Another twitter site
Yes guys and gals, I’m working on a new site that works with twitter. I got the idea last weekend from Rob Brogan via twitter and Nick Nelson and I decided to make it happen.
What is it you ask? Well, first, check out http://www.twitter.com/niparekim and guess….
Did you go? I figured you didn’t. If you did, you would have been able to guess the site’s basic functionality: to post specific Facebook friends’ statuses to twitter. How? Well, it’s pretty simple, but until the site really launches and gets out of what I call “alpha 0.2″, I won’t reveal much more… Mind you, this could be expanded on greatly, given Facebook’s massive amounts of information…
Let me know if you want to be an alpha/beta tester. I may not get you into this thing right away (I just got things working with twitter last night), but maybe in the very near future. Really, I could use more than the 2 other helper users (Rob Brogan and Nick Nelson) given that I need some people with massive amounts of friends on Facebook (and people who aren’t on my network on Facebook) to try to see how angry my database can get at me. hehe
-Mike
Mike Rapin’s Guide to Web Searching via Quicksilver
So, there I was in my chemistry lecture, too lazy to reach into my backpack on the floor and pull out my calculator to solve a simple problem written on the board by my professor (who is a bad ass, seriously):
‘Find the square root of 2.3×10^-18′
Lo and behold, I was on my beautiful MacBook, and BOOM I popped open Quicksilver (Ctrl + Space). “Ha!” I thought, “Square roots can be solved by the calculator plug-in I have!” So, I typed =sqrt(2.3*10^-18) in, hit enter and the Quicksilver plug-in did its job. I was satisfied with the answer (.00000000151657508881 ~= 1.5×10^-9). But it was at that moment that my friend sitting next to me, who is a Windows/Linux user but wants a Mac really bad yet can’t afford one, said this to me:
“Dude, in Launchy, calculates on the fly… why doesn’t Quicksilver do that?”
And I replied, “Damn I don’t know… I know Spotlight does.”
The conversation ended there as the lecture continued, but I was baffled as to why Quicksilver couldn’t actively update calculations… I was searching and searching on Google when I came across this guide to Quicksilver on the MacRumors.com.
Now, this article didn’t answer any of my questions outside of explaining that ascii math notation (ex. sqrt(16) or 10^8) work in Quicksilver’s calculator function, but what drew my eye and made me forget about the whole calculator deal was the part about web searching.
SNES and my Mac
So, I got the urge yesterday to play some Super Nintendo, specifically Super Mario World, but I don’t have a Super Nintendo, so what’s the next best thing?An emulator! Wow!
For those of you who don’t know what an emulator is… click the link on ‘emulator.’
Now, back when I used to be into emulation, which was way back when I had a Windows computer as my primary computer, I used to use ZSNES. It’s the best emulator out there (SNES games only, I believe). Sadly, it is a Windows/Linux only application…
OR SO I THOUGHT! Read the rest of this entry »
I have an obsession with t-shirts
Yes ladies and gents, it is true. My obsession with t-shirts is nearly out of control.
Nearly.
With websites like shirt.woot.com and uneetee.com, I can’t help but find myself dumping dollar after dollar into cool looking t-shirts whenever I see them and as soon as I can type in my login info and press checkout. It’s insane.
My recent purchases:
Random Shirt from shirt.woot.com
HUGE TYPE LOOKS SWEET from turnnocturnal.com
Random Shirt from shirt.woot.com
World Circuit from uneetee.com
Image Perfection from uneetee.com
I’m on a roll in 3 months. It’s crazy. What will I do?
WHAT WILL I DO?!
(probably buy another shirt)
My thing is, I like what shirts say and I believe I should be able to share that with the non-internet obsessed world. Is that so wrong? It’s a crazy thing though. I go day-to-day wearing the same get-up: Pants/Shorts, Socks, Boxers, my Vans, and a t-shirt. Every day. The same (with 1 or 2 exceptions of course) get-up and I have no problem with that. Oh, and don’t forget the 1/3 of the time hoodie add-on.
‘Tis a sick sad world I live, but I like it enough to keep it going.
Just wanted to let you in on that.
-Mike
PS. If anyone would like to buy me a t-shirt or something, I like these shirts.
Which laptop is right?
Given that the MacBook Air was released on Tuesday and the fact that I am in need of a new computer sometime in the next 6 months–I’ve had my current MacBook for a year and a half–I am focusing myeslf on finding a new Mac for myself. I’m 89% sure I want to go portable, so an iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro are definitely out of the question (seriously what sane-person needs a Mac Pro?).
Just for the record, here are my MacBook’s specifications:
- 80GB HDD
- 1GB RAM
- 2GHz Intel Core Duo
- 13.3″ screen
- 1 Firewire Port, 2 USB ports, 1 ethernet port
- Integrated graphics
So it comes down to to three choices:
- MacBook
- MacBook Pro
- MacBook Air
For my own sake, I’m going to simply list the pros and cons of each machine:
Liveblog: 1.1.3 firmware for the iPod Touch
So here we have it guys, my restore of my hacked iPod and and trying out the normal 1.1.3. Lets see how this works… (Mind you I paid for the extra awesome apps: Mail, Stocks, etc.)
3:48PM - Seeing that I started this baby late, I already got the iTunes update to 7.6 and the 1.1.3 firmware installed. I have been able to easily move icons around and have fun with all of that.
3:50PM - Not sure if this was available for the iPhone before 1.1.3, but apparently you can sync your Mail accounts with your iPod/iPhon. I did this, but can’t get my mail to show up. I’m using GMail’s IMAP, so I’m not sure if that’s the problem…
3:53PM - Checking my internet connection… working slowly. Hitting google.com… a whole lot of nothing. Going to set up IMAP manually.
