Archive for the 'Personal' Category

Laughing Squid Explained by Scott Beale

Published
by
Jason
on December 17, 2006
in Meta
. 0 Comments

Via Ryan is Hungry

The Cephalopodcast is hosted on the Laughing Squid servers. I don’t have any direct affiliation with them other than as a satisfied customer. It just seemed like a natural enough choice selecting their services when it came time to look for hosting. Indeed, Laughing Squid was a bit of an enigma to me at first, since they seemed to be more about art than science. But I just came across a video interview with the Laughing Squid founder, Scott Beale, that inked in some of the details:

Scott is an instigator, an experimenter, a businessman and guy with a lot of great t-shirts. Check out this interview where every story Scott tells leads to 5 more stories. This short interview doesn’t do him justice, but it’s a start.

Read the rest and see the video here.

Better technique for wrapping your MacBook Pro power adapter cord

Published
by
Jason
on December 14, 2006
in Meta
. 6 Comments

As mentioned on a previous post, I ran into trouble with the power adapter on my Powerbook G4. This adapter design gets a lot of criticism, and there are many dissatisfied reviews on the Apple store. This has been ameliorated somewhat with the introduction of the magsafe connector on the new generation of MacBook Pros. However, they still look susceptible to the same kind of fatigue from regular bending.

So I have this bit of advice, which I hope helps other Mac users. I picked this trick up from one of the Apple Store Geniuses. As an aside, since he showed me this technique and confessed that all the other employees use it too, it seems pretty clear that Apple knows the design is flawed.

So the technique can be seen in the picture (click for larger image). The idea is to give the cord a wide, slack first loop before wrapping and then continue to wind it around the brick loosely, giving the cord a half twist each time. It should be just like winding rope.

Seems simple enough. But if you wrap it tightly like in the picture shown in the product promos and on the Apple website, you are likely to wear out your cord and get the same cracks that I had with my Powerbook. We will see if this techniques helps my new brick last longer. Also, I added some white Gaffer tape to the end points too, as reinforcement.

Happy Cepha-versary

Published
by
Jason
on December 1, 2006
in Blog and Meta
. 0 Comments

Well, the Cephalopodcast is one year old today. It was actually back in July/August 2005 that I woke up with the name “cephalopodcast” rolling around in my brain. Fortunately, podcasting was still new enough that no one else had registered the domain yet. I was also thinking of calling it the SquinkLink, but fortunately my wife nixed that idea.

I suppose it’s close enough to the New Year for me to make some predictions too. I am finally starting to read up on how to roll my own Wordpress templates. Expect more customization and design of the Cephalopodcast blog in the coming year. I am also playing around with Drupal and might switch over to that CMS in the future.

I started this blog/podcast mostly as a learning exercise. Now that the curve has leveled off, expect more actual content next year (certainly more than four podcasts, geesh!). There are a number of local and national marine science figures and organizations I hope to communicate with soon. And now that I have the TuneTalk, I can be a bit more spontaneous and mobile with recoding as well. Plus my buddy Stephen will be back in town. If that doesn’t lead to some improvement in production, I don’t know what will. The dude’s clever like that (nudge, nudge). Assuming he makes it safely back from San Francisco via the Panama Canal.

I have been experimenting with live productions with the help of these fine folks. I expect that will continue in the future. I hope to add some video to the mix too.

There is the TONMOCON II in June to look forward to. Lots of cephalopody goodness there.

In the bigger picture, I agree with some sentiments voiced by Leo Laporte. The shine is off podcasting. All the early adopters have adopted. All the secondary adopters have contracted with the early adopters for support and services. If there is any rush at all in the coming year, it will be when Microsoft finally adds podcast support to Windows Media Player.

So if you have any predictions for the next year, or ideas for future podcasts, let me know. Email pulpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com or leave a comment. Thanks!

Let the Hiatus Re-End

Published
by
Jason
on November 26, 2006
in Blog and Meta
. 0 Comments

My Powerbook G4 has been out of commission. It started with a frayed cord near the brick of the power adapter. This seems to be a common situation. Sadly, Apple classifies this as my problem and would not fix it, even with AppleCare and visits to the Genius Bar. Out of desperation, I made the mistake of getting a 3rd party adapter. A couple weeks ago, the center prong on the connector broke off inside the computer. I tried to remove it myself, but the 2mm of metal wedge inside the power port won’t come out, despite various strategies. The repair is likely to be +$400. :(

Consequently, the Cephalopodcast has not received the attention it deserves. I hope to rectify that in the immediate future.

New Cephalopodcast Logo & Emporium

Published
by
Jason
on July 10, 2006
in Meta
. 0 Comments

Cephalopodcast T-shirt [200x200, 8K]My wife came back from Belize with a bouncy little dashboard cephalopod souvenir. It’s inspired me in the creation of a real logo for the Cephalopodcast. I know it’s pretty derivative from other podcasting logos. But at long last, both of you that have been clamoring for Cephalopodcast fashion can be satisfied. That’s because this fine emblem is now proudly featured at the new Cafe Press Cephalopodcast Emporium.

Also, look for it soon in your content aggregator, as another episode of the Cephalopodcast is coming out this week. Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: 95% of the purchase price goes to the elves at Cafe Press and 5% is sent to me (~$1 US).

Fish at work

Published
by
Jason
on March 31, 2006
in Blog and Meta
. 0 Comments

Updating the backend of the Cephalopodcast. Please pardon my pixels if things look wonky.

Okay, so where’s the podcast?

Published
by
Jason
on December 13, 2005
in Meta and Podcast
. Closed

I’ve spent that last couple of days learning how to play with WordPress. Also teaching myself the not-so-subtleties of recording and syndication. The test message is out there. The first episode should be available soon. Please standby.

Hello, World!

Published
by
Jason
on December 1, 2005
in Personal
. Closed

Wow. What a day. I got up at 6:45 and took a shower. A few days before I had downloaded iTunes Alarm. As the names suggests, this program turns iTunes into an alarm clock and allows one to specify the time, playlist, volume, and other settings and includes features like a user controllable fade up or down and a sleep alarm. The only twist is that it won’t wake my Powerbook up out of Sleep Mode. To get around that, I set the Schedule under the Energy Saver Preferences to come on a minute before the alarm. It’s an extra step, but it allows me to role my own morning show. So under iTunes, I created a playlist called “Wake Up!,” and have copied a bunch of bouncy, morning songs into it from the Podsafe Music Network.

I also soon realized that I don’t need to listen to NPR broadcasts in real time anymore. Instead, I can download their news summaries and mix it in with my own program selections. Pretty neat trick.