I've moved my blog from wordpress (hosted by Mediatemple) to posterous. The change was a long time coming, but I finally have it down, now it's just time to flip with switch on the DNS.

Why posterous, not tumblr? First of all, posterous has a pretty OK Wordpress import tool. I had to split my Wordpress XML export file into parts in order to get it to work, but at the end of the day it did the job. Tumblr does not have a proper import tool, and while there are some hacks that will do the job, this was just easier. Also Tumbler is having some very unfortunate downtime this weekend, so I took that as a sign that posterous is the way to go. Or maybe I'm just impatient. I do still prefer Tumblr's backend tools.

Update - It seems like the DNS move has completed, but now my images are broken. They worked before but now that arghyle.com is actually arghyle.posterous.com and my old blog lives at an IP address the images, as you'd imagine, don't work. This is shortcoming with the Posterous import for sure, but it's not a major problem. The important thing is that no articles were lost and that my URLs are all intact.

Starbucks just renovated their SoHo location on Spring at Crosby. This is basically their NYC flagship location, or at least their lower Manhattan flagship, so it's a bit of a big deal given Starbucks' desire (need?) to innovate. More importantly it's the first and only NYC location to have a Clover machine. Starbucks bought Clover just about two years ago and has already rolled out the machines in Seattle, Boston, Miami, and San Francisco.

Caveat- I'm not a huge Starbucks fan. I don't have any problems with the franchise, it's just that there are a lot of great places to get coffee in NYC and I tend to opt for the variety of neighborhood locations over the consistency offered by Starbucks. I've had Clover coffees before, at Gimme, Grumpy, and others. I still regularly have it at Kaffe 1668, who is one of the few locations to still use them.

The Store The newly renovated Starbucks location looks great. The old one was your typical Starbucks--nice enough but with serious signs of wear from constant high traffic. The new setup is nicer than the old one ever was--there is a lot of reclaimed-looking rough-hewn hardwoods, iron furniture, leather stools, and even the stands (that hold stuff you can buy) look nice. There is a lot of seating--both tables and stools--and a much more efficient use of space. This store doesn't have the overstuffed (read: gross) furniture found in other stores. The bar is much better than in other locations. It's lower so you can see what is going on with your drink and the signage and layout are both improved. Everything looks much friendly, less corporate. We'll see how it handles traffic though, I was there are about 8:15a Saturday morning (not exactly prime time). The employees were insanely nice. I think these might have been a corporate training staff (or at least one of them was) because the person that rang me up was very excited that I ordered a Clover. She also knew the other Clover locations right off the top of her head. She was fast, friendly, and professional, leaving no doubt that she really wanted me to enjoy my $3.40 cup of coffee. The person that made my coffee seemed to operate the Clover well enough, still with some hesitancy, but with a good understanding of the process. The Coffee I think Starbucks' Clover-brewed is a pretty good cup of coffee. I got the Kona, which I don't drink much of, but I did enjoy it. After ordering I walked over to the Clover area and watched the barista weigh and then grind my coffee. He then started brewing it in the Clover, talking to me about the process. Maybe he wasn't as knowledge about it as someone at Cafe Kaffe 1668 but he clearly had been trained on operating the Clover well enough to make a coffee with very little wasted time. I'd say that Starbucks was able to have the coffee taste somewhat like a what we expect from the franchise but it's definitely a Clover. It had lots of flavor and great clarity. There were hints of sweetness and less bitterness than typical Starbucks. As is typical with the Clover you get that clarity but you lose body as well as some of the grit and oils of a french press. I'm not sure if Starbucks will be able to dial in their Clovers as often as a small coffee shop, but this one seemed right where they wanted it to be--delivering Starbucks tasting coffee while giving customers something different than Starbucks' normal drip offerings. The Spring and Crosby location is definitely the nicest Starbucks I've ever been to. I can't say that I'll be going to it often (not with Balthazar right there, as well as Gimme and newcomer Village Tart nearby) but I'd take it over any other Starbucks location in the city and I'll keep it in mind for when, if ever, I'm dying for a cup of Clover-brewed.

