tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57823722010-03-27T14:27:25.395-04:00some thoughts and observationsJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1102621197841210212004-12-09T14:19:00.000-05:002004-12-09T14:39:57.840-05:00

Ok, so I've been a total news junky since the election. I can't stop reading the news. I've read all kinds of allegations of voter fraud, electronic voting machines that were tampered with, exit polls disecrepencies, "moral values" and Bush's supposed mandate. What is so great about this country? What are proud of? That we have the best bombs? I keep reading the news, hoping that the shit

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1101742451655282932004-11-29T10:27:00.000-05:002004-12-05T11:09:02.706-05:00

What happens to people who follow a religion but are devoid of spirituality? Fear, hatred, threats, righteousness, bigotry.. are these Christian values? Where will this kind of thinking lead us? Is Bush really one of them?

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1098013721182194312004-10-17T07:22:00.000-04:002004-10-17T07:48:41.183-04:00

I try hard not to be political. In general I don't feel a strong affiliation with any party or ideology. I think hard about issues, and I try hard to see different points of view. I'm sure that if I sat down and talked about issues with someone they would find all kinds of interesting labels. I have a deep inner sense of how people should be treated and how to make our country a better place to

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1097930381216644052004-10-16T08:37:00.000-04:002004-10-16T08:40:57.173-04:00

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1097623076603071112004-10-12T19:10:00.000-04:002004-10-12T19:17:56.603-04:00

The Sonos ZonePlayer was pictured on the cover of the Boston Globe today, with a nice article on the front page of the business section. Its starting to feel real!

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1096417907304119672004-09-28T20:20:00.000-04:002004-09-29T07:07:10.786-04:00

On Sunday I went for a long hike with my friend Matt. We woke up at an hour that was on the verge of being unreasonable - around 7:30 a.m., and then drove straight up I-93. The hike we picked was apparently quite popular. It was about a 9 mile loop up Mt. Lafayette, along a ridge including Mt. Lincoln and Little Haystack. The whole thing took us around 7 hours. But what a perfect day. We could

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1095285836139600212004-09-23T21:13:00.000-04:002004-09-26T22:24:52.206-04:00

Life is what happens when you are making other plans. Where did I go? Well, sometime around Dec, or the end of Jan I got a phone call from a friend of mine, who is also a recruiter, about a new job at an unknown startup. "Just go in and talk to these guys.. what do you have to lose?", he said. "But I have a job. I just got a job. I love my job." I had just taken a great job at Macromedia (see

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1095974835348358632004-09-23T17:18:00.000-04:002004-09-23T17:27:15.346-04:00

Elizabeth Kostojohn, second place winner of the 2004 Rotch Travelling Scholarship has started a blog. Elizabeth is travelling to Venice, Finland, Sweden, Russia and Paris. I'm going to meet up with her in Paris in October. She sent me some fantastic pictures - I can try to host them for her blog. I haven't posted on my blog for quite some time. More on what I've been up to in a minute.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1070975344316120612003-12-09T08:01:00.000-05:002003-12-09T08:10:40.966-05:00

Yes, I've been busy. In case you've been hiding under a rock, Macromedia announced a new product called Flex. I came into this project in October and it has been non-stop action - lots of new technology for me: Flash, Java, ActionScript... I've mostly been fixing bugs and have also taken over the Flex Web Services code. Christohpe Coenraets has started a new blog devoted to Flex. He has posted

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1066042306500521862003-10-13T06:40:00.000-04:002003-10-13T06:51:45.893-04:00

The Fast Company blog points to this article on why handhelds haven't really taken off. I have to say that I once had a lot of enthusiasm for this space but that it waned. I had a PocketPC and used it for a few weeks, but never really found it all that useful. This might be because I always had my Thinkpad and cell phone around. It also seemed clunky and the batteries kept dying on me too

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1065701923903957892003-10-09T08:10:00.000-04:002003-10-09T08:24:03.346-04:00

Just got back from NYC. I took the Acela train down there and back, which is a dream. I am on vacation between jobs so I decided to visit Manhattan for 5 days. I have a bunch of good friends down there, including DJ Benny Blanco. Benny invited me out for a set that he mixed using Traktor.. he is just transitioning to this new system. One of the coolest things that he told me about was Final

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1064573176912015432003-09-26T06:46:00.000-04:002003-09-26T06:46:16.386-04:00

