So, when you receive a MySpace friend request from “Donna” who doesn’t have a picture, and lives in another state, and who’s only friend is “Tom”, what do you do?
Yes. And I was just about to delete the invitation, but I noticed some oddities. She wasn’t 18 or 21 or 26, like most MySpace spam, but 41.
And she’s in Geismar, Louisiana. That sounded vaguely familiar, so I looked it up. Suburb of Baton Rouge.
Hmm, I actually know a Donna of that age that lives in the suburbs of the Red Stick. I guess I’ll give her a day or two to put any identifying information onto her account.
But Donna, MySpace is so 2004. Where’s your FaceBook account?
June 19th, 2008
Posted by
bshirley |
friends, random, tech, web |
no comments
I used to use peerflix.com to get DVDs, but I got busy at one point, and didn’t have time to watch the movies I was receiving. So, I let the account go stagnant. They threatened to remove my account for inactivity, and though I can still login, the account page is all wonky.
When I emptied out my 300 carousel DVD player after it broke, I re-discovered all the forgotten movies. The trick is none of them have containers for me to put them in (unlike the CDs which I had in four 100 CD albums).
Watched - If you want to borrow, let me know.
- The Girl in Lovers Lane - 1959, black and white, almost watchable
- The Manchurian Candidate - wide screen and “standard” - 1962, Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh, classic
- Paycheck - Ben Afflec, Uma Thurman
- Die Another Day - Pierce Brosnan Bond, 2 discs
- Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle - excellent, I really need to see the second one
- Anchorman
- Free Enterprise - an indie geek romantic comedy about two trekkies who meet a messed up William Shatner, funny, with an insane number of sci-fi, comic book, and movie culture references
Unwatched - When will I find the time? Tell me which ones to watch first.
- Y Tu Mamá También
- Everything is Illumated
- Se7en - 2 discs
- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
- A History of Violence
- Spanglish
- Yes
- Syriana
- Paradise Now
- Nine Lives
- True Romance - unrated directors cut, 2 discs, started to watch and didn’t like
- Capote
I had also received a copy of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King via swaptree.com but it didn’t play on my old DVD player, it’s quite scratched up. When I was re-boxing all of the other DVDs, I put it in the new player on a whim figuring it might have better oversampling/correction. Indeed, the $50 player had no problem at all with the disc!
Unfortunately, I put this classically epic movie in after 10 pm on a week night and at 1 am had to turn it off with over an hour left.
June 11th, 2008
Posted by
bshirley |
725, movie, tech |
8 comments
I have an over-large expensive 301 disc DVD/CD player. But it’s fairly old (no HDMI output). The Pioneer DV-F727 got slightly flaky before it stopped working all together.
Some investigation showed that the mechanism to spin the disc is what failed. With all the other moving parts I thought it would have been something else.
Of course, I have the 3rd season of Battlestar Gallactica borrowed and was in no state to be DVD-less (sure, no hot water still, but I can manage). I went to the Target, they didn’t have the one on the shelf I wanted (for $80), so I got the $50 RCA DRC277. It’s tiny. And it upscales for HDMI output, not that I’ll need it anytime soon - my receiver doesn’t manage that format, either.
After some cabling troubleshooting, I finished off the 3rd season. Now I have to wait till the current season is over and for sale.
Also, Pioneer wins over RCA for website customer support!
June 4th, 2008
Posted by
bshirley |
725, tech, television |
no comments
I may push the iPods a bit more than most, but I find all kinds of bugs in them. I could consistently crash my nano when I first got it. After one software update, that was fixed. After a few more, most of the non-crash bugs were gone. I was left only with interface annoyances - that’s how it was designed and they ain’t gonna fix it.
Now with my new iPod Touch, I’ve noticed one whopper! I thought it was only a “not updating the smart list on the iPod” problem, which plagued the Nanos when they first arrived as well. But, it’s worse. (5900584)
Any podcast that I listen to entirely doesn’t get its play count updated! How am I supposed to keep track of the hundreds of podcasts I have and listen to when they don’t get marked as being played? Podcast support - ever stepping backward. I have many smart playlists with “playcount = 0″ as one of the filters, and now they’re all screwed - or it’s back to the Nano.
They really should fix it before the June release, and do it for free. But I’d bet that doesn’t happen. Alternately, when the iPhone/iPod becomes an open platform, someone should develop an application that actually supports podcast management!
I could provide you with a lengthy list of the many ways I want to handle my podcasts, if someone out there needs some specs to build to.
(Another pet peeve of mine: Apple doesn’t maintain a publicly accessible database of known bugs.)
April 30th, 2008
Posted by
bshirley |
corporations, tech |
no comments
I bought another iPod recently. An 8GB iPod Touch. It’s my fourth.
Here’s the rundown of the iPods:
- 20GB 4th Generation Classic iPod Color (model# PA079LL, serial# JQ5263A7TDU) - I lost it at some point several years ago and was so jonesing to have an iPod I bought on eBay a….
- 2GB 1st Generation iPod Nano - it served me well, but I traded it to TG who needed an older iPod to give to someone with an older Mac, and she gave me a…
- 8GB 3rd Generation iPod Nano (model# PA980LL, serial# 7J736XLSY0R) - This tiny fabulous iPod handles video and has an amazing screen. I use it daily in my commute for podcasts and watch video at lunch time at work. But, I’ve been wanting to program with the new iPod SDK, which requires and iPhone or an…
- 8GB 1st Generation iPod Touch (model# MA623LL, serial# 9C8012GU14N) - which I just received on tuesday. There is bound to be a new version comin out in June, but I just couldn’t wait. These are listing for $300, but I managed a used one on eBay for $188.50 - I may resell it if newer ones do come out.
April 23rd, 2008
Posted by
bshirley |
tech |
2 comments
Apple rolled out it’s January surprises today. The MacBook Air is fabulous and super pretty, but I’m not so much of a mobile computer, so I’m not really tempted.
The new AppleTV at $230 is tempting. And the iPod Touch now with Mail is also tempting.
What I’m really wondering is if the MacBook or Mac Mini are up for an update any time soon. They’ve both had minor upgrades recently, but no real redesigns (which the MacBook is due for).
Next month’s iPhone Software Development Kit will be interesting.
January 15th, 2008
Posted by
bshirley |
tech |
no comments
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