Jamison Judd

Moving to my own domain

2009-08-08T10:34:00.002-04:00

I'm moving from Blogger to my own domain, so if you're interested... check out new content at:

http://jamisonjudd.com

See you there!

Back to my AirPort

2009-03-08T15:08:00.005-04:00

Apple recently released a new firmware update (7.4.1) enabling Airport Extreme to connect to MobileMe. This should allow for remote access of connected storage devices. Enabling the feature is as easy as entering your MobileMe username and password under the "MobileMe" tab of the advanced features in the AirPort utility.

Once enabled, your AirPort will be available under the "SHARED" collection in the Finder. You will likely have to click the "Connect As" button and enter your disk password if you have set one. Then all connected drives show up like they are local. Fantastic!

Assuming your home Internet connect stays up, you will always have access to your files. In my opinion, well worth the $99. Now files can be stored under your control and outside the cloud.

see the related Flickr gallery for screen shots of the setup

Image on Lifehacker

2009-02-28T23:30:00.007-05:00

This afternoon I went to read one of my favorite blogs, Lifehacker. I was glancing across the highlighted articles at the top, and thinking that one of the pictures looked familiar.

A while back I started trying to take some pictures useful (maybe) for stock web photos and made them available on Flickr. It was a pleasant surprise to see one used for an article on Lifehacker.

Unfortunately there's a little typo in the attribution name, but I'm still flattered it was chosen. Thanks Kevin Purdy!

Update: 3/2/09-- Kevin Purdy was kind enough to fix the typo and e-mailed me. The folks over at Lifehacker are pretty darn awesome!

Portal

2009-02-12T10:34:00.004-05:00

I've been playing Portal: Still Alive, and I absolutely <3 Aperture Science. For everyone that loves it as much as I do, here's a recreation of the logo in characters. I would post it here on Blogger, but apparently it does not like all the special characters.

Jeez, I'm not trying to inject any code.

http://jamisonjudd.com/funstuff/portal.html

This whole blogging thing:

2009-02-12T09:44:00.000-05:00

One of my many self-analyzed shortcomings is my lack of writing. I read a lot, but rarely write except when I am forced to for a class. In order to help address this problem, I'm going to try and spend a little time each day writing.

I know we've all said that we are going to post every day on our blog, and we know how that goes. Myself, I could probably fill a virtual graveyard with all the half-started and abandoned blogs over the last 8 years. But my growth in academia will inevitably be tied to the amount of productive writing I am able to do, and therefore this project isn't optional.

During this start-up phase of posting, I assume there will be more posts like today's rant. And so my apologies in advance for any writing that falls under the category of whining, for that is certainly not what I am working towards as a goal. On those days when I'm short on intelligent topics, either due to being overwhelmed or getting up at 3:30 a.m. (Thursdays), a shorter observational piece might be all that I can muster.

Today's rant...

2009-02-12T09:26:00.000-05:00

Thursdays are a particularly long day for me. I get up at 3:30 to catch an early train into NYC, and then I'm here until 9ish. I don't usually make it home until after midnight. So as you can imagine, Thursdays are a day where people being rude and insensitive particularly piss me off.

Case in point: I'm sitting in the Gottesman Libraries at Teachers College as I type this. Across the aisle from me is a woman who came in and promptly "borrowed" a chair from one of the meeting rooms and wheeled it out to the studying area. While I agree that the classic wooden chairs at the tables are not the most comfortable for long periods of time, stealing chairs out of the meeting rooms is an unacceptable move.

The reason that this is irking me is that I have a group meeting for statistics later this evening and I will no doubt have to:

Kick people out of the meeting room at 6pm because they don't keep an eye on the time
Have to move chairs around because some insensitive jerk will have taken them from the meeting room

I want to focus on the work at hand and not on having to deal with logistical crap. To the Evian-toting woman sitting in the ganked chair: thanks for being a self-centered jerk!

Things I miss about the third season of 30 Rock

2009-02-04T21:55:00.000-05:00

Having re-watched a couple of the first and second season episodes of 30 Rock, I've found that the show feels different this third season. Here's what I think is missing:

Jack as detached boss instead of friend to Liz
Trailing subplots that never get wrapped up
Where did all the other characters go?..... i.e. I need more:

Jonathan!
Pete
Frank & Toofer
Conan

That is all. :P

Essential Software for the Mac

2008-06-05T14:37:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to post this forever... I know there are a ton of lists of software out there, but here's the list of "free" applications I just can't live without.

