I must apologize, ladies and gentlemen, for not posting of late. Two things are happening; I'm trying to find a new house for my small family, and I'm in the process of retooling http://thomasalley.net.

The first of these is just something that's come up as part of life. My lovely fiance, stepdaughter-to-be, and I simply need more room; so we're out to find it. Trying to buy a house is a stressful and time-consuming endeavor, especially considering we want to get into a new home before the tax credits go away.

The latter of those grows from my dissatisfaction of Posterous. It was a nice service that got me started blogging again, but I've outgrown it. A slow service with ridiculously limited posting options just isn't viable for me now. I want to post a lot, and I want to use a tool like Blogo or MarsEdit. Posterous just isn't going to be there soon enough.

So, to those ends I sat down at lunch the other day and banged out the new http://thomasalley.net design. Hope you like it! As soon as I am able, I'm transitioning the whole shebang to a Wordpress installation and hosting my own everything. I just have to make time to hammer the design into a solid Wordpress Theme.

So, in the meantime go amuse yourselves. Reddit has an awesome thread on nerdy jokes you might enjoy!

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Gerber Legendary Blades
Attn: Service Dept.
14200 SW 72nd Ave
Portland, OR     97224

Gerber Service Department;
    I really love my Mini Covert. Sadly, the pocket clip has the tendency to pop out during normal use. I've owned two Mini Coverts, and had you guys have had to ship me a replacement pocket clip & matching screws for both. Some threadlocker and a few twists later, I was good to go again.
    Given that it usually takes about a year for the pocket clip to pop off, I'm still pretty satisfied with this little guy. I'm hoping now, though, that you guys will fix it under warranty for me. Either the screws or the holes are stripped, and I have no idea which it is. So… please send me another one? I've put the bits in a baggie and I'm about to seal it up to send it off, and I'm already feeling stark naked without it.
   
   
Thanks for making awesome products.

Regards,

    Thomas

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Let me go ahead and put this out there- There's a whole lot about Notational Velocity that I don't understand. I've only been using the thing for about a week, and I'm definitely an amateur at it. Merlin Mann over at 43folders is probably the guy you want to talk to about this. When he posts more about how he uses it, then I'll definitely talk about it and how I plan on integrating his tips into my workflow.

That said, NV has a dead simple interface that is the heart of how I use it. I feel like I'm the leading edge of what I'll call the Generation G. We tend to eschew hierarchical organization in favor of relational organization and search- we're the Google Generation. We also like to have our stuff accessible in every conceivable mode- My data is less valuable to me if I can't push and pull from my iPhone, and from from Macbook, and from my Work PC. We all crave our own personal little cloud, and we do our best to cobble it together. The less we have to use the mouse, the better.

So my first post on NV is going to be about the App itself. I'll talk about integration with Dropbox and Simplenote later.

NV is based on the notion that you like to write things down in text files. You don't care about check boxes, or pictures, or any of that crap. Just text. In some cases, that means it's only the starting point for my workflow, the place where the copy of a blog post is worked on and saved but the images used are not. In others, it's where notes or To-Do lists are kept. NV does it's best to be as transparent a tool as possible; it tries to let you access, search, and edit your library of text files with minimal fuss.

Your best friend in NV is the search bar. It's where your cursor starts out, and it's what lets you access your library of text. As you type, NV will start listing files that match the search. NV seems to focus on a title search, but will also display titles that have matching text inside them. It will auto-complete potential title matches as you type. If it auto-completes the title you're looking for, hit return and go nuts. It'll place you into that file and you do your editing.

If you type up something in the search box that doesn't match any titles, though, something cool can happen. Hit return and start typing, anyway. NV will create the file and you're on your way. This is why NV is cool; it lets you find the file you're looking for or create the one you want, dead simple and quick.

NV uses an Incremental Search engine that I'm still getting used to. It does, however, let you search to any part of a file just using the keyboard. And that's important; using a mouse is an interruption of the creative writing process, in my opinion.

