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Technology purchasing: A 10 year retrospective

I've been playing around with technology for longer than I care to remember--I blame my father for bringing home that first Commodore PET way back in 1979. Ever since then, it seems, I've had this unhealthy fascination for pretty much everything on the bleeding edge of technology. I clearly wouldn't have my current job without this interest in technology, so I guess I'm quite thankful that things worked out the way they did.

However, such a hobby does have its costs--literally. I was cleaning out our cabinets the other day, and came across my binder of technology receipts. This is where I keep the receipts for any "substantial" hardware or software purchases, and it tends to be something of a roach motel for receipts: they check in, but they never check out.

So I thought I'd take some time and cull the receipts for things I no longer own. Going through the binder is quite the revelation--both on how much I spent on technology (hey, I was young, single, and careless...now I'm just careless!), but on how much the technology itself actually cost. I scanned a few bits from some of the more interesting receipts (click any receipt for a larger version).

Read on for a walk down memory lane...followed by a look at what those items would cost in today's dollars, as well as what you could get for that some money today!

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For Sale: Bill Gates’ signature, $40

Vista imageDid you know that you can buy a version of Vista signed by the one and only Bill Gates? That's right; the Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate UPGRADE Limited Numbered Signature Edition is signed by Bill himself. As seen at the above Amazon link, it's $289.99 (but currently out of stock; I guess Bill must sign slowly!). On that same page, however, they direct you to the Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate UPGRADE, which is in stock, for $249.99.

Ergo, having Bill's signature on your Vista box will cost you $40. Yikes. The guy's already worth something north of $40 billion, and he wants $40 more from those who desire his signature?! Wonder if those paying the $40 will see their investments pay off on eBay in 20 years or so? Sad to say, they probably will...

As much as I like Apple and OS X, and admire Steve Jobs, there's no way I'd pay any amount extra to have an OS X 10.5 Leopard box signed by Steve himself -- and in this case, I think sending $249.99 to Microsoft is already way more than sufficient, especially given that I expect Leopard will be roughly half that cost!

Thanks to Kirk for pointing me to this silly signed edition of Vista...



Question for a CSS wizard…

In writing this post, I wanted to include a centered image with four lines of text off to the side, like this:

centered block image

As someone who is struggling to move away from table-based layouts, I did my best to create that structure using only CSS. But after 30 minutes of fighting with divs, floats, clears, aligns, and google searches, I gave up and whipped out the table code. Two minutes later, the table was done and published. Yes, I gave up--I didn't want to spend my entire lunch hour on five lines of text!

My question is this: can someone point me to a site that explains exactly how to create the above look using CSS? All pointers appreciated.



A little (simulated) flying fun…

If you've been reading here much, or have ever seen me speak, you know that I'm somewhat of an aviation fan. I'm an instrument-rated private pilot (though not current, thanks to family, money, and Oregon weather!), and X-Plane is one of my favorite diversions. I love being able to pilot aircraft I'll never have the chance to fly here in reality, and to fly in weather conditions that I wouldn't dare to go near in a real airplane. X-Plane also features real-world weather, so I can fly around the Portland area in conditions that closely match what I see out the office window.

Yesterday, it was foggy here. Really foggy. Almost all day. So during lunch, I took the Nike LearJet (OK, the X-Plane version thereof) out from Portland International for a little spin. Take-off in foggy conditions is relatively straightforward--full thrust, max rate of climb, maintain runway heading (instrument departure procedure? Nah!), and I broke out into the blue skies above at about 3,500 feet above the ground. I flew off to a clearer airport for a couple touch-and-goes, then headed back to Portland. Given the fog, an instrument approach was definitely required. I chose the ILS for runway 28R, and maneuvered the plane towards the final approach course.

Then I got lazy, something I couldn't ever do when flying instruments in the Piper Warrior I trained in: I set up a fully-coupled autopilot approach, including auto-throttles. As pilot, my job was now reduced to system monitor--I only had to choose the desired airspeed on the autopilot panel, remember to drop the flaps and gear, monitor the system's progress, and then the autopilot would take care of the rest. Just for fun, I used SnapzPro to record the approach, from the ILS intercept to touchdown, and uploaded them in case anyone wants to see X-Plane, or what a really foggy approach might look like.
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Timing is everything!

It figures; just days after getting everything together and uploading the first major revision to Robservatory, WordPress goes off and releases version 2.1! Sigh.

I intsalled version 2.1 on my local copy of the site, then ran the upgrader. That portion of the process went quite well. However, in trying to re-enable my collection of plug-ins and widgets, I found that many of them don't seem to get along with WordPress 2.1 at all--enabling certain plug-ins completely breaks the site's display, for instance.

So, for now, I'll be keeping the site on the 2.0.7 release until more of the plug-ins are updated.



Behind the scenes: plug-ins and widgets

A couple of people emailed me, asking about the collection of widgets and plug-ins I'm using on the site. I've also found that the links in the Plugins page of WordPress' management screen are often incorrect, so documenting the updated URLs seems like a smart thing to do.

So without further ado, you'll find the list just below the (now expanding-in-place!) jump...
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Site upgrade completed

Welcome to Robservatory 2.0!

We're now running the latest and greatest version of WordPress, but the big news is that I've spent a fair bit of time digging for and installing useful add-ons. (I've also converted the sidebar to WordPress widgets, a cool plug-in that makes it much easier to add and remove things from the sidebar.)

Read on to see some of the new features, as well as some notes from the conversion process...
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Rob talks! It’s a podcast…

Macworld logoThis afternoon, I sat down in a room with fellow Macworld employees Jason Snell (our esteemed leader; VP and Editorial Director), Philip Michaels (Executive Editor, Online), and Jonathan Seff (Senior News Editor) to talk about the keynote--what it was, what it wasn't, and when we think what wasn't might turn into what is :).

You can listen to our ramblings from the links on this page over at macworld.com--it's episode #64, in case there are others posted there as well. I haven't done much in the way of podcasting, either creating or participating. It was kind of fun, and I heard some ideas about things I hadn't considered, even though I sat and listened to the same keynote as the others. Hopefully you'll find it interesting as well.



My thoughts on the Expo keynote

Macworld logoI took a few minutes yesterday to jot down my thoughts regarding the keynote. As described in the article, I was disappointed--not by the iPhone (wow, what a product!) nor the Apple TV, but by the complete lack of information on OS X, the lack of new Apple software, and the non-existence of any new Mac hardware (excluding a never-mentioned AirPort Extreme).

Don't get me wrong--I'm not negative on Apple, and I think the iPhone is truly revolutionary. It's going to spawn a full line of products (come on, Apple, drop a 100GB drive in there, remove the phone wiring, and sell the true Video iPod). I do think it will take Apple in exciting (and profitable) new directions, and I can't wait until I can play with one in person. But attending a Macworld Expo and not getting any new Apple hardware or software to play with is...disappointing.



An ode to the Expo

Macworld logoI got a bit bored last night, after checking in and getting everything set up in the room. Left with time on my hands and not much to do, I started thinking about the upcoming keynote. For whatever reason, the poem 'Twas the night before Christmas started running through my head, but repurposed for Tuesday's event:

"Twas the day before Macworld, and all through the nets
Not a weblog was silent, they were all taking bets;
The photos were taken of posters afar,
In hopes that St. Jobs' stuff would clearly show thar.

I finished a version (although without using every single stanza in the original long poem!), then sent it to my buddy Kirk McElhearn to take a look at. He tweaked a few words, added a couple more stanzas, and we wound up with this.

Somehow, the tie-in with Christmas and the Expo keynote seems quite fitting; I hope everyone gets what they're hoping for tomorrow!