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I’m a little late to the game in mentioning this application – as it has made its rounds around the Mac-Web a while back – but I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to link to it and let you know my thoughts. Right? I’m a tagging freak. I believe tags are the […]

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New York is easily one of my favorite cities. The last time I was there I had the privilege of eating some really delicious Thai food, drink at an authentic Irish Pub, and scarf down 4,000 calories worth of White House burgers. Where else can you do that? The Thai food that we had was […]

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Nearly every browser has "hidden" preferences. Options that you can set by running a command, editing a file, or changing an entry here or there. The Safari 4 Beta, which has only been out for a few days, is no different. Caius, of Random Genius, recently published some of these hidden preferences including: A way […]

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As most of you know I have struggled with my weight ever since reaching adulthood. The reasons for my weight gain are vast but one of the more significant reasons is the fact that I work at a desk all day. That is, I sit all day. Even though I play basketball, try to jog […]

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Jason Kottke recently linked to a photo essay on the making of these authentic Japanese blades. After looking through the photo essay, while my jaw progressively lowered itself to the carpet, I strolled over to the Web site for CHROMA Cutlery’s Haiku Knives. Eliza, you have my permission to buy me an entire set of […]

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Yesterday, February 23rd, I did a lot of driving. I attended the February Viddler Board Meeting in Springfield, New Jersey. To go to a board meeting in New Jersey I end up being away from home for a little over ten hours. That includes 6 hours of driving, about 3 and a half hours for […]

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Date taken: February 22, 2004 Clifford, Pennsylvania Five years ago today: Eliza and I went to look at an apartment in the rural village of Clifford, Pennsylvania. It was a small, two bedroom, one bath place that was the perfect downsize for us at the time. It wasn’t too long before Eliza longed for a […]

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Last Thursday, not Friday, Owen JJ. Stone, also known as Ohdoctah, interviewed me for his Friend-up Friday series. Well, now it is Friday. And he has put the video online. It is about 10 minutes long but the last few minutes are probably my favorite. The word association game he plays was really fun and […]

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I have a confession to make. I only watched the first twenty-five minutes of No Reservations – Philippines on Monday. Why? Because I was tired after playing many hours of basketball. Why else? Because I didn’t think the episode was any good. So I shut it off. Went to bed. And awoke the next morning […]

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"Why can’t I lose any weight?" or "Why am I fat?" Two questions that have no doubt crossed your mind, in one form or another, in your life. Well, this blog attempts to answer them for us. Source: This is why you’re fat. Via: Justin Blanton.

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Date taken: February 17, 2004 On a Mac. Five years ago today: I had a video chat with Chris Clark while he was still in Perth, Australia. Now he’s somewhere in Canada or the US-west coast I think. I believe Chris was my first (!) video chat on a Macintosh but I could be mistaken. […]

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A fantastic site written by Howard Hall and entirely Haiku. Source: (non-breaking-space).

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An excellent example of why I’m happy I did this experiment – here is a tutorial from Jesse J. Anderson on how to make seamless grunge textures using Photoshop. What I appreciate the most about Jesse’s tutorial is the step-by-step detail that is given. A lot of tutorials, that I’ve come across for similar things, […]

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A few minutes ago I asked for everyone to please @cdevroe me their blog URL on Twitter. Here’s why. After a few years of Twitter use I’ve found that, through trial and error, to keep a signal vs. noise balance and keeping the value of Twitter high enough for me to keep using it  – […]

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We all have our obsessions. Wine. TV. Guinness on draught. The Internet. Photography. Traveling. Religion. Books. Anything composed or performed by Jack White. LOST. Art. Wall calendars. Star Wars. The warm underbelly of our cats. It doesn’t matter what it is that you obsess over, what haunts your dreams, what you put down in your journal every single day, […]

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Dean J. Robinson, the developer behind what is easily the best iPhone web application for Twitter, recently gave us a glimpse of what we should expect from the next version of Hahlo. He lists ten things we should know about the next version – and here are three that I’m really looking forward to. Better […]

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[ad#Adsense: Horiz 468] I remember one of my favorite activities while in the fourth grade was playing Oregon Trail – on a Macintosh – whenever possible. It forced you to make choices, to read, to do math, to learn a little about geography and the limits of what humans can be asked to do. Oregon […]

