UtterlyBoring.com

Reading Material

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:05:43 -0800

Setup a whole-house speaker system using existing phone lines.
Cheap but powerful video card for HTPC use.
The thickness of napkins in the programming world.
SimpleFolio, a nice wordpress theme.
If you missed the Super Bowl commercials last night, they've all been posted here (and the story behind the Leno, Oprah, Letterman ad is over here). Vote for your favorite here.
According to teenagers, sites like mine aren't cool anymore. Not that I'm losing sleep over losing the under-18 demo.
Another high school, another overzelous administration conficating newspapers that do some real reporting.
Always wear your seat belt.
The anti-vaccine autism paper had catastrophic effects.
Symbian Operating System is Now Open Source and Free -- but will it matter?
Relatively Portal.
Netflix 28-Day Window Would Decimate Their Top Rental List.
Kwedit, a new completely unreliable payment network.
Calagator, open-source project for calendar aggregation (like Portland's tech events).
Run your own URL Shortener, and hopefully have better luck with spammers than my failed attempt (Ken is using it here).
If you run a MovableType blog, this site might interest you.
Licensing Delay Complicates Decision Between Open Source and Proprietary Video Players.

Time Killer For The Evening

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:26:57 -0800

I don't have a mouse wheel on my laptop, nor do I have an extra external mouse that has one (as a mouse wheel is required), but I've heard a lot of people say this is a very nice original game. Feel free to judge for yourself.

Speaking of Flash toys, this one puts our place in the universe in a little perspective.

Reading Material

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:24:07 -0800

30 Commercial Games That Have Been Released for Free.
The Apple iMaxiPad.
Speaking of iPad, here's a GUI PSD for it so you can start making your app interfaces.
Life below 600 pixels (or "below the fold").
Software on the Cheap (or: Why good software is not something your cousin's nephew can do.).
Uncovering the secrets of Mega Shark.
OptiPNG, great command line tool to knock some weight off PNG files.
HTML5 isn't going to save the Internet.
Southpark Mac vs. PC.
Man films his wife crying after movies, posts it online, everybody laughs (including the wife).
Random picture blog for the day: Hot Chicks Plunging Their Toilets.
Javascript experiments in Chrome.
Speaking of impressive Javascript, Windows 3.1 Program Manager in Javascript.
Sexting is now just for teens -- old folks are doing it, too (yikes).
Speaking of disgusting, Miley's 9-year old sister is launching a lingerie line for kids.

Time Killer For The Night

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:23:30 -0800

It's Gluey, and it's simple, but quite fun.

Bandwidth Is Overrated

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:37:56 -0800

Time to kill some of it...

Time Killer For The Evening

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:57:37 -0800

It's a Werebox and you can play it after the jump...

Looking For Prize Donations for The Annual Pick 'em

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:59:52 -0800

The NCAA March Madness pick 'em has been a tradition around these parts for quite a while, and this year will be the fifth year we do it. You can read up about last year's winner and the prizes that were awarded, and if you really want to look back further, here are the pages from 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 (look at the track backs on each page to see scoring links and pages).

We had a good bunch of prizes last year, and I'm looking for prizes to give away this year (being our fifth year, let's try to get some good stuff). Like before, you'll get text links on the tournament page, plus a banner ad in rotation with all the other prize providers like we had last year (and of course my adoration, because local business is awesome). E-mail me at utterlyboring [at] gmail [dot] com if you have something to donate (I'll be e-mailing last year's prize providers again to see if they've got something to donate).

Update on 1/31/10: We've got some great prizes being submitted, and I have a couple good ones to throw in as well -- this will EASILY be the best prize cache out of all the competitions we've had.

Reading Material For The Night

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:28:34 -0800

The problem with young people today...(reminds me of this guy).
How David Blaine held his breath for 17 minutes.
The most statistically full of s**t professions.
Coca Cola "Happiness Machine".
Visualizing browser share over the years.
Lessons from the AT&T/Facebook Switcheroo.
SexyCycle jQuery plugin.
How to run a meeting like Google.
Valentines Day is coming, and it's time for some gift cards (NSFW). Featured this last year, but they've put up some new cards for the holiday.
In case you missed all the hype, Apple deputed a new toy today, and no it has nothing to do with this old Mad TV skit, despite the name.
Mario was never in any danger.

