I have to say, I have never really been interested in any of the talent competition shows. But I'm at least becoming a closet fan of Dancing with the Stars because of one guy - Woz.

Steve Wozniak is better known as one of the co-founders of Apple. After this, he might become better known as the rallying point for geeks around the world for his performance in Dancing with the Stars. Despite physical limitations (not just his size, but injured foot and hamstring), he's survived for week 4. And the judges' comments along with his comments have been just putting me in stitches. From the judges the first week: "It was like a Teletubby going mad in a gay pride parade." Last night's comment from Steve about being declared safe (and in the top 4): "I don't think I've ever been so surprised by anything in my life except for when I got served with divorce papers."

These are great. You can't script these comments!

Even more interesting was an article in CNN yesterday. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/wozniak.dancing.stars/index.html?iref=mpstoryview. Geeks of the world appear to be rallying behind Woz. And it's funny. It'll end probably sooner than later, but until then, it's great entertainment. If not for the dancing.

Geeks of the World! Unite!

Tags: Humor

My birthday present arrived a little early this year - courtesy of FedEx (thanks to their Home delivery service that delivers on weekends). A new (refurbished) 2.66GHz 20" iMac. It's replacing my MacBook Pro as my primary desktop at home so my MacBook Pro can go back to being a laptop and move around the house and stuff without me having to detangle a bazillion cables.

The present is early because of the way I've been buying Macs in the last few years. I used to buy Macs utilizing Apple "friends" and something called Q-Promo, which was a mega-discount to employees and friends of employees on overstocked items. In the last few years, though, Apple has gotten much better at controlling inventory, so Q-Promo is no longer the way to go. So my new strategy is to buy Macs off the refurb page at the online Apple Store. And, in particular, to buy right after they announce new models, so the models on the website become "previous generation" and get a further markdown. Then, buy it after entering the store from the discovercard.com website (for an extra 5% Discover CashBack bonus) and we're really talking discount!

But buying something refurbished means you have to buy what they have. So when you see something you want, you buy it! I saw what I wanted. I bought it. Even if it was a little before my birthday.

The new present also led to this "Now and Then" shot:



"Now" is the new iMac to the left (also connected to a really nice 24" Sun LCD flat panel for a second screen). "Then" is my "Grape" 400MHz iMacDV, circa 1999 (we bought it about the same time Andrew was born). It still boots and I still use it from time-to-time to play MacOS 9 games. But what a difference in technology!

Oh, and I'm sure I paid less dollars for my new iMac than I did for my original iMac.

I can only hope to get almost 10 years out of this iMac!

(This blog entry written on the "New" iMac)

Tags: Technology

This is a nerd post. Anyone who doesn't care about nerdy items should skip this entry.

For months, I've been plagued by issues with my Apple Mail program and my iPhone Mail not getting along. It seemed line every time my iPhone mail program made an update, I'd have to quite my Mail program on my Mac to get it to see all the changes. Then there would be periods where my Apple Mail would just not recognize any new mail, and otherwise just act stupid.

Observing the behavior, I finally came to the conclusion that the imapd I was using on my server wasn't dealing with the multiple connections well. The imapd I was running was the UW imapd. I've felt it was outdated for a while, but hadn't found a good replacement.

I became aware of Dovecot which is another imapd alternative which seemed to have a lot of flexibility, and was apparently reasonably well regarded. Compiling it was easy, but I've been procrastinating the configuration since, well, reading the manual takes time.

I finally got things turned on yesterday and I have to say, I wish I had invested the time a few months ago. My Apple Mail no longer does strange things, imap IDLE now works properly, and it also fixed mail reading on my Nokia E51 as well (which was always hanging reading mail from my server before).

Two thumbs up here. Writing this entry in my blog with the hopes that maybe someone else will come across it and be helped out.

Tags: Technology

It's a snow day out here! Looks like about 7" of snow. First (and probably last) major snow storm of the year. No question that March came in like a lion this year.

Tags: Andrew