Brian McNitt’s Blog

It’s that time of year. Time for the obligatory top 10 list. Walking home from getting coffee this morning I tried to think of the most memorable personal events of 2007. Here’s what came to mind. In chronological order…

1. Ironman 70.3 Hawaii. One of six triathlons I did this year. It was a tough day but was a memorable experience to race in Hawaii and to spend time with friends on the Big Island. (Thankfully, the sunburn has mostly healed.)

2. TrendMedia office. This year TrendMedia made the leap from home-based business to a office in downtown San Francisco. While web developers can work from anywhere, I admit it’s nice to work more directly with others and to have a place to call “there”.

3. Santa Barbara Triathlon. Highlights were the beautiful surroundings and the opportunity to spend quality time with my mom who came from Chicago to see the race. Would like to do this again. (Could even skip the racing part.)

4. Alcatraz 100 (Swim of the Centurions). My second swim from Alcatraz. Somehow I thought it would be easier than the first. Hmmm. Tough swim but great weather and post-race breakfast with friends made for a memorable day. (Right: Nicole tends to Fred’s minor injuries.)

5. Birth of Miles Prescott Grover. Born Tuesday, September 4, at 7:58 am. Congratulations to friends Traci and Jojo! Miles’ blog.

6. Fred and Nicole’s engagement. Congratulations to friends Fred and Nicole! (Fred found a caregiver.)

7. Meditation class at IMC. The most significant thing I did for myself this year. Surprise. It’s not triathlon or technology related.

8. GTD. Consider me late to the party. David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity came out in December 2002 but I didn’t get around to reading it until this year. In fact, I cheated and downloaded the audio book from iTunes. Applying the GTD principles and Merlin Mann’s Inbox-Zero approach has given me a framework for getting more done with less stress in every area of life.

9. First marathon. A classmate in grade school once told me that I “run like a Chester”. I never understood the reference but it was clear that someone who ran like a Chester was clearly a poor runner. Despite being a triathlete, I’ve always felt like a Chester on the run course. Thus, training for my first marathon this Fall was a big deal. While I’m still no Prefontaine, the training and race was a challenging and rewarding experience, and I managed to finish the marathon in under four hours. (So, Adam F., wherever you are, who’s the Chester now?)

10. Christmas in Chicago. Spending time with family. What’s more important?

What were your highlights in 2007? Looking for some inspiration for the coming year.
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and great 2008!

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mcnitt, trendmedia, 2007, top-10, highlights

Today Amazon introduced the Kindle, a lightweight and powerful electronic book reader that features a new display technology that reads much like paper. Three years in the making, the Kindle has built in wireless connectivity and can display books, electronic newspapers, blogs, or just about any type of syndicated content. Weighting 10.3 ounces, the Kindle weighs about the same as an average paperback yet holds approximately 300 titles and retails for $399, about the same as a high-end cell phone or 2-3 college text books. Is this the beginning of the end for paper bound books? Read more at Amazon.

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Yet another wrong number. This on my voicemail today…

Bottom line: Too much kibble, not enough wet. We’re
going to get this wet/dry dog food thing sorted out!

For the rest of the saga see:
Aug. 30 - Another Dog-Related Voicemail (audio)
Jun. 26 - Smokey’s Dental Appointment (audio)

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dog, food, voicemail, wrong number, humor, mcnitt

We just had a bit of a shaker in the San Francisco Bay Area. Magnitude 5.6
to be exact. No damage here but it was certainly felt across the twittersphere.
You know you’re a technology geek when…

Neat to see the real time responses, and glad everyone is alright. Picture
below of the shake map.

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5.6, earthquake, twitter, twitterrific, san francisco, trendmedia, mcnitt

Above is a video from Google demonstrating how to setup IMAP email on the iPhone. The primary advantage of IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) over POP (Post Office Protocol) is that IMAP maintains the state of messages across email clients. For example, if you delete an email at Gmail.com, then that email is automatically deleted from your iPhone and vice versa. This means that you never have to deal with the same message twice and can save a lot of time when it comes to filing and deleting messages.

With IMAP, folders are also synced across email clients. When you switch to Gmail IMAP, the Gmail spam folder will appear on your iPhone. This allows you to flag messages as spam directly from your iPhone, something you couldn’t do previously with POP.

Follow the video above or these simple instructions to make the switch.

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Is been only a day since Apple released OS X Leopard and already hackers have found a way to install Leopard on PC. Not for the novice PC user and most certainly illegal, the hack makes use of a modified install CD. Hackers say the install is still experimental and things like sound, video settings, and wireless will most likely not work until new drivers and system workarounds can be developed. (At the current rate, I predict this will be a matter of days.) Details at DailyApps.net.

(Image by: rbeforee.)

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apple, leopard, osx, pc, windows, vista, trendmedia, mcnitt

Don your polyester pants and John Deere hat and saunter over to the Great American Music Hall this Sunday at 7:30 PM for a little Southern Culture on the Skids (”SCOTS”). For those “undst-familiar”, the SCOTS sound is best described as surf-a-billy, a mix of rock, surf guitar, and “y’all guessed it”…hillbilly. Always a zany lowbrow time, tickets are still available. $18 total — a true surfabilly bargain. View videos from recent concerts, the Conan O’Brien Show, or sample SCOTS music online (more on iTunes).

