Geek Thoughts

Cupcake!

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:20:00 GMT

Very happy to hear that the "Cupcake" update is apparently being rolled out to G1 users at last. This will finally, really make my G1 the phone i wanted it to be.

Here's the quick list of features i'm looking forward to most:

Support for A2DP & AVRCP Bluetooth profiles (Stereo!)
Video recording (with better YouTube account integration)
Soft (onscreen) keyboard
Open Applications by Voice Command
"Significant" bug fixes in email checking, especially POP3 and IMAP
New menu option to list running processes
Updated WebKit browser core (way faster!)
Copy / paste is enabled in the browser
Find is enabled in the browser (for searching within a page)
Save attachments from MMS

I'm not sure, but it may also finally include support for more Home Screen widgets.

Another cool addition to the Cupcake build of Android that doesn't affect my G1: It now supports x86, which if i read it right, means i can load Android on my PC if i want to.

UPDATE: Maybe it's coming, maybe it isn't. T-Mobile USA won't confirm or deny it yet, but said an announcement is forthcoming.

UPDATE 2: Confirmed. Rollout starts the weekend of May 9th and will be complete by the end of May.

Expectations

Paul Nicholson — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:44:00 GMT

I'm riding the bus today while the car is in the shop, so I have a few moments to get around to blogging again. So I'm using the chance to do something I don't really like to do: talk about politics.

I'm not going to bother telling you who I ended up voting for last fall. I really was one of those magical "undecided voters" right up until election day. My reasons were my own. I was going to be equally satisfied and frustrated with either candidate, though for different reasons of course. There's no point in talking about what I liked or didn't like about each one, because the point in this discussion is my specific disappointment in Obama.

Now, I had no expecations that Obama (or McCain or any other candidate really) would actually do things in office that I wanted. By the same token, I don't pretend that the actions anyone else would be taking to solve the economic crisis or Iraq or anything would be *that* dramatically different than what our current president is doing or any former president did. Politicians for either side aren't that different anymore. They use the same rediculous, reactionary arguments against each other over and over, just changing the mascot they have on their buttons. Most real policy is made in congress and in government agencies with only tenuous ties to the executive branch.

No, I'm not disappointed in the governing of the new president, because my expectations were so low to begin with for both parties. My disappointment with Obama is in the one thing I thought was his upside: his rhetoric and persona.

Obama was an amazing speaker (relative to modern politicians anyway) during the campaign. He was able to speak eloquently and in vague generalities that inspired many, yet offended few. That's how he got elected, and in a country that needs a serious morale boost, it was a welcome site. His tone was positive and he had a perfect balance of regal posture and populist cheerleading. I thought if he could do anything, he could at least restore some confidence and pride to the population, and improve the image of our government both at home and abroad.

But he hasn't. In fact, I'd say he's hard pressed to be called a major improvement over GW Bush (who, regardless of your political views, was widely acknowledged as a poor PR rep for the US. Just wasn't his forte).

In a matter of months in office, Obama (and Michelle) have angered the British people with laughably poor observance of decorum and proper gift giving. Barak has proven himself to be a relatively awkward speaker when off his teleprompters (which he takes everywhere, no matter how cumbersome) and a downright average speaker when unguided by his speech writers. He has failed to take a buck-stops-here approach that one would expect from his populist persona in cases like the horrible blunder his staff made in scheduling an unannounced (and thus panic inducing) commercial and military aircraft flyover of Manhattan for a photo opp.

None of these are horrible in themselves. Even added up, they aren't *that* bad, especially compared to others in history. But to me, Obama was elected to do one thing that was (and is) deserately needed: give upe and inspire. He has totally failed to do either. Even most passionate Obama supporters I know are giving him mixed reviews at best - on both policy and rhetoric.

Mr Obama, we expected more.

Little Help!?

Paul Nicholson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:02:00 GMT

Just a quick post to beg for money. Ok, kinda.

For those following the saga of the ReTweetBot (vote here for a new name, we don't like that one), you'll know that it is a cool Twitter app that i had an idea for, and i talked Garrett into coding for me.

Well, i'd like to pay Garrett back for his trouble (and ok, i might keep a little for myself).

