MaisonBisson

Edward Tufte Gives Presentation Advice

Edward Tufte‘s passion is the graphical display of information. But his nemsis the visual lie. So naturally, he has a special dislike for PowerPoint. His poster on The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint gave me this line, which I will likely find myself repeating at a time when it is both most accurate and most politically […] » about 400 words

Palm Travel Guides

MyPalmLife is running a story about some new travel guides that run on your Palm-powered device. Produced as a collaboration between Rough Guides and Visual IT, they also support PocketPC and Symbion devices. London, Paris, Rome, New York, and San Francisco are available now at an introductory price of $20 each. “Further cities will be […] » about 200 words

Feds Go Beyond Carnivore; Artists Embrace Carnivore

DefenseTech reports that the FBI has given up on Carnivore, the electronic snooping application that it used to force on ISPs serving suspects. It seems that the folks in dark suits are now using commercial software instead. This probably has no effect on artists — yes, artists — who use an open source app inspired […] » about 100 words

Microsoft: Bad For Browsers; Bad For Air Travel

I just discovered This Is Broken and couldn’t help but explore the archives.

First I discovered Brill.com‘s weird search results. The problem is that a search for bond funds returns a list of stories that have little to do with financial news. It looks like somebody has entered a bunch of bogus stories in their database. They might have been hacked, but I’d be more suspicious of a disgruntled employee. The saddest part is that the problem was reported on September 22, 2004 and they haven’t fixed it yet.

Then there was a story about the risks of running Windows in mission critical environments, like air traffic control. This Techworld UK gives the details on a Microsoft problem that left 800 planes circling the skies of southern California without any communications or ground control.

It seems that the system absolutely cannot run more than 47 days without rebooting, and when a novice engineer missed a scheduled preemptive reboot, the system went down without warning.

Isn’t anything that threatens the safety of the flying public akin to terrorism?

Browse Happy

Browse happy, by the The Web Standards Project is urging people to give up on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Their solution? Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, and Safari. » about 100 words

Mac OS X Performance Questions

I was a little bummed to find my CPU busy all morning yesterday. And though I still don’t understand exactly what was causing it, it seems no longer to be a problem. A lot of people don’t know how to see what their Mac is doing, to see what it’s busy with. Here are some […] » about 300 words

Problems and Pre-Dated Stories

Due to problems with the site all this week, a couple of time-sensitive stories that I wrote but coudn’t post have now been posted with pre-dated timestamps.

I’ve been following every news item about the Mac mini with likely more interest than it deserves. What can I say, I like the little computer. As it turns out, the mini is smaller than it looks in the pitures.

And thinking of pictures, a few shots of Bill Gates vogueing with circa-1986 computer equipment started circulating early this week.

Candy

Karen forwarded me a link to Juicy Panic‘s “you drive me oh oh oh” video by torisukoshiro + autophene. More animation and illustration by torisukoshiro is linked from the main site. Then she sent me this link to How Strange, a site full of odd, interesting, and weird images. . . . » about 100 words

Palm News & Goodies

Gizmodo mentioned the new Garmin iQue 3600a GPS Palm for Pilots this morning. There’s a long write up about it at MyPalmLife, but the Gizmodo story linked to Palm247. Once there, I found a link to instructions on putting the Wikipedia on a Palm. Well, you’ll need a 1GB SD card, but that’s okay, right? […] » about 200 words

Problems Happen

My hosting provider has a US-based datacenter and UK-based staff. It’s an odd mix that may or may not be helpful when things go all to heck, like they did on Saturday and again on Tuesday. The first acknowledgment of the problem Saturday explained that “the server is reporting a Kernel Panic.” then four hours […] » about 200 words

Mac Mini vs. Cheapo PCs

Charles Jade at ArsTechnica has written both a Mac mini preview and a MacWorld Expo show walkthrough. The expo is about a lot more than the Stevenote, and Jade does a fine job walking us about the show floor. Also entertaining is an OSViews story on the Mac mini that concludes the mini is far […] » about 400 words

The Mac Mini is _Small_

I said the Mac mini was the reincarnation of the Cube last week, but Gizmodo has posted a picture of the two, um, together. We all knew the mini was small, but this shows how reall small it is. The Unoffical Apple Weblog has a list of things people are planning to do with their […] » about 200 words

Where’s My Video Jukebox?

