(I firmly believe the Jamie Zawinsky quote: "You have a problem and you think, I know, I'll use Regular Expressions... now you have two problems.")

I'm happy to hear that I'm not the only person who feels this way. Often, my nerd cred drops precariously whenever I try and get near regex for longer than a few seconds. So, reading this made me feel way more comfortable with myself!

By the way - who in the hell have I become that I even understand half of these words?! Film major my butt.

I knew that on the right hand side, where there is an icon of an arrow, this would get more specific information about the location (address, phone number, request directions button, etc.). But I had NO idea that there is sometimes an icon on the left hand side that shows one other option. If you click on the little person icon, you see the google 'street view' for the address!
Obviously, this only works if google HAS a street view for the address. If they don't, then, the little person icon isn't there.

I had been wondering why they didn't offer the street views on the iPhone. Apparently they did, but they didn't send me the memo on how to access it. (I had been expecting this to be under the screen of additional information that comes up from the arrow press)

What should I buy for an external hard drive? Are [insert brandname here] good?

I have moved away from buying pre-built drives. Here's how I build my own now:

Step 1 - buy your drives "naked" --- I like these right now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136317

1TB storage - $80

Now, you need something to put them in. There are two ways to go with this. Both have good and bad about them.
First - you buy an enclosure for every drive that you purchase. This may get a little expensive - but you are paying for a good power supply - internal fan - and myriad of connection options:

http://www.hardwaregear.com/productdetails1.cfm?sku=USBG-CG35SSA&cats=&catid=2345,170,131,161,497,498,742= $100

So you have 1TB storage for a bit over $200 (including shipping)

One of the main reasons that I like this enclosure is that it uses a generic power cable to connect to the wall.
Between decks and PCs, these cables just start multiplying anyways - so you never worry about keeping the correct one attached to the correct drive.

The other option is one that I'm using full time at work - and am quite fond of:
I put one of these at each station that needs to access the "naked" drives:
"RTX100H-Q" - $225 from: http://www.wiebetech.com/products/RTX100.php

Then I keep the naked drives in safe storage with these: http://www.wiebetech.com/products/cases.php ($5.50 each)

It pays for itself pretty quickly. And the Weibetech guys are great with support.

Do I ever break my own rules and purchase a pre-built drive for home?
Yes - I tend to purchase the Glyph drives (small portable ones) mostly.

This is BRILLIANT! - Live visuals done right... and done HUGE.

I finally have a piece that I am pleased with, and although it is nothing quite as big and beautiful as I have seen other in other processing created works -- I think this one reflects me at this moment in time quite well.

It doesn't do anything useful... here's how you control it:
move your mouse around to control where the circles are and when you'd like to save the path of the circles, click and hold down the mouse button while you move the mouse around. Simple and trippy :)

Please download and run the macintosh version of the application, or the windows version. (They are both java applications)
I was going to link to the application running in a web page, but for some reason it looks quite terrible running as a web application. (guess I've got to try and understand why)
You can also view the source code, so that you can see how it is made if you'd like.

I hope you like it, please let me know if you do.

http://www.makenyc.org/?p=54

Actually - I did learn quite a bit.
Learning how to solder surface mount components... you would not believe how incredibly SMALL those parts are. Not made for fat fingered dudes like me... but somehow I managed to get it to work. Really glad I went.

This little toy is F_A_N_T_A_S_T_I_C_!
I've been recording little 2 bar loops to a digital recorder while commuting to and from work. Nothing I'm ready to share with the world just yet - but who knows... maybe someday I'll have a yellow album of my own. :)

I just thought I'd link a great track that I found on there.
Enjoy the listen.
And if you join up - don't forget to use me as your reference! :)

This one's for Dan. Being the Beatles fan that you are, and the person who first introduced me to Led Zeppelin when I was a bit younger...
This one's for you buddy!

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=216

Or, you get rewarded for fitting in the mold of everyone else! ;)

You seem to get 50 points for just joining up, and then 10 more when you login (once per day). And each vote, or 'bump' as they call it, costs you 5 points. I don't know where the other 35 came from that I seem to have right now.

It's kind of a fun game. And you get to listen to music while you play it!

I really like both the idea of this site, and the execution of the site. The ajax is nice and fluid, and really creates a nice user experience. And as anyone who knows me knows... I love to hear new music. That's why I own Sirius radios. But now, I can hear new stuff just by logging in to this website.

Even if you aren't interested in voting for songs, or 'playing' the artist scouting game, you can just hit 'play' on any of the songs, and you get to hear one song after another. So, just put the page on as a background music for yourself, and when you hear a track you like, add it to your playlist, or bump it... or do nothing, and just enjoy the music!

What a great idea!

My personal space there is:
http://www.thesixtyone.com/evilblender
Come on over and see me sometime!

I think they were way ahead of their time... or perhaps I'm just still stuck in their time. With the exception of the popular figures of the day (Bill Clinton, and other 90's figures) EBN's music remains in the 'now' for me. Enjoy one of their albums, online for free - with the benefit of VIDEO.

link from audio video blog

They recommend using waterroof - a front end for ipfw tables. (which are still in 10.5 like they were in 10.4)

Just to remind myself of where to download it from.

Anyways - Keeping up with interesting stories involves watching 'Frontline', and you can do this online - no TV needed.

Check out: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/

You can watch the latest programs from there.

Do yourself a favor, watch frontline, listen to NPR, and read Boing Boing. :)
You'll probably need more to read than that... I'll admit I love the service Safari by O'Reilly and to keep up with the Google Videos that teach you useful stuff.

So, have I really given up TV?
Only the TV that Nielson thinks is TV. I'm a fan of the podcast as well.

I think this has to be my favorite thing that I have seen to decorate a room with. If I were clever I'd figure out a way to make my own designs and have them printed on vinyl, and apply them myself. But, I'm not so sure I'm that clever yet. (plus I don't yet trust my own designs - perhaps time will change this)

Check out these neat wall decorations:

http://www.miraentuinterior.com/index.php?categoria=1&seccion=catalogo_detalle&articulo=81

http://www.miraentuinterior.com/index.php?categoria=4&seccion=catalogo_detalle&articulo=106