Read the rest of this entry »

If you work in technology or a related field and are not Twittering, start. If you own a small business, be sure to reserve your business name on Twitter immediately; like your URL, it’s important that you claim your business name before someone else does. (Some organizations on Twitter.) Not updating your company site or blog as frequently as you should? Twitter. It’s the easiest way to start micro blogging and to stay top of mind with customers and colleagues, at the same time in a relaxed and social way. Want to know what others in technology and design are doing, eating, thinking about, or where you can join them for a beer at this very moment in time? Follow them on Twitter.

What should you be doing now? Twittering. I won’t waste any more of your time so you can get started. Oh yeah, and if you’re on a Mac install Twitterrific.

Need someone to follow? Start with me. http://twitter.com/mcnitt

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Apple announced today that Mac OS X Leopard will go on sale Friday, October 26 at 6:00 p.m. at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that Apple’s online store is now accepting pre-orders.

Leopard is packed with more than 300 new features and introduces a brand new desktop with Stacks, a new way to easily access files from the Dock; a redesigned Finder that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs; Quick Look, a new way to instantly see files without opening an application; Spaces, an intuitive new feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; and Time Machine, an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac.

A special good luck to my friend Greg Heilmann who has patiently been waiting for the release of Leopard to make the switch to Mac. Greg currently uses the same model Dell D600 I used to use before jumping ship. Like mine, he is also fighting a myriad of software and hardware issues including hard drive clicking noises, frequent Windows system freezes, and the occasional BSoD. After having my Dell laptop’s motherboard replaced twice while under warranty, my Dad’s replaced once, and hearing Greg’s plight, I can say that I am so happy not to live in that world anymore. Hopefully Greg’s machine will make it to the 26th. Reminds me of the final chase scene in the Blues Brothers when Jake and Elwood exit the old car and every piece falls to the ground.

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At what point did Apple Computer, Inc.’s corporate website become Steve Job’s personal home page? Where exactly is Apple going with this? I can already picture the next ad. Swirly, dreamy transition to white…

“Hi. I’m a Democrat.”

“And I’m a Republican.”

Hey, Republican. Do you want to see the Nobel Peace Prize I won for my work on global warming and the important environmental issues I continue to champion?

I have a better idea, Democrat. Why don’t you tell us again how you invented the Internet? Hehe.

That’s not nice, Republican. You know that comment was taken out of context. So you don’t want to hear how I’m saving the planet?

Another time, Democrat. Another time…

Hey, if Apple comes out with a low voltage, 80% recycled and recyclable GoreBook Pro, I’ll be the first in line to buy one.

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B-b-b-brilliant.

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music, beat, beatbox, mixing, video, cooking, humor, mcnitt

Scott Beale posted this on Laughing Squid back in September and it’s been stuck in my head ever since — Devo covers “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones on Saturday Night Live (1978). Full credit to Scott for the find.

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devo, satisfaction, music, laughing squid, scott beale, mcnitt

For the techies in the crowd, I have been playing with glTail.rb for the past few days, a new ruby-based log file visualization script. Installed locally on a PC or laptop, glTail.rb SSH connects to and tails multiple Apache, Rails, or IIS web server log files and provides realtime site traffic visualization. (Instead of trying to explain the interface, see the movie above or demo on the glTail site.) Installation and setup is easy. I use Locomotive as my local ruby environment so I opened an existing Rails project, launched the Locomotive terminal and completed the required gem installs which added the gems the Locomotive library.

Watching glTail is incredibly addictive. Most interesting is seeing the single requests for email forms and single site images, such as the Linux and Apache icons on the lower right of my blog, from places in the Netherlands and South America, and from various web forum sites. Needless to say I’ve been having fun with these would be spammers and bandwidth thieves. More on that in another post. In the meantime, give glTail a try.

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glTail, ruby, rails, web, open source, iis, apache, trendmedia, mcnitt

Col. Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency speaks at the Ontario Science Centre about some of the very human aspects of space travel. Something to consider the next time you wish upon a star.

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hadfield, science, space, toilet, humor, ontario science centre

San Francisco artist and triathlete, Tammy Stellanova, created a web comic strip documenting her experience swimming from Alcatraz on August 5th. The comic strip does an accurate job of describing what it’s like, the exception being the frame where she illustrates hitting something under water she can’t see (depicted as a small fish). This has happened to me a number of times while swimming in Aquatic Park but I always picture something closer to Jules Verne’s monster from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. (From the point of contact through the next thirty seconds I’m transformed into an olympic class swimmer.) View Tammy’s the complete web comic.

Some friends and I did the Alcatraz 100 Swim of the Centurions this year on September 2nd. Unlike Tammy’s experience, we were lucky to have clear skies and relatively calm water this time. A few pictures below.

Pre-race photo of the Balclutha at Aquatic Park. No fog and not a cloud in the sky.


Post Alcatraz 100 scene.

Fred suffers an excruciating Charlie horse; Nicole plays nurse. (Apparently, someone behind Fred on the boat landed on his leg, the result of a poorly executed jump. I didn’t say anything at the time but secretly suspected the sea monster.)

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