I have a hard time saying no to people. I know that this stems from a combination of a deep desire for people to like me and avoiding conflict. Plus I tend to trust people all too easily. I don't think I'm really gullible. But I do tend to give people the benefit of the doubt most of the time. If my gut tells me you're a decent enough person to deal with, you're probably in a great position to screw me over.

I know as I've gotten older I've become more outspoken and stand up for myself. But I really don't want to be the guy that flys off handle to get his way. I don't want to have to threaten people. First off, in this day and age, you don't know if you're going to tick off the wrong guy on a bad day. Secondly, it just seems... unproductive. If you break my trust, of course I want to yell at you. But if it's a situation that needs resolution, I'm afraid I'll blow my chances of getting to that resolution in exchange for a few brief moments of anger. I know that this all about control. I'm giving people control by trusting they will do the right thing. I'm giving people control by allowing them to make or break the situation.

What has brought on this moment of introspection? Quite honestly, several people owe me money. I've made deals and helped people out over the past couple of years that, so far, I've taken a loss on. An old timer hot rod guy I know said it best, "I get screwed a lot, but never kissed". I've tried making arrangements, keeping in touch, and following up. I always get brushed off. Even with the people that have the best intentions of paying me back, I'm just not a priority to them. They aren't going to skip a meal to pay me back, no sir. I have been amazed at how okay
they are with being this way. I put myself under a lot of pressure if someone is counting on me.

Which brings up another related problem I've had this year. I've taken on a bit too much work at times. People come to me excited with their ideas and, if I like where they are headed, I'll try to help them out. As someone that is self employed with no stable income, I'm always open to opportunities. Unfortunately, some of these opportunities are "sweat equity" that, if they pay off, will pay off huge. But in the meantime, I'm working for free. I've already begun to improve in this area. I actually turned down some work last week as I get my priorities straightened up for the rest of 2008. It was actual paying work which made it even more difficult to turn down. But I can't afford to work for free very much at the moment. Maybe one day!

The thing is, I don't know if this is a part of my personality that I want to change entirely. Or at least, I don't want to become an outright asshole to people. I don't want to be the paranoid and bitter person always assuming the worst in folks. I certainly want to resolve these situations in a positive way and I want to keep myself from getting into them in the future. But I know that I have truly helped some people in my lifetime and that really makes me feel good.

I'm admittedly a cautious early adopter. I don't jump on everything that comes my way, but I tend to try things before most of my friends. As I get older and less bullshit tolerant, I'm becoming an early defector. I had mentioned previously how I was moving away from Twitter primarily using FriendFeed. The above graphic shows how I'm using various technologies to do that.

6 months ago, I had an inspired idea to turn my homepage into an aggregation of my online shenanigans. 2 months ago, I was in full Twitter mode and I was really enjoying the new experience. MySpace gave me the initial social experience of seeing what people are up to and interacting with them. Twitter essentially stripped that experience to the conversation. FriendFeed is quickly become the next step of the evolution for me and I think things are about to change again.

I had been lurking over other social aggregators such as NetVibes, SocialThing, and FriendFeed. Right as I signed up for a FriendFeed account, Dave Slusher made a quick migration from Twitter to FriendFeed. I got swept up in the momentum and made the leap. It works basically just like my homepage, except it supports many other services and I can easily see other people's online shenanigans. The best part is, I don't have to totally ditch Twitter... yet.

FriendFeed cuts back on the noise by virtue of it's interface but it also cuts back on the fun a little bit. It's like the difference between going to a night club where a bunch of really interesting people hang out or going to the pub with a few of your friends. Both experiences are social and can be enjoyable.

Anyone that says Twitter isn't a distraction is lying. That's a part of the fun, really. Despite Twitter's best efforts to made it difficult to follow conversations, it's all too easy to get sucked in to drilling down through "@" replies and see what people are talking about. It's also fun to scream into the canyon and throw out a random thought into the Twitterverse and see what echoes back. Because there's virtually no noise in the FriendFeed stream, I feel a little guilty throwing out a trivial thought or status update out there. Maybe that's a good thing.

Within 3 days of starting this experiment, here lies a full fledged blog entry. Twitter was giving me the gratification of publishing thoughts so quickly and easily that I wasn't blogging. My blog entries take me at least an hour to type up, edit, and publish. But if I were to take the time I spend in the week skimming Twitter, I could easily do a blog entry every couple days! While I'm seeing an evolution in the social experience, I'm also evolving my time investment in using these services in a positive way. But I do enjoy the instant audience that Twitter provides and I'm hoping that FriendFeed can bridge that gap. But I'm wondering where the conversation, the lifeblood of social experiences, will live.

