Guys over at Network Garage are giving away an ipod shuffle. Just for having the best automatic backup solution in the home.

Minor meltdown over the last 6 days. My DMX512 system became inhabited by gremlins. Really teh gear is not supposed to be used outdoors so the fact that it survived 5-6 years is amazing. But I was using it to control every effect and so the s$%t hit the fan. Over the past 6 days I have ripped DMX control out of most of the system and gone to simpler, cheaper x10 and Zwave. Much more durable signalling (wireless and powerline) but much higher latency. I have kept DMX only for my lightning effects, as latency matters and I don’t have the time to build a bunch of color organs (tho next year).

Anyway nearly everything is working again. I have a major air leak in my pneumatics which I will fix tomorrow.

Oh and a rant – why so many fricking plug types for 220V service? The circular locking type, the regular 3 prong with a 90-degree twist on one of the prongs, and the bigger 3 prong? And this is all for 20A service. Getting things to plug together is a major PITA. Some electrician out there probably knows the answer and can probably tell me why converting from circular locking plugs to the 3 prong type is a major no-no.

From gadgetopia.  Great stuff.  And to respect his first point (“No author biographies”) I’ve added an About category and sidebar section.  Hence all the generic posts yesterday.

First post from Flock.

Kind of cool that it really integrates posting and tagging, but the posting tool is too weak to use. I can’t set categories or keywords on a post for instance.

I blog for myself. The site is my annotated bookmarks and my longterm memory. I search it regularly to find that certain halloween prop idea, that book I read, that software I tried. I don’t care much about my readership, though I have gotten a lot of value from readers – software suggestions, reconnects from old friends, business proposals.

I originally intended to use my blog to communicate with family but the lack of simple privacy solutions killed that.

While at Ignition, I’ve served on the board of Avogadro (since purchased by Openwave) and Wildseed (since purchased by AOL).

Prior to Ignition I worked at Microsoft, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Marion Power Shovel (no longer operating), and L&K Restaurants (no longer operating).  While at Microsoft, I worked at various times on MSN, Internet Explorer, Windows, Windows for Workgroups, and LAN Manager, along with a host of other things.

I’m an alum of Carnegie-Mellon University, The Ohio State University, and Marion Harding High School.

Also I am glad I’ve been on an Outward Bound trip.

I spend way too much time on halloween and the Buckeyes.  I regularly hike.  I read a ton.  And I play around with software, hardware, and the web.

One is online – from the President of Reed College – concerning Reed’s withdrawal from the US News ranking system.  Another only in print or paid sub – The Best Class Money Can Buy.  Great discussions about how the ranking systems corrupt behaviour, and how colleges are using sophisticated yield management thinking to buff up their rankings and their revenues.  Depressing in many ways but anyone who is working through the college decision process should read.

I’m a founder of and partner at Ignition Partners.  I’m on the board at Judy’s Book , Pure Networks, and Fat Spaniel. I’m also a graduate student at UW studying materials science.

Also the extended family is entangled with The Overlake School and Prescott College.

We support a variety of charities through the Seattle Foundation.

My interests include books, hiking, extreme Halloween decorating, and college football.

Email address is on the banner of the page. AIM works too, and SMS if you know my cell.

Comments on the blog are fine too.

Don’t bother calling tho (unless I’ve agreed to a. scheduled call). I won’t pick up unless you are a blood relative.

Some good potential reads here at time magazine.  I guess 1923 is the magical start point because that is when Time Magazine started publishing, and of course before that, literature did not exist.

• Via furrygoat, MSFT’s virtual WIFI software.  I’m not sure this will actually make my life any better – now I’ll be able to connect to several crappy buggy wifi hotspots at a time instead of just one – but looks like fun to play with.
• A nice review of RocketPost.  I am also using and have been very impressed with.  And the dev team has been super supportive.
• A request to make FrontRow available for legacy Macs.  Hear hear.
• Portforward.com.  Pure networks guys take note

Via gadgetopia, Findsounds.com.  When you have to find a thunder sound or dog growling or whatever for your halloween setup.

At least that is what I get out of this report that thomas hawk links to.  Which jives with my own experience, my cablecard has been unreliable as hell.

Over at Tipmonkies –

• “Judy’s Book, the yellow pages of Web 2.0”
• “Judy’s Book is an awesome resource with a great back story.”
• “This wouldn’t be Web 2.0 without a little Google Map action so you can also see listings from Judy’s Book via a handy map.”

(I’m on the board)