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• Doug 5:21 pm on June 26, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Media, Outliners, Personal, Science, Tinderbox, Work

  My phone rang this morning around 10:30, with a voice mail from F.C. Tucker. I haven’t quite wrapped up all of my real estate business yet, so I’m still an active agent and therefore still have voice mail. One of the worst things about being a real estate agent are the calls and voice mails at inopportune times; calls that disturb conversations or family time or just plain relaxation. The phone ringing made me cross, and made me dread whatever the voice mail message was going to be. Real estate voice mail is seldom good news. More likely, it’s some problem to be handled that consumes a chunk of your day.

  This time, I wish it had been.

  The call was from one of our managing brokers. He was calling everyone in the office to let us know that the oldest son of one of our colleagues in the office had been killed in a car accident this morning. You could tell he could barely get through the news himself - the colleague in question was his assistant, and he is very close to her and her family.

  I didn’t even really know that she had a son. Too often as agents in the same office we grow familiar with each other, but don’t exchange many personal details except with a handful of close friends. The profession is too volatile, too many people come and go, and you get too focused on your own business. In a week or a month or a year, you may be “across the table” from that colleague, negotiating a deal. They might be an adversary, and it might not pay to have them knowing too much. Mostly though, you just don’t bother; you’re too much wrapped in your own concerns and business.

  So I knew her, but didn’t know her well. I never met her son, but knowing her, I’m sure he was a fine young man, with a lot of promise and great things ahead of him. Now I’ll never know him, and his mom will never, ever be the same person she was before this morning.

  I really do wish that voice mail had been about a problem with a transaction.

  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/imadesomescience.html
  Sun, 26 Jun 2005 11:47:44 -0500
  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/imadesomescience.html

  Blogging

  Media

  Science

  demiller@gmail.com (Doug Miller)

  
  Via Alwin

  

  Via Alwin

  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/tinderboxandopml.html
  Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:43:52 -0500
  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/tinderboxandopml.html

  Tinderbox

  Outliners

  demiller@gmail.com (Doug Miller)

  Mark reports that Tinderbox 2.5 imports OPML, which is a great thing! Of course, Tinderbox has long been able to handle OPML export via an export template, just like HTML export. There’s an excellent example of how to do this on the Tinderbox wiki. The addition of import functionality means

  Mark reports that Tinderbox 2.5 imports OPML, which is a great thing! Of course, Tinderbox has long been able to handle OPML export via an export template, just like HTML export. There’s an excellent example of how to do this on the Tinderbox wiki. The addition of import functionality means that Tinderbox outlines can now be easily exchanged with other OPML aware software, which is a GoodThing™.

  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/firstdayonthenewjob.html
  Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:24:44 -0500
  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/firstdayonthenewjob.html

  Work

  Personal

  demiller@gmail.com (Doug Miller)

  In addition to being the summer solstice, today was my first day on the new job at Wishard. It was pretty much a typical first day - being introduced to more people than I can hope to remember, trying to get my work environment set up so I can be

  In addition to being the summer solstice, today was my first day on the new job at Wishard. It was pretty much a typical first day - being introduced to more people than I can hope to remember, trying to get my work environment set up so I can be productive, and just generally taking it all in. So far it looks like I made an excellent choice and I think I’ll enjoy the new gig - and that’s said in light of being aware that not everything is sunshine and roses there.

  I did spend about three hours today in a course on basic OpenVMS system administration. It’s been about 15 years since I did any serious work on VMS, and that wasn’t really system admin stuff, but it wasn’t tough to grasp at all. Sort of like *nix for Neanderthals. The tools are there, they just aren’t as sophisticated as in more modern operating systems.

   

• Doug 2:21 am on June 22, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Family, Personal, Work

  Happy solstice to everyone! Also, a Happy Anniversary to Hal and Audrey, who have been married for eight years today. Good timing you two, getting married at the Solstice. Terri and I missed it by a few days; our anniversary is Friday (16 years).

  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/lightattheendofthetu.html
  Sat, 18 Jun 2005 17:54:07 -0500
  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/lightattheendofthetu.html

  Personal

  Work

  demiller@gmail.com (Doug Miller)

  It took most of the day and two trips into the office, but I think I have the worst of the remaining real estate business issues dealt with. Of course, I might just be kidding myself and there may be minefields waiting for me, but while I’m not out of

  It took most of the day and two trips into the office, but I think I have the worst of the remaining real estate business issues dealt with. Of course, I might just be kidding myself and there may be minefields waiting for me, but while I’m not out of the woods yet I think I can see it from here.

  Here’s to hoping the real estate gods aren’t just waiting to play a huge trick on me.

   

• Doug 3:42 am on June 18, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Personal, Work

  It is, as they say, “too nice a day to work.” Hardly a cloud in the sky and low 70’s for the temperature - I would rather spend the day outside and doing nothing of any real importance.