I love it when people post comments on the blog. But I have such a small readership, that comments only trickle in occasionally. These social sites provide a near instant audience and expose me to new people that would never know about me. These same services also host the conversation. For example, when this blog entry publishes it will appear on people's RSS feeds, Twitter streams, and FriendFeed. It could spark conversation in each of those experiences with no way of interacting with each other.

Now, there are ways to pipe those conversations back to source. For example, if you came directly to this entry's permalink, I could have the FriendFeed conversation appear on the same page with the page comments. These conversations still remain separate threads on their respective services. Even worse, if someone reposts my entry link on their FriendFeed (like I do for my personal friends) there could be a conversation spun off that link that I'd never know about. I think this is a solvable problem until you try and figure out where to draw the line when a conversation mutates into a totally different thread. I think we've got a good grip on presenting ourselves and connecting with others. The next step is the tough one: managing the conversation. It's also the crux of why we do all this crazy stuff.

Speak amongst yourselves...

I'm feeling another big change coming on with Blast Off Inc. This one isn't quite as cut and dried as the last time I decided to go full time with software contracting. It's a bit cliché, but it's really becoming hard to want to work on the stuff I'm getting paid to do and suddenly I've found myself incredibly inspired to work on my own ideas. But isn't the point of this whole "Screw The Man" thing that I can work on whatever I want? I suppose I should catch you up with the current situation.

Big Client hired Blast Off to do Xbox 360 development over a year ago. It started out as a 6 month contract with payment based on fixed price monthly milestones with my part time commitment. The project suffered a lot of set backs (none of them technical) and near the end of my contract, Big Client requested that we continue the arrangement for "all of 2008" with no milestones attached and my near-full time commitment. Effectively, they put me on a retainer. A couple of months later, the 360 project was sputtering towards death (again, for non-technical reasons) and I was being given random assignments just to get their money's worth of my time. Ultimately it was to keep me around in case the 360 project started up again. Unsurprisingly, the 360 project was canned recently and Big Client now wants to go to a more traditional hourly rate/billed hours for my time starting next month. They still promise there's plenty of work to do. But the kicker is, so far, it's doing web application development. I have quite a bit of experience in that area, but it's been a few years and the technology has changed enough to be outside of my comfort zone¹. Plus, it's only minimally related to game development. But they do pay their invoices and that steady revenue has been a great foundation for Blast Off.

In addition to Big Client, I have 3 partnership projects of varying degrees going on. All 3 partners are organizations that have an idea/product but needed Blast Off's technical direction and ability to implement. All 3 have given me ownership of their organization in exchange for my time. Partners A is actually paying for some of my time since they have the most concrete plan and the most aggressive schedule. Partners B have an existing technology that they're using, but it needs a total clean slate overhaul. Partners C are focused on other things at the moment and that project remains dormant. All 3 are web based applications but not outside of my comfort zone². I've actually quite enjoyed the time I've spent working the A project. I need to give some more time to the B project, but the partners have repeatedly said to work on things as a hobby basis. Something I need to consider with these projects is that they're not dependent on my game development expertise and sub-contracting out some of the work is definitely an option.

In addition to Big Client and Partners A/B/C, I'm working on Project D. Project D is not a software project. It's actually a new business with an honest to goodness storefront. I'm working with a partner that has a great deal of experience with this type of business. Unlike the other projects, Project D is going to require my money to bootstrap it in addition to my time. I will actually have to be at the store on a regular basis. My plan is to have my laptop there, maybe even an office, and work on software projects during the slow times. Project D is attractive to me because it's an opportunity to diversify my interests and generate steady income. As soon as we secure a lease on a space and run some stuff through the lawyers, I'll be able to tell you exactly what Project D is.

In addition to Big Client, Partners A/B/C, and Project D, I got a game idea a couple of weeks ago. I've never been the "closet game designer" like so many other people that work in the game industry. I've been perfectly happy to work on other people's ideas and bring them to virtual reality. But this idea popped in my head and I haven't been able to shake it. So I began prototyping from scratch last week. It has come together so quickly and naturally that it's almost scary. It also leads me to believe I'm really on to something. I believe the core gameplay mechanic is pretty unique and I can't wait to get it to a point where I can see someone else play it. I plan on selling the game directly and possibly through portals which, just like Project D, should provide some background income if I put the effort into marketing and supporting it. My only foreseeable costs (excluding my time) should be for art and possibly audio.