I really like FreshDirect. It, as you probably know, is a grocery delivery service in NYC. They have a nice web site, a huge selection, and very good food. I find that shopping through them saves me some money and, more importantly, a lot of time. For the most part the service is incredibly good at getting you want you ordered. Considering that a $100 grocery order could easily have over 30 items from a number of different departments, it's impressive that FreshDirect is as accurate as they are. In fact in my last 20 (or so) orders I can only recall two problems. Both of these were a single missing item. FD makes it very easy to go to their site and report the problem. On each occasion I got a response in well under and hour and was credited for the item that same day. The customer service, in my experience, is fantastic. Last week my order was missing a pomegranate. I ordered three and received two. Disappointing, but the site was running a two-for-$5 deal so I would expect that the vast majority of people were ordering two and my request for a third was easy to overlook. Anyway I reported the issue and it was resolved in hours. Or was it? I got back my purchase price of $2.50, seemingly fair compensation as that is what I paid for the piece of fruit. But upon further reflection, I'm not so sure. Here is a run-down of a reimbursement model that is more comprehensive than FreshDirect's 1:1 system. It assumes that I needed that item and now have to get one locally.

• Item in question: $2.50
• Difference in price from at a local grocer: $0.50
• Transportation to and from local grocer, including shopping/checkout time: $3.00
• Time spend emailing Fresh Direct, looking through empty boxes again, etc.: $0.25
• Pain and suffering: n/a
• Total: $6.25

So while I very much appreciate FreshDirect's commitment to customer service and the shipment of accurate orders, I think there are different ways to look at their reimbursement system. What on the surface seems very fair gets complicated upon further inspection. That missing pomegranate doesn't just leave me without a piece of fruit. And that $2.50 completely fails to take into account the underlying value of FreshDirect's deliver system and their above-average quality produce. In fact it could be said that FreshDirect is implicitly putting themselves at the same level as any Manhattan grocery--that is to say at the sorry state of a D'Agostino's or Food Emporium. But is $6.25 a fair price for them to pay me for a pomegranate? After all, most people wouldn't consider buying one, even this king of fruit, at anything near that price. It might seem like it harshly penalizes FD for an innocent, infrequent, and inevitable error. That may not be completely untrue, but the fact remains that I have to spend a significant amount of time to right the situation and that $3.00 figure is a very conservative time given how much I value my time after work. Even if I was going to my local grocery for another reason (and why would I after ordering from Fresh Direct?) I would still have to bare the burden of the price discrepancy between Fresh Direct and Whole Foods (another purveyor of POM brand pomegranates). The other sums (time spent emailing and searching through boxes) might seem trifling, but the point is that a missing pomegranate is more than just a piece of fruit.

Let's get this out of the way--I work on the internet and I consider myself a power user. I make no claims as to the efficiency of my methods, they are just what works for me. A problem that has been plaguing me for some time now is running Firefox with multiple tabs open. Given my workload and the number of ideas floating around in my head this may range anywhere from 20-90 tabs... it's not something I'm proud of but it's just how things turn out.

To me tabs are a staging area for work, a To Do list, a To Read list, and an account of what I'm interested in on a given day. I don't really like bookmarks--I've basically given up on Del.icio.us and while I do still drag bookmarks to my desktop they tend to accumulate into a huge mess, finding their way into folders which are dropped in other folders as the pile grows. This shouldn't be a problem since I am good about taking the time to manage and cull my tabs. It's just that when I get too busy to address them the number grows.

My problem is that Firefox crashes, something that has been occurring more and more lately. I used to think it was my old computer, but about a year ago I upgraded to a quad-core system with 4GB of RAM. It runs Windows Vista, but is otherwise a very capable machine. Quad-core, 4GB, 10K RPM hard drive, P45 chipset... should be able to handle a few webpages right? Not exactly. For me crashes happen every day, multiple times a day, but only in Firefox (3.5.3), my main browser. I also run Google Chrome, which practically never crashes and is also open all the time (though rarely with more than 8 tabs).

The problem with crashing with 80 tabs open, aside from the frustration, is that it takes at least 5 minutes to get everything loaded again, sometimes more, during which all my system's network bandwidth is being consumed by the browser. Sessions are logged out and occasionally work is lost.

The question I have is why? It's not the computer, even if Firefox is eating up 25% of the processor and 1GB of RAM, it's not that bad. It could be my OS, it could be Firefox. Or maybe a combination of the two. It's very hard to say.

I have examined my browser extensions, which can be a major source of instability. The active ones include: FireFTP, MenuEditor, Session Manager, and Tabs Mix Plus, all of which are up-to-date. I've removed a few that I found to impact stability (including Google Gears), but the crashes have continued. And they are rarely violent, surprising crashes, instead Firefox just seems to slow down, blip in and out, and then die. I get the crash manager, and then I can restore my session, and in a few minutes I'm back.

