Georgia Perimeter!! Yeah!! Oh, YEAH!!!

Here in Atlanta, the local educational public access station (Channel 22) broadcasts audio from the local NPR affiliate during Morning Edition during Morning Edition. It’s a convenient feature; although there are radios handy, NPR doesn’t get great reception in the living room and the remote is right handy, so it’s nice.

The broadcast is apparently supported by Georgia Perimeter College, because over the audio plays a truly SLICK PowerPoint presentation from GPC giving everything from home safety tips (“DO NOT give out personal information unless you know who you are dealing with.” Also, “Always lock doors.”), the hours of the Financial Aid Office (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8 to 5, Thursday 8:30 to 2), friendly tooth care tips (“Have you been to the dentist lately?”).

But the true magic of Channel 22 has to be Jump.

Jump is a video ad for GPC showcasing fresh-faced, clean-cut, multiethnic teens who seem to have majored in Trampoline (and, in teh case of Red Jacket Guy, minored in Kicking). These kids fly on screen and … well … imagine dropping the overzealous thumbs-up sign and the “Hey, there” double-hand-guns-accompanied-by-a-clicking-noise in a blender, pouring in a nice big bottle of “Oh, Yeah!!!” and pushing frappé. Suffice it to say; these kids are pretty damn excited about going to GA Perimeter. It’s Duff Man, the teenage years. There’s a web link to http://www.gpc.edu/jump/ at the end of the ad, but it just goes to the main GPC web page. *sigh*.

Also: to the Channel 22 guy at Comcast: Daylight Savings Time happened last week. Morning Edition ends an hour later now. I wouldn’t mind quite so much, except that the show that follows ME is always the same interview. Not the same interview program; not the same interviewer; the same interview with some jerk shilling a book about the “Lost Boys of Afghanistan.” Surely a student video program with the budget to produce Jump (why … the Trampoline Insurance alone would run into six figures) could shoot two pointless interviews and trade off (Extra Credit: see other GPC spots on YouTube).

And remember: “Don’t be caught by surprise! All students must take the Regents exam.” Thank you, Channel 22. Thank you.

In defense of my sanity…

… I feel I must admit that yes, I do realize that the “readers” I’m addressing doesn’t actually exist, as I haven’t really given out this address yet. I thought it would be wise to build up a backblog (get me! coinin stuff) first.

Welcome to SuperLongBusyDearGodWhenWillItEndWeek

Hello, readers … happy Tuesday. You might not be hearing much from me in the next couple weeks on accounta it’s SuperLongBusyDearGodWhenWillItEndWeek. Yaaay.

Seriously, though … this week I have to (1) take care of my clients, (2) rassle up some more, (3) move everything out of my old apartment by Thursday night, (4) move it all in to my new home with The Girl without threatening her sanity or mine, and (5) CraigsList a bunch o’ stuff I need to get rid of. (I’m selling a platform bed, a coffee table (sold!), a rolling tv stand, and a 21″ Trinitron Monitor if anyone’s interested).

So I may be a little bit busy. Coming soon: Plastic Door!

Eye-Fi (a thing you should buy)

Oh, great … another Thing I Must Have.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet …… Eye Fi.

It looks like (and is) a 2gb Wireless SD card for your digital camera. But wait, there’s more.

Hidden deep within the card is a complete WiFi (802.11g Wireless Ethernet for the geeks among you) and an antenna. Put one of these bad boys inside your digital camera, and your photos just …. go. No more uploading. No more pulling out the card and putting it in the card reader. As soon as the camera’s on and within range of a wireless network that it can talk to, it pushes out your photos. (The network can’t require a web browser to log in, which rules out Starbucks and a lot of public hot-spots out there, but your regular home or office wireless system should work just fine).

This thing is gonna be huge. First off, it looks like these fellas really did their homework on this one. I only heard about it yesterday, but it’s been in beta testing for well over a year, and all the reports I’ve seen are positive.

Plus, they solved the Big Problem right off the bat, which is where do you put the files? It seems like you’d have two big options:

1. Put them on the user’s computer. This would require having that your computer is turned on and running the Eye-Fi software, but I think most folk these days run their machines more or less 24/7 anyway. At least I do.

