Koozie Notes

Panther Review

Even though I haven't visited my local apple store to grab a copy of Panther, I did finally get around to reading a good review. Yep, I'm still busy messing around with my new piano.

-Chris

KR-5 Roland Digital Piano

I stayed up too late last night playing on my new digital piano, but I loved ever minute of it.

Yesterday, I purchased a new KR-5 digital piano from a local retailer.  Britt and Ron finally convinced me to take the plunge and buy a digital to replace my 70 year old  piano.  I've been taking piano lessons for nearly two years and playing on the old Wurlitzer was tough.  I'm constantly playing my right-hand up an octave due to a dead "A" key.   

Isn't technology wonderful?  Last night I was recording song with left hand only and playing it back so I could concentrate on my right.  I still need to dig in to the user manual to learn some new music tricks.  Even my 22 month old daughter enjoyed picking songs to play on the touch screen.

-Chris

Free vs Paid Wi-Fi

I love this quote from "Free hot spots pay dividends."

In fact, Shaich considers free Wi-Fi to be such an essential marketing tool that he dismisses any discussion of ROI. "What is the ROI on a bathroom?" asked Shaich, pointing out that the day of pay restrooms in restaurants has long since passed.

On most mornings, I pick-up my venti half-caf at my local Starbucks. I wish they offered free wi-fi because I don't travel enough to justify spending $30 a month for T-Mobile's Wi-Fi service.

-Chris

NT 4 Resource Kit

Thanks to Andy for finding this NT 4 Resource Kit site. This site list each tool with a short description.

DISKUSE is a command-line utility that scans directories on a hard disk and reports on space used by each user.

ZDU is another disk analysis tool similar to NT's DISKUSAGE.

-Chris

Unicode

OK, I admit it. I really didn't know what all this Unicode stuff was about before I read Joel's article, "The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)."

I spend a fair amount of my work day exchanging data with other companies. I usually request that data be sent to me as fixed width ASCII files. Sometimes I even refer to it as "PLAIN TEXT."

All that stuff about "plain text = ascii = characters are 8 bits" is not only wrong, it's hopelessly wrong, and if you're still programming that way, you're not much better than a medical doctor who doesn't believe in germs. Please do not write another line of code...

I guess I stand corrected.

-Chris

1 Billion in Unclaimed Funds

In the Sunday paper, Texas State Comptroller published a list of unclaimed funds in the state of Texas. This year the total amount of unclaimed funds reached 1 billion dollars. I didn't make the list, but I did find entries for my employer, my boss, and my old high-school.

-Chris

iPod Me!

All this talk about iTunes Music Store and Windows compatibility has me salivating for one of these iPods. I did notice a new blurb about allowances for iTunes which would allows kids to legally download music. Nice touch Apple.

-Chris

OSX Panther 10.3

OSNews has a review of Apple's new OS, Panther 10.3. I think I'm going to wait on this one. The upgrade to 10.2.8 was a bit rough.

-Chris

Matrix

Well I went to BestBuy during lunch and picked up the new Matrix DVD. I asked the cashier if they been selling well. He kinda snickered and mentioned there were people waiting outside this morning before the store opened just to buy it.

Now if I can just find some time to watch it!

-Chris

Netflix Fanatic

Jeff Carlson wrote a nice piece, "A Sad Fan of Netflix Fanatic."

Before you shake your head and wonder how I managed to pass basic high school math and economics classes, you must understand that only part of my monthly cost, in my view, is going toward supplying me with movies on a regular basis. I'm more than happy to pay because Netflix gives me what I've otherwise been unable to keep consistent: an ongoing list of movies to watch.

When someone recommends a movie to me, it goes into my Netflix Queue. This is especially good for those classic movies that everyone I know has seen, but which I've somehow missed. With my persistent Netflix Queue, I no longer have to stand in Big Corporate Video Rental Store at 10:00 PM racking my brain to remember the title of the Oscar-winning film directed by that guy and starring what's-her-name.

Jeff is right. The queue is a great feature. I love opening two web pages, my netflix queue and a movie page from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. I can quickly scan the upcoming releases and add the movies I want to watch.

-Chris

UPDATED - 22 OCT 2003

Last night I finally got around to playing with Netflix Fanatic. I didn't tryout the shuffle command, but it does seem to work as advertise. I still wish Netflix was add "Head Shots" of all the actors and directors. I remember faces better than names.