Provinces in Peril

So I was just watching The Daily Show with John Stewart and they were doing a, fabulously funny of course, segment on what's been going on up in Canada. Apparently (and mind you know nothing of this situation beyond what I saw in the segment and a passing mention on TWiT) the opposition party up in Canada was attempting to initiate a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Ordinarily in this scenario the vote would be held and if the bill it was attached to failed to pass Harper would essentially no longer be the Prime Minister.

Here's where it gets good. Harper felt the vote was unjustly called and went to the Governor General, basically the head of state but technically acts on behalf of the queen who is still the head of state in Canada, and asks her to DISSOLVE THE PARLIAMENT!! Now that is some sly political maneuvering right there no doubt about it!! The Governor General decided to go along with it and now Canada has no Parliament. Something tells me the opposition didn't quite see that one coming. None the less a pretty cool little political science case study someday in the future no doubt. Kinda makes me wish we had cool constitutional crisis like that in this country to marvel over...well okay maybe not we've got enough problems on our hands I guess!

Some Classic Barney Frank

Here's a gem from the great Barney Frank (D-MA):

"He's going to have to be more assertive than he's been," Frank said of the president-elect. "At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time. I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He's got to remedy that situation."via The Note.

Overstates the number of presidents we have...AWESOME.

My Twitter Recipe

So today I was talking (ranting?) to a friend about the current state of Twitter clients on the iPhone and the abysmal state of Twitter clients on the desktop. I know what you're saying, "Surely out of the 100s? 1000s? of twitter clients out there you could find one of them that works for you?" Sadly the answer for me has so far been no. Of course this isn't for lack of having tried just about every single twitter client that runs on the Mac. As a result I figured I'd recap my quest for the perfect interface to Twitter and in the process highlight a few of the things that I really love about the Mac platform.

But before I go on my rant about the state of desktop clients let me say some good things about the state of iPhone Twitter clients, in particular one known as Tweetie. Tweetie is new on the iPhone Twitter scene but it is a serious contender right out of the gate and my favorite client by far. It is $2.99 from the iTunes Store and has just about every feature I could ask for in a Twitter client. Let me highlight a few of my favorite features you don't see very often in iPhone clients. First off I really like the UI look at some of the screenshots and I think you'll agree it has a very "iPhone-esque UI". It is easy to "retweet", send/view replies and direct messages, post an image to twitpic and update your Twitter location. Last but certainly not least is the ability to access trends from search.twitter.com as well as perform and save custom searches, very nice. In my opinion all of these features combine to make Tweetie the Twitter client of choice on the iPhone and particularly for power-users (addicts?).

As I often lament I just wish there were a desktop/Mac Twitter client half as good as Tweetie is on the iPhone. Trust me I've tried just about all of the clients that will actually run on OSX: Twhirl, Twitterific, Tweetdeck, Spaz, to name a few (by the way who does name these things?). What I've found for the most part is that the clients packed with features tend to have horrible UIs and the clients with tolerable UIs tend to sacrifice UI design. Of course on the one hand I suppose that this is the eternal paradox of software design. One would think given I work in the field I might keep that in mind but hey I can't be on the clock 24/7.

Alright so here's my Twitter recipe:

1. One part Twitter web interface.
   
2. One part Fluid Site Specific Browser.
   
3. One part Endless Tweets userscript.
   
4. One part Textexpander.
   
5. One part Twitterific.
   
6. One part Growl.
   
7. Ten point five parts of Mac OS X.

   Create a new SSB in fluid with the Twitter.com homepage. Season the SSB with the Endless Tweets userscript if desired, this marks tweets since the previous reload as "read." Next install Twitterific and configure it to display Growl notifications for your Twitter account and turn off the option to display the window. The effect of this is that you simply get Growl notifications of your Twitter. This was the easiest way I could find to do this and still use the Twitter.com homepage. What I've found is that usually the web interface is the most reliable and you don't have to worry about API changes.

   For added usability and flavor use Textexpander to create Twitter related keyboard macros as needed. Textexpander is a Mac preference pane and probably no stranger to seasoned Mac users that allows you to create "snippets" or keyboard macros. For example if I type something like ".bobma" I could then have Textexpander replace that with "Barack Obama." In the context of Twitter one really handy feature is Textexpander will also run Applescripts and I have scripts setup to take the URL on the clipboard and turn it into either a TinyURL or a Bit.ly URL and paste it into my tweet. I also have macros for things like replies for common people I @reply, and for retweeting as well. I've found with these snippets I've been able to make up for many of the things I might miss from a third party client.

   Combine and serve, you should end up with something like this.
   

I hope you've enjoyed this expose on how I interface with Twitter and by all means if you have suggestions of other was to attack the problem, clients I should try, etc. Please leave them in the comments or @ them to me at bethejustin on Twitter. Until then Tweet on!!

The Tech

So today I decided to head down to the The Tech museum in San Jose. For two reasons I guess one it was open on Thanksgiving and two it looked pretty cool. It actually was pretty cool very much like the Museum of Science in Boston.

