A new post, but not here

I just posted a new post over on Tumblr about just being able to buy professional tools doesn’t make you a pro. There’s no real reason I posted it over there than over here, but that may become more common. Years ago I made the move from Blogspot to WordPress, and while I don’t want to ‘move’ everything again, WordPress has just become ‘too much’ for me. In these days of posting quick messages to twitter, I rarely even feel like blogging anymore. WordPress has now morphed into what more feels like a great CMS, which just isn’t what I am looking for.

So as a note, if you still follow me here, you may also want to keep an eye out for me on Tumblr, as well as Twitter.

AppleScript to open Wikipedia page for current playing artist in iTunes

As part of cleaning up my iTunes library, I want to clean up the Genres. I’ve been wanting to clean up my Genre’s in iTunes, since I am sure it will help with Genius Mixes as well as just make it easier to play certain types of music I may be in the mood for. When trying to find a quick way to do this, I decided I would just use whatever Wikipedia said was the Genre for that artist. I found too that Wikipedia will redirect usually redirect you to the page you need to go to as well (for example, will convert spaces to underscores as needed).

At some point, I would like to make this script also parse out the Genre text and apply it to the Artist in iTunes, but I didn’t take the time to figure that out yet. This at least saves me quite a few clicks and typing to load the page, where I then find the Genre (or decide which one I want to use if multiple), then just apply it to all songs by that artist in my library.

You could also run this through Automator as well, to possibly even create a service.

tell application “iTunes”

if player state is playing then

set theCurrentArtist to (artist of the current track)

tell application “Safari”

activate

open location “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/” & theCurrentArtist

end tell

end if

end tell

Moving away from Flickr, and moving to MobileMe and Facebook

I know it has been forever since I have posted much here. And of course with it being the beginning of the year, I would love to make a resolution to post here more – but that would just be stupid. There are a lot of things that are on my mind that I would like to share, so hopefully I can make more time to share more here.

But I did want to make a post about how I am moving away from Flickr. There is nothing wrong with Flickr (other than its owned by yahoo), but I no longer feel like paying for a Pro membership, and want to try using MobileMe and Facebook more.

In the years that I have had a Flickr account, I really don’t use the social aspect of it. I love knowing how many views my photos are getting, and having streams of photos from others, but I really don’t spend much time on the site. After moving to MobileMe for mail, contacts, and more – I decided to start using the gallery feature as well too.

And for the social aspect of my photos – many of the people that would comment on my photos don’t have a Flickr account, and I usually connect with them on Facebook anyways.

My plan for now is this: Everything is going to be posted to MobileMe. If I think it would be useful to be posted on Facebook as well – then I will.

You can find my MobileMe gallery at http://gallery.me.com/jmlumpkin .

You can find my Facebook photos at http://www.facebook.com/jmlumpkin?sk=photos.

iMac 27″ – fixing a slow boot up time

Im pretty sure on the default system image and setup of these machines – someone forgot to set the default boot drive. Every time you install the OS or image an OS on to the drive – you have to ‘Bless’ the main drive. If you don’t, this can cause slow boot ups, especially if you have other drives attached, since the boot loader must search the disks for valid boot disks before moving on.

Under System Preferences, select ‘Startup Disk’, then ‘Macintosh HD’ (or whatever your default boot volume is), and hit restart. Thats it!

This is a super easy fix, and easily cut my 1.5 minute boot time into about 25 seconds.

Over the mountains and through the woods…

It’s been almost 10 years since I last mad a trip to my grandmas house in Meadows of Dan, VA. We used to go there quite a few times when we were kids, but every time we recently tried to visit up there, something would come up. My wife had never been there (and we have been together for almost 11 years)!

Well that changed last weekend when my wife and I went up there with my dad and his wife, as well as taking one of our close friends. The drive to and from wasn’t bad at all, with the weather being near perfect in VA right now. It was quite interesting to see how things had changed over the years. Many more stores than I remember, so many more things to do, and even the drive was more enjoyable.

We ended up visiting quite a few places, including:

• Chateau Morrisette
• Mount Airy, North Carolina
• Mabry Mill (and the restaurant, which had a great breakfast)
• Lovers Leap

I posted a bunch of pictures over on Flickr from various parts of the trip.

