Month: August 2005

20 Second Movie Review: Dead Reckoning

dead reckoning

I enjoy old movies, particularly film noir. Dead Reckoning (1947) is a very, very good one. Bogart is good in an unusual role as a back from Europe soldier struggling to find out what happened to his missing buddy. It’s dark and almost randomly violent, though not by today’s standards. But the reason to see this film is Lizabeth Scott. No other actress now or then holds a candle to her in the femme fatale category. With her looks, voice and attitude, if she were in her prime today, she’d be the biggest thing in Hollywood.

5 Star Rating: ****

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Comments: Have Your Say

One of the things we did successfully with a number of the websites I have developed is create a sense of community. With websites, community means that communication is a two (or multi-way) way process, with more than one party providing input, expressing opinions, etc. That’s easier to do with message board sites like ACCBoards.Com and The Cat’s Domain. It’s harder to do with other sorts of websites, including blogs. But it’s just as important.

One reason I changed Newsome.Org from a traditional website, which looked and worked something like a newspaper- content was here, but it flowed one way, to the current blog format is because the new format makes it easier to create conversations and connections. Conversations via the Comments feature and connections via links I include in my posts and the Trackback feature.

Another reason I made those changes is to reconnect with old friends and meet new friends. Over the past few years a lot of people have told me that they visit Newsome.Org from time to time. Many of these people know each other. Until now, there was no way other than email for these people to communicate with me and no way at all for them to communicate with each other.

I know from my stats reports that there is a good amount of traffic here, and I know from my age and that of most of my friends that the internet as a two way proposition and blogs in particular are relatively new concepts. So here’s a short primer on how these features work.

Most posts have several links at the bottom, and here’s what those links do. The “Permalink” is a link to a separate page (called a “post page”) that contains only the post in question. This allows people to link to a particular post as opposed to the main Newsome.Org page, where the posts that are here today will be pushed to the Archives pages (see the list in the left hand column) by new posts. A few posts which are mainly family news and photo items don’t provide for comments, but that is the exception

The “Post a Comment” link is a way for visitors to respond to, comment on, agree with or disagree with anything in a topic or post. When you click on that link, a box pops up where you can type a comment, opinion, etc. and have that comment added to the bottom of the post. One thing to remember: the text of the comments appears only on the post pages. On the main Newsome.Org page, you’ll merely see the number of comments made at the very bottom where it says:

X Comments
Y Trackbacks.

There are three ways to access the post page, and the full text of all comments. Click on the title of a post, click on the Permalink or click on the “X Comments” link. Each of these links leads to the same place- the post page containing only the post and the full text of the comments.

The Del.icio.us and Furl links allow visitors to easily bookmark the post on one of those social bookmarking sites. If you don’t already use those sites, you can ignore those links for now, but I would suggest you check them out. Those sites are great ways to share links and find other interesting pages, posts, etc.

The Trackback feature allows visitors who have blogs themselves to link back to a post on their site that refers to the post. For example, if I post about my problems with Technorati, a visitor who has similar problems may want to post a topic on his or her website and link to it from here via a Trackback. It’s a way to create natural connections about related content over multiple websites.

That’s about the sum of it. If you’re here, have your say. It’s much more fun to discuss things that to read things. Don’t you agree?

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The Big Deal About Firefox

firefoxA lot of smart guys I know tell me that I should be browsing the net with Firefox, instead of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. I attribute some of this to a counterculture, anti-Microsoft philosophy, but enough people whose opinions I respect have sung the praises of Firefox that I decided to give it a try.

Warning: I’m fixing to aggravate a lot of other geeks.

So I went to the Firefox download page and installed it. The program installed easily. The first time I opened it, Firefox offered to import a lot of my settings from Internet Explorer. The settings were quickly imported (other than, curiously, my Home Page setting). So far, so good.

I decided to surf around with Firefox a little to see how it works, and to make sure the Newsome.Org pages display correctly in Firefox (they do). All was well, and I admit that I really like the tabbed browsing feature.

