Personal Debt: Can't live with it, can't live without it

Jim over at Serotoninrain was floored when he heard that the average US household carries a credit card balance of almost $8,000. The responses to his post tended toward surprise that the number isn't actually higher.

We're continually presented with warnings about excessive consumer debt in the US, and I doubt that anyone disagrees with the idea that too much debt is a bad thing. However, it appears that too little debt can also be a bad thing.

According to this article in today's Wall Street Journal, the failure to maintain some level of debt can actually be detrimental to your credit score, making it more difficult to get credit when you need it, or resulting in higher interest rates when you do get it.

And, despite the kinds of reports cited by Jim, according to the Wall Street Journal more than 50 million people don't have credit scores due to this absence of debt history. (Sidenote: Removing those 50 million from the equation should significantly bump up the average debt load from the $8,000 reported above.)

What to do? The article recommends using a credit card periodically, if only to buy a tank of gasoline. (OK, that might exceed your debt tolerance, given current gasoline prices. Uh, use it for a foot-long coney at Sonic, instead. Heck, go ahead and add the large order of tots while you're at it.) As the article states,

The lesson is that things are rarely as simple as they seem. None of us want to incur personal debt, despite the claims that the pathway to true wealth is via hefty use of OPM, but, as we like to say around here, lurking behind every silver lining is a dark cloud.

Don't even try to justify your blogging!

I ran across an interesting discussion thread on the SitePoint message board, where someone posted the following question:

The general consensus is that justifying text -- which results in the spacing of words being compressed or expanded so that the left and right margins of the text are even -- is a bad idea on websites.

Text justification is another in a long list of techniques that don't transition well from print to the web. Justification in print media works fairly well because (1) the layout software is smarter than a web browser and (2) the final version presented to the reader will look exactly as the creator envisioned. Even in print, however, the practice isn't universal. A quick sampling of magazines in my, um, reading room showed that less than half justify their text. The conventional wisdom seems to be that the ragged right margin makes it easier for the eye to jump to the next line of text, providing better readability.

Web browsers aren't consistent in how they interpret the instruction to justify text. Their algorithms for expanding or contracting space between words can yield strange results, especially for narrow columns or in text with longer than usual words. Also, to my knowledge, no browsers have the ability to automatically hyphenate words, and hyphenation is a critical technique for making justification work.

The result is text that might be neatly aligned at both margins, but is a mess in the middle. This can result in "rivers of white space" which, according to several comments in the above-referenced thread, can be quite distracting to readers with dyslexia, something I didn't know.

Despite the post title, I can't think of a single blogger who uses text justification, although I'm sure they're out there. If you've implemented a template on your blog that has justification built into it and you'd like to remove it, just look for the following coding in your CSS file: text-align: justify;. Either delete that snippet, or change it to text-align: left; and your blog will no longer be justified.

Of course, for some of us, that has nothing to do with the text. *ahem*

Campaign Advice

Dear Esteemed Presidential Candidates,

I trust that you'll tell me if I'm speaking out of turn, but it occurs to me, after listening to some of your speeches and interviews, that you may have missed a critical piece of information that might affect your future campaign strategies and tactics. I know you're awfully busy right now, what with raising money and getting hardball interviews on Letterman, but you might want to alert your staff of the importance of informing you about these kinds of details in the future.

The President is not running for re-election.

OK, I think that's it for now. I'll check back with you periodically to see if there are any other minor details you mind want to incorporate into your worldview.

Yours truly,

Me

Joke of the Day

Want to see something hilarious? Do a search on Google for well written blog.

Whatever credibility Google may have had in the past has just vanished in the wind, like so much dust from the endlessly flat west Texas prairie, lifted into the atmosphere by weather so alive and vibrant that you'd swear it was breathing, pulsing with vigor and the sheer essence of lifeness, and the fact that such dust is inevitably inhaled by asthmatic seventh graders, causing them to become concert pianists instead of fork lift operators is completely lost upon the prodigious unfeeling forces of nature.

OK, that ought to put that to rest.

Ice Surprise

My wife lured me into the backyard this morning with an irresistible "you need to come see this." "This" turned out to be what happens when you combine a hose with a slow drip and frigid overnight temps.

OK, so it's not impressive in a blow-your-socks-off fashion, but it did cause me to wonder just how something like that happens. I've certainly never seen the formation of both a stalactite and a stalagmite in our backyard...or anyone else's, for that matter.

Same Sunrise, New Blog

The photos from yesterday's sunrise generated some very kind responses, and I thought I'd follow up with a link to a photo of the same sunrise captured by another blogger about twenty miles to the east of us, while at the same time introducing you to his site.

Ran with the devil, Walked with angels is published by Bob Westbrook in the small community of Stanton. Bob is a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor, and has a very interesting background and story to share. He's been blogging for a while, but has apparently been hiding his light under a bushel until now. Drop by and say hi to a fellow west Texas blogger when you get a minute.

A Morning Walk

Scenes from our walk through the park this morning, just after sunrise, as captured via my cell phone. The rainbow was a serendipitous delight; I can't remember the last time I saw one in the morning.

For the record, Abbye was unimpressed.

Starlight Meadows

Some of the photos on this site are mesmerizing in a vaguely disturbing sense.

The symbolism ranges from 2x4-to-the-head obvious to something you capture only out of the corner of your eye.

Random Thursday

Serving up the freshest, hottest, most succulent trivialities of the day...

• I'm hardly a credible film critic, having seen only one of the movies that got an Academy Award nomination for best picture -- Little Miss Sunshine -- and coming away from that viewing completely unimpressed, but I have to think that if you still believe that the Oscars are non-political and only about the art, you've surely done a monumental job of rationalizing why Apocalypto didn't get a nod in the foreign language film category.


• The power of the internet to bring people together is amazing, isn't it? If you've been paying attention, you'll recall the Great Potato Peel Fiasco from last Christmas. Apart from providing great amusement to a certain sadistic segment of the Gazette readership, it's apparently also attracting similarly afflicted souls from around the world, as our visitor logs are showing fairly regular searches for phrases like "garbage disposal clogged by potato peels" or "why can't garbage disposals handle potato peels" or "instructions for inflicting a painful death on (&#*%&^(Q garbage disposal clogged with potato peels." OK, I made that last one up, although I'm almost certain that's what the searchers are thinking. Anyway, one such searcher came to the Gazette, then actually emailed me. Here's the amazing thing: it was a former Fort Stockton high school classmate now living in Illinois whom I haven't seen or corresponded with in decades! Imagine reconnecting via a shared potato peel experience. There's bound to be a Hallmark movie idea in there somewhere. Or at least an e-card.


• Incidentally, I apologize to those who are coming here in hopes of finding a solution to your potato peel clogs, although I suspect you're at least a bit content to learn that you're not the only ones who experienced this tragedy.


• Despite good intentions to the contrary, I forgot to watch Tuesday's live webcast from Odessa's Alliance Hospital of a "minimal incision total knee replacement." So, I popped over to OR-Live.com this afternoon to view the archived footage. I was doing pretty well until the first scalpel cut on the patient's bent knee laid that tissue wide open and then I remembered I had to wash my hair, mow the lawn and wash the car. If that's an example of "minimal incision," I don't even want to contemplate the alternative.


• Speaking of minimal incision, the tree service guys came out yesterday and completed the pruning and clean-up of our ice-damaged oak. Here again, I'm not an expert, but I have this nagging feeling that they could have exercised a bit more restraint in their pruning. Ah, I'm probably overly sensitive; what do you think...does it look OK to you?