4:07PM - Took a break to watch this: http://www.break.com/index/funny-kid-isnt-sorry-about-huge-party.html
4:11PM - Manually added GMail and have been sitting at the ‘Verifying IMAP account information’ stage for a minute or so…
4:13PM - Was asked if I wanted to use SSL, said yes… I’m thinking my internet connection is shotty, but things are working… slowly…
4:17PM - dumb me, I don’t know how to type my e-mail address… trying again.
4:20PM - Asked for SSL again… still verifying…
4:22PM - aaaaand Nothin’… going to try again.
4:25PM - Retried everything and it looks like it’s working… well, it’s verifying, again.
4:27PM - Asked for SSL again…
4:30PM - Okay. Mail isn’t working. Moving on…
4:54PM - After a phone call and some messing around on my iPod, everything works fine. No hassles. No lag. Bookmarklets on the main ‘board’ and moving icons works flawlessly. Though, I can’t seem to view lyrics on my iPod… anyone have any clue? Mail is still giving me troubles. I’m going to try on a better Wifi signal and see what fixes what.
——————–
Final Update (Jan 29) - For the record, I managed to get everything to work including IMAP through GMail. I had to set it up through ‘Other’ and IMAP when running through the setup and of course following the Google Help instructions as to setting it up. And also for all you readers out there, I have found that my iPod Touch now gets less time per full battery charge. A twitter user and I noticed this was happening to both my iPod and his iPhone. We assume it was the 1.1.3 update and maybe a 1.1.4 will be rolled out when the official applications through iTunes is released…
Back to Firefox
So, as I said a while ago, I had switched over to Camino until Firefox 3 came out… I lied.
I managed to stick with Camino 100% for about 2 days before I started using Safari and Firefox. Why? Because I couldn’t stand the change. As sad as that is, I wanted my plugins to do my job and to simply function more efficiently on the web–this doesn’t mean I need the Firefox plugins, but they made not-working more efficient.
Really, in the end it comes down to dealing with the SEVERE sluggishness of Firefox out of sheer habit. Sure, if I took Firefox off of my computer and forced myself to deal with Camino/Safari/Opera I could easily do that. Hell, before I even discovered Firefox, I was using Opera hardcore (I’m talking version 
over IE on my old Windows tower (circa 2004-2005).
Just wanted to keep you kiddies updated.
Typography and Design on a dining menu
So, there I was last night with my girlfriend and a few other friends when we decided to go to TGI Friday’s for dinner. The place is definitely not my favorite restaurant in the world (I much prefer Chili’s), but nevertheless we all got a table and sat down to eat. The waitress was all right and I didn’t have a problem with my food, but it was the menu that brought all the attention from me and my buddy Nate.
What you need to know about this situation is that
- My friend Nate is a huge ‘Photoshopper’ and messes around with a lot of real life photoshop effects and can tell a crappy job from a well done job
- I’m that much of a web geek that I can (pretty much) do the same
Now, it wasn’t until about a minute after having the menu that my friend Nate pointed out how bland the menu looked. I, too, noticed this, but didn’t care so much as to point it out to everyone else (plus I was damn hungry). Nate went on and on about the blandness of the menu, the crappy after effects of the headings of each sub menu and the awful choices of fonts used throughout the menu. After a few minutes of this ranting, I became severely annoyed with the menu.
3 advantages and disadvantages of Camino
As of yesterday (12/12/07) I have decided to switch over to Camino (I’m writing from it right now!) from the ever-so-wonderful-but-not-so-Mac-or-Leopard-ready Mozilla Firefox. Mind you, I have only been using Camino for a little over a day, but I used to use it back in Tiger about 8 months ago and boy have there been improvements. Yet, even with the improvements there are some disadvantages to using Camino over Firefox, and so I give you:
Mike Rapin’s Official 3 Disadvantages and 3 Advantages of Camino
in comparison to Firefox
Advantages
1. Super fast; Camino,for the most part, runs blazing fast. Compared to Firefox this thing runs at mach 3, especially when opening and closing. Pages load about the same speed (except for the login page for my university, which loads terribly slow in Firefox)
2. Sleek interface; The look of Camino is simple and elegant. Things aren’t too cluttered, yet I manage to have ALL of my bookmarks showing, which leads me to…
3. Amazing bookmark bar; Camino’s awesome bookmark bar allows multiple lines of bookmarks whereas Firefox only allows for 1 line. This is awesome simply because now I don’t need to use folders and I can have all of my bookmarks available WITH their favicons showing–a feature the Mac version of Camino doesn’t have without an add-on.
Disadvantages:
1. No undo-close tab; for me, this feature, added in Firefox 2, is a HUGE deal. I am constantly opening and closing tabs for work and when simply browsing and having the ability to undo a closed tab makes life easy for me, especially when I accidentally close a tab.
2. No add ons; Surprisingly, I can live without add-ons (in Firefox), but the luxury of add-ons (such as the 4chan tool, Web Developer Bar, Better Gmail 2, and Google Sync) made life much easier at times, but also slowed down the browser at the same time. I like being able to customize my browser, but at the same time, I really don’t NEED all of those add-ons. Besides, if I wanted AMAZING customization, I’d switch to Opera.
3. No re-arranging tabs; I don’t know why, but being able to re-arrange my tabs is a big deal for me. Hell, tabbed browsing is a big deal for me, but when I’m working, I like to have similar tabs next to each others and Camino does not allow moving of tabs, which really kind of irks me. I can live without it, I just may have to plan my tabbing (hehe). Let’s just hope the guys at Camino are planning on adding this feature. I mean, Safari, Opera, Firefox and even IE has rearrangeable tabs!