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I’ve seen these types of videos tons of times – but since owning a Jeep it really brings home the level of patience and skill that these drivers exhibit by pushing the limits to what the structures of their Jeep’s can handle. Four-wheelin’, off roading, or just rock climbing – no matter what you call […]

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Date taken: February 7, 2004 Rockaway, New Jersey Five years ago today: Eliza and I went to New Jersey to see Peter Z. (our nephew) and Melanie (my sister-in-law) at the Rockaway Mall. It would be the first of a few trips that we’ve taken to meet them there. Partially because we’re always excited to […]

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Date taken: February 4, 2004 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Five years ago today: I used to teach a short-lived class in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania at a small computer store. The class typically consisted of basic software instructions like Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook training. We also covered some larger topics like the Internet and eBay. For a few […]

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[viddler id-bc1c1d46 h-346 w-540] I had the privilege of cooking the dish for episode 7 of Eat Weird. I chose to make mussels over linguini, a very simple meal that anyone could make in their home kitchens and with any budget, because even though Chris tries to focus on things that are much more "weird" […]

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Before a dinner with some family at my mother-in-law’s this weekend I had the chance to walk around her backyard, which just happens to be a very large field with two streams and a small tree covered hill on it, and take a few photos. Here are some that I am choosing to share.

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For this episode of No Reservations I thought I’d jot down some notes while I watched the episode. So here they are, in order as they happened while I watched the show, and without any editing. The opening sequence comparing the states of mind of areas like Los Angeles to the fact that Chicago is […]

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Date taken: February 3, 2004 Carbondale, Pennsylvania. Five years ago today: This photo was taken just outside our home in Carbondale, Pennsylvania. We then lived in a house on Wyoming Avenue that had no off-street parking and no yard. It did have an above ground pool that we only seldom used. This lamp, which was […]

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PITTSBURGH, PA – November 2007 World Champions once again. The above is a reprise of a photo I took in November 2007 while at the worst Monday Night Football game ever – against the Miami Dolphins. It was taken from just about the furthest seat you could possibly purchase at the stadium, was one of the […]

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CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Though I can count, on one hand, the number of times I’ve been to Chicago – I know that I don’t particularly care for the city. It may have to do with the bad experiences I had there – I mean, I did see a few million dollars slip through my fingers during […]

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Last night, somewhere between the hours of 2:00am and 4:00am (yes, I was awake, lying in bed, watching TV) I watched an incredibly good documentary on PBS called THE ATOM SMASHERS which is part of the Independent Lens series. Being a fan of science, I found this documentary very educational and entertaining and it helped […]

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Although someone had suggested the best video settings for uploading a screencast to Viddler we have managed to put together a document explaining how to encode the best quality video for Viddler. Which, screencast or not, the rules apply for both really. So if you’re looking to get the best quality video out of Viddler’s […]

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My drive home from Viddler HQ in Bethlehem, PA takes me over the northeastern-most tip of the Pocono Mountains – an area called Pocono Summit. During my drive home last Thursday I remarked that "The snow covered pine trees at the top of Mt. Pocono really deserve to be photographed." I consider this an opportunity […]

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I’m not that much of an artist. But, I don’t believe I need to be in order to enjoy drawing, painting, or crafting. Sure, I’d love to be naturally talented and be able to just place my pencil on the paper and spew out great works of art – but I’m not, so I can’t. […]

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I’m not sure how I managed to forget Fresh Air, my favorite audio podcast over the last few years, in my Best of 2008 list – but I’m mentioning it now – and I will be sure to add it to my Best of 2009 list. Terry Gross, the host of Fresh Air, is an […]

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Roger Ebert is hitting a stride on his blog. He began blogging not too long ago. Well, in the world of blogging it wasn’t that long ago. It isn’t like he hasn’t been writing for longer than I’ve been breathing – he just hasn’t been blogging as long as I have. So take that Roger! […]

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THE AZORES Being on an island is somewhat of a unique experience. Most of the places I’ve traveled have all had a cultural impact that slowly spiraled out from its epicenter. On an island, however, it always seems like the aftershocks go in the opposite direction — from the outside, in. The ways and influence […]

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How in the world haven’t I been subscribed to XKCD? Thanks to SuggestRSS (more on this service soon) now I am. The above is one of my favorite recent comics. The subtle details, even in a simple drawing style such as it is, are a really nice touch. Source: XKCD.com Via: SuggestRSS.