So... ChipIn here. Heck, even if it's just $0.50, that's fine.
<embed allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://widget.chipin.com/widget/id/dc85a47d8870d352" flashvars="color_scheme=blue&event_desc=Contribute%20to%20RetweetBot%20and%20keep%20the%20service%20free%21&event_title=ReTweetBot" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="250" height="250"></embed>
Thanks!

Summer Movie Update - 2009 Edition

Paul Nicholson — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:56:00 GMT

It has started to become a tradition for me to chronicle what movies i'm particularly excited about seeing, or plan on seeing during the summer movie rush. (2007, 2007 update 1, 2007 update 2, 2008, 2008 update 1, 2008 update 2)

This year's slate is a bit lighter than the past few years, due mostly to me being crazy busy and just knowing that i'll get around to seeing fewer movies (especially since babysitting is now an issue). Here's what we have so far:

Planning/Hoping to See:
May 1 - Battle For Terra
Looks very cool, little buzz about it though

May 1 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Looks awesome!

May 8 - Star Trek
I'm still nervous of what they'll do to my Trek...

May 22 - Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
First flick was great fun

May 29 - Up
Pixar movie. Will be awesome. Period.

July 15 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Looks great, and loved this book

August 28 - The Boat The Rocked
Very cool subject matter and great cast. Music history!

October 16 - Where The Wild Things Are
Kinda on the fence, but i want to be excited about this one

Interested In Seeing: (Probably waiting for video)
April 24 - The Soloist
Obvious Oscar bait, but looks good

May 21 - Terminator Salvation
I hated the first 3 so much, but no James Cameron gives me hope

June 24 - Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen
I will see this movie eventually. Can't avoid it. Michael Bay stinks though.

July 1 - Public Enemies
Great cast, great subject matter

July 1 - Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Liked the first movies

September 3 - Moon
Sam Rockwell + trippy sci-fi = cool

August 7 - GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Gonna be cheesy fun

August 14 - The Time Traveler's Wife
Romance + sci fi = cool?

October 9 - The Informant
Cast, director, curious...

October 23 - Astro Boy
Good buzz around it

December 11 - The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson + great cast

Macroblogging

Paul Nicholson — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:08:00 GMT

For those that have followed this blog for a while (Hi Christy, mom, dad, etc) you'll probably recognize that i haven't posted in a while. In fact, this is probably coming up in your RSS feed reader and you're wonder what this blog is and why you subscribed. Many of you may have subscribed because you were told by many other people that this was a blog that covers the Nashville Predators. And it does. Or did. Kinda still does. It covers the Predators about as much as it covers anything these days, which is to say, not much.

I have increasingly been using Twitter to share my thoughts with the world. The tool of instant spur of the moment microblogging has sucked me in completely. So much so that i actually created (or helped create) a tool specifically so i could have a place on Twitter to talk about the Predators and not annoy the general population.

However, a strange thing has happened lately. I have begun having more frequent thoughts which i would like to share with the world, but can not be expressed in 140 characters or less. Personally, i blame the long ~~hours~~ minutes of holding my son Ian while waiting for him to fall asleep. With that much unoccupied time, my mind wonders on long tangents it hasn't been able to in a while.

Anyway. I also remembered that i can quickly blog from my phone from anywhere via email in a manner not dissimilar to how i use Twitter. This allows me the freedom to quickly express that brilliant thought that will change the lives of everyone who reads it, but do so in an unencumbered fashion (and with pictures!). For instance, i can now afford the characters to use words like "unencumbered".

So, be prepared to have this space active once again. Or at least a little more so. But to be clear, a lot of what i have to say, especially about the Preds, will probably still be on Twitter.

Ian Patrick Nicholson

Paul Nicholson — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:43:00 GMT

I've been a bit busy lately, so haven't posted in a while. What have i been busy with?

My son, Ian Patrick Nicholson was born 3/27/09 at 12:29pm. Weighed in at 9 lbs, 8 oz - 20.5" long.

Hopefully i'll start getting more posting in soon. In the mean time, check cute pictures here, here, and here. You can also follow Ian on Twitter here, and his blog here.

Radio Stars

Paul Nicholson — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:22:00 GMT

Real quick post here...

