UtterlyBoring.com

Anybody Have Some Time I Can Borrow?

Mon, 14 May 2012 22:46:16 -0800

So the new job is going well. I'm still trying to wrap my head around ConnectWise, but I'm getting there. The people there are great, the company's philosophies are good, and things are going smoothly. And I actually get home earlier from work, so I can see my kids more (shorter commutes are nice, though I did have to wait at a train crossing three times in the last week).

Meanwhile, since it's the end of the school year, and there are a bunch of concerts, recitals, and other end of the year activities with the kids, including my own mess of stuff. I have rehearsals and/or concerts tonight through next Tuesday, which means I won't be able to come up for air much after work or on the weekends.

In other words, this blog is going to be neglected for a bit more time. I have a ton of fun reading material and videos to share, but I actually need to sleep now and again.

With that being said, good night.

Don't Text and Walk

Mon, 07 May 2012 22:03:49 -0800

Bad things happen...

Post Last-Day Reading Material

Thu, 03 May 2012 22:26:00 -0800

Since I gave my notice, I've been spending the last few weeks trying to finalize and document a metric ton of projects as well as find replacement(s) for the various work I do. Today was my last day in Sunriver, and it was with a bit of sadness that I left. While I'm looking forward to the new challenges and the people I'll be working with, change is always a bit scary. But change sometimes has to be made, and I'm looking forward to a bit of change in my life. It was a bit weird removing a few e-mail accounts from Thunderbird.

Meanwhile, here's some reading material that I've been sitting on for a while:

67 Books every Geek Should Read To Their Kids.
If your site has a terms of service, making it easy to read like this is a good idea.
This review for this product is absolutely hilarious.
Bath image resizing made easy.
Metafilter now has a "Best Of" blog.
Zingiri Bookings is a nifty looking little online property booking app.
The most common cooking mistakes
Create your own election with the WaPo interactive tool.
I've never played Monopoly this way, but it's actually the right way to do it.
Descriptive Camera: point it at subject and press the shutter button to capture and print a text description of the scene.
Need an essay written? This should help you get a laugh.
Fake S3 -- Save time, money, and develop offline.
Filepicker.io is a better upload dialog for the web.
When you have an employee whose last name is Null, it can screw with programming.
Parting out a UPS to provide battery backup to a critical sub-panel in your house.
Fat Dogs are awesome!
Gmail full? Clear out some big emails.
Goodbye -9999px: A new CSS image replacement technique.
The secret meeting that changes rap music and destroyed a generation.
How computers boot up.
How to access Gmail when its down.
How to hack your own Wi-Fi network.
How we use Trello and Google Docs to make UserVoice better every day.
The new iPad's screen under the microscope.
Keeping Instagram up with over a million new users in twelve hours.
Yelp, You Cost Me $2000 by Suppressing Genuine Reviews, Here’s How You Fix It.

More tomorrow, as I have a bunch of links I've collected.

Time Killer For The Evening

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 23:24:34 -0800

A Super Mario Summary has you play through all the levels of the original Super Mario Bros., but each level is summed up in a single screen. Get all the coins and jump to the top of the flag pole to get three stars for the level. Created in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 23

For the Hitchcock Fans

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:21:11 -0800

A great Rear Window Timelapse:

Have a New Job, Looking For My Replacement(s)

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:35:58 -0800

I've been a bit quiet about this (and quiet in general, lately), as I wanted to make sure it was a sure-thing, paperwork had been signed, my bosses knew and notice was given before I went public: I'm going to be leaving as the IT/Graphics/Marketing/Bit-o'-everything guy for Sunray Vacation Rentals and Discover Sunriver Vacation Rentals to take a position with Weston Technology Solutions. It was an opportunity I really couldn't pass up, and I look forward to the new challenges and working with the folks at Weston. The folks I've talked to there are all really nice people, and I've heard great things from a couple of their clients, too. I enjoyed my time down here in Sunriver and the people I've had the pleasure to work with, but it's time for a change.

I was in a unique situation in that I grew up knowing the folks who own both of these vacation rental companies, which is why I was able to work at both places, despite them being competitors. They work together on some projects to help cut costs (they built/share a laundry facility together, for example), but they're going after the same customer base, and they each do things a bit differently in general (both from an advertising standpoint as well as a technical standpoint).

What that basically means is that I'm going to need to find two people, one for each company, not a singular person to work for both companies. I'm still talking it over with the folks here to see what the exact job description will be at each company and getting craigslist ads written. We're still working on whether they plan on hiring full-time or part-time, but if you have experience in marketing and advertising (online and in print), graphics design. a-bit-of-everything (and having some web development and technical experience wouldn't hurt), send me a resume and cover letter: jakeortman at gmail dot com. Benefits may be available as well. My current officemate likes cats and Apple products, so keep that in mind when sending me your resume.