Social Media Stress

I’ve had this post ready to go in various iterations over the last year or so, never really ready to post it, and continuously changing it. This is mostly due to the ongoing changes I’ve seen in social media – and more specifically how they relate to me. But a trend I have started seeing become more ‘popular’ made me decide to finally post about this – the cool thing is to actually leave social networking!

A lot of the various social media blogs (and even those that aren’t, because anything talking about this topic is link bait and easy ad revenue) have started writing numerous posts on how to delete your accounts, how relaxing it can be to not want to check Twitter obsessively. But I bet you – over half of those users ended up coming back to various social media sites, probably because they couldn’t actually kick the habit. But if you have gotten this far – I really feel like you are looking at this all wrong.

One (almost laughable) issue I have personally seen is various friends of mine on Facebook actually complaining about information overload, and trimming their friends, somewhat making them seem some elitist because ‘they have too many friendships or to popular’. And these aren’t people ‘into social media’ – they are the ‘OMG I can play with my virtual farm and ‘like’ Adam Lambert on here!’ type of users. I mostly find this funny – because those people really are doing nothing more than trying to inflate their ego, probably because they have nothing better to do. Doing this – trimming your connections on a social network, or heck, even in real life – is normal, and one thing that makes these sites dynamic and interesting to me. No one is telling you who you have to be friends with. But ‘bragging’ about it really is just being egotistical.

Which gets me back to my point – if you are having to think about this (or having to ‘brag’ about it) – you honestly are doing it wrong. We should be embracing the connectivity to other people, not annoying ourselves that we probably wouldn’t relate to outside of social media.

TechCrunch (who I really can’t stand) actually posted a great post about this today, saying “If you have social media fatigue, you’re doing it wrong“. I have felt this way for a while (not fatigued, but the gist of the actual post – it shouldn’t matter). If im tired of listening to someone complain or talk themselves up continuously, its pretty easy to rid my life of it. I shouldn’t be reading my twitter feed and keep on saying ‘man, this person is annoying’. I shouldn’t care about their feelings – for two reasons: 1) Theres a pretty huge chance they don’t care about mine, and 2) if they really get upset because someone stopped following them, they honestly need to get a life.

I have had very similar experiences to what is mentioned in this post – just general communication that either helped me or someone I know:

• Impromptu meetings to get to know someone new (be it at a concert, outing, etc). If I am at something with others, we probably share similar interests
• Met new clients to do some side work for, helping both me and them
• Answering a programing, computer, local area, or automobile related question someone I follow has
• Learned a new method (be it in programing, photography, or anything) that someone I followed shared a link to.
• Met awesome people who I may not have met otherwise

I know writing this post is actually almost calling myself out on the topic I actually am speaking on – and I’m not trying to do that. I could easily tell you how I cut about 1/3 of the people I follow on twitter and started removing some people from Facebook. But this cleanup isn’t even social media related – I have been deleting tons of music and photos I have built up over the years – to make things easier. I removed about half of my RSS feeds (which I will write about soon) to stop wasting my time reading the same old thing. We generate so much media today that it’s nearly impossible to comprehend it all, and most of it I am sure is not needed.

I use all these technologies – Social Media, RSS, Blogs, etc – to learn and share. Outside of that – social media gives us the benefit of meeting new people and even connecting differently to people we know. But if it’s getting you down – you really need to first decide what you planned on getting out of it – before removing yourself completely and blaming others for it.

Remember – when you are consuming media (be it articles, blogs, or even less than 140 character blurbs on Twitter) – you are the one that put yourself in that place.

Going Rogue

We recently bought a new car (well, crossover) a few weeks ago for the wife. Her old car (the blue Dodge Stratus Coupe on the left in this photo, with more photos on Flickr) is paid off in few months and was starting to show its age. I only drive less than 2 miles to work, where she drives 30 each way. We decided that one car payment would be much more enjoyable, plus there were some amazing deals going on currently as well.

