Am I the only one who thinks the Country Music Awards logo looks strangely like the Starfleet Command insignia from Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Random | 2 Comments »

I mostly got it right, but there were a few gotchas that bit me as I upgraded to Leopard from Tiger.  I always do a clean install instead of an upgrade since it helps clear out the cruft that builds up on my machine.  Anyway, here’s a few of the more important steps in the backup/restore process:

•  De-Authorize your existing iTunes account.  From iTunes, Store/Deauthorize Computer.
• Create extra backups of contacts and your address book (file backup or export, not sure which on Tiger — in Leopard it’s moved to export archive)
• Copy your ~/Library/ folder to an external device, but /NOT/ a FAT32 drive if possible.  You’ll lose the file permissions and it’s a real hassle to set them back (lesson learned).
• Backup your Music, Photos folders as necessary (mine are moved around a bit)
• Can’t wait for TimeMachine so I don’t have to worry about much of this next time!

Once you’ve got your new Leopard up and going, you’ll want to restore the following key bits:

• Login keychain (I renamed my existing login.keychain file in ~/Library/Keychains/ and then just copied over the old folder contents into the Keychains directory)
• Watch out for this potential calendar gotcha.
• Also, despite Mail.app saying it was “upgrading” my database, when I first ran it, I didn’t have all my accounts still set up.  This might have been a result of the keychain not put back, or a permission error.  Whatever the cause, after restoring the ~/Library/Mail directory again, setting permissions, and making sure to copy back the mail preferences file as well, everything worked fine.

Gratuitous Tech | 1 Comment »

A few months back I listed my reasons for not getting an iPhone. After talking with friends *cough*dave*cough*, I pared down my true deal-breaker objections to two items: 1) locked to at&t with a two year contract, and 2) no third-party apps. None of that widget crap, I wanted real programs.  Of course, even the first item I wasn’t really set on.  My Treo had been resetting on me so much lately that I was really starting to want an iPhone and was even willing to consider jumping to AT&T.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news at all lately, you should know by now that both of those two issues have been “resolved”. Of course, both require third-party hacks and aren’t at all officially supported by T-Mo, but oh well. I drunk the koolaid anyway and am enjoying my iPhone on tmobile (for at least two more months until my tmo contract is up).

Of course I love the iPhone. It’s an amazing device with so many little features and improvements on the standard phone interface that you can’t help but love it. Oh, sure, you hate Apple for being stupid about restricting it and fighting a battle with those trying to unlock it, and there’s a long list of things I’d like to change about it, but for now I’m just content and happy that I have a phone that is a phenomenal phone and organizer, truly amazing web browser.  And hey, if it happens to play movies and music really easily, so be it.

In other news, I’m starting a new job first thing in December.  We’re moving to Melbourne.  (No, not australia)It’s going to be really incredibly hard to leave Gainesville.  I’ve already gotten misty-eyed a few times thinking about all the memories and friends we’ll be leaving behind, but it’s a definitely the right decision for us right now.

Gratuitous Tech, Random | 2 Comments »

Be forewarned–Jaime informs me this wasn’t the funny the first time, and it won’t be funny repeated. Oh well. Discretion may be the better part of valor, but it’s not prominent in my repertoire.

Jaime: When you make a burrito, what do you do with it?

Jordan: Well, some folks like to take them outside and roll them around with sticks. Myself, I prefer to eat them. It’s an ongoing debate in the burrito aficionado world.

My wife must really love me.

Food, Humor | 5 Comments »

I’ve clearly been playing too much Planet Puzzle League.  Of course, I’ve been cutting back as much as possible to finish up some more adult tasks, and then last night I remembered that it has an online Nintendo WFC play mode I hadn’t even tried.

I’m still not exactly sure how the “Birthday Challenge” mode works.  It claims you’re only playing people who have the same birthday as you, but give than that the odds of someone who owns the game being online at any given time are about 0.3%, say for an /average/ of 30min per week per owner, and the game has a projected maximum sales in the neighborhood of 330k, that would be 990 people online at any given time.  That’s using a projected maximum sale number, we’re currently well short of that.  Assuming an approximately even distribution (not wise, but hang with me on this one), that gives you about 3 people with your exact birthday online at any given time. Last night I played for a little while and each time I started a new game I played a totally different person than previously, three unique individuals in a row.  Is this a random assignment?  Or did the system track who I’d played and serve up someone else.  Regardless, it sure seems unlikely I’m only playing folks with my exact birthday.  I’m sure they’re fudging on the numbers to make it happen.  Especially when the game first launched and there were less than 100 players online at any given time.

Gaming | 2 Comments »