I'm also looking at getting contacts for freelancers who might do some of this kind of work as well, as I know there has been talking about outsourcing some graphics design and/or technical duties. If you're interested, and don't mind the drive out to Sunriver, send me your information as well so I can add it to my file.

Update: Here's one of the craigslist postings, will link up the other one when/if it gets created.

Everything's Better With Drama

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:17:36 -0800

Just push the button...

Time Killer(s) For The Evening

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:10:53 -0800

MapsTD is tower defense on Google Maps.
Play the piano with random folks online.
Need help learning to type? TypingClub will help.
You don't control the cars: You Are The Road.

Reading Material

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:09:06 -0800

Want to relive the glory days of MSIE 6? Here you go.
How to use the restore partition to break into a Mac running OS X Lion.
Ridiculously high resolution picture of the Milky Way.
JPEGmini is a photo compression technology that is compatible with the JPEG format, but does a much better job at making smaller files with out losing quality.
Did you like the Leisure Suit Larry series of computer games? Folks are trying to bring the game back to life.
Prince of Persia creator finds lost source code 23 years later.
Skrivr lets you create a website just by saving textfiles in your Dropbox, and has support for advanced typography.
Style Tiles allows you to present clients with interface choices without making the investment in multiple photoshop mockups.
This brilliant idea will take one or more feeds from your Twitter account and turn it into four rolls of toilet paper, delivered straight to your door.
No news here: Prisoners get better health care than us.
Hero for the day; 7th grader saves bus from crash after driver has heart attack.
Elderly couple in fear thanks to Spike Lee tweet.
Free PNG credit card, debit card, and payment icons (these are going on a couple sites I manage). If you need smaller icons, there are some good ones here, too.
Fighting sexist jokes the geeky way.
TIL there are devices built specificially to inject ads into a page that weren't otherwise there.
How not to sort by average ranking.
Best apps to keep on your flash drive.
The reviews for this stupidly-expensive watch are hilarious.
My dog sends me texts. Yeah, it's weird.
Use Google Docs to monitor your site's uptime.
Why $7.99 beats $0.99.
Create a killer seamless, play-everything media center with XBMC. If XBMC had better TV tuner support, I'd probably ditch Windows 7 Media Center on my HTPC for this, as it's pretty dang slick. Of course, my WDTV box does 90% of what I need, and uses a lot less power.
The end of pagination.
dMaintenance is a handy little Windows clean-up tool.
Can't stop staring at this one: Wind Map of the US.
Finding Goatse: The Mystery Man Behind the Most Disturbing Internet Meme in History.
Hillary Clinton embraces the Texts from Hillary tumblr.

Video Dump

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:58:37 -0800

Needed to get these off my desk here. Read on to watch...

The 2012 Pick 'em Is Over, and BBall Magic Is Our Winner!

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:08:40 -0800

First off, a big thank you to all of the prize providers for this year's pick 'em:

There'd be no point in having a pick 'em like this if it weren't for the wonderful folks who throw in prizes, so please support them all, click through to their sites, buy something, eat something, etc...

I was one of a few people that picked Kansas to win the tournament while most of the people in the 2012 UtterlyBoring NCAA Pick 'em picked Kentucky. I thought I was going to look like a genius. Not so much after Kentucky smacked the Jayhawks around, causing me to drop from first on Saturday to fourth today. As you can see, quite a few folks picked Kentucky, and I barely held on to fourth place.

But that matters not, as the following folks are in the money, so to speak:

First Place goes to BBall Magic (Erock): A $25 Gift Certificate for a handmade mug from Mug Revolution Plus a $25 Amazon Gift card (provided by my parents, who run Home Improvement Services) Plus A totally un-used Starter Pack for Arduino Plus two lift tickets to Ski Anthony Lakes, courtesy of Baker City's Best Pizza Place.
Second Place goes to Zen-ish (David): He'll take home a meal (breakfast, lunch, or dinner) for two at Jake's Diner Plus an Alehouse T-Shirt from Brother Jon's Ale House Plus $25 gift certificate to Paizano's in Baker City.
Third Place goes to Larry Legend (LarryK): Larry will take home a copy of Mario Super Sluggers for the Wii Plus a luxurious fuzzy Paizano's Pizza embroidered full-length robe.
Second-to-Last Place goes to GoHogs! (Kyle): He runs off with the fully punched Taco Del Mar punch card for a free burrito, courtesy of Bend Oregon Restaurants Blog.
Last Place goes to Drentastic!: Dren is a three-time loser and gets a t-shirt from the UtterlyBoring.com shop. I'll have to add a few design elements to the shirt to make it extra special

I'll be getting in touch with all the winners later this week once I get all the prizes rounded up. Per the rules, you have two weeks to get back to me from when I send the email, otherwise the prizes go to the next person on the list. Make sure your email address it visible on the tournament member page otherwise I have no idea how to verify you are who you say you are (or contact me at utterlyboring {at} gmail {dot} com and I'll give you another way to verify, involving the tournament member page).

