It just occurred to me that I will probably have a Hard Drive die every Six Months to a Year for the rest of my life since I work with Audio Media and always push the capabilities of my computer to the limit. Hard Drives are the weakest link in the reliability chain contemporary PC hardware so until we do away with magnetic drives all together (hopefully soon), I will keep having these problems…
The good news is, as I deal with my failing Hard Drives, I learn in the process and can pass information along to others by writing about it. Thus a new category of this blog is born: Hard Drive Drama
And when a drive goes down, it would be the equivalent of a check-engine light coming on for your computer. It would mean that you better get your computer fixed soon.
I think that would be better than this all-at-once freak-out system people like me have with a single internal drive and an external to back-up on to manually.
People that do a lot of video editing are used to thinking about hard drives as little unreliable houses of cards, but most of us aren’t.
I like the idea of a more gradual form panic, or incremental panic… “Shit! I’m getting low on Hard Drives! Better get some more!”
Of course, Solid State Drives are just a few years around the corner. Those will surely be more reliable, right?
I don’t want to believe that my drive is dead yet. Yesterday there was a power-outage while I was right in the middle of recording a Cymbal Track in Digital Performer. I feel like that could be at the root of all this, but maybe I’m just in denial. Today I was tweaking some effect automation in the project and DP started to hang.
I should have shut everything down and done a permissions repair right then but I didn’t. Instead I kept trying to work and eventually ended up force-quitting a few programs that didn’t want to shut down in the background like Mail and iTunes… Finally, I decided I had better do a Permissions Repair and when I finally got started up from my Tiger Install DVD and launched the Disk Utility, my internal Hard Drive’s name had disappeared and the volume didn’t mount (pic)
My friend Arin turned me on to DiskWarrior a few years ago, the first time I had a Hard Drive Disappear. Some background information:
In the Disk Utility, a Hard Drive shows up as two things that both have a hard drive icon next to them: An actual device (in my case, “149.1 GB ST3160023AS”), and a volume (the greyed-out “disk0s3″). The Device is exactly that, the actual physical Hard Drive machine component. The Volume is the usable area of a Hard Drive that’s been formatted, the ‘software drive,’ if you will. (more…)
Thist is my 3rd post so far about Flock (the Web Browser), as I’m trying it. There will probably be one or two more because I have more to say about it but I’m working on some music right now and I don’t want spend the time to go all-out, all at once, and do a big ol’ review-of-Flock post so it’s gonna have to be bit-by-bit like this.
Feed Bookmarking is one of the main reasons I have refused to switch to Firefox, Safari’s way of doing it being way better than Firefox’s. I am subscribed to a ton of blogs in different categories including the Semantic Web, General Technology, Social Software News, My Friends’ Blogs, SEO News, IPTV News, many craigslist queries (as feeds of course), as well all the craigslist free stuff in my area (you never know!). Flock has a few different sidebars, one of which is the Feed Reader.
(A picture of the Flock Feed-Reader Sidebar with just a few of my things added)
Like Safari, Flock’s reader lets you see an individual feed or an aggregate of multiple feeds by folder. Two things that Safari doesn’t do are:
1. Flock has a ‘Mark as Read’ button. OMG you have no idea how many times I’ve wished for this! After a weekend of being a normal person who doesn’t read a ton of blogs, I’ve often wanted to flush a feed and start fresh. If I don’t stay on top of reading everything, or at least letting it display for a second, next thing I know I have like a THOUSAND unread posts from somewhere like digg/technoloy and even opening the feed is crash-material. With Flock, I can just right-click on the title of the feed and, as metallica would say, kill em all. Thanks Flock.
(a Safari Bookmark Folder full of unread Feed Articles… Yuk.)
(Flock’s Right-Click Menu from a Feed’s title. Yay.)
2.UPDATE: (This is probably a much bigger deal) Flock’s Browser-Based Feed-Reader will sync with a few different online ones. Yes folks, sync. I said Sync. No It Doesn’t. It only allows OPML import and export, and a feature that makes it so when you click on a link to a feed, it will take you to the subscribe page of your online reader, similar to how a bookmarklet works for del.icio.us or digg.com. No syncing going on around here.
I have tried online readers in the past and have always preferred my feed-reading to take place in the drag-n-dropable realm of my closest friend, OSX. Many, many, many times I have been away from my machine and wished I could access my feeds, which of course is the best, if not the only argument for online feed-readers, as far as I’m concerned. Since Safari can’t do this syncing thing, I have had 2 choices: Either stick with Safari and have my feeds in a UI I like but only have access to them at all when I’m on my machine, or use an online reader and have a UI I hate all the time but with the assurance that I wont miss a beat if I’m camping out on another computer. I have chosen the former, but now, if I do switch over to Flock as my primary browser, which is looking pretty likely at this point, especially after pecking out this post, I can have my RSS cake and eat it too.
I have to say though, I haven’t tried the syncing yet so there may be reasons to not use it but I’m definitely going to try that out soon. I’ve tried Bloglines out now, and although Bloglines is pretty cool, there is definitely a shortfall with regard to integration in this area. I will continue too keep my feeds backed up at Bloglines, but read with my browser here on the desktop.
