc_id=179611
Be a keyboard ninja : http://lifehacker.com/5321432/how-to-highlight-text-like-a-keyboard-ninja
“Now the challenge is to keep proving that Mozilla matters.” : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/technology/companies/26mozilla.html?_r=1
What is a good standard? An essay on W3C’s design principles by Bert Bos : http://www.w3.org/People/Bos/DesignGuide/introduction.html
A maker’s schedule : http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
Unlinker Replaces Thumbnails with Full-Size Images : http://lifehacker.com/5323756/unlinker-replaces-thumbnails-with-full+size-images
Best. Vista. Service. Pack. Ever. : http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001290.html
Kill dead-in-the-water apps in Windows with SuperF4 : http://lifehacker.com/5324471/superf4-truly-kills-faltering-windows-apps
The definitive guide to negative margins : http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/27/the-definitive-guide-to-using-negative-margins/
jQuery vs MooTools : http://jqueryvsmootools.com/
Microsoft’s biggest threat isn’t Google : http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=561&doc_id=179794
A strange era indeed : http://gawker.com/5325619/chris-anderson-asshole-interviewee
Textures + photos = coolness : http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-use-textures-to-enhance-your-photographs

MEDIA

AP to index text : http://gawker.com/5321433/ap-to-finally-invent-indexing-of-text-on-internet
AP and hNews : http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/ap-doesnt-know-its-protection-tech-doesnt-protect/
NPR revamps its website, emphasizing written reporting over audio : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/business/media/27npr.html
Me likes the NYT Skimmer : http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=705&doc_id=179674
Two-thirds of internet users have spent time managing their online profiles : http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_networks_growing_while_other_social_media_sites_stagnate_and_decline.php

GARDENING

NEWS

“Ruthless defaulters” unite : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/weekinreview/26streitfeld.html?_r=1
Go jerks! : http://physicscentral.com/buzz/blog/index.cfm?postid=3414795237807494042
Retaliating with truth? : http://www.fortbendnow.com/2009/07/29/39240

COMMENTS

That’s not journalism : http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2009/07/work_visas_unemployment.php
Why is Baytown hoarding your personal information? : http://blogs.chron.com/eastharris/2009/07/redlight_cameras_a_new_wrinkle.html

ART

2009 live music photos by Pin Lim : http://forestphotography.smugmug.com/Jazz:%20In%20Photos/709276
Mad Men Yourself : http://laughingsquid.com/mad-men-yourself/

HYPER-LOCAL

India. China. What’s the difference? : http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/cornyns-office-apologizes-for-india-comments-says-he-misspoke.php
Burka in town Aug. 21 : http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nb/fortbend/news/6546503.html

MUSIC

The future of album art is Apple? : http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/apple-and-labels-hope-to-reinvent-digital-album-as-something-people-buy/

Yahoo has really sucked this week

So I use yahoo as my personal e-mail provider. I used to use Hotmail, a long low time ago, for quite a while, until Microsoft gobbled it up and in protest I started using Yahoo! I was brandonmoeller@hotmail.com – and now I’m brandonmoeller@yahoo.com.

Stick with the little guy, I thought. Of course, if I really cared about the little guy, I would have stuck with Juno. Does anybody remember Juno? I think it pre-dated GeoCities – and, yes, that was my first web space provider.

Juno was a dial-up ad-based system. You dialed up. It spat out your e-mail, then, disconnected. If you were lucky, and if the seven Houston numbers you had pre-programmed in weren’t busy. Man, those were the days.

But anyway, I remember having Yahoo mail back when you had, like, only a little bit of space. I was constantly deleting messages to keep from going over my limit. Then, one day, they opened up the floodgates … and now, size is no longer an issue. But I shouldn’t say that. You can only send like 20MB in one e-mail. Want twice that? You need to buy their premium product for like $20-30 a year, I believe. The premium product also allows you to export the e-mail into something like Mozilla’s Thunderbird and/or Microsoft Outlook. I’m pretty sure this used to be a free feature. Man, I should have configured it before they made it a revenue stream.

Today’s news that Yahoo will be incorporating Bing into its search system is likely what has my Yahoo mail on the fritz. It’s also probably why the search function on the Yahoo Groups has sucked for about a year or more … or, maybe like so many other Yahoo products, maybe they’ve just abandoned the Yahoo Groups Search function. It makes trying to moderate a group like VINELIST pointless … so I don’t, really, anymore.

Random thought of the moment: I miss San Antone.

Yahoo’s e-mail service is dead in the water so often lately – and so is it’s stock price, after today’s news. And I’m thinking about jumping. I guess it’s time for me to get a gmail account. Sigh. Maybe I’ll pay the premium fee for a Yahoo account, export all my e-mail to a client like ThunderBird, then I’ll get a free e-mail service that will also allow me to export to said client. With Google Wave coming up, and my current addiction to Google Reader, why the hell not jump onto the Google wagon. It’s not like they’re a large evil corporation or anything. Crap. brandonmoeller@gmail.com is already taken. What. The. Hell. Sigh.

Blue bloom

Yes. It finally happened. I had a convolvulus bloom in the backyard tree bed. Find its photos and more among week twelve’s garden shots.

Here's a shot of the whole plant. There's a few of them still left in various place around the yard, and on the porch. Can't wait until they all do this.

Say hello to my little friend(s)

For a few days this past week, we’ve had some newcomers loitering in the geraniums, munching on some rabid parsley that had grown there from an adjacent miniature pot. So, I called Kim over to check ’em out, she’s never seen anything like it here in Rosenberg. She did a quick Google search and discovered they’re caterpillars that will develop into swallowtail butterflies.

Swallowtail caterpillars. Everywhere. I counted (and highlighted) five. — Swallowtail caterpillars. Everywhere. I counted (and highlighted) six.

Here are the links Kim found:

Munch, munch, munch. This one was the biggest.

But our friends didn’t stick around for long. By Monday, they had checked out, leaving destruction in their wake. Where did they go? Kim thinks the mockingbirds got them. Maybe the frog who lives in my shoe gobbled them. Maybe, they wandered elsewhere. But nothing else on the porch has been eaten like they left the parsley.

Wherever you are, you cuddly fat lepidopteras, here’s hoping you return one day in a much more attractive form.

Reward for paying speeding ticket: ice cream

I just paid a speeding ticket I got on the way back from my summer vacation in Colorado County (where? – exactly … somewhere on I-10 where it’s OK to pull over the guy who’s just trying to get out of the way of some tailgating redneck in a pickup truck). Clocked at 84 miles per hour. Speed limit: 70. I must have been in a hurry to get back to town to pick up my car, which was in the shop, just waiting me to pay a lot of money for its return.

Yeah, I was driving Kim’s car. She said, “I never drive it over 80.”

There were two of them, hiding on the blind side of the hill. It didn’t take longer than 10 minutes before I was on my way. I am thankful there were no stupid human tricks involved in the ticket issuing process. And I’m just paying the ticket – like a man – this time, for the first time ever. No wrestling with an online defensive driving course or twiddling my thumbs somewhere during class. No. Screw it.

For my next trick, I will devour a bowl of ice cream.

Here's a bunch of dead red sun sunflowers I deadheaded last week. Deadheaded about as many this past weekend, too. Sigh.

African daisy comes to life

Looks like I didn’t care enough to get a post out last night after hanging out with my friend(s), meaning the daily (as in, workday) blog streak has ended. Oh, well.

To make up for it, I’ve posted twice today. So there.