Now, here's another awesome thing: Storage. NV allows you to choose to store your notes in an optionally encrypted database, or as a flat file structure in a specified folder. And why is that cool? Because it lets you modify these text files from outside of NV, and do things like sync them to Dropbox for backup and access. Anything you drop into or modify in that directory is reflected in NV. It's a transparent, plain-text API to the budding text library that you will soon use to replace your brain.

All that's well and good, but the question has been asked; "How do you use it?" And I will answer, again stressing that I am an amateur. I use the titles of my text files to reflect their relationships to a particular project or area of my life. Files generally start with "Work:" or "Personal:" or "TA Blog:" and go from there. This allows me to type in these key words in the search, and list the files that fall into these categories. It also ensures that those key words are there if I'm searching for other things, such as "work "high priority"" or "personal expense" to find Work: files with "High Priority" somewhere in them, or Personal: files with the word Expense in them. You can build it out from there.

What this allows me to do is pull up the things I need to find and make notes on very quickly. If something occurs to me and I need to switch to another file, CMD+l will put my cursor back at the search again. It's so easy I don't have to think about it, and that's the important part.

I should probably also mention that NV automatically saves as you type. You never have to worry about remembering to hit a save key; changes are committed as you go.

And so, that's how I use NV right now. I'm sure it'll evolve as I look for ways to integrate it with Quicksilver and services in Snow Leopard. And I'll write another post soon on why syncing with Dropbox is awesome and why SimpleNote on the iPhone rules.

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I have to give Leo credit for responding quickly to my initial letter. I didn't particularly care for what he had to say, though.

Really? 

It didn't fool me at all. It was obvious from the very first. I was laughing at every new post. It seemed to me an obvious parody of the overheated uPas rumor mill.  

I know he thought it would be an equally obvious parody to everyone but it wasn't. Maybe it was only clear to people who know him. That's the problem with short form media like Twitter. There's precious little room for nuance. And there are some people with underdeveloped senses of the absurd.  

I imagine he's apologized for underestimating the perceptiveness of his audience. If not your letter should be directed at him not me. 

He continues to be a TWiT regular but I understand your reluctance to donate to a show you don't like. 

Thanks for your letter. 

Leo

-- 

Leo Laporte

<http://google.com/profiles/laporte>

So, I thought about it. And in the spirit of rational discourse, I wrote him back.

Leo,
Thanks for writing back. I don't want to come off as a whiner, but I am very interested in your position here, and I want us both to be clear.

The claims that Jason made were all on the edge of possibility. If I'm not mistaken, Apple actually owns patents for placing a solar charging mechanism behind the screen of a mobile device (You guys talked about it on MBW a while back) Having two cameras (his assertion; You have misquoted him several times saying that he claimed three cameras) isn't an impossibility.

The heart of this issue is not how outlandish the claims were.

Maybe my failing was paying too close attention and trusting Jason too much. You are right in saying that Twitter lacks the nuance of a genuine conversation, and I don't think that Jason is so stupid that he would miss that fact. He is either ignorant of how these new media work, or he acted with malice of forethought- that is my contention. If this were lighthearted smartassery, there are ways to make it obvious. There's an expectation to hash-tag it, to label it, and to not mix it in with your serious stream. Jason didn't make it clear because he didn't want it to be clear. The whole thing is like you putting commercials in the middle of a show and not labeling them as a sponsor. How much credibility would you have left after that?

I'm not saying anybody has a moral obligation to run Jason out of town on a pole, but I find it distressing that the "Technology Elite Echo-chamber" has rallied behind him as if he'd done nothing wrong. Anybody who didn't get it is obviously just too stupid to take seriously, anyway. Is that the consensus? And I guess we were stupid to imagine that we could believe Jason when he actually assured us that he wasn't bullshitting us. How is it reasonably possible to defend that? Saying that all his friends got the joke doesn't really cut it, and turns a blind eye to the real problems.

