Chuqui 3.0 - Latest Comments

Re: Purists beware

sethdillingham — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:40:52 -0000

Didn't finish your story yet, but where does everybody think Photoshop got its name? Originally, it let you do the things on the computer that people had always done in the darkroom.

(I did a lot of work with film in the old days, too.)

Re: One thing I’m not going to do…

alanrodgers — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:03:50 -0000

> Fiction writing is a tough market. It hasn’t
> gotten any better in the time I’ve been away, in
> fact it’s harder now to succeed as a writer than
> it was 10 or 15 years ago, and the pay scale is
> about the same.

Chuq, go into your local superstore and look at the shelves. The SF section is full of weird experiments, to the point where the whole genre looks like it's going away.

Then go over to the YA section (which in a regular stores is only 2x the size of the SF shelves, but in the superstores can be gargantuan) and read a little at what's on the shelves.

Somebody has pilfered SF's readers. I don't think they're coming back.

Re: Understanding the starting point

sethdillingham — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:54:54 -0000

I think you'll be surprised at just how much of a difference some SEO makes.

However, a much bigger deal than SEO is incoming links from relevant sites. Some personal issues precluded, nay obliterated, most of my desire to write. However, last year my weblog was doing pretty well: many thousands of visitors per month, 10K-50K page views per day.

My biggest driver of traffic has always been Google (going all the way back to 2000), but it's not because of SEO: it's because I have (or had) a LOT of relevant incoming links. Links to the home page, links to my individual articles, links to some of my categories. Cyclists linked to my bike journal. Web developers and programmers linked to my stories about regular expressions or javascript or CMS (Conversant). Friends link to the site.

Nothing tells a search engine that your pages matter like other people actually saying, "his pages matter."

I don't know how much oomph my site has any more, but I'm definitely going to point to you this evening or tomorrow. Your previous article, especially, was quite thought provoking.

Re: Understanding the starting point

facebook-1246884822 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:28:48 -0000

If you've been following David duChemin's experiments, with your involvement with Palm you should take a look at Barbara Ballard's twitter and blog feeds on mobile design, and her work with http://www.littlespringsdesign.com/. Her layered involvement with wikis, books, mobile, twitter, blogs and design are fascinating and are doing a lot to shape my thinking on an internet presence.

Additionally, it becomes increasingly clear that search is everything. SEO is a big pain, but if people can't find you you don't exist. Palm certainly got that with webOS, but I continue to talk to people who don't get it.

Finally, I think that for on-line content, the only acceptable price is free. Certainly our four-year experiment with Baen's Universe (www.baens-universe.com) taught us that. over 40,000 downloads of an eventual Hugo award winning story, (When Sysops Ruled the Earth) and not a SINGLE donation or payment as a result.

Re: Thoughts on the Second Career

marionvermazen — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:20:11 -0000

I can't tell you haw wonderful it is to no longer be living in a megalopolis You won't miss Silicon Valley.

Re: Thoughts on the Second Career

alanrodgers — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:24:10 -0000

Hmmm. I tend to start where it comes to me, then go back and reorganize until it feels right.

But (thinking of something else you wrote) I kind of hate storytelling. Just hate it a lot less than going into job interviews.

Re: Thoughts on the Second Career

chuqui — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:03:23 -0000

stay tuned. A good storyteller starts at the point where the story needs to start, not at the start of the story.

Re: Thoughts on the Second Career

johnwbaxter — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:27:20 -0000

Astoria. Been there multiple times; enjoyed. I have no idea what the career will turn out to be.

In terms of time, Astoria is about as far from Portland as Port Ludlow is from Seattle. But with a lot more turns on the odometer.

Good luck. I'll keep an eye out for further word.

--John

Re: Thoughts on the Second Career

MacRat — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:43:24 -0000

Sounds more like retirement. :-)

Re: Thoughts on the Second Career

alanrodgers — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:19:39 -0000

So what DO you want to do, Chuq? It sounds like you're moving from details to goal. I usually start off with goal and look for means.

Re: Comment behaviour: How far is too far?