  Instead it’s going to be a crazy day, running all over town and on the phone for much of it. I have a closing this morning, and then have to run downtown to Wishard for some (more) pre-employment stuff. I’m dealing with two home inspection responses I’m trying to get wrapped up before my last full day as an agent, one of which has turned ugly. I have to get some paperwork to an agent in another office who is taking over one of my listings. Four solid weeks of effort to wrap up my business, and there are things that still won’t be done when I start at Wishard.

  Really, it’s too nice a day to work.

   

• Doug 2:00 pm on June 17, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Apple, Media, Personal

  Rob McNair-Huff posts that he is changing the focus of Mac Net Journal:

  I chatted about this a couple of weeks ago with Doug Miller - how I had considered shutting down MNJ over the last year. I am not going to end my work on Mac Net Journal. But I am shifting the focus of the site to be a little wider and less all Mac, all the time. The reason is that I am simply not interested enough in the Mac world these days to stick just to that topic. I still plan to post mainly about the Mac and making the most of using these machines for creative work and living what I hope will be a rewarding life in the coming years, but expect more photography, more real life and less pushing the latest Mac gadgets and software. I must be growing up or something…

  I’ve always been fond of Mac Net Journal and read it every day. I’ve always been more fond of Rob’s writing, however, and am glad to hear that we’ll be hearing more from him on a variety of topics. I hope he’ll find it to be more engaging being a blogger than being a reporter.

  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/elinsstoriespictures.html
  Thu, 16 Jun 2005 08:47:38 -0500
  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/elinsstoriespictures.html

  Blogging

  Personal

  demiller@gmail.com (Doug Miller)

  Elin is writing stories and Photoshopping pictures in return for Mr. Teen Summer Camp donations. I’m particularly fond of the picture of my dog Rex with bat wings!
  I started going to camps when I was 11, and by the age of 15 was more or less living at camps

  Elin is writing stories and Photoshopping pictures in return for Mr. Teen Summer Camp donations. I’m particularly fond of the picture of my dog Rex with bat wings!

  I started going to camps when I was 11, and by the age of 15 was more or less living at camps through the summer. I ended up working at camps and did so until I was in my late twenties. I made friends and connections during those years that I still have today, and acquired a huge store of great memories. If you can help Mr. Teen go to camp this summer and have a shot at doing the same sort of thing, please donate.

   

• Doug 1:33 pm on June 16, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Mobile, Open Source, Personal, Politics, Privacy, Technology, Work, World

  Cingular opposes calls on planes: Cingular Wireless wants to maintain a ban on cell phone calls aboard airplanes, according to a published report.

  USA Today reports Thursday the company has taken that position in a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA and the Federal Communications Commission are looking at lifting the ban on in-flight calls and then using new technology.

  Cingular spokeswoman Rochelle Cohen told the paper that people talking loudly or incessantly on cell phones in trains, restaurants or other closed venues is a constant source of grousing by its customers.

  The letter to the FAA seems at odds with a joint comment from Cingular and No. 2 wireless provider Verizon Wireless to the FCC, according to the paper. That statement said the two leading cell phone companies might support lifting the ban if safeguards existed to protect consumers on the ground from interference.

  That’s my craptacular wireless provider, always talking out of both sides of their mouths. Personally, I’ve no great desire to have the ability to make cell phone calls from planes, but I sure would like inexpensive WiFi.

  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/housevotestocurbpatr.html
  Thu, 16 Jun 2005 08:07:32 -0500
  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/housevotestocurbpatr.html

  Politics

  Privacy

  demiller@gmail.com (Doug Miller)

  House votes to curb Patriot Act, defies Bush: The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday defied President Bush by approving a measure making it harder for federal agents to secretly gather information on people’s library reading habits and bookstore purchases.
  The pendulum begins to swing?

  House votes to curb Patriot Act, defies Bush: The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday defied President Bush by approving a measure making it harder for federal agents to secretly gather information on people’s library reading habits and bookstore purchases.

  The pendulum begins to swing?

  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/subversion.html
  Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:57:37 -0500
  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/subversion.html

  Technology

  Work

  Open Source

  demiller@gmail.com (Doug Miller)

  Back in the day that I did software development, using a version control system (CVS, at the time) was a daily occurrence. That hasn’t been the case for the past couple of years, but as this article points out, version control systems have much broader applicability than just for writing

  Back in the day that I did software development, using a version control system (CVS, at the time) was a daily occurrence. That hasn’t been the case for the past couple of years, but as this article points out, version control systems have much broader applicability than just for writing code.

  The article provides decent instructions for getting and using Subversion for Linux or Windows, but doesn’t touch on OS X. You can find a binary package for installation on OS X here, and the svnX GUI wrapper for Subversion on OS X here.

