feel the winds

This summer I hope to do a bit more sailing, getting comfortable enough to handle the boat in different directions relative to the wind is one of the tough challenges of learning to sail.

If there is a wind blowing, you can pretty much go every way, except, straight dead into the wind. By the end of the year, I should be able to handle all these directions and with any luck, may even know what to call each point of sail or possible 'wind' scenario...

mother natures mothers day monsoon...

Have you ever forgot to give your mother a card on mothers day? Well this year looks like we all forgot about Mother Nature... and she cried, hard... Seemed like 10+ days of rain, rain, rain... While the northeast got hit hard, (Why couldn't this have happened in winter!) the whole country was pretty much covered with rainclouds... I kept looking at the 10 day forecast, hoping for a glimpse of sunshine... Well last night, the sun finally peaked it's head through and the people rejoiced!!

It happened to be the evening of my birthday, and that gave us two reasons to celebrate! Although the forecast ahead looks spotty, I'm optimistic we *wont* see that again this year... But at least next time, there will be a pump in my basement ready to go...

photobucket slide shows

Gloucester slideshow:

Switch, unless you have a free laptop...

Looking back at my blog, I find it hard to believe that I have yet to talk much about my Powerbook G4... I did quickly mention it as an inpulse buy... but I think it's time to talk about my favorite portable computer...

So, as a DEC-Dos kid, I grew up on the PC side of the world... Never really liking Mac's, even despising them -- their damn one button mouse, or the cutesy overpriced features they offered. As a kid, I was mainly concerned about one thing on my computer.. The latest and greatest PC Games, and as most you may know.. The Mac game department was severly lacking in quantity and quality of games available... As I outgrew computer gaming during my freshman year in college .. I started to make more use of my computer skillset and actually do some work with computers.. I was drawn into Unix/Linux around 1994, using MIT Haystacks computer systems and wrote a QBasic scientific calculator (Reverse Polish styled) which marked the start of my computer programming experience... As the web-exploded, I was pretty focused on staying on top of the curve.. learning as much about the next new technology..

So as a WPI college graduate, I had very strong background in DOS, Windows, Linux, Solaris, and Unix but was missing one piece of the OS landscape.. the Macintosh.. This is around the time of OS X (Mac's first unix based OS) being released... and thought i'd like to give it a try...

In a portable laptop, I did have some requirements.. Needed Microsoft Office. Check. Needed a web-browser. Check. Wi-fi and hardwired ethernet. Check, check. Needed to be able to burn cds, check. Play music, check. Play Games? eh, no more time for games, uncheck... Besides I had a PC desktop still. Remote Desktop Client & VNC Client, Photoshop, Development Environment, Apache webserver, MySQL.. Check, Check, Check, Check.

The bottom line is, the OS X laptop has been able to do everything I've ever needed.. There was a small period of time where there wasn't a VPN client for OS X to connect to work... then there was an OS X version released.... If I wanted to run a standard windows app on my laptop (windows version of Tax Software) I just remotely connected to a windows computer over the network. I wanted to use a Verizon PCMCIA card, and found out the setup for it online... I wanted to use bluetooth to sync my contacts, downloaded them from yahoo address book and importing them into my phone... Use my bluetooth phone as an internet connection, abet slow, but if I needed it.

Now with OS X's release of BootCamp for Intel based Macs, I expect all of you PC Only users to take the challenge, and if you actually still prefer Windows, at least you'll have a sleek and nicely desinged system -- Actually, I've seen so many new PC laptops that look strangley like, a Mac.. wonder why.

