Let's Party!
Yesterday I enabled text messaging on my cell phone. I'm sure this is going to be huge. I expect this whole SMS-ability will change my life.
November 10, 2007
June 28, 2005
computers are hard
i've spent much of my evening trying to get into this whole
i don't use itunes. until yesterday, i'd always synched my ipod to the music on my computer through musicmatch jukebox (vers. 7.5). yesterday i download ephpod in order to remove some of the tracks from my completely full 15 gig ipod. that took a bit of time but wasn't too tough to figure out.
tonight i checked out wnyc's podcasting page and learned that i needed to download ipodder. a helpful piece of software. who knew that podcasting needed an additional piece of software? i guess i've heard that itunes is going to be podcast enabled soon. do people really go through all this? who are those people? did i make this whole thing way too complex for myself?
i think i've got things set up to some degree. i want to keep using musicmatch as my default music player, but it's got too many songs in it to start synching it to my ipod. i guess i'll have to start adding music through ephpod? right now i've got ephpod synching with podcast files only. i feel like there are so many little things i've got to figure out. argh!
why do i feel like i should've figured this stuff out a year ago?
March 01, 2005
of interest to .00487% of balgavy.com readership
i added more memory to my computer just ten minutes ago. it was the first time i'd opened the sony desktop i bought a number of years ago. the tips of my fingers are sore from trying to pry the case open (little did i realize there was a hidden latch i needed to find). i only had to turn the computer on once to help get the memory installed. my first attempt was unsuccessful due to the odd placement of the the memory components - if i had 8 inch long fingers that could bend in totally freaky ways, i would've been better off. by logging onto the internet for help, i learned that moving the floppy drive was a cinch. doing so allowed me to access the dimm slots with easy. i'm pretty proud of myself. the whole process only took 75 minutes with much of that time occupied by my tossing the computer chair onto my bed and trying to remove all the accumulated dust from the computer desk and computer itself.
October 06, 2004
all media is digital
from what i can tell, the long tail, an article is wired, is getting a heavy amount of internet linking. and for good reason. i've read half the article and i'm entranced. it's about the economics of all media going digital. it's about how anything we want we can have, and how it can be profitable. sure, there's a bit of a pie in the sky attitude with that but it's good reading and brilliant background for discussion on the topic.
here's a brief bit of the article:
The Long Tail approach...is to simply dump huge chunks of the archive onto bare-bones DVDs, without any extras or marketing. Call it the Silver Series and charge half the price. Same for independent films. This year, nearly 6,000 movies were submitted to the Sundance Film Festival. Of those, 255 were accepted, and just two dozen have been picked up for distribution; to see the others, you had to be there. Why not release all 255 on DVD each year as part of a discount Sundance Series? In a Long Tail economy, it's more expensive to evaluate than to release. Just do it! (emphasis added)
September 02, 2004
unclipping the clipblog
it's time to throw down some links and clean out my bloglines clipblog:
back in june gothamist linked to a few new photoblogs which reminds me that i should update the picture on the front page of balgavy.com and check out all the photoblogs i like. posting jamie's photos from the borrowed camera project would be a good idea, too.
splicing gone wild matt of a whole lotta nothing suggests the idea of the "ego feed" which would combine all of the various feeds he produces with photos and lists and such. i don't fully understand it and i guess that's why i saved it. reminder to self: look back into this two or three months from now.
a link to a review of sharp's kid glove shave gel check out the actual review and all the comments...since it was linked from boing boing and got tons of exposure there are dozens of thoughts on shaving. i have yet to really delve into these. this link also reminds me that this morning i was struck with the urge to shave. i won't be getting rid of my beard but i think i will be carving away a few of the hairs below my lower lip. it's going to look seriously stupid. it's the end of summer, and i'm allowed.
a post from today by jeff jarvis about protests and the convention and the police some interesting thoughts on the nature of protesting and wondering if there's a better way for a group to get their message across.
jon stewart and ted koppel part 2 another link from today, this time from lost remote. i guess jon and todd spoke with each other again and there was good discourse about the nature of media. i'm sorry i missed this. i even watched about 5 minutes of nightline last night, too.
there are one or two other clippings i've yet to really get into but they require some actual thought on my part. i'll have to save those for some other time.
August 26, 2004
"next blog, please"
has anyone else noticed the "next blog>>" button atop of blogspot webpages? i saw it for the first time yesterday and finally felt tempted to press the button today. one could easily waste the rest of one's life pressing that button, finding interesting things. i've only pressed once and i was lucky enough to find a great blog entry by someone complaining about the u.s. postal service. i can't wait to see what's next!