A while back the Predators asked a bunch of season ticket holders to come in and participate in recording clips for some new radio ads. They said they would post them online, but i haven't seen them yet...

Well, i finally caught a few fast enough to record (though only one from start to finish).

Christy and I are featured pretty prominently in a few of them, so i decided to take what clips i'd been able to grab so far, chop them up, and make a version with just Christy and I :-)
<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="335" height="85" id="divplaylist"><param name="movie" value="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=6890314-f0d"/><embed src="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=6890314-f0d" width="335" height="85" name="divplaylist" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed></object>

Oh, and here's the one complete original i've been able to grab so far for anyone else that wanted to hear the commercials.
<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="335" height="85" id="divplaylist"><param name="movie" value="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=6890331-746"/><embed src="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=6890331-746" width="335" height="85" name="divplaylist" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed></object>

Thanksgiving in February for Preds fans

Paul Nicholson — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:22:00 GMT

This is a long post, but one i would love every Predators fan to check it out.
Please spread the word, and take the time to read it.

Predators fans have been through quite a lot in the last few years. First it was the team being sold, and what looked like an impending move to Canada. Then a fire sale of top talent to the eastern conference (so that Craig Leipold could go buy our competition in the west). Then a lengthy process of first going with other outside ownership, then bringing a local ownership group into the picture and renegotiating a lease with the city to help make the team more profitable.

Then new ownership actually got to take control of the team halfway through the season. During the next off season, they promised to invest in the team and re-sign all our core young players (which they did) and we were ready for a year where we finally might make it out of the first round of the playoffs. Then star offensive weapon Alexander Radulov was persuaded to defect and skip out on his NHL contract to play in the upstart Russian league - the KHL. Not only were some Pred fans disappointed that we weren't picking up any additional talent, but now the team had lost a major piece of its offense too late in the off-season to find a replacement it could afford. This after losing so much talent to the fire sale, and Steve Sullivan's back injury.

Top all this off with the constant rumor and speculation (mostly from several papers 'up north') that it is only a matter of time before we inevitably lose the Predators to either contraction or, more likely, relocation.

It is pretty easy to see how one could become rather depressed as a hockey fan in Nashville. It is very easy to feel that the individual ticket-buying fans are the only ones that care and are being left out to dangle in the wind.

But a few things to remember:

Media Support: We give the local media a lot of flack around here because we as fans aren't satisfied with the amount, or at times the quality, of coverage. But as i've heard several very knowledgeable people say lately - we have it pretty good compared to many other cities with NHL clubs - even some of the more "traditional markets".

Remember back when "we" held that big rally in July of '07 - we showed up, but a whole bunch of other people put their time and money into that to organize it as well. 104.5 The Zone dedicated hours and hours of time to talking nothing but hockey (*cough* usually takes them weeks to talk that much hockey *cough*). Someone had to organize and pay for that event at the Sommet Center. We showed up to their party.
Hockey and Predator focused shows on two other sports talk radio stations (besides the "flagship" station that has an interest in the Preds success) - HockeyBuzz Radio and hours of pre-game on WNSR 560AM and a few shows here & there on 106.7 The Fan. WNSR in particular has stepped up with a ton of hockey programming lately. Not the best and strongest in the world, but it is there
Newspapers across the country are trimming staff right and left. The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star Telegram used to each have writers covering the Dallas Stars. They have now reached an agreement to "share" coverage of the team. Meanwhile in Nashville the little 'ol Tennessean has not one but TWO writers for the Predators (John Glennon and Jessica ~~Hopp~~ Bliss), while the Nashville City Paper has another writer of its own (David Boclair). Even the business focused Nashville Post has broken and covered several stories regarding the Preds. Not a day goes by (even non-game days) that there aren't at least 2-3 Preds stories posted by these various papers. Not every NHL club can say that.

Local Businesses:

Local ownership stepped in to buy the team. Yes, they had some funding help from outside, but the majority of the funds put up to buy the team were put up by local business owners. People who weren't even the biggest hockey fans, but who knew that Nashville didn't need to lose this team. Yes, they knew the fans were here and that the fans would support the team, but they had to stick their necks out and lay a LOT of money on the line, and they came through.
Sponsors and advertisers had to step up too. Craig Leipold and Steve Violetta did all they could to alienate local ownership by treating it as a God-given right to own and operate a professional hockey club in Nashville, rather than treating it like any other business that has to be sold, promoted, and managed. One of the main reasons the club wasn't making much money is that there weren't enough sponsors and advertisers bringing in revenue. There isn't a professional sports team on the planet that can pay all its expenses on gate, merch, and concession revenues alone - even if they sold out every night. Corporate sponsorships and advertising are a key source of revenue.

