Mac vs. Windows…

I’m a long-time Mac user. In fact, I was using Apple computers (Apple II) long before the PC blasted onto the scene. I fell in love with the first Macintosh I saw, the little vanilla box with the black and white screen that played this really silly Alice in Wonderland game…and not much else.

(In fact, I saw the first demo of a Mac at the West Coast Computer Faire many, many years ago, and heard the now-infamous wizards-behind-the-curtain who were running the REAL demo on an Apple Lisa because the Mac wasn’t working…but that’s another story.)

I sold my PowerMacs when I went to work for Intel; seemed faintly treacherous to own a competitor’s product.

Now, I’ll tell you that I can operate in three environments–PC, Mac, and Unix (now Linux) but truthfully, I’m in Windows about 95% of the time. It’s where I live.

So naturally, when I developed a pressing need to buy a laptop computer, I headed straight for the Macs.

Huh?

Yup. I’m in love with the little beasties. The Mac was built for my favorite things, i.e., computer graphics, photography, animation, and video. Windows is just a wannabe in the creative world, and not having Mac poked a serious hole in my serenity. (And they have the best ads around)

The MacBookPro is one seriously nice machine. I’ve played and played with them in the store, researched what people are saying about them online, the nice folks at warmglass.com, my favorite online chat group, are so enthusiastic I nearly hit the buy button right then.

I’m consulting (happily) now, and I need a mobile computer to take to client locations. I need wireless, I need power for graphics and Web development work, I need great video…and I’d really like it to be purty…5 years of Intel and you, too, will hate smudgy black ThinkPads.

I’d loaned my only laptop, a slimline lavender Gateway, to my niece when she started college, and it lasted exactly two months. Gateway’s (non-existent) support knocked them out of the running for my new laptop. Lenovo (makers of the former IBM ThinkPad) makes a nice computer but I ran through seven of them in five years at Intel and had I stayed there another three months I would have made that eight. The support I’ve gotten lately from Dell meant my only real Windows choices were HP, Compaq, Sony, or Toshiba.

I need a laptop, and by damn, I need a MacBookPro. This is a serious jones, folks.

Word from techie friends, the PC reviews world (which I take with a grain of salt, knowing how most of these guys test), and general online concensus is that the new Mac’s Windows emulation mode is stellar. I can run Windows and Mac OSes on the same machine, in parallel. I get my beloved Mac for graphics, Windows for my business clients, and everybody’s happy.

I carefully researched the best prices, compiled my choices (Apple Store for a refurbished MacBookPro at about 20% off list, load up on memory from an offbrand vendor, buy the software at a discount), got to the “submit order” button on three different websites…and froze.

Good thing I did.

At the last minute I couldn’t decide between the Mac “glossy” and “matte” screens. Visited the local Mac Store, not too far from my house, to compare them.

Fell into a nice technical chat with the salesperson (who actually KNEW what he was talking about, I was stunned). He pointed out that the glossy screen was actually oversaturated, which would be a problem for color accuracy…so matte it was.

Then he said, “When were you planning to buy this?” (Oh, in the next minute or three…)

“Well…you do know that Apple’s probably bringing out new MacBookPros at the Paris Expo, right? They’ll probably be more efficient, a bit more power…you might want to wait. In any case, if new ones come out the price is going to drop on the one you’re looking at now.”

So…I thanked him, drove home, and dove into the Web. Sure enough, rumors of a new MacBookPro are all over the place, set to debut on September 16. (I must be slipping)

That’s two weeks away. I guess I can wait that long. Sniff, sniff.

If you find me hunched in front of The Apple Store, shivering, don’t worry. Just lead me to the MacBookPro, put my hand on the trackpad and say, “here’s your Mac.”

I’ll be right as rain in no time.

Update: Additional investigation has uncovered more problems with the current MBP’s battery and wireless networking than I care to get into. Another reason to wait. Now all I have to do is explain to my client why I’m traveling sans laptop. (me. without a computer for 5 days. me.)

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My photo studio

A couple of people have asked me how I photograph my work, so I thought I’d spend some time describing my setup. I built a portable studio kit for about $200, not counting the cost of the camera and camera tripod. It also fits on a shelf in my studio closet when I’m not using it, so I’m not always tripping all over everything.