One big annoyance with Flocks feed-reader is this: When looking at a feed, the things you have not seen are bold (in safari they’re a different color), and Flock even knows how far down you’ve scrolled which is nice, but the effect is that as you scroll and scan, the headings are changing from bold to normal! Changing font-weight is just about the worst thing you can do to aid someone in scanning a lot of headlines/summaries. It’s a nice idea gone terribly wrong. I would like it better if they were blue, but then turned black or something. Or a Three-Second delay maybe? … Anything but going from bold to plain instantly as I scroll and scan. Awful. Why don’t you shine a super-powerful bright light in my eyes while you’re at it, Flock? (or better yet, just quietly change that feature to make it a little better)
Finally (not really finally, cause there are going to be more posts about my quest for a better Web Browser(and Firefox is NOT it)), I have to say that another thing I really like about Flock so far is that it supprts multiple HomePages. Duh! When I launch the browser, I pretty much always go to the same few places: My FaceBook, my MySpace, My Blog Stats on WordPress Etc… Flock’s Social Sidebar has Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and many others covered. I launch a window and all that info is loaded and up-to-date. Thank You. Finally! As for MySpace and my Blog Stats and any other miscellaneous pages I glance at frequently, why load them one-at-a-time, one-after-the-other? Just give ‘em to me! Flock allows you to do a lovely little thing that reveals itself when you are in the preferences for the app. In the Homepage section it says: “Use current pageS.” with an “S” as in plural. More than one.
(Flocks Home Page Settings)
When I saw this I thought:
“No. That would be cool but… No way.”
I was wrong! It works. You can have different pages as your homepage and they’re all tabbed and pretty waiting for you to do your glancing at them when you launch the window. What’s next, telepathy? Ok, maybe it’s not that big of a deal but if things keep moving in this direction, browsing may just get a little more helpful here and there. Baby steps.
Wow. I think I’m having a good reaction to Flock. No they’re not paying me or anything. I saw a little spot about Flock on Mahalo the other day and thought it looked like they had done some cool things with it.
More later.
Comments welcome of course.
“I’m pleased to write that the December 2007 issue of
Scientific
American contains an article titled “The
Semantic Web in Action”, coauthored by Ivan Herman, Tonya
Hongsermeier, Eric Neumann,
Susie Stephens,
and myself.
We were invited to write the article as a follow-up to the
original 2001 Scientific American Semantic Web
article by Tim Berners-Lee, Jim Hendler, and Ora Lassila. We
wanted to share some practical examples of problems currently being
solved with Semantic Web technologies, particularly in health care
and life sciences. The article presents two detailed case studies.
The first is the work of a team at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Medical Center who use RDF in conjunction with PageRank-esque
algorithms to prioritize potential drug targets for cardiovascular
diseases. The second case focuses on the University of Texas Health
Science Center’s SAPPHIRE system. SAPPHIRE integrates information
from various health care providers to allow public health officials
to better assess potential emerging public health risks and disease
epidemics. The article also talks about the potential for Semantic
Web technologies and the work of companies such as Agfa and
Partners to help health care providers deal with the rate of
knowledge acquisition and change in their clinical decision support
(CDS) systems.
Aside from these case studies, the article takes somewhat of a
whirlwind tour across the current landscape of Semantic Web
applications. Along the way, RDF, OWL, SPARQL, GRDDL, and FOAF all get mentions. Science Commons and DBpedia are briefly touched on, and the
article acknowledges a variety of companies that are engaged in
Semantic Web application research, prototyping, or deployment:
British Telecom, Boeing, Chevron, MITRE, Ordnance Survey, Vodafone,
Harper’s Magazine, Joost, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Oracle,
Adobe, Aduna, Altova, @semantics, Talis, OpenLink, TopQuadrant,
Software AG, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Garlik. And there were loads that
couldn’t be included in the end due to space restrictions, all of
which is a testament to the continued growth in adoption of these
technologies.
Unfortunately, the article is not currently available for free
online. An electronic version is available (along with the rest of
the December 2007 issue) from Scientific American’s Web
site for US$7.95, and the issue should also be available at
newsstands in the US for a bit longer. I’m not sure when/if the
article is available on newsstands across the rest of the world.
I’ve been working with the copyright editors at Scientific
American in an attempt to procure the rights to publish the
article on my own Web site (and/or possibly on the W3C’s site), but
they haven’t yet responded to my application.
In any case, it was a fantastic experience working with my
colleagues to bring some information on the progress of the
Semantic Web to the readers of Scientific American. I’ve
gotten some great feedback family, friends, and colleagues who have
read the article. Several people in the Semantic Web community have
let me know that they’ve found the article to be useful material
for helping introduce people to the ideas and applications behind
Semantic Web technologies. So please check out the article if
you’re so inclined, and I’d love to hear what you think. I’ll also
be sure to update this space if I’m able to secure the rights to
publish the full text of the article here.“
Blogged with Flock
test. Hello? I don’t see a way to save a draft. Only “Publish”
Blogged with Flock
EDIT:
OK. There’s obviously a few problems with this.
I can’t save as a draft online.
I can only publish in one category.
test. Hello? I don’t see a way to save a draft. Only “Publish”
Blogged with Flock
EDIT:
OK. There’s obviously a few problems with this.
I can’t save as a draft online.
I can only publish in one category.
Another spam-bot like Idetrorce is oOgerryOo
Hi,
I’m Gerald.
Just saying hello – I’m new.
I wonder if these guys are trying to trick Akismet and other filters by building credibility for a while before they start dishing out the viagra and porn.
What do you think?
Got a comment from idetrorce on my post about robot blogs:
“very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce”
I guess this bot really gets around. There’s no site being linked to. Just the strange name Idetrorce being dropped. Is this like internet Tag-Graffiti?
There’s even a digg story about this bot!
EDIT:
The main reason I posted this here is because I want to contribute to making information easy to find. As far as I know, there’s no reliable centralized spam database or repository of spam email addresses, spammer I.P. addresses etc, so I post these things here to make it easy for the next guy (or gal) to verify that a comment or email is indeed a bad apple.
This is also one of the main reasons I have been making those Scam Email Mashups, whenever I win the spam lottery and get one of those damn things.
Thanks, Mike!
Really?
Dude.
I will need to spend some time with this to be sure, but this might be HUGE.
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