Then a problem. I went to The Home Place, which has a flash-based Flickr badge. A helpful message at the top of the Firefox window informed me that “Additional plugins are needed to display all of the media on this page.” To the right was a promising button inviting me to “Install Missing Plugins.” So I clicked it. A box popped up telling me that a Flash Player 7.0 plugin was available- just what I needed. I selected it and clicked the Next button. A license screen popped up and I agreed to the user license and clicked the Next button again. Nothing. Nada. Only this, for a long, long time:

error-705398

I tried many times. I rebooted and tried many more times. I tried a manual install. I googled the problem and found quite a few links. This one looked promising, but didn’t work for me.

Could I get this plugin installed? Almost certainly. I am a geek, myself. But a whole lot of potential users don’t have the time, inclination and ability to do so (all 3 are required). So I run straight back to my soapbox and once again shout my mantra: if you want people to adopt something that is (supposedly) only incrimentally better that something they already have, make it easy. Make it painless. Otherwise, you have something created by geeks only for geeks. As I said, I’m a geek, so I’ll use it (along with Internet Explorer, but not as my default browser). But I’ll never get my wife, family or friends to do it.

We’re all better off with 2 significant options (think what satellite TV has done for cable users). I want Firefox to put some competitive pressure on Microsoft. In order to do that, it has to become the browser of choice for geeks and non-geeks alike.

Bottom Line: The basic software (as opposed to the plugins) was easy to install. It didn’t seem any faster than Internet Explorer. I like the tabbed browsing, and I’m sure (because I’ve read it so many times) that it’s more secure. Otherwise, it seems a lot like Internet Explorer, only without the Flickr badges.

Bonus thought: If I liked it better, would they use my song by a similar name in a commercial?

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Blogging Katrina

Hurricane Katrina (Wikipedia just keeps getting more and more integral to my information needs) is one scary storm. Two families that we are close to have relatives in New Orleans. Both families have houses full of refugees.

Here’s a Google Maps hack that shows its location. When the photo loads, click on “Hybrid” in the upper right hand corner for the best view.

Here are some blogs from people in the affected areas:

Hattie’s Blog: Hattiesburg, MS
Mark Kraft: Not local, but good collection of info.
Zelda Kitty: New Orleans
Bobbysan: New Orleans

If you know of others, please add them to the Comments and I’ll put a link here.

Updates from the Comments:

Flickr Photos
Support New Orleans
Blog from Baton Rouge

Monday Update:

Lots of good stuff on this blog.

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Aunt Anne’s Visit

38118878_e22ff8dfd0_mAunt Anne (my sister) came to visit us this weekend. We had a fun time, as we always do. The girls have a blast hanging out with their “Aunt Ants.” We went to Joe’s Crab Shack with the Friday night dinner crew on Friday, saw a great movie on Saturday, shopped unsuccessfully for patio furniture and went to Tokyohana for dinner tonight. We played Contract Rum last night, and Anne won again. We quit playing Trivial Pursuit with her because she always won that too. Now she always wins at cards. We’re going to think of a new game before her next visit.

Anne lives in Tennessee. We love to spend time with her and wish that she could come see us more often. She is a social worker and raises thoroughbred horses. Best of all, she is a great sister, sister-in-law and aunt.

Jukebox, Uncensored

You know the drill. Open up your jukebox of choice, point the shuffle feature to your entire library of songs and list, without exception, the first 10 or so songs that play. Each week, I add a little commentary about some of the artists, songs, albums, etc.

Jealous Guy – John Lennon (Imagine) (1)
See Rock City – Kate Campbell (The Portable) (2)
Midnight Rider – Waylon Jennings (The Ramblin’ Man) (3)
Satisfaction – Otis Redding (Stax Box) (4)
Waiting for Sara – Cheri Knight (The Knitter) (5)
If You Were a Bluebird – Joe Ely (Joe Ely) (6)
Daylight – Dillon Fence (Rosemary) (7)
Greensboro Woman – Townes Van Zandt (8)
Margaritas – Ronnie Jeffrey & Kent Newsome (Demo) (9)
People’s Parties – Joni Mitchell (Court and Spark) (10)

(1) Good song on a good record. I like some, but not all, of his solo stuff. Of course I am a Beatles fan, but I don’t have the extreme reverence for him that a lot of folks do. I think a lot of his stuff post-Yoko was lame. Sorry.

