Are you a font/typeface geek?

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. If you're jumping into the story partway, you probably want to start at the beginning of the Last Original Plot thread. As for where the thread is going, never fear: I'm a huge J.K. Rowling fan.

I'm going to be moving the domain from Offpanel to my own server next month. Reason for the move: the guys at Offpanel are great but also very busy; they both work at Yahoo (or at least they did two years ago when I signed up with them) and I think the project got put on the back burner for the most part.

My decision to move my comic spurred me to finally finish revamping My Life In A Nutshell so I can start updating it again. I've updated to a newer Wordpress and ComicPress theme, and now need to tweak the templates as well as re-categorize all the entries so that the comic images appear. The current header and background color at the current site are just placeholders until I decide on the final design.

I also want to find a new typeface for the header and for the body text, probably from Blambot or Comic Book Fonts.



Since doing the comic above, by the way, I realize that I should have used the word "typefaces" than "fonts." So many people these days use the word "fonts" instead of "computer fonts," however, that I figure people will still get the idea though purists may still curse me.

And this brings me to a new survey:

Are you a font/typeface geek? (e.g. Do you notice typefaces? Can you sometimes name them?)

What computer fonts/typefaces do you like? And if you do any writing in MS-Word, what typeface do you use in your text documents? I use Courier New for writing novels and articles.

Do any typefaces bring up good/bad memories? When I see Chicago, for example, I am fondly reminded of my Macs long past.

What computer fonts/typefaces do you hate? I don't have as strong typeface likes/dislikes as my friends Justin and John, but I do think some typefaces can become overused. I can't remember the name of the typeface used in the Serenity ship logo in the movie, for example, but I admit to cringing when I saw it because it's one of those typefaces that I used to admire when it first came out but has since (in my admittedly geeky opinion) been way over-used since. I think I even used it in one of the old incarnations of Inkspot. I didn't let it interfere with my enjoyment of the movie, however.

:-)

So what about the rest of you?





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Face transforming and facial recognition

I made the face transformations above at Face Transformer, an online experiment by the Perception Laboratory at the School of Psychology, at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The rest of the site is worth perusing; topics include facial prototyping, facial aging, facial attractiveness, and perceptual asymmetry.

Thanks to Alex Onsager for the link. Alex is co-author of Graffiti, a new Facebook drawing program. I tried out this app but had problems with it, went back to my old Graffiti program after posting about the bug in Alex's Graffiti discussion board. He responded almost immediately and seems very keen on fixing the program. (Note: Graffiti is being taken offline tonight for feature upgrades, so you probably shouldn't add it to your Facebook profile until tomorrow.) I'm going to give Alex's Graffiti another try later this week.

Google has apparently added some face recognition in its searches, though I don't believe this feature is "official" yet. But try this:

Go to Google images.
Type in a search term.
Go to the browser entry field and append "&imgtype=face" to the search string.
I tried doing this with the term filk, for example, and was floored by how accurately it picked out images featuring faces compared to a general search for the term without the appended text.




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Grits, backups, and MacBook sudden shutdowns revisited

Last night I made Shrimp'n'Grits, a recipe I adapted from The Healthy Slow Cooker by Judith Finlayson; I could only find instant grits instead of stone-ground, so couldn't use the slow cooker. Still, I was very pleased by how easy it was to make and how good it tasted! The shrimp were in a tomato sauce spiced up a bit with cayenne. I fell in love with grits during a GAfilk weekend, and only recently discovered that grits are known as MILLET here. I've been dying to try the Shrimp'n'Grits recipe ever since I saw it.

A note about The Healthy Slow Cooker, by the way, in case any of you have been considering buying it. I've found these recipes more prep-intensive than other slow cooker cookbooks; Finlayson's book tends to focus more on gourmet cookery than simple standard recipes, but so far I've found the results well worth the prep time.



My friend Craig helped me taste-test my Shrimp'n'Grits as we talked about a creative project he's been working on. We had sugar-free truffles and a small bit of very dark chocolate (99%) for dessert. I even shared some of my carefully hoarded Woodchuck Cider, which I had received in a barter with John Hall for some artwork. I have five (5) bottles left; so far I haven't been able to find any in Canada. One evening I came into the kitchen to find Jeff imbibing in my precious WC but forgave him because I had just dumped some of his precious Innis & Gunn in a slow cooker pot roast recipe.



My MacBook is still shutting down without warning, though Jeff and I seem to be getting closer to a solution. My automated backup, SuperDuper, appears to be linked to the problem, though not the root cause. SuperDuper has been letting me down terribly in recent days, not only failing to work but leaving corrupted backup file images in its wake. Jeff has tried tinkering with it several times, but so far it seems not to like the taste of my MacBook.

The current pattern (what little of it there is, anyway): My MacBook always shuts down a few minutes after I've woken it up after a failed backup. It has also begun shutting down at random times during the day. Sometimes this happens after I've shut down the computer and then restarted it, sometimes after waking it from sleep. Recently, the only way I've been able to start it up again successfully is to remove the battery, replace it, then hold down the power button for a couple seconds longer than normal.