So far I have just figured that Firefox is the issue. The browser has had memory leakage issues in the past and it seems like they continue in one form or another. Running all those pages, include most of which have some sort of Flash and rich media on them, just takes a toll, the performance degrades, then a restart is needed, just like with a Windows computer after a week or two. This isn't exactly scientific but it seems to sums things up.

I need to investigate running my workload on Ubuntu and OS X, so I can see if the OS is the issue. If not, then I'll know it's Firefox. Or maybe today's computer just can't run 80 tabs at once consistently and I need to wait for some sort of future technology, a neural net processor or something like that. Got any fixes or ideas? Post them below.

A cat, named Minnie, which I am rather allergic too.

Netflix description:

Nineteen-year-old Johnny (Vincent Spano) is a charismatic but ruthless gangster, running the mob's drug trade in Alphabet City -- New York's toughest neighborhood, on the lower East Side of Manhattan.

(oh wait, there's more)

But when Johnny's bosses order him to torch the building where both his mother and sister live, Johnny refuses. Now a marked man, he must find a way to protect his family and get out of Alphabet City before the mob takes him out ... for good!

Brilliant.

After using Google's Picasa for a while, I've decided to (finally) start using Flickr. I've loved the site since day one, but I haven't used it much for sharing photos. I've preferred Picasa's integration into my Google contacts for very selective photosharing, and while that is still the case Flickr is just too good not to use. It's great for photos that are OK for public consumption (like cat photos) where I think Picasa is still the way to go for more private stuff (family gatherings, etc) just because so few people that I share images with are on Flickr while many of them have Gmail accounts. I'm still avoiding putting too many images on Facebook, because I (like most people) have too many non-friend contacts to make it a good place for photosharing. http://www.flickr.com/photos/salcangeloso/ Ping me if you know me. (Good litmus test--do you have my phone number). btw- That is my gf's new cat. Most of my Flickr photos at the moment are of her (the cat).

Sorry for the lack of activity around here. I've been really busy at work and Geek.com has really been getting a huge chunk of my attention. I've also noticed that my RSS burden has been increased over the last few months rather significantly, so I'm reading a lot more online which is great, but also very time consuming. It's time for some optimization there. I have been trying to get outside, away from the computer, more as well. It's a struggle, but it seems prudent, especially given the season. View the fruits of my labor: http://friendfeed.com/salcan?format=atom http://www.geek.com/users/SalCan/

Here it is- a tour of NYC's finest coffee establishments. No it's not by me (I wish I had the patience to collect my thoughts on the matter) but I just stumbled on a great virtual tour collected over at Man Seeking Coffee. In this case, I'm just the curator. I'll be reading through most of his blog this week, and I thought some of the posts were too good not too link to. Additionally I've been meaning to put something together along these lines,  and these select posts do the jobs nicely. It's also interesting that these articles are from a non-New York's perspective so he doesn't have the issues that locals might encounter (favoring places within walking distance of your apartment/place of work, preferring certain baristas, skipping certain locations because you don't hang out in that area, etc). Finally, I agree with a lot of what he has to say, otherwise I would just make my own list without the links... MSC's reviews of my favorite spots:

• Abraço Espresso - Amazing place. My go-to place for espresso and pour-over drip coffee. Also has good food and cortados. As MSC points out, it's small and often very busy.
• Gimme Coffee - I'm a big fan of the Mott Street location. My favorite spot in Soho/NoLiTa.
• Ninth Street Espresso - Their cafe at 9th and C was the first coffee place in NYC that I really loved. They've expanded since then, but they still do a great job.
• Cafe Grumpy - I haven't been to the Brooklyn location yet, but the one in Chelsea is excellent. Definitely the best in the neighborhood.

MSC's reviews of Sal-approved spots (all are good-to-very good):

• La Colombe (Church Street) - A nice spot, though a bit out of the way. A good place to stop for a macchiato. They have a new Soho location though, so I probably won't make it down here too much any more.
• Kaffe 1668 - An up-and-coming spot that I've been to only a few times. Has potential to be one of NYC's best, despite the less-than-ideal location. They have WiFi, two Clovers, and two beautiful Synesso Cyncra espresso machines.
• Joe the Art of Coffee - I like the Waverly location, though it's insane on the weekends. Always has top-notch pastries.

