Monthly Archive for September, 2007

Another End, Another Beginning

Published
by
Josh Kim
on September 30, 2007
in Asides
. 0 Comments

After spending a day and a half in Cincinnati, I’m back to Illinois.

Please… no more driving. For a little while? Heh.

Excited? You betcha. A new MacBook Pro waiting for me in less than 12 hours… I kid. I’m very excited about what I’ll be getting to do for NCSA. I got a taste of it after I had a lunch meeting with them this past Monday. This first week’s probably going to be spent on getting acquainted with the system, as well as mounds of paperwork. Delicious paperwork.

I still haven’t fully unpacked. Too much space equals not enough limits on where the furniture can go. Still have little corners of the apartments that I must clean partially due to my OCD-ness.

What else is on my mind…

After 1.1.1, my iPhone is much more unstable than before. I don’t get it. I’ve had it “crash” on me a couple times after the update, quitting out to the home screen from whatever I was doing. I’ve had it get really hot which I can only blame it still looking for a wifi source that didn’t exist (it didn’t disconnect properly or something). I hope it was just a bad string of errors.

Still looking for a new set of headphones and a lighter mp3 player to run/work out with. The iPod shuffle seems kinda expensive for what I want to do… but we’ll see…

Lots of electronic purchases, hopefully, in the future. Lots to do in this upcoming month… I feel like I’m back to some semblance of sanity. I’ll be back to doing my Month in Reviews, and continuing to blog personal as well as technical.

Mind ready. Goals set. Headfirst go.

Interruption to Your Regularly Scheduled Post

Published
by
Josh Kim
on September 26, 2007
in Site News
. 1 Comment

Sidenote: Pfft. Regularly. I’m funny. Oh, and this post took me like a week to write. I don’t know why I got so slow at this…

Not sure why I haven’t really thought this through before… I’ve listed things in the past to help me track down what I wanted this blog to be… but I might have to redefine what Josh Kim dot Org is about again.

It has become very obvious to me now that I write about two very disparate topics. The funny thing is, I probably wouldn’t have come to this conclusion if I just sat there with my blank sheets of paper, creating diagrams about what categories should go where. (Which I’ve done before) Another lesson in doing, and not planning.

The Two Topics

1. Technology & the Internet: The recent post about Mint.com is a great example of this topic. I love to talk about Web Applications, Web Development, Gadgets, Apple, User Interface Design, Content & Media… Whatever that tickles my fancy born out of 0’s and 1’s. Somehow, I’ve managed to categorize them… hopefully, this system continues to make sense in the long run.

2. Personal/Relationships/Random: Not necessarily mutually exclusive from the first topic (how social networks define “friends” is one post I’ve been working on for months…), but rather not as exciting for most people. I tend to talk a lot about lessons I get out of living life. Man… the amount of relational crap I’m going through… and how much I’m learning about myself and the people around me… it’s almost too much at times. I have to start writing… but I end up trashing it, or pushing it aside, or posting it privately, thinking it doesn’t really fit with anything else. But it’s all too interesting, and I want people to read it: At least, the people it applies to anyway.

I also have tons of little random things I learn that I want to share. My desire to solidify my grasp on that topic could have been materialized as a post about that topic. Just recently there was a story on the difference between credit and debit cards, and how they charge different fees on which one is being used and how they affect the merchants. Also, just recently, I was hit in the face with some good poetry… another area I want to get acquainted with. Movie reviews, cooking tips, recent music choices…

More Balkanization?

One of my favorite words in high school… lovely.

What kind of person has favorite words anyway?

See, that? Right there? That kind of stuff would make it to Topic #2.

And so, in efforts to keep this site a bit more structured, I will be diving into WordPress to break this blog into two. One feed will include just the first topic, while a second feed will include both the tech and the personal. Those that are subscribed right now will be getting all the items. If you’d like to opt out of my non-geek drivel, I’ll keep you posted in the weeks to come.

The Catalyst

I’d like to leave with a quote that really started this line of thinking to begin with from Stephen, a highly quotable guy:

If you want to talk about something generally and cathartically, do. It’s not wasting anybody’s time. If they don’t want to read it they won’t. If they do, they’ll at least have a general idea what’s going on in your life.

A lot of my issues I will tend to hide, thinking I’ll seem weak to others. But I feel like if it’ll help others that are going through the same types of issues, then I will post publicly on it. Heck, it’ll help me get over it, too… whatever it is.

