March 2008 Archives

On Kottke.org today there was a post to Wakeuplater which goes over some high profile web design changes over the last 10-15 years. The scary part is that I remember most of those web sites!!!

For comparison, you can see the evolution of Club Josh here.

I must admit I still am not a huge fan of Flash sites, but I really like the direction that sites like CNN and yahoo have taken in recent years. They are able to present tons of information in a clean setting. This is what I strove towards when I was at Edmunds. Speaking of Edmunds, I think they are doing a good job of keeping that mantra alive, its unfortunate that they are a business and have to display all those banner ads.

Not that this is becoming a Mac centric blog, but just to give you the latest and greatest:

Tonight I took the plunge and finally re-formatted my iPod to Mac OS and re-synced all of my music files. I had been hesitant to do this because it meant the loss of 4 years of play lists and play counts. I also had some major cleanup to do of my MP3 files after I transferred them over from the Windows machine, and I just recently got to the point where I was satisfied all of the duplicates were eradicated from my directories.

I am transferring 2300 files back over to my iPod so I am not sure how long it will take. Based on current speed, I suspect only 30 minutes or so. I also need to re-put my address book on my iPod. It has been one of my favorite features since I was able to avoid taking a separate address book. The more I think about it, the more I want an iPod Touch. Oh well, so many more things to buy before that.

In non-Mac news, things have been going well at work. I finally feel like a leader in my new area which is a great feeling. Now, I am just stressing over my final project which is due in just over a month. Thankfully, I have some great resources out there so I hope it will all work out in the end.

It's also everyone's favorite time of the year - tax time! I think I am not alone in thinking I wish I would get my $600 refund check before I have to pay my owed taxes this year. I am also sure that we will end up paying taxes on it as well.

Today is my friend Kris' birthday and usually each year on our respective birthdays we send each other a nice catch up email. Since I know Kris is a Mac user and I now have a lovely Mac, I sent him an email early to see if he could test my iChatting ability as well as get in our birthday catch up face to face.

After a few false starts due to a technical glitch on his end, we finally connected and chatted away. It is the first time I really have chatted with someone via the net that actually seemed like we were sitting in front of each other. Kris told me he has been doing it for years in his past work, so he was able to guide me in those first few awkward set up moments. There was a little bit of feedback from each other, but after learning to pause here and there we had an awesome chat. I always enjoy chatting with Kris, even when we were kids in Junior High together. I was a bit jealous of his MacBooks ability to be mobile during the chat. The best I could do with the iMac is a slow pan of my apartment.

At any rate, I was glad to chat with Kris and finally join the modern age and do a video chat. What is next? Broadband? Sharing videos on YouTube? Gasp!

Happy Birthday Kris!

Josh and Walt
Originally uploaded by Club Josh.

Today the Gorn and I had the chance to visit the memorial garden where the plaque memorializing Walt Disney sits. It is located in a tucked away location at Forest Lawn Glendale (I always thought it was at the Hollywood Hills location near the Studios). It was a nice serene place, and I am glad I took my time to pay tribute to him. I am not sure if his ashes are somewhere in the garden or behind the wall. I do know Sharon was spread in paradise according to the plaque, so I assume that the rest are here.

Walt's parents are also on the grounds of Forest Lawn Glendale, but I did not find them. Also, I wanted to visit Roy over at the Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills (which is neat because he gets to look at the studio all day and night), but I could not find good directions. One of the things I want to visit is the Barn that is currently being used by the Los Angeles Live Steamers in Griffith Park. Like the original Hyperion Studio, the Carolwood house is long gone, so there are few things left in the area to visit.

Josh and Bob Gurr
Originally uploaded by Club Josh.

I had the chance to take a photo with Disney Legend and Imagineer Bob Gurr when he got his window dedicated on Center Street at Disneyland. Bob designed most vehicles in the early days of Disneyland including the Main Street Vehicles, Autopia, the Monorail, and the Subs to name a few. It was a honor to meet him!

I was searching the net on my HP printer to see if there was any residual value for it since I had planned on getting a new one ASAP. While surfing eBay, I discovered that any 952C printers that were there had USB cables included with them. I was like wait a minute, mine just has a yucky old serial cable. So i dusted off the back of the printer (give me a break, it has been awhile since I was back there) and lo and behold, there was a USB port on the back! I was happy, this means that I just need to get a USB cable to get it connected to the Mac. I then remembered that my scanner (which I still have not used since I am awaiting Photoshop) is a USB scanner.

So I took the cable of the scanner and then connected the printer to the iMac. I then read the HP support site and it mentioned that Leopard comes with all the latest and greatest printer drivers (of course) and that all I needed to do was to plug it in. So I did. Then I turned the printer on. Nothing happened. If it had been a Windows machine, thousands of pop up windows would have came up telling me that it had detected a new device and to tell it where to get a driver. Not the iMac. It just sat there, playing my Jarre songs on iTunes.

I then went into System Preferences and clicked on the Print and Fax icon. The iMac not only already had the printer installed, but there was an accurate icon of my printer sitting there telling me it was ready to go. Like it had been there the whole time. I ran a few diagnostic and cleaning options on the printer and everything seems to work fine. I then printed a photo from iPhoto to make sure it was legit and not some elaborate let's tease the former Windows user. You know what? I don't think the dumb printer has worked better in ages. Now I can use that money I was going to buy a new printer for something else.

Really? Can this get any better?

IMG_0194
Originally uploaded by Club Josh.

I finally uploaded the photos of the unveiling of my new iMac. Daniel did a great job being the official photographer - Check them out.

Enjoy!