Thanks again for playing!

Trying To Get In Touch With Me?

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:21:45 -0800

If anybody tried to e-mail me on my personal email (jake {at} orty {dot} com) the last 24 hours or so, you might want to e-mail me at jakeortman {at} gmail {dot} com instead. E-mails are disappearing off into neverland since I moved my domain between servers last night (part of the move I mentioned yesterday), so I don't know if the emails are lost or not. Looking into it, but meanwhile, that Gmail account is probably the best way to get in touch of me right now.

Update: After looking at all sorts of logs and such, it appears my e-mail was never making it to this server. It was making it to my old server, but was getting rejected for unknown reasons (probably because the MX records pointed here, as they should have). They were temporary rejects, but for some reason something kept trying to send email to that old server. So I just said screw it and did what I've been meaning to do and move my personal e-mail domain to Google Apps and changed the MX records all around to reflect that. As soon as I did that, e-mail started to trickle in from last night, so SMTP servers were doing their jobs and retrying. This will probably give me a better e-mail infrastructure than I could ever build myself anyway. Still do wish i knew what the heck was going on.

Anybody Need Toner or a Copier? And Some Personal Notes...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:47:01 -0800

First off, happy Internet JackAss day. I'm too busy to really browse around and find the good stuff, so post a comment with your favorites.

We're moving offices here in a month or so, so I've been cleaning out closets here at the office. I have a truckload of laser printer toner (mostly for HPs) that I have on Craiglist and also have a good Canon copier for sale. I also have a few twinky flatbed scanners and a few other parts I'm still going through, so let me know if you are looking for something specific and I'll see what we have.

The rest gets a bit technical here, so you can read on if you'd like...

Holy Cow, I'm Actually Winning My Pick 'em

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 20:58:23 -0800

The Final Four is over, and I'm actually winning the 2012 UtterlyBoring.com Pick 'em, but it's still going to come down to the final game. If Kansas wins, I'm the bragging-rights champ (since I'm not claiming any prizes), but if Kentucky wins, I'm going to drop down to fourth, as several folks are really close to me, and have Kentucky winning the final game. The final game is worth a bunch of points (13 to be exact) so things could really get interesting. The updated scores for the day are here.

Reading Material

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:55:13 -0800

Whoops...Kazakhstan's shooting team has been left stunned after a comedy national anthem from the film Borat was played at a medal ceremony at championships in Kuwait instead of the real one.
Block your friends' Facebook apps from accessing your private info.
Welcome to the post-PC era.
Need a legal document? Docracy is a social repository of contracts, legal agreements and other legal documents.
Easily manage all your social network settings in one place.
Somebody really knows their conspiracy theories.
Font Awesome is an iconic font designed for use with Twitter Bootstrap.
iPhone people have all the fun: This iPhone case combines all your credit cards into one. The Kickstarter project has long met its goal, and it's too bad that this will probably never make it to Android (too many devices in different shapes -- developing accessories for iStuff is far simpler).
If you're transferring cPanel accounts between servers (like I was a few weeks ago), some of these command will be useful.
How we decreased sign up confirmation email bounces by 50%. Now I just need to implement this code on some sign-up forms I deal with.
Similarly, the Open Domain Directory idea proposed here is a good idea, as is Humans TXT.
The movie Inception explained in a nice little web site.
Instead of "amazing," why not say....
Sometimes product reviews on sites are just plain worthless.
Add a bit of water color to your Open Street Maps.
Because I can never seem to find it via a Google search: the new Federal Student Loan Servicing page where you can log in and deal with your federal student loan account without having to remember a PIN.
Why James Whittaker left Google.
It was hard being a jazz performer during Nazi rule. They had pretty strict rules.
One drug to shrink all tumors.
Open plan offices must die.
Post Office 2.0 Plugin for Movable Type allows you to e-mail to post to your MovableType blog.
The regu.la blog network is a collection of simple daily information: Daily facts, quotes and numbers.
What if modern photo editing techniques used in magazines were applied to classic artwork? It might look like this.
Need to connect Lincoln Logs to Legos to K'Nex to Tinkertoys? Now you can.
Interesting look at how testing and development is done on the Netflix app for Android.
The time is...
10 Essential DIY Skills that Aren't as Hard as You Think.
Bradley Manning, the U.S. serviceman who leaked info to Wikileaks, is nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.
RT Se7en Lite allows you to easily create Windows 7 Slipstream disks, like nLite and vLite did for XP and Vista.
After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica has stopped publishing. Wikipedia has a collection of errors in Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia.
The Weinstein company is done dealing with the MPAA: Bully to be Release Unrated.