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Folks, I’ve made the move to my own domain. It’s a little rough right now, but as I do a little more housekeeping and decorating, it will feel much more like home!
So I recently (last week) upgraded my lappy to Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, and, so far, I’m a fan. I’ve been using Ubuntu for nearly two years now (since Feisty Fawn) and have only briefly looked back at Windows or over at Macintosh just for a sense of ubiquity and compatability. With Jaunty, I’m content with the slick new interface combined with the traditional ease of use that Ubuntu has come to offer.
I am by no-means an expert with Ubuntu–or Linux, for that matter–but I am a long-standing fan of Open Culture and Open Source. I’ve been working with Windows for years trying to come up with ways to tweak it and customize it to fit my own personal tastes and expectations, so, naturally, Linux was a Godsend with its seemingly endless customization options.
I started this blog with the idea that I would keep it as a repository for all the knowledge I’ve collected from the seemingly endless changes and tweaks I put my systems under. Mainly as a way to organize them and recall them in case of other blogs and forums going by the wayside. Second, I thought that others might have the same questions that I did and would like an easier method of finding answers than scouring hundreds of pages of forum posts.
Last thing of note for this introduction, the name is not a typo. Well, it is (and probably a common one), but intentional as I like the play on words implied (Ubuntu Nut, Ubunut). The only other semi-clever idea I could come up with was “Sit, Ubu, Sit.”
Being a denizen of the Web for over *shudder* 15 years, I’ve come to notice that I have a lot of junk profiles just laying around. My brilliant idea last night was to consolidate them into a neat package (along with my laptop and Blackberry) so as to provide myself the neatest, tightest Web footprint possible. I’m also in the midst of changing my online identity–having used the same one since 1998. Nevermind the motives, but here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
Facebook remains the hub of all my social networking.
Sites like Last.fm and YouTube get revised and updated with a new login.
Extraneous Google accounts get 86’d.
Extraneous GMail accounts get forwarded to my new primary address.
Sites I rarely never use anymore like Yahoo! and MySpace get the 86.
The other brilliant idea I had was a sort of universal login where I could bypass login screens for the various sites I use. Firefox has the universal password feature, but I want something that will authenticate on all the servers with one login (because, frankly, I’m too lazy to click something again). I did a little surfing and came across OpenID, and it looks like a promising solution. More to come with further research.
My friends, it has come to my attention that WordPress offers a much better product to fit with the style I want this blog to evolve into. Entries will continue as often as possible, but with a much nicer interface. I am also combining this blog with my personal blog under a common domain, http://airbornesurfer.wordpress.com
It is my hope that you enjoy my ramblings in addition to other sorts of geekery that my blog will continue to provide.
Could it possibly be that I’ve succumb to the social media craze du jour that is Twitter?
Possibly.
It would seem that Twitter is a little more than an–excuse the expression–fly-by-night social media site. Yeah, it’s been around for a while now and everybody and their sibling, cousin, and grandparent uses it, so I figured I should get in on the act. At least as far as the blogging goes. Simply put, I’m giving it a trial run. Now that everything has become so intertwined (Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, etc.), it’s easy for me to update one on the run via the good ol’ Tweet.
So here’s the plan:
WordPress already updates Facebook with new blog posts, so Twitter updates will go directly into WordPress. Granted, this may mean that WordPress will show some odd musings in 149 characters or less, but I think being off-topic and random is more in line with the spirit of this blog. At least, it’s more in line with my character.
Let me know what you think.
According to anonymous sources via The Wall Street Journal, Apple is possibly in the process of wooing at least CBS and Disney into a subscription service for streaming television. The basic rundown is that the customer could subscribe to a program stream without having to deal with those messy, customer-unfriendly cable companies that everyone I know loathes and despises in a vein similar to their affections for Terrorists and Nazi Zombies.
I, for one, am ecstatic about the prospect of only having to pay for the small handful of channels I watch (when I actually sit down and watch television). If I want The Military History Channel, I don’t want to have to purchase Golf TV, BET, Lifetime, etc. when I will practically never find myself actively watching such tripe. Of course, this is something we’ve all been subjected to since the advent and explosion of the format since the 1980’s. I remember talk during the late 90’s about the FCC kicking around the idea of “TV a la carte” wherein, thanks to programmable receivers, consumers would be able to purchase subscriptions only for networks they actually watch. Lobbies representing the cable providers (namely Comcast and Verizon, if memory serves correctly) immediately went into action championing the plight of the niche-market TV networks–small, usually locally-oriented, stations that have little to no widespread appeal (think low-power UHF stations of old)–saying they would inevitably be destroyed if no one had the opportunity to stumble upon them. Thankfully, we now have Web 2.0. With its proliferation of on-demand services such as RSS, YouTube, Twitter, etc., the “no one will ever see this” excuse is practically eliminated.
I think this is certainly the start of something new and necessary for the growth of entertainment, information, and technology. With seemingly limitless options provided by the Interweb, television doesn’t have to be held hostage to timeslots…or location-specific receivers, for that matter. My only concern is the fact that Apple might keep a stranglehold on the market–is there a way to make sure that the receiver software stays open? I don’t want to have to deal with iTunes just to keep up with 24 or Doctor Who. Frankly, I don’t want to have to deal with iTunes, period, but that’s a subject for another time.
In the meantime: Streaming media to your set-top box, laptop, or phone? Yes, please.
Aren’t videos fun? I’ve wanted to do a new video production for a while now, and while filming some colourful characters at a little bar my friends and I frequent in Marietta, I decided that this could make a fun subject for a video. Thanks to Jon and Mary–who lent me the use of their phones after my battery died–I was able to capture not only some good B-roll, but some interviews with a few of the more colourful patrons of Faces Lounge as well. Enjoy!
While watching the Old Spice Guy-Fabio Mano a Mano in El Baño videos a few days ago, I came across a curious link that was so outlandish that I had to try it! Apparently, some clever sound hounds and code monkeys over at Reddit built a soundboard that will assemble various clips from Old Spice Guy (Isaiah Mustafa) into your very own custom voicemail message.
Here’s mine:
Also, if you missed all the hijinks from the July 26 viral marketing campaign, you can catch up at Old Spice’s YouTube channel. I would highly suggest–nay, I demand it!
(For the record, I voted for Old Spice Guy)
Author’s Note: This question was posed on Formspring. Feel free to ask any questions to me at http://www.formspring.me/matteargle
I think it pretty-much goes without saying that I can’t think of a far better way to relax than digging my bare feet into some warm sand, listening to the waves crash against the shore. Could be the reason I like being here in southern California so much. I like to travel and I enjoy visiting new cities, becoming immersed in the local colour, but to vacation–to get away from the grind–always takes me to the beach.
Where would you rather vacation?
After three months of procrastination, I finally finished the video documentary of Disneyland’s Leap Day celebration event. Beginning at 6am on February 29 and running until 6am March 1, Surge, Jessica, Lucia, Ian, Angela, and I braved the elements, sleep deprivation, and the throngs of rabid crowds to survive one of the biggest events ever held by the Disney parks. Unfortunately, as you may find out from watching, it may have been one of the biggest event planning SNAFU’s since Opening Day. In all, it was quite the experience: one of laughter, merriment, and bonding that–if we’re lucky–only comes along every four years.