Monthly Archives: October 2009

24:7 Espresso Coffee Energy Drink Review

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When it gets late at night, and I need my caffeine fix, what’s my go to drink? Bawls, the blue bottled energy drink. Probably the easiest (but not the most cost-efficient) way to get a 4-pack is through Target. (I was sad that they stopped carrying them for a couple months, but to my surprise, I found them a couple weeks ago.)

But when it gets really late, and I don’t have a Target or a specialty beverage store to go to within a reasonable driving distance (after all, I am sane, mostly), I start perusing the gas stations and convenience marts.

Two nights ago, I visited a nearby Walgreens for a can of 24:7 Coffee Energy Drink.

24:7 Espresso Coffee Energy Drink

I remember trying out another flavor by the same brand, but I probably forgot to blog on it.

Smell wasn’t too bad. Actually smelled quite a bit like an actual iced coffee drink. I think it might have to do with the fact that it does have milk in it.

The taste was quite watery, almost like iced coffee with an ice to coffee ratio heavily in favor of ice. Sweetness wasn’t completely off, but it’s supposed to be “Espresso”, right? A bit sweeter than expected. Immediate aftertaste is a bit chocolately and very creamy, but the longer aftertaste is very akin to coffee.

It did its job as an energy drink. Pushed through a whole bunch of blog changes I’ve been working on.

Drinkable, but if I had a choice, I wouldn’t buy it again. 2/4.

Welcome To The Microsoft Store

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Does this feel really eerie? I’ve heard that the MS Store was going to be similar to the Apple Store, but wow. The huge glass façade, floors, tables, the employees with their bright-colored shirts… I did notice the nice screens wrapping the walls, though, that was a nice touch. I expect BSODs to be wonderfully hilarious. ;-)

But this goes into a larger issue with Microsoft’s strategy in trying to copy the best of Apple. Sure, at first glance, it feels great, but I wonder if their version of the Genius Bar won’t require you to reserve a spot months in advance.

(via @ehjayb via @cabel)

Interaction With The PowerMat Ad In Wired

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I got this month’s issue of Wired yesterday. After removing all the random bits of Subscribe To Wired ads (seriously, I like you, Wired, but it’s kinda annoying to do this with every issue), I came across a very interesting advertisement.

And no, not the tobacco ad which was anchoring in this I’m talking about the insert for PowerMat. The ad itself was made out of some seriously stiff paper. I was intrigued, so I went on.

PowerMat Ad (1/3)

What was even more interesting was that the next page seemed to require a bit of pulling to get it open. It read “Introducing PowerMat.” Looked like there were three power cords going into the BlackBerry, iPhone, and Nintendo DS.

PowerMat Ad (2/3)

I realized that there was a bit of adhesive in play here, forcing the me to actually have to pry the pages apart. And then I read the words: “Lose The Cords.” Aha!

PowerMat Ad (3/3)

I just thought that this was worth sharing. Now go to your nearest newsstand and start tearing things.

Newsstands? What are those? Such a 20th century idea.

Blog Move Complete

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It’s finally good to be back. It took me a while, but I think we’re pretty much back to the way things were.

I’m now using another theme, and I’m almost certain I’ll be sticking with this for a while. Heck, there’s a nice iPhone version of the site, too, if you’re into that sort of thing. Thank you, Alex King (and the rest of Crowd Favorite) and the Carrington theme.

I’ve also moved to using subversion repositories for WordPress itself and WordPress plugins. A simple “svn up” and I should be rocking and rolling.

The move to WebFaction is also complete. I’m sad to leave NearlyFreeSpeech, but I just did not like the new pricing changes. Also, the fact that there’s a flat monthly fee just works better for me (and most people… which is why microtransactions are just not going to work. I agree with Shirky on this one.)

I’ll be launching a couple new blogs in the near future. I’ve been hammering out the specifics, but I think I should be rolling it out before the weekend.

Blog Is Being Worked On

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Downtime? Probably today and tomorrow.

Finally thinking a bit more like a developer than a user with respect to WordPress, and being a lot more proactive with maintenance and scaling issues. Hooray!

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

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“Don’t worry about what anybody else is going to do… The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn’t violate too many of Newton’s Laws!”

Alan Kay, 1971, Inventor of Smalltalk (source)

I didn’t know that there was a longer form of this quote. I guess the shorter form of this quote is catchier, but it’s interesting to note that inventing the future requires really smart people and reasonable funding.

The quote “Fake it till you make it” seems to have a similar meaning. I guess my quote of “Shut up and ship it” has a similar ring to it.

But really, what are quotes but words strung together in a sentence without any action?

Food for thought, really. I leave you with this for tonight.

Google, Wave To Firefly

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Yesterday night, I started rewatching an episode of Firefly (while weeping uncontrollably at the cancellation of such a great show).