Lunatic Texans on Ice

Probably the only thing worse than driving on slick streets following an ice storm and surrounded by Texans who don't know what they're doing, is knowing that among them is Jimmy Patterson who is also operating a camcorder and narrating the action while behind the wheel.

Next up: Jimmy runs with scissors.

Loving "Love"

I stopped by Sam's Club yesterday afternoon to stock up on bottled water and batteries, not wanting to be caught unprepared for the next great Nonexistent Blizzard of Ought Seven, and on a whim added The Beatles "Love" to my flatbed. I had read glowing recommendations in sundry newspaper columns and blogs, including those from the Brothers Jim, and while I don't always agree with the latter's musical tastes, I have to say that in this case they are, if anything, under-enthusiastic.

In case you have the same misconception I did about this album, it's not simply a new compilation of old Beatles tunes. Sure, it's a collection of Fab Four staples, because, after all, they're not recording together anymore (in case you haven't kept up). But through some technological magic -- I don't think this project could have been pulled off fifteen years ago -- and the creative genius of Sir George Martin and his son Giles, original tracks laid down by the Beatles have been mashed up with a tasteful dollop of new and assorted loops and effects to produce a recording that's a sonic delight that manages to capture the amazing diversity of the group's original music while presenting it in a new light.

If you're a traditionalist, this may not be your cup of tea, but I still urge you to give it a chance. The package I bought comes with two disks, both containing the same music. One's a standard CD, the other's a DVD which presents the music in 5.1 Dolby/DTS surround sound. My advice is buy the dual package and listen to the DVD on a good surround sound system, and prepare to be awed by both the clarity of the music and the skill of the producers.

I don't necessarily agree with the all of the choices the producers made. For example, the intro to Lady Madonna is a bit too cute and frantic for my taste, and some of the electronica seems to be an uneasy fit with the original arrangements, making them seem more like Broadway showtunes, ala the finale of All That Jazz. On the other hand, the arrangements as heard on the DVD should dispel any notion that Ringo Starr was a sub-par drummer.

Overall, this is a masterpiece that should serve to reinforce the sometimes under-appreciated musical talents of the Beatles.

Incidentally, this is the first music on disk I've purchased in more than a year. If and when the Beatles catalog becomes available on the iTunes Store, I hope the surround sound version of this collection will be one of the options; if not, it will be a good case for the argument that the plasticware version of music is not yet dead.

Eternal Vigilance

This is the what popped up on my screen this morning, courtesy of the "Random Abbye Photo" feature:

It's comforting to know that we're being protected by such a vigilant dog. It would be even more comforting if she could, you know, actually see anything.

Not Everyone's Bothered by Ice Storms

Nothing like a nice treesicle when the weather turns frosty...

The 3rd Shoe Drops

Did you know that if you google the quote-enclosed phrase "bad things come threes," you'll get 17,900 results (as of this morning; later today, it may be 17,901, which is at least divisible by three, so we've got that going for us)? And so it seems that I'm not the only soul who, while not being superstitious or clinging to ancient and silly ways of explaining why the universe behaves like it does, still perceives out of the corner of my eye certain patterns that are simultaneously comforting and disquieting.

In our case, #1 was Saturday's ice storm that wreaked havoc on our 25-year old oak tree. #2 was yesterday's snapping of the spring on our garage door. And #3 occurred this morning as MLB's 5:00 a.m. treadmill workout was derailed when the television in the game room abruptly gave up its phosphorescent ghost.

This is a disaster of epic proportions, as anyone who has endured an hour on a treadmill without the benefit of sensory distraction will attest. The TV isn't that old, but it was acquired via deep discount at Best Buy, the discount being so deep that it qualified as an impulse purchase, and we just don't do that sort of thing with electronics. It's got a nice 20" flat screen with front panel a/v inputs and it fit snugly into the built-in cabinet. Ironically, this death came only a couple of weeks after I installed a UPS to protect it and the other a/v equipment from Midland's notoriously jicky electric current. There's bound to be yet another law to explain that, something along the lines of "no good deed goes unpunished."

NEWSFLASH! I was just about to smash the TV with an eight pound sledge when I had a brainstorm and plugged it into a different electrical outlet; it works fine. I should be happy, I suppose, except for two things. I really like that sledge. And, #3 is still out there.

Poll Faulting

Let me get this straight. A mere two months after turning control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats, a significant majority of Americans feel that the country is moving in the wrong direction (according to a recent and widely publicized poll)? Now, I know I'm a political naif, but this seems to be buyer's remorse on a national scale.

Fortunately, we are blessed with the guidance of CNN Headline News, which was careful yesterday to put a photo of President Bush next to this poll question in its recurring reports, so we'd know *wink, wink* who poll respondents had in mind when they voiced their opinion, never mind that his name wasn't mentioned in conjunction with this question.

The lesson to be learned here? Friends don't let friends respond to lame polls (which, really, is a redundancy).

Saluting a Fellow Blogger's New Business

I'm not sure in which category this post should be filed. But that's not important. What is important is that fellow Texas blogger Deborah, of Glovebox Stories and SanLeon.net, and her husband have opened a new business: the Flags Bay Flag Store. They sell US and state flags, but they also share an obvious love for the great variety of flags found across our nation, and for the important things those flags symbolize.

If you're in the market for a flag, I know they'd love to accommodate you. Regardless, it's worth dropping by their place periodically to learn more about flag protocol, history, and meaning.

I also think it's pretty cool the way they've adapted WordPress to create an e-commerce site, complete with a full-featured shopping cart via a WP plug-in. But, that's just the geek in me.

Chrysler 300 Ad: What are they thinking?!

Have you seen the new TV spot for Chrysler's 300C, the one spoofing the ancient Folger's Coffee ad in which an unsuspecting character's favorite brand of coffee is secretly switched for something supposedly superior? In the Chrysler reincarnation, the 300C is substituted for a Toyota Avalon, much to the pleasure of the clueless driver.

Anyway, that much would have been fine and even somewhat amusing, but the car company took it one step too far, as the narrator finds it necessary to point out that they've also "replaced his wife of 20 years -- Agnes -- with this piping hot fashion model, Isabella." The driver gets an ecstatic look on his face and responds..."ohhh, thank you, Chrysler."

OK, you can watch it yourself, courtesy of YouTube:

My question is simple: has Chrysler lost its freakin' mind? Is it doing so well, financially, that it can afford to alienate a large segment of its potential customer base, that being (1) married women and (2) married men who happen to be quite content with their wives of however-many-years...of which there are a whole lot more of us than the company apparently comprehends? And that doesn't even count the unmarried women named Agnes.

I'd expect this sort of thing from, say, Go Daddy. But from a car company? Chrysler should be ashamed of itself.

Hier Education

Here's an excerpt from an email my sister-in-law received from the local community college reminding her that it was time to pay the tuition for The Nephew's spring semester course:

Oh, did I mention that the class is English?

In their defense, this is a common mistake, as the past pluperperfect participalian ruling often requires an awkward grammatical structure, such as "if you have tooken care of your balance."

Yep, It's Monday

Remember this?

Have I ever told you that we have two garage doors?

At least the car's not trapped inside this time.

God's Bubble

I think I've mentioned before that when I was a kid, one of my favorite pastimes was to convert a big appliance box into a tank. You could knock out the ends, get inside, and roll the cardboard "machine" through vacant lots with great abandon, completely protected from the various stickery flora and fauna that inhabited those environs. Of course, you couldn't see where you were going, but you could have fun getting there.

