There’s a huge catch in all of this though. Web developers are quite possibly the dumbest professionals on the earth. No other industry sees it’s standard salaries and income vary as much as the web development industry. Imagine trying to pick between one lawyer who charges $300 / hr, or one that charges $10 / hr. The cheaper one sounds enticing, but we all know you usually get what you pay for.

That’s the trouble with the web. Because so many developers are willing to provide services for next to nothing (for a variety of reasons), the entire industry suffers. There’s just not much consistency in what people expect to pay for professional web dev services.

And now, professional companies are starting to get into this mindset as well. As I’ve been trolling for steady jobs, I’ve seen tons of positions open for senior web developers that pay $15 to $20 / hr.

That’s an insultingly low rate to pay a senior web developer. The skillset and intelligence required to perform solid web development duties is typically on par with my own background in structural and civil engineering. This stuff is complicated, and $15  / hr isn’t reflective of the skill required to successfully create and implement a good web app.

So, what will likely happen, is good paying jobs will be more geo-centric to tech hubs throughout the country (New York, San Francisco, etc..), and the remaining web development work will be limited to implementations of the products that come out of those areas.

The variety that’s made the web so intriguing for years, will likely fade to a much more bland version of the web, filled with millions of cookie-cutter websites about uninteresting products and services.

It’s frustrating, because even some of my closest friends feel the need to undercut their services to get work. My own colleagues and buddies are helping to enforce the un-sustainability of our own careers.

• Fan involvement –  While I was sitting in the USF side of the field, I swear the USF fans were much more involved in the game than UCF fans were. Those fans know all of the songs, word for word, and they belt them out with full force. By contrast, the only time our fans started to act half as involved, was when it looked like we had a shot to win.
• Fair-weather Fans – with about 12 minutes left in the 4th quarter, a lot of UCF fans gave up, and started leaving. Of course, this was much to the delight of the USF fans, who started chanting “Where You Going?”. If our team has any shot of being successful (more on that in a bit), then our fans have to start acting the part. I suspect many are waiting for a successful team before they start rooting for us. That’s a bad attitude to have, and I suspect your life would reflect poorly if you carried that attitude at work, or at home.
• Fan belligerence - I was attacked by a UCF fan when I was walking out of a Porto-Let. The guy had me confused with someone else, and as I opened the door, I got punched in the face. I’m not a small guy, so the guy doing the punching must have had a hell of a lot of liquid bravery. I wrestled him to the ground and pinned him, pleading him to stop. After a minute of futile squirming to escape, he gave up. However, as soon as I let the guy up, he was screaming obsenities at me. He just had his ass handed to him (and I didn’t hit him at all), and he was still ready to fight.
• Undisciplined Players – I thought George O’Leary was some kind of disciplinarian. Watching the game last night, you wouldn’t know it. While I’ve heard some guys say that the refs were making bad calls, most of the calls I saw were completely legit. Our players were making some of the dumbest penalties I could think of, and it cost us the game. I might have sympathy for that sort of thing on the first game of the season, but not the second. I’m especially disappointed to see that sort of behavior against a team we lost severely too last season. I thought we were supposed to be the cleaner smarter team?

So, while the tailgating is excellent at UCF, the game leaves a lot to be desired. UCF fans were largely uninvolved. The most involved fan I saw all day, I had to pin his head to the ground to make him stop. That sort of behavior carried on to the field, were we might as well given guns to our players, so they could try to rob USF players. 

I’m not usually one to play Chicken Little, but I really think someone should be putting the pressure on O’Leary regarding the penalties. There’s no excuse for that sort of thing. If our players are outmatched, and we lose, that’s one thing: Playing dirty football is another. I’m quite ashamed today, even if we did almost win.

UPDATE

My buddy Alex has a good review of the game on his amazingly awesome UCF sports site, UCF Insider.

So, my AC stopped working last night. I live in Central Florida, and it’s August, which means I was in hell. Melissa and I tried to fix the issue, but eventually accepted that we needed a professional to repair the system. A mechanical engineering friend of mine recommended Gembecki Mechanical, so I gave them a call. I was quite pleased.

Melissa had called me yesterday morning to let me know something was up with the AC system. I was really busy at work, and hoped she was just crazy. I forgot about the problem, went to the CoLab Orlando open house and came home. When I got home, I learned quite quickly, that Melissa was not crazy at all.