If you're still reading at this point, I encourage you to read this excellent article: http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2010/01/never-dupe-your-readers

I'm far from a professional writer, and that guy does a good job of explaining why the situation is so frustrating. And Leo, don't patronize your listeners. Jason doesn't need to apologize for "underestimating the perceptiveness of his audience"- He needs to apologize for pretending not to know the rules of the game in order to pull a fast one. And everybody else in the business needs to really think about this and stop defending him for it.

Thanks for your time,

Thomas Alley

I haven't heard back from Leo, and don't really expect to. It's disappointing, and I have to really struggle with my new "How I Plan To Tip Leo" plans. I enjoy his shows enough, but admittedly I mostly listen for the excellent personalities he brings to the table. If someone else brought Andy Ihnatko, John C Dvorak, Steve Gibson, Merlin Mann, Alex Lindsay, etc to the table- I'd be listening to them instead.

Of course, since the shows' sponsors actually pay the other hosts and Leo is only drawing cash from the tips, maybe my continued patronage is plenty enough to keep that ad revenus in place and pay for the entertainment and information I receive from the network.

As a side note, I'm definitely accepting recommendations for new podcasts. Let me have 'em!

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On the drive to work this morning I was thinking about the fact that Verizon was blocking controversial web site 4chan.org. 4chan isn't exactly a bastion of noble internet culture, but censorship is wrong in any form; so it's only natural that the story irked me.

Various ISPs have blocked 4chan for varying periods of time over the years, many claiming "attacks" on their customers from the site. I don't really understand how blocking port 80, the port that web browsing happens over, alleviates any form of "attack." Seeing as how Verizon has been bombarded with support calls over the issue and that they're un-banning 4chan, I'm not too worried about it.

That said, I realized I had to make this while thinking about the story. Enjoy!

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Dearest Leo Laporte,
    First, I want to start with the usual spiel about being a big fan of the work you do. I admire the hell out of the way you've built up your network. You do good work, and you've got a lot of great people over there. You and I don't always see eye-to-eye, but that's alright. We may have reached an impasse on one issue, though.
   
    I know you like Jason Calacanis. I used to think he was alright, too. His Dvorak impressions were pretty good, and his punditry usually made a decent amount of sense when he appeared on TWIT. I was extremely disappointed with the "iPad Prank" that he pulled, however, and I'm disappointed with everyone who didn't call him out on it- particularly you, Mr. Laporte.
   
    I've heard you make the case that Jason's claims were too ridiculous to be believed, and that anyone who believed them is an idiot. Thanks for that. Go back and read his tweets, Leo, and tell me that this was anything other than a calculated troll maneuver designed to fool as many people as he could manage. It was not a good natured prank; it was instead using his reputation and his voice in a form of shameless self-promotion. He wanted to be THAT guy, the one that fooled CNN and a bunch of other people into believing that he wouldn't outright lie to them.
   
    But of course, that's what he did. The lies that he posted toed the line between Completely Implausible and Just Plausible Enough In Context; and then he followed up with the cincher:
   
   

Off to bed, but I assure you I'm not joking and the specs are real.... Most of all that this is best gadget ever made and NOT overhyped.

   
    Is that sarcasm? Who could really tell? If you've ever listened to Jason rant about something that he likes, that's exactly what he sounds like. If Apple really had done something crazy like give him a preview unit, this is exactly what he would say, from what I know about him. This statement is the cincher.
   
    Jason built those tweets very carefully, so that he could troll and then act indignant when people didn't "Get it." I got it, and the real joke is taking Jason seriously. Which brings me to how this affects you.
   
    I've been tipping you $2 a month on a subscription payment for a long time now. Today, I am canceling that subscription. Any month in which you have Jason on one of your podcasts, I'm withholding my two dollars from your tip jar. I won't be dramatic and say that I'll never listen again, because I will. I like TWIT. I'm not willing to unsubscribe because you ocassionally field a troll; so I will vote with the Tip Jar, just as you yourself have suggested.
   