Here’s what it looks like folded up and ready for storage:

And this is what it looks like when I’m using it:
How I built it:
Glass has strong reflected and transmitted qualities–that’s why we like it so much–but the combination makes it difficult to photograph, particularly if it’s primarily clear (like my Shards series). It’s prone to glare and hotspots, and you must mix just the right balance of reflectance and transmission to make it look like glass.

The easiest way to photograph glass, turns out, is to make sure that the light falling on it is diffused first. That way you get your primary illumination right, without hotspots, and you’re freed up to back- or under-light the piece as needed to bring in some transparency.

When I first started photographing glass I built my own low-cost light tent. I found a laundry sorting rack at Container Store, set an old glass shelf on the sorting bins, and then taped big sheets of white vellum to form the tent and a seamless backdrop for the glass. Worked like a charm–vellum is about the best light diffuser I know–but one day one of the lights dipped a little too close to the vellum “roof” and the whole thing caught fire. (Burning vellum, by the way, is an absolutely stinky experience.)

So…I went looking for something a little less jury-rigged and, er, flammable, and found the foldable nylon “studio in a box” kits. There are several available on e-Bay, ranging in price from about $39 to $150. I paid $69 for mine, a 30×30x30 cube that came with a white nylon drape (which I don’t use) and carrying kit.

Setup is simple–you untwist the metal hoop frame, the cube pops open, you attach your backdrop inside and stick the velcro’d “door” on the front. The “door” has a slit in the center for your camera lens, so light is diffused evenly on all six sides. You simply position your lights outside, set up your tripod, and start shooting. I set mine up on my glass dining table, which allows me to position lights from underneath, too.

I paid about $30 for an old set of photographer lights on e-Bay–came with two light stands, four lights (three the old-fashion spotlight type and one big halogen overhead light), and a couple extra extension arms. I paid another $20 for an old foot-operated spotlight that sits in a can under the tent, for when I want the piece to glow from inside.

The light stands were kinda flimsy, and didn’t have enough extension to reach out into the center of the tent, so I also bought a sturdy lightstand and extension arm from the local camera shop for about $60. Probably could have found it cheaper on e-Bay, but I didn’t want to wait.

Finally, I looked for seamless paper rolls but thought they were too expensive. So I went to the fabric store and bought heavy white and black silk georgette, a yard of each. Works beautifully to both diffuse and soften the background, and because it’s silk the dust slides off. The tent has two little loops on top for fastening the fabric.

Setup takes about 15 minutes–longer if I have to iron wrinkles out of my backdrops.

The hardest thing (I think) about using the tent is figuring out how to position the glass. I use a cheap wine goblet, upside down, as a stand–most of my pieces balance on the goblet foot (you can see it in the second picture) and since the goblet is transparent it’s either invisible or relatively easy to photoshop out of the image. For bigger pieces I have a square glass vase and a lot of lucite cubes and wedges. I just found a used matte black mini-tripod that holds a gazillion different positions and I’m going to try and glue on a lucite base to the mounting head. The idea is that I can use museum gel or something on the base, set the glass on it, and get exactly the position I want. We’ll see…

That’s about all there is to it. I generally save up a couple months’ worth of pieces before I get out the studio. Probably if I had a permanent setup I’d shoot images more frequently and in smaller batches, but so far it hasn’t really been worth it.

BTW, here’s the result of the piece I was photographing in the picture above. Considering that it’s plain old clear (and frosted) glass, I think it came out pretty well.

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Webistry evolves once again…

In a previous note I looked back at many (alas, not all, due to some server losses) of the designs I’ve made for Morganica.com over the years.

At the end I’d said we’ll see how this evolves as the new design settles into its paces. There’s a point at which you stop testing and simply float the bloody thing (which is what I was talking about last time)…and then come back about a month later and see all the things you did wrong, or at least ways you can make it better. So…this is my to-do list for the next few weeks, in between clients:

Navigation

So far the primary nav on top is working well, although I’ve gotten a couple of bemused “don’t you think you’re taking the “ery” stuff too far? Imagery? Webbery? Glassery?” I’d probably die rather than make up words for a commercial site, but hey–this is my funsite. So it stays.