Those memories came to mind this morning in Sunday School as we dwelt on Psalm 139 as a part of our annual "Sanctity of Life Day" emphasis. Psalm 139 is often chosen for this occasion because it's one of the best reminders of how special each of us is to our Creator, and given that He values life so highly, perhaps we also should take it a little less lightly.

Anyway, as I pondered verse 5 -- I like the New American Standard translation even better: You have enclosed me behind and before... -- it occurred to me that God's provision is kind of like that cardboard tank...only more so. His protection is absolute, completely enveloping, more like a bubble that is impervious to the worst the world can send our way.

Sure, we still get hurt, but that's not the point. The important thing to remember is that we're "treasures in earthen vessels," and God will not lose us; we cannot be destroyed by this world, thanks to His bubble of love and grace.

Sneak Peek at Gazette's New Layout

I know everyone's been waiting with frantic anticipation to see the Gazette's new design, which was supposed to have gone up a couple of months ago, but -- like the cobbler's children's shoes -- my own place has gone neglected in favor of work that, you know, pays.

However, I did manage to carve out some time earlier this week to devote to the makeover, and just so you'll stop thinking that I'm a big fat liar (well, about this, anyway) I'm going to take the unprecedented step of letting you have a peek at the new layout as it currently stands.

Feel free to check it out and share your thoughts. Keep in mind that none of the navigation actually leads anywhere, and the blogrolls are just placeholders (if you're on the old one, you'll be on the new one. Assuming your comments on the new layout don't tick me off. Just kidding. Probably.). Also, I haven't even looked at the layout in anything other than Firefox 2.0 for Mac; for all I know, it slags IE for Windows in a smoking heap.

Also, I'm pretty sure I'm not switching to Latin for future posts, although I'm still kicking that option around. Agnosco?

[I'm actually serious about wanting to hear your comments, if you care to leave them, and especially feedback about how the layout looks in different browsers and other platforms.]

Go Daddy's Rejected Super Bowl Ad

Welcome, Go Daddy visitors. If you want my take on the Super Bowl ads that did make it to the broadcast, here's the post.

Go Daddy's founder, Bob Parsons, reports on his blog that CBS has approved the third iteration of the domain name registrar's Super Bowl ad. He's also posted the second version that was rejected by CBS.

Unlike Go Daddy's previous ads, which seemed to promote the chestal regions of buxom lasses more than domain services, this year's version is actually relevant to the company's primary business. Sort of. It will be interesting to see what got changed in the final version to make it palatable to the broadcaster.

I continue to believe that Parsons is the Larry Flynt of the domain name business, but I do agree with some of his opinions regarding freedom of speech and internet access.

Nature is a Harsh Arborist

After years of dodging bullets, thinking we still had some time to prune the live oak in the front yard, Mother Nature came calling overnight to let us know that there's a high price to be paid for procrastination.

This was an especially cruel cut, given that we went to bed last night feeling comfortable that the predicted winter storm had merely grazed us, bringing an inch of welcome rain instead of layers of snow and ice. And, indeed, when I awoke this morning and retrieved the paper from the drive, the drizzle was continuing and the streets and sidewalks were merely wet, not frozen.

The trees, however, were a different story. (Click the thumbnails for uncropped versions, 640x480 in size, more or less.)

At 7:30 a.m. I was out with my trusty bow saw clearing what I could away from the street. I put in a call to the city to alert them that the blind curve was blocked, and parked the Durango around the curve with the flashers going to warn drivers. Fortunately, not many people are out on Saturday mornings, especially in such nasty weather, and I was able to clear the street in about a half hour. If you've never dragged ice-laden limbs, you might be surprised at how heavy they are.

As I was cutting the branches, I heard a loud crack from down the street and looked around in time to see a big limb break and fall from one of the tall pine trees a few houses away.

I never heard from the city -- big surprise, right? -- but I did get a return call from my tree service and they were out by 9:30 to complete the clearing, and to take the weight off the ends of the other limbs that were at risk. Kudos to Midland Tree Service for their quick and professional response. They said that our situation was repeated all over Midland and they had a long weekend ahead of them. In fact, it will be next week before they can return and finish the job, but we're good for now.

We in west Texas don't take our trees for granted; there aren't enough of them for that luxury. I remember working with my dad to plant these live oak saplings in our front yard almost 25 years ago. The thought of losing one -- which is still a possibility -- borders on heart-breaking. On the other hand, it could have been so much worse, and life goes on.

And, as I walked back under the tree after the service folks left, I realized that the branches that broke were not the ones I would have pruned anyway. Mother Nature's got an odd sense of humor, sometimes.

Citizen Journalism: It's not just cute dog photos.

No, it covers a wide range of topics. And species.

Hat tip to Center for Citizen Media

Abbye: Nanook of the North

I mentioned yesterday that Abbye's reaction to snow is somewhat surprising, particularly in light of her normal sissified behavior in other meteorological conditions (wind, rain, thunder, etc.).

When we awoke Wednesday to a thin blanket of snow, she dutifully trucked out into the backyard per her usual routine, and having completed her business, did this:

Then, as if sitting in snow wasn't evidence enough of her disdain for the conditions, she did this:

She appeared quite content to recline indefinitely and I had to issue a stern order to get her back inside. I assume that her fur is so thick that she was simply enjoying a cool interlude. (I do wonder if she has a visual recollection of snow, now that she can no longer see it.)

The downside for her was that she was greeted at the door with the Big Brown Towel. As you might guess, she reacted to the drying off process as if I was actually skinning her alive in order to remove the ice that was clotted in her fur. Now, that's the Abbye we know and love.

We're too sexy for our tractors

I almost forgot to thank the Midland Planning and Zoning Commission for refusing to grant a variance, thereby ensuring that a Tractor Supply Company store can't be built near the intersection of the Rankin Highway and I-20. It seems that the TSC's business model requires that a bunch of its merchandise be displayed outdoors -- the demand for indoor tractors and such being pitifully small -- and the zoning ordinance for that particular area requires that no more than 10% of a store's total space be alloted to unscreened outdoor sales.

I appreciate the Commission's diligence in protecting the pristine landscape. I'd hate to think that the rows of car washes, liquor stores, auto parts shops and oil company production offices was sullied by the sight of a $2.5 million building housing a business that would employ thirty people. I agree that the vacant grocery store is a better fit with the overall ambiance of the area.

It's no skin off my nose, really. If TSC proceeds with Plan B as described in the article -- building its store near Odessa -- the proposed location at Hwy 191 and Faudree Rd is actually easier to get to from my house than the Midland location. Still, it's too bad that the folks living in Midland south of I-20, many of whom are natural customers for the heavy duty merchandise carried by TSC, will have to drive to another county to shop there.

Overheard

Veterinary receptionist, to unknown caller: Well, the fee for euthanasia for a dog or cat is thirty five dollars, but I'm not sure what it is for a guinea pig. I'll have to talk to the doctor.

I've never considered this scenario. But, then, I've never knowingly owned a small rodent.

Random Thursday

A brief collection of trivialities assembled while contemplating the idea that 34° (F) seems mercifully warm...

• Don't know about you but when I'm sick, the Food Pyramid contracts to the bare essentials: NyQuil, hot green tea, and thumbprint cookies (shortbread with pecans, and dollop of chocolate frosting in the middle). If only NyQuil came in chocolate flavor...


