Filling digital storage (2) Feb 15, 2008
It seems like every time the following statement is uttered, "X gigabytes?  I'll never fill that amount of space," we find another way to fill up digital storage space. 

In 1998, my family got its first internet-connected computer.  It had a 10 GB hard drive.  We thought, "We'll never fill that amount of space."  Sure enough, with each new version of Windows and each new digital hobby (mp3s in this case), 10 GB filled up fast. 

I had a similar thought with my laptop in college.  It was around 12 GB, and I knew I could fill it up, but I doubted it would happen.  Then I was introduced to software bloat, where each new version of a program comes packed with more and more useless cruft, taking up more and more precious storage space. 

My current laptop has a 60 GB hard drive.  I recently noticed it was about 85% full.  How is that even possible?  I don't have much digital music, I hardly have any software, and I don't download movies.  It turns out Windows XP takes up a good 8 GB somehow, and five years of digital pictures definitely add up (especially when the resolution keeps increasing).  Oh, and seasons 2 and 3 of the Office don't help.  But that still leaves 20 GB unaccounted for. 

As technology advances and storage space multiplies, we keep finding ways to fill it up.  It started with mp3s.  It went to digital pictures.  Then it went to higher resolution digital pictures (with larger file sizes).  Then it went to movies.  Then it went to TV shows.  I wonder what we'll fill the first terabyte hard drive with? #technology
Writing these things Feb 14, 2008
When I'm writing things for this website, I like when it's a simple thing that requires little to no thought.  Like the thing about crack in butts.  That one pretty much wrote itself.  Even the thing about presenteeism was pretty easy.  It pretty much just poured out of my head and onto the screen.  But the most recent one was different.  I kept writing things and deleting them, leaving my computer and coming back.  I couldn't decide what I wanted to say or how I wanted to say it.  And then I ended up with what's there.  It seems like there was very little thought put into it, but it was actually quite mentally taxing.  Usually if writing something takes longer than 15 minutes, the quality and efficiency decrease exponentially with time. #technology
Twitter downtime solution Feb 1, 2008
Everybody complains about Twitter's constant downtime problems.  It was down during the Macworld keynote address.  It was down this past weekend (I think).  As a non-user of the service, the one thing I always read about Twitter is its constant downtime issues and its scalability woes. 

I have a pretty simple solution:  STOP USING TWITTER.  For reasons still unknown to me, many people have adopted Twitter as one of their top three must-haves, right after email and RSS feeds.  What with the growing number of other solutions to the non-existent problem of keeping up to date with minute details of your friends' and acquaintances' daily lives, there are other boats in the ocean besides Twitter's (Jaiku and Pownce to name two).  And by rejecting their service, you'll be giving them the exact feedback they need and deserve:  Figure out how to scale up or host your service, and then look for users.  Don't gain a bunch of users and then scramble to figure out how to keep your website working.  If Digg can do it, if Flickr can do it, if del.icio.us can do it, then you can do it.  Jaiku would be my top choice because Google just bought it.  When was the last time Google had downtime problems? #technology
This site in IE (3) Feb 1, 2008
My apologies to anyone who uses Internet Explorer to view this website.  You might've noticed that it looked pretty ugly for a couple weeks, with things spread out unevenly across the page.  The problem is that I design my website to be viewed with Firefox, because that's the browser I use.  Firefox follows web design standards, Internet Explorer usually doesn't.  So everything looked fine in Firefox, but it looked awful in Internet Explorer.  I think I fixed it. #technology
Kottke guests Jan 18, 2008
I really hate when Jason Kottke has guest writers.  Especially this Choire guy.  If I wanted to read what he had to say, I'd read his website or any of his many publications.  It turns out I really don't like what he has to say, and it's really ruining the normal Kottke experience.  I usually read Kottke to find interesting links about unusual topics.  But this current guy is totally different, and I don't like him.  Take that as Kottke freedbacking, Mr. Kottke. #technology
DreamHost whoops Jan 16, 2008
DreamHost, the company that automatically charges my credit card every month for hosting the files and database information for this website, accidentally charged all its customers for the entire year.  Whoops.  I, as well as several thousand other customers, was greeted by an email Tuesday morning that said my credit card was automatically charged for the next 12 months, which is exactly 12 times the amount I'm normally charged (I pay month-to-month).  I immediately contacted the billing team and calmly, though firmly, described my problem.  Several hours later I found out it was a system wide event, and then all the big guys wrote about it.  It turns out it was a simple, honest mistake, and it's being taken care of as I write this. 

