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The RasterWeb! Report for 2010

Back in June 2010 I somehow got a “renewed interest” in blogging here at RasterWeb! What does that mean as far as numbers? It means I blogged a lot more… How much more? Let’s go to the chart…

Posts Per Month for 2010

We started the year slow, having just a few blog posts at the beginning of the year. Since 1997, I’ve always managed to post at least twice per month (if not more.) I’m glad to see I haven’t gone below that number. Our busiest month in 2010 was August with a whopping 42 posts! We tapered off just a bit after that, but that’s fine…we’re still seeing about 20 to 30 posts per month. It’s not just about the numbers though… I’m not consciously trying to write a zillion posts each month, it’s just (hopefully) a reflection of how many ideas I have, or how many things I have to say, or the amount I have to share with the web.

So what have been a few of the more viewed posts this year?

Recursive FTP using wget. I wrote this in 2007 after I had to get some files from a server. It’s a 4 line post. It gets a lot of traffic, probably because it easily and clearly provides a solution to a problem.

Twitter Monkey. The Twitter Monkey post got a lot of traffic… it was posted on Make and Gizmodo, and a whole lot of other places. The video saw over 5,700 views. It’s amazing how a silly idea and a few hours of hacking got so much attention.

Lanyrd. I just happened to write about Lanyrd the day it was launched. Simon Willison commented on the post, and on his own site.

A few other popular posts included: vCard to CSV Converter, SCP and Spaces, Get your Gmail with Perl, and Fix Your InfoLithium Battery.

I also started tagging posts this year, and it looks like I tend to post the most about barcamp.

As always, visit the Archives page for a list of all the posts by month, or the Archives Legacy page for the older posts that haven’t been put into WordPress yet.

Here’s to 2011 and the start of another 13 years of blogging!

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DIY iPad Stylus

So this is how I typically do things… I get an idea, like, for instance, I say “Hmmm, I know a few companies sell a stylus for the iPad, for those times you don’t want to use your finger, I should check that out” and I did, and then I came across this Make video called Collin’s Lab: DIY iPad Stylus and think, “Hmmm, I have a pen, conductive foam, and some wire… I’ll make my own!” So I did…

DIY iPad Stylus

Here’s the result. I used a Pilot G2 pen (as they are my favorite) and I ended up using the Dremel to widen the tip of the pen a bit so the conductive foam could fit through the hole, and I also used the drill press to put two small holes in the barrel of the pen for the wire to go through. (I wanted to avoid using tape as Collin did.) I actually drilled right through the rubber grip and into the pen. The end of the wire then got pushed through the rubber grip, through the pen barrel, and got pulled tight inside the pen. You can see some of the excess wire near the middle of the pen. You can also see an extra hole near the tip, as I drilled all the way through with the drill press. I won’t call that a mistake, as I was still figuring out how I was going to make it all work at that point. I tend to do that… plan as I go.

Here’s a close-up of the tip, where you can see the hole that the wire feeds out of. You can see the tip created with the conductive foam. I’m not 100% happy with the tip. I don’t know if there are different hardnesses of conductive foam, but this seems too soft. I also probably could have used a bigger piece of foam, but it ripped while inserting it, so I just left it as is was.

So… does it work? Yes!

DIY iPad Stylus

Here’s a really bad drawing I made using the stylus and Doodle Buddy on the iPad. The whole process of making this probably took 20 minutes, and I did already have all the tools and materials on-hand.

P.S. I like making things.

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Serialized Television (Sort of…)

Netflix

Blogger scott d. feldstein recently posted that he’s been watching TV, and he mentions Netflix and a few serialized television shows he’s been digging. I’m a Netflix fan, and I’ve become accustomed to the ability to watch (almost) an entire series or season really quickly.

I’ve managed to quickly go through a few seasons of Dr. Who on Netflix while doing grunt-work in the home office (server maintenance, invoices, etc.) and when I ran out I was saddened that I’d have to wait until BBC America started to show the new season… (I even tried Torchwood for a while, it was OK, a nice diversion, but nothing too compelling.)