MSC's reviews of solid NYC spots not my picks though (OK-to-good places that I like, but won't go out of my way to stop at):

• Think Coffee - A good spot, but it tends to be overrated. The Mercer street location is deep in the heart of NYU.
• Everyman Espresso - An awkward space, but the espresso is pretty good.
• Mudd Coffee - Good stuff, but not my favorite. The truck can be very convenient if you are in the area.

Notable, and could be very good, but I need to research more:

• Grey Dog
• Jack's Stir Brew
• OST Cafe
• Blue Spoon - New and not open on Sundays. I'm thinking it will be good, but no Kaffe 1668.
• National Cafe and Espresso Bar - just opened on Rivington next to Freeman's Alley. I went once and had a great time. Barista is super cool and the espressos were solid.
• El Beit
• Simon Sips - I've only been once, but I had a good experience. I got a deal on some Counter Culture coffee beans too.

Ones MSC skipped that come to mind (I am sure that I'm leaving some out). Not particularly notable:

• Aroma Coffee -  on Houston St.
• Porto Rico Roasters in Essex Street Market
• Oren's
• Bean's - in the East Village

I just wanted to throw out a quick link to this article at the LA Times. Apparently it is illegal in some states to collect rainwater for personal use. Using that water, which happens to fall on your property, is actually stealing according to some strange perversions of logic.

"If you try to collect rainwater, well, that water really belongs to someone else," said Doug Kemper, executive director of the Colorado Water Congress. "We get into a very detailed accounting on every little drop."

It turns out that the issue is a lot more complex than one person collecting water from their gutters for a garden. Large scales water collection (say for an entire community) could cause some serious interruptions in the water cycle and have major effects on people downstream. Anyway, it's an interesting article and while it's only a short introduction to the complexities of water politics, it's worth checking out.

Guadia Quest is an awesome little NES-style RPG that comes on Retro Game Challenge. It's a lot like Dragon Warrior on the NES, but much easier and more approachable. You can save whenever you'd like, as often as you'd like, so you can play without worrying about losing much work. The game is very enjoyable, but the items and spells are not explained at all, so you will have to experiment to figure out what everything does. Because it is a game within a game I have not been able to find any guides for the game, so here are some notes that I have put together. You won't necessarily need them but in case you want to do the best that you possibly can without a ton of grinding, they'll probably help. [This mini-guide is a work-in-progress. It is woefully inadequate at the moment.] FAQs 1. How to I revive a dead character? Naga pint (item) or Imup (spell) 2. How to I get mana back? Stay at an inn or use elixir. -- What items do: Naga Pint: Revives a dead character Burrito, Drumstick, and jerky: restore hitpoints (in order, more to less) Uni-tear: about 50 hit points given to every character Wild herb: Recover 100 hit points for every character Orbs: Help you fight the guadias. Red cow: Wakes up a sleeping character. Grim coin: Instantly kills some enemies. Naga wing: Returns you to the main city (Centraan). Incense: Titaniun, Silver, : Holy Key, Demon Key, Dark Soul: Allow to you progress in the game, by opening doors or getting past guards. -- What Spells do (from Gamespot): Green character (the tank): Level 3: Warp (Warp to Towns and Dungeons)[1] Level 10: Funko (Reduce Encounter Rate) [3] Level 11: Ragua (Low-Damage to all enemies) [3] Level 15: Fasta (Increase Field Movement Speed) [2] Level 20: Chero (+5 STR & SPD) [6] Level 28:  Healt (Heals ~70 HP for all) [16] Orange character (the healer): Level 2: Heala (Heals ~40 HP) [2] Level 3: Prota (+10 DEF) [4] Level 4: Megra (Low-Damage) [3] Level 9: Healo (Heals ~60 HP) [9] Level 10: Getup (Cures Sleep) [2] Level 12: Degra (Mid-Damage) [4] Level 13: Healy (Full HP) [8] Level 15: Dropu (Steal) [5] Level 17: Dynow (Instant Death Spell) [6] Level 20: Imup (Revive) [24] Level 24: Fegra (Heals ~70 HP for all) [16] Purple character (the sorceress): Level 2: Megra (Low-Damage) [3] Level 3: Dormi (Sleep) [2] Level 4: Heala (Heals ~30 HP) [2] Level 7: Movit (+10 SPD) [4] Level 8: Zegda (Mid-Damage to All) [5] Level 10: Healo (Heals ~60 HP) [5] Level 11: Degra (Mid-Damage) [4] Level 12: Weaki (Lower Enemy Stats) [8] Level 13: Hitta (+10 STR) [4] Level 14: Healy (Full HP) [8] Level 16: Harda (+10 DEF to all) [6] Level 17: Magda (Heavy Damage to All) [7] **Level 21: Metamega (Massive Damage) [6] Level 25: Imup (Revive) [24]