NTEN Conference in Seattle, WA

2006 Nonprofit Technology Conference in Seattle, WA


The theme for the 2006 conference was Changing Lives and Building Community: Nonprofit Technology in Action


Agenda: http://www.nten.org/ntc-agenda

Events I attended:

Weds - 3/22/06
11am: Vendor/Developer Networking Event
1pm: How Does Free and Open Source Software Fit Into the Nonprofit Technology Landscape?
3pm: Science Fair

Thurs - 3/23/06

900am: Guy Kawasaki
1030am: Emerging Standards for User-Centric Identity: Tools for Creating Improved Relationships With Constituents
130pm: Managing Technology Projects: Finding the Right Tools and Appropriate Processes
330pm: The New Role of the CTO:It's All About the Strategy
8pm: Event at the Space Needle

Fri - 3/24/06

9:00am: Trisk Dziko, Technology Access Foundation
1030am: Everyone is Online, Now What? How We Can All Work Together to Have a Bigger Impact
130pm: Getting Your Cause on the Map: Improving Your Program Delivery with Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
330pm: The Next Generation of Open Source Tools

cell phones - Sony Ericsson T68i

I currently have a Sony Ericsson T68i phone(2.5 years old!), and service with T-Mobile. Prior to owning this phone I had a Samsung flip-phone, and a Kyocera candybar style phone with Sprint. But when I moved from Brookline to Allston, Sprint coverage seemed to be lacking in my house. While T-Mobile is known for their great in-city coverage (works underground at major subway stops), they also allow for usage of superb phone models(any unlocked GSM phone) which just aren't possible through many other wireless carriers in the US aside from AT&T. T-Mobile's coverage is pretty bad when you travel out to the rural areas(unless your phone supports the 850 band, but usually while I'm out there I'm on vacation and don't want to be easily reached anyway.. Well enough about service and carriers, this post is really about my phone...

-Great battery life (my conversations are generally short) -Bluetooth - sync: contacts, calendar, xfer pictures, ringtones -Yahoo Mail & SMS notifications of new mail -limited Free WAP site browsing -Laptop internet through cellphones bluetooth (56k) -SIM card contact management. -iGo charger tip (works with my car/home charger)

These features i'd like in my next phone/service, and probably won't upgrade until:
-3+ megapixel camera
-superb audio/microphone quality, 2.5mm headphone audio out..
-internet audio streaming & playback
-faster internet data tranfers when using phone+laptop combo
-Similar pricepoint (under 50$ for all the minutes/data xfers I need)
-better network coverage
-mini-usb charging/data connection would be nice.

First trip out West

Just getting back from Utah.. what a trip. I actually devoted a whole site towards the organization and memories of the trip:

http://parkcity2006.blogspot.com

I was supposed to leave 10am on Wednesday morning, but it snowed 10+ inches on Tuesday night, and I changed my flight to get a day of fresh snow in!! We went to Solitude and did some light hiking off the main trails to get some fresh tracks, it was such a great day....



I look forward to coming back here sometime soon!! but this could be the start of the annual trip to the Rockies...

February, Snow Please!!

Wow, February 1st... We've had a pretty mild winter so far, with December and January having some pretty warm temps and mostly rain instead of snow...

Now with Feb and March ahead, hopefully we get some snow dumps!

New England Complex

As New Englanders, we learn from a young age that one of the uncertainties of life here is the weather. We very much appreciate the change of seasons, scenery, activities, temperatures... but always looking forward to 6 months ahead, where the weather is the opposite...

During the summer, we love going to the beach, staying cool, enjoying outdoor bbq's and sports. But even though the summer fly's by and I enjoy every second of it, I'm also looking forward to winter and big snowstorms ahead...

And during the winter, we love going up to the mountains, enduring the cold for fun in the snow on the slopes, indoor holiday and house parties, vacationing in places much warmer during the coldest weeks of the year..

And we cannot forget the seasons in between... fall bringing on the freshest of air, getting outside to see the foliage and enjoy the brisk temperatures in merely a sweater..

While spring brings new life to the plants and flowers as they awaken from their slumbers, and those first days where you can get by with short sleeves and feel the suns radiant beams upon your face...

People generally don't like change, but for most of us New Englander's we thrive on it.. and it's what makes each and every year fantastic...

Winter has started....

As you may have noticed from a lack of postings in Decemeber, Winter has started... and with it brings winter snowsports... I've been snowboarding a few times already, and also have tried some skiing again... I created an offshoot blog, roco.telaetas.com which started as an attempt to organize friends and trips up north.. but it has mainly become my own personal plan for the winter and a trip journal for documenting the days I spend up north...