I opened up the air handler, and found the coil encased in a large block of ice. Quite naturally, I figured that the refrigerant was low, and I might have to go to Home Depot to get some more (apparently not, since HVAC refrigerant isn’t sold without a license). In the interim, I thought it best to try to melt the block of ice obstructing airflow to the cooling fins of the handler.

Melissa and I stood there for about an hour, with hair driers and screw drivers trying to melt / chisel away the ice that had built up on the coil. After we decided that we had sufficiently melted all of the ice away from the coil, we put the AC back on, albeit at a much higher temperature ( 80 degress :/). 

Well apparently it was still too much for the unit to handle, and it quickly refroze. I slept on the tile floor for the night and called my buddy (the mechanical engineer) immediately the next morning.  He quickly listed a possibility of options (including letting me know I wasn’t going to pick up freon at Home Depot). After knocking down the possible DIY solutions, he mentioned that the refrigerant might need to be charged, and I would have to call a company to do that. He quickly recommended Gembecki, based on previous experience (personal and professional).

So, I called Gembecki Mechanical to put in a service request. Within an hour I had talked to a few people, who were all very professional, and very upfront about what to expect (service time ETA, pricing, etc …). Around 11:30am, I got a call from someone at their office that Tony was going to be at my house within a half hour.

About 30 minute later, Tony showed up. I followed him around a lot (I have an insatiable curiosity about things) to see what was wrong, and how to fix it. After a bit of basic investigation, Tony was able to confirm that the refrigerant was low. 

Usually, when refrigerant is low, it’s because there’s a leak. My case is no different. I undoubtedly have a leak in the line between my air compressor (the big fan outside) and the air handler (the noisy thing inside). Rather than jump the gun on leak detection and repair, Tony asked me what I was comfortable with right now. 

My options were: pay now to try to fix the refrigerant line, that had a leak small enough to only become obvious after 2 years of use, or wait a little while longer to see if the refill holds for a while. Gembecki has a 30 day warranty on that sort of work, so if the leak becomes a problem quickly, they can send someone back out within a month for no charge. 

What’s more, the repair to the line (provided it’s not in a terribly obscure location) is relatively cheap. Given that Melissa is going out of town this weekend, and she’s been looking forward to her fun time; I elected with the more irresponsible option. I’m gonna wait it out. Money is still a little tight right now, and I don’t want Melissa to miss her chance to have a lot of fun with her friends this weekend over this.

Tony’s clear layout of my options were great. He was done within an hour and the house is cooling of quite nicely now. My total cost was $150, which considering everything they did for me, I couldn’t be happier about. I cant thank him and Gembecki Mechanical for everything they’ve done for me!!!

The boss’s computer would immediately log off after he tried to logon. While this might sound funny (in other circumstances, it really is), the client (who is a really cool guy, whom I respect a lot) did not think it was funny at all.

So, I dived into the Google to find out the issue. The short version; there was a bad registry setting. Basically, when this sort of thing happens, the first thing you should check is the registry. Now, you can’t connect to the registry locally, since you can’t logon to the computer with this issue.

So, the first thing you need to do, is logon to a computer on the same network as a user who has administrative rights on the computer concerned. Once you’ve gotten that far, you’ll need to open regedit. Something like this:

After that, you’ll need to connect to the computer in question. That’s easy, check the following pics:

then… 

The following key is what you should be looking for:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

That key should contain a string value for ‘Userinit’. If you’re confused, you should see something like the following:

Well, you probably shouldn’t see the green box, but you should see the string value for Userinit. If you don’t see that value in the root of key Winlogon, then you’ll need to create it. 

That’s not too bad either. First, right click the right hand pane of the registry editor:

Select the ‘String Value’ item in the right click menu. Once you’ve gotten that done, you’ll have a new string value in the right hand pane, awaiting you to name it. It’ll look something like: 

Name the string Userinit. After you’ve done that, right click the entry and select ‘Modify’. Make sure that the value for the key is:

c:\windows\system32\userinit.exe

Again, here’s a picture:

And that’s it. If you have any issues after you’ve gotten this done, I recommend an ERD disk or formatting your HD. Those are extreme options, I know. However, I don’t think you want to tool around with your computer for hours on end ( or maybe you do ).