Secondary navigation is a different matter. There’s no clear identification of the page–what I’d intended as a section title looks like the page title (top right), no breadcrumbing, and the secondary nav itself is at the bottom of the lefthand column when convention (and most users) expect it to be at the top. It’s also probably too prominent on the page.

Solution: flip the lefthand column so the nav’s on top and make it smaller, swap the section and page titles, and add breadcrumbing.

Performance
Probably would speed things up to reduce image resolution to 72dpi from the current 96 dpi, but again, this is my funsite, so it stays.

Infoarchitecture
My, how the Web (and my interests) have grown. This site’s primary function is to serve as my site “tickler” file, reminding me where I’ve been online and what kinds of things are available so I don’t have to go through multiple searches to find stuff.

When I was still doing this in 2003 I had about 1,200 sites registered in different categories, manageable with about 16 pages. Right now I’m tracking about 700 sites on morganica, i.e., I’ve tested the links, noted what’s on the site, and posted. In the background, though, I’m checking several thousand more sites, about 90% need to be included, but 16 classification pages aren’t going to hold all that without becoming very unwieldy.

In addition, I’m already getting many, many requests to add pages (which has always puzzled me–morganica’s site lists are freely available to anyone, but not intended to be any kind of comprehensive directory to a subject, and I don’t intend to sell advertising or promote them). If other people are finding and sending me sites as well, this could rapidly get out of hand.

Solution: establish a new taxonomy, rebuild the database schema with more field control, and allow a deeper hierarchy of pages. Institute a direct search/index function, and add a site suggestion feature.

Blog

Right now I’m using straight out of the box Movable Type templates, mostly because I haven’t had time to alter them, they work pretty well, and I wanted to settle the rest of the site into its design before doing more than writing the blog. But…they need to be integrated into the site design so that it’s not such a glaring jump.

The trick will be figuring out how to get all the different blog menus in the right places so they make sense and also visually integrate. Not a difficult problem, but not one that’s on the top of my list, either. Probably some of the changing design elements will drive this.

So…that’s a nice little worklist to be going on for the next few weeks. (sighs happily) The day I get this site right will be the day it gets boring and dies again.

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Leafbowl

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I owe a lot of thank yous…

The time between jobs is a great one for introspection–I’m pulling together portfolios and resumes and really thinking about my skills and next steps. What’s come home to me more than anything else, though, are the number of people that contributed (or in some cases made) my professional skills. It’s about time I thanked them, so here goes (and this is going to be LOOONG list):

Nancy Ferris: Former managing editor of Government Computer News and former city desk editor for the Washington Star, she’s one of the sharpest, toughest editors I ever worked with, and she literally taught me my business. Her ethics remain, as ever, unquestionable, and probably every one of my employees since Nancy has heard (ad nauseum) my story about pneumonia, a difficult deadline, and the blank front page.

Vanessa Jo Grimm: At the time GCN’s news editor, she taught me to look at my writing in a whole new way. She patiently listened to my complaints that she always changed my headlines, then said, “well, if they weren’t so boring I wouldn’t have to change them, would I?” Then we sat down and dissected the “interest” part of interesting writing. I don’t know if she ever realized how much influence she had, or how many of my subsequent awards for excellence in writing and editing were due to that one talk.

Susan Menke: Susan was the first person who ever laughed at my humorous writing and became my best “funny” gauge–if I could make her laugh until tears when she edited my column, I succeeded. She also taught me a lot about fierce professional loyalty and ethics, and remains a good friend.

Trudy Walsh: Copy chief at GCN, she taught me the value of playing with words. I’d always done it, but the games we had between us–hidden meanings in my columns, the time the Oxford English Dictionary credited me with inventing a word (after all those times she accused me of that and I denied it), taught me to see the beauty and power of the English language.

Tom Temin: Tom probably doesn’t realize it, but he taught me one of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned about using words to influence: reader affinity. When he first took over as GCN EIC, he gave me a great lecture about knowing, identifying with, and writing for your reader. I took it to heart, and it’s made it sooooo much easier for me when writing any kind of pitch.