So there you have it. For those keeping score, Big Client is my primary revenue at the moment and Partner A is sweetening the pot a little too. If money stopped coming in tomorrow, Blast Off has enough in reserves to pay my meager salary for a while. But those reserves will drain quickly once Project D starts rolling and if I decide to subcontract help for the web projects. The trick will be to quickly get Project D to a point of at least paying back enough to offset what is going out (can't forget to save for taxes too!!). The Partner A/B/C projects have huge potential assuming any one of them takes off or gets acquired. But I can't pay the light bill with potential.

My goal by the end of 2008 is to get away from contracting and consulting entirely. The guaranteed money is a hard thing to turn away from, but I'm not greedy and I think I'm going to be happiest if I'm focused on Project D and my own software ideas.

For The Geeks
1 - For the geeks reading this, I've done a fair share of plain old JSP/Servlet and PHP web apps hitting SQL databases. This new project is using EJB 3.0, JBoss, SOAP, and clustering.

2 - All of them are, or will be, running on PHP/MySQL. I'm trying to use open source frameworks to make my life easier. The biggest stand out has been Drupal for Project A. I'm planning on the time I'm putting into learning Drupal can be leveraged on projects B & C too.

I finally came up with an original game idea that I actually want to pursue. A couple of days ago, I embarked on making a prototype. Now, if I were all about just getting a game done, I'd prototype in Java or Flash (*HORF*). But since I'm a total nerd, the prototype is also an exercise in getting to know Xcode and finally getting back into writing some actual game related code.

I didn't want to start totally from scratch, so I elected to use SDL since they provide nice little Xcode templates that takes care of the boilerplate stuff such as opening a window, initializing graphics & sound, getting the mouse & keyboard, etc. Plus, if I decide to use this library in the production code, there's a good chance that I could port to other platforms later on rather easily. Unless I decide to heavily use Apple specific APIs and Objective-C. Which isn't out of the question.

I downloaded a sample application from Apple that demonstrates OpenGL running in an OS X application. It had along with it a really nifty bit of code that rendered text from the Quartz system into an OpenGL texture. Being able to render text to the screen when debugging a game is extremely useful. I decided I would try to use this class in my prototype. The only trick is this code is written in Objective-C and my code is in C++.

From looking at the SDL provided application template, I already saw that Obj-C and C++ could be compiled and linked together. There's tons of examples online of calling C++ code from within Objective-C, but I couldn't find a definitive example of a C++ class using an Objective-C class. Maybe it's just dumb obvious and I wasn't seeing it. Regardless, I set out to do it on my own. I decided to exploit the ability of both Obj-C and C++ to declare and use C structs. After an hour of tinkering, it worked! the best part is that I didn't need to modify the Obj-C code at all. I really didn't have any reference to go on here, so it could be really wrong and bad. But here's the general idea:

// ObjCObject.h 
@interface ObjCObject : NSObject 
{}
- (void) doSomething;
@end

// ObjGlue.h

extern "C" { void InitObjGlue(); void UninitObjGlue(); } // sets up the memory pools

class ObjGlue

{

   private:

      void* m_Impl;

   public:

      ObjGlue();

      ~ObjGlue();

      void doSomething();

};

// ObjGlue.cpp <- Set the project to compile as Obj-C code

// These are called in your C++ code before using the wrapper class

void UninitObjGlue() { [gPool release]; }

void InitObjGlue() { UninitObjGlue(); gPool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

struct ObjGlueImpl // must be plain old data

{

   id _baseObj;

};

#define IMPL ((ObjGlueImpl*)m_Impl)

ObjGlue::ObjGlue() 

{

   m_Impl = malloc(sizeof(ObjGlueImpl)); //can't use operator new

   m_Impl->_baseObj = [[[ObjCObject alloc] init] autorelease];

}

ObjGlue::~ObjGlue()

{

   free(m_Impl);

}

void ObjGlue::doSomething() { [IMPL->_baseObj doSomething]; }  

// your cpp code (InitObjGlue was called earlier!)

