OKX

Ten years ago, I was in North Carolina—specifically, in a small town outside Camp Lejeune—on a consulting assignment. I was bored stiff. The dialup at the hotel was awful—and yes, there was dialup; this was before wifi, before Ethernet in every room, and at least in this hotel before reliable plain old telephone service to every room. Even then I was an Internet addict, so this was like a virtual guarantee of death by boredom that night. So I got out and walked down the street from one strip mall to the other, ending up at a Wal-Mart. In the music section. Where I decided that it was the right sort of night to take a risk on an artist I had listened a little to but didn’t know that much about, and pick up OK Computer by Radiohead.

And something, even as I played the album through my computer’s crummy speakers, exploded in my head.

Ten years on, and I am writing a blog post at my parents’ retirement house in western North Carolina, over wifi while I download OKX, a tribute to OK Computer. While I haven’t heard of most of the artists on the album, those I have—Doveman and the inimitable John Vanderslice—make me think that this is going to be pretty darn good.

A lot has changed in the intervening ten years, but the basic message of impersonal alienation has more relevance than ever before.

Alive, still

All indications to the contrary, I’m still alive. It has been a lovely, if thundery, few days here in the mountains to the north and west of Asheville. Food has been commensurate with past experiences—steak at my uncle’s on Tuesday night, big southern breakfast Wednesday (eggs, sausage, sawmill gravy, biscuits, grits, tomatoes, cantaloupe, fig preserves, and black black coffee), a repeat of the fish tacos experiment last night. Tonight we’re going to make our way to the Jarrett House—if there is a connection to our family other than the name, it’s a distant one—for some fried chicken and trout.

Then, if we survive the meals, we’ll go to a rare movie on Friday, then get back on the road Saturday to go back to New Jersey, where we can collect the dogs and head for home.

Vacation

Anyone wondering where I am is forewarned: it’s going to be a nice quiet vacation for me for about a week. Leaving out the car trips, which render it a nice, nerve-wracking headache of a vacation.

Today, for instance, we’re at Lisa’s parents in coastal New Jersey, after a six hour trip holding Joy (our Bichon dog who hates to travel, even when tranquilized). Our reward for the trip: a beach excursion cut short by 54° water. (It was 70° F three days ago before the storm.)

That’s OK. I made some killer fish tacos (fried tilapia and sour cream/lime/chipotle sauce) that more than made up for it, as far as I’m concerned.

Mixed messages

On this two-hundred-thirty-first Fourth of July, it’s good to know that the president is in favor of clemency.

For his pals.

That the Vice President is willing to declare his own personal branch of government to avoid laws governing the executive branch.

They say every nation gets the government they deserve.

Heaven help us.

Photo sharing

I was contacted today by Schmap, an online travel guide, to use one of my photos of downtown Portland (the sand castle contest photo) in their guide. They found me on Flickr and actually had the courtesy to ask about the photo before they reused it—it’s a Creative Commons-licensed photo. Rather novel, really—I’ve only been asked about one other of my photos, though I have no way to know if any of the others have been reused.

More disclosure for iTunes installs

I have long been an apologist for Apple on all things related to their music platform and their Windows software, particularly iTunes. I think it’s unsurprising that iTunes is the fastest growing software installed in the enterprise, simply because there is no better way to listen to music on a computer.

Where things get murky is Apple’s strategy to make iTunes the only way to get content onto Apple devices, including the iPod and now the iPhone. As the devices start to go beyond music and into other types of content that iTunes doesn’t manage directly, the footprint of iTunes expands further into the Windows desktop. Which is fine, I suppose, particularly if one is excited about getting one’s Outlook calendar on the thing (which I am).

But here is the problem: when one downloads iTunes, one is looking for music management. One is not asking Apple to install QuickTime, the Apple Updater, a Windows services, and now two Outlook add-ins.

I’m all for Apple putting software on the Windows platform. But they need to disclose that they’re installing this hodgepodge of executables and plugins and they need to give me the option of turning some of them off. Because I can live without iTunes on my machine (especially with an iPod docked to my speakers right on my desk), but I can’t live, professionally, without Outlook.

Universal declares age of 8-tracks open again

Because really, that’s the only possible explanation for their pulling out of their iTunes Store contract. For once, Cory at BoingBoing nailed all the snidery that I wanted to drop onto this announcement in his opening sentence: “Universal Music Group, the largest record label on Earth (an accomplishment akin to being the world’s largest corset-buttoner, horse-shoer, or gutta-percha cable-insulator)”…

Heh.

Product managers writing code, and other scary things

When your product manager checks code into your source control project, it means one of three things:

  1. Your engineering team is short-handed.
  2. Your project is really in trouble.
  3. Your development environment is really, really easy to use.

While I’m not sure that #2 isn’t true, I found #3 to be absolutely true working on a recent software release with my team. We’re using the Windows Presentation Foundation, aka Avalon, and I used Microsoft’s Expression Blend to make the project’s About window.

WPF is designed to enforce separation of code and presentation, and tools like Expression Blend enable that. The presentation markup enabled me to automatically include the current assembly information (version number, product name, copyright string), plus free memory information, and even a little animation.

