Dave Kellam

I’ve been spending time in front of the computer but a lot of it has been trying to write an application to upload screencaptures to the website. I think I bit off a bit more than I could chew to start off with though. I decided to start off with an applescript program rather than diving into objective c, although I doubt it would have mattered much. I have the initial interface created, and it kind of works, i’m just having trouble getting it to read the values out of the text fields. I think my problems lie more in trying to make it so the computer saves all the preferences before I made sure everything actually worked.

Beyond that, there’s isn’t anything of much importance to mention. I’ve been at home, I’ve been sleeping a lot. They have good food here, that’s a plus. I’ve spent time in malls trying to get some shopping done too, that can be a trying experience around this time of year.

I love my cordless trackball; it really makes sense for a trackball to be cordless, you can lean back and rest in on the arm of a chair and surf away. Now the downside to having a cordless device is when you forget half of it somewhere. I brought the transmitter home but left the trackball on my desk. The lack of computer shops in Brockville means that Dave had to buy a relatively standard and boring two button mouse from microsoft, blah. I also picked up a pci usb 2.0 hub, my external powered hub has been really flaky and likes to lock up the system when I sync the palm or camera. I haven’t installed it yet though.

On another note, do any of you mac freaks know a good way to automate taking screen captures and uploading them? Actually, my biggest annoyance is the pdf file that the standard mac screencapture keystroke generates. I could write a folder action that converts the pdf to a jpg and attach it to the desktop. I could probably use curl or something to upload it too. I haven’t had much luck finding one, although I know a number of them exist for windows. Oh, folder actions are pretty cool if you haven’t played with them. Here’s a good one for attaching to the desktop, it will convert read only files to writeable (if you drag attachments from Mail to the Desktop, it makes them read only.

Check out the Excel love letter at the end of this post, it made me laugh. The post itself has a point, which is that weblog posts tend to have too much metadata and not enough of whatever that person is trying to talk about. It’s also kind of funny that the post itself is kind of hard to read because there’s a so much crap strewn in the middle. Gargh, brain!

Of course I’ve been done for awhile now but have failed to post much of anything. Haven’t really been up to much, just taking it easy. Stuck around in Kingston to see Return of the King, as Brockville is sorely lacking in the theatre department. Apparently they’re going to have one in by 2005 though, just about the time I could care less. As far as the movie goes, it held up well and wasn’t a disappointment. There’s the standard “The ending drags” complaint, but it’s more the sitting on your ass for three hours. He should have saved a longer cut for dvd, or at least put an intermission in. On the plus side, the theatre didn’t have any previews attached to the movie.

I’m back home for awhile now, a day earlier than expected. My dad was given tickets to a hockey game tomorrow night, so it looks like that’s what I’m doing. Nothing much new, although I did add the BlogTimes bar to the page. It gives a visual indication of when most of my posts are, or at least it would if I managed to write more than once every couple days.

Here are some excerpts from an article describing Saddam’s capture.

Inside, dirty laundry, including gray trousers and a towel, hung from a clothesline above a bed covered with a floral blanket. The poster was tacked to the wall near a second bed which appeared unused.

In the makeshift kitchen, a small fridge contained a few Bounty candy bars, some hot dogs and a can of 7-UP. There was old bread on a counter, leftover rice in a pot and dirty dishes in the sink.

Two AK-47 rifles, documents and $750,000 in cash were also found and removed from the property during the raid.

I guess it’s the last one that gets me. You think he could have made a better hole in the ground. Then again, he probably had at least two or three holes in the ground… a man of his status,

I was sick of the layout. This is a quick make-ver until I do something better. I’ll probably tweak it a bit later, but I had to change it now. I created the graphic a couple days ago, it had a column down the side that was blue, but I didn’t like it that much. I also haven’t rebuilt any of the archives, so all of that still has the old layout.

From the IMDb “Now Playing” description of Honey:

Honey (Alba) is a sexy, tough music video choreographer who shakes up her life after her mentor gives her an ultimatum: sleep with him or be blacklisted within their industry.

This has Oscar contender written all over it.

Whee, I’m Picard. Bam, take that Riz. Spock? Data? Go get me my Earl Grey.

I may also be a huge dork for taking a Star Trek quiz, but that doesn’t count.

This just seems weird to me (article):

Major is an extremely sociable dog that “loves to search for narcotics,” Watson said.

Barking during a drug search isn’t a threat, Watson said. Dogs are taught to treat finding drugs as a game of hide and seek.

“Why is a dog barking?” Watson said. “It’s not because it wants to bite someone. He just wants to play that game.”

Some dogs are trained as passive alert dogs and will sit when drugs are found. Others are aggressive alert canines and bark or take other actions.

It’s a game kids, it’s all a game. We teach Scraps that biting your face off is just a game, so when he’s biting your face off that’s alright because he’s just playing the game.

I went home for a day or two on the weekend, to say hi and visit the family. Got a flu shot while I was back, I think it made me feel kind of crappy yesterday. Or just feeling crappy made me feel crappy, who knows. I’m getting sick of this site design, it looks boring. I always get sick of my website at exam time, it gives me an excuse to redesign. I used to use PHP, then I just had to create one new template. I still use it, but not effectively. I should really be creating some header and footer files that get reused across the board.

Oh and I have managed to get some studying done. It’s astounding. There’s such of sense of apathy floating around me this semester. Running a newspaper is more fun than school.