nick gaydos > thynk

so close

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 03:39:12 GMT

It's been a little longer than I've wanted between posts, but hey... I still managed to sneak one by for January, right?

Anyway, a fan inside my Radio server is dying a slow and painful death. Let's put it this way -- it isn't too fun to listen to and I've been putting off replacing it. The part is hard to find and hard to get to. To top it off, I've had my fair share of hardware fun lately, when our mail server's hard disks stopped playing nice in a RAIDy way.

The year started off with a bang and I rang it in down in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize with my lovely wife and immediate family. Luckily, I took a lot of photos of Belize to remember what sunshine looks like. One of these days I'll get around to properly tagging them.

Our new home is coming along. It doesn't always progress as fast as we'd like, however it's begining to look like March will be our month that we close. As of today, they had finished putting in the slate down in the entry and around the fireplace. The ceramic tile is in all of the bathrooms and showers and is freshly grouted. The kitchen looks awesome -- cabinetry, undermount sink and granite all are in. If all goes well, February will start with fresh paint.

Earlier in the month, I knocked a few seconds off my 15 of fame. The Rochester Eccentric did a story on Millrace and my mug was on the front page. (Thankfully, I wasn't going through my beard / goatee phase at that point. And yes... it's gone now.) The article turned out very well and it was more than we could have hoped for.

Tammy and I had dinner with our tailgating buddies at Pampas, a Brazilian restaurant in downtown Birmingham, Mi. It was nice to see Kris and Mike, Kristina and Doug, Kitty and Laura.

In work related news, Edict launched Destination One Design, a community for competitive sailors down at Key West Race Week 2006. Lots of exciting .NET 2005 development. I've been producing the sailing podcasts to date and have been having a lot of fun with it. We've got some great people involved and have had a great positive reaction.

Linky action

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:57:32 GMT

I Will Knot!. How to tie them, how to appreciate their beauty. Even the seriously knot-challenged among us can learn to tie many useful and popular knots by following along with the short, step-by-step instructional video clips on this site.
Tracking the Tunnels at Michigan State University (The State News). An article in MSU's newspaper about the steam tunnels that run beneath the campus. During the mid 90's my friends and I would often explore them. In fact, the front desk in our dorm, Bailey Hall, would lend us a large screwdriver we used to pry up the grates.
Erowid Caffeine Vault : Caffeine Content of Beverages & Medications

Design and Music

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:56:12 GMT

cardboard folding chairs. A series of student designs.
Frozentoy. Daily picks and bloggery from graphic designer Eric Lauritzen on Design and Indie/Shoegazer genres.
Santastic: Holiday Boots 4 Your Stockings. A Mashup Album of holiday themed tunes.

Mind Ergonomics and Usability

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:54:43 GMT

Edit in Place with JavaScript and CSS: Edit in place (also called in-place editing) follows the axiom Alan Cooper calls "allow input wherever you have output".
Css Image map for detailed information. A further stage in the use of a css image map. Just hover your mouse over the painting to reveal three areas of interest. Then hover over each area to reveal an enlarged detail with text.
Apples To Oranges - CSS For Bar Graphs
Reading on the Web (Alertbox). People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences.

Techy and Linky

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:54:19 GMT

More on SSH. A nice how-to for beginners to SSH.
Damn Small Linux (DSL), 50 megabytes of penguin power. A community project with hundreds of development hours put into refinements including a fully automated remote and local application installation system and a very versatile backup and restore system.
Circuit Symbols of Electronic Components
SNARF from Microsoft Research: The SNARF UI is designed to provide a quick overview of unread mail, organized by its importance.

Friday fun:

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 01:01:34 GMT

Gcast: Ad supported podcast hosting.
Edward Tufte: Timelines on the Internet (discussion board)
Snailers are beautiful, high quality postcards that make an impression. We take care of the printing, addressing and mailing.

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 04:43:12 GMT

Wha-hoo... Depeche Mode tomorrow night at the Palace!

Look for us 7th row floor with our friends, Scott and Kayta!

lovely links

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 04:35:25 GMT

Upcycle Art: Projects - Use common materials to make usefull things.
Ten Rules for Web Startups from Evan Williams, of Blogger and Odeo fame... clear and to the point.
The Not So Big House - Smaller by design.
Rainlendar is a lightweight calendar for your desktop.Not so lightweight with Outlook plugins.
Jesse Crouch's favorite apps for windows.

Construction / Model Pics

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 05:54:33 GMT

This is where we are to date. Our loft is not as far along as the model, but we do have drywall up. Yahoo!

Designed links:

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 19:49:34 GMT

Fun linky action:

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 19:49:15 GMT

Adagio Teas is a online tea shop, specializing in gourmet teas and teaware.
Escapa! is a simple, but mildly addictive game.
How to Find Lost Objects
Auroville is ideal township devoted to an experiment in human unity in South India.

Tech Link Dump

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 19:48:50 GMT

Seattle P-I: New name flap for Microsoft -- but this time its legal right is clear. New trademark problems with Windows Defender from Microsoft. Mention of our Spaces technology.
Ward Mundy'ss Asterisk / Voip PBX reference has lots of great asterisk tips
DNS tools has a great set of links / resources.
Kensington VideoCAM drivers under windows xp
moo.fx - the next small thing = Sweet javascript visual effects.
Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?
How to set up a ISP-Server using Ubuntu Linux.

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 19:44:08 GMT

Travelers Club and International Tuba Museum is a great restaurant in Okemos, Michigan. I met my friend Kitty there for breakfast before a recent MSU football game. Breakfast was great. Their beer selection is second to none and takes up at least 4 pages in their menu.

Friday fun:

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 22:04:58 GMT

Do-Ho Suh is a korean artist who has created interior spaces of his childhood / memory from light nylon.
Ubuntu 5.10 - How to set up a ISP-ready server using Ubuntu Linux.
Festoon is a video plug in for Skype.
Check out Flock, right now in pre-release. It's a socially centered web browser.
MIT explains why bad habits are hard to break
Everybody needs a personal "status" page. I think this is a lovely idea - a personal status for what you are up to right now.