  Given that my new job is going to involve a fair bit of project management and no little writing, having a decent version control system set up for managing versions of project files and proposals is a must. Frankly, I should have been using some sort of version control the past couple of years to manage versions of contracts and other documents related to real estate transactions, but it just never occurred to me.

  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/mrteenssummercamp.html
  Thu, 16 Jun 2005 08:47:40 -0500
  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/mrteenssummercamp.html

  Personal

  World

  demiller@gmail.com (Doug Miller)

  Eastgater and all around fantastic storyteller Elin Sjursen is facing a challenge:
  It’s stressful to be a single mum. Parent meetings, school trips, new clothes that are too small already the next month, chocolate stains in your sofa, rotten socks under the beds. Bed times, bed stories, Playstation must have

  Eastgater and all around fantastic storyteller Elin Sjursen is facing a challenge:

  It’s stressful to be a single mum. Parent meetings, school trips, new clothes that are too small already the next month, chocolate stains in your sofa, rotten socks under the beds. Bed times, bed stories, Playstation must have games, and so on - if you have kids, you know all of this.

  But that’s not stress to me. Stress to me is being just one. There is no other person here to help Mr. Teen when he gets in trouble, or he just wants to know why the sky is blue. Or why Mr. Bush became president, or why he has to go to bed right now. And when Mr. Teen brings home straight A’s, or lands an audition to be in a science show on TV, he has only me to tell him that he is great.

  Mr. Teen never complains. All he needs, he says, is an internet connection. And now, he doesn’t even have that. His summer is not looking fun, and I am hoping someone can help me change that. Please check out Mr. Teen’s Summer Camp site.

  I’ve met Mr. Teen, and he’s a great young man with a great young mind. Elin soldiers on despite the challenges of being a working single mother. If you can spare a little bit, why not help out and send Mr. Teen to camp?

  Oh, and wish Elin a Happy Birthday while you’re at it!

   

• Doug 2:45 am on June 9, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Apple, Technology

  Wow. What a bizarre weekend and strange Monday on the Mac front! When the blogs were buzzing this past weekend with speculation about the switch to Intel, I have to admit that my reaction to the idea was generally negative. Having just shelled out for a 17″ PowerBook, I was less than thrilled at the idea of my investment being devalued that quickly. I was also concerned that developer would basically stop and significant development on PPC applications as they focused on Intel software and waited for the new Intel Macs to be released.

  Once the announcement was made and I had a chance to do some more reading and watch the keynote last night, I’m a lot less negative. My head is in about the same place as Tom Negrino’s, for much the same reasons.

  I buy a new desktop Mac every two or three years. I got a Dual 2.5 GHz G5 tower last September. I think it’s a pretty rockin’ machine. If I keep it for the usual amount of time, I’ll be ready for something faster and cooler in late 2006 or mid-2007. And hey, that will be just in time for an Intel-based machine running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

  Other folks have already been writing about the difficulties involved in this transition, and they may well be right. I want to see how Apple is going to avoid the “Osbourne effect.” I want to see how many developers, especially small developers, decide to pull up stakes and join the ranks of Windows developers. But I can’t help but think that Apple’s been doing awfully well at executing and delivering great products, and it’s clear that they’re not stupid down in Cupertino. Tiger is the best Mac OS I’ve ever used. The iPods are great. I still love this G4 PowerBook I’m using to write this. I’m certainly willing to give Steve and his crew the benefit of the doubt.

  I should be ready to consider an upgrade to this 17″ about the time the new Intel systems have been out long enough to demonstrate that they work well. The reaction from the developer community seems on the whole to be fairly positive. Apple seems to have a decent transition plan, and, amazingly for a technology company, largely seem to have the pieces in place to make the transition prior to making the announcement. I’m willing to stick around to see how this plays out.

   

• Doug 2:45 am on June 9, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Apple, Tinderbox

  Mark reminds those of us in the Tinderbox community not to be terribly concerned over the switch to Intel CPU’s:

  Don’t panic. I think everything’s going to be OK.

  We’re going to have to move a lot of code to yet another platform. But it’ll be much less work than Tinderbox for Windows — and a lot of the Tinderbox for Windows project infrastructure will help. We’ll still have to cope with two frameworks, but it shouldn’t be too terrible.

  Which is the response we’ve come to expect from Mark and Eastgate: always calm under pressure. I have to say that Mark was the first one that sprang to mind when Mr. Jobs was discussing Metrowerks developers.

   

• Doug 2:38 am on June 9, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Personal, Whackos, Work

  Alwin Hawkins discovers the hard way that institutional IT departments can be hide-bound, short-sighted, and vindictive. He comitted the heinous sin of installing non-standard software on his office workstation.