[gallery columns="4"] Lately I've been taking a lot of notes and doing more writing than I normally do. I've also gotten a number of great emails from readers about what their writing with and pens they might like. [Check out these posts to see previous coverage of writing equipment.] First of, I started using a Platinum Preppy fountain pen. I'm not a big fan of fountain pens, but I do like the throw-away variety and, coming in at $3, the Preppy definitely falls in that category. It's a lot of fun to use and it doesn't have any of the problems you might associate with older fountain pens, like ink pooling or putting out too much ink. I started using it partially because I have been writing on a Behance notebook with rather thick pages, which the pen is ideally suited for. The nib does seem to dry up for a few seconds if I leave the cap off for too long, but past that I really like it. I've also been using  Pilot G2 Limited. I'm a big fan of the G2 so when I saw the Limited I has to pick it up, despite a selling for about $10. It is basically your standard G2 with a more metal parts and a bit more heft. It's a little longer than most of the pens I use, but that doesn't bother me. While I like the extra weight over the comparatively flimsy G2 and I appreciate the nice colors (there is a white as well at the gunmetal gray) and upgraded grip, I don't think it's worth the extra money. It's a solid enough pen, there are others I like more at the $10 mark. It's a must-try for G2 and Pilot fans, but I'd be a lot more impressed with it at $6. Finally, I've been using the Sharpie pen, though not as much as I was. This is a pen that everyone loves because it's cheap and can write on anything. Plus it is a Sharpie that doesn't bleed through. Overall, it's a pen that everyone should own, and while I prefer a standard pen for day to day writing (the Sharpie is not particularly smooth thanks to the material of the tip) it's something that has earned a spot on my desk. I've been taking more notes in ink lately (probably just because it's quick and it let's me organize my thoughts very easy) so I'll try to do these posts more frequently.

I have been, and still am, resistant to Twitter. Yes, it's a cool service and it let's you easily connect with all sorts of amazing people, but getting true value from my time investment in it has been difficult. [Just check out this post, it's not that far from the truth.] Twitter is about two things: who follows you and who you follow. Because you have control over the latter, let's start with that. There are basically four type of people that you can follow:

1. People you know (friends, family, coworkers, etc.)
2. People you have to follow (your boss, clients, etc.)
3. People who you find interesting that you don't know (often top Twitterers)
4. People you follow because they follow you

If you follow all four of these types, your Twitter feed is probably so full of posts that it is too overloaded to do anything aside from browse now and then. If you've spent any time analyzing your Twitter usage you've probably started to trim back on types 1 and 2, and ruled out 4 altogether. (Remember just because you like someone in real life does not mean that their Twitter feed is worth following.) This trimming probably helped cut down on the "Having lunch with @myfriend" and "dude, I hate Mondays" and "#myfirstjob" tweets, but it didn't stop them altogether. Those types of things are just a distraction. If you are using Twitter as a distraction, great, or if you want to use it to talk to buddies, that's cool too, but if you want it to be a professional tool what value are you getting (as a follower) or instilling (as a poster) from these? But Twitter would be boring without this stuff, right? And how else could we better get to know our associates without them telling us how awesome their last jog was or how cold it is outside? Before we get too far, I'd like to point out why I've been hesitant to get too involved in Twitter. It's about distractions (which should be kept to a minimum) and persistent tasks. For me, a persistent task (more accurately, a persistent tab) is anything that I keep open all the time and check in on frequently. These include email and RSS, but then all the other things that we check in on all day long, like web site comments, your work chatroom, Google chat, and so on. The more of these you have, the less you can concentrate on the task at hand, especially once you get into ones where you can spend lots of time using each day, like Friendfeed, Facebook, and MySpace. So is Twitter worth the time investment and the fact that using it means that you will have one more tab open all day long everyday (or a desktop client/iPhone app)? It must be to some people, but I'm guessing a lot of people just enjoy the distraction. So who is getting real value from Twitter right now?