So we picked up a 2010 Nissan Rogue SL and traded in my 2006 Nissan Sentra SE. My trade (plus two coupons) made us break even on our trade, and 0% financing for the life of the loan made us nearly break even on car payments of my Sentra! We actually test drove one of these Rogues during the ‘Cash For Clunkers’ program – and were not all that impressed. But after running the numbers and comparing quite a few of our options, plus test driving these again – we were blown away. For being a smaller CUV, it is actually more comfortable and has more room (at least feels like it) than the Nissan Altima we were also looking at. And while I originally thought you got more for your money with the Altima, the deals going on with the Rogues actually made them a better deal.

We finally got to take it back to the dealer today to get the spoiler installed (which they threw in for free), plus get it detailed. Since everything was finally complete, I took a few moments to take a few pictures of the new car, and posted them on Flickr.

Morning Dew on the sunroof

Went to breakfast with the wife’s family, and was able to take this with the iPhone. I love water droplet photos like this. This also works great as a iPhone/iPad background. Click through to go to the flickr page to download the full sized one.

Kitchen Remodel – Part 2 – Demolition!

With about 3 weeks to go before everything was going to be installed, we finally started tearing out the kitchen. While we probably could have done everything in a day or two, we had to do all the work after we got off work, and it’s actually much harder than you think. It was a lot of fun tearing things out, but also very tiring.

Over the course of a week or so, we did one of these a night.

• Packed everything up
• Pulled all the easy stuff away. This included doors, drawers, and even countertops (many of ours were not even attached!)
• Took out the banister separating the ding room and living room
• Removed the soffit around the kitchen

Once of the last things we did was remove the sink and the cabinets around it. We had one of the plumbers come out a week before demo to let us know how to unhook everything. But when I started doing what he said, I realized we were going to have a few problems. Mainly, the knob on the water supply line was somewhat broken, and would not shut off. Luckily another plumber from the same company came out and took care of it for us. I started to take apart the rest of the sink, but decided to wait until later to actual remove the drain.

The week before things were to be installed, the guy in charge of installations came out to measure everything, make any final notes, and make sure things were good to go. While he was here, he wanted to help us remove the rest of the sink so he could check it all out. We cut the drain line, removed the rest of the counters and cabinets, and then noticed a pretty big problem.

We had years of water damage underneath it all.

Under our cabinets there was a bit of particle board used above the subfloor, below the actual ‘flooring’. This has swollen over an inch in some areas, and was going to have to be fixed before we could get the new cabinets put in. This was the thursday before Memorial Day, a long holiday weekend. Who could we get out on such short notice, and how would we know we were getting the work done at a fair price, etc?

The guy we were working with noticed our confusion and concern. And then the unimaginable happened. He went outside and grabbed his saw. 30 minutes later, this is what the floor looked like. He told us he realized our concerns, and due to various reasons, wanted to help us out. After showing me what was left to be done, I removed the rest of the floor under where the stove was going. He left us with a shopping list, and told us he would be back later during the weekend.

Sure enough, that weekend we got back together, and finished the task, plus plenty more. We cut and fit the plywood you see in this picture, removed a bit of drywall on the inside wall (where the fridge and stove are) and planed the studs to make the wall more even, and he even showed us how to skim coat the walls. We were blown away by this companies hospitality, and are so happy for this. We went from just a quick refresh of our kitchen, to worrying if it would ever be done, to knocking it out of the park in just 2 weeks.

While we did ‘take our time’ when it came to demolishing everything – we really should have planned things out slightly better. Some notes to take away are:

• Start early. You can’t start ‘too early’. We put it off here and there, and ended up having some late nights in the end. Nothing was too bad, but there were plenty of days in the end where we had to work every night, and didn’t get to take a break.
• Demo before you even order if you can. We ordered and planned everything out with original measurements. This isn’t a big deal – but if you can give the company building everything a completely clean slate, they may be able to even better plan things out. Due to our 50+ year home, things are sagging a little bit, and some measurements were slightly off (but fixed in the end).
• Work with great people. We are still amazed by the company we went with, and have already referred multiple customers to them.
• People like to tear things out. Invite friends over. Get rid of your anger. It can be tiring, but was a lot of fun doing this. Plus just the general activity was fun.

iPhone 4

Now that I have been using the iPhone 4 for a few weeks, I thought I would take some time to write a few notes about it. I assure you this won’t be as long as the iPad post, but would like to record some of my notes about the new phone.