July 06, 2004
makes me wish i had a pantry
June 30, 2004
maybe more like a robot
maybe three out of the five week days when i walk toward the subway from my apartment i feel like a robot. but only on my left side. that side of my body is weighed down with gadgets and gizmos. because it's warm outside there's no need for a jacket, and that reduces the number of pockets i have on my person.
on my waist, i've got a clip for my pager and a clip for my ipod (with the necessary headphone cable snaking toward my ears). if i had a cell phone, it would probably reside in a similar area - all on my left side. my front left pants pocket is also where i keep my wallet, filled with cards that have magnetic strips. (attention thieves: now that you know where i carry the wallet please note there is usually very little cash in it).
i don't have a newspaper subscription anymore, so i read my palm pilot on the subway, which is updated every morning via AvantGo. sometimes i carry this device in my hands. if my pockets are big enough, i slide it into the same pocket as my wallet. occasionally, i'll tuck it into a pocket on my shirt, making me feel very geek like.
now if i could just get a pedometer, i'd be all set. i really would be bionic at that point.
May 26, 2004
general random thoughts
i am obsessed with my fantasy baseball team. it's pretty much the only thing i can think about these days. thursday night i'm meeting friends for happy hour (i'll be a bit late, by the way) and i am going to make a most concerted effort to avoid talking about baseball. it will be a challenge.
as of this morning i was 2.5 points out of first place in my twelve person league. on april 30th, with a lead of 4 points, i moved into first place for the first time. i've hovered in and around first place for the past month. i had no inkling my rotisserie team would do so well. on nights that don't involve going out for happy hour drinks i find myself at home obsessively flipping from one baseball game to another. the whole thing is well beyond ridiculous.
(image from 30 april 2004)
on another note, is online poker the new day trading?
May 19, 2004
wakka wakka wakka
I’ve been meaning to write about blogs and the NY Bloggers Talk event for the past few weeks but haven’t felt like I have anything new to add to the conversation. I jotted down a few paragraphs and realized that I really do have nothing new to add to the conversation. But the paragraphs are written and because I like to make sure I make a post once a month about navel-gazing and how I was into comic books when I was 12, I’m posting the following for your skipping-over pleasure:
April 02, 2004
grumbling
i'm now using Mac OS X at work and i hate it. why do people try to make okay things better in all the wrong ways?
March 18, 2004
drowning in links
ever wonder what's really going on inside my head? the answer for about three of you is "yes, well...once." if you're tired of listening to me mumble on about cheerios while drinking bourbon on 5th avenue, feel free to peruse the rss feeds i subscribe to. they should offer a more distinct look into what i'm able to hold conversations about when not listing the four breakfast cereals i eat. in an attempt to lead a more transparent life, i'm making my bloglines subscription page public. take a look at the content i have streamed into my life on a daily basis. it's pretty much what you'd expect. some highlights (for those who are opposed to full click-through and exploration) include:
outside the box (a weblog about all the weird and cool promo items that Variety receives in the mail)
the daily ping (a conversation about various subjects that's been going on for years)
the pomo blog (an interesting and well written blog about "the postmodern cultural shift")
if you're into certain subjects and interested in following various websites but don't feel like loading dozens of pages a day, an rss reader is the way to go. i finally caved and started using bloglines after reading an article in salon a few months ago. i seriously can't remember how i used to surf the web without it.
again, my bloglines account is now open for all to see: http://www.bloglines.com/public/marcb
February 16, 2004
of shopping & haircuts
i try to stay away from writing about technology/computer issues since my knowledge in that arena is rather limited. but i must say that i'm not a fan of people stealing bandwidth (direct linking to images on my website). for some reason, it's starting to happen to my photos more and more. sometimes i let it go (and feel guilty), sometimes i just remove the image entirely, and sometimes i replace the image with text over it directing people to my website for a more complete story. unfortunately, i usually don't find out about the theft of an image until the end of the day - after a message board that contains a stolen image has already seen most of its visitors. from now on, it's time to limit the number of shopping cart escalator and faux hawk photos i take.
(i was reminded of all this when i read Are You A Stupid Blogger?)
February 06, 2004
what's on my card?
wired news has a fairly in-depth story today about bars scanning driver's licenses. it's worth reading if you've ever wondered how much information is on the magnetic strip of your license. the story also links to a site called swipe that offers tools for you to determine what info is on your card. that site was created by some pittsburgh artists who, according to the story, did any interesting art installation recently.