• I'm sure your weather is worse than mine right now, but I'm thankful that we're above the freezing mark for the first time since last Friday. I've decided that I hate winter. As I said in a comment over at Janie's place, I'd make a lousy Alaskan or NoDak. I don't know how Julie puts up with it, and I've never even had to use the back seat of my car as an adjunct to my freezer.


• Abbye, on the other paw, is a big fan of cold weather, and for a dog who despises rain, she's remarkably comfortable with snow. I hope to post photos later today demonstrating that fact.


• I'm usually less than enthusiastic by the flood of "Best of..." the past year's whatevers that accompanies each new year -- unless, of course, it's a look back at the year's best fonts.


• If you're contemplating a knee replacement -- and, really, who isn't? -- you'll be interested, I'm sure, in watching the live webcast of this procedure, streaming from Odessa's Alliance Hospital via OR-Live.com next Tuesday, January 23, staring at 6:00 p.m. CST. Dr. William G. Reilly will demonstrate the "minimal incision total knee replacement" technique. Coincidentally, I'll be meeting with Dr. Reilly on the 22nd to discuss a new website for his practice. Anyway, I watched a bit of a webcast from Alliance last year -- it was a minimally invasive cardiac procedure using the hospital's DaVinci robotic surgical system -- and it's a fascinating look inside the operating room. If you're into this sort of thing -- and, really, who isn't? -- mark the date on your calendar. I'll bring the Junior Mints.*

*Oh, this is too easy...but extra credit for the first person to identify the source of this reference.

7 Secrets of a Successful International Website, West Texas Style

An article in the current edition of Digital Web Magazine provides tips for designing websites that will cater to an international market. It's in the Details: Seven Secrets of a Successful International Website gives some specific guidelines to increase the likelihood that your website will be understood by and pleasing to visitors from other countries and cultures.

That's all well and good, but it's just as important to understand your local or regional market. In the public interest, I offer the following adaptation of the article's main points to ensure that websites get the job done in west Texas.

1. Shopping habits differ by culture. In some cultures, the shopping cart icon that indicates a "basket" of goods or services to be purchased online doesn't work, because they don't use those carts. Same thing in west Texas: always use a pickup truck icon, preferably a dually.


2. Analogies can alienate. Be sure to localize your descriptions of your products. Instead of comparing the size of Disney World to Rhode Island, the dinkiest of all the states, compare it to Brewster County, which is four times the size of RI.


3. Colors have cultural significance. According to the article, white signifies death in Asia, which must pose a marketing challenge for toilet paper manufacturers. But, anyway, same thing goes here in west Texas. Don't use burnt orange or you'll alienate all the Aggies...or at least those who know how to use a computer. Well, on second thought, go ahead and use burnt orange. The potential market ain't all that big.*


4. Symbols are not all universal. This one's pretty obvious. Every hand gesture you can think of will offend some college sports fan, so the best thing to do is just slap a Texas flag alongside your product and you'll be good to go.


5. Weights and measures should be appropriate. The article discusses the pros and cons of using metric measurements vs. good old American ones, which ain't even up for debate. But you should take it a step further, and incorporate widely understood terms like "a good day's ride," "just a tad more," "a right smart pace," and so on.


6. Text swell can ruin your website design. OK, this one's a little harder to get a handle on. But you know how when you watch those kung fu movies and the guy's mouth goes on forever and then the actual American translation is something like "Oh no!"? Well, that's sort of an example of text swell. Different languages takes up different amounts of space when you write 'em down. But don't worry about it; just stick to good old American and you'll be fine. Or Spanish, even though it takes up a tad bit more space on account of all those extra o's and a's tacked onto the end of real words. On the other hand, the Spanish word for "and" is "y" (but it's pronounced "e" -- go figure) and so you'll be able to take up some slack there.


7. Be sensitive. I have no idea what this one means. Ya'll can just ignore that one.

I hope this primer has proven useful to ya'll. Up next: Building websites for little yankee wusses.**

*I can say this, as I are one.

**Extra credit for those who can identify the source of this reference.

Amazing Photograph

[Note: Bird lovers and snake haters probably should browse elsewhere for a moment. Consider yourself warned, Beth.]

The photo I'm about to link to was on the inside back cover of this month's issue of Texas Highways, and it's one of the most remarkable shots I've ever seen. The web version pales by comparison -- literally! -- to the glossy image in the magazine, but I think you'll still feel the impact.

The photographer, Dave Welling, has a spectacular online portfolio of nature images.

Technorati tag: Dave Welling

Back in Yellow

Back in June of 2004, I posted something about a new way to show support for cancer patients and survivors. The yellow LiveStrong wristband is now a ubiquitous symbol, perhaps one of the most recognizable in the world -- but it's still a powerful reminder of someone special to the one who wears it.

My wife and I donned the wristbands in support of our friend Sherry, and she beat cancer, just as we knew she would. The bands eventually weakened and broke, but not until after she got the first check up that gave her the good news. We never got around to ordering replacements; by the time the supply caught up with the demand for the wristbands, we'd gotten distracted by other things.

When I recently learned that my blogging friend Patti, over at White Pebble, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, I decided that it was time to bring back the yellow. But this time, I made sure we'd have plenty. I visited the Lance Armstrong Foundation website, ordered three packages of ten, and left a donation to boot (something I hope each of you will consider doing). So, here I am...back in yellow. This is for Patti (and for Sherry; such things are not to be forgotten):

[By the way, until you've tried to hold a right-handed SLR in your left hand in order to take a photo of your right hand, you may have no concept of how difficult it is. Although it just now occurs to me that that's what the self-timer is for. Heh.]

I know that some of you visit Patti's blog from time to time, and if you'd like to join me in this show of support, I'll send you a wristband just for the asking. Email me your mailing address and I'll take care of the rest. I know where to get more.

Whether you choose to wear yellow or not, I hope you'll stop by and leave a word of encouragement for Patti, who continues to blog with the same fire and wit she's always had.

Touting Tiny Type

Anyone who does web design or web graphics on a regular basis is familiar with pixel fonts, those teensy typefaces that are sharp as a tack -- when used properly -- despite their small size.

Pixel fonts are most properly used for labeling web graphics, e.g. embedded photo captions, or labels on diagrams and flowcharts. They don't work well for large blocks of text, because of their small size, and they're not optimized for printing. Here's a good primer on pixel fonts, via PhotoshopSupport.com.

Pixel fonts don't require anti-aliasing to improve their appearance; in fact, anti-aliasing makes them look worse. This also means that web graphics using pixel fonts will be smaller, byte-wise, than their counterparts that use "regular" fonts. This is because the anti-aliasing process -- which is designed to smooth the edges of the text -- actually adds colors to the graphic, which results in larger files.

Here's an illustration of this effect. The following graphic is a simple green rectangle containing a line of text in Verdana, font-size of 10 pixels, anti-aliased in Photoshop using the "Sharp" setting.

# of colors: 14; File size: 674 bytes

The next two examples display the same text in pixel fonts. The top one uses Tenacity, which renders properly at 10 pixels; the bottom one is Silkscreen, which requires rendering at 8 pixels (or a multiple thereof).

# of colors: 2; File size: 382 bytes


# of colors: 2; File size: 347 bytes

Legibility and readability of the pixel fonts is better than for the anti-aliased Verdana, and the files are almost half the size. (Note that you won't see this kind of file size reduction in a photo, however; the incremental weight of the caption will be insignificant compared to the pixels comprising the photo itself.)