[Networks - The places online for social media]

1. Twitter – Probably not a surprise to most tech folks out there. For those of you who don’t know (geez), twitter offers a sort of ‘micro-blogging’ platform. It’s kinda like blogging for people who don’t have time to blog. With a max post length of 140 characters (not words), you can’t say too much. However, it’s a great way to keep up to date with your friends, or important people, like Tim O’Reilly. 

1.a. Pownce – For all the same as Twitter, but a different network (with more features too). This is Kevin Rose’s (Founder of Digg) Twitter Clone. 

2. Delicious – I can’t begin to say how much I like Delicious. The actual site (again, for those of you who are scratching your heads right now) is del.icio.us. The idea is to have a place online where you can store your bookmarks. That way, you never have to worry about not being able to find that one video online, when you’re at your mom’s house or something.

2.a. Magnolia. – For all the same reasons as Delicious. Magnolia is just a different interface to the same idea as Delicious. 

3. Flickr – Hands down, nobody has online photo sharing down like Flickr. The amount of things you can do to your photos with Flickr is nothing short of obscene. To top it off, the developers are a pretty eclectic group of characters. Call me an idealist, but I like the idea of nutty dudes (and dudettes) writing software that really does something for the world.

[Software - The stuff on your computer that helps _you_ out]

1. Twhirl – I use Twhirl pretty much exclusively for ‘tweeting’ these days. Twhirl runs off of Adobe AIR, a sort of intermediary between a program, and it’s operating system. This means that if you’re running Windows (XP, or whatever Vista variant), Linux (within reason), or OSX; you will be running the same program. That makes for easy support. Anyways, Twhirl is awesome because it doesn’t always give me the ‘too many requests’ errors of twitteriffic, AND it posts to Pownce for me too.

2. Flock – Flock is a browser that’s built on top of Firefox. It makes keeping up with Social Media sites pretty easy. Some of the features of flock (like the top media bar, displaying photos and videos) are equally awesome, and cumbersome. Despite some of it’s shortcomings, Flock is still a really cool app that does a good job of combining a web browser with a social media dashboard.

3. Adium – Now, some of you might not think of instant messaging as a type of social network. No websites, no pictures, no birthdays, no etc… However, IM was really the first type of social network, and it was well beyond it’s time. These days, if you’re not on IM, you don’t talk much to me. Seriously, my wife has to get on IM to chat with me, when we’re in the house together. IM is king, and Adium makes using IM a breeze.

I was scrolling through Twitter & Google Reader today, and something occurred to me: There are way too many social networks ‘out there’. It’s funny too, ’cause all of them want you and all your friends. It’s an obvious pitch (what business doesn’t want as many consumers as possible). The thing that’s interesting though, is to what length many social networks will go to get your friends.

I forget who’s blog I was reading, but someone made a really good point about handing out passwords in a social network signup process. Join LinkedIn or Facebook, and you’ll be prompted with a message asking for your Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, etc.. email and password. The idea, is to get all of your existing friends immediately on this new social network. The point? That’s probably akin to handing out your social security number over the internet.

How preposterous is it to think it’s a good idea to hand out your email and password to a 3rd party? Your email, and it’s associated password are likely the most important passwords you have on the internet. So for someone to ask you to hand that out, is like a salesman asking for your house keys. Do you really trust someone you don’t know to be judicious with your most personal of internet information?

Add to that, Facebook Apps. A preface to all my friends, I like you, and I treasure your friendship. However, I never ever ever add Facebook Apps. Why? I don’t give out my personal info to 3rd party apps, just because my friend got roped into it. Just because all of your friends jump off the Brooklyn Bridge …

Facebook applications are a subset of social networks. Those applications, just like Bebo and Orkut, are looking for a larger and larger base of users, to justify some sort of buyout by a VC firm, or Ad revenue from someone else looking to tap into their publishing reach.

It may sound so obvious that it’s stupid. That’s fair, but really think about that the next time you want to send a ‘How Much Do You Think I’m worth’ invitation to me. The same way a stripper acts like she likes you, is the same way these apps pretend to provide something you might care about.

Remember, the underlying motivation is to reach as many people as possible. That’s very different than trying to help as many people as possible.

