Mas Geek

I'm Rootin For Ya, myTouch

Oprah commanded me to buy a T-Mobile myTouch 3G for $99 last week so I did.  Further proof that Oprah really is Jesus: I had dreamed about owning an Android phone a couple nights before this deal was announced.  The “phone” (are we still calling them phones?) arrived two days ago and within a couple of hours I was busy voiding my warranty via the power of rooting.

Rooting is a process to unlock Android-based phones and open up features that are not available to the end-user either because they are locked away or because they are not available on the version of Android that shipped with the specific device.  The term “root” refers to the fact that you are giving yourself root-level access to the OS and are able to interact with it in the same way a developer would rather than a measly end-user.

Luckily the Android development community have developed a “1 click” process to enable this because my knowledge of how exactly this works ran out back there at “root-level access”.   All I know is that Gina Trapani did it so it must be cool.

One of the things I wanted to do with my newly unlocked phone involved accessing my phone from my PC via a command line interface (sorta like Whoopi Goldberg in Jumpin Jack Flash but with fewer hot spies).   I spent hours trying to get this connection set up but I kept getting an error message.  I finally realized today that I had been typing “adp” instead of “adb”.  If it hadn’t been for that simple typo I would have been able to get the thing done in maybe 30 minutes instead of 4 or 5 hours.  With anything else this would have made me weep with frustration but with computers you just have to accept these things.

Now I’ve got adb running, my sd card partitioned, and app2sd enabled.  In English: I am a genius.  I LOVE nerdy projects like this.  There is nothing better than the feeling you get after hacking away at this sort of thing, learning all sorts of things along the way, and finally having that very last piece fall into place and getting the damn thing to work.

If you are interested in rooting your Android device I highly recommend the following sources:

• Android and Me’s tutorials on rooting
• XDA Developer’s Forum
• T-Mobile’s Android Development Forum (I know, weird, right?)

Be sure to read through any tutorials or guides several times before you attempt anything.  There is a very real risk of turning your device into a useless lump of plastic so proceed with caution.  Have fun!

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

Oh dear God. Prepare to be horrified.  The image you are about to see depicts the symbiotic relationship between weaver fish and isopods, a “rare parasite which burrows into host fish before eating and replacing their tongues with itself.”  Despite eating it’s tongue and helping itself to whatever the fish is eating the isopod doesn’t harm the host fish.  In return the fish gets to look like an alien badass:

[via Discover Online]

Crush of the Week: Kevin Pereira

Cable television darling Kevin Pereira, host of G4TV’s Attack of the Show, reminds me of several ADHDed straight boys I’ve had crushes on over the years.  This type of spastic guy is always looking for an adventure, loves to flirt, and likes to keep everyone entertained.  Anything to keep them at the center of attention.  And I am definitely not judging or complaining.  Mr. Pereira’s geeky slant is the cherry on top of this delicious hyperactive sundae.

By all accounts he’s been quite the go-getter with respect to his media aspirations, having hosted an Internet radio show in high school that eventually got him a gig at G4 as a production assistant.  Tweren’t long before he was hosting Attack of the Show, where he gets to indulge his obvious love of dressing in drag and share his special brand of spastic humor with the world.

Here are 5 more reasons that Kevin Pereira is my crush of the week:

1. He supports the gays
2. He’s deep and emotional
3. Check out that hiney!
4. His ping pong is strong.
5. He’s wooooorkin IT!

Oh Joss, My Joss

Despite being an avid sci-fi and fantasy fan for as long as I can remember I got to the Joss Whedon party way late. Like, 18 years late. But I’m here now and happy as a pig in shit.

My first Joss experience would have been in 1989 with the four episodes of Roseanne that he wrote. But I was 8 at the time and wasn’t really thinking about who wrote the TV shows I watched.

Our next run-in came with the Buffy movie. But once again, I was young and didn’t pay attention to who created my entertainment. However, I loved that movie. For an 11 year old boy who would turn out to be gay life doesn’t get much better than a Valley girl killing vampires. And dating Luke Perry. But as I said, I had no idea who Joss was at the time (or how much of a homo I would turn out to be). Included in this list are Toy Story and Alien: Resurrection. Loved both, had no idea who Joss was when I first saw them.

I still didn’t know who Joss was when Buffy first aired. But I did know that the cheesy opening sequence was the most annoying thing I had ever seen and I refused to watch the show. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that at the time I also felt like this TV show was ruining the movie I loved. Little did I know that Joss not only produced both but thought the movie was weak. And so my only real memory of Buffy when it originally aired was my race to change the channel after whatever I was watching before Buffy ended and that fucking organ music came on. Still no Joss love in my heart.

Next for Joss came Angel, Firefly, and Serenity. I have no recollection of any of those. And this is pretty bizarre to me because I was online from a very early age and as I said, a sci fi fan from the beginning. And yet I somehow missed the boat on all of these wonderful creations. However, it was right around this time that I finally heard the words ‘Joss Whedon’. In college I worked with a woman who was a huge Joss Whedon fan. But she took it to a place I wasn’t prepared to go (Who names their Chihuhua Joss?) and so I never paid any attention.