First things first, I like DreamHost.  They provide great features at fairly good prices.  There's no way my website would ever come close to outgrowing my storage space and bandwidth allocations.  Plus, they have lots of smart, active users, so there's plenty of troubleshooting information available online.  I've been with DreamHost for over a year and a half, so I know how some things work, and I'm comfortable with them. 

However, I'm looking into a new host.  To be honest, I was thinking about it before this fiasco.  But now that this happened, I decided to actually try out a new host.  The thing is, DreamHost made a simple mistake.  It's January, and they made a mistake with the date.  They wrote '08 instead of '07.  It's an honest mistake and everybody does it.  But since my credit card is involved, I'm not ok with it.  If it only affected my website and its functionality, I probably wouldn't care.  But since it's a billing issue, it affects my personal finances, and that's just too close for comfort. 

So as much as I like DreamHost and don't want to do this, I'm saying goodbye. #technology
Sun and MySQL Jan 16, 2008
Sun Microsystems bought MySQL.  Hopefully Sun will turn this simple, free database application into a useless, bloated, error-prone product like Java. 

It's slightly similar to Amazon's Kindle and its wireless service with Sprint: 
It comes with EVDO wireless through Sprint, which means that, inevitably, there will be world class Awful Crap that Kindle owners will confront, because it is impossible to involve a mobile carrier with a technology without infecting that technology with Awful Crap. When you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
Hooray for big companies ruining things! #technology
New site design #3 (2) Jan 9, 2008
It's been almost two years since I last redesigned my website, and I've been thinking about changing things around for the past several months.  Every now and then I'd get an idea and start writing HTML for a few days, but it kept trickling off for one of several reasons: 
  1. It looked too much like the old design.
  2. I couldn't decide on colors.
  3. I couldn't figure out positioning with css and divs.
I got an idea sometime late last week and went with it.  That idea is what you're currently looking at.  I wanted something simple and clean, and most of all, I wanted something new (I was sick of the old design).  Instead of wasting more time designing and testing things, I decided to just upload the new design and figure it out from there.  So there might be a few problems here and there which I'll fix as they occur.  For the technically minded, here's what's new: 
  1. A fixed-width layout.  No more percentages and scaling.
  2. Less PHP-processed linkage in and around the site.
  3. (Possibly) standards-compliant.
  4. No more fieldsets!
  5. Tables, not divs.  I hate divs.
If I get sick of this design in a day or two, I might go back to the drawing board.  I just needed something new. #technology
Know your stuff Jan 7, 2008
I get annoyed when people who should know their stuff don't know their stuff.  Especially when "knowing their stuff" is pretty specific and would seem to be not only relevant but essential to proper job performance. 

Case in point #1:  Trying to buy an iPod from Best Buy the week after Christmas.  Walked in the store, prepared to buy one, only to be told they're out of stock and won't be in for a few weeks.  When asked if one could be bought from the website, the portable music center employees (2) said the website would be out of stock too.  A normal person would believe them because, after all, who better to ask about portable music players than the people who work in that section of Best Buy, whose only care in the world is the sale of portable music players and the information required therein.  But what do I find on the Best Buy website?  iPods.  Billions of them.  On sale.  With free shipping.  Thanks Best Buy portable music center.  Pull your heads out of your butts and know your stuff.  At least check your own company's website. 

Case in point #2:  Who would know more about video games than those dorks at GameStop?  Apparently some other dude, because those dorks don't know crap.  I went in to buy some games and asked one of the guys a question about one of the games.  I realize there are no less than five different gaming systems currently on the market, and each system has somewhere in the area of hundreds of games.  There's no way a person could know every game on every system.  However, if a game has a recognizable name and has been around for a few years, I'd expect a GameStop dork to know about it.  Or at least to have read a review.  Or at least to be able to make up a quick lie on the spot.  But, no.  I got none of that.  All I got was a pasty, facial-haired, "Sorry sir, but will that be all?"  Yes that will be all.  Thanks for nothing. #technology
Camera phone Jan 7, 2008
Instead of starting with a cell phone and shoving a cheap little camera into it, I think cell phone makers should start with a legitimate digital camera and add some simple phone capabilities.  That would make a much better camera phone. #technology