Yesterday I posted a story about using a Mac mini in my home entertainment center. I noted that I’d already replaced my CD player with iTunes on an old iMac and I wondered if I could do the same for DVDs. I ignored the facts that some provisions of the DMCA may make this illegal. […] » about 500 words

Bill G Just Wants To Be Cool

Gizmodo has two pictures of a young Bill Gates vogueing on a desk with 5.25-inch floppies and a circa-1986 PC monitor. Oh, wait, is that a Mac on his desk behind him? The pics were reportedly published in Tiger Beat, and Gizmodo is offering a reward for the original issue. update David Heisler wrote to […] » about 200 words

Mac Mini As Media Player

More than a few people are looking at the Mac mini as a new component in their home entertainment center. CDs are unknown in our house, where iTunes and an old iMac entirely replaced our five disc changer some time ago. Correction: CDs are used as an input medium. New CDs are ripped into iTunes […] » about 400 words

Michale Stephen’s Twelve Techie Things

Michael Stephens’ Twelve Techie Things for Librarians 2005 deserves a look. User-centered technology planning, RSS, acnd convergence lead his list, but other items speak directly to the role of the library in the internet age.

pMachine Discontinued, Where To Next?

I learned today that pMachine Pro — the software behind this site — has been discontinued. I’d expected the announcement for some time, seeing it today reminded me that I should be looking for a new blog/CMS solution. Expression Engine has largely replaced pMachine, and I know at least one person running it, so I’ll likely be giving it another look soon.

I’ve got a list of things I’d like to solve here, so this news sort of fits. The site needs a new design (though it renders well in Safari, really) and I’m looking for a new host. I guess this means I’m now actively soliciting comments on design, host, and back-end software. Thoughts?

Expression Engine may work well, a friend recommends Host Gator, and I’m almost tempted to buy some design work from Blog Moxie. What say you?

Oil Star

This super-cool 70s-styled logo adorns the side of a trailer in the backwoods of New Hampshire. More photos from MaisonBisson » about 100 words

Jailed For A Song

trying to quote lyrics for his book, Planet Simpson to understand how current copyright law is already limiting legitimate work.

Lots more stories of copyright law gone amok in the MaisonBisson Copyrights & Intellectual Property index.

The Tyranny Of Copyright

If you read nothing else all year, read this. Will Shetterly’s “The People Who Owned the Bible” is a tale of copyright gone amok. It’s the clearest, plainest, and funniest of all such works I’ve seen. Note: My title is based on a New York Times story about copyright from a while back. Am I […] » about 1400 words

Steve Jobs Introduces iPod shuffle

In his MacWorld Expo keynote today, Steve Jobs introduced the iPod shuffle. From MacNN: Apple introduces iPod Shuffle…flash based player. Smaller than most packs of gum. Weighs the same as 4 quarters (less than 1 ounce). Volume/Up dow. Simple LED to provide feedback. No display. Either shuffle or album-based playback. USB 2 transfer connector under […] » about 200 words

Steve Jobs Introduces Mac mini

Steve Jobs, in his keynote at MacWorld Expo today reintroduced a redesigned Mac Cube as the Mac mini. From MacNN: Apple introduces Mac mini. New member of Mac family Slot-load Combo optical drive. Play DVDs, burn CDs. Quiet. Tiny. FireWire, ethernet, USB 2.0, both DVI/VGA output. Very tiny. Height is half the size of an […] » about 200 words

Vonage WiFi VoIP Handset Is Real

All the world is atwitter about Vonage’s new WiFi VoIP phone today. WiFiNetNews got the hint from Engadget, who appears to have broken the story today, and links to a USA Today story that says: With a Wi-Fi phone, they could make Internet calls from home without the need to run wires to the broadband […] » about 400 words

Video Fix

Today might be [wierd|strange|funny|scary] video day. Or something. These are probably not safe for work, though your mileage may vary.

Here’s the list of things found last night:

Rainbow
The site explains/claims: “Rainbow was a credible children’s TV show from the 70s and 80s. This clip was actually broadcast and watched by millions. …there’s no way these could have been done by accident. Innuendo all the way.”
SuperModelMeat
I have trouble understanding this, but hey, um, whatever...everybody seems to be having fun.
ConcreteTV
All I know is that New Yorkers get better cable access television than I do. This really beats out the weather forecasts and sermons.

[update:] Music for the Supermodel Meat video comes from Evolution Control Committee and the video is listed with others the band’s site. You’ll also find a video for “Breakfast” by the same crew that did Supermodel Meat, which is actually titled “Lunch,” at least by the band. “Breakfast” isn’t quite as disturbing, but…well. The band’s other music is worth a listen, at least.

Classic and Independent Movie Theaters

A story in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel Magazine alerted me to Ross Melnick and Andreas Fuchs’s Cinema Treasures. It was an annotated list of seven theaters still operating today: Cape Cinema: This 1930 Dennis, Mass., theater was built to look like a church. The Senator Theatre: A 65-year-old art […] » about 300 words

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a bunch of stuff I would have emailed you about