And so it wasn’t until last year, nearly two decades after my first encounter with Joss’ work that I finally became a fan. It all began with Firefly. I was starting to notice a lot of references to Firefly and Buffy describing them both as critically acclaimed cult hits. By this time I had fully embraced my own geekiness (and homosexuality) and figured that if a bunch of other geeks liked them then so would I.

Being a big sci fi fan (rather than monster/fantasy… and still apprehensive about Buffy’s cheese factor), I started with Firefly and Serenity.  Next was Buffy, a somewhat grander undertaking, what with the 7 seasons and all. And finally Angel. Brilliant shows all of them and (without being too cheesy) all fairly life-changing for me.  And now I have Dollhouse, which unlike my beloved Sarah Connor Chronicles, was saved from Friday night cancellation doom and will be back for another season.

So what? When I started writing this post I didn’t have an answer to that question. I just figured that I’ve been watching a lot of Joss TV lately and could come up with a few paragraphs on the topic and since my main goal right now is to just write as much as I can, it seemed as good a topic as any. But as I’ve been writing this  I’ve been thinking about TV in general and what I love about it. And Joss’ work captures so many of those things.

I love TV’s ability to draw you in and make you feel like you’re part of something bigger, even if it’s just in watching the action. I love how I can watch a TV show about a vampire slayer who lives on a gateway to Hell, and still feel like I am watching one of the most realistic shows created. I love how seeing a character become a better person makes me want to be a better person. I love that just by including an actor of a particular race or sexuality or hairstyle, I feel like I’m represented in society. I love that the underdog always wins. And when they don’t, it’s so we can all learn an important lesson. But most of all? I love Jayne.

Bonus Joss!  His moving speech from an Equality Now benefit:

Linking for fun or profit?

Darren Rowse at ProBlogger recently noted that there seems to be less linking going on in blogs recently and explored the reasons why that might be. This resonated with me because I have noticed the same thing myself.

Mr. Rowse also gave his own reasons for linking and they are, briefly:

1. Etiquette/Manners/Courtesy
2. Usefulness
3. It Makes the Web Better
4. The Power of Links to Build Relationships
5. Outbound Links and SEO

I think he is spot-on with all of these, particularly #2 and #3.  The power of the Internet lies not in being a collection of information but in the ways that information is linked together, shared, and expanded upon.

I found this idea about the power of linking to be even more fascinating after reading this post by Louis Gray about the keys to building a quality network.  In it he talks about transparency, intellectual curiosity, communicating the desire to be part of a network, and highlighting quality in others.  Linking does all of that!

As the Internet becomes centered around social networking I think any person or organization who makes a strategic decision to wall themselves off from others by doing something as silly as not linking to a competitor’s site is going to find themselves coming up short.  The winners are going to be those people and brands who demonstrate that they can get along with others.

In related news, BoingBoing has a hilarious post about Vegemite’s policy that does not allow visitors site to link to them!

Lyric of the Day: (Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar

“You can type commands. I’ve got slots for what I hold in my hands.”

- (Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar (feat. Felicia Day)

How I'm Using Tweetdeck

What is TweetDeck?

TweetDeck is a desktop application that lets you interact with the Twitter service in ways that are not available through Twitter’s website interface. It provides a column for each feature that is available on Twitter.com, which, for example, allows you to move back and forth between multiple saved searches and your friend list.

Until recently I have been an “entry-level” Twitter user. I followed friends who were on Twitter and a few celebrities. I posted updates every now and then and only rarely interacted with others. I’ve been using the service a lot more lately and have started to discover the many things it can do. Much of this has been spurred by my job hunt and a few articles I came across that showed how to use Twitter to find a job. Although I’m still nowhere near being a power user I have found that using TweetDeck lets me get much more functionality out of Twitter with minimal effort.

How am I using it?

Groups: TD allows you to separate the people you follow into various groups. I have groups for real life friends, job hunt related folks, brands/software (so I’m updated about new releases), and other sources of information (CNN, tech blogs, etc).This makes it easier to find certain types of information and can help reduce distraction if I’m trying to do something specific in Twitter.

Facebook: I’m one of those people who can’t ignore a friend request from someone I actually know, even if we only went to high school together and weren’t even friends then. As a result my full news feed is filled with Mafia Wars and Farmville updates from people I haven’t spoken to in over 10 years. The latest version of TD integrates very nicely with FB and allows you to do, among other things, set up a FB group. Now I only see updates from people I want to follow.

Saved searches: One of the more powerful and least understood features of Twitter is real-time search. With TD you can not only set up saved searches but they are always open and updating in real-time alongside your other groups and searches. I mainly use this feature for my job search but have also started to use it to connect with people in my area. But according to some pundits real-time search and news is where the future of Twitter lies.