ObjGlue obj;

obj.doSomething();

So the memory pool stuff is a little funky. I supposed I could create an autorelease pool per object instance, but that seems a bit much. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure I need the autorelease pool at all. This is truly the first Obj-C code I've actually written. But it's my understanding that because I'm using a Foundation/Cocoa class (NSObject), I have to send the release message instead of the typical free. Anybody confirm that?

I wouldn't feel totally confident shipping code with this without some more testing and profiling. But it does in fact work for my uses and that's good enough for now.

The CreateSouth Conference, in my opinion, was a resounding success. Oh sure, there were last minute schedule changes and minor technical glitches. But the proof of concept came through in a spectacular fashion. The energy was certainly there. You also couldn't go 5 minutes all day without somebody saying the word: Twitter. I was right there with them too. Twitter is why this blog has gone relatively quiet. But in a good way.

At one point in the afternoon, I saw Professor Pope fire up his MacBook, and signed up for a Twitter account on the spot. Just so he could be in on what the buzz was about. "I think I can use it to make quick notes to myself while I'm reading", he said. Oh you can certainly use it for that. But rest assured the social aspect of the service will eventually catch your attention. Suddenly you'll see the power in it's simplicity. As a matter of fact, it's so simple and unrestrained the possibilities are nearly limitless.

That's the part I find fascinating. Twitter means many different things depending on who you talk to. There's also all kinds external 3rd party services that ride on top of Twitter that add yet another dimension to this deceptively simple mechanic of sending your 140 character thoughts into the cloud. I've briefly touched on what Twitter means to me in the past. But it has certainly grown into a much more integral part of my daily web experience since then. I'm currently using Twitter for several things...

Productivity- This is a tough one to type with a straight face. But honestly, with the Sandy Twitter Interface, I'm back on the GTD wagon. It really doesn't get any easier than typing "d s r Project analysis report @inbox" and "d s r Haricut tomorrow afternoon" Granted, it may be a zero sum game when you factor in the time I waste spend on Twitter. But I'd argue that Google Reader is a bigger time waster than Twitter is for me.

Blogging- A lot of you don't know I've been blogging for 5 years. When I first started, I was constantly "mind blogging". Through out the day, I was writing entries in my head. A lot of times, these thoughts didn't have enough meat to post them on the blog. It takes me a long time to write a blog entry. For example, this one has taken me nearly 2 hours and I'm sure I'll spend at least another hour editing it. Twitter gives me the opportunity to express myself without the self imposed pressure I have when writing for the blog. I'd love to find a nice way to pull my best tweets into a blog entry for those of you too afraid to Tweet, but I'm not compelled to do that just yet.

Social Networking- Twitter is the very essence of what I liked about the MySpace social experience, but without the MySpace stank on it. I can have public conversations and lurk on other people's conversations (c'mon we all do it). Hopefully things will go past the early adopter stage and I can reconnect with old friends that I had on MySpace. I won't go back on there. I only have a dormant Facebook account because people kept importing their email address book and I was tired of getting invites.

Audience- By participating in the social aspect of Twitter, I'm certain I have more people listening to me on Twitter than screwtheman.com. I had something similar when I was on MySpace. But so many people on MySpace were stuck in that bubble. It seems much more feasible that someone will hop from my tweet to my blog. When the people I follow on Twitter post a link, I will more times than not check it out.

Education- Since I've bought my MacBook Pro, I've become progressively more interested in writing software for OS X. Following well known and experienced Mac developers gives me the ability to eavesdrop in and understand some of the joys (and frustrations) of the business. I also find out about all kinds of interesting things I would never have been exposed to in my typical web routine.

Support- This is also tied to my new Mac experience, but I find it incredibly helpful when I shout a frustration into the Tweetsphere and near instantly get a response from other souls. I've actually gotten official technical support from multiple software companies via Twitter just because they were keyword tracking their product name.

Mobile Experience - Between TwitterBerry and instant messaging running on my Blackberry Curve, I get a nice lightweight Internet experience when I'm on the go. When I've got some time to kill, it's much easier to check my Twitter than to fire up the Opera Mini browser and trudge through the mobile Web.

My usage of Twitter is still evolving. When I first signed up, I thought there was no way I could follow any more than 20 people. Right now I'm at 82. A great majority of them only Tweet occasionally. I don't follow someone lightly, either. I'll review their past tweets to see if it's something I actually want in my stream. I'm also pretty quick to un-follow someone if I deem it necessary. The great thing about the follow/unfollow mechanic is it doesn't require approval from the other party. So it takes the conflict out of managing your social graph. Which means you're in total control of your signal to noise ratio.