And that brings me to the point:

What are all these networks about? Really. After a while; I’ve connected with enough old friends, I’ve shared enough fun facts, and I’ve wasted enough of my life. What now? Where’s the value? If some network is going to ask for some of the most important information you have, then shouldn’t it be really worth it?

That’s the point. The way most social networks are written now, to reach the broadest base possible, there simply isn’t any real value provided. Granted, some folks will probably use them incessantly. For the rest of us, there’s a world out there waiting for us. 

So, the challenge:

To all you Social Network Entrepreneurs out there, how about a social network that actually provides something worthwhile? The next big thing is social networks isn’t just being in a network that has a refined set of the same features as everyone else. The next big thing must have more than that, like a social network that raises the average users credit score or something. 

I suppose it’ll happen about the same time we get WYTIWYG editing

** UPDATE ** I’d be completely remiss if I didn’t thank Chris Scott, a local Orlando developer for showing me the following video. Dude, you are the man. Thanks again.

[youtube bkSaNToDbW8]

This guy had some intial transition issues, and turned it into an excuse to write about the ‘flaws’ of switching to Mac. His company uses lame software that was specifically designed for windows, and complains about Mac not working for it. It’s a weird argument, ’cause he prefixes all of this by saying he’s been a Mac user for years. The issues he complains about are largely encountered by newbs. Either he’s a liar, or he’s playing ‘Devils Advocate’ for the inevitable issues new Mac converts will face.

While it is mega-lame, it does give some validity to his argument. Many small business ARE using terrible software, and would be faced with serious costs if they chose to change software and hardware at the same time. Remember, most business users don’t like computers. They’re a tool for doing a job they don’t want to do.

So the issue here really is, ‘Do you like your job’? because if you do, then you would want to use the best possible equipment to get it done. You would want to be as efficient at your job as you possibly could. If your job sucks however, then you probably just want to get it done and get out.

That’s sort of the “State Of Business” for much of corporate America. There’s a reason why everyone you meet loves ‘Office-Space’. It’s because most people have shitty jobs. It might seem like a stretch, but I think there’s a real correlation between Mac / PC users and folks with good / bad jobs.

Figure it like this: if your employer doesn’t want to fork an extra thousand bucks on a computer that works more efficiently for you, do you think they’re gonna provide any other incentives?

Doubt it.

As promised , last night I went to see the Nile show at the Haven. I would write about this on my music startup, Florida Death Metal , but my buddy Bender has been screwing around about getting my mockups done, so I’m holding off on putting any more content there for while. So, I’ve got my shepards pie and another Guinness, and I’m ready to tell you tales of Metal-Lore.

I’ve been to shows at the Haven before. So I know how there are usually a lot of opening bands before the main acts come on. Since I was going Hans Solo this time, I got there a little late and missed a few of them.

I got there right as Warbringer was finishing their last song. I’m bummed out I didnt’ get to see them. I saw them (at the Haven) a couple months ago when they opened for Exodus. Warbringer is a cool band, that’s reminscient of 80′s thrash and early death metal. Nobody is really pushing the thrash-type death metal these days, so it’s awesome to see a band (of very young kids) doing it. It’s also pretty cool to see those guys pay homage to Florida Death Metal (not my site, but the actual genre of music) for inspiration.

The next band up was Unexpect . I don’t know exactly how to describe them, other than very odd. There’s 7 members of the band. One drummer, one violinist, one keyboardist, two guitarists, a bass player (with a 9 string bass), and a female singer with black hair down to her knees. Oh, and they were French-Canadian. Funny = Sound check by saying ‘Eh’ a hundred times. I wasn’t into them. They’re doing the whole “sick-metal” thing. I’m more of a meat and potatoes kinda guy, thanks.

I don’t remember the name of the band after that I don’t recall. I do remember that they seemed a lot like old Cannibal Corpse , except they had a keyboard player. What the hell is up with keyboard players? Keyboard players are for Symphonic Black Metal and Jazz. No place in death metal, got it?

The Faceless was up after that. They’re more of a hardcore, or deathcore, band than a death metal. I don’t have any issue with that sort of thing, but I have a real issue with the scene that shows up to those shows. Most of the kids that show up at these shows are more scenesters than metalheads. I’ve a feeling that once Metal goes back underground (yes, it’s in a bit of a renessaince right now) those are the kids that’ll be gone. So, I didn’t hang around for the show. I called my mom instead. I figured that’d be more fun.