January 04, 2004
can't read enough
I'm not the sort to write some long wrap-up about the year that was (unless you count my annual film list – look for the collection of 2003 movie lists coming soon). I'm not going to mention any New Year's resolutions that I might have accidentally created. That kind of thing just isn't me. Or maybe it is. Maybe I really want to write a year end list about all the good and not so good things in my life. But I'm afraid of being too personal.
Let's just say the year went by quickly. And I missed a lot of things. I’m at a point in my life where I'm afraid of missing anything, or at least missing reading about everything. That makes no sense, but it's a gorgeously awkward transition into my mentioning of the Fimoculous Blogs of the Year List. I could easily spend days reading through all these blogs that I've heard about peripherally but never actually checked out. My resolution for 2004 is to do a better job keeping an eye on a lot of the sites mentioned on that list. My new favorite way of doing that? RSS feeds. A few weeks ago (mostly due to an article in Salon) I signed up for a free account at Bloglines.
Bloglines a "web based news aggregator." During the past year I’ve read various blog entries by authors who have recently discovered reading blogs via RSS or XML feeds, and all I can say is that I feel that same sense of excitement. I’m able to read (or at least scan) a dozen blogs in three minutes. It’s a time saving device, but it will also allow me to read a lot more blogs as I try to learn everything about all the topics I love.
Thanks to the Fimoculous list and some other recent searching on my part I’ve added the following blogs to my list of regular reading:
November 18, 2003
what do you call a group of gnus?
balgavy the brand continues to expand! jamie paquette's new weblog is online as an extension of balgavy.com. i'm expecting exciting things (he's already got a link to his beard registration page!). it's called "the shrewdness of apes" and can be found at balgavy.com/apes. go enjoy it now. and make sure you bookmark it. please keep all bonobo jokes to yourself. (caution: that bonobo link is filled with bonobo noises!)
November 04, 2003
today's weather conditions
a recent issue of "new york" found simon dumenco commenting on well-known new york bloggers. the photos that go along with the article are fun in a 1970's boardgame kind of way. but i think i'm just making that up because the solid color backgrounds of those photos remind me of playing LIFE in 1984. i always trouble with the phrase "decisions, decisions, decisions."
i started reading dumenco's columns when he wrote for inside.com and i've enjoyed them the past few years whenever i could find them. i'm not a "new york" subscriber and i forget to check the website on a regular basis. while digging around the archives, i found this dumenco column from july which i think covers the world of blogs in a more interesting manner.
October 17, 2003
blip blip blip
in case you missed the link on boing boing or elsewhere on the web, check out these pre-teens reviewing classic video games.
October 14, 2003
aww, my little nanoaudience, so cute
i think i'm a few days behind the curve, but i just read a white paper about the world of blogs and how they're mostly used by teenage girls for occasional communication and then quickly abandoned. it's called the blogging iceberg and is worth skimming, especially for the great term "nanoaudience." it's a word i haven't seen before but that i imagine will pick up quite a bit of steam in the next few months. the concept of the small audience of friends and family members for websites has been around for quite some time, but i've never heard it described so well. and i guess a nanoaudience is smaller than a microaudience? (in looking for an extra link or two about "nanoaudiences" i just realized that mark siegel is much funnier about playing with the concept of audience size (micro, mini, etc.) than i am). (link via reason's hit & run)
one other quick thing about the survey mentioned above - one caveat appears to have been left out, or should've been mentioned. i think i lot of people who have blogs or livejournals or diaryland pages have more than one. or started one then abandoned it for another one. it's possible that someone could have a blogspot blog for traditional blog type entries, a livejournal for private sharing of thoughts with friends and an old diaryland page that was abandoned for llivejournal. and over the course of a few years, it's possible that a person let these blogs build up, without deleting them. i guess trying to get those real numbers is where things get really tough.
September 17, 2003
mind blowing (well, if you have a very tiny mind)
this is probably one of those things that lots of people have known forever. or maybe it's one of those things you knew, but never admitted to yourself. or never even really thought about. or maybe it's some kind of internet gossip. but it works. and it's weird. and if i were more net savvy and less interested in watching tv (or thinking about watching tv) i would've found the link sooner. (link via xblog)
September 09, 2003
Weblog as Avatar in Cyberspace
i'm in the middle of reading an incredibly long article about weblogs and amateur publishing (among amateur other things). for the most part, i was following along until i came to these sentences:
In terms of self-representation, the homepage is like a statue carved out of marble labelled carefully at the bottom where the weblog is like an avatar in cyberspace that we wear like a skin. It moves with us - through it we articulate ourselves. The weblog is the homepage that we wear.
