Categories
Technology

Origins of Common UI Symbols

A short but interesting look at 11 common UI symbols and their origins. Includes icons for Power, Bluetooth, USB, @, etc. Check it out:  Origins of Common UI Symbols

Categories
Technology

iPad Yahoo Weather app

The iPad version of the Yahoo Weather app is just beautiful. The screenshots below don’t do it justice. Scrolling down reveals subtle transitions and animations for rain, wind speed, etc. So nice.

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Categories
Technology

Back to basics

Been thinking a lot about this lately:

Homesteading 2014

I’ve pretty much abandoned most social sites already. Sure, I’ll occasionally peek at Twitter, post to G+, or pulled into Facebook via an email notification once in a while. But it’s sporadic at best. And I not only ceased participating, but I don’t really know how my friends are doing. I get random retweets or politically charged links. No sense of community or conversation.

And with other sites (Pinterest) and trends (Snapchat and WhatsApp) it’s only getting more fractured and difficult to keep up with (or care about).

This post summed up some of my thoughts, and lead me to resurrect this blog from the ashes.

Not that I won’t continue checking Twitter et al, but since I no longer feel inclined to contribute to the noise, I’ll just use my quiet little site in the corner more I think.

Categories
Technology Travel Work

Tahoe, and server surgery

Last week I was sent to South Lake Tahoe for a work ‘summit’, where several peeps from SuperSweetCo were sent to plan the next release (and beyond) of the app. It was quite the adventure, and an exhausting few days that taxed both my ability to focus on 12+ hour work sessions, and to deal with the elevation (I suffered from symptoms similar to altitude sickness, the headaches were pretty nasty). Despite the cold nighttime temperatures, it was beautiful up there.

I arrived back in Portland Thursday afternoon, and spent Friday working until ~3am trying get caught up and fix bugs in my queue that had built up over the week.

Over the weekend, after doing some yard work, I had to perform some emergency Linux server surgery (for circusgeek.com). The server had been acting up over the past few months, but nothing specific had gone wrong. Over the weekend I rebooted a few times and every few cycles it wouldn’t boot up. After taking the case apart, I heard a ‘hissing’ whiny sound. After some part replacement (including the power supply) I discovered it was the motherboard that must have had a faulty capacitor. Fortunately I had a ‘spare parts’ machine in the garage I wasn’t using so I was able to replace the innards and boot it back up with everything intact. Linux has come a long way; I remember when I couldn’t swap out much hardware w/o a kernel rebuild. Long story short, the server was back up in a couple hours (with a slightly faster processor) and all is well. Crisis averted. And, it means I can continue to serve up this little-read blog. Hooray!

Also this weekend Kelly cooked up a delicious dinner out at my folks place for Mother’s Day. I also got to help my dad cut up some wood for an upcoming hunting trip of his, and play with my nephews (even the wee one, who’s just old enough now to play with in between pooping and crying sessions).

Categories
Technology

My MacBook Pro is ALIVE!

I got my MacBook Pro back today. Hooray! I was getting a little tired of using my old office PC.

It’s amazing how much I rely on the little efficiencies (such as ‘Quick Look’ for email attachments and in the file manager) to get work done. Not to mention the portability.

Too bad I’m too tired to put in a late night of work, now that I can again. Besides, I need to watch last nights LOST.