Not a good sign...

It's 70 degrees in our house and I'm shivering. That can't be good.

An Inconvenient -- But Self-Imposed -- Truth

Planned Parenthood has been running an ad in our newspaper for a screening of a film entitled Rosita. Here's how the ad describes this film:

"Rosita" is an award winning documentary that shows the plight of a nine year old Nicaraguan girl, who becomes pregnant as the result of rape. This emotional story pits her family against the government, the medical establishment and the church in a battle over whose life has precedence.

Did you catch that last phrase? ...a battle over whose life has precedence. The logical inference when one considers that phrase is that more than one life is at stake, and it can also be logically assumed that if one of those lives belongs to Rosita, then the other belongs to Rosita's unborn child. What's intriguing is that the Planned Parenthood ad seems to be admitting that the fetus is, indeed, a human life, and I don't recall ever seeing that in any of their material.

Assuming that this isn't an oversight in letting copy stray from the "party line" (which I suspect it is), it would be wonderful if Planned Parenthood's "counseling" of pregnant women would now include the fact that their decisions impact two human lives, instead of one life (the mother's) and one blob of inconvenient tissue. When presented with the truth of the matter, I wonder how many of those women would elect to proceed with disposal of their inconvenient truths?

I also discovered via the ad that Planned Parenthood has a "national chaplain." Rev. Ignacio Castuera holds that position of dubious integrity. My initial thought was that one would have to be able to perform some prodigious feats of self-delusion to hold such a position, but after some additional consideration, I admitted that nothing surprises me anymore. Anyway, Rev. Castuera was recently given an award for his work in the "choice in dying" arena. It's devastatingly ironic that such a choice is not extended by the Reverend and his flock to those who are most vulnerable -- the other life alluded to in the above mentioned ad.

Varmints!

If you've dropped by BeanQuest lately, you know that Brian is dealing with mole problems. No, not the epidermal growths -- I don't know him that well -- but the lawn-ruining nuisance mammals. He's finding that some of the best options for dealing with the problem are out-of-bounds due to pesky things like firearms laws and so on.

We'd probably have the same constraints in west Texas, but there was a time when the dealing with varmints with extreme prejudice was not only desirable, but mandated. The following comes from this week's "90 Years Ago" as published in the Fort Stockton Pioneer:

I applied my usual exhaustive research methodology (two Google searches) and was unable to turn up any details on the "Biggers' Prairie Dog Law" (although I did find a 1903 law enacted in Kansas that pretty much declared was on the varmints). But the fact that Texas has a conservation and management plan to deal with "declining populations" of the black-tailed prairie dog is an indication of how things have changed over the decades.

And, as far as I could tell, nothing in that plan included the application of Juicy Fruit chewing gum as an anti-varmint measure.

Random Thursday

Just a few observations while wondering if there's ever been a year in which the only undefeated team in NCAA Division I football was not number one...besides this one, that is.

• After some initial skepticism, I've become a big fan of screw-in fluorescent light bulbs (or "swirls," as they're known in the trade). We're gradually replacing all of the standard 65 watt bulbs in the fixtures throughout our home, and once we got used to the initial dimness when the lights are first turned on, we've been very happy with them. But we also have a bunch of recessed ceiling lights that take those big 4.75" diameter floodlights, and I figured we were stuck with the incandescent bulbs for those fixtures. That is, until I saw this. I just installed five of these 16 watt reflector bulbs in my office and they're great. They'll also be much cooler in the summer. The interesting thing about them is that they're the same swirl bulbs as you see in regular fixtures...they've just been encased in a floodlight covering.


• I am still skeptical, however, about the claims of 7-10 years of life for these bulbs. I had to replace a couple of the regular ones, and I know they've been in place for less than two years. I've started marking the installation date on the bases with a Sharpie so I can keep track. Yes, that's how exciting my life has become.


• Via BatesLine comes this link to an excerpt from a book, The Gospel According to the Beatles, in which is described John Lennon's brush with Christianity. While fascinating, it's also one of the saddest accounts of a "near miss" you'll ever read, and for some us, confirms what we always suspected about Yoko Ono.


• Oh, by the way, I've added a few new photos to Abbye's random slide show over in the right column. Happy clicking!


• Quick reminder to those who live in west Texas: despite what it says on the package, the time to apply pre-emergent to your lawn is now. The package's instructions are for those who live in areas where winter is, you know, cold. Anyway, get some Balan/Treflan, put it down in liberal quantity -- repeat on March 1st -- and send me a thank-you note in April.

I'll end by quoting a statistic that came last week via email: "The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400." Now, despite the fact that this falls into the category of an "unknowable statistic" (as did much of the content of that email), I can use it as a benchmark for proving that the dog-like creature that cohabits our household is a significant overachiever in this regard. But what would be even more enlightening -- and alarming -- would be a tally of what it costs to adopt ballroom dancing as a hobby. More on that later...

Apple jumped gun on iPhone?

Despite reports to the contrary, it seems that Apple and Cisco Systems did not reach final agreement over the name "iPhone," for which Cisco holds the trademark. Cisco says that it has filed a lawsuit against Apple for trademark infringement.

Linksys, a division of Cisco, has an elaborate website dedicated to its version of iPhone, which is actually a suite of internet telephony-based products (think Skype and VoIP), some of which are also offered with landline capabilities. I didn't see anything that looks like a cell phone capability, not that that has anything to do with the issue at hand.

The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog received some elaboration from a Cisco spokesman:

Apple is savvy enough that it must have had some reason to assume Cisco's cooperation before yesterday's announcement, so it will be interesting -- in a "he said, she said" kind of way -- to see its rebuttal to Cisco's claim.

Technorati tags: iPhone Lawsuit | Apple | Cisco

Design Suggestions for Bloggers: Comments

It's been a while since I tackled the issue of blog usability, not because it's less relevant today than it was back in '03 when I first dived into it with a post about why people should care about their blogs' designs, but primarily because of other distractions. However, I've started seeing more of a particular kind of thing occurring -- something that is probably overlooked by most people -- and that's the placement of the comments link preceding a post rather than following it.

I realize that most people don't obsess over their blog's template. They've picked a template that works for them and one of their criterion is that they don't have to obsess over it. But that doesn't mean that the template's designer kept the blog reader at the top of his or her thoughts when the layout was created.

If you've chosen to enable comments on your blog, presumably you've done so because you enjoy the conversation...the dialog. If you apply a conversational metaphor to the post/comment process, when you place the comment link at the beginning of the post, it's as if you're soliciting the other side of the conversation before it's begun. That's not very logical, even if it might yield more entertaining results, depending on the nature of your readership.

From a practical perspective, when the comments link precedes the post, the reader may have to scroll back up after reading the post in order to reply to it. Granted, we all can use more scrolling practice, but there are more appropriate places to implement it.

My advice is simple: if you know how to edit your blog's template, move the comment link to the bottom of the post. Everything else -- the tags, categories, date stamp, etc. -- can stay at the top, but dropping that link to the bottom will make it easier for conversations to take place.

Related to this is the odd practice of showing comments with the most recent one at the top. This works if the comment window opens by default at the bottom of the thread, but that's hardly ever the case.

Once again, this practice hardly seems logical if comments are viewed as conversations. You're requiring your readers to follow the conversation in reverse order, which is fine for those who think Memento was the best movie ever made, but that's probably a small and finite population, and quite possibly comprised of many non-blog-readers.

