Jonny the Recovering Technophiliac

This year for the holidays, I plan on flying with the family abroad for vacation for the first time in three years.  I really wanted to try another state or country as a destination, but my mom insisted on Colombia.  Usually the idea of a trip would be fun to anyone, a chance to escape the city life for a little bit of respite.  But there is something about my family and packing that usually results in chaos.  Either way, I love my family all the same.  So as a break from all the working and packing, I decided to go with my brother Kevin to a limited showing of Up In the Air. Continue reading →

Welcome to the Babbler, where I condense and summarize what has happened in a period of time since my last post with brief and random thoughts usually because i haven’t had the time to blog in between. Some of what I say may make sense, some may not.  But that’s the premise, all the babble that’s fit to blog! So off we go:

1. It’s been a while since I went out for Halloween, last year I did not do anything because I never had the time nor did I not want to make the same error I did years ago and buy an expensive costume that I would never use again In my life (I did one time, and It cost a little over $100).  This year I wanted to do something, go somewhere, be In the thick of It…I mean this IS New York.  First thing I did was get a costume, something affordable.  So I dressed up as a surgeon, and the ensemble cost me only $50.  In addition, I plan on giving the costume away to my family abroad as well.  While I was out with my brother and a few friends, I saw many people who really went out of their way to be creative in designing their costumes for close to $0.  In general, people tend to be more creative and inventive when short-funded, which is neat in a way.  Here are the top three costumes I saw that where creative:
1) the serial killer (a black jumpsuit with taped cereal boxes, where each box was blood-stained with a knife)
2) the pin cushion (brown canvas dress with foam tips pinned all over)
3) one of the crazy 88 henchmen from Kill Bill Vol 1 (just a mask covering the eyes, and a suit)

2. I love my iphone, it has changed my life in many good ways.  But before you call me an apple zealot or fan-boy, I must admit that Google is making great strides in their Android OS.  The success of most major-released Android devices proves that open-source software is truly the way to go.  I mean look at Google Voice…Apple stopped the app from hitting the iPhone because someone made a big stink (i’m looking at you AT&T), yet on Android it’s released and used with positive raves.  Then comes the Motorola Droid with it’s wifi, 5MP camera compared to iphone’s 3.2, an interchangeable battery which iphone doesn’t have, a big 3.7-inch 854 x 480 touchscreen which is bigger than the iphones’, expandable MicroSDHC storage compared to the iphone’s static internal storage, AND last but not least…FREE navigation by Google Maps compared to $60+ apps for the iphone that do the same thing.  The only catch is that it’s for Verizon and it’s CDMA network…but there are Android phones on GSM carriers like T-Mobile (which I renewed my contract with recently).  To summarize, Google is slowly doing the things for their Android OS that Apple refuses do for iphone OS.  If Apple keeps this up, then as much as I love their products, I will not hesitate to jump ship and make the switch to Android.

3. not too long ago, my friend Al celebrated his 1st anniversary of his blog with a brief post thanking his readers…it shook me up for one reason and one reason only: I forgot my blog’s anniversary.  Given that I feel I can excuse myself with a first offense…still…I think back to October 10th, 2005…the day I would start something where i’d share a part of my life with you all for five years and counting…

…wow…five years…that’s a lot.  This blog started as a way for me to channel out my stress from mourning the death of my father.  From there it just evolved somehow surviving everything from writer’s block to domain changes.  Five years ago I never saw myself carrying on this blog for longer than a year…but it’s still here, and I’m happy.  The day I decide to stop blogging, you’ll all know.  Until then, the show must go on…and I don’t see the show ending anytime soon.

And this time, I wont forget (thanks Al for the indirect reminder).

Welcome to The Plug, where i like to give a review to anything tech and non-tech that i feel needs a shameless plug due to my liking.

This week along with my browsing of blogs and articles, i passed on this page from my friend Paul.  He lists the applications, products and services he personally uses on a regular basis, not because he was paid to, but because he just felt a mention was warranted.  So for this blog post, i’ll might as well join the bandwagon and write my own basic list too.  If i get enough things to add on, i’ll probably turn this into a page, who knows.  Anyway, on with the show:

Software

• NetNewsWire for my RSS news
• Adium for AIM, GTalk, and Twittering
• Safari 4 & Firefox 3 for web browsing.
• iCal for my calendar
• Things for my to-do lists
• iStat Menus for my system monitor tools
• Textmate for text-editing
• Subethaedit for collaborative text-editing
• 1Password for password management
• Transmit for FTP
• Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Soundbooth CS4
• Writeroom for distraction-free writing
• VLC
• hulu Desktop
• Transmission
• Flip4Mac WMV
• Growl
• SuperDuper
• AppZapper
• Sequel Pro
• Final Cut Express 4
• UnRarX
• The Unarchiver
• Microsoft Office 2008
• VMware Fusion with Windows XP & Windows 7
• Keyboard Cleaner
• ScreenFlow
• Quicksilver
• AudialHub
• VisualHub
• Rosetta Stone 3 with Greek (i got my reasons! lol)
• Pixelmator
• pzizz
• Macfusion

Services

• Google Apps for my domain (jkdesign)
• Roadrunner broadband
• Google Voice
• MobileMe
• 1and1.com VPS
• Skribit account
• T-mobile for iPhone EDGE service

Computer Setup

• 13-inch 2GHz MacBook (Black) with 2 GB of RAM and an 120 GB SATA hard drive.
• pirate skull crossbones under the apple logo on the back (see photo)
• LaCie 250 GB FireWire portable hard drive, designed by F.A. Porsche
• ThinkGeek.com Bi-Color LED Blow On-Off Candle
• Targus 4-port portable USB hub
• Targus USB laptop light
• Plantronics .Audio 400 DSP foldable stereo headset

Hardware/Gadgets

• Plain ‘ol CRT Toshiba SDTV (i don’t watch much tv anyway, just online)
• Plain ‘ol Aiwa 3-CD 2-Deck AM/FM Stereo System (i don’t listen to much radio anyway, just online)
• Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital Elph with 2GB SD card
• Linksys WRT54G (version 5) wireless router
• 32 GB iPhone 3GS unlocked with T-Mobile
• 30 GB IPod Classic White