Hopefully, this will clear up a few posts that are coming up… cuz… they have nothing to do with topic #1.

Where? What?! When?

Published
by
Josh Kim
on September 25, 2007
in Asides
. 1 Comment

That is the normal reaction I get from some of the people I told I’ll be moving back.

I packed my life once again into my tiny little Hyundai Accent and drove like a banshee from Minnesota to Illinois this past Saturday. 8+ hours of sweet alone time, with a dash of phone calls to friends and family members.

It’s already Tuesday. Lots to do still to get settled in. I think I’ve finalized where I’ll be living at until August 2008. Hopefully next year, I’ll have a few more days and much more sanity to decide on a better place. For now, it looks pretty good. Pictures to follow. Maybe.

One good thing that comes from not being in front of the computer so much is… my wrists seem to be doing better, finally. I have a theory that since I haven’t exercised in the past 5 months, my condition probably worsened over time. (The last time I did anything physical was the last time I was in Urbana… how I’ve missed you, WIMPE/CRCE (BTW Campus Rec people… enable forwarding for the cool kids that don’t type the “www.”…))

Continuing with the lack of a proper reason for this post: I’m going to be selling my MacBook Pro. I’ll be sad to see it go… and be replaced by yet another MacBook Pro. Hooray for work computers.

Let’s see… what else… Yeap. I’ve got nothing. All’s I know is: October. You’re going down.

LCD Monitors R Us

Published
by
Josh Kim
on September 19, 2007
in Gadgets & Toys
. 0 Comments

I can’t believe I spent all the hours after work looking up 24″ LCDs. Yes, it’s true… the 17″ KDS has outlived its usefulness. I need to place a large emphasis on having a large enough canvas to paint my beautiful code on. Plus, ergonomics are fast becoming priority #1. Definitely need a separate display next to the MacBook Pro.

Why 24″ you ask? Price point is around the mid- to high-level range. I remember paying more than $500 for my 17 inch. For another 5 years of good usage (hopefully), I’m willing to pay about $600 or so. Another reason is because the resolution that 24″ that come at (1900~1920×1200) is just enough to support 1080p. Also, that’s the max resolution that a single-link DVI can support… and one day, if I do need two of these suckers… I can pull the trigger with my MacBook Pro. (DualHead2Go FTW)

But geez… so much research left to do, even after hours of searching tonight. Dell 2407WFP, Samsung 244T, and Benq FP241WZ seem to be the three contenders in the field of 24″-ers. The tales of A01 to A04 revisions of the Dell 2407… how the 2405 was actually better at one point due to the 8 bit vs the 6 bit screens… gamuts… Samsung’s input lag on their 244T… the different types of LCDs used in these suckers… TN, IPS, MVA, PVA… Warranty on Dead Pixels (Samsung’s definitely winning on this one)… So… many… acronyms…

My eyes are going to bleed. At least, I’m a little bit more knowledgeable in this area now. Somehow…

How Does Mint.com Make Money?

Published
by
Josh Kim
on September 18, 2007
in Web Applications
. 5 Comments

Looks like Mint (review by VentureBeat) launched today, “The free, automatic, online way to manage your money”. When I first ran across this app a while back while it was in closed beta, I was confused at first, because of another web app of the same name which does site analytics. Naming makes more sense for Mint.com though…

Looks awesome. Even the sign up page is slick. Although right now, it’s quite slow (I tried signing up my checking and savings accounts… and it still hasn’t gone through). But who can blame them? It’s the launch date.

Actually… I can’t connect to my accounts at all.

Can't Connect... Nuts...

I haven’t used it yet enough to really see the benefit to this web app, but if it does what it promises well… I’ll be using it daily, no question. I don’t like having to open up Google Docs and inputting my expenses for the day, and doing for something I used my credit card for.

Of course, all this would be pointless if the banks got off their butts and improved their online banking. (I’m impressed with how Chase is doing, but it still needs to get better.)

The entire point of this post is… where’s the money? How do they make money on this service? I can’t figure it out. I do see a portion of a site that could potentially bring some kind of profit by giving people the ability to change their credit card or checking accounts (to “Save Money”). Some kind of referral system, I think. I’m sure they’ve got something up their sleeves, but I’m just really curious.