Our contract was near its end (we bought the iPhone 3G a month or so after release). We were excited to see this years new iPhone, and when it was announced at WWDC 2010 – we instantly knew that it was our next phone. I (unlike a few people I know) didn’t spend all day reloading the page trying to order mine the day orders went on sale. Instead, after a few failed attempts – we pre-ordered both of ours through the new iOS Apple Store app (iTunes Link). After clearing a few things up with Apple (is this a true pre-order?, are we going to get one launch day?, etc), we waited a week for them to go on sale. On release day – I was rather worried. Sure enough, people were easily standing in line for 2-5 hours. I wasn’t going to go until after work – when the expected temperature was around 100. I went up there right around 5 – and to my amazement – there were only about 10 people in line. It took us only about 45 minutes in line and in the store to be up and running on our new phones.

Water beading on my car after a storm

So what do I think about it?

• The antenna issue is media overkill, its close to the best I have used. It’s not that bad, every phone does it, etc. I can easily replicate it in my house, but never had a connection problem due to it. Actually, I have better coverage than ever. Many stores that I continuously lost signal in easily work throughout the store.
• The screen is insane. It’s amazing how a change like that really changes your experience with the phone. And looking at anything else, its hard to believe we have lived with phones like this for so long. When I first used the phone, it was surreal. Now, its like the display just fades away. I enjoy reading on this phone, and look forward to more apps using this screen. Non-updated apps look OK, but kinda crappy at times too. I think I still like reading on the iPad more though, just due to the size.
• Very fast. I never used a 3GS for a real amount of time, but the iPhone 4 is insanely fast to me. After using the 3G for so long, I was used to waiting for things. Now I don’t feel that is an issue. Its nice for the camera to be up and ready in an instant.
• Great Cameras. The main camera is pretty awesome. I have taken a few shots with it – but nothing much. And the fact that it does HD video amazes me – and the reason I got the 32GB phone. It’s just been to hot outside to do much with it – so I still haven’t really used these cameras as much as I would like. The front facing camera is nice, and a welcome addition, but can’t say that I think I will use it much. The two images in this post are from the new phone.
• I hope this makes video chat even more mainstream. I personally don’t video chat as much as I would like to. I wish I used this feature on my computer more than I do. I just don’t chat with that many people online anymore, and never had much of a use for it. But I know plenty of people – non technical even – that use it all the time. Now that my phone has it – I hope to use this technology more. But all I have used FaceTime so far is to just test it out with the wife. I feel its very ‘this is cool, but what do we do with it’ right now. I also wished it integrated with iChat. I am sure this will all come at some point in the future.
• We bought bumpers. We both got cases right after we got the phone from Best Buy (only people locally with anything in stock). My first one just had too much friction. So we both picked up black bumpers. With last Friday’s press conference – we will probably be getting a refund for these unless one of the approved cases catches our eyes. We did this for two reasons: 1) to not grip the metal and have a better grip on the phone, and 2) lift the phone off the surface of a table. I keep my phone out all day long, and it worried me leaving flat on the desk  (although there is a very slight height difference on the side – so it’s not actually on the table). The bumper has been great, even though its overpriced. I’m sure cheaper options will come up at some point, but its a decent case, and decently built. And with our rebates – they are free anyways. Although, if the rebate is in gift cards – we may pick up a dock or keyboard for the iPad.
• I don’t regret the iPad. Even though I have found myself using the iPad less since I got this phone, I still have different uses for the iPad. I prefer reading on it, writing on it, and some of the games. I feel that while a faster phone does make me want to use it more to do things – the iPad lets me do ‘other’ things better.
• iOS feels rushed/fragmented right now. I keep wanting to use fast app switching on the iPad. Certain features are on the iPad that I felt should have been in iOS 4.0. Also, I don’t personally like the various number of icon sizes needed – and not even Apple’s apps are fully upgraded. For example – the App Store still uses lower resolution icons for apps, which I don’t like. I think if it’s a Retina Display app – its icon should reflect that. This will all be worked out over time.

Our first Flying Squirrels game.