Then Jeff found info about a firmware update posted by Apple that will supposedly fix the problem. Jeff's been away but is coming back today; he's going to try the firmware update tonight. We've been trying to back up my computer beforehand without success, just in case something screws up with the update.

Hope this solution works. But even if it does, I'm still a tad nervous. From an Information Week article: "As an Apple Tech, I can confirm that this is simply ignoring a bigger issue. I have seen first hand dozens and dozens of MacBooks with the thermal sensor wires melted to the side of the heatsink. Though this may be a nice temporary fix to get people up and running, I really hope that Apple is not encouraging this as true fix."



I spent much of yesterday dragging files to an external drive for backup. I also signed up for a .Mac account. I'm using the Synch feature as a painless way of backing up my contacts, calendar, and bookmarks; this will also enable me to easily access this info from any computer with a browser and Internet connection. I've also been forwarding any important e-mails, like work-related correspondence, I'll need again later) to that e-mail address. I have a Gmail account, but I can't drag and drop files the way I can in my Mac.com account, plus since it's my main public account I get a lot of non-essential "noise" e-mail. I'm not posting my Mac.com e-mail address anywhere, and am only going to use it for archiving specific e-mails. I've also started using the Backup feature, and will also set up some automated backups. I'm assuming I'll still be using SuperDuper eventually, but this gives me an extra net.

All this has gotten me thinking a lot harder about how I'd cope if my laptop were suddenly taken away from me (stolen, stopped working, etc.) but also what I'd do if the house burned down. The logical solution would be to always keep a copy of your backups off-site, but how many of us -- the ones who have to do our own backups at home, that is -- really do this? I think I've copied stuff on CDs and given them to my sister once, a long time ago. Realistically, I know I'm going to be too lazy to do this regularly. It's one reason I've started sending important files and correspondence to my Mac.com account, which is hosted elsewhere.

A SURVEY:

This survey is geared to those who do their own backups...

How many of you do regular backups?

Do you keep these backups in your home or off-site? e.g. If your house/apartment burned down, would any of your computer data be saved?

Related links:

Appledefects.com: MacBook: Reading through this Wiki entry is both unnerving but informative. The first item on the "Resolved Problem" list is Random Shutdowns: "There have been reports of random and inappropriate shut downs, in the midst of doing typical computer tasks. After the random shut down, the MacBook frequently has trouble turning back on, and sometimes will repeat the random turn offs frequently enough to render the MacBook completely unusable (turning off every few minutes, for example)." It suggests a possible workaround is to press and hold the power button for about 15 seconds until you hear a loud beep.

Macbook Random Shutdown: Yes, someone actually registered MacBookRandomShutdown.com! From the About page:" "My wife's new 2.0 Ghz Macbook with 1GB of factory installed RAM just started randomly shutting down. What a pain! I started this site to discuss the issue. Is this happening to anyone else?"

Possible fixes for a MacBook Pro sudden shutdown issue: This fellow temporarily solved his problem by switching batteries with a coworker several times. He also drained the battery by leaving his machine unplugged and asleep, waking it and watching it do its sudden shutdown thing a few minutes later, then plugging in the machine and rebooting it, closing the lid and letting it sit unplugged for a few more hours. Whew.

Link O' The Day

Thanks to Jim Bowlin for the following:

"Since you have an interesting relationship with squirrels, Andrea suggested that I send this to you with the directive to think Marshmallow Squirrels:

Marshmallow Bunny Apocalypse"



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Facebook vs MySpace and other social networking sites

So I got curious about Facebook; you can click on my new Facebook badge in the lefthand navigation bar, if you're curious as well. Couldn't help myself; I've always been interested in social networking communities. I've done Orkut, LinkedIn, and a MySpace page among others. I'll save blogging communities like Livejournal for another post.



Orkut - Interesting, but didn't seem to go anywhere, at least for me. Apparently it's huge in Brazil right now.



LinkedIn - I signed up but found that (again, at least for me), it didn't provide any benefit. I found it time-consuming to have to evaluate each relationship and referral request; I started getting 6-7 a week. At first I took the time to e-mail back, asking for clarification about how I knew the person. It always felt awkward to me to decline a request, and it made me wonder how many people DID approve requests even though they had no idea who the person was. What pushed me over the edge: When someone I didn't know passed a referral request through five people to get to me ("Can you help me get an agent?", a question I already get asked at least once a week). I said "no" to the request but then the person who made the original request had the gall to request that I add her into my network now that we had interacted(!). I ended up requesting that my account be deleted.



MySpace - I signed up out of curiosity, created accounts for myself as well as my music group. I began checking my pages less and less often. Browsing user pages was painful because of many user-designed pages which made it nearly impossible to actually read the content. Also, the "I have more friends than you" mentality encouraged total strangers, particularly bands, to get themselves added to people's Friends lists. I was discerning at first, but then began finding the whole "friend approval process" time-consuming and sometimes irritating because of the number of complete strangers that would ask to be added to my Friends list. It seems good for indie bands, though. Setting up Urban Tapestry's MySpace page was fairly straightforward, and gives us a free venue to posting soundclips. I still have no idea if it has helped us find new listeners, however.



