cleverswine.net

I’m at the Chicago office this week, helping out on a .Net web project. I haven’t seen much of the city yet, but my first impression is that it’s big and old (old != bad). I’m staying about .75 miles from the office, so I might walk back to the hotel this evening and check things out on the way. I probably won’t get out much while I’m here, but if I do, I’ll be sure to take photos.

I’ve put my big buys on hold for now. I can’t decide what kind of car I want. I test drove the MINI Cooper and did not like it. It was too small, too noisy, and although the interior was pretty fancy, it felt cheap. As for the BMW and Audi, I can’t see spending $40k on a car when I can get one that works just as well for $20k. Needless to say, I have a lot of research left to do before I buy anything. The Honda Fit is now on my list.

Speaking of buying things, I just read about a new Dell mini PC (Dell Studio Hybrid), which would be great as a nice looking media PC connected to a television. It starts at $499, but by the time I added what I deemed to be necessary options, it was $1600. Anyway, I’ve already got a good media PC, but I’m always prepared to upgrade.

So I’ve been using FriendFeed for a few months now. It basically aggregates my online activity (mostly via “social” networks like Facebook and Flickr) and then provides a feed for anyone to consume. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s really too bad that we need something like this. I think it’s a sign that the social web is out of control. Anyway, I find it useful to track what my friends are doing on the web, since we have similar interests. To see what it looks like, check my feed here: http://friendfeed.com/cleverswine.

Meanwhile, I twittered for the first time last week. It wasn’t as good as people say it is. I’m unfulfilled.

Now that I’ve had enough of the Perfect Day (sun is bad), I’ve migrated to the great indoors. There are at least 4 things I’d like to be doing while indoors: listening to music, looking at photos, browsing the web, and watching baseball. As it turns out, I’m doing all 4 at once! Check it out.

This is an funny article about how most visionaries in the programming world have beards and dress like slobs. I have to say, dressing nice and shaving are at the bottom of my list of priorities. I think the same could be said for most of the programmers that I know.

According to this article, my favorite geek TV show, The IT Crowd, is coming to NBC. The show is about misunderstood IT workers, and is hilarious. It currently only airs in Britain and can also be watched online.

I created a somewhat exhaustive list of software that I use (see Pages on the right). I did this for 2 reasons: one, it’s a convenient place for me to go if I need to reinstall any or all of my software, and two, it may be helpful to others. If there’s something that you think I left off of the list, add it as a comment to this post. Gracias.

The longer I use Wordpress, the more I like it. It has quite a few features, but they don’t get in the way of simplicity. I’m finding it easy to add content, pages, and links, all “willy-nilly”. Customizing the appearance isn’t that difficult if you’re familiar with CSS and/or PHP. There are also “plugins” galore, such as these. A good experience so far.

I might also mention that  a2 web hosting has been phenomenal so far.