That last point brings me to what prompted this blog post.

We recently switched the hosting for ghia over to Dolphini Networks. Not only was it a major upgrade to our quality of service, but Dolphini is locally owned & operated and a major sponsor of the Predators. Great for us all around. As a result of switching over, we got to hang out with Dolphini owner Michael Krause at their table in the All Inclusive Zone at a game.

During the 3rd period Michael and I started chatting and he mentioned that he was much like Preds owner David Freeman - not a big hockey fan before the sale of the team, but wanted to support the community so he stepped up as a major corporate sponsor. A bit later I said "thanks" from all of us fans, that we really appreciated what he and others like him had done. I felt it was a unique opportunity to directly tell a major sponsor "thanks" in person for supporting the team I love (rather than just buy Pepsi over some other soda once and a while, or use First Tennessee as my bank).

His response shocked me.

After a few minutes, he came back and thanked me for thanking him. He said in the entire time they had been a major corporate sponsor, not one fan had approached him and thanked him for his support. I'm sure he's been told "thank you" by the Predators organization itself a million times. And I'm sure there've been lots of "You guys sponsor the Preds, right? I love the Preds" conversations. But somehow, none of us had ever bothered to sit down and directly thank the man that is pouring a LOT of money into supporting this team.

And i'm sure he's not alone. While I can go out of my way to buy one soda over another or fillup at a certain gas station - most of us don't make web/data hosting decisions, or buy a cars and diamond rings everyday.

So here's a request to all Predators fans:

Take 3 minutes out of your day and write a quick email to a few of these companies. Everyone just grab a few random ones so we make sure they all get a few notes.

In no particular order (links are to the "contact us" pages)-

...and to show you just how far i've gone - i disabled AdBlockPlus on nashvillepredators.com, so i'm back to seeing ads on all Preds pages. Support those that support the Preds.

Barry Trotz: Goalie Killer

Paul Nicholson — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:33:00 GMT

With the Preds ship finally righting itself, i don't want to get too negative, but there's an issue that is cropping up again that is getting ignored in all the Sully's-return and 9-goals-in-2-games press and blog coverage: Barry Trotz kills goalies.

In the Preds win against Pittsburgh on Thurs, The Preds gave up 1 goal in the 1st, then gave up a second goal on a fluky bounce when a Preds player tried to clear the puck and it bounced of not one but two of his teammates and went in the net. Was it a goal that could have been avoided - yes - but nothing that goalie Dan Ellis could have done. But what happened next was a bit odd: coach Trotz pulled Ellis in favor of Pekka Rinne. Trotz said in the post-game press conference that he did it to "change our luck" and that he wasn't unhappy with Ellis' play. Blogger Brandon Felder asked Ellis about being pulled after the game:

Felder - "Obviously the game wasn't a great start but it was really bad luck goals. Were you at all frustrated by getting pulled there?"

Dan Ellis - "I think it was stupid. Bottom line. It's the exact same thing as last year. So yeah I was frustrated. Absolutely. I can't stop both teams."

Key words there: "It's the exact same thing as last year." What does he mean by that?...

This is something Trotz has done to 3 starting goaltenders in a row. First Vokoun, then Mason, (both pictured at left) and now Ellis - and Danny knows it. At the end of the 06-07 season, Vokoun was frequently pulled in favor of Mason. The team seemed to play better in front of Mason, and it made sense at the time. Vokoun played well, but Mason was deemed ready for prime-time and Vokoun was one of the players lost during Leipold's march to ~~the sea~~ Minnesota. Then last year (07-08) it was Mason who was frequently pulled and/or benched in favor of the upstart Ellis. The team played well in front of both and Mason was over and over again said to be the #1, but Mason was pulled more and more and Ellis got more and more starts so that by the time the playoffs started, Ellis was the clear #1 for the team. So during the offseason Ellis is signed to a 2-year deal, Mason is traded to St Louis, and Pekka Rinne is brought in to be the backup.