Something I'm coming to grips with is not staying caught up and processing every Tweet. It totally conflicts with my inbox zero sensibilities, but I think it's better to learn to dip from the stream of fresh water than to sip from the small puddle.

What does Twitter do for you?
Why aren't you on Twitter?

Everyone is so excited about the "upscale" shopping, "upscale" dining, "upscale" condos, and "upscale" nightlife. All with a "downtown, big city feel". Frankly, I'm not impressed. The only thing that interests me about the place so far is the innovative Piggly Wiggly (more on that later). I don't want to see any business fail in my area. I love it here. I want it to grow and I want to give people more reasons to visit. I think a lot of people that live here feel the same way. But that same love I share with my fellow beach bums is why I find their hype and enthusiasm about this place so aggravating. I also would be more than happy to be wrong. Maybe this place is just what the proverbial doctor ordered. I'm just not holding my breath while I wait to see.

To those unfamiliar with the area, you should know 2 important geographic facts. First, we have no shortage of retail shopping and dining. In particular, outdoor shopping. Within a 10 mile radius of Market Commons, is a staggering amount of ways to spend your money. Within a 2 mile radius is the relatively new Coastal Grand. Is it the coolest, most awesome mall ever? No. But it is steadily adding and improving to its offerings. Do we have a PF Changs? No. But every single time I speak with a local about the Market Commons, PF Changs is inevitably mentioned. Apparently they serve food that can cure cancer and stop the peak oil problem. Seriously, people are talking it up so much, I'm almost willing to put my cynicism and spite aside to try it out. Almost.

The second geographic thing you should know is the Market Commons is built on the old Myrtle Beach Air Force Base. Anybody that has lived near a military base knows that the surrounding areas are often the most affordable places to live. This is all a very politically correct way of saying that this is not the best part of town. But this a minor problem since Market Commons is tucked away in isolation away from the riff-raff. But this isolation buffer comes at a price. There's only 2 ways to get in or out of the property. But really, a large majority of traffic will influx via what the locals call the "back gate" which was already a traffic nightmare at the wrong time of day. Based on my driving experience just today at 11am, it's only going to get worse. But maybe that road construction that hasn't started yet and will take years to complete will help. Dog park lovers: I'd start planning on early Sunday morning trips.

But let's talk about that Piggly Wiggly. I will never buy groceries there, and outside people that own a condo on the property, I don't know what other residents will. Remember, this is not the "upscale" part of town and there's a Super Wal-Mart 5 minutes away in both directions. But it is innovative and helps put us on the map. And here's why:

Big props to Piggly Wiggly corporate for putting a video on YouTube. I'm impressed.

I've lived in some major metropolitan areas. Small little quirky stores and restaurants. Art galleries and comedy clubs. Pricey and exclusive spots. All small Mom-n-Pop places that come and go. Sure, there was a Pottery Barn sprinkled in there. But there was enough character and culture that the corporate presence didn't dominate the landscape. The things that made these places fun and cool, in my opinion, are not at Market Commons. It's an outdoor shopping mall with city street-like features. It's going to be great for the handful of folks that are crazy enough to buy a townhome or condo there.

I've got yet another reason to avoid driving South for a while.

All of this was possible through the awesome CamTwist and Ustream.tv. Obviously, I can't stream my desktop all of the time (it eats up quite a bit of resources for one thing). I'll try it out for a while and see how it goes!

You can always see the live desktop off the screwTheMan.com home page.

Interestingly, on the Internet this week, I gathered some bits of information that I interpreted as further proof on some of my own personal theories. Lots of links worth checking out.

The Moonwalking Bear Principle was given a boost when I saw this TED presentation where a brain anatomist basically describes the physiology of my "we filter all of this information the universe throws at us" concept. But by changing my visualization of it from "information" to "energy", it suddenly feels more acceptable that we can influence the things that happen for us. As a side note, she describes the moments just after death and they are incredibly similar to this Vice article I read many years ago.