wow. i've got to be honest and say that i've never thought of my blog that way. but if i did, my weblog would be like a big cape that occasionally has a moustache or maybe some sideburns. (link via 601am)
October 17, 2002
it's the heat being turned on
as an addition to these july thoughts about email i've decided that the phone age (with answering machines, of course) was better. if someone called and you didn't return a call you could just say you forgot. i forgot. i lost the slip of paper where i'd written the message. with email, a person's email just sits in my in-box, staring at me. waiting for a response. and i like to keep a clean in-box with my hotmail (not so with my home mail....i've got issues, obviously). and sometimes i just can't keep a neat in-box. there are too many things going on. too many events that need remembering. too many daily rambling conversations with friends who are just too good about writing back. so good that they write back during the same day! it's as if the burden is now on ME to keep my in-box cleaned out. sometimes i just can't take it. and so if you ever get an email response from me that doesn't cover all the topics mentioned, don't think i'm slighting you. or maybe you should think i'm slighting you. in some cases, i'll dash off a hurried response that covers one or two points but that leaves other things for a later response. sometimes i'm good about going back to your email and responding. i always let that email sit in my in-box a few days. somtimes i go back to it. sometimes i don't. basically, whenever i drop a topic it means i'm intentionally dropping it. i've considered responding and stretching it out, but i have nothing left to say on that topic.
(but just in case, i am reserving the right to go back and revise my thoughts and opinions. of course, i just deleted your email after responding to it.)
October 07, 2002
Zire?
it seems the industrial design team for apple computer controls the world. if you still need convincing check out the new Zire from palm. this inexpensive palm pilot has the same white plastic shell as the iPod! and it explains why i've seen so many cheap palms on sale with rebates in the past two months. the curious thing about this device? the name. it's Zire. Zire. what in the world does Zire mean? and i'm not even typing it incorrectly. i'm not leaving out any accent marks or hidden symbols. what a dumb name for a product. it's not like iPalm was already taken. the thing with that white casing is that it's got to be a magnet for fingerprints. of course, in this century everyone with palms reads their news from computers and not traditional newspapers. if i ever own a Zire, and i sure hope i don't, a dark casing is the first accessory i'll buy. (and suddenly their strategy of selling accessories has come to my attention)
in other news, the only moisturizing lotion i have at work is a large bottle of jergens soothing aloe lotion. i mistakenly bought it when i thought i was sunburned early this past summer. i smell like an old lady.
September 26, 2002
geek giddy
overheard outside my office:
"you downloaded fetch to that machine?"
"yeah."
"it might be a newer version than the one i have."
"yeah, i downloaded version 4.0.1.4.22. i went to version tracker and checked it out."
"i might be re-installing (x piece of software) because i installed it on mac OS 9, before i upgraded to OS X. i just don't want it to be buggy."
August 05, 2002
i like wearing contacts.
July 18, 2002
grumble, grumble
i don't have any proof for what i'm about to mention. somehow during the past year or two i've started to use email only for communicating about upcoming events. it's not longer a substitute for a long letter written to a friend. those letters seem to have disappeared with adolescence. of the five to ten non-work email messages i compose during the course of a day, 99% of those involve plans for that night, the following night or the upcoming weekend. email for me is like the telephone was ten years ago. i have no desire to "waste my time" with pleasantries. these days i'm in such a rush to dash those communicative thoughts into an email that i barely breathe - even if the email is several sentences long. i think i'm getting old in that mid-to-late twentysomething kind of way. what's next after email? when i'm 70 will i be sitting in my garden thinking about writing a long letter to a friend across the country? will i be sitting in that same garden with some laptop on a table? a brain reading machine strapped to my forehead? i don't know. thinking about the future confuses me.
January 22, 2002
boston public is great
my fucking printer isn't working. i've re-installed the drivers a billion times. i don't know what went wrong. and i'm not in the mood to deal with it. it's not even my printer. it's a printer my roommate got free when he bought his computer. and it's not working. i used it last week. what has changed between now and then? i so hate computers. they are giant suckers of money. and i hate having to deal with money. damn, i'm grumpy tonight. grrr. there are so many things i don't know how to do. fixing my printer is just one of those things.
i'm still not totally sure how to make websites. i know it's easy. but i'm not in the mood to learn anything new. i'm not in the mood to do anything. and i don't have any glasses in my house that are large enough to hold all the water i want to drink. it's extremely annoying to have to get up three or four times during an hour or two in order to drink as much water as you want. i always end up filling the brita after every third glass. should i have gotten one of those pur water filters? they're so unattractive, though. i'm thirsty. i should get some water and take a nap on the couch.
i almost typed college instead of couch.