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The design community over at Threadless has been on a tear lately. Threadless has always been a great resource for well-designed tshirts that, and this is the important part to me, not many other people will probably have. I own several Threadless tshirts and I almost always get a comment when I’m wearing one. There […]

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Blog posts seem to just scroll by like a never ending treadmill of information. It is one of the reasons that I show related posts on the page and in the RSS feed. I feel that old content is, perhaps, some of the best content. Because my Web site doesn’t have a huge subscriber base […]

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WASHINGTON, DC. Stereotypes are made to be broken. That is the saying, isn’t it? Maybe it isn’t, but it should be. I try to live my life in a way that ignores conventional wisdom, bucks the status quo, and defies the general rule. I’m no rebel. I could never pull off the leather jacket. But […]

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DeWitt Clinton, heckuva name, recently sampled some Twitter data to determine the number of active users on Twitter. The sampling is rather exhaustive (at least for this guy with ADD ((I don’t really have ADD.)) !) and, if accurate, would shed a lot of light on a number of things. I’ve done my own, rather […]

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Searching for the perfect card can be an arduous task. Just walking into a Hallmark, or venturing into the card-section of any store, seems daunting. There are so many cards! You stand there, looking at the upper-third of every single card to decide which one to pull out, look at the front, read it, open […]

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[ad#Adsense: Horiz 468] I have no idea what the criterion for such a contestis but the results are absolutely stunning. The winner, Cheng Slu Wai from Hong Kong (pictured above), is without a doubt gorgeous but how does one possibly make the call? Also interesting to note that most of the top entries were from […]

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[ad#Adsense: Horiz 468] This comes courtesy of Jason Kottke, so if you subscribe to his site – you’ve already seen this. For those of you that haven’t- meet Willard Wigan, an artist who specializes in micro-sculptures. Willard manages to sculpt the world’s smallest pieces of art that reside inside the eye of a needle or […]

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It has been years since I’ve read The Lord of the Rings trilogy and so I’ve decided, even though I think I’m a little crazy, to re-read the series. I’ve just finished The Fellowship of the Ring last night, and so hear are some of my thoughts about the first book. I’m no literary scholar […]

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Venice, Italy. Considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world it is also one of the more geographically unique. Made up of over 100 islands at the northern tip of the Adriatic Sea, the city of Venice is connected to the mainland by a single, four lane bridge called Ponte della Libertà (The […]

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Speaking of changes to iWork ’09, Sebastiaan de With pours over a large number of changes, updates, and other little tidbits of the new iWork and iLife ’09 application suites. Some of the more interesting and notable revisions are that there are completely new visual styles throughout, new toolbar icons for every application, and much more. […]

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There are 3 subtle changes that have been made to the Keynote icon in iWork ’09. I thought for the sake of, oh I don’t know, fun? that I’d point them out here in a side-by-side comparison. If you find any other differences between these two icons, feel free to share them. The entire icon, […]

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Just prior to each episode Anthony Bourdain and his No Reservations crew publish a blog post and a photo journal. The Season 5 premier is no different. One thing I didn’t realize about this season premier is that the guide for this episode, pictured in the green shirt, is the same chef that took over […]

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After a short break during the holiday season my weekly posts on Waking Ideas resume with an interview of my friend Dan Rubin regarding his recent foray into shooting with Polaroid film. Source: Polaroid, only MOSTLY dead.

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Is cultural influence reciprocal? As 2009 begins many reflect on what has happened this past year. I’ve read many reflections, updates from last year’s resolutions, countless thoughts on World events, and some have jotted down a list of the places that they traveled to in 2008. I had the privilege of traveling to many places […]

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Update: February 2, 2009: I need more offers! Although some of the offers have been intriguing – I really haven’t found anything that truly fits and that I would feel happy to promote. So if you would like to advertise your product or service for an entire year on a blog post that gets (as of today) […]

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If you know Justin Blanton you probably know two things about him: 1) He works way too hard. 2) He has a critical eye.  Neither to a fault. In fact, I believe this makes for a combination suited for reviewing. In this review Justin describes his experiences with the BlackRapid R-Strap, a shoulder strap tailored […]

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