Author: steppek

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iTunes with Podcast support

iTunes 4.9 is available for download now! It supports podcasts out of the box, and I think that this is great for anyone new to the medium.

I installed it and found that it was easy to start building a list of podcasts that I was subscribed to. One notable feature I like is that there are options for what to keep, so that you don’t fill up your harddrive with shows that you are done with or didn’t listen to. Also, it keeps your podcast shows separate from your Library of music. To me that is a awesome. I often loose shows when they are mixed in with the general population, unless the genre is set to “Podcast” or something.

There are a few notable things that I believe could use improving. One is importing of OPML lists, and maybe some smartlist capability, however I think that this is a step in the right direction…

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Building Implosion in Charlotte

On Sunday morning about 7:30a on June 26th, the old Charlotte Convention was imploded, and I was there.
I shot video from two different angles, one from my Office which is directly next door to the implosion, and one from the Bank of America Corporate Center.

The visual that I had was amazing, especially so close. The BofA Center was shaking from all the vibration…

I will post some video soon**, however here are some pictures that I took. I will post a few more of these also.

UPDATE: Here is some video and information from WSOC on the implosion

** Here is my Video! (Quicktime required) If you repost or share this video, please give my site a plug. Thanks.

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Fan Films, To boldly go…

In my never ending quest to find something more…something other than the 2 year release cycles of my favorite movie franchises…I have found that Fan films are alive and well on the Internet.

Last night on Technorama (the podcast I co-host), I talked about Fanfilms. I mentioned several really good home made productions. Grayson (Robin is Avenging Batmans death, and is faced with a conspiracy), BatMan : Dead End (A mix of Scifi and Batman) Troops and others…You can find links to all of those at the Technorama Site.

Now something that I forgot to mention…Star Trek fan films. There are some interesting ones coming down the pipe.
Over at New Voyages, they are producing episodes as if it was the forth season in the TOS time era. They have recast Kirk, Spock, and Bones (before you flip out, it is pretty well done) and the set and costumes look great. I just read that Walter Koeing is reprising his role as Checkov in an up coming one…

Now also over at New Voyages they have a links page that links to other Star Trek Fan projects. Some of note I would like to point you in the direction of…
Star Trek: Intrepid
Starship Execter
Also of interest… is Hidden Frontier. I looks like they actually have 6 seasons of episodes already. Set in the TNG era, it looks like they sacrificed building their own sets, and did a lot of green/blue screen. I will have to watch a few. Something else that I thought odd. If I am not mistaken, the theme music is from Galaxy Quest. Now, wasn’t Galaxy Quest sort of a spoof on Star Trek? Ironic.
Anyway, there is plenty here to spend a rainy day looking at.
BTW Got something interesting you like as far as Fan Films go, let me know.

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My WordPress Burped.

I noticed that my feeds weren’t working correctly, and my last several posts were not published.
I upgraded to the newset WordPress which seems to fix the problem, however, you may have gotten another blast of my past feeds.

Sorry about that…so now lets move along.

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Linux is likely the big loser in Apple’s Shift?

In this article John Dvorak says that Linux has the most to loose from this apple shift aside from the likes of IBM and Microsoft.

He mentions OSS licensing issues, and people being more prone to switch to a machine that can basically run OSx and Windows as being factors that could detract from Linux’s development. But I don’t exactly agree. I mean, you will still have to purchase an Apple machine, just like today to get to OSX. If that will be the case, then why isn’t it happening now?

Now if OSX was stand alone, like Windows is and ran on Intel for everyone….That would be another story. I could see a mass exodus from MS and Linux for that matter.

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PHP is how old?

It seems that PHP is now 10 years old. I can’t seem to grasp that it has been that long but here is the original post via google groups of the availability of PHP 1.0.

I started a new job as a web developer in 2000 and I was going to be in charge of re-developing our intranet, and external web sites. It was originally written in Cold Fusion, which I really didn’t know much about, or really like. PHP was starting to make some noise with version 3, and I did a lot of reading on it, and there was plenty to be had. It seemed very interesting. Opensource, so there is no cost for upgrades. Easy to learn, but very flexible.

With the open nature of PHP there were a lot of open projects written in PHP. I downloaded a ton of them. Dissecting and learning from others projects really shortened the learning curve. I love to learn, and I was hooked. Sure, I probably learned a few bad habits, but there was a goldmine of great information.

So I was asked to make a recommendation of what direction to go with as far as development went, and I went out on a limb and choose PHP. What a great choice that was because it has lived up to it’s promises, and more. Now, there have been times when I have beat my head against the wall with it…but that goes with the territory.

I am glad PHP has been so much a part of my career these last 5 years for me. And here’s to another 10 years for PHP!

Thanks Rasmus! Cheers!

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Apple throws the switch, aligns with Intel

Ah, now some more info…
Looks like OSX will only run on x86 Macs, and not just any x86 machine…

Apple throws the switch, aligns with Intel | CNET News.com
…
After Jobs’ presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. “That doesn’t preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will,” he said. “We won’t do anything to preclude that.”

However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers’ hardware. “We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac,” he said.

Awww Man!

Update: I started thinking about this whole thing after I posted…I guess this really means that there is no story. So what, OSX will run on Intel, but only Mac with Intel. Big Deal.