Roy Sutton — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:14:04 -0000

When I saw the title I thought you were going to be addressing comments at the App Catalog! Still, interesting piece!

Re: Looking at the Dany Heatley trade

John E. Cook — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:43:15 -0000

The Heatley trade always made me excited and I never had any of the doubts creep in that so many folks voiced. The reason? 'Heater' wanted to be here in San Jose. This of course was handled all wrong in Ottawa and has resulted in a backlash against Heatley by the Canadian press and fans. If I was Heatley I'd do the same thing, find my way to San Jose. Douglas Wilson was simply brilliant this off-season. Promised major changes (that the local sports press interpreted as trading Marleau or Nabokov or Thornton) But no! Wilson saw his errors in bringing in too many grey beards simply because they had a cup on their resume. Wilson also looked at the culture of the team and while he will not admit it he flushed out many of the European players in exchange for hard working solid journeymen North Americans. In an Olympic year too. To add Heatley while keeping Marleau, Thornton, Blake, Boyle, and Nabber was brilliant. It's early for sure, but this team has a championship feel to it, or at least a 3rd round final 4 look and a chance for season ticket holders to see the team improve and provide some big time fun at the tank this year and into the playoffs. Cheers! =J.E. Cook

Re: Some more thoughts on backups.

MacRat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:53:24 -0000

"firewire is gone from the lower end computers"

Only 1 low end Mac, the MacBook. and 1 high end, MacBook Air.

MacBook: no firewire
MacBook Air: no firewire
13" MacBook Pro: FW800
15" MacBook Pro: FW800
17" MacBook Pro: FW800
21" iMac: FW800
27" iMac: FW800
Mac mini: FW800
Mac Pro: FW800 (four ports)

While Apple has taken it out of the thin laptops, I don't see this as a sign of dumping Firewire.

Steve could decide to can it at any time, but I hope not as I don't see USB 3 being able to handle what me and my users can do with firewire 400 & 800 today.

Re: Some more thoughts on backups.

chuqui — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:15:15 -0000

If Apple supports Firewire in future computers. That's my worry; firewire is gone from the lower end computers. Will it still be supported in higher end computers down the road? Maybe. USB will.

For backups, the extra speed is simply not an issue for me. The cost of adding in a firewire (and/or on top of that a Firewire 800) interface is. All things being equal, I'd rather have all of the interfaces and I'll use the one that's fastest and most convenient. For long-term compatibility, for ease of use (plug into the USB hub and forget) and for cost, USB's better solution for backups. And given apple's already removed firewire from some units, I don't expect you'll see it return on the low end computers at all, so it's not going to be an option.

Re: Some more thoughts on backups.

MacRat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:19:18 -0000

Invest in FW400 when FW800 is faster?

There is also the future planning that all the FW800 cabling is directly compatible with FW3200.

And yes, I'm looking forward to daisy chaining FW3200 devices just as I do today with FW800 devices. Which you can't do with USB or eSATA.

Re: It’s fall. The Cranes are back….

Ashok — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:11:13 -0000

lovely landscape pix Chuq

Re: More than you wanted to know about backups

theMacDude — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:11:08 -0000

Thank you once again Chuq. I'm ordering more drives soon and seriously considering giving them out as holiday gifts...

Re: More than you wanted to know about backups

lkern — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:07:42 -0000

Time Machine is perhaps THE single best utility ever made. JUST TONIGHT I recovered my tower in about an hour after some really strange events.

Re: More than you wanted to know about backups

lkern — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:05:51 -0000

Advice to readers: What he said.
I am paranoid about backups, and my job depends on them. A combination of FW drives, Drobo, Time Capsule, Apple's Backup, Retrospect 8, Mac Mini's and Carbon Copy Cloner takes care of about 20TB of data at work and home, most of it backing up incrementally daily. But still, even with something this robust, I lose sleep over the BIG things like our main database that uses Oracle. There is such a thing as overkill, but I'm thinking not in the case of critical data. In a word: REDUNDANCY. Where you think 2 backups will do, consider four.