ROCO is our group acronymn for Rockin' Out, a term which helps us to describe our attitude to ripping the mountain up.


I even sport a ROCO bumper sticker, courtesy of a founding father, Andy Rocks Out.

So I've saved up some extra vaction time, I have a seasons's pass for the American Ski Company Mountains and Loon, and am anxiously awaiting the harsh snowy winter which some locals even dread....

I also created another Trip Website/Blog for our trip out to Park City, Utah this spring.. parkcity2006.blogspot.com

shared calendar standard

I personally have a few calendars, a MS Outlook one for work related events, an iCal calendar for personal use(syncs with my phone cal), a Yahoo calendar for reminders I want txt msg’d to me, a family calendar to keep my family coordinated.. And the organizations in which I participate each have their own as well…. often just HTML/web based. I’d like to be able to manage just one calendar, and have the information fed into the appropriate application, or in the case of others viewing my calendar, they should be able to see certain events based on simple permission levels and be able to use their calendar application to include an event as well.. Do you see the problem? Event management is one of the most important technical challenges that can be solved but hasn’t to date. Their have been two similar standards which currently exist to date, VCal and iCal. While the two are not completely interchangeable, if you strip the extra tags out of each to a simple single event, most calendar applications can accept the event. MS uses Vcal within Outlook, and Open Source calendaring applications as well as Apples iCal use the other iCal format. Additionally with the introduction of RSS, and RSS news readers becoming more common (ie: myYahoo now allows RSS feeds to be added) this also provide another way to syndicate public events. But what if you want to share events with just family? just friends? just coworkers? or even just a specific person? Today’s technology really doesn’t support unified calendaring without some kind of synchronization software or knowing what the other people use for their calendar application.
Well, good news, M$ is starting to realize this problem and do something about it… Actually, I give credit to Ray Ozzie (founder of Groove Networks collaboration software) for bringing this challenge to Microsoft’s attention. Some people like to think of sports figures as people they would like to meet, or famous politicians, personally… Ray Ozzie is a guy who I deeply respect as a tech savy business leader. He has a good concept for what is important to businesses, and great ideas for solving their challenges through use of technology. Upon graduation from WPI, Groove was one of the top company’s that I really wanted to work for, unfortunately I was unable to use my network of connections to get a foot into the door. And now that they have been swallowed by MS, I’m not as sure about the flexibility of their future.
In short, I’m confident that MS’s new standard as long as it’s spec is kept open can be a step in the right direction for our calendar synchronization and event management woes.

Let's do it again...

With temperatures tonight dipping below freezing, I anxiously await our first snow here in Boston. Meanwhile up north at my favorite northeastern mountains the snow has already started to fall, and along with some additional help of the snow making guns the mountains are starting to open up… This weekend I’m thinking about warming up the legs with a day trip up to Sugarloaf. This year I opted for a different season’s pass than the usual one I got the last few years, I got an All for One pass which allows me to go to 5 mountains across the northeast (Sugarloaf, Sunday River, Attitash- Bear Peak, Killington, Mt Snow). My goal is to get to each of the mountains at least once, I’ve been to half of them before… but will get to see some new terrain as well. The tough part is going to be finding adequately priced places to stay for the weekends(hopefully long weekends) which I go up.

ROCO!!!

Wireless Broadband Anywhere (populated)

So this morning, I read some news articles on the web, checked my email and fantasy football team scores.. enjoyed my coffee and an hour of slacking off... the good part is, I wasn't at work... I was commuting into Boston on the train, and enjoying Wireless internet from my laptop... pretty neat!

Well, remember a while back when I was talking about Wireless Internet on the trains?

Today that day has come. With a Verizon Wireless (V620) card stuck into my Powerbook G4. Setup was pretty easy, just editing a few of the configuration files/settings and pluging the card in..