And that brings me to Facebook. Yet another social networking site, Facebook was originally developed for college and university students. Now, however, users can opt to join a non-school network, such as a place of employment or geographic region (like Toronto!); all you need is an e-mail address.

(Update: Missquirt on LJ points out that until recently, Facebook was ONLY available to university/college students. "Until a few months ago, an official school email address was required for signing up, and 'accepted' schools were added gradually. I remember when McMaster 'got facebook' in my fourth year.")

According to this Wikipedia entry, Facebook is ahead of Flickr in terms of the number of photos uploaded daily, and is the sixth most visited site in the United States. The name comes from the college publication distributed at the beginning of the academic year by universities to help students get to know each other better.

So far, I'm finding Facebook a much more satisfying experience than MySpace. It has a much better user interface, with a cleaner design with fewer ads, and easier navigation. Before trying out MySpace, I might have whined about how all the user pages look the same but y'know, there's something to be said for READABILITY.

Like many other social networking sites, Facebook has the friend request feature. Instead of listing the total friend count, Facebook lists totals for each of your networks. Because the number of friends isn't pushed as an obvious goal in Facebook nearly as much as it is in MySpace, however, I'm hoping that this will cut down on the needy "gotta pump up my Friends count no matter what" types. I like the fact that you can specify HOW you met people. For those I've met online, I usually choose "Randomly" and then type something like "through the blogging community" etc.



Facebook has much better search facilities than MySpace.

I'm experimenting with having my Facebook page automatically import blog entries. When I post this Blathering, for example, Facebook should automatically update my Notes to include the post. I might nix this, though, because I can't edit the posts once they're imported.

I love the tagging feature. If you post notes or photos, for example, you can "tag" them with the names of people you mention. If these friends are already on Facebook, then you can just select from a pull-down menu. Those Facebook friends are notified and, with just one mouse click, can see what you've posted about them.

So far, I've gotten back in touch with some old neighbours and classmates, and even found a few filkers. :-) Checking out the user-created groups, I notice there also seems to be a huge number of aspiring authors on Facebook, so I figure it will be a fun place to promote Inkygirl and Will Write For Chocolate.

Facebook is one of the best social networking sites out there right now, in my opinion, and it's encouraging to see that it continues to improve its offerings to users. For it to become THE social networking site in such a crowded arena, however, it's going to need features that will distinguish itself even more from its competitors.



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Sitemeter follow-up

Today's photos were taken at a small gathering at my friends Reid's and Luisa's place in honour of a visit from William and Mona; some of you may recall my Blather about William giving us a tour of Google.

Sitemeter has finally come out and responded to allegations about its partnership with Specific Media. It says that the specificclick.net cookie is NOT spyware and says that it can't help the fact that anti-spyware software companies incorrectly mark it as such.

It's a good response (considering the circumstances), but the timing is unfortunate; it would have been wiser to keep its users informed from the beginning, or at least responded immediately when its users began wondering what was going on.




As I said in yesterday's Blatherings, it was the breach of trust that is prompting me to seek other means of keep track of my stats, not necessarily the fact that Sitemeter has partnered with Specific Media. It would have been different if Sitemeter had sent out an e-mail or at least put up a post, warning its users what it was about to do, giving us the option of not using the cookie from the beginning, and explaining the reason behind its changes.

Instead, it started beta testing a third-party cookie without letting users know. This was bad for several reasons.



1. Many people (including myself) are already feeling cranky about being bombarded with things online that we don't want, like spam and annoying pop-up ads. Sometimes I feel as if I'm trying to walk down a street to visit friends, but strangers are aggressively shoving flyers in my face the entire way, and occasionally hurling ticking packages at me as well.

2. As annoying as the above scenario sounds, it's even MORE annoying when one of those people (whom I had considered a trusted acquaintance) slips a package into my pocket when I'm not looking, a package that they got from someone I don't know.

3. And BEYOND annoying when I discover that when I visit people I know (or rather when any friends visit me), the secret package spawns other packages that secretly slip into the pockets of my friends and collects info about them without their knowledge.



Photo by John Chew.

But enough with the analogy; you get the picture. I wish Sitemeter luck, but I'm off to check out other stats tracking possibilities. Right now I'm testing out Statcounter and Mint.

Statcounter gives great info, but I think will be too pricey for me. There's a free version, but it's limited to a log size of 100. The cheapest tier is US$9/month; this doesn't sound like much, but it's more than I can justify spending on my hobby blogs. I'm also trying Mint, which costs US$30/site (one-time fee); I'm trying it out for Inkygirl. The user interface is gorgeous (yes, I'm a sucker for that), and there's lots of well-presented info with easy implemented add-ons that remind me of Wordpress Plugin functionality. I'll post a more detailed review in an upcoming Blatherings.

Other solutions people have suggested so far:

Analog
Webalizer
AWstats
GoStats.com

Links o' the Day

Pearls before Breakfast: an experiment in which a world-famous violinist masquerades as a street musician. Fascinating and sad at the same time. Thanks to Julie Duffy for the link!

How blogging can help you get a new job (Wall Street Journal article)

What happened when my friend Reid let me Twitter for him (heh)





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