[You may be thinking at this point, (1) "Dude, get a life!" and (b) "Well, if that's the case, why are blog posts listed in reverse chronological order?" My responses are (a) Good point, and (2) The posts themselves aren't conversations. Besides, most blogs are set up so that the older posts drop off the home page; you don't have that problem with comments.]

Last, and probably least, please consider enabling at least month and day for the timestamp on comments. Enabling only the time of day prevents your readers from knowing if they're entering a thread in a timely fashion, or if everyone long ago moved on to something else.

In the end, if you have a blog, it doesn't really matter what I think. OK, it doesn't matter what I think whether you have a blog or not, but you know what I mean. But as I wrote in 2003, you're blogging presumably in order to attract and retain readers, and anything you can do to make it easier for readers to participate is likely a good thing. I simply want you to have good things; that's just the kind of guy I am.

That, and a bit OCD.

Technorati tag: Blog Design

Outlook 2007 Hoses HTML Email

SitePoint's current newsletter sheds some light on a move by Microsoft that will likely affect your incoming email, as soon as Outlook 2007 lands on computers around the world. It reports that Microsoft has switched the HTML rendering engine in Outlook from that used by Internet Explorer -- which in version 7 had become quite competent -- to that used by Word 2007, which, to put it in polite terms, is not fully CSS-compliant (in less polite terms, it reeks).

Here's a quick summary of the features that Outlook 2007 will no longer support, as provided by SitePoint (Microsoft's own summary is found here):

• no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
• no support for forms
• no support for Flash, or other plugins
• no support for CSS floats
• no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
• no support for CSS positioning
• no support for animated GIFs

What does this mean to the average email recipient? Expect to see much simpler layouts, as email developers find that their previously complex designs don't work in the new program. And since they can't target their emails based on which email program the recipients use, everyone will see the change.

Now, lest you think this is more Microsoft bashing on my part -- to be honest, I applaud this change. When it comes to my email, simpler is better, and there's nothing in the preceding list I can't live without. I try to avoid sending HTML-formatted mail, and I prefer not to receive it, when I have the choice. If someone wants me to see a web page, they need only to send me the URL and I'll visit it at my convenience; I don't want it embedded in an email. HTML-formatted mail is often ponderous and bandwidth-sucking, makes phishing easier by allowing the disguise of URLs, and increases the potential for recipients to allow the introduction of malware onto their systems. In fact, according to the SitePoint article, this change by Microsoft implies that the company isn't as comfortable with IE 7's security as it has previously asserted.

In summary, how you view this move by Microsoft will depend on the extent you favor HTML-formatted email vs. text format. There may be much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the developer community (SitePoint's own email newsletter is broken under Outlook 2007), but the average email recipient may be better off (never having to see another animated GIF in an email is a blessing from my perspective) or at least neutral (I subscribed to the text version of SitePoint's newsletter so I don't care).

Ex-Muslim Blogger Granted Refuge

Last September I passed along the story of Isaac Schrödinger (not his real name), the ex-Muslim blogger living in Canada whose upcoming hearing for refugee status would determine whether he'd be able to continue to live in freedom, or be forced to return to Pakistan where the life of an apostate Muslim tends to be short and unpleasant.

Isaac had his hearing last week; he's posted a long but a fascinating account of how it unfolded. You really should read it, but I won't keep you in suspense: Isaac will not have to return to Pakistan!

Most people use their blogs for pretty mundane purposes, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just pretty cool that Isaac was able to use his in a way that may just have saved his life...and he had some great support from some A-list bloggers during the process. It's a story worth remembering.

Apple's iPhone: One more thing...

Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering how Apple had the nerve to call its new cell phone the "iPhone," given that Cisco Systems has owned the trademark since 2000, the answer is simple: Steve Jobs has incriminating photos of Cisco's CEO.

OK, not really. As the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reports, Apple simply bought the rights to the name from Cisco. Terms were not disclosed, although some report that a shredder was involved.

OK, not really. As far as I know, anyway.

Apple Computer No More

Steve Jobs, CEO and Chairman of Apple, made a number of announcements at today's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, including the much-hyped and undeniably cool iPhone and the fulfillment of "iTV" which will now be called Apple TV. Both of these products have the potential for making billions of dollars for the company.

But I was just as interested in what Jobs didn't introduce during his keynote speech: no new software or hardware related to the Mac. In fact, at the end of his speech (as reported by Macworld), he announced that Apple Computer was dropping "Computer" from its name and would henceforth be known as Apple Inc.

I suppose this was inevitable, and it seems to confirm what has become increasingly obvious over the past couple of years: Apple see its future as being one that is much less dependent upon personal computers, at least in their traditional forms.

I'm sure we'll continue to see the Mac platform evolve and advance, but the really exciting stuff will be coming from the other divisions of Apple. I can't argue with the wisdom of this approach. Now that Macs use Intel chips and can run Windows, the hardware portion of the "personal computer" has is becoming more and more like a commodity, with one platform essentially indistinguishable from the other. (The operating systems engender a different debate.)

The big question is whether Apple is responding to some kind of sea change in consumer electronics...or if it's driving it (as it did with the iPod). I'd like to think it's the latter. Given Apple's historical creativity and competence, its vision could be great news for all of us, Mac users or not.

Florida vs. Boise State, Anyone?

Just curious.

Apple Cell Phone to be Announced Tomorrow?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple will introduce its own branded cellphone, and has partnered with Cingular to provide the wireless service.

Rumors about an Apple cell phone have been flying for many months, if not years. I admit that I'm underwhelmed at the prospect, although if Apple can bring its characteristic style and functionality to the product, it'll be worth considering. But I'm also not a Cingular customer and have no desire to be, at this point.

For their parts, both Apple and Cingular have declined to comment.

Stoned

As if to add insult to injury -- or, perhaps, vice versa -- Jen has been afflicted with a kidney stone. As I mentioned in a comment to her post, while I can't really relate to her being confined to bed rest for the duration of her pregnancy, I do have up close and personal experience with kidney stones, having experienced two bouts over the years, one of which required surgery and both of which required screaming like a little girl.

One of the attacks came as I was home alone in Midland while my wife was enjoying herself at a convention in Las Vegas. I drove myself to the emergency room in the wee hours of the morning -- our car at the time had a five-speed manual transmission so I ran a lot of red lights in order to not have to exert any part of my body more than absolutely necessary. Truth be known, I was hoping to catch the attention of a police car, preferably one inhabited by a trigger-happy nervous cop who might put me out of my misery. No such luck, however, until I slipped the surly bonds that bound me to a morphine-free consciousness after a suitable 16-hour waiting period (OK, not really, but it felt that way) to make sure I wasn't already a junkie.

Anyway, none of that's really important. Suffice it to say that I have experience in this area, and I also have experience in empathizing with others who are going through the ordeal. In fact, ten or so years ago, we had a friend who also had a kidney stone, except hers went undiagnosed -- for reasons known only to God and the Marquis de Sade -- for weeks. We shared great umbrage at the doctor, such that I was transported by the muse to enshrine our outrage in poetic form. Thus cometh the following, which is best sung to the tune of Rock of Ages:

Jen, get well soon. Don't make me write another poem!

"And so I'm all, like, WHOA...time warp!"

Imagine my surprise to open today's local newspaper and find that we're already in February, based on the date of my last post.

No, you're not ALL supposed to understand this post, but at least ONE of you is.