[instructions setting it up]

The price is still to much for personal use (60$ a month), but if you can get by with using it for your primary internet connection.. You can almost justify it..
[vzw router]
For now, business's will increasingly see this as an option for allowing sales and mobile workforces access to corporate data and applications. I can see it's implications also reaching areas of the US where hardwired Cable/DSL infrastructure is too costly to build.

Song of the Day

I've always wanted to be able to share a song or two that I currently really like...

Well, from now on I'll try to keep a small playlist available to you so that you can check out some music that you may have not heard before...

I can't provide you the files, just a full preview of the tunes :)

telaetas.com - [music]

reading this? perhaps you'd like some entertainment....

[fullscreen mode]

Basin Street Blues

So back in middle school, one of my favorite Trombone solos:

SitePal

Interesting....

Kinda like mr potato head for the web...

So the nice folks over at SitePal found my blog, and want me to help promote their product... what do you think?

They let you change characters, upload sound clips and change background images!

Do you read this blog?

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gas prices

After buying a Pathfinder (averaging 15-19 mpg), gas prices and fluctuations now concern me... I do take the train to work, which makes gas prices less of an issue.. But it does give me an opportunity to 'stock up' when I think the prices are better...

Click here to view graphs...



source: bostongasprices.com

Also, check out and contribute to: Cheap Gas a site which overlays gas price data onto a Google Map. It only is useful though if you post the price/location/date you last paid for gas to ensure accurate data.

e volution

one of M-W's definitions....
Main Entry: evo·lu·tion
Pronunciation: "e-v&-'lü-sh&n, "E-v&-
2 c (1) : a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state : GROWTH (2) : a process of gradual and relatively peaceful social, political, and economic advance d : something evolved

Are we evolving? things may becoming more complex, but to smaller amounts of specialized groups... majority of our society is using technology that they have little control or knowledge of it's inner workings.... are things getting better? it seems our world has become ever more fragile, a bit more insecure, too much paranoia... we accept technological advances, yet do not know the implications of our consumer purchases and the market shifts which are occuring... are things gradually becoming more peaceful? politically -- no way..... economic? the global economy is creating more wealth for fewer individuals... is it feasible to have a prosperous world for the majority of individuals?? if everyone was educated, everyone had a job, everyone had a place to live and food was available to all... can these circumstances exist and be sustained without depleting every natural resource we have here on our precious earth??? sure the modern world kicked off by the industrial revolution has made life 'better' for us, but has it made poorer nations 'worse'? what is it that you, as an individual can do.. to help the world move in the right direction? is our exponential growth in world population going to help us out?


What are we doing here???

why I don't have an ipod, yet...

I didn't say that I don't own a mp3 player yet...
(I own a cheap 256MB usb-flash drive based one)
but I still have yet to join the masses of i-pod affectionados... Why? I'm holding out for future, much better versions... they will come, but patience is required as they are still making plenty of $$ off of current incarnations....

Here is what I want in my I-pod:

A) Wireless syncing/playing built in.

My computer has 802.11 wireless capabilities and Bluetooth, the I-pod should be able to support one of these standards for wireless data transfer without the need for an additional adapter. I'd like to be able to get a headphones, car & home stereo products that allow me to connect the I-pod wire free (Yes I know about the iTrip, but it's an external accessory and a short term playing solution, quality doesn't cut it for me) Okay, but here's one more longshot add-on. If I can get internet in the room from a wireless router, or my laptop, or my cellphone... the I-pod should be able to take advantage of that connection so that I can play internet radio (aka my personal web music collection)

B) Cross platform syncing

I'm a geek. I don't have just one computer. It would be nice to be able to use the ipod with more than one computer, and be able to transfer more music onto it just by connecting it to a computer (see point A, wirelessly)

C) Sharing music made easier

I want my friends to be able to check out what I've been listening to, sure I know there is some copyright issues here but friends can borrow cd's and return them to me, I'd like them to be able to do the same with my digital music collection.

D) The longer I wait, the more features I get for my buck!

“Who wants or needs downloads if you can just stream it whenever you want? Disks are so overrated.” Nullsoft cofounder Tom Pepper Tom and I think on the same level...