One of the exhibits I really liked was they had a whole setup on how the internet works. Part of the exhibit was a wall that guides the viewer through the process of something being sent over the internet and highlights things like packets, servers, back bones, routers, and the role they all play in delivering a web page to your screen for example. I suppose it isn't an earth shattering idea for an exhibit at a place known as "The Tech" but I like the idea that people can learn something about the Internet which we all use now in our daily lives actually works. One of the other really cool, at least to a total geek like me, things they had in this particular exhibit was "Whack-a-Spam" or Whack-a-Mole but instead you are trying to whack down incoming spam and let me tell you it wasn't all that easy either! Which I suppose makes it a fitting analogue to trying to combat spam in reality. Check out my Flickr page for some other cool pics as well.

I also took the opportunity to check out the IMAX film "Adrenaline Rush" about sky divers and base jumpers. Two things I can safely say I won't be doing...ever...crazies who do it are insane! One of the things they did was build a replica of a parachute Leonardo Da Vinci had designed and test it, it actually worked and that was pretty cool. Being in an IMAX theater always reminds me of when I went to Space Camp (yes I went to Space Camp and it was AWESOME so there!) each night they would show an IMAX movie that some how related to the space program. We would always make sure we had the very front row and as the lights dimmed we would lie on our backs and stare up at the massive screen as the Shuttle Launched overhead. Sadly it's a close as I've come to seeing an actual Shuttle launch but still a fun memory.

They also have free WiFi and a descent cafe so really what's not to like? ;-) All in all not a bad Thanksgiving and I was even able to work a geek angle into the day as well. I'm thankful for geeks and being one. Happy remaining hours of Thanksgiving.

My Holiday Playlist

So Yesterday I dusted the digital dust off my Holiday music collection and threw together this collection of my holiday favorites.  I'm a big fan of Christmas music you can head-bang to ;-)  And you find plenty of it in the list below I personally recommend anything by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra as well as Garey Hoey's holiday collection Ho-Ho-Hoey.  I'm also a sucker for some Mannheim Steamroller although that might be from the years and years of my parents playing it ;-)  Other favorites include Run Run Rudolph and the Jack Johnson version of Rudolph a Red-nosed Reindeer.  Perhaps my favorite on the list this year that's been getting a lot of play on my iPhone is Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses.  Enjoy! Happy Holidays.

Playlist: Holiday (Rated) 52 songs, 2:53:34.820056915283 total time, 212.7 MB
Title	Artist
Chaunaka Song	Adam Sandler
Mr. Fezziwig's Annual Christmas Ball	Alan Menken
Elf's Lament (With Michael Bul	Barenaked Ladies
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen-We	Barenaked Ladies
Deck The Stills	Barenaked Ladies
Do They Know It's Christmas?	Barenaked Ladies +Guster+Dido
White Christmas	Bing Crosby
I'll Be Home For Christmas	Bing Crosby
Silver Bells	Bing Crosby
It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas	Bing Crosby
Christmas In Killarney	Bing Crosby
Mele Kalikimaka	Bing Crosby
Carol of the Bells	The Bird And The Bee
Jingle Bell Rock	Bobby Helms
Medley (Mary's Boy Child - Oh My Lord)	Boney M
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree	Brenda Lee
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town	Bruce Springsteen
Silver Bells	Burl Ives
Christmas In Fallujah (Music and Lyrics By Billy Joel)	Cass Dillon
Charlie Brown Christmas Theme	Charles Schultz
Run Run Rudolph	Chuck Berry
Merry Merry Merry Frickin' Christmas	Frickin'A
Joy To The World	Gary Hoey
Carol Of The Bells	Gary Hoey
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)	Gary Hoey
Hark The Herald Angels Sing	Gary Hoey
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer	Jack Johnson
Happy Christmas (War Is Over)	John Lennon
Carol of the Bells	John Williams
Feliz Navidad	Jose Feliciano
Nutcracker: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy	London Festival Orchestra
Nutcracker: Trepak (Russian Dance)	London Festival Orchestra
Deck The Halls	Mannheim Steamroller
Angels We Have Heard on High	Mannheim Steamroller
I Saw Three Ships	Mannheim Steamroller
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing	Mannheim Steamroller
Little Drummer Boy	Mannheim Steamroller
You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch	The MGM Studio Orchestra
Just Stockings On	Munk
O Holy Night	New Orleans Jazz Ensamble (Sudio 60)
Home for the Holidays (There's No Place Like)	Perry Como
If Every Day Were Christmas	Podsafe for Peace
The March Of The Kings - Hark The Herald Angels Sing	Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Three Kings And I (What Really Happened)	Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Joy-Angels We Have Heard On High	Trans-Siberian Orchestra
An Angel Came Down	Trans-Siberian Orchestra
O Come All Ye Faithful - O Hol	Trans-Siberian Orchestra
A Mad Russian's Christmas	Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24) (Carol of the Bells)	Trans-Siberian Orchestra
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clau	Various
The Twelve Pains of Christmas	Various
Christmas Wrapping	The Waitresses