Are you using TweetDeck (or another Twitter client)? What features are you utilizing? Let me know in the comments or you can find me on Twitter.

Confessions of a Fanboy

I’ve spent the past few days cataloging the collection of comic books I accumulated in the early to mid-90s and I’ve been remembering what the market was like back then. I started reading comic books when I was 9 or 10 and got serious about collecting them when I was 11 or 12. Back then the collector’s market was heating up and the “value” of rare or special issues was skyrocketing. It didn’t take long for speculators to enter the market which drove prices up even more. Pretty soon the publishers realized that creating variant or special editions of individual issues would drive up demand. At the same time the market in general was growing and so publication runs grew. But of course, as with any product that doesn’t have much intrinsic value, the more widely available it is the less people are willing to pay for it. Less savvy collectors like my 14 year old self didn’t really understand this and were buying 3 or 4 copies of certain issues thinking they would be worth THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!

For me a big part of this was driven by talking to older folks in comic book stores and hearing stories of how they sold their old comics and were able to buy a house or put themselves through college. The greedy devil in me ignored the fact that they were talking about comics that were 20 or 30 years old, when fewer comics were being printed and even fewer were being collected and preserved in mint condition. I also didn’t understand that publishers made their money in the short term and had no incentive to keep publication runs small and limited. So I kept buying up those foil-embossed covers and variant covers and special poly-bagged issues with collectors card along with every other fanboy. The frenzy reached it’s height (or rock bottom depending on how you look at it) for me with the death of Superman. This event was massively publicized outside of the industry and drew in thousands of new readers, most of whom just wanted to make a quick buck on this collector’s item. I bought 4 copies. Of course, DC Comics had no intention of killing off one of their biggest money makers for good and within a few months the Man of Steel was resurrected. Between the massive number of available copies and the fact that he wasn’t dead anymore, this issue soon became worthless.

It wasn’t long after this that my interest in comics began to wane. I continued to buy them for a couple of years but my heart just wasn’t in it. Valuations started to drop and it soon became apparent that I would not be making my fortune off of Spider-man #1 (Gold Edition). Once the market started to shrink local comic book stores started to close and so it became harder for me to pick up new issues. I had also started reading so many different books that the hobby became too expensive and time consuming. I had entered high school at this point and my interests shifted towards teen angst and cute boys.

In the corner of my bedroom sit 13 boxes containing almost 1600 comic books. I cataloged them thoroughly with the intention of selling them for whatever meager amount of money I could get. Now that it’s time to actually contact local comic book stores and other potential buyers I find myself reluctant to do so. Although the colorful scraps of paper in those boxes are probably not worth very much, they represent a simpler time in my life that yes, contained some false hope, but also was filled with wonder and excitement.

For more on the comic book boom and bust of the 1990s, check out this article.

Learning to Love Information Overload

I’ve been on the Internet long enough to remember a time when you could easily visit and read every single website available about a given topic.  Or at least it seemed that way to my 12 year old self.   Back then, if I became interested in a topic I could do some research on the Internet and after a few 4am nights in my basement I could feel like I knew all I needed to know.  Those were the days when search engines like Yahoo! were set up more like directories and you would click through topics and sub-topics until you reached a page listing the sites that were out there.

Those days are obviously long gone and I am not coping well.  I’ve accepted that there is far more information out there than I could even imagine let alone consume.  But within the set of websites I have selected as my sources of information I cannot stand the idea that I have missed something.
I use Google Reader to manage my RSS feeds and keep track of the sites I like to follow but I have to keep my subscription count pretty low so that I have time to at least glance at the headline.  I worry that if I miss a posting somewhere that it will be the one that is going to inspire some kind of genius in me and without it I just can’t proceed with my day/career/life.

I’m trying to get better though.  Merlin Mann’s post that I keep coming back to has helped me realize that this is just another of my self-made roadblocks to getting started with my own thing.  I’ve also come across a few people who advocate subscribing to hundreds of feeds and just giving in to the idea that you will just have to look out for the good stuff when you can and accept that you won’t see everything.  And that’s OK.  Well, I’m not quite there but I’m learning to be.  Part of that process involved learning how to use Google Reader for more than passive reading, as described here and here.

I saved a bunch of items in feedly yesterday but they were somehow deleted and after a few minutes of panic I realized how silly I was being.  I would be challenged to name five posts I read yesterday, let alone last week, so why am I worrying so much about missing out on a few today?  The chances of missing out on a post that informs me Texas has finally seceded from the Union and if I want out I have to leave today are pretty low.  And anyway, now that I’ve started getting more involved on Twitter and FriendFeed I end up seeing the same posts I’ve starred being recommended several times over.

And so I’m diving in.  I’ve increased my subscription count from 40+ to 60+ and I plan to keep on adding.  I’m going to feel like I’m drowning for awhile but I think eventually the feeling of all that information flowing over me will be refreshing. And make me feel like a robot.  I can’t wait.

Here’s my shared feed on Google Reader.

Photo courtesy of