trisweb.com

More pictures ::

Almost forgot—get it while it’s hot (as if you haven’t heard already); Firefox 0.9 is out! Many improvements, most of which are the little details. They still haven’t fixed that little annoying download popup though… maybe I’ll do it.

“The new API is HTML, and the new winners in the application development marketplace will be the people who can make HTML sing.”

~ Joel Spolsky

Sometimes I wonder how he does it—how one can craft something so ultimately beautiful and usable and amazing on a computer screen. I think it’s the best designed site on the internet.

I must learn. ::

I realized how long ago I had logged into Windows today when I checked my e-mail (in Windows) and found 37 messages. I think I like Linux better in general, though the desktop software (I use Gnome, and I hate how KDE feels) has a ways to go before being as usable as Windows, or anywhere close to the beautifully designed OSX. It’s all in the details—like when trying to find a certain file in a directory of 200 files, I can’t just start typing the filename to get to it.

Life in Ojai is quaint and goes by fast. I was supposed to do a lot of work this week, but most of it never got done. I find myself doing too much for myself and not enough for everyone else. I’m trying to fix it, honest.

One of those me-projects that I “wasted” a lot of time on today was ripping my dad’s CDs. He and I share some taste in music at least, so I’ve been ripping his new aquisitions that I like, and re-ripping others that I ripped to Windows Media, back when I was young and naive. I now encode all my audio in Ogg Vorbis quality 5 (~160kbps, variable bit-rate), which is relatively transparent to my ears (if I’m not constantly analyzing it) and easy enough on the old hard disk (only 2 gigs left!). Check out Hydrogenaudio if you’re into audio compression. My dad’s convinced he can tell the difference between a CD and any lossily-compressed music. I have to set up a double-blind ABX test for him so he can prove it… ::

I’m finally back in lovely Ojai California, which is a great place to call home.

President Reagan’s death seems to be the story of the hour, and maybe you just had to be alive during his presidency to understand, but I just don’t get it. Best respects to the Reagen family.

New design should be coming soon, between the million other little things that need to get done this summer. I’d feel better if it were one or two giant projects, but having five or six big projects plus eight or ten little ones is complicated. I need to make a list, and on it will be the redesign, which is still coming soon.

I’ve been having a lot of fun in Gentoo Linux recently; it’s a very hands-on OS and you can mess with everything. I re-compiled my kernel (core part of the OS) the other day, using a hacked kernel source (cc-sources) and compiler settings specifically optimized for my processor architecture. Needless to say, it’s fast. Not that much faster I’m sure, but it feels rather snappy. I’m enjoying the linux desktop more and more, and I find that the only things I can’t do (as easily as in Windows) are graphics and games. Other than that, it’s a far better OS than Windows, and a lot more fun. Still not to the point where anyone can install and use it without problems though. I’d say it’s better with programming experience (aka, as a nerd).

Another web note: I don’t like Dave Shea’s new design, and I love how Doug Bowman is showing us his design process. Kudos to them for being names I can put in a post to sound like I know the crowd. ::