Sean Gallagher: Great writer and editor, absolutely so disorganized he could make you scream, but somehow he always pulls it out brilliantly. He taught me not to take the whole thing too seriously, and to trust that things will work out.

Mark Schlack: My boss at BYTE, and a friend and colleague for many years now. He gave me my dream job–editor at BYTE–and I saw him maintain his ethics, sense of humor, and loyalty in some difficult situations. A gracious, unpretentious man. He also taught me a great deal about running a publication well (and working with difficult art directors…

Rick Vizachero: He and Nancy pushed and pushed to get me my first journalism job, for which I’ll always be grateful. When one of my first computer reviews was unfavorably received by the manufacturer (people lost their jobs when I said the computer was “flimsy”) Rick taught me to remember where the blame belonged.

Bob Green: One of the old school cowboy reporters, Bob taught me how to investigate and report a story, and was the driving force behind several awards for investigative reporting.

Jonathan Blackwood: Genial, intelligent, cultured, and charming Southern gentleman who’s also a hell of a reviewer. Was the first to accept me at WinMag and really made me feel welcome and able to state my opinions now that I’d reached the “big time.”

Martin Heller: Feisty technologist and self-acknowledged genius who taught me how to hold my own with feisty technologists and self-acknowledged geniuses.

Jim Powell: More than anyone else, taught me about work ethics and making deadlines in the face of great difficulties. One of the most graceful and practical writers and editors I’ve ever worked with, and a highly valued friend since our WinMag days.

Joel Patz: Skilled editor and business strategist who taught me a lot about office politics and working with difficult people in sticky situations (not that I probably learned some of that all that well). Also taught me to see the fun side of what we’re doing, and to stop taking myself so seriously. Another valued friend.

John Montgomery: Someone once said that “John’s so brilliant he sucks the air right out of the room when he opens his mouth” and they were right. Intense, brilliant, right where he belongs at Microsoft…he taught me to understand what I want (and what I don’t want) in a career.

Russ Kay: Another great writer, and one of the kindest gentlemen I’ve ever met. I don’t think Russ knows how to say anything bad about anyone–he meets nastiness with gentleness, and it’s a very effective weapon. Russ taught me to see the good in people even when I wasn’t sure there was any.

Peter Brasket: My boss at techies.com, Peter taught me how to negotiate business deals and deal with vendors who’d failed (sometimes miserably) without going postal. One of the best salesmen I’ve ever worked with, Peter also taught me how to find and use peoples’ hidden motivations to achieve our goals.

Doug Berg: I’d love to bounce into every assignment with as much enthusiasm and joy as Doug–he was a great reminder about how exciting technology and all this jobstuff can be whenever I felt myself faltering during difficult times.

Shu Lee: Great statistician and mathematician, who taught me the beauty and danger of working with large piles of data (or rather, making them work for you).

Bert Cave: Highly ethical technologist at Intel who gave me the freedom to do what I thought was right, and would accept my word for anything…as long as I had the data to back it up. Taught me a lot about self-discipline and supporting intuition with information.

Steve Allen: Whilst (inside joke) working with Steve, I learned about making the Intel system work–not an easy task–and tried to emulate Steve’s ability to make difficult people do things they didn’t want to with a modicum of grace. Don’t think I always did that, but he set a great example.

Doug Busch: Literally one of the princes of the high tech industry–highly ethical, sensitive, great motivator, and skilled technologist. One of the people at Intel I most admire, and someone I’d cheerfully follow into Hell if he mentioned that it was a “BKM.” His ability to inspire that kind of loyalty, come to think of it, is actually kinda scary.

Sandra Fitzgerald Shoemaker: A born cheerleader, she taught me the value of tenacity and showed me how far ethics can go in keeping you honest when you hate your current assignment but your integrity won’t let you fail. One of the women at Intel that I most admire.

Jayne May: Jayne’s taught me the value of rising above personal difficulties to do what needs to be done, and to boldly enter into a new field for the fun of it. She went from 0 to 60 in an unfamiliar field faster than anyone I’ve ever met, and made it look easy.