Re: More than you wanted to know about backups

mikebaird — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:52:31 -0000

Chuqui, This is a great exposition - I'll bookmark and return and refer others for sure - you are my kind of techie!

Re: More than you wanted to know about backups

Dave — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:20:29 -0000

An employee cut the AC over a hot weekend to save $$$. Monday I arrived to discover two dead iMacs. Both disks had been cooked. Luckily 30 days earlier I had upgraded my Intel Xserve to Snow Leopard and added a Drobo Pro with 16TB of disk. I was running backups 24X7 via TimeMachine for all 12 workstations in the office.

Two new disks, two fresh OS X Snow Leopard installs (as long as I needed to rebuild, why not upgrade the OS?) and what the heck... I told these fresh Snow Leopards to recover their data from the Drobo Pro. In just a tad over an hour I had recovered 100% of my data—on both systems! I celebrated by upgrading all my workstations to Snow Leopard.

Disk is CHEAP. Next I will add CrashPlan Pro to backup my Drobo Pro backups to another building that is connected via fiber optics. A new Mac Mini Server and another Drobo Pro will set me back about $3500, but then I can really SLEEP AT NIGHT!

Re: Where are they now? Ed Courtenay

chuckgoolsbee — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:31:14 -0000

I spent a season as an on-ice official (Referee most of the time, Linesman occasionally) in the UK. The best game I ever watched (as a spectator the Referee has figuratively the best "seat" in the house!) was at the very rink in Bracknell where Courtenay's interviewer from the BBC met him. The BBC blogger is wrong saying that only one ex-NHL'er has played in the UK though. I can recall a few others. Jim McTaggart (ex- Washington Capitals) for one.

--Chuck

Re: A quick comment on the Sharks/Capitals game (and Sharks hall of fame ramblings)

Jeff — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:02:23 -0000

what about cheecho as at least an honorable mention? he was a fan favorite. he won a trophy too if i remember correctly. i remember me and some friends would always scream CHEECHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! when he scored. lol.

and you should throw staubby a bone for DESTROYING tootoo last year!

Re: A quick comment on the Sharks/Capitals game (and Sharks hall of fame ramblings)

chuqui — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:32:58 -0000

For what it's worth, I was tempted to add a LOT of people to the list -- do you add Randy Hahn to the builders? Kevin Constantine? George Kingston? The organization is full of people who've done a lot over the years and I've gotten to know many to some degree or another, from Greg Jamison to Bob the lead usher to Mike our resident waitron, and it's an amazing group of really nice, hard working people. My general view of a Hall of Fame is that it should have a fairly small membership to avoid watering down the recognition, but it was tough.

I left Greg Jamison off -- but I think at some point his name would get added to this list. His job isn't done yet, and if you ask him, I'd expect he'd say that. I put Wilson's on not only for his work as GM, but for his work as a player and ambassador early on (and as an injured player working in the community).

We worked for Constantine's coaching clinic company for a while and dealt with him a little, and he's another nice guy (really intense guy... I don't think he had an off button back then) -- but of the coaches in the Sharks past, which ones were the ones that built the foundation for today's success? If you include Constantine, how could you exclude Sutter? If you exclude Sutter, how can you include Kingston? Honestly, I considered putting all three in as honorable mentions, but at what point are you just listing everyone who worked for the team? But the thought was there. for the record, I felt no guilt at all in excluding Al Sims from this list.

And then there's Drew. Drew is doing some great things in teaching hockey to the fan base and entertaining us during broadcasts, and he has his history coaching during the early days -- and if he keeps it up and stays interesting and -- well, stays Drew -- for some more years and doesn't run back to canada and CBC, then I'd add him to this list, too. but his job's not done yet, either. (Randy Hahn, whenever he decides to retire, goes in as well, but I expect he'll stick around for a while. Dan, however, could retire tomorrow and he's in...)

Re: A quick comment on the Sharks/Capitals game (and Sharks hall of fame ramblings)

chuqui — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:20:52 -0000

Josh, you're correct. he should be on my list as an honorable mention.