    I like the TWIT network, Leo. I want to support you guys, so I listen and I tip. Maybe if enough people share my sentiment, you'll stop inviting Jason; That's the best case outcome for me. For now, it's satisfying enough that I have some kind of voice; and that you know Jason's jackassery has had a tangible effect on your business.
   
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Alley
    @tma

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via theoatmeal.com

The Oatmeal does a great writeup on the ways people can be annoying on Facebook. Everybody should stop right now, take a long look at themselves, and ask- "Am I one of these people?"

I know all of these people. XD And I may love them all, but it also explains why I generally chose Twitter over Facebook.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/facebook_suck

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I'm not sure how long Google has been doing this, but they've got a nifty "Play Now" button when it figures out you're searching for a specific song. I noticed this just now while looking for some R.E.M. lyrics. You click the button and you can listen to the whole song via iLike.com, or check it out on Pandora or Rhapsody. Nifty.

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via apple.com

So, some of my predictions were right, some were wrong. Apple really surprised me by delivering a price point that has the potential to make this thing relevant.

They also did something interesting with the wireless 3G options. The rumors about the iPad being tied to a carrier by contract initially worried me; but Apple handled this right. You can buy an iPad with the modem in there. Need some data? Buy 250MB as you need it for $15, or drop $30 to get unlimited for the month. No contracts, stupid simple. I like this option, and I'd considering buying an iPad with the modem in there, just in case.

The lack of an OLED display is deeply disappointing for me, though. Going LCD gave them this price point, but OLED would have made a major difference. If anything holds me back from purchasing this generation, it's because I'll be buying into the first OLED-based model.

Is the iPad important? I think so. I think that Kindle is the Diamon Rio of the ePublishing industry. Trailblazing, but flawed. The iPad will be the iPod of the ePublishing industry; the iPad mainstream it, commoditize it.

Apple made some disappointing choices, though. They've not indicated that their App Store will undergo any reform. There are still no background tasks, no GPS. It's still a completely vertical platform, which Apple is maintaining a stranglehold on.

And in the end, that's the most important thing. I won't argue that a completely vertical platform like this won't be a commercial success; I think that it will. But it annoys the inner geek. Let's see what the Jailbreaking community can do to make this thing the ultimate Tablet, rather than the one that Apple's restraining.

Will I buy one? There's a chance, eventually. I'll have to play with one, and there will need to be killer apps crop up. But I could see asking for one for Christmas or such; it definitely won't be a purchase that I need.

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Andy Ihnatko talked on Macbreak Weekly recently about ordering some Moo Minicards, and that was all it took to sucker me into ordering a set. And I have to say, I'm pretty impressed.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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I really like Chrome as a browser. It's efficient, fast, and a powerhouse of future web technologies. On the Mac, it's a little bit faster than Firefox. On every platform, it just takes up less screen real estate than the competition.

But the reason I keep launching Firefox every day is the simple fact that Chrome doesn't have the same extension support as Firefox. There are a few addons that I simply require for my daily life, and I've posted a few of them before. The most important of which is NoScript.

I'm a security conscious guy. And I'm not going to stop being a security conscious guy when it comes to web browsers. Extensions like NoScript and Flashblock, among others, let me shrink my attack surface as much as I possibly can, and allow me to choose who I trust to push risky web components onto my delicate, precious computer. Chrome, in it's current state, does not have the infrastructure to support these advanced plugins, however.

An October blog post from Hackademix, the blog from the guy behind NoScript, explains. Extensions like Noscript have to hook deep into the bowels of the browser in order to prevent the loading or execution of things like Javascript or Flash. Chrome does not have those hooks available, which means that it loads every thing, every time. Yes, there's a Flashblock for Chrome. But the extension loads the flash and then hides it, which means it offers no protection from flash-based vulnerabilities. The Adblockers for Chrome don't speed up your browsing, either, as they load ads but then go about hiding them.