Some neat devices on the horizon that would complement my 'I-pod of the future':

Airtunes Express - 802.11 Home Stereo

Bluetooth Headset incorporated into nice shades

Bluetooth Car Stereo - Pioneer DEH-P70BT: (available in europe)

If I was impatient, this could maybe tide me over:
Bluetooth MP3 Player from BoomGear

freedom of speech - journalism shifts

With past days of print-only publications, the news/media could put a spin on any story they'd like... And I'm sure influential partys or officials could potentially impact the way which these stories were presented to the public.

Enter present day, and the world of bloggers... We, you and I, are now reporters... on a small and distributed level with not as many readers... but we have the option of voicing our opinions globally.. Digital cameras integrated into our phones, are starting to provide information and pictures from scenes which classic reporters are not able to respond to quick enough to capture the true chain of events... I admire some news organizations for recognizing their weaknesses and starting to embrace 'common journalism'.

The world may now know the truth, if they could only find/trust the information sources and take their contents and treat them as opinion and not necessarily fact.. as all views expressed are the individuals alone, and not necessarily reflecting the ideals of the group, city, country, or any other division/classification...

social networking experiments

90's -> 99's -> 05's
homepages -> IM profiles -> webspaces (mis?)representing us

When you meet someone, it typically means you physically see, talk to, or perhaps shake hands and exchanged hello my name is... nice to meet you.

The internet has changed our perceptions of what it is to 'meet' someone, no longer are we bound to the specific communities we physically live and work in...

These social communities: (Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, AOL, LinkedIn, Match, IM chats) to name a few have become another way which we can narrow down the scope of 'who we'd like to meet' and if we wanted to... create digital and/or personal/professional relationships with these people...

These types of social networking experiments are simply that, attempts to get people to break the mold and try new ways of connecting with others you 'don't know, yet'.... We all want to have a network of friends, peers, acquaintances that can help eachother out or provide knowledge in a realm where we are thirsty for more... the initial bad stigma of using these 'geek services' has faded, people are beginning to recognize their worth in connecting people and expanding circles of friends and relationships.

I hope that face-to-face contact will remain important, but as our daily lives become busier.. at least we can stay connected --

shaving...

One of man's most dreaded activities in the daily routine is shaving.. It just takes time, time you could be sleeping... time you could be eating breakfast... or just time you could be enjoying your coffee in the morning while reading/watching the news.... but every now and then, work, girlfriends, mothers would like to see your face shaved because society thinks that's more socially acceptable....

I admit, the Gillette Sensor was a marvel of the technology... lets sell a two blade system, which actually does make shaving a bit easier... we'll make more profit, and sell the blades for more... people bought it, and then starts the ridiculousness....

a room full of razor engineers.. what can we do to make more profit and make shaving easier? Wait.. that guy over there has an idea.... Let's make a razor with 3 blades? 3 blades! you are crazy!! nobody is going to buy a razor with 3 blades... but we can try, market it well... start selling the two blade system for the same price or more than the jacked up 3.. then people will have to switch and we'll discontinue the 2 blade system... brilliant!!

6 months later...
a room full of razor engineers... scratching their heads, what can we do to make shaving more expensive and easier?? hmmm... one guy raises his hand, a lazer beam that zaps all the hair off your face! great idea, but we don't want to invest in the resources and maybe people would be afraid of shooting lazers on their mug.. hmmm... one guy suggests, lets make a razor with 4 blades!!! brilliant! meanwhile a small team breaks off to start working on the next revolutionary blade, 5 blades!! not 6.. six is too many, but 5 blades!!

true story...

and one of the reasons why I continue to boycott higher blade systems.. buy two blade razors and stop the madness!! shave with them until your face bleeds because they are so dull... the razor blade 'model' will remain, sure... but this trend of more blades is better is just total ridiculousness and has to stop before someone cuts off their head!

'96 Pathfinder SE

With winter quickly approaching, I need a way to get around town and up to the slopes!



only 65k miles! Nice...