That brings us to this year. Ellis has played well, and while Trotz has shown more restraint when it comes to pulling goalies than in previous years, he has recently started his very bad habit of pulling them to "shake things up" - and not because the goalie is playing poorly.

This messy with goalie's heads. Dan Ellis knows it. He saw it kill Chris Mason's game last year, and knows that Trotz is starting down that path again.

Fortunatly i think Ellis is made of a little tougher mental stuff than Chris Mason (as it applies to being a #1 goalie). But Trotz needs to be very careful and do a lot of talking wtih goalie coach Mitch Korn, or he's going to find himself trading away Ellis, establishing Rinne as the #1, and bringing up yet another young goalie next off-season.

ReTweetBot: Instruction Manual for Users

Paul Nicholson — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:33:00 GMT

(Note: We've finally launched ReTweetBot.com
these instructions are mirrored there along with much more info)

After essentially borrowing and tweaking the idea from a few others, @phragmunkee (Garrett) and i put together what he accurately dubbed the ReTweetBot. A very simple tool that allows for Twitter users to form permanent groups that have a large numbers of users, with a common interest, follow each others' tweets without having to follow all off-topic tweets.

You can check my first post on the topic for a bigger explination of what ReTweetBot groups are and how they got started (and how this differes from hash-tags for topical twittering).

What follows is a quick instruction guide for users of the groups (a set of instructions for managers of the groups will be posted shortly).

(For all examples below, I will use the group @PredFans as the group in question. Just substitute the name of whichever ReTweetBot equipped account you want to use when you are posting.)

There are two basic ways of posting to a ReTweetBot equipped group.
1) Using an @ reply. Simply start your Tweet with "@PredFans". Anyone can post to a group this way (if the administrator has the option enabled).

Send a tweet like this...
And it will appear like this...

As you can see, this method has the disadvantage of "double posting" and making what you say show up in your regular Twitter feed as well as going to the group account. Sometimes that is fine, but the point of these accounts is to move topical conversation 'clutter' to the group account, so there is a better way...

2) The other posting option is to send a Direct Message (sometimes called a DM) to the ReTweetBot enabled account. For this to work, the admin must have the option enabled (it is "on" by default) and the ReTweetBot enabled account must be following you on Twitter. If they aren't following your Twitter account, then the @ reply option above is the only way you can post.

The advantage here is that your Tweet will only show up on the ReTweetBot account (for everyone following there to see) and not clutter up your main feed.

So you send the tweet like this...
And it will appear like this...

With no duplicates in the feed!

So, that is the basic method behind posting to a group.
A few more pointers and tips:

Your name will be added to the front of your tweet (along with a colon and a space), so make sure to leave room - you can't post a full 140 characters. If your username is 11 characters long (like mine), your message to the group can only be 127 characters long (11 for username + 2 for the colon and space + message).
If you want to tweet "at" someone in the group using the @ reply method, make sure you still start with the ReTweetBot group name first, otherwise it won't post. Saying "@predfans @pwnicholson blah blah" will post to the group. Saying "@pwnicholson @predfans blah blah" will not post to the group.
Same principle aplies to DM posting method. "d predfans @pwnicholson blah blah" willpost to the group just fine. "d pwnicholson @predfans blah blah" or "d pwnicholson predfans blah blah" will not post to the group.

When everything is working right, you'll end up with a twitter stream that looks like this:
A bunch of people with a common interest who don't have to follow each others' every tweet to have a conversation about the topic they all care about.

If you have any questions or feedback for the groups, please let me know in the comments of this post. We hope to be either launching either an online service, open to all, or make the code available so others can start their own groups soon as well. For now, the test groups that are up and running are:

@PredFans - the first group, created for Nashville Predators fans. Already up to 160+ followers with many regular participants.
@TitanFans - for fans of the Tennessee Titans
@GoLeafs - For fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs
@OilFans - For fans of the Edmonton Oilers
@MotorcycleFans - For fans of two-wheels
@BOLOEastNash - "Be On The Lookout" Crime watch group for the East Nashville neighborhood