Heidi Kampf: With her voice she should be in radio, but she’s (fortunately for Intel) managing a chunk of the IT@Intel program in Europe. No-nonsense woman with a knack for getting things done when others have failed–she’s taught me a lot during our midnight soul-searchings.

Joe Doolittle: Skilled technologist with a heart of gold. Also a camera buff (which makes him fun) and someone with a good sense of the business of technology. He taught me not to take Intel so seriously.

Nathan Zeldes: Nathan is one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever met, and one that personifies “good.” I don’t think it occurs to him that others are capable of selfish behaviors, because he appears to be incapable of it himself. He’s taught me a bit about trusting the motives of other people (even though I don’t always remember that lesson).

David Sward: David’s tight focus on data integrity and telling the truth with numbers reinforced my own beliefs in that area, and his unfailing good humor in stressful situations helped innumerable times. I’ve learned a great deal from him about understanding the true business value of a decision, and I consider him a good friend.

Sigal Louchheim: Long, long conversations about everything from the psychology of Web visitors to the origins of war in the middle East. I learn just by listening to her…and her point of view always makes me think again and again. A good friend.

Jan Webber: Jan’s the woman I’d love to be when I grow up. Organized, able to tease out the essence of the problem and get right to the heart of the solution, honest as the day is long (or longer), and unafraid to speak up when it’s time to voice a potentially unpopular PoV. Also caring, generous, and graceful in the face of disappointment. She’s taught me a lot about being a business woman as well as a business man, and that friendship can transcend business disagreements.

Ron Miller: Ron showed me that good business sense can have a heart as well as a head, and he knows how to transcend the barriers of business relationships to become a good friend as well.

Molly Olson: Molly probably doesn’t remember it, but my first encounter with her showed me some of the best of Intel–confronted with an issue that fell outside of Intel’s rigidly standard practices, she had the presence of mind and the heart to step outside the box, identify a better solution, and go for it. She taught me that you can fight bureaucracy at Intel and win. (Maybe not often, but hey—)

Janet Gluck: If you could give a computer a great big heart, that might be Janet. So absolutely organized, bottom-line oriented and clear-seeing that she’s scary…but also one of the most fun people I met at Intel. Truly enjoyed working with her and learned some great efficiency aids at the same time.

Ilene Aginsky: You can’t beat Ilene for bouncy, bubbly enthusiasm..but it’s tempered with great practicality and common sense. She embodies the “do or die” philosophy that I admire so much, plus she makes it look fun.

Shelley Wagner: Don’t know her all that well but came to greatly respect her abilities and her conscientious tenacity. Where so many at Intel settle for mediocrity, she continually pushed to improve her already-excellent performance. Caring, warmhearted and knowledgeable…had we worked together longer I would have learned a LOT more, I think.

Rick Brogan: Rick made one of the best volte-face overhauls to his workstyles that I’ve ever seen–he listened to what his boss wanted, assessed the best way to make changes, and simply did it. I’ve never seen anyone take a message to heart so thoroughly and effectively…and I greatly admire him for that.

And then there’s my family, Mom, Dad, my sisters and brothers in law, and my extended family, who’ve of course taught me about doing the right thing in the right way and sticking to your guns and a whole lot more.

If I’ve left your name off this list, it isn’t intentional–the more I write this the more I realize how many, many thanks I’ve left unsaid, and I’ll probably add more as I think of it.

Thanks, everyone.

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My sister and the princess

My sister’s family bought a few acres on a mountain in southern Washington state, about 90 minutes from Portland. Their dream house–built largely by my brother-in-law–is currently under construction.

Suzi started designing the house at least four years ago, and somewhere along the way decided that *her* idea of a dream house was a place called Nether Lypiatt. A classical Georgian mansion in northern England, it’s owned by a member of the British royal family, Prince Michael of Kent. Suzi’s never been within 100 miles of it.

The northwestern US has a very distinctive architecture of the soaring redwood-and-glass variety, about as far from a foursquare limestone Georgian as you can get, but my sister wasn’t daunted. She gathered as much information as she could about Nether Lypiatt and starting drawing up the plans.