(2) Kate is currently on my friend Brad’s Compadre Records label. Compadre provides an outlet for a lot of great artists, and Kate is one of them (along with Billy Joe Shaver and James McMurtry). I like this song, but I like the Kentucky Headhunters song by the same name better.

(3) Decent version of a good but overplayed song by one of the fathers of the outlaw country movement. Waylon has a lot better songs and nobody does this one like the Allmans. It’s a very good album that really started the outlaw country movement.

(4) Lots of covers and similar names this week. Otis sang everything good, but again, the Stones do it better. To hear Otis at his best, try In Person at the Whisky a Go Go.

(5) I liked about two thirds of the songs made by the Blood Oranges, Cheri’s previous band. I feel the same way about her solo work. The good songs are very, very good. Some of the rock numbers feel like toss-ins. This is one of the very, very good songs on a very good album, her first solo effort.

(6) Another excellent number off of Joe Ely’s first record, released in 1977. This one and a lot of the other songs on this record became Americana classics. This remains one of my favorite Joe Ely records.

(7) I missed Dillon Fence when they were active, but I learned about them via music-related posts at ACCBoards.Com. They were/are based in Winston-Salem, NC, where I went to college.

(8) Townes has always been one of my favorite songwriters. I was fortunate enough to meet him a couple of times and he was an interesting guy to say the least. One of the magical concert moments I’ve experienced was Townes, Guy Clark and Verlon Thompson sharing the stage at Fitzgeralds back in the early nineties. This was the first TVZ record I ever bought and it’s a good one.

(9) I usually violate the Jukebox rules by skipping over my songs when they pop up. I’ll let this one slide because I had forgotten about it altogether. It’s a song I wrote about the night one of my friends met his wife. Cool people, but not one of my better songs.

(10) One of my favorite records of all time. I’ve listened to this record hundreds of time and it never gets old. Unlike many Joni Mitchell records, there’s not a bad song on it. Some so called purists have argued that it’s too pop/rock, but whatever it is, it works for me.

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My Favorite Records

As those of you who listen to Rancho Radio know, I like all sorts of music. I have spent more money on music than I ever did on whiskey and women combined. At the moment I have 26,138 songs on my music server. I bought 8 track tapes, I bought LPs, I bought cassettes and I buy CDs. I listen to everything from country, to rock, to blues and everything in between. I’ve played in bands and I’ve listened to bands. I’ve written country, rock and blues songs. Basically, music has been the one constant passion in my life. Others come and go, but music has been there as long as I can remember.

So I decided it would be fun to identify, list and discuss my all-time favorite records, and here’s how I am going to do it. I’ll work through my music library from A to Z, listing and discussing my favorite records. I don’t know how many records will be on the list when I finish, but I am shooting for between 50 and 75.

So without further adieu, the first record on the list.

5 Chinese Brothers are/were a five piece alternative country band based in New York. Their music is on the folk rock side of the alternative country spectrum. All of their records are very good, but their first one, Singer, Songwriter, Beggarman, Thief is my favorite. By the time this record was released in 1992, the band (who are neither Chinese nor brothers) had been playing together for 10 years. The quality of the songwriting and the playing shows it.

If I Ain’t Falling, the lead off track, is an unapologetic rocker about the need to find your own path, even if there are wrong turns along the way:

“You’re getting bored when you’re living fast
You can only be sure when your time is past
A well laid plan is all right if
You’re a dying man or a working stiff.”

Baltimore is an accordion driven, almost Cajun influenced number about the loss and rediscovery of a hometown. She’s a Waitress is the first fine example of the band’s Loudon Wainwright-like ability to make songs that are equally funny and affecting. Who hasn’t fallen for a waitress at some point? I certainly have my own waitress story.