And for the headerliner…..

(drum roll please)

Nile was the last, and best, to take the stage.

They had an issue with one of the computers used for sound effects. That got me into a conversation with their geek Punchy (actual name withheld here). It turns out that the computer used for sound effects is a Windows Me computer with software never rewritten for another OS. That’s a damn shame, and I publicly challenge Karl to let me know what the software does, so I can find him a Mac equivalent.

It was cool though, since I got to meet Punchy. He’s a tech guy whose done quite a few things for Nile. We got to talking about software, and he might have a startup for me to work on. I’m flattered by the offer, but we’ll see if it pans out. I hope so.

So anyways, Nile played. Woo Hoo! They went through their whole set, but much of the crowd left after The Faceless left. Figures. What did I say about scenester kids with no handle on what Death Metal is all about. Nile are arguably one of the best death metal bands ever. All of the members are amazing. Karl, Dallas, George, and the new kid on bass could easily school anyone you know on how to play anything. It was incredible to see these guys play live, what seems impossible when hearing it on disc.

So all in all, the show was awesome. I picked up some merch, a couple beers, and watched a killer show. Hell yeah!

So, I got some tools from my buddy Derek, and got to work on it tonight. Taking apart a macbook is a delicate thing to do, and should be taken seriously. I laughed when my wife suggested I just screws into a bag so I didn’t lose them. Ideally, one should have a clean white surface to place screws that mimics the placement of them in the actual computer.

Anyways, after about an hour of disassembly and inspection, I figured out the issue. One of the brackets that sit above the CD / DVD drive was lodged underneath the CD / DVD player. I fixed the issue and re-assembled the computer in about 10 minutes. Not bad if I may say so myself.

Then I went to install Leopard .

The first time I attempted the install, I got everything started and left the machine alone. When I went to check on it about a half hour later, I saw a large notification that the install had failed. I tried to restart the machine to re-attempt the install a few times. Each time however, the installer couldn’t find the HD to install to.

Finally, I got a notification that the HD was formatted in a way that was incompatible for Leopard. If I proceeded with the install, I was going to have to wipe the HD clean. That was a bit daunting to hear, since my wife is the primary user of the computer. If I lose something she cares about, well, I don’t have to tell you the horrors I’d face then.

So, I got out my handy-dandy external HD. It’s really just a shell with an old 120GB IDE thrown in there, but it does the job well. I got everything I could figure she might want off of the computer, and re-started the install process.

When the computer asked where to install Leopard, I recieved the same prompt as before, but this time I went ahead with the install, knowing that I was formatting the hard drive.

After the format was complete, the installer proceeded. I left the machine alone, figuring that I had a while before I needed to do anything with it. About another half hour later I checked on it, only to see another “Install Failed” screen. Now I was in a serious bind: would my wife be without a computer at all?

Well, I’ve always been one to keep trying until something gives up and works for me . So, I re-started the install again. This time however, I was happy to see that it worked! I went through the typical post-install steps, and was delighted to see my wife’s macbook successfully running Leopard.

The one issue that did come up afterwards however, was all my iLife apps were gone. I suppose I can’t complain too much about it. I didn’t pay for the original iLife apps, so I’m not out any money. But still, It’d be really nice to not have to buy soemthing I already had on here.

The Install was easy! To install Leopard, insert the DVD provided, and run the installer. You’re prompted to be sure if you want to install, and upon confirmation, your machine is restarted. After the restart, an optional disk consistency runs. You can cancel this at any time, but I let the whole thing go. It took about an hour. After the consistency, the install itself runs. I was initially prompted that it would take 1 hour and 38 minutes. However, the actual install was done in under 45 minutes.

Once I started my using the new OS, it was clear that all of my previous settings had been preserved. I ran all of my critical applications, and all work fine.

For those of you comparing, here’s my current setup:

new 24″ iMac

And the Apps I run (not all, just the most necessary)

• Zend Studio 5.5
• CS3 Premium
• Firefox, Sunbird, & Thunderbird
• iWork ’08
• Coda
• Transmit
• Adium & Skype

The new Dock is awesome!