Shooting Fish in a Barrel, Pt. 2

So I'm sitting at the dining room bar eating a sandwich for lunch and I hear a story about the strange odor that's infesting the Big Apple's atmosphere and I think to myself, "it's just the Jets and the Giants stinkin' up the place." Then I think, "say, I need to go do a post about that, because I'll bet I'm the only person in the country who thought of that, except for maybe Yogi Berra, and he's dead." (He is dead, isn't he?) But, instead, I eat a banana and some cookies.

Not ten minutes later, Ray D'Alessio, the sportsguy on CNN Headline News leads off his report with a line to the effect of "those who are wondering about the strange odor over New York City need only ask the fans of the Jets and the Giants."

I hate it when the MSM eavesdrops on my brainwaves.

Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Just for the record, I have absolutely no comment about Congress taking a day off due to the BCS football game being played tonight. Nope. Nosireebob. Not a thing to say. My lips are sealed.

Disgusted

I don't know which bothers me more, the way the Cowboys blew yesterday's playoff game in Seattle, or the degree to which their doing so upset me.

I swore earlier this year that I was through with the 'Pokes; I hadn't paid them much attention for years, anyway, but they'd put together a few wins and start looking like a real team and before I knew it, I was right back there, actually caring about how they played.

I watched only the last four minutes of last night's game, and I must confess that I've rarely seen a more deflating display of ineptitude from professional players. Well, not since the last time I watched them.

I don't care if Tony Romo's now dating Condi Rice...I hereby officially no longer care.

Plus, the new season is still eight months away.

Need a whip? Get a 'lift.

OK, I'll be the first to admit that sometimes it's hard for me to believe that people will actually pay me to build and work on websites, and I can't think of a more pleasing situation than to be able to do that work at home, on a freelance basis. But, still...there's a dream...and perhaps it's about to come true, considering this email that just came to me, personally:

How cool would that be?*

Plus, I'm thinking that this new opportunity is a perfect fit with my new hobby. Da homies will be crunkin' when they see that my whip is a lift.

*OK, it's cool, but not for the reason you might think. "TBM" is "Texas Baptist Men" and they're looking for volunteer fork lift operators to work disaster areas.

The Photos "They" Don't Want You To See!

Caution: Graphic evidence of mean American soldiers in Iraq

Hat tip: Isaac Schrödinger

Software Review: DVD to iPod Converter

Note: This post originally began as a third installment of "New Things in Our House," with an emphasis on my new iPod, but it unfolded differently than I envisioned and it seems more appropriate to style it as a software review. I mention this only to demonstrate that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some actual conscious reasoning is occasionally applied to what gets posted here. However, I wouldn't advise getting used to it.

My wife gave me an 80 gigabyte iPod for Christmas, the model with video capability. It's been fun to browse through the various TV shows and movies that Apple offers via the iTunes Store, and I've even bought a couple of episodes of The Office that I missed earlier this season. But that's just child's play when compared to the end game: loading commercial DVDs I already own* onto the 'pod.

This is not an easy process, for reasons both technical and legal. Well, the technical part arises from the legal part, I think, as the copy protection (isn't it more accurate to call it "copy prevention"?) schemes used by the movie studios make the conversion of the DVD content to an iPod-compatible format somewhat challenging. I have to wonder why they bother, as it seems that everybody and their dog has come up with ways to circumvent those schemes.

I'm testing one right now, as a matter of fact. It goes by the unimaginative-but-Google-friendly name of "DVD to iPod Converter", created by a company with another unimaginative name, MP4 Converter. [Side note: Someone really should do a scholarly study of how the increased significance of search engines has affected the approach to the naming of companies and products.] The preceding product link goes to the Mac version but there's also a version for Windows.

This $29 program offers one-click conversion of commercial DVDs to MP4 format, the video flavor of choice for your typical vPod. I was hoping to give you a detailed review of the various options that the program provides, but among its flaws is the lack of a user guide. I emailed the company about that last night, and had a response within eight hours, which is pretty amazing in itself. Unfortunately, the response confirmed what I feared: there is no user guide at this point; the company is presumably working on one, but for now, you're flying the program by the seat of your pants. On the other hand, if their tech support continues to be this responsive, that may not be a huge drawback. And unless you want to push the envelope on what the program will do, the basic controls are fairly intuitive and the default values work well.

Even without instructions, I was able to convert a full-length movie (Serenity, if you must know) to MP4, import it to iTunes and then onto my new iPod, where it performed admirably. However, there are a few bumps in the road:

• Speed: The application's website promises speed...with a caveat: Speed without limits, conversion speed increases with the power of your system. Translation: Our program is as fast as your computer. My 17" PowerBook G4 is no speed demon, but I was still surprised that it took just over four hours to convert this two hour movie. Granted, I ripped the DVD at the highest video setting (the program labels the setting as "Excellent") and I'm sure that contributed to the slowness of the process. The program doesn't come in Universal Binary; there's a separate download for Intel Macs, and I would expect a significant speed boost in that version.
  
  I'm now re-ripping the DVD using the "Normal" quality setting (1200 Kbps vs. 2400 for the "Excellent" setting), and I can't perceive any difference in speed. We're at the 50% mark of the conversion and that's taken two hours.
  
  Update: The second conversion, using the "Normal" quality setting, took the same amount of time as using the "Excellent" setting. However, the resulting file was about 1.1gb, or 35% smaller than the file produced by the higher quality setting. Plus, I could discern absolutely no difference in video quality when viewed on my iPod.


• File size: The resulting video is 1.7 gigabytes. Again, that's a function of the quality setting, and the lower setting will produce a smaller file. However, I'll be interested to see how the quality differences play out on the iPod's teensy screen. I'm thinking that you don't really want to give up much quality considering how much detail you're foregoing to begin with due to the small screen size. In any event, at around 2 gig per movie, my iPod will hold "only" about 40 movies...but that assumes that I don't want to carry any music or photos. Thus far, I can do without the latter, but an iPod without tunes is like a day without rutabagas, IYKWIM.


• Weird stuff: The program split the movie into two segments which appear as separate movies when imported into iTunes. I tried pretending that I was watching a laser disc and the break was just the platter flipping, but I was unconvincing. This is where a user guide would have saved some frustration. As it turns out, there's an option in the "Advance" configuration settings that allows you to specify that the converted video be divided into segments, presumably for copying to CDs or other media with limited capacity. You can specify the segment size by time or storage space (in megabytes). There's also an "Infinite" setting that allows conversion into a single file. Strangely, the default value is a 1 gigabyte segment; you have to remember to select "Infinite" each time you rip a DVD. This is a lesson that should be quickly learned, especially if you have a system as slow as mine.

Actually, I don't hold out much hope for the user guide, when it finally appears. This program was either created by folks who aren't native English speakers, or they let their third graders compile the text not only for their website but also for various dialog boxes in the program. Here's a screen shot from one:

Despite all of these things, the video and audio quality of the resulting file is really quite good when played back via the iPod. You can also choose a conversion scheme that appears to create a file that's optimized for connecting your iPod to a TV (sure wish I had a user guide), although it's not intuitive to me what the difference would be. The "Advance" options appear to provide you with the ability to make the converted movie into "pan and scan" (vs. letterbox); you can also carry subtitles over to the converted file, but I don't see where the software company will reimburse your medical costs for the acute eyestrain that would surely accompany trying to read 'em on an iPod display. And, for you audio buffs, there's an option for retaining Dolby surround sound in the conversion.

