if my
ibook

wasn’t on the fritz, i’d be testing
istorm

right about now. but it is, so i’m not. sniff.

“Introducing iStorm. The world’s most innovative collaboration tool, that lets users work, talk, and think together. With iStorm, a user can open up a document, and immediately start brainstorming it with other collaborators over a network.”

[ via
kottke

]

just to round out a fabulous week, which included the
glass-eating malamute, cadence went in to get “fixed” and has been, er, eliminating from all orifices since she came back. you can imagine that there’s nothing that will put you in a superb mood like starting the day by cleaning up dog vomit and excrement.

so it’s back to the vet, only to be told that they aren’t really sure what the problem is, other than it was probably only coincidently related to the surgery. despite the indecision about the actual origins of the problem, they were fairly sure that a bottle of obscenely expensive pills would probably help.

what i did to deserve this week, i’ll never know.

i’ve had it. my
ibook

is the shittiest piece of god forsaken hardware i’ve ever owned. it’s dead,
once again

and it looks to be the oh-so-familiar hosed logic board. so what does
apple

do when a customer calls and says they’ve lost their patience and that maybe, just maybe, sending a box in 4 times in as many months is a bit much to ask any consumer to bear?

do they happily offer to give me a new computer?

do they do anything?

nope. the technician just tells me that i don’t actually have a lemon by their standards. and as if to tantalize me, he says, “you’re close.”

i don’t find this amusing. what the hell happened to customer service? what the hell happened to quality? [ insert ocean of curses here ]

so i’m back full-time to the trusty linux tower and dell laptop, which between them have nearly a decade of unfailing service. good, trusty steeds they are.

with all the hullaballoo surrounding typepad, all i can think about is whether or not it save foaf from geek backwater marginalization:

“Movable Type have just announced a new hosted blogging tool – it’s
going to produce FOAF automatically for every user, and detect the link
rel to the FOAF file of anyone who you put in your blogroll…I saw it
on Monday, it’s very very very sweet. So, I guess the FOAF world is
about to get very much bigger…”

so many things to check out and so little time. liason looks like a nice zeroconf implementation for ‘nix and peecees:

“Liaison allows computers on a small network to discover other computers and their users. It requires minimal user interaction and no confusing settings. Liaison is fully compatible with Apple’s Rendezvous and compiles with the zeroconf specifications.

Liaison is the prefect solution for home networks. Just plug your laptop in and you will be able to instantly access it from any computer on your home network. Home networks will no longer be limited by their user’s intelligence. Finally, your Mac and PC can communicate easily.”

kris and i are friends with a couple who recently birthed a child with a terminal birth defect. maya died on easter at the precious age of 10 weeks and her memorial was today. during what must be an unspeakably difficult time, i was asked to operate the video camera during the memorial. in a monumental moment of ineptness, after the ceremony i discovered that i had the pause button enabled during the entire ceremony.

how big a schmuck am i?

big.

beyond my ineptness, the strength and fortitude displayed by maya’s parents today was simply amazing. i can only guess at the depth of your loss. you are amazing.

yeah, baby. who owns the annotated bookmark bin? i do. it’s an honor and a privilege.