The other thing that happened this week was related to my feelings about following the news too closely. Dave forwarded along this funny video about The Man controlling mainstream media outlets. Then I just read Mark Cuban's blog where he basically says the same thing. At the very least, get your news and information from several sources and, if you're really concerned, do your own research and draw your own conclusion. No longer can we unconditionally accept the news from The Man as fact. As evidence, I present to you these articles from various sources that say that Social Security has been structured to last until at least 2040 despite the government making it seem like my generation will be left out in the cold when it comes time to draw our benefits.

So there you have it. Project positivity every moment you can, visualize your positive future every day, and SCREW THE MAN! [cue cymbal crash and orchestral anthem]

UPDATE:
Just stumbled upon this. Unbelievable!

My big current job requires that I use Perforce over VPN. Surprisingly, the VPN provider has an OS X native client and there's a P4V Perforce client for OS X. Even more suprisingly, they work really well. Really then, all I need Windows for at the moment is running Visual Studio and IE for my Quickbooks Online (stupid ActiveX controls).

Boot Camp, VMWare, and You
VMWare Fusion totally rocks. It's this little $60 (after rebate) gem that makes this whole switch possible for me. So far I have had no problems, performance or otherwise, running Visual Studio. With the Unity feature, I'm not confined to a single window like you'd expect. I literally have Visual Studio and IE running in free floating windows on my OS X desktop.

But I wasn't comfortable with only having Windows as a virtual machine. I wanted to be able to dual boot directly into Windows if necessary. Booting directly into Windows is no different than running a (really nice) Windows laptop. There's 2 bits of good news about this: 1) Apple provides Boot Camp which makes it really easy to set up a partition on your drive for Windows and 2) VMWare will recognize a Boot Camp partition and will "virtualize" it for you in OS X. It really is the best of both worlds with a few minor drawbacks and gotchas:

- You can't "suspend" and "resume" the Boot Camp VM in Fusion like you can normally. This just means you have to fully shutdown and start up Windows if you ever need to Quit the VMWare application. This is all done within Fusion and happens relatively quickly.

- You can't have a partition bigger than 32GB. Technically, you can. But it has to be NTFS formatted and then OS X supposedly can't actually write to the partition. ALWAYS use FAT32 partitions. I know, I know... in Windows land we were always taught that NTFS == good. Forget that. Just go ahead an hit that "32GB" button in the Boot Camp assistant. Because I can tell you from experience that resizing the Boot Camp parition after the fact is no fun. It basically involves making a new Boot Camp parition, installing Windows, and then restoring your original Windows install. But it's tedious, and at best, risky. I found it easiest to just re-do the process from scratch.

- When the VM is running, the Boot Camp parition isn't available to OS X. It literally unmounts until you stop the VM. But the VM can see/write to the OS X partition. The VM can also take over other hardware devices (Network, CD, USB, iSight, etc.) but fortunately you can mount/unmount these devices while the VM is running. Say you're using a firewire external drive, you could easily have Windows XP or OS X use it by unmounting/mounting it without shutting down the VM.

- You can't use the Apple provided Windows drivers. When you set up Boot Camp, Apple will tell you to install their optimized drivers after Windows is installed. DON'T DO IT. VMWare provides it's own set of drivers it will inject after you virtualize the first time. The Apple drivers (the hard drive one, specifically) makes the Fusion runtime wig out and you'll get a BSOD if you try to virtualize it.

Playing Nice With Others
I played around with networking OS X and Windows machines for a bit back in the 803 days. I think ultimately the trick turned out to be to use static IP's. That was a couple of years ago and things seem like they've gotten worse with Leopard and Vista combined. The old "make sure the workgroup is all the same" trick no longer seems to work. Since my main computer was always the one that handled the printer and file sharing, I was trying to re-create that in OS X.

Along that same line, I really wanted to share files to my Xbox 360 from my Mac. Connect360 got such glowing reviews, I bought it on the spot. I shouldn't have because they offer a free trial and it doesn't seem to work on Leopard. Since I paid for it already, I'm awaiting my technical support email to be replied to before getting a refund. I think it has to do with OS X's firewalling.

Which brings me to another point just use the Leopard "specific services" firewall. Once again, in Windows land, we usually just turn off the Windows Firewall. But you really should have a software firewall if you're using a laptop at Wi-Fi spots. The OS X firewall is as good as any for managing your exposure (unless you're really handy with shell scripts and ipfw) and will ask you any time a new process wants to send/receive and will save your granted permissions accordingly.