At around 1:20 on the fifth episode (not by airdate), Safe, a conversation occurs between a young Simon Tam and his Dad, Gabriel Tam.

Simon: Did you get my wave?

Gabriel: I got it. Your text shorted. I got the whole thing during a board meeting. Thank you.

Simon: If I had a dedicated source box, it wouldn’t short out. I lost half my essay.

Gabriel: Yes, and you would’ve have access to any “tyen-shiao duh”* that filtered in from the Cortex. I absolutely forbid it.

**According to this awesome compendium of Chinese phrases in Firefly, “tyen-shiao duh” (天曉得/天晓得) means “Heaven Knows What”.*

Recently, a bunch of invitations were sent out for Google Wave, a new communication project by Google. For a moment, I thought maybe it was possible that Google Wave was somehow inspired by this little conversation… but instead, I thought little of it since the idea of a “wave” seemed just ubiquitous enough in general sci-fi.

Turns out, Someone from Whedonesque already made the connection:

The presentation includes the lead programming engineers and project managers making multiple Firefly/Serenity references and even the “Wave” program itself prints the words, “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” at the bottom of the screen when it unexpectedly crashes (it’s still in development).

A couple of fun little notes, if this little conversation actually took place in a world where Google Wave has united all communication.

  • “Your text shorted.”: I think that the word “text” means something else here. Any ideas?

  • “I got the whole thing during a board meeting.” Maybe Gabriel didn’t set his settings properly… but I’m fairly certain that as things are today, it won’t push things to you, unless you’re logged in. Maybe there’s some awesome third party apps action going on. Or… maybe you’re logged into Wave all the time.

  • “… A dedicated source box…” Since the whole thing is open source (and quite a bit of XMPP magic, might I add), I wouldn’t doubt that a dedicated “source” box would be fun to play with.

  • “I lost half my essay.” That still happens? I’m pretty sure Wave starts saving things as soon as you start typing them. Regardless, are applications not able to save every single character that we type, including all the fun metadata (when was it typed, where in the universe it was typed, even… how hard it was typed on the keyboard)? Heck, do we even type anymore? I’m already missing the point by thinking about the future in such present terminology.

  • “… Filtered from the cortex.” Too open? Parental controls?

I’m having too much fun with this. And actually reading the comments from the Whedonesque post, there seems to be a bit more references to waves.

Not only is this post discussing the nerdy in a fictional universe, it’s also a friendly reminder for you to go back and rewatch Firefly. Chances are if you’re reading this, you have already done so multiple times.

Do.

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All this time, all I had to do was just… do.

No seriously, is there something you want? Do you really want it?

Then go. Grab it.

It’s amazing how many roadblocks are created just by yourself alone. And making weighted lists on those roadblocks are just as equally silly.

The question isn’t how are you wasting your time, but why. And even then, why ask why when you can do.

And it all becomes clear to me, just for a second, to continue on the road to Awesome.

This Is Literally The Sixth Iteration Of This Post

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I swear, you try to do something daily… and you get STUCK.

And I’m okay with that. I’m fine with not being perfect.

Or at least, I’ll be telling this to myself as I fall asleep to maintain a diurnal lifestyle. And to dull the ridiculous left forearm pain.

More, tomorrow, when I’m well rested.

Delicious, Quicksilver, And You

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Yeap, I’m still using Quicksilver. And yeap, I’m still in love with it.

And mixed with Delicious … it gets even better.

Note: There’s a note on the Delicious plugin page;

Plugin not compatible with Intel based Macs yet (does this mean “does not work with Intel Macs”, or that it’s not “universal”?)

It’s worked before on an Intel Leopard machine, as well working currently on the Snow Leopard one, so don’t worry about that.

The Goods

Bookmark your pages, just like you would, but just remember to rename the titles for those pages. Little did I know, the plugin only uses the title of the page, not the tags.

Delicious

You’ll notice that there are three “WebFaction Control Panels”, even though they all go to a different page. So I went ahead and named those something more useful for each page.

Also, I decided to lead the human-readable titles with something shorter to type. For example, I have it so that wfa goes to WebFaction’s Apps page.

Changes to Delicious Bookmarks

One caveat: After you’ve done all your messing around in Delicious, don’t forget to go into your Quicksilver preferences and refresh the Delicious catalog.

Refresh The Catalog For Delicious

Bonus: Bookmarking Via Quicksilver

Quicksilver uses the bookmarks you have locally, in bookmarks folder and your bookmarks tab.

If you already have the Delicious bookmarklet “installed”, then you already can invoke the Quicksilver action for creating a bookmark by typing out “Bookmark”.

Bookmarklet in Quicksilver

But who has time to type out “bookmark”? Time to go make it yours.

By The Way

My delicious page is at http://delicious.com/joshkim.