I’m a huge fan of the stack concepts that have been implemented into the new dock. The default stacks are ‘Documents; and ‘Downloads’. This is great for cleaning up your desktop. I however, don’t like having all of my commonly accessed programs stuck in the dock, so I added my own stack, ‘Applications’. Adding your own stack is as easy as dragging the folder to the Stack area.

The old marker that signified a running application has been replaced by a nicer, though much less obvious, light underneath the icon. You can change this icon if you like, and there are several tutorials on how to do this already.

Overall, the Dock is much prettier than it used to be. All icons have shadows behind them, and the Dock itself reflects windows near it.

The new Finder is awesome! For those of you who don’t already know, the new Finder allows you to view files with the ‘Cover Flow’ view system. This is great for pre-viewing files before opening them. What’s even better; you can now open many files for even closer preview, without actually opening their default applications! This is a great time saver for those of you with limited system resource, who don’t want to open very photoshop file in a directory to see which one you want.

Much of the new look of finder is quite similar to iTunes. So mounted drives appear on the left much like an iPod appears on iTunes. Furthermore, unmounted, networked computers now appear the same, just without the option to ‘Eject’. Finding files and folders is cake with Finder’s great indexing capacities.

Apple Mail, is now my mail client. I’ve been an ardent user of Thunderbird for a couple years now. So I doubted that I would use the new Apple Mail, despite all the buzz about it. After trying it out however, it’s a really fun mail program. The program itself loads quickly, and keeps everything simple. There’s also a built in RSS reader (nothing new). Though I would prefer that iCal be embedded into the program, Mail’s integration with iCal is certainly good enough.

The one thing I might miss, is the tons of available plugins that are available for Thunderbird. Apple has a weird way of not directly promoting additions to it’s software.

iChat, is now my IM client. I’ve been a big supporer of Adium for a while now. However, iChat is a great IM client. iChat allows for multiple accounts, which was largely why I used Adium for so long. What’s more, video and audio chats are a snap. All you have to do is click one of the available buttons while selected on a buddy, and you initiate that form of chat.

The only thing I wish that iChat had, was the ability to send notifications to Growl. I’m a huge fan of Growl for notifications of program events, and anything that integrates with it, I always check out.

Photo Booth is awesome! Photo Booth has always been one of my favorite Apple programs that come standard on macs. That’s how I got those candid shots of Bender sleeping on the job ! With the new Photo Booth, custom backgrounds are introduced. All that’s necessary is to activate the video background, then step out of the picture. Once your background is detected, you can re-enter the photo and voila, you’re in France!

As you can see from the picture here, the background detection isn’t perfect, and could still use some work.

Spaces is alright. I’ve heard a lot of buzz about the new ‘Spaces’ feature for Leopard. I’m a little less than impressed however. Video card vendors manufacturers have been providing this type of service for a long time now. So, I’m not all to sure why there’s been such hype about the feature. Don’t get me wrong, Spaces is cool. It is a clean way of having more than one desktop at a time. However, this is not breakthrough by any means.

Time Machine – I know, I know. This is supposed to be an amazing new feature for OS X, and certainly worth the cost of the OS itself. There are well known bugs however, about trying to use Time Machine without an external HD already set up. What’s more, the external HD should be a large one, as Time Machine is not light on space. I’m a little pressed for cash right now, so I’ll have to try this one out later.

Parental Controls – Hey, I don’t have kids. It might still be a good idea to keep my wife from viewing inappropriate websites, but I don’t think she’d like that to much.

Boot Camp – I’m already running Parallels, so I don’t feel the need to use this. Parallels does everything I need for running multiple OS’s on the same machine.

Conclusion

As is quite evident, I’m thoroughly happy with Apple’s new OS X release. There are a few features that I wish were available, but as a software developer, I recognize the need to release a product without some features is greater than waiting infinitely to release the ‘Perfect Product’.

As always, I welcome your comments!

We left the house around 3:30pm and made the drive on I-4 down there. I had been working all day on my new side project, so I hadn’t eaten anything before I got there. That probably explains why I pounded empinadas and margaritas for the first half hour when we got there.

After we settled in, we took our time to enjoy the cheap booze and food from ‘Around The World’. Our first more leisurely stop, was appropriate for me: Ireland, and Guinness. Then we headd over to China, so Melissa could pick up a Green Tea Plum Wine Cooler.