The post above has a demo that circumvents the Flashblock extension as a demonstration, to prove his point. He also speculates that Google may have crippled Chrome extensions by design, in order to avoid effective ad blocking. Obviously, the popularity of ad blocking technology for Firefox probably causes anxiety for an advertising based company, such as google. I guess we'll see- I can't think of any other reason to keep these limits in place.

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Listening to Security Now today, Steve Gibson hands out an important point about Internet Explorer on Windows. Whether or not you're using it, it's still there. And if you're forced to use Outlook at work as I am, IE vulnerabilities can still bite you.

What Steve suggests is locking down IE so that it is useful only as a Windows Update tool, which is important in Windows XP. If you're a Windows 7 or Vista user, you can skip the second half of this trick. Everyone should be following the first part, though.

Open up Internet Options and adjust the slider to "High" for "Internet" and "Local Intranet." This will disable Javascript and practically every other browser option for any non-trusted website that you, or IE, visit. While you're there, make sure that "Trusted Sites" and "Restricted Sites" have their default settings.

Once that's done, select "Trusted Sites" and then click the "Sites" button. To make Windows Update work on Windows XP, you'll need to add the following to the list:

• *.microsoft.com
• *.windowsupdate.com

If you have any sites that specifically require IE to function, you'll also want to add those sites to the zone. For my own sanity I had to disable the "Require https:" option for some of the sites my workplace requires IE.

Now, when other applications like Outlook access the IE components to render content, that content should be rendered under the "High" security settings that we set earlier, and things like Flash, Javascript and ActiveX shouldn't be issues. This doesn't mean IE becomes invulnerable, but it's a simple trick to reduce your risk surface, so no reason not to do it.

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I'll admit I "blurred" out my home reverse-dns and IP address. ...Not that I'm paranoid...

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via sheldonshirts.com

@dkoren and @reqbat have clued me in to the awesome Sheldonshirts.com I'm amused at how many of these I own or have owned. The rest, I'm adding to my Amazon wish list.

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via swiss-miss.com

Thanks @alanstevens for this handy "Hey Jude" flowchart. Reminds me of the Big Bang Theory where Sheldon created a flow chart for the "Friendship Algorithm"

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I feel like I need to join the crowd and toss out a bit of speculation about the rumored Apple Tablet.

• The first version will target education (and other vertical markets, such as Hospitals) and cost too much to be successful in the consumer space. Think a thousand bucks, but with content deals through the large textbook providers.
  
• Kindle-Style 3G will be present in the device for delivering apps, books and music, where the cost can be wrapped up in the price of the content. Web browsing, email, buying video, and anything else will require a Wi-Fi connection.
• They will be tiered by internal storage capacity in order to capture consumer surplus, as always.
• There will be a "Standard" (Smaller Storage, LCD Screen, Slower Hardware) and a "Pro" version (OLED Screen, Larger Storage, Faster Hardware) a precedent set by the division they have created between the iPhone 3G and 3GS.
• It will be a larger version of the iPhone OS. No background tasks, apps will have to pass through the App Store.
• An iPhone Simulator, which will allow iPhone native apps to be ran on the Tablet.
• Apps can be built in ways that the release of one, single App will work natively on both the iPhone and the Tablet, or restricted to either platform.
  

• Front-facing camera. It can't be done with elegance at this point, so it won't be done.
• Loss-leading. Apple won't sell it at a loss, even if they're hoping for content distribution deals. Their model has always been having the store experience drive the hardware sales, and not the other way around.
• Mac OSX. It'll be a rev of the iPhone OS (Which will be renamed) and share many of the limitations of the iPhone. Don't expect paradigm shifts with the iPhone OS anytime soon, but look for evolution on both platforms over time.
  
• Wi-Fi syncing. Even though the Zune has it, we won't see it in the first rev of the Tablet or in the next rev of the iPhone OS. You will still be connecting it to iTunes.
• A rebuilt iTunes experience. iTunes needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, and management of your portable devices needs to be broken out. But that's not happening today.

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