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The wasp under the griddle

Decided to really scrub the kitchen today, so I cleared everything–and I do mean everything–off the countertops, stovetops, etc. There’s something really elementally satisfying about having a spring-clean house; it’s as if you’re starting with a clean slate, no mind-clutter, nothing to distract. I always do my best work in a clean house.

In the course of my scrubbing, I lifted the fifth-burner griddle off the stove. I’ve never used the thing so I didn’t expect a whole lot of stovegunk under it. And I was right, there wasn’t much.

What there was instead was a dead wasp. Ugh.

This was one of those really wicked-looking black and gold wasps with a long, millimeter-thin waist. It was curled on its side right in the middle of the griddlespace, next to the gas burner.

A few weeks back I’d heard the dry, chitinous tapping that hemipterans make when they fly into a hard surface. The sound was enough to have me wasp-hunting for a good hour, without luck. The next night I found an obviously exhausted wasp–same variety–trudging around under the coffee table, and figured the mystery was solved.

But here was a second wasp. How did two of the little buggers made their way into the house? I don’t keep the windows and doors open all that long, not with this heat, which is making me think “Fireplaces? Attic vents? Bathroom fans?” One of my discussion groups mentioned that these things can chew their way through drywall to get into a house. (Wouldn’t THAT make a good horror movie?)

The wasp probably landed on the stove looking for meat juice or fat, found the thumbhole in the griddle plate and crawled inside. He (or more probably a she) undoubtedly lost his way, couldn’t find the exit or maybe flew into the pilot light, and died.

Landing on the stove must have seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, and heading down an intriguing hole that probably held food and a good place to build a nest was a logical choice. Instead, he found himself doing something entirely different, far from where he wanted to be, and with no obvious escape back into his own world.

How bewildering and frustrating…and entirely human.

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Rubber cement is a solvent (duh)

Apparently the way you get rubber cement is by dissolving rubber in a solvent. Paint this concoction on something, and you get a permanently sticky bond with…whatever. (Want details? Check out the e-Encyclopedia entry.)

This is relevant because the logical extension of having a solvent in rubber cement somehow escaped me. I wanted to layer things onto an organically curved, flexible base, shape it appropriately, and use it as a model for a pate de verre mold. I normally model in clay, but it’s difficult to get small clay details out of a mold without causing damage. For various reasons, wax (the usual choice) wasn’t appropriate.

Instead, I bought a pack of cheap rubber balloons, filled one with water instead of air (I needed the weight and heavy flow of water), tied it off and set it on my modeling stand to begin. It was a lovely day, so I set up in the kitchen instead of my studio, where I have a nice view of the hills and valley.

For obvious reasons I couldn’t pin things to the balloon. Heated beeswax wouldn’t work, either–that would likely melt the thin rubber. There were too many curves for tape to work well, and it would telegraph through the material.

Grabbed a big jug of rubber cement, chose a sacrificial paintbrush, and set to work. Painted the back of the first piece with a nice, thick coat of rubber cement, and set it on the balloon. Voila! Exactly where I wanted it. Cemented the second piece and set it in place. Perfect! Painted the third piece and…BLAM!

Did I mention that a 16-inch diameter round balloon can hold more than two gallons of cold water?

Apparently I’d overfilled the balloon and put that water under extra pressure, because when rubber cement finally ate through the balloon, it exploded and sent water ten feet to the ceiling and doused the pilot light in the stove about 13 feet away.

It also saturated me, the counter, the floor, and my cat, who’d been snoozing under my chair. Took a dozen bath towels to soak up the mess.

So yes, Virginia, rubber cement dissolves balloons. And I’ve gone back to the drawing board.

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Yuri and the Chagall

This morning I looked out the window to the house that’s catty-corner from mine, and thought about Yuri and the Chagall.

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Happy birthday Katie hot

Katie, the girl who lives across the street, has a strict mother and a boyfriend. Neither would be a problem if the boyfriend had more brains than a radish.

At best, hormones are interfering with his higher brain function, which has made for an entertaining summer. There’s only been a moderate amount of tonsil exploration in the front yard–the boyfriend may be dumb but Katie certainly isn’t. So he’s forced to prove his love in other ways.

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