The trick was in learning how to do data binding. I specified various modules of the .NET Framework as data sources, then bound text objects to methods in the framework. Interestingly, the easiest way to get assembly information was in the Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices namespace, in a class called AssemblyInfo; of course it doesn’t matter since the same code can be accessed by any .NET compatible language, including C#. The only challenge came in showing the available memory, since the methods in Microsoft.VisualBasic.Devices.ComputerInfo return memory in bytes. I wanted to show the information in megabytes, so I attached some simple C# code as a converter to represent the information in megabytes and format it appropriately for the user’s region.

Like I said: simple.

No Europe, no cry

Following up on Monday’s post, I should report that I decided against joining the tour. Its obvious attractions aside, family and work come first, and I’ll be quite busy with the latter the few weeks around Labor Day.

Not to say I’m not disappointed. I haven’t been to Europe on a non-business trip in a few years. But right now this has to be the right decision.

iTunes 7.3: Consolation Prize

Those of us who won’t be getting an iPhone today have at least one good thing awaiting us from Apple: iTunes 7.3. Of course, the only new features are… iPhone compatibility, or as CNet says, “a painful reminder that you are leading an iPhoneless existence.”

I tried to update my work computer using the Check for Software Updates option within iTunes, but it crashed iTunes (probably a Vista thing). I was able to get the update by running the Apple Software Update application directly; it’s installed in c:program filesApple Software Update.

Links for June 27, 2007

I’ve been working on a review that is taking longer than expected, hence the quiet (plus of course work). But in the meantime:

  • Use an Apple //c (and, one assumes, ][e) as a terminal for Mac OS X.
  • Use a mobile phone service to find a restroom. Yes, seriously. It’s called Mizpee. Apparently a hoax, but it’s generating a lot of back and forth on TechCrunch, including allegations that this means “Web 2.0 has jumped the shark.” What’s Web 2.0 about this idea, anyway?

Conundrum

Until this afternoon, I had the summer figured out. Push like heck to get a software release out and the sales team solid for June; take a week in July to visit family; then get back on the treadmill, with the exception of a single Tanglewood weekend (in monastic compensation for last summer’s excesses). And that would be enough, really.

Until this afternoon. When I got a call from Symphony Hall. One of the tenors in the chorus dropped out, the woman at the other end said. Could I do the European Tour?

Could I? That’s the question. We are, after all, talking about four additional evening rehearsals, more than ten days on the road, and two additional Tanglewood residencies. Of course, we’re also talking about singing with the BSO in Europe; specifically, in Lucerne for the Lucerne Festival, Essen, Mosel, Paris, and London. Even better, in the Royal Albert Hall.

So: what to do? I am fatigued from the year and just want to spend time with my family. But I haven’t sung much lately either (though this would surely cure me of that). I’ll have to decide soon: I have until 5 pm tomorrow.

Small favors

Well, this week our favorite Washington political operative, our Vice President Dick “Go F*ck Yourself” Cheney, did what seven years of liberal activism could not: he removed himself and his office from the executive branch of government. That he did so to assert privilege to flout oversight rules related to the handling of classified documents seems especially appropriate for our most secretive of politicians.

But turnabout is fair play, and the VP uncharacteristically left himself vulnerable. A courageous Democratic member of Congress obliged with one of the finer statements of the newly bipartisan reality of Washington life that I’ve seen since, well, 2000:

Washington, D.C. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel
issued the following statement regarding his amendment to cut funding
for the Office of the Vice President from the bill that funds the
executive branch. The legislation — the Financial Services and General
Government Appropriations bill — will be considered on the floor of
the House of Representatives next week.

“The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal
case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive
branch. However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot
ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President
should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice
President’s funding is consistent with his legal arguments. I have
worked closely with my colleagues on this amendment and will continue
to pursue this measure in the coming days.”

Heh. At any rate, if the VP’s office is no longer part of the executive branch, we should be thanking heaven for small favors.

Black Friday?

Remind me never to fly again out of Logan on the Friday after school lets out.

I was at Logan at 5:15 this morning. The garage was open and uncrowded and I expected a sail through security. I practically walked into a wall of people, though, when I got into the terminal—security lines snaking through the ticket area; ticket lines snarled. And (my heart sank) not a business suit in sight.

No, I was trapped with a bunch of Leisure Travelers. People who decided that getting to the airport three hours early for their flight was too late—and they were right, because they and their fellow Leisure Travelers had no idea how to negotiate security quickly, no idea how to check in the night before at home, no idea how to use the check-in kiosks. No idea that the security line was actually two lines. No idea that knives are not allowable carry-on baggage. No idea that we have been fighting a War On Moisture&tm; for almost a year now.

Not that anyone was making it easier for them. Ahead of me in line, I watched as every passenger on a 22-person flight was selected for “special screening.”

I think this is the ugly secret of business travelers: we hate leisure travelers passionately. Oh, we are tolerant and indulgent—until you slow up the line, bring a bottle of water in your bag, set off the metal detector with your pocket-knife, cause my business flight to get overbooked.

But the worst, the very worst thing about this morning: they have moved the Starbucks out of the United side of Terminal C. And put a Dunkin Donuts in its place. Now, I’m as Bostonian as the next transplant from Virginia, but if I wanted to drink dishwater flavored with corn syrup and soy powder, I’d order that. Instead, when I order coffee, I want it black and strong. I guess I’ll have to wait until I land in Chicago.