In the interest of time and necessity, I've pretty much given up on file, media, and printer sharing. I'll probably winding buying a wireless print server of some sort and I guess I'll keep my XP laptop around as a primitive file server. I still don't have a way of copying files from the MacBook to the file server just yet. The only external device that I was worried about was my Blackberry Curve. It turns out RIM provides a nice little synching application that I actually like better than the Windows based Blackberry Desktop Manager.

Overall Impressions So Far
I love it. I don't have a basis for comparison, but I think the 4GB of RAM was well worth the small additional cost. Even with all my thrashing of creating/deleting/copying/installing/uninstalling, the machine seems like it has actually become more streamlined and stable. I haven't had a crash (yet).

I noticed that when the hardware is really working hard to the point of the fans kicking in, it gets super hot in spots on the case. I'm sure this is exacerbated by the aluminum shell. It concerned me at first until I realized under the course of normal computing, everything runs very quiet and at a reasonable temperature. The kick ass BookEndz dock I bought is made of a solid steel plate that elevates the rear of the MacBook about 1 inch. I'm not concerned with overheating.

I have the MacBook elevated on a stand and running through my IOGear KVMP switch. This allows me to use my HP 19" LCD as either a TV for the Xbox or a second monitor for the laptops. It also switches sound to the Logitech speakers I have. The only bummer is I'm currently using a Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse. I got spoiled on the backlit keys of the MacBook Pro. I'd love to find a nice mouse/keyboard combo that is backlit and works well with Windows or OS X.

Unforunately, I haven't yet had the opportunity to do very much Mac-like activities. I've started up iMovie and GarageBand just for giggles. I installed the latest Xcode and briefly browsed the docs. But there will be plenty of time for that later. For now, I've got to get back to work!

Hey! There's a pretty cool conference coming up here in Myrtle Beach. I'm mildly involved in it. I've contributed some technical work to the website and try to pitch in when I can. You should sign up and have your company sponsor it too.

I'm going out on a limb and risking looking really stupid with this post. Earlier this week, my friend Dave posted a Twitter tweet this week regarding the economy and people's spending...

Does no one else feel like a depression is around the corner? It doesn't seem to be affecting that many people's spending.

To which my reply was...

I believe that a depression can easily be created when people STOP spending based on a media fueled self fulfilling prophecy. [I have] No anecdotal evidence that the economy is in a depression. But if I give the mass media my attention it feels like it. Prepared, not scared.

Kinda' like my tweet implied, I feel like things are going great for me currently. My head isn't fully buried in the sand, either. But what if I watched the mass media news constantly, let it get to me, and became overly-cautious in my decisions? Would it begin to affect me as well? Would I manifest the sky actually falling on me?

I'm not going to spend my home's equity on a vacation or a depreciating asset. I'm not going further into debt anytime soon, either. But maybe I will tip a little extra on my next meal out. I think of the economy is an engine. An engine requires air (people's willingness to spend), fuel (money), and spark (industry returning the favor). If we starve it from fuel or air because we think everyone else is, then it will stumble before totally stalling.

Then it just so happened this morning that I was watching Sneakers when I was reminded of this scene early in the flick:

Cosmo: Posit: people think a bank might be financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Consequence: people start to withdraw their money.
Cosmo: Result: pretty soon it is financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Conclusion: you can make banks fail.

Ever since I read The 4-Hour Workweek, I no longer feel guilty about my avoidance of mass media outlets. Basically, Timothy Ferris says he doesn't waste his time with the news. If an event that happens that is truly newsworthy and he is a socially involved person, he'll find out about it. I agree. Everyone's first reaction to this perspective is, "well if everyone had that attitude then you'd never hear about anything". But that scenario, in my opinion, is impossible. That's the beauty of living in a big, giant world of humans.

Yeah, I'll listen to the occasional talk radio or flip through the news channels. But I don't spend a lot of time on them. Then on a long car ride today, there was an economist on some talk radio going on about how it's still debatable what a recession is and if we're even in one. Granted, the majority of them are starting to come to the conclusion that we may be in for a rough ride pretty soon. Then again, some of those economists think it's just a dip before summer. But does this mean everyone is headed for dire straits?

Perhaps I'm just jaded because of the whole oil thing. I find it highly suspect that the price of oil hits a record high because of low supply. As a result we as consumers hit high stress levels (and buy tons of gas). Then without fail they seem to stumble on a surprise reserve or accounting error that calms us down so we forget that Exxon is hitting record profits of over nearly 11 billon dollars PER QUARTER. It takes me at least a month to go through a full tank of gas. So even if it goes to $5/gallon, I'm looking at a ~$10 impact to my monthly costs. But it still makes me sick to think of how we keep falling for this over and over again.