1. Anyone with a large number of followers If you are kicking out your thoughts and links to, say, 5000 people multiple times a day, there is clear value in that for you.
2. People using it to gain access All of a sudden we have a way that is faster and less formal to get in touch with CEOs, thought leaders, (internet) celebrities, etc., and you have a better chance of getting a response than an email.
3. People expanding personal brands ... though you generally had to have one already- we aren't seeing Twitter celebrities
4. Brands looking to gain access to people NYtimes, CNNbreaking, NPR, Woot, etc

Are you on that list? If you are not, then you are really just using it to stay connected. I prefer my RSS reader for that sort of thing, but that's just my personal preference. So while there are undeniably ways to get value from Twitter, it's not clear to me that a whole lot of people are getting a good return on their time investment. I'm going to keep thinking things over, but it seems like that same time is better spent on something like Friendfeed or working on my blog  (which, like so many others, has gotten much quieter since Twitter and similar services became popular).

CES is over, as are the holidays and vacation. It's nice to back in the city, but that means back to work and the daily grind, which isn't quite as much fun. Before CES 2009 is a distant memory I wanted to mention the issue of attendance. The official projections (probably from CEA) had the number at something like 10-13% down, but in actuality it was way more than that. Silicon Alley Insider says 30%, which seems closer to the truth. It was obvious at times just how empty the show was--normal bottlenecks like Intel's booth were generally easy to get through and there was no rush to enter the show floor at 9am each day. Also, large pieces of the show floor were empty, where companies had pulled out or just didn't show up. The most depressing moment of it all (at least for me) happened Saturday morning. I was sitting in the press room with about 25 other people, with just one other person at my table. Normally the press room is packed at that time, with barely a seat to spare. Instead it was just me and a bunch of international press. Even the WiFi connection was working great, which rarely happens CES. Of course, there were no donuts left. Anyway, it's all over now, but it wasn't a great year for CES. Maybe if Apple shows up next year it will help, and obviously an improved economic outlook wouldn't hurt, but I think it's clear that the show needs some reorganization as well.

Anyone who runs a multi-author site knows that tracking of all the articles is a constant challenge. Keeping tabs on who is writing what is hard enough, but then trying to follow who is getting the job done is another thing altogether. Whether you want to track word counts, reads, comments, etc., there just isn't a good way to break things down by author. So here's what I'm looking for: a plugin that allows me to track a few very simple metrics, broken down by author. Specifically I'd like to know:

• number of articles posted over a given period
• average articles per day
• comments (total and average per article)
• pageviews (total over a time period, per article)
• some other ideas, though less important ones, could be: average word count per article, what categories are being written in, etc.

Basically it would just be a simple way to track who is writing and how successful their posts are. It wouldn't have to be a comprehensive package, just some insight into the performance of each of the authors. The hardest one of these would be tracking pageviews, but a rough estimate would be fine. Are their ways around a custom plugin? Possibly, but nothing great (at least that I can think of). You could possibly use Google Analytics for this, but you would have to have a unique code for each of the authors in the URL (or URI, whatever you want to call it). This requires some customization and adds to the length of your URL stucture, but could possibly be OK. The downside is that you are stuck using an analytics package that won't be able to track comments, calculate post totals, or other site specific metrics. From what I can tell, it really has to be done within Wordpress to be done well. All the data is readily available (if you know how to get it) so then it's just a matter of calculating the totals and presenting them in a friendly manner. Part of the challenge would be creating a slick UI and also not having the plugin be a resource hog (maybe it could update only once an hour or once on a day). Based on plugins like Wassup we know it's possible to do fairly extensive analytics packages within Wordpress. Any takers? Anyone know of a plugin that I haven't found? An easier way to get these results? I don't think its asking for a whole lot (and I'm surprised that it hasn't been done yet).

