Sunday, June 14, 2009

Waiting for the Snow Lepoard

I've been telling people about the importance of the new version of the OS coming at the end of the summer OS 10.6. It will only run on Intel computers. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is.

Recently I've been plotting about how to shift machines around after we do some upgrading in the library media labs. I've got two 24" iMacs on order with the hope for two more so thinking about how to deploy the four G-5's that they will replace is reasonable. It's like all things, planing makes good sense, but the realities hit hard and fast when you trip over some unthought of problem or your view point shifts and a new idea is discovered.

I was going to suggest that we give the Music Program one of our old G-4 machines so that they could run Siebelius on it for music notation. Well the Siebelius concept that I know is way out of date. It's a whole new animal now and has much higher technical specs, an Intel machine for one. That keeps happening more and more and bodes ill for the usual trickle down effect we normally get from updating. Nothing trickles down anymore and we're about to hit a big technology wall.

The newest thing I've just tripped over is QuickTime X that comes as a part of the new 10.6. It does streaming all by it's self. You no longer need a QuickTime Streaming Server. Yea, so what? Well it sounds to me as if a lot of people will be "doing the stream" all on their own maybe at a much lower level but much more often. Hum. No, I don't really know what that means, but I'll start thinking about it. Watch out YouTube you're in trouble now.

But what it really means is that there are a lot of hidden doors with problems and opportunities lurking behind some or all of the current and future changes. There's a flow to the direction of all of this. It's not a given that everything is going to work out well, but it also doesn't pay to go against the flow. We need to see the pattern, establish directions and ride the wave. SD cards, hybrid cameras, Intel processors, cheap RAM, AVCHD, H.264, full HD, working across the network - all of which require higher skill sets, deeper insights, more experimentation and most of all good humor.

gunther

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Happy Vacation Days

My energies have moved over to the new Liebling Center building this last week and it's both fun and physical. It's always exciting designing new installs  – stations and labs – for working and learning, but it's also a lot of moving boxes of books, computers, monitors, and just stuff all over from one building to another in the heat, in the rain, and mostly right in the back - ouch.

I'm at a point now when I need the internet working in the building, but it's not there yet. So, I thought, now's a good time to take some of those vacation days that are still sitting there ticking away. Use them or lose them is the phrase. Bob Crowley says no internet until Tuesday so Friday and Monday are vacation days for me.

You might think that days off are happy and carefree, but not always. Yesterday a neighbor woman stopped at the door with a flyer of her white cat Twinkie who's missing. Oh my goodness what agony in her face. We talked a long time about cats and the neighborhood with tears just barely remaining behind her eyes. An hour later I went out in our yard to look around in likely hiding places and "meowed" out loud hoping for a response. I'm actually pretty good at it, but just silence. How sad. I watched her all day going up and down the street stopping at front doors and walking up driveways.

Today while working in the backyard garden my wife came over and said there was a tragedy. What? One of our resident chipmunks had drowned in a watering can left in the yard. Oh the poor little guy is all I could think, what a sad way to die. Our cats love watching him run across the deck with their eyes wide and their noses pressed again the sliding glass door. They'll miss him too.

Happy relaxing days off and it's only Saturday afternoon with two more days to go. At this rate I'll be a wreck by the time I get back to work.

gunther