Then funnily enough this afternoon, I read this article from a website which I consider the standard for video game industry news. The article essentially says that the video game business (currently my primary means of income) is not only holding it's own against the sliding dollar, but doing quite well. It basically validates how I feel about my own situation.

Do you think the mass media has too much power over us as a nation? Do they know it or are they just a pawn in a bigger game?

And, yes, I still think it works.

One of my earliest programming memories was in a summer camp writing LOGO code on an Apple IIe. PENDN, FD 20 RT 20...it was an enlightening experience making that little turtle do my bidding. I was right around 10 or 11 years old.

Fast forward a couple of years later when my Mom was all excited about learning and using a "Macintosh". She took me in to work one day and I got to play with it. It was way cooler than the Desktop Publishing program I was using on my Commodore 128. Shufflepuck Cafe was amazing! It wasn't too long after that we had a 32MHz Performa 600 at the house. I got chills the first time I saw a 32-bit picture rendered and it seemed like magic the first time a Quicktime video played of a Space Shuttle launch. I was around for the big "System 7" debut and the fanfare of Mac OS 8. In 1992, I was an aspiring graphic designer and getting school credit doing typesetting for the school district during my Graphic Communications class. In 1995, I bought my first Mac of my own- a dismal Performa 6200CD at Sears at the Myrtle Square Mall on my first credit card. I remember how proud my Dad was that I had the cajones to just go out an buy one almost on a whim.

That turned out to be a sound investment.

It was on that little computer that I honed my design abilities and finally landed a job as a full time graphic designer at The Sun News. It was also the computer that spawned what eventually became 803 Productions. Next I upgraded to the super hot Blue & White G3. I learned HTML and mocked up the first Sun News website which indirectly got me into programming. As Online Director at The Sun News, I outfitted the sales staff with PowerBook 1400c's. I wrote my first Java and C code on that Performa at home. I was an avid BBEdit and CodeWarrior fan. I shelled out for the Macromedia Suite which is where I played with Xtreme3D and Director. All of which gave me a leg up at my first game industry job at Jellyvision, where Java and Director were heavily used. It was a magical time indeed.

But once I entered the world of full time software development, Windows was foisted upon me. I kept my Mac at home for a while. Despite spending countless hours playing Marathon and Myth back in the day, I was becoming a PC gamer and game developer... that meant getting a Windows 98 machine at home too. At that point, the B&W G3 was ebay'ed and I spent the next 7 years with Windows 98, Windows 2000, and eventually XP. I went from Cmd-C to Ctrl-C.

Fast forward to this year. I've had the same Dell Inspiron 9200 laptop for a few years. It's started to have some problems and dragging over the past few months. Most of which could honestly be fixed with a full wipe and reinstall of Windows. But like all of my previous computer purchases, I've definitely gotten my money's worth and then some from it. Blast Off has done OK for itself the past year and, besides my piddly salary, my computer is my only real overhead. Thus, I began devising my strategy for getting a new main rig.

Even though I work on a laptop, it's pretty tethered to my desk and kind of a pain to move. I don't really "compute on the go" or sit at my local Starbuck's to work. So I really could get by with a desktop PC. Plus I could build a pretty powerful one on the cheap. At one point, I even thought about just not even bothering with building one and just buying something already built. Honestly, what kept me from doing either was Vista... it's hard to get a new PC without Vista on it. It even costs more to buy XP than Vista! I thought I could probably also justify getting a Mac Mini because if I ever make an independent game or software product, I'd love to release it to Mac OS. But I was just undecided.

Then they announced the new Mac Book Pro.

I'm proud to say that I just placed my order for my first Mac in nearly 10 years and blew a wad of cash today...
- 17" MacBook Pro with backlit keyboard and multi-touch trackpad
- LED backlit Hi-Res display (non-glossy)
- 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
- 300GB hard drive (I generally prefer RPM over capacity, but I figured I'd need it if I'm running Windows + OS X)
- VMWare Fusion
- OCW 4GB RAM kit
- BookEndz Docking Station (I'm really excited about this. I may even "compute on the go" more now)

Me and Apple are getting the band back together!