Essential software for the Mac:

Caffeine
Tiny program that sits in the menu bar and keeps the computer from falling asleep. Just click to activate/deactivate. The cup of coffee icon as of V1.0.3 is just fantastic!

Burn
Need to make a CD or DVD. Burn will probably do whatever you need. I use it mostly for burning .iso files, but it does much more.

Chicken of the VNC
Best VNC client out there for the mac. I use it all the time to access my computers at work.

Cyberduck
S/FTP, WebDAV, S3 file transfer utility.

Firefox
One of the best web browsers out there.

Freemind
Concept mapping software

iStumbler
Want to see all the wireless networks around you? Also provides a graph of signal strength and a list of available bonjour shared resources.

Smultron
Text editor

TrueCrypt
Cross-platform encryption tool

Twhirl
AIR-based desktop client for Twitter

VLC
Media player that handles almost any format you can throw at it.

Add-ins (aka, other things installed that automatically makes my life easier)

Growl
Offers notifications on the desktop from a huge list of programs.

Perian
Codecs so that QuickTime can play more formats.

Secrets
Access hidden features and preferences in OS X

Office 2008, you suck!

2008-05-27T08:19:00.000-04:00

I never thought I'd have to say this... but I long for the days of Office 2004 on my iBook. Office 2008 has been nothing but a pain since we've gotten it. It takes forever to load (I think it's even slower than 2004 under Rosetta) and it's buggy as hell. I just upgraded to SP1 last week and now found that I can't open documents from the Finder by double-clicking them. *sigh* I'd say that's a pretty large issue Microsoft.

The other huge problem I've had is trying to work with the new Excel. Making a chart is a nightmare since the wizard is gone. The interface for modifying formatting is a huge mess. I think I'm going to download and give OpenOffice a try. Anything has to be better than this nightmare of an office suite.

A (really) long drive to work

2008-05-15T13:35:00.001-04:00

A long drive to work
Originally uploaded by Jamison_Judd

I really need to start listening to the radio before I leave for work in the morning. Now that I'm going to be driving to UConn five days a week over the summer, preparation is becoming imperative. This morning there was a terrible car crash on I-91 and it took me 2 1/2 hours to get to work (it usually takes me about an hour). Had I been smart and listened ahead of time I could have taken the Wilbur Cross up to Meriden and cut back over. Lesson learned!

Oh ActionScript...

2008-05-14T14:04:00.001-04:00

Today I finally admitted to myself that I need to sit down and learn ActionScript. I've tried before in the past to learn how to use Flash, but never could quite get a handle on how the timing works. The site redesign at work is going to require a few flash-y banners to make it look nicer, and being able to create those through code rather than through the Flash UI makes me happy :)

So I just took at look at Flash CS3 and am currently downloading the Adobe documentation in PDF. I'm excited at the prospect of creating some of our internal web applications in Flex, and possibly trying out AIR for producing little apps to help faculty, staff and students access important information.

The neatest thing I've seen as of late is Papervision3D, which I gather is a library for doing 3d rendering in Flash. I'll have to check that out later as I skill up. There are a neat series of examples of it being used linked from their blog. I particularly enjoyed Dasai Creative Engineering's site and Den Ivanov's PV3D garden.

Netflix Reccomends: Primer

2008-04-29T18:56:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I just watched the movie "Primer" on recommendation from Netflix. The plot was easy enough to follow through the first 45 minutes or so... some guys invent a time machine, then go back and use it for personal financial gain. I completely lost it after that though. Something about their doubles and making use of time travel to try and micro-control their lives. The concept of paradoxes were worked in nicely I think, but my favorite part was how they dealt with time travel. It wasn't some instantaneous movement like you've seen in many other Sci-Fi films, but rather a long and boring process. The time travel machine sort of made an exit point when it was turned on, and then the person would have to climb into it and wait the amount of time they wanted to pass before getting out. Trying to think about all these ramifications is starting to hurt my head :P

If you're a fan of Sci-Fi films or enjoyed Donnie Darko and Contact, both Netflix and I think you should watch Primer.