Today is my last day with Groove Networks. I'm taking a couple of weeks off and then I'll be starting up a new job at Macromedia on the Royale team. This is an exciting opportunity for me and will combine my interests in multimedia and software systems design. Working for Groove has been the most challenging and rewarding job of my career. I will surely miss all the people here - some of the

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1064139269763794112003-09-21T06:14:00.000-04:002003-09-21T06:14:29.723-04:00

I brought home two new pets yesterday. I am now the proud parent of two beautiful aquatic turtles. I currently have them in a 20 gallon tank with some rocks and bricks setup for a basking area. I plan on making a more elaborate setup, somewhere along the lines of this or this. I have always loved turtles and wanted to have them as pets. Once the sun comes up I'll try to take some pictures of

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1064080358243580142003-09-20T13:52:00.000-04:002003-09-20T14:01:26.030-04:00

If anyone wants to know what to give me for Christmas, the new Sony UX50 looks pretty sweet. Of course, I want this to be an MP3 player with a trillion gazillion gigabytes of storage. You have to wonder how long the battery lasts if they sell an expanded battery option. I haven't seen one of these in person. Can anyone actually type into it? Looks like you would need awfully small fingers.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1063915755289022922003-09-18T16:09:00.000-04:002003-09-18T16:10:55.300-04:00

I just moved to Cambridge and signed up for Comcast cable. I lived all summer without a TV and missed the Tour de France. Back when I had a TV I got cable so that I could watch bike racing on OLN. In Arlington Comcast had OLN. And in Somerville. But in Cambridge apparently we have home shopping instead. So I called and complained. But here is the kicker. Lance Armstrong does an ad for

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1063878366311503582003-09-18T05:39:00.000-04:002003-09-18T05:47:55.453-04:00

Zalba Studio has developed a full featured email client for Groove called AvantMail. While their use case shows a compelling scenario for multiple users, I would love to use this to manage reading email from multiple computers. I have never found a good way to do this. I have a PC at home and one at work. And I have a pop account. One of the PCs gets to download the email. But if I want to

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1063554623875578122003-09-14T11:50:00.000-04:002003-09-14T11:50:23.800-04:00

I've started posting my mom's poems again.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1063406843753881202003-09-12T18:47:00.000-04:002003-09-12T18:52:23.293-04:00

Ray has posted an in depth description of a recent project to demonstrate prior art regarding a lawsuit against Microsoft. Using VMWare he was able to create a pre-1994 environment with Windows 3.11, Notes 3.0 and Excel 5.0. The story details how Notes is in essence a browser: "I am quite embarassed to say that we frankly didn’t “get” what was so innovative about this newfangled “Web” thing,

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1063279489321091372003-09-11T07:24:00.000-04:002003-09-11T07:36:00.810-04:00

How are you doing today, two years later? When I woke up today it hadn't occured to me yet that this is the day that it is. September 11. A day of infamy. We all remember what we were doing that morning in 2001, and what happened next. I got in a car accident because I was so flipped out listening to the radio. Many of us were glued to CNN for days afterward. Nobody will ever forget what

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1063277433709246082003-09-11T06:50:00.000-04:002003-09-11T06:50:33.610-04:00

Bloggers where greeted with a new page at pro.blogger.com recently. I'm a bit miffed because I don't see anyway to generate rss from this blog now. Blogger decided to fold a bunch of pro features into the free blogger. But not rss. I've emailed support but who knows how long this could take to resolve if ever. I don't understand how any viable blogging system can not support rss. Many of my

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1063189852012682452003-09-10T06:30:00.000-04:002003-09-10T06:30:51.966-04:00

I found a great utility program called JAlbum that creates thumbnails and formats html pages from a directory of images. So I uploaded photos from my trip this summer to Bar Harbor. These are pictures of my kids, Jeremy and Claire and my friends Wythe and Beth with their baby and toddler Nate and Luke. Wythe and Beth live up there, in what is one of the most beautiful areas of the country. I

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1063044185752031102003-09-08T14:03:00.000-04:002003-09-08T14:03:55.283-04:00

Apparently I can't upgrade to Blogger Pro today so I will not have RSS up on this blog for a few days at least. Sorry about that. The main reason I decided to switch to Blogger is because I find myself sitting in front of three different computers regularly and would rather use a web interface so that I can maintain a blog from different locations (or even OS!) I thought about Moveable Type

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5782372.post-1063016696855528952003-09-08T06:24:00.000-04:002003-09-08T06:26:26.970-04:00

Welcome to my new blog. It will take a few days to get this going. Or weeks. Bear with me...

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08906336689750694389noreply@blogger.com0