   Upside: Nobody gets to see your photos. You know which ones I mean. They don’t go out on the Internet (in fact, you wouldn’t need an Internet connection at all; just WiFi in the house) .

   Downside: Well, your computer has to be on and running the Eye-Fi software, and if you want to DO anything with the photos (upload them to one of the big photo sites, etc), you still have to go sit at a PC. Plus, this method would only work from home–since you can only see your home PC from inside your home network, you wouldn’t be able to upload from work.

2. Upload them to a service run by Eye-Fi. This takes care of the turned-on-PC and only-one-network issues right away. All you need is to be within sight of the Internet and it’ll push the rest. Once the photos are on Eye-Fi’s server, they could do lots of stuff with them, including uploading them to one of the big photo services (Kodak, Picasa, Facebook, etc.) so you could share with your friends.

   Upside: Automatic backup for your photos; lots more options for "what happens now" after a photo is uploaded; works from everywhere.

   Downside: Your photos go across the Internet to a server run by people you don’t know. Maybe you should take the pictures of the naked, tied-up intern with the OTHER digital camera. I’m talking to you, Senator. Also, depends on Eye-Fi being around for the long term to run the service.

Looking at the alternatives, Eye-Fi picked both. Want to send to just your computer? Fine. It’ll never touch the service. Want to go through Eye-Fi? Their service is free, will pass the pictures along to whichever of the big photo providers you like, and will automatically download the pictures back to your PC (if you want) the next time you run the Eye-Fi service.

That’s just smart engineering. Build a great, free service for the 90% of people who want the fast, effortless way … and satisfy the 10% Privacy Nerd set by giving them an option where their photos never leave the house. And make the service free, and really good.

Oh, and it works with just about any digital camera that takes Secure Digital media (which is almost all consumer-grade cameras these days).

And it’s $99.

I’m telling you … this is going to be a Big Internet Thing. Set up a WiFi network at an event, put some photographers in the field, and the photos are live on the site even as they’re being shot. You can come home from the party and your photos are THERE. Better yet, have a kiosk at the event where you can buy a copy right then and there.

A truly great idea. If it works.

Hey! You!

Do you like NPR? Are you enjoying this program? Send me some money. What do you mean, no? How about a dollar? Send us a dollar a day! A dollar a month? How can  you say no? You listen to Morning Edition every god damn day. We know you do. Don’t think we don’t know, thief. Oh, that’s right. You’re a thief! A dirty, lying, thieving, bastard.

Oh, and if you contribute now, you’ll get this nifty coffee mug that says "NPR" on one side and "WABE" on the other. You can replace that collectible travel mug from Citgo that you’re using right now. Oh, yeah. We can see you. We’re NPR. We’re everywhere.

Now call (678) 553-9090 now or go to our web site at www.wabe.org right now. Bitch.

Man, I hate pledge week.

Readers, Spot. Spot, readers.

Prepare to meet the newest member of the family … The Girl and I are proud parents of A Brand New Fish.

We got the tank at a little antiquey-artsey store outside Detroit (guys: it’s the kind of store that girls make you go to that sells nothing useful and also doesn’t even have a Man Couch so you can at least sit down for crying out loud but hey, cool fishbowl) and the fish at the pet store down the street.

Interesting information: the pet store sells a bottle of stuff to put in the water to help the Betta fish when it gets sick. That costs four bucks. The pet store also sells Betta fish. They’re $3.50.

On a completely unrelated note … my continued shout-outs to Windows Live Writer, Microsoft’s surprisingly open-to-all-comers blog editor, and YouTube. I’d heard of YouTube from before, but never really uploaded anything. Turns out it’s easy. Make a freebie account, and you can upload a video toot sweet. I even have an email address that I can mail videos to … and there they are. Push "Insert Video" in Windows Live, and … well … it’s a fish!

Cat burglar? Really?

So The Girl and I are doing computer-related things (we’re a two-laptop couch … the Couple Of The Future) and half-watching the news tonight. The Girl says to me, "did they say there’s a cat burglar?" Do I need to close my windows?