After that we skipped over most stuff and headed over to Germany. That seems fitting, given that some coworkers at NFi and I are heading to Germany this Thursday. We took our time there, and I asked a guy (supposedly from Munich), where to go while I was there. He was predictably vague, but he did mention some general areas I had an inkling to go to before.

From there we continued on, sampling food and drink from America (ha ha ha), Morocco, France, England, and Peru. When we had gotten ‘Around the World’, we went around again. I guess we just couldn’t resist the opportunity

To wrap up the night, we stayed for the Illuminations show Epcot shows every night. I should be able to recognize the corporate motivations for the show. However, it was so well done (especially after a better than $150 bar tab), that I couldn’t help but be moved by it. We hauled ass to get out of there afterwards, which is tricky with thousands of clueless tourists.

Overall, I’m glad we went to the Food & Wine Festival. It’s easier to be less picky, given we didn’t pay to get in (which is up to $65 for entry). However, we had a really good time, and I recommend it to anyone, who might spend the money elsewhere.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited as an editor on TweakOSX to review the machine. I don’t know what to say about it that I haven’t said in that review, other than “wow”. This thing is absolutely incredible. I got the 24″ model, with 2.4GHz dual core intel processor, 2GB of 667 MHz RAM, and a 320GB HD.

The computer is, in a word, incredible.

Here are some pics!!!!!!!!!

First, there are all of the announced changes from Apple:

1. Blazing Performance
2. Elegant User Interface
3. Easy Bookmarks
4. Pop-up Blocking
5. Inline Find
6. Tabbed Browsing
7. SnapBack
8. Forms AutoFill
9. Built-in RSS
10. Resizable Text Fields
11. Private Browsing
12. Security

These are all debatable, especially the ‘Blazing Performance’, but a few of these really stand out.

Namely, Resizable Text Fields. I checked on this, and sure enough, users can resize textarea elements in a form. Your layouts will be critical now, that the user can change the size of the containing element(s) well after your page has rendered. I wonder how many AJAX apps are going to be broken because of this.

Also, all of the form elements can be styled now! That’s a big departure from previous versions of Safari. I’m glad the ‘Safari form elements are perfect’ snobbery has been replaced with an attitude more conscientious the of needs of web developers

The next big development is the find feature. Typing in the find area dynamically pops up results on the page, as they’re found. The UI for this is amazing, and really shows the talent at Apple.

Of course the big question on everyone’s mind is, ‘How is all of this going to work on Windows?!’

Well the executive summary is: It does work, and it works well.

Tom and I loaded up Safari 3 though Parallels 3.0 on his machine running Windows XP Pro. The installer was typical Windows stuff. We were prompted to install the Bonjour Service and Apple Software Update Service for Windows.

This is another big development that I don’t think a lot of other people have mentioned yet. Bonjour is a great program for Mac, that now will be available for Windows too!?! Apple Software Update will also run on Windows?!? We’re going to be talking about this for a long time.

After we installed Safari, we encountered our first problem. For some reason (we don’t know why yet), after we installed Safari, the network adapter for Windows stopped working. We used Parallels to specify the shared adapter, and everything worked again.

The app itself looks great on windows. It’s not bound by the typical Windows frame. Safari 3 basically looks the same as iTunes already does.

It was really strange to see Safari as an option in the Start Menu:

One thing that is still frustratingly still an issue is HTTP_AUTH between Safari and Microsoft IIS servers. Even if this is a problem with Microsoft, I think the developers could figure some type of workaround for this.

Another problem I have with Safari, is lack of code-coloring in the view source window. I have yet to see a developer toolbar built for Safari (I live by Firebug), and until there is one, I’m not leaving Firefox.

Wow. That show is really cool. It’s different than other
artsy shows, in that there isn’t such a raw display of talent (though
those guys are good on drums). It is overall entertainment. It’s hard
not to feel warm and fuzzy watching the antics at certain points of the
show, and feel real human awe at others.

The premise of the
show is about people being people. It’s humans being human, by watching
people who appear so not-human. I’m eager to mention everything that
happens in the show, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t
been.

Tickets at the show by us start at around $50. I know we
didn’t pay, but I’d gladly pay to have seen it. It’s definitely worth
the hit to the wallet.