Really, for $30 bucks, this is a great deal for anyone who wants a simple way to transfer their movies from DVD to iPod. I'll try to post a follow-up report after I've had time to test some of the options, but if you're looking for a quick and easy method of DVD conversion, you should consider this one. There are some free tools available (Handbrake and MacTheRipper come to mind) but I don't think they offer the same turnkey ease and completeness of this program.

You can download a demo version of DVD to iPod Converter, but it allows you to convert only 5 minutes of a movie. It occurs to me, however, that for some films -- anything starring Rob Schneider, for example -- that's more than enough.

*Don't steal movies. That's just wrong.

Technorati tags: DVD to iPod Converter | Ripping DVDs | Loading movies on an iPod

It wasn't Big Oil's fault, after all...

Here's a story you won't likely see in most mainstream media: the recent sharp drops in crude oil prices, along with some other rather obscure -- but not invisible -- data make a strong case for the fact that it wasn't the oil companies responsible for the run-up in prices via withholding of supply, but, instead, speculators and commodities investors. From today's Wall Street Journal's MarketBeat blog:

The idea that speculators have a significant impact on oil prices has long been put forth by the industry, but the issue is seemingly too complicated -- and the industry viewed with too much skepticism -- for the general public to give it any credence. I don't think these new developments will change that. Companies like ExxonMobil and BP are simply too attractive as a target for blame.

[Wikipedia has a fairly concise explanation of the circumstances that give rise to contango, and the opposite state, backwardation, which typically exists when a commodity is in short supply. I doubt that most of you will be interested. Unfortunately.]

Random Thursday

I'm a little late with this today. I've been caught up in the euphoria that comes with the realization that, as of this morning, our federal government is now in the hands of a group that can lead us into a glorious future, and that the shackles of oppression and fascist chaos have been thrown off in favor of a wonderful Plan.

Dang, I almost got that typed with a straight face.

Actually, I got a copy of season one of My Name is Earl on DVD, and I'm having trouble tearing myself away.

Hey, did you see that Nick Saban is leaving the NFL to coach football at the University of Alabama? He's going to make about $4 million per year. I'll resist the urge to make any comments about public education priorities, but I do wonder how that makes Chris Petersen feel. You know Chris Petersen, don't you? He's the head coach at Boise State, the best team in the nation that won't be considered for the national championship. Thanks to their undefeated season, Petersen's getting a big raise and will make $575,000 next year, plus some incentives that could bump him up to as much as almost 20% of Saban's base salary. So he's got that going for him.

Wesley Autrey, the New York City "Subway Hero," is being honored at this very moment by Mayor Bloomberg for his actions in saving the boy who had a seizure and fell onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. Among other things, Autrey got a 12-month pass for the NYC subway system, and all the handi-wipes he can use. For his part, Autrey responded humbly by pointing that he's not a hero...the real heroes are the men and women now fighting in Iraq. He also refrained from chastising city officials for not being able to pronounce the names of his young children.

For their part, the new Democratic majority in Congress is trying to convince Autrey to run for president in 2008.

New Things in Our House: Part 2

Some things have to be experienced to be understood. For example, I never really bought into the idea that watching video on an iPod's tiny screen could be entertaining in the least, until I found myself engaged in the episode of The Office where they find out that there's a felon working alongside them, and said episode is playing out on the tiny screen of my own new iPod, and, suddenly, I understood. It made sense. The hype wasn't overdone.

OK, maybe just a little. But that's another story for another day. What hasn't been overdone is the hubbub around satellite radio, and now that I have my own new Roady XT installed in the office-slash-game room, I can safely testify that XM Radio is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I also got a Belkin Home Kit that allows me to connect the XM receiver to my home stereo, and control it with a tiny remote.

I still can't do any serious work with music playing, but I find myself listening to the radio more and more during more mundane or tedious tasks. I'm also experiencing channel overload, with 150 available stations. I've picked out ten music stations for one of the three preset playlists, and another ten talk stations for the second playlist, but I find myself listening primarily to channel 32, which is labeled as "Christian Pop" but which is more eclectic and interesting than that.

That has generated one amusing moment. I've also got a car audio mount for the receiver, which is grab-and-go size. One recent evening I headed for the drive-through at Rosa's, and I put the XM radio in the Durango, anticipating a long line (and I was right about that, although it doesn't take a savant to predict that). I was almost up to the order speaker before I realized that I had forgotten to switch my FM radio to the right station for the XM signal and what I'd been listening to was actually the local Air 1 station. (I wondered why those people kept talking between the songs...figured it was some sort of holiday deal.)

XM's World Music line-up is a bit too heavy on electronica for my tastes; I'd like more Caribbean accents and fewer Euro-beats. And its country selections are pretty mainstream lame; I still prefer The Outlaw for Music to Clean Guns To, if you know what I mean. I haven't had the nerve to check in on the Uncensored Comedy channel, and I'm a little miffed that the Big 12 conference doesn't have its own sports channel (although after its performance in the bowl games this season, I'm not sure it even deserves its own conference. And before you Tech and UT fans get too cocky, please take a look at the records of the teams you came from behind to beat. But I digress.)

If you're considering getting a satellite radio, either XM or Sirius, make sure you understand the antenna placement requirements, and whether you can achieve them without herculean effort. In my case, I was able to place the antenna in the requisite south-facing window only by rearranging my entire stereo system layout, a task not for the faint-of-heart (or short-on-patience). However, I have to admit that the results were worth the trouble.

New Things in Our House: Part I

We go through coffee makers like Rosie O'Donnell goes through Snickers bars. Our version of the Holy Grail will come with a #4 paper filter and have at least a 12-cup capacity. And we've yet to find one that's flawless...but we've come pretty close with our latest acquisition.

Meet the Cuisinart Coffee On Demand™ coffee maker, which has resided in our kitchen for about a week. This wonderfully industrial-looking appliance brews a passable cup of coffee. More important, it keeps the coffee almost painfully hot -- just the way we like it -- to the very last drop. (Say, that would make a good coffeeesque slogan, wouldn't it?)

See, that was main drawback to our previous maker, a stylish stainless steel carafe model, also from Cuisinart. The carafe did an admirable job of keeping the coffee hot for an hour or so, but our regular morning schedule is such that that just doesn't get the job done. Also, if we brewed less than a full carafe, the coffee cooled more quickly (not that we'd ever do that...just saying). With this new approach, we lose the convenience of having a pot we can carry all over the place, but we gain tastier coffee, and that's the bottom line.

There are a couple of additional drawbacks. You have to get the right visual perspective to see the level in your cup as you're filling it. Also, you can't fit a tall travel mug under the spigot. And, finally, the reservoir that holds the water has a pretty narrow opening, so you have to be careful when filling it.

To us, these are minor inconveniences compared to having an endless supply -- as long as "endless" is defined as 12 cups or less -- of hot coffee. It also fits under our cabinets. Plus, it's just darned cool to have a needle gauge showing how much coffee is left.

Collapsing into the New Year

I'll readily admit it: I'm a creature of habit, and these past two weeks have been a challenge from that perspective. My wife has been taking some well-deserved vacation, as have most of my clients, and the typical holiday social schedule seems to foster a certain lack of discipline. Thus, while it was enjoyable in its own way, I was looking forward a bit to getting back into a regular routine.

What I failed to remember was that 5:25 a.m. is a part of that routine.

Well, at least my New Year's resolution is still intact, the one where I promised to post something every day of 2007, so I've got that going for...um...well. Oops.

There's always 2008.