Brian Jepson’s Weblog

No one told me Naked
Lunch was finally out on DVD. Sweet!

AS220
Calendar: “11-5pm BIZARRE BAZAAR - RIGHTS OF SPRING
Local artists will fill the AS220 Cafe and second floor selling one of a
kind accessories, housewares, small sculptures, jewelry, photographs and
so much more. Come see for yourself! The Bizarre Bazaar was created with
the intention of providing a venue for artisans who do not have the
comforts of a retail outlet. All original work! This month, learn about
the Apeiron Institute’s 3rd Annual Rhode Island Sustainable Living
Festival & Renewable Energy Expo happening on June 5th and the
opportunities that they have for artists. The Bizarre Bazaar will be
relocating for the month of June to this festival! Please contact
Natalia for more information at 831.9327 or natalia at as220 dot org
http://www.apeiron.org“

There’s an interesting thread going on about packaging Mono for Mac OS X. This post by Andy Satori has some tasty tidbits:

With XCode, I currently have a C# language filter defined so that XCode can parse the functions and color C# files. I also have a Makefile based project template for building a C# application in XCode. I’m now working on enhancing that to be a part of the XCode native build system, instead of the old Project Builder, jam based, build system.
This will improve the error parsing and display, as well as allow you to use the much more powerful Info panels in XCode to set up your build environments. After that, it is my intent to build a library of templates for XCode to setup your basic projects, much like VS.NET.

I can’t wait to check that out…

The other day, Scott
Hanselman posted some Virtual PC optimization tips. There wasn’t a whole lot that I could do
from that list, but there was one tip I took to heart: “Place the .VHD files on separate spindle
from host OS.”

I bought a fast 2.5 inch
ATA drive, the 7200rpmHitachi 7K60. When
it arrived, I dropped it into an OWC
Mercury On-The-Go enclosure. The enclosure is bus-powered, and this drive consumes 1.1 amps
of the 1.5
amps that my 15″ PowerBook supplies.

So far, so good. Moving my virtual drives to the external drive made my Mac a lot
more responsive when VPC is running. It is a drag to have to have an external drive, but with a
long enough cable, I suppose I can keep it stashed in my backpack or somewhere out of sight most
of the time.

Chris
Sells: “implementing my cockamamie ideas in Rotor”

I think the experiments are over. I’ve been reading in alt.cellular.verizon that the EN-MOU honeymoon is
over. I’ve got three data plans that I use to experiment with
cellular data:

• $20/month on my stepson’s phone for 8MB of EDGE data
• $40/month (+$10 for no contract) for 20MB of PCS Vision data
• $20/month for unlimited data on T-Mobile
• $0/month on my wife’s Verizon phone (I’ve been using EN-MOU for
  throughput/coverage testing)

$90 a month, hmmm…. I could get unlimited data on Verizon’s
1xRTT/1xEV-DO network or AT&T Wireless/Cingular’s EDGE network for that,
and still keep unlimited T-Zones on my T-Mobile phone. Sounds like a
no-brainer, but which to choose? T-Mobile is stuck at 40kbps, and
Sprint no longer offers their unlimited data plan ($100 a month gets you
300MB, though).

Presumably in anticipation of a larger 1xEV-DO rollout, Verizon is
offering the 1xRTT/1xEV-DO-capable AirPrime
5220 even in Rhode Island, which is as far as I know, still on
1xRTT. And it appears that you can get it working on
Mac OS X or Linux with
little effort. That looks like the best choice for me–excellent
coverage, and higher speeds in the near future. Now to move on from the
waffling stage (which will probably last another month or so unless I’m
hit with an impulsive moment or two…)

Update: Now I’m giving some thought toward AT&T Wireless’ EDGE
service. Pros:

• I’ll have a SIM I can swap into GPRS devices
• The GC82 card is free with a 2-year contract

Cons:

• The GC82 probably won’t work on my Mac, at least not without a
  hard-to-obtain
  firmware upgrade and third-party software

• I’ll be stuck at a maximum 130Kbps while 1xEV-DO users are cruising
  at 500Kbps.

Update: here’s
a note about patching pppd to get the GC82 working under Linux. It
would probably work for Mac OS X as well.

I’m much less worried about an independent Nader than I am a Green
Nader. Nader + the Green Party offered the possibility that the Green
Party could grow substantially–that was the payoff, at least in theory.
He’s not offering that this time around.

Ingo
Rammer points out some UML shapes for
Visio that don’t get in your face about how they think things should
be done–you can just draw and type.

Loïc Le Meur’s WebLog: Back from the future: there
were more speakers in the room than on stage at E-tech conference
(via Butt Ugly)

Casey Chesnut: “i am actually filtering them. SEX.”