Don’t Regret is a stripped down ode to the moment:

“Please don’t promise to be true
With words that you’ll forget
You don’t need to believe in me
When all you know is that I haven’t hurt you yet
Don’t know about tomorrow so just let tomorrow be
Don’t regret, don’t regret.”

I could go into great detail about the virtues of every other song on the record, such as the hilarious ode to Paul Cezanne. In sum, this is one of those rare albums that have no average songs on it. Every song on this record is at least very, very good and most are excellent.

This record is a fine start to my list.

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Friday’s Link: GUI Gallery

msbob

Friday’s Link for this week is the Graphical User Interface Gallery. This interesting site has descriptions and screen shots of many old and nearly forgotten GUIs and operating systems.

There are pages with descriptions and screen shots of Apple Lisa, At Ease (alternate Mac desktop), Amiga, OS/2, all versions of Windows, Norton Desktop for Windows, and my favorite, Microsoft Bob. I remember having a copy of Bob in my hands back in 1995 and wondering if I should buy it. I didn’t and, but for this web site, I would never have had the pleasure of seeing Bob and the original Rover (who is still running around in the seach boxes in Windows XP).

The GUI Gallery is a neat trip down memory lane for anyone who has used computers for any length of time. Seeing the Apple II desktop again reminded me of the many hours I spent back in the mid-eighties playing Island Apventure, a game my brother in law had on his Apple II.

Island Apventure was the first of 4 computer games that have captivated me over the years. The others are Starflight (still my all time favorite game), Sim City and Civilization. Civ IV is coming out soon and I am trying to decide if I am too old to play computer games. I hope not, because there’s no way I will be able to resist buying it.

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Extreme Website Makeover (Part 2)

This is the second in a two part series. Part 1 is here.

In Part 1 I talked about redesigning Newsome.Org and shared some things I learned in the process.

paint

Here, also in no particular order, are some other things I have learned.

5) While a nice, functional design is important (for example, I love to read John Dvorak’s blog, but I find the layout and design, particularly the middle part where the primary content is, to be distracting), content is king. Content can be many things: new or helpful information, humor, or just your thoughts on the latest episode of Lost. In fact, several of the blogs I read regularly are primarily online diaries where the blogger discusses whatever happened that day. I used to have a friend (where are you Steve Garner?) who could tell a story about taking out the trash and keep the whole room enrapt. If you provide useful and interesting content, you will eventually get readers. Granted, it’s hard to think of something useful to say every day (much less several times a day), and post shrinkage is a common traffic killer. The saving grace is that every post does not have to be a full length article. People like to connect and maintain a connection. Even a short comment or interesting link will keep me coming back to the blogs I read.

6) Make it a 2-way street. I learned when developing ACCBoards.Com that you can get a click or two pretty easily. The trick is to create and encourage conversations. Once people start conversing, a community begins to form and people will spend more than a few seconds on the site. The so called “A-List” bloggers understand this, and they often carry on discussions about common topics spread over their sites. Once you get used to “talking” via trackbacks, comments and common topics, other people will join in. People turn into a group which turns into a crowd, etc.

7) Use media to enhance what you’re saying and doing. Castpost is an excellent site that will host video, currently for free. I have posted one old and one new video project here via Castpost and will post more shortly. Radio Blog is a free program that allows you to post audio files on your site.

8) Get indexed by Technorati even if its hard to get set up. If you keep trying, it will happen. Other sites like del.icio.us , PubSub and Bloglines can help add features and spread the word about your site.

9) Give love to get love. I always link back to sites that inspire me to write about a topic. I always link in my post to a site that I trackback to. If people comment on my posts, I try to comment on their site when I have something to add. Over time, other bloggers will come to recognize your name and be more likely to give you a link or two in return.

10) Have fun and don’t take yourself too seriously. Nothing turns me off more than someone who feels the need to tell me how smart or clever they are. Just be yourself and write about something you find interesting- if you’re smart and clever people will figure that out on their own. Few of us get paid for writing these blogs, so it needs to be fun or it’s a misuse of our precious free time.

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