We Could Only Be So Lucky

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:06:20 -0800

Rush Limbaugh doesn't want to be alive anymore.

Bit The Bullet, Moving To Thunderbird

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:34:51 -0800

I'm a heavy e-mail user, and basically live out of my inbox because of all the companies I deal with an work with. I regularly check 10 accounts several times a day, a few of those several times and hour, and receive hundreds of messages per day. Prior to today, I had all this filtering into Outlook 2003, all via POP3 download, with a few add ons and filters to make my life easier in there. I have been using Outlook for years, so I have several archived PST (Outlook's storage file) files on my hard drive, but I also have one large PST that is my main working file. I also needed it recently for use with MS Exchange as well as ActiveSync connections with my phone. After all these years, and despite archiving on a regular basis, Outlook just drags more and more. Not only that, but IMAP support in Outlook always seemed like an after-thought. It also was a pain to look up messages if I didn't have them properly sorted, because Outlook didn't have built-in indexing of messages (not until 2007, which I don't have). Third-party indexing solutions seemed to only make the slow-down problem worse, and never seemed to index things properly.

I'd been looking at moving to a different email client for a while, but never did as Outlook has always Just Worked™. But I decided to make the move to Thunderbird, now that it's mature enough to handle all I could throw at it.

Conan is Awesome

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:07:05 -0800

His 2006 Emmy's opening was the best ever...

Facebook Data Center Coming To Central Oregon

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:14:43 -0800

So it appears that the mystery company behind the datacenter that's going to be built in Prineville is going to be none other than Facebook, according to KTVZ, KBND, the Bulletin, a couple people I know, as well as a few comments on my site from yesterday. Of course, none of this is completely official yet, as the official announcement is scheduled to come later today. Considering the press this is getting this morning, I doubt that the company behind all this is anybody other than Facebook -- though it would be quite hilarious if everybody was wrong.

Update: More on this: Apparently a construction worker on-site slipped to the Bulletin about this, even though they weren't supposed to say anything. I've talked to somebody who is close to the whole thing (and under NDA and annoyed that the story got out -- honestly, I'm amazed it took this long), and they have confirmed that it is Facebook. Official announcement from the company should be coming later this morning.

Update later: It's official. Here's Facebook's blog post, story from the Oregonian, and the KTVZ story has been updated (all with pretty artist's renderings). For those hardcore datacenter geeks, Data Center Knowledge has a good article up about where Facebook's move from leasing space to building their own center (I was amazed they were co-locating their servers all these years). Techcrunch has the story as well.

Congrats to all for making this happen!

Time Killer For The Evening

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:25:18 -0800

1066 is a middle-ages war game that's a load of fun.

Prineville Datacenter Is Not Yahoo or Google -- So Who Is It?

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:11:43 -0800

A couple months ago stories broke about a datacenter that was going to be opening up in Prineville. A new article in today's Bulletin confirms it's not Google or Yahoo! and that work on the site is already under way. There is a thought that the name of the company behind Vitesse (the company that's doing all the dealings with Prineville) might be released on Thursday.

Anybody have any new theories or information?

Update: From the Oregonian, all will be revealed tomorrow, but if anybody wants to blow their NDA (which, from what I hear expires tomorrow at noon), feel free to comment below.

Bulletin Now Allowing More Commenting Options

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:58:48 -0800

While KTVZ has provided commenting features on their new stories for quite a while, the Bulletin only started allowing them recently, and only to subscribers. (KOHD allows comments on their site, too, but KOHD just doesn't have the up-to-date and depth of content online that KTVZ and The Bulletin have, so there is very little discussion.) The Bulletin has now opened up commenting to non-subscribers as well. KTVZ's comment system is powered by JS-Kit/Echo and it appears the Bulletin's is powered by Disqus. Both sites allow you to use your Facebook, Twitter or Yahoo! accounts (among others) to sign in, but you still need to either register somewhere to post on the Bulletin's site (you can post anonymous, but moderated, comments on KTVZ's site, which doesn't appear to be an option on The Bulletin's site).

I don't know the relative benefits or advantages of either commenting platform (there is a lot of discussion here), but it's good to see the options for discussion in the community (since I've long shuttered Bend Forums).