A quick check of 11alive.com, and we’ve got the whole story (there’s video, too).

Apparently as many as 6 houses in a Lawrenceville subdivision were broken into by someone who cut through the window screens. Apparently the homeowners were there at the time … one of them interrupted the guy and he ran away.

The guy didn’t steal much from any of the homes.

Not to minimize the freakedout-itude of the idea of someone being at your home, but this is not a cat burglar. This is a regular burglar.

A cat burglar is someone who scales a building using special Bad Guy Suction Cup Gloves, enters through a hole in a window with a circle cutter, uses Whichever Fancy Handheld Smartphone-Type Device Paid For A Placement Ad to defeat the over-elaborate security system, and steals the Hope Diamond.

Not exactly Lex Luthor. This is some dude who wanted to steal your shit. Creepy, but … well … still just some dude who wanted to steal your shit.

The real cat burglars must be up in arms over this. It’s a different world, folks; nobody respects finesse any more.

New books!

Today brought a pair of new books into the world.

The author of The Georgia Code sent an mass email and the book looks interesting. It looks like a brief courtroom guide to Useful Criminal Stuff. There’s a single sample chapter online, and it looks interesting to say the least. For $25, it’s worth a look.

After reading the email, I took a look at the Lexis/Nexis Georgia Law Bookstore online. In addition to new versions of the usual suspects (the Traffic/Crim Manual and Case Finder), it lists the new "Georgia Criminal & Traffic Law Field Guide". Lexis describes it like this:

New in 2007, this pocket reference field guide features a listing of criminal offenses in Georgia, grouped by Chapter/Article, with a summary of the elements of each offense. Coverage includes Title 16-Crimes and Offenses, Title 20- Education, Title 40- Motor Vehicle & Traffic Law, an Appendix, and Statute of Limitations.

I haven’t seen more than the Table of Contents, but for $15, it looks interesting. Anybody seen a copy?

Good Software: BullZip PDF Printer

One great piece of software I’ve recently come across is BullZip PDF Printer. It’s a free, open-source piece of software that allows you to generate PDFs without paying for the full version of Adobe’s Acrobat software.

There are a number of freebie PDF printers, but this one is by far my favorite–it allows you to password-protect the document, add a watermark, or even merge it with another PDF (so you can dump a whole sequence of prints to the same file). It has a friendly interface (one of the problems I’ve found in competing freebie products is that their interfaces blow), and works beautifully. I tested it on my work letterhead template, which tends to choke PDF writers, and it performed like a charm.

Plus, it has good programmer hooks (there’s an ActiveX/COM interface to the configuration utility if you’re so inclined) if you want to do anything special with it.

Awwwwww.

The attorney with whom I share space recently got a new puppy, and he (the pup) spent a week or so in the back of our receptionist’s office … sleeping, playing, and generally just being very cute.

My jittery cell-phone video skills don’t really do him justice, but still … awwww. I like puppies.

Windows Live Writer Test

As it turns out, they make some nifty desktop apps for blog editing, including one from Microsoft called Windows Live Writer. It works with most major blogging solutions (including WordPress), so I thought I’d give it a try.

It adds the convenience of a desktop interface and a buncha new features (like spell check). This post is mostly just a test to see how well it works.

Looks pretty nifty so far, though. It integrates the category system of WordPress nicely, has a pretty interface … for the moment, I’m a fan.

It even has a plug-in interface that lets you add new features to the editor and an SDK that lets you write in your own.

These are things Adam Likes.

… and it begins.

I’ve started a blog again.

After writing regularly all through law school at emorylawstudent.com (no link … the blog ran on my own custom software which isn’t online any more), I took a break from writing for almost three years. I found I really missed writing the blog, so here we are again.

This is also the first time I’ve maintained a blog using software that isn’t my own. I started emorylawstudent.com way back in 2002, when Blogger was brand-new and it didn’t really offer all the features I wanted, so I just wrote my own blog solution. Three years later, there are a number of free blog hosts, so I’m hosting here at WordPress.

I’ll write a bit more later on, but right now I’m a bit drained from a half an hour of handholding with a felony defendant, so I’ll leave it for now.

Welcome to the blog.