If you have been reading this site you know that I recently set up a NAS. A lot of NAS devices have built-in iTunes Media Server functionality, which makes sense as a NAS is an obvious place to store your music (most people have at least a few gigabytes these days...). As you probably guessed, I did this with my NAS and I was immediately disappointed with the results. iTunes Server is extremely limited and while it can play music (the most important function) that is about it. You cannot drag songs into playlists or get them to play easily on your iPhone/iPod (this ability is tied to playlists). Also, if you buy songs, you have to store them locally, and then move them to your server, (then the server has to scan them, which can be every 5 minutes, hourly, etc., before iTunes will update). To put it simply, songs on your server don't have the same accessibility or usability as songs in your Library. My problems did not stop there though. Sometimes iTunes would see my NAS' iTunes Server and not let me access it (I gave me a weird error about a firewall issues that did not exist). Just today iTunes did not recognize my NAS, this means you have no way to access the music (even though I could get to my mapped drive through Windows). Even restarting iTunes did not help... restarting the NAS and/or computer would have probably done the trick. Also the music on the server is a bit slow to load initially. It will take a few seconds for iTunes to list all the tracks. This is a minor annoyance, but it's just one more thing between you and you music. What does iTunes Server do well? Well most of the time it's automatically recognized by iTunes, so it's very easy to setup (at least with Windows, I'm guessing it's just as easy on a Mac). Sadly, that's all I can think of. So today, after iTunes could not find my Server, I was done with the experiment. The solution was pretty simple, I just needed to change my iTunes Library folder to the folder where it live on the NAS using a mapped drive. So rather than the Library living on my C: I changed it to my Y:. I have a pretty substantial amount of music so it took a long time for iTunes to rescan the folder and organize it but afterwards I was all set. It begs the question, why did I do an iTunes server in the first place? Well this is a feature on most nicer NAS devices so I wanted to give it a shot. It also lets more than one computer use that music. Finally, because of your limited permissions, it means that your music is blocked from iTunes' tampering (changing folders, converting file types, adding tracks to the library, etc.) Ultimately it just wasn't worth it though and I can't see an iTunes server being something that NAS owner would want to use. To summarize all this: iTunes Server can only play music, that's it. If you want anything more, and you are storing your music on a NAS, you should map a drive and use that as your iTunes Library folder.

For as long as I have been reading/writing about computers I've always loved articles where people walk through the building of their own computer. Buyer's guides are fun, but that's not what I mean. I'm talking about someone who is building a computer for a reason and then talking about the components that they used, how they went to together, and the result. It doesn't matter if it's the smallest/cheapest/most powerful/etc. what matters is your goals and how you went about building a computer to accomplish them while working our real life limitations, like space and price. If you are interested (or have no idea what I am talking about) you can check out my latest PC build article or Josh Korwin's, which also ran on Geek. Logic Supply just did a great one on their blog using a Chenbro case and a Gigabyte Mini-ITX motherboard. It's very well done and reflects the advanced understanding of the components and how they work together that make these articles so interesting. Being an online retailer they have access to all sorts of great gear as well as a more experience working with the parts than almost anyone else. It's very interesting, and it's got to be the best way I can think of to inform consumers about your products. Tech Report has been doing them for a long time as well, though I can't seem to find my favorite on their site. (I'll keep looking, but I thought it was called the "Danger Box"...) These articles are a lot of work- not just on the writing side, but the research, the building, troubleshooting, testing, etc.- so we don't see them that often. We do see a lot of "Build a $500 gaming computer" type posts, but these are generally just going through Newegg and picking out some parts. They can't be helpful and fun to read, but without a computer being built, you don't get the same insights into the final product. I used to do these posts much more frequently. They were not only loads of fun, but they were generally my most successful articles (see "The Mini-ITX Project"). I don't do them as often largely because of time and space constraints. Additionally interest in articles like this has been waning. I won't get into it too much here, but with so many people moving to laptops and thanks to recent hardware advances outpacing software ones you don't have to build to have a great computer.

Christopher Hitchens has an excellent post on Slate. He doesn't pull any punches...

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

Worth reading before you vote next week.

http://www.slicehost.com/... Congrats to the SliceHost team on their sale! I've had a chance to do some hosting there and I was really impressed with what they did. It's pretty incredible what a few very smart people who clearly love their field can do in just two years. That said, I'm not sure that this is the best news. Who knows what is going to happen to customer service and that sort of thing once the company is gobbled up by RackSpace. It looks like SliceHost is remaining somewhat independent, at least initially, but we are going to see a lot of technology crossing over in both directions, which is good in a lot of ways, but when it comes down to it SliceHost customers might not be able to expect the same level of support and interaction with Slice's main team as before. I don't have any specific issues with RackSpace, but it's a big organzation and working with them won't be like working with Slice, even if so much of the process is automated.