I'm moving Blogs!

Well - it's been a while, but I was finally able to kick off my podcast project, and it's now in full swing. I will be moving this blog to http://www.thestealthmac.com/blog

please point your rss readers to there, and check out the podcast! - here's the link to subscribe

rss feed

here is the link directly to the show: Episode 1

busy...

been a while since I've updated.

Work has been real busy, the project put on hold from the flooding is back at full steam. Also last week my MacBook Pro died and I had to take it into Applecare - they fixed all my issues, was really satisfied!

Started the new podcast site and forum - not going to talk too much about it at present, but it's coming soon. It will be a mix audio podcast and video "screencast" format - more info to follow.

Also - wife and I splurged and got a new Cannon D40 SLR. Pretty snazzy if I say so!

Please be patient, more is coming soon.

flickr pro

Recently I talked with my mom, now she's probably the typical person for a late baby boomer, not so tech savvy and fascinated with the ability to pull up an ebay listing and view an item. I've been doing tech support for a good most of my adult life - I've been working with computers for over 20 years now. So naturally I am considered your geek next door, that guy in the office that someone from work can ask questions to, etc.. but one thing I've grown to hate over the years is family and neighbor tech support. At first I thought it was cool, but now it does nothing more than to annoy me, so anymore I point them to an article I find on google or tell them to call Dell/(respective OEM dealer here). I am THE tech support for my mom. SHe has my old Alienware 51M laptop and uses dial-up on netzero to access the internet (Both of which I pay for.)

Now usually I use my .mac photo galleries for publishing photos to the web, and recently found out my mother has an older IE browser that won't let her view the pictures, which has been bumming her out for months. I have a 10 month old son, so new pictures for my mom is crucial. I pointed her to my flickr account. It was a free account and I posted pics now and then up there to play around. I never took it too seriously... that is until last night.

My mom called ecstatic - she was able to look at my pictures - all 80 or so of them. And new ones she had never seen. So I told her I'd upload a bunch more, she almost started to cry on the phone. It's funny how sometimes it's the little things that really mean the most to my mom, and I often forget that.

So I pulled up the flicker upload tool, drug in almost 300 pics from my iPhoto library and let the thing fire off. This is when I found that my free account wasn't going to cut it. You are limited in the amount you can upload monthly (30 MB I believe) and people can only see the last 200 photos uploaded. So I upgraded to the pro account, for 25 bucks a year you can't seem to beat it! Unlimited upload, and no limit on the number of photos people can see.

So I guess my point to all this rambling is:
1. flickr pro account is worth it
2. .mac isn't always a good solution if you are trying to reach a large audience
3. sometimes it's the little things that make a huge difference to someone
4. never try to make a blog post without caffeine, I tend to ramble

Week outlook

This week looks to be a busy one - I have some upcoming server load and configures being planned. As well as getting ready for the family coming out this week for my son's baptism. It will be hectic to say the least.

I have ordered my Blue Snowball microphonee and will be setting up my "studio" shortly in preparation for my podcast/screencast. Not too sure what exactly I will be doing for my first show - planning on doing a weekly cast of some-sort. Inspired by Don of ScreenCastsOnline, but I am definitely not going to be attempting anything close to what he is doing.

Looking forward to the iPhone 2.0 software release as well - wondering how much of an impact that will have on my current iPhone 2G. Not even considering a 3G at this point.

I'm also looking for some killer app that ties all my current systems together - twitter, facebook, friendfeed, brightkite, etc... something that will tie them all up and cobine them into one usable interface.

Spike TV golf Commercial

I saw this tonight and damn near fell over laughing...

Happy 4th

Wishing you all a Happy 4th of July.

IT Guy Vs Dumb Employees - Watch more free videos

Someone from work sent me this - you'll appreciate it if you do any kind of IT support work.