May 26, 2008 — 11:55 PM
Beer!
Beer! IMGP1091
Originally uploaded by carlweaver.
Hooooraaaaaaay Beer!
Memorial Day weekend brought a barbeque to our place, and we had over 20 people at our place for a cookout of epic nature. But, best of all, there was Oberon served. Mmmmmmmm Oberon.
May 23, 2008 — 9:20 AM
An Email Roughly Converted into Blog Form
The original version of this blog entry was, in fact, an email. Yes, that means I'm kinda recycling a little bit, which I recognize might be cheating. But, it's about Indiana Jones. You like Indiana Jones, right? I thought so. Everyone likes Indiana Jones. Even Feminist Theorists. Well, okay, that last part is a lie. But here we go...
We are going to see it tonight in Ballston, and I will admit no small part of dread has followed me this week as I've watched the greatness that is the end of Last Crusade (#1 on my all-time list of theatre-gone movies, though, I admit, I was 11 at the time.) and Raiders this week with no small amount of glee. We chose, even, to not see the film at DC's incredible Uptown theatre for fear that it might somehow taint our opinion of the Uptown if it sucked.
After I watched George Lucas diddle my childhood in a dark alley like some sort of deranged science-fictionesque priest with the Star Wars "movies" that he put out this decade, I am deeply fearful that he is somehow going to lead Spielberg down that same evil path for an encore performance, and I just can't shake that, no matter what.
But, this morning, I have awoken with the Indiana Jones March in my head, and in my heart, and if nothing else, I will go for John Williams' score, which has never once lead me astray.
Besides. Tell me, men and women who receive this email missive, tell me that you haven't had that theme come roaring out from your subconscious one morning when you were kicking ass in a presentation, or in the writing of a particularly good paragraph, or in the delivery of some technological feat of derring-do. Yeah, I'd go see it just for the hat, the whip and soaring horns and staccato brass.
PS - There is no movie more indelible in my memory than Last Crusade. I was 10. It was a family outing, all five of us, at the pre-megaplex Cinema II in Davis. Josh would recognize the building now as Watermelon Music, opposite the Davis Sport Shop, just up the block from Soga's and Chipotle (formerly Mr. B's and Cafe Roma, the stoner version of the Murky Coffee I know and love today). The theatre wasn't terribly large, but had recently been somewhat refinished in 1989. The theatre had a gentle slope to it, and we sat about two-thirds of the way back, on the aisle. There was popcorn, I remember, and all of us sitting there, watching Indy save the Grail from the Nazis. It was perfect. It was absolutely perfect. And it is etched into my memory, forever.
PPS - How is it Williams never won an Oscar for the score? It's his best work by far, but he seems to pick years in which there's some incredible competition. In 1982, Chariots of Fire's incredible soundtrack beats out Indy (and also Randy Newman's Ragtime) and Williams. In 1985, it's A Passage to India that sends Williams back to his seat, empty-handed, and again Newman's shot down, too, for his excellent scoring of The Natural (possibly one of the best musical tributes to the grandeur of baseball.) Then, in 1990, the single greatest injustice. The Little Mermaid. Yeah. I know. Cruel. But it unseats Indy again, and also Field of Dreams. Maybe this time?
PPPS - The single greatest use of the theme, in all of the films (and its first full use in Raiders, with the modulation of the theme in the second phrase) is when Jones appears atop the U-boat, sending the steamer tramp crew (and, I'll admit, ME, on EVERY subsequent occasion) into a torrent of cheers. It's Indy's seminal moment, doing something monumentally dangerous/stupid with no real "plan" except *get there and get in, or I'm dead*.
PPPPS - Can you tell I love the Indy mythology?
May 19, 2008 — 7:41 PM
Monday Meals!
Monday Meals 19 May 08
Originally uploaded by tbridge
The video was made with my iSight and captured in Photobooth (hence the mirror image problem) and then edited with Final Cut Express. I hope to do these each week!
May 8, 2008 — 11:00 PM
Part of a Project I'm Working On
Place Setting
Originally uploaded by tbridge.
Since I've started Technolutionary, there are only a few moments that I've really questioned my decision to leave the salary world and seek my fortune. Most of them either involved a bankrupt client, or a long wait for someone to pay us for the work. Those aren't frequent moments, fortunately.
Today, though, was one of the highlights. I do the website for Overwood in Old Town Alexandria. I'd gone in a while back, and Chef Rami wanted to take some photos of his cooking for the website. Rami has incredible presentation skills, and his amazingly delicious food frequently looks just as awesome on the plate.
So, today, for a good two hours, he cooked and brought stuff out, and I shot photos. What a joy. I shot well over 200 frames of stuff, and Rami had at least 15 plates of stuff. The hardest to shoot was the steak, and then the ravioli. I got good steak shots, but not good ravioli shots. Next time.
But both Rami and I were in our element today, and each of us knew it. It was a joyous moment.
There was another, recently, but that's another story, for another time.
May 5, 2008 — 5:18 PM
Zimbra: Bad Choices
I know, it's been mighty quiet here at TBDC, I apologize. I just haven't had much to say lately, except what's been coming out on DCMB and Twitter, and such is the way. However, today, after I mention how much Iron Man kicked ass, I've got something to say.
We recommend and resell Zimbra to clients in need of a good groupware solution. It's a really great product, both in terms of its user experience (really killer AJAX email client!) and have had, for the most part, a good experience.
We're really glad that Microsoft has dropped their bid to purchase Yahoo forcefully (at least for now) as that will allow Zimbra to continue to improve their product. It likely would have been first against the wall when Ballmer and his gang took over.
However, there's a major problem with ZCS 5 and the Mac. Two of them, actually. And together, they create a serious availability issue for Zimbra with regard to the Mac platform at large. Most of our clients desperately want ZCS 5 for its cool share-able address books, and improved iSync Conduits. Two things hold most people back:
ZCS 5 won't run on PowerPC Hardware
Sure, there's a beta version of the open-source edition for 5.0.5 coming out...any day now. But if you want the things that make ZCS Network Edition, you can't have it for Power PC. This effectively rules out any hardware made before August 2006, and in the case of the Xserve, November 2006. So, our client has a server that's turning 2 this year, but can't run ZCS 5. It's overpowered for the task, frequently running at 20% or less utilization of its twin 2.0 GHz G5 Processors. But yet, no version of Zimbra 5 will run on it.
ZCS 5 won't run on Leopard
But Tom, you say, go get a new machine! The Intel kit is better anyhow! I agree! The new Mac Pros are pretty darned impressive. They not terribly expensive, but there's a major problem. Zimbra only runs in the 10.4 space right now. They don't even have a beta product available for Leopard at this time. It's only been out six months at this point, and it's not like there was an extensive build-up of press for developers...
...wait, there was a whole conference on 10.5? Last year? Before it came out? Huh.
But how is this a problem?
Here's the problem. If you want to buy a Mac, of any flavor, to run Zimbra right now, you can't. Since January of this year, none of the for-purchase Macs will boot in 10.4. And, since there's no PowerPC version of ZCS, you can't run it on old hardware either. Your only hope is to find a Mac Pro or Xserve made between August/November 2006 and January 2008. Only machines in that 15-month span will run ZCS 5.
And that's a load of crap for all of us paying customers who have paid for the license, but can't install the latest version.
Pretty lame, eh?
