Category: Miscellaneous

‘Bootleg’ video of the Macworld All-Star Band at MacVoices TV

February 5, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Chuck Joiner, of MacJury/MacNoteables/MacVoices fame, posted some video of the Macworld All-Star Band’s performance at Cirque du Mac 6.0 during this year’s Macworld Conference and Expo.

We’ve been doing this for eight or nine years now, and I’m always impressed by how the documentation of the event evolves as technology progresses. From postage-sized, choppy video of our first gig at New York’s “Cooler,” to the High Definition clips of 2009, it’s been a pretty amazing progression. And, it’s always cool for those of us in the band to have a look and listen from the audience’s perspective.

So thanks to Chuck for taking, editing and posting these clips, and of course, a big thanks to the guys in the band who consistently make this night my favorite experience at Macworld: Paul Kent, Dave Hamilton, Chris Breen, Bob LeVitus, Duane Straub and Bryan Chaffin.

The episode — along with links to other videos taken that night — is available on the MacVoices TV website.

RandomMaccess appearances at Macworld Expo 2009

December 19, 2008 / / 0 Comments

mw_logo_4colorI suppose it’s close enough to the show that I should let those interested know where I’ll be this year. From Tuesday through Thursday, I’ll be presenting a Macworld “Supersession” entitled “The Ultimate Mac Starter Class.” If you’re a reader of this site, you’re way overqualified to attend, but please pass the word on to anyone new to the Mac who might benefit from a little “compressed experience.”

On Wednesday night, I’ll be performing in the Macworld All-Star Band at “Cirque du Mac” at an undisclosed location. The party is free, but invitation only. Like the Mac The Knife parties it replaced, “if you have to ask about it, you can’t go.” Unless you see me, that is. I’ll have a limited number of tickets to hand out to people who are especially nice.

On Thursday night, I’ll be stopping by the “Mac Mingle 2009” party, at Jillian’s on 4th St. Host/Mac speaker and author Deb Shadovitz was nice enough to invite me and silly enough to think I was worth including on the list of “Mac Celebs” who are attending. If you see me there, please say hi.

Finally, it’s likely I’ll be participating in some MacJury panel discussions that are slated to take place during the show.

If you’re interested, you can check here for updates and additions.

Macworld All-Star Band interviewed on MacVoices

December 18, 2008 / / 0 Comments

macvoiceslogoChuck Joiner managed to get the entire band together for an interview as part of his “Road to Macworld” series for the MacVoices podcast. To say it was a blast would be an understatement: this is something we’ve never done before and it was an incredibly fun session. I sure hope that comes across in the recording. We’re also giving away six pairs of tickets to sharp-eared listeners. I suspect they’ll all be gone by the time you read this, but hey — it’s worth a shot.

Thanks to Chuck and the band — Chris Breen, Paul Kent, Dave Hamilton, Bob LeVitus, Duane Straub and Bryan Chaffin — for a great time. It’s a genuine joy to be part of this group.

The most non-Mac related post of the year

December 6, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I camp.

I love camping and I do it whenever I can — usually between 15-20 nights per year. And while most of the hiking/camping community has been moving to internal frame backpacks, I remain an external guy. They’re easier to pack (and more forgiving when you do it “wrong”), better for hiking on well-established trails and much cheaper. But for all their benefits, they’ve become harder and harder to find. So I was very happy to find one of the best external packs around — the Jansport Carson — available once again after a long absence on Amazon.com.

To celebrate and get the word out, I’m posting the link below. Note that the RandomMaccess affiliate ID is embedded in the link. If you buy it through this link, I’ll get a small kickback, and your price remains unchanged.

Now get out there and do some camping!

Jansport Carson Backpack

Comment spammers find me ‘insightful’

July 2, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I get quite a bit of comment spam on the postings here. Because of the way the site is set up, not much of it gets through. I’m frequently amused, though, at some of the tactics the spammers use to try to get their posts on the site. A lot have taken to pulling words or phrases from either the headline or article itself and complimenting it. I got a kick of how that formula worked for a posting about an Apple store opening in NJ — aka, “The Garden State.”

Hello webmaster Wow what a fantastic article about Garden State Parkway! Your keen insight into Garden State Parkway is informative and creative. I look forward to reading other articles you have. Thanks.

Nice try.

Stan Flack, MacCentral and MacMinute founder, passes away

April 14, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Via a post on Twitter, Rick LePage reports he has received word that Stan Flack, founder of popular Mac news sites MacCentral and MacMinute, has passed away. No other details are available at this time. MacCentral was one of the first major Mac news sites on the web until it was bought and its content incorporated into Macworld.com.

Stan had been ill several times over the past year or so, with MacMinute going on unexpected hiatus due to his medical problems. On June 18th of last year, he told his readers “Monday evening I was rushed to emergency and immediately placed in intensive care due to a serious medical issue.”

In November, Flack faced another unexpected surgery: “At least this time I had a brief warning and the opportunity to alert you as to my circumstances.” he wrote to his readers. “I will be back in the saddle as soon as humanly possible and things will be be back to normal.”

I’ll always remember Stan’s policy of not posting news on Veteran’s Day, instead posting “In Flanders Field,” a poem dedicated to the fallen soldiers of World War I. He was also the first person I know of to “decorate” his site’s logo, changing the stopwatch to an Easter egg or decorating it with a Santa hat. That playfulness and accessibility permeated Stan’s work.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Stan personally, but I was frequently inspired by his entrepreneurial spirit and the example he gave of how much one dedicated person could accomplish when he was doing something he loved. Stan and I shared some friends, and from their reaction to his passing, it’s obvious that he was a very special person.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Stan’s family.

Everybody picks on Garfield

March 4, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Daring Fireball’s Jon Gruber noted a site that removes Garfield from his own comic strip, usually resulting in a better strip. In the category of “there’s nothing new under the sun,” I give you “Garfield Without Words,” which leaves the cat in the picture, so to speak, but silences him. Again, the result is often much funnier or at least more poignant, than the original version. Do people do this to lots of comics? It seems like Garfield gets more than its share of attention.

Macworld WiFi session presentation now available

February 13, 2008 / / 0 Comments

The slides from my Macworld San Francisco 2008 session on setting up a WiFi network are now available as a PDF file. Thanks to all of you who attended and responded so enthusiastically. I was lucky enough to have great crowds for all four sessions — they were attentive, asked great questions and were very kind with their feedback. Thanks, too, to all of you who have been inquiring about the slides — I’m sorry it took me so long to get them posted.

Click here for the PDF.

RandomMaccess: Now with genuine custom iPhone web clipping icon

January 18, 2008 / / 0 Comments

RandomMaccess iPhone iconThanks to instructions provided by The Joy of Tech’s Snaggy, RandomMaccess now has a custom icon for those who add it as a web clipping to their 1.1.3 iPhone. The technique is very straightforward. Simply create a 57×57 pixel icon, save it as a PNG with the name “apple-touch-icon.png” and drop it in the root level of your web server. Don’t worry about that glassie effect other iPhone icons have–it will be added automatically (to ensure consistency across all iPhone icons, obviously.) Since the glassie effect makes things at the edges of the icon appear somewhat distorted (pulled in as if the top of the icon has rounded edges), it’s best to keep text or images toward the center.

The icon’s pretty basic right now, but as a “proof of concept,” it’s kind of cool.