  Now, as an IT type, I’m 100% in favor of defining supported software and workstation configurations, and in general not allowing users to install software willy-nilly. That creates ungodly support nightmares that no IT department needs. That’s even more the case in an environment where the users are not technically sophisticated, which seems to be the case in Alwin’s shop.

  Unfortunately, IT’s reaction in this case is completely knee-jerk. Laying aside for a minute the issue of how Alwin had sufficient administrative rights to install any software at all in an environment that’s supposed to be so locked down, I first have to be concerned with why the IT types didn’t come talk with him to discover why he was doing what he was doing - which was to increase his personal productivity with tools he was familiar with and skilled in using. Now, it’s possible that those tools are insecure or could cause other problems in Alwin’s environment - but because these particular High Priests of Technology never investigated the situation, there’s no way to really know. They then compound their error by attempting to administratively stifle his efforts, rather than seeking to co-opt him into an adjunct and on-site power user, able to offer some support to his colleagues and act as a liason with IT.

  Instead we have an IT manager acting as an obvious control freak. The actions of the IT staff have clearly created an enemy rather than an ally, something no IT staff needs or can afford. Worse, Alwin’s managers, the people most likely (aside from patients) to directly benefit from his increased productivity and the increased productivity of any of his coworkers he manages to help, aren’t backing him, but are holding him up for censure. That sucks, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

  Al, I gotta tell ya man, I’d have my resume on the street. These losers do not deserve you.

  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/doingsomethingdiffer.html
  Sat, 2 Jul 2005 20:33:31 -0500
  http://www.doug-miller.net/blog/archive/doingsomethingdiffer.html

  Work

  Personal

  demiller@gmail.com (Doug Miller)

  This is now official enough that I feel I can announce it here: as of June 21st, I will no longer be a REALTOR®. I have accepted a position as Senior Engineer Analyst with the IT Services Department of the MIS Department of Wishard Hospital. The IT Services department is

  This is now official enough that I feel I can announce it here: as of June 21st, I will no longer be a REALTOR®. I have accepted a position as Senior Engineer Analyst with the IT Services Department of the MIS Department of Wishard Hospital. The IT Services department is the Tier 2 and above engineering shop for the MIS Department, and is primarily responsible for network administration for Wishard, the city/county hospital for Indianapolis and Marion County.

  I didn’t go looking for this job, but I’m very, very glad that it found me. The timing seems right for a lot of reasons, I’ll be doing work I really, really enjoy, and I’ll be involved in some very large scale Healthcare IT projects that seem particularly interesting. The opportunity was just too damn good to pass up.

  I’m going to really miss my colleagues at F.C. Tucker, who are some of the best people I’ve ever worked with. It’s a good company with great agents. I’m going to miss my clients, all of whom became friends over the course of our relationship. What I’m not going to miss are the 80+ hour weeks and the uncertain cash flow.

  The icing on the cake is that we’re a very *nix friendly shop. I’ll even have a Mac Mini on my desk. There also seems to be a lot of interest in some of the things I’ve done with Tinderbox - I’m looking forward to seeing what new applications I can develop for my favorite personal content management software in this new environment!

   

• Doug 2:32 am on June 7, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Apple, Technology, Tinderbox

  After repeatedly having not much luck getting Spotlight to index Tinderbox documents, I followed the advice in this hint at macosxhints.com. The value I discovered for ’someSpotlightType’ on my system was a seemingly nonsensical ‘dyn.ah62d4rv4gk8yg3pwqy’, but I plugged it into the importer Info.plist file, re-imported all of my Tinderbox documents into Spotlight, and now get those documents showing up in Spotlight searches. YMMV.

  Update: Al Hawkins reports that adding an .xml extension to Tinderbox files also gets Spotlight to index them, which makes sense.

   

• Doug 12:04 am on June 4, 2005 | 0 | # |
  Tags: Apple, Tinderbox

  Earlier this week I and others queried about better integration between Tinderbox and Mac OS 10.4 Tiger. At the time, Mark Bernstein responded that Tinderbox would indeed support Tiger features.

  True to his word, not even a week later, Eastgate today released to Tinderbox beta testers a version of the application that’s more Spotlight-friendly. This new version will allow the contents Tinderbox documents to be indexed by Spotlight, making the contents of Tinderbox documents searchable at the OS level. Sweet!

  On a similar note, William Cole relates how Mark and Eastgate jumped in and solved a vexing support issue. I’m reminded of the first support experience I had with Eastgate back in March of 2002, which was very similar to what Mr. Cole experienced just recently.

  There just aren’t very many companies today, let alone software companies that are just flat-out as responsive and attentive to their customers as Eastgate is. They listen, and then do something about it. That alone is enough to keep me coming back to their software again and again.

  Update: Hugh Nicoll relates his experiences with Eastgate, and Alwin Hawkins weighs in as well.

   

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