We came, We saw, We kicked its ass!

Often times at my job I have to recommend that someone try a new, different application because the application they are using just isn’t working properly for whatever reason. More often than not I am run smack into the road block of “No, I don’t want to use that, I don’t like it.” My many attempts to figure out why someone doesn’t like something are more often than not responded with “I just prefer it”. My response is usually backed with facts involving stability, lack of viruses, or any other host of what one would think of rational, logical reasons to use my recommendation. But the road block remains and I am left, confused and asking “Why?”.

So today at work I discovered the solution to a problem that has been plaguing me consistently for a week and a half, but off and on for about a year and a half. Later versions of Mac OS X use the very excellent CUPS printing system but unfortunately Apple in their infinite wisdom choose to “screw up” how remote printing to CUPS servers is supposed to work. Basically it does not work how it should, the trick to getting it to work properly is to forget that CUPS is even used. Adding a remote IPP printer to the remote CUPS server, using the local printer driver. Voila! Printing.
Thanks Apple!

For a number of months now Jenn and I have had a digital video recorder. Before Jenn moved to California she had a Tivo that was used through the DirectTV system. Rather than go this route (because I despise how Tivo subscriptions work), I built a MythTV using Knoppmyth (See them at SCALE 2006!). This setup has been working great for a number of months now, but it again dawned on my how cool having a DVR really was. As Jenn and I chatted about work and the days events last night, I noticed it was almost time for a tv show that we usually watch on Tuesday nights. I realized that since I had set up MythTV to record the show every week that we could start it up when we were done talking that night or even save it for the following night (commercial free). Once you go time shifted tv, you never go back.

When I left for work this morning I saw this when I walked by the dumpsters. All I can say is WOW.

The version of movable type that I had running was very old and very prone to spam comments, so I stopped using it. Jenn suggested I upgrade to the newer version that had anti-spam options. Turns out you can not get the free version anymore. I looked around quickly and found WordPress, installed it and so far I like it.