About a year ago (right around the Christmas break) the wife started to watch Heros on Netflix, and somehow pulled me into it. We managed to “Watch Instantly” the first three seasons, and were caught up and ready to go when season 4 actually aired on live television. Now, besides the fact that season 4 was pretty bad, I really preferred watching them all in bulk, as quickly as we could handle them, as opposed to waiting each week for a new episode. It made me wonder… how does this method of consumption fit into the old world of television?

I’ve heard so much talk about Mad Men, but haven’t set aside the time to watch it… plus, I missed the beginning, so I’d probably want to start from the first season. Right now Netflix has season 1 on 4 discs, which is… eh… I’d really prefer to just stream them. I don’t want to deal with discs, especially 4 discs.

It’s not just new stuff… There’s plenty to explore and get hooked on. My latest obsession is Firefly. It aired in 2002/2003 but for whatever reason, I never saw it. I heard people talk about it, I knew they made a movie, but just never managed to catch it. Thanks to Netflix I’ve managed to see almost every episode in the last two weeks, and I’ll be moving onto Serenity soon.

There’s still a good amount of television shows I just don’t mind catching every week (typically, they tend to be sitcoms) but for these longer serialized dramas, I’ve really become a fan of the “Give me all of them to consume as fast as I can!” method.

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iPad First Impressions

iPad

I got an iPad. It was a gift from Z2 Marketing. I hesitate to call this a “review” and I’ll just say “First Impressions” for the following observations…

Despite my best efforts to avoid being called an “Apple Fanboi” I do somehow own a Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, iPod, iPhone, and now an iPad. In my defense, I’ve been using Apple products since about 1979, and have used them professionally in my work for about 17 years. I’m not the kind that runs out and buys anything Apple sells… but I do get what I think I need to do my work, or make my life more enjoyable/easier.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I’ll start with this, the iPad is pretty amazing… at what it does. If you’re fine with the limitations of the iOS, then you’ll probably like the iPad. The typical iOS issues that bug me with the iPhone and iPod exist here as well, no access to the file system, the walled garden of the App Store, the closed nature of the device… that said, within the parameters of Apple hardware and the restrictive iOS, it’s a pretty stunning device.

The iPad is probably not something I would have bought for myself since I’ve got a number of computers/devices which do much of what the iPad does. That said, the iPad fills this space between the MacBook and the iPhone, which is probably right where Apple positioned it. (See my post Consume / Create – Apple Products for my previous thoughts on the matter.)

A few days after getting the iPad I was feeling under the weather, and ended up spending a lot of downtime on the couch and in bed, and in both cases the iPad really fit the bill as far as the device to use. Reading RSS feeds, wasting time with Twitter or Facebook, watching Netflix videos… the iPad excels at these tasks! I have not done much writing on it, and would probably not want to use it for extended writing of any sort.

Speaking of writing, I did try to pair it with an old Apple Wireless Keyboard (using Bluetooth) but it didn’t work… the iPad would not pair with it as Apple does not support it. Charging is another interesting topic. You can’t just use the same charging methods you use with an iPod or iPhone. The iPad comes with a 10 watt charger. The plain old “USB Chargers” I use all the time don’t kick out enough juice. There’s a few notes I’ve found that talk about charging, but I’ve not dug into the subject very much yet. The battery does seem to last a long time… but also takes quite a while to fully charge up.

Update: Yes, it does charge via USB (when not using the 10 watt charger) it just charges very slowly…

All in all I’m really liking the iPad, and what it can do, as is the rest of the family. What would be nice? Support for multiple users, an upgrade that makes it more even feature-wise with the iPhone 4 (camera(s), slightly different design, etc.) a more open platform… but honestly, it’s a pretty cool consuming device, and for what it is, I’m very happy with it.

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Awesome…

Awesome!

Awesome is this word people really like to use…