September 2, 2010
PhotographyFans
The exciting view out of my World Corporate Headquarters. When I was developing film I was intrigued by "Ortho" film. The film has basically two steps of gray - black or white. Thought I would try to make something interesting out of the fans by emulating some "Ortho" film.
September 1, 2010
Talking About The WeatherEarl
It's hurricane season again. It's been hurricane season since June but so far it's been quiet until now. Hurricane Earl is now spinning a couple hundred miles east of Noded South. Earl poses no threat to us but may impact the Northeast soon. There are several more storms forming off the coast of Africa. This is a pretty standard late summer weather pattern. Only two and a half months to go.
August 31, 2010
FYITony's
The crowds were so light at the Magic Kingdom on Sunday that we were able to get a table at Tony's Main Street Restaurant without a reservation. It was our first time dinning inside. We had eaten on the front porch a couple of times but it lacks the abienence of the dinning room. I had the catch of the day and it was quite good. I recommend you try it on your next visit but I would suggest you think ahead and make a reservation.
August 30, 2010
Tech OverloadLearning To Program Mobile
In my spare time (if there is such a thing) I've been studying different mobile programming environments. iPhone iOS development is rather interesting and I've been through several good books on the subject. I think I am a little hampered by the rapid advancement of the OS making the books quickly out of date. The Xcode environment is really nice if strange with the Objective-C programming language and the drag and drop Interface Builder. Installation of Xcode and Interface Builder requires no user intervention other than downloading the package.
Today I finally got time to start programing for the Android environment. After a quick head count of iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads in the vicinity of Noded South I think Android has a slight lead. The real challenge is that Android development can be done on any OS; Mac, Windows, or Linux, makes it harder to create a standard programming environment. So creating a place to work on Android Apps takes much more work. First step is to load the Eclipse IDE a pretty nice Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Then you need to download the Android SDK and put it in some directory and (horror of horrors) open a terminal session and modify the $PATH. Once that is done you can load the Android plugin for Eclipse from the Eclipse IDE. I somehow got everything working in a couple of hours and created my first Hello Android app.
In all honesty I did write a rather extensive mobile application several (hundred) years ago using Visual Basic .Net. I don't remember what version of Microsoft Windows Mobile I used but if Microsoft had any viable hardware and a distribution system I would have been writing mobile apps a long time ago.
August 29, 2010
PhotoshopTomorrowland (with birds)
We weren't planning on going to Disney today. As we were sitting around having lunch I noticed that the crowd level at Magic Kingdom was 1.6 out of 101. The wait times at the more popular was the shortest I've seen in a long time. So we climbed in the little red car and headed for Orlando.
It turned out to be a wonderful afternoon. The weather was pretty spectacular with a nice breeze and temperatures in the low 80's. As the afternoon progressed the humidity came down and made it even nicer. The lines turned out to be really short and we got to do a number of our favorite rides several times.
We were also able to get into Tony's Main Street Resturant and had a very nice dinner (recommended - book ahead most days). All in a it was a very nice afternoon.
1I have an Android program called WDW Lines from Touring Plans which gives you current wait times for all the Disney Parks.
August 28, 2010
Tech OverloadGnomedex(TheLast)
I've mentioned that this years Gnomedex is probably the last. The hardest thing about doing the Gnomedexes in my opinion was keeping it small. I'm sure Gnomedex would have had a three or four year run if it had grown to epic proportions and raised the rates to cover the expansion. Other conferences like barcamps that are free have their place but just don't have the return on investment for the simple fact that it is free.
Without a modest ticket price, every other bozo will walk through the door and dilute the experience. AND IF YOU THINK A FREE EVENT IS ALWAYS JUST AS GOOD AS ONE THAT REQUIRES A CASH OUTLAY, I DON'T VALUE YOUR JUDGEMENT OR BUSINESS ETHIC. [Link]
It was an amazing run and it's always best to go out on top. Thanks Chris for 10 years of wonderful experiences.
August 27, 2010
August 26, 2010
Things You Can't Do With The InternetField Notes - Road To Mongolia
With all the computer hardware and software I have I really don't need any more notebooks, but these are so neat I couldn't resist. Part of the proceeds from the sales went to building schools [link]. Plus I can't wait to be walking around town writing notes in these little books with "fureen languages" on the cover. I figure to have every parenoidal individual calling the cops on me. Purchased from fieldnotesbrand.com
August 25, 2010
FYIForbidden Journey
I finally got to ride the new Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride at Universal. Even on a light day there is an hour plus wait to get on the ride. The first 50 minutes are spent winding thru the outside of the castle and the thankfully covered green house area.
Inside Hogwarts itself you do get to walk through the castle and and there are a number of pictures on the walls that really do contain magically moving people. The effect is quite stunning.
The ride itself is a bit like Soarin' (at Epcot) and Spiderman (without the 3d). I can see the ruckus about the seats on the ride being not up to the widths of a lot of US citizens. I would imaging that they could solve the problem with a few 3 wide instead of 4 wide seats per car.
I think I would need a few more turns at the ride before I could see all the stuff that jumps out at you and occasionally spits water in your direction.
They do have a single rider line that may cut you wait time but at this point the ride does not have an Express Pass line. Worth seeing althought I'm guessing there may be a three hour wait at Chrismas time.
August 24, 2010
60 Second SciFiBad Universe
I met Phil Plait last year at Gnomedex. Really nice guy who spends a lot of time watching the universe and debunking bad science. I'm looking forward to watching his new show.
