Idling User

We bought a modern acrylic vase (see pic below) while we were in Paris a few years ago in a little shop that I only remembered as “Bo”. In trying to track the store down online after we returned home, I discovered Bo Concept who has since expanded into the U.S. including a location in Manhattan. Their stuff is nice, but doesn’t remind me of what I had seen at the store in Paris. I recently found out that it was rather Boutique Bô after finding their site and recognizing the store instantly. I’m excited to learn that they aren’t Bô Concept and still have the same cool stuff… though I like Bo Concept, too.

I like the sounds of this "Naked DSL" quite a bit. Basically, it cuts the phone company out of the loop making your service dependent solely on the ISP itself. Currently I have no reliance on a traditional phone company for my phone or internet service and I’d like to keep it that way as my experience when dealing with them (Verizon specifically) has been poor, especially when it came to DSL.

I use Vonage for VoIP on two lines in my apartment. They’re run over my cable modem provided by Time Warner which had been exceptionally reliable until May when troubles plagued my connection. I was blown off by tech support each time I called, being told that it was “a problem in the area” and that “technicians have been dispatched.” It was almost like the response from my former DSL provider - Earthlink - only they had to get a Verizon technician to schedule a visit as they owned the copper, which ALWAYS was a pain in the ass. They couldn’t communicate between the two of them worth a damn. But I digress…

I think I’d like to have redundant connectivity to escape outages at inopportune moments and ensure that my Vonage lines are always functional. Something like Speakeasy’s OneLink service I think fits my requirements. Then there’s the router… it’s all good fun to build your own, but something like this "twin WAN router" might be worth shelling out a few bucks for. Anyone got any input on doing such a setup?

Both the RSS 1.0 and 2.0 feeds are now full-text with HTML. Enjoy.

Sometimes I wish that Charlie could earn $25/hr (via Boing Boing). Then, I remember the time Charlie tried to earn some money kittysitting…

I think I need one of these. (Via Engadget)

Awesome news… except for that I already paid for TiVo HMO! Doesn’t bother me too much. It was well worth the price I paid to have it in advance of it becoming a stock TiVo service. I guess I’m an early adopter they capitalized on to supplement their development costs.

At some point, I should release my improvements to Tivo’s Example Apache plug-in for Music and Photos (Mmmmm…. PERL!). I think I can safely do so by virtue of section 2.1 of the TiVo Public Source License.

There is also the nifty Java HMO that adds functionality like local weather reports, movie listings, etc.

Eurobad ‘74 labels itself “an exhibition of Europe’s worst interiors of 1974″ though I think many of them are pretty funky. Not that I’d mimic them exactly if I could, but I like the patterns, colors and shapes. One thing I really don’t dig is use of wood stain bringing out the grain. My grandmother’s kitchen (circa 1968) has exactly that green stain treatment and I’ve always disliked it. Ick.

The Draft Bruce site’s goal is to petition Bruce Springsteen to play a concert at Giants Stadium in hopes of sending the message of a “need of change”. The concert will appropriately be called VoteAid: “Concert for Change” and is planned to occur during the Republican National Convention. IMO, this is a great grassroots effort to create interest for change in the upcoming election and I, for one, have gladly placed my name on the petition.
    http://www.draftbruce.com/
(Via Cameron Barrett)

If you press the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on a Google search for brute force you’ll end up at a pretty empty and strange 404 page on Microsoft’s Xbox site. Funny.

Ironically, Movable Type exhibited brute force while publishing last night’s post. It claimed it received an 500 error while pinging other’s trackback URLs. Not thinking it had actually worked, I tried again a little bit later. Little did I know, it actually had worked causing the trackback to be posted multiple times. How annoying. Now, I suppose I could or should have checked for my trackback post by hand. However, Movable Type should be well-written elegant blogging software wihtout issues like this. Likewise, the blog receiving the trackback ping might have improperly formulated its response, (which I believe was also Movable Type). I’ve ignored all the noise about their new licensing recently because I’ve never been terribly pleased with the software to be. This gives me another very good reason to ditch it.