Joseph Hinkle at MyITForum.com

Apparently, I am a compulsive e-mail checker.

I had a BlackBerry for years. Close to six years to be exact. It became a common occurrence for me to pick it up and look at it with no provocation. No vibration. No tone. Nothing. I always had this feeling that I might have missed an e-mail while I was laughing at a joke or something.

A few months ago, I gave up my BlackBerry. There were several reasons, but in the end, the decision was made. My compulsion migrated over to checking e-mail on my laptop. A lot. On the bright side, at least it was because I was getting no notifications, so I felt like I needed to check.

Now, I'm carrying a Blackberry again. Its a wonderful 8700c from Cingular. I really like the device, and since I don't live with Rod, it works great. Unfortunately, I still check e-mail while I'm sitting here with my laptop. With my BlackBerry sitting on the coffee table next to me. The green light is blinking, so I know I haven't missed anything. Does that stop me? No!

In the end, I just can help myself.

I think its obvious that I really liked LEGOs as a kid, since it has been the subject of many Weekend Fun entries.

I'm back from my trips and will be home for the next little bit, so hopefully I'll get more posting in.

Ezprezzo.com - Aircraft carrier entirely made of Lego:

Apple's Xcode tools are some of their more powerful free development tools. This article focuses on PackageMaker, Apple's packaging and deployment tool. Its a fairly quick and intuitive is you're looking for a way to deploy software on a Mac.

MacDevCenter.com -- Xcode for the Rest of Us:
PackageMaker was designed to simplify the creation of installation packages, and to provide a simple, repeatable installation experience for your end users. But what is a package?

A package has the extension .pkg and contains files and directories in a specified hierarchy. Putting all these files and directories into this hierarchy helps the installer control installation. If you look at a package through the Finder, it looks like a single file, but if you Control-click or right-click on it, you can see the package contents.

Finally, you probably know that double-clicking a package automatically launches an installation application without any other interaction.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Programming

If you were a child of the Nintendo Entertainment System era, or even more recent, you'll love these. Excitebike is my favorite of these. Great stuff!

LEGOd Video Games - a photoset on Flickr:

I was reading MacWorld's tutorial on AppleScript and found their link to MacScripter.net. MacScripter has a ton of great scripting resources, as well as links to some other sites. Check it out if you're looking to get started with AppleScript.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Tiger

This took some work, I'm sure. Very cool!

YouTube - Real Life Simpsons Intro:

Technorati Tags: Humor

Thank goodness. Can we stop talking about this now?

Blackberry maker, NTP settle patent dispute for $612.5M - Mar. 3, 2006:
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion said Friday it agreed to pay $612.5 million to patent holding company NTP to settle a long-running dispute that had threatened to shut down the popular wireless e-mail service for its 3 million users.

Under the settlement, NTP granted RIM the right to keep running its BlackBerry business, the company said in a statement.

“The agreement has been finalized and NTP's lawsuit against RIM has been dismissed by a court order,” the Canadian company said. “The settlement means no further court proceedings or decisions about damages are necessary.”

Technorati Tags: Business, Cellular

I noticed these videos linked to over at Digg. My wife is a Tetris junkie and we own two Nintendo DSs, so I'm thinking this one is coming home for sure. Her response: “Of course I like it. What did you expect?”

British Gaming Blog » Blog Archive » Tetris DS Videos:

Technorati Tags: Nintendo, Wishlist

Sorry I didn't get to post about the vulnerabilities earlier. I've been very busy with life away from my computer. I promise I'm not just posting the good news.

Software Update away!

MacNN | Apple fixes Safari, other exploits:
Apple today released Security Update 2006-001 for both Mac OS X Panther and Mac OS X Tiger, which is recommended for all users and improves Safari by fixng four different security issues, including the 'extremely critical' Mac OS X zero-day exploit and three other exploits that could enable arbitrary code execution by a malicious user.

It also fixes 13 other bugs in the following components: apache_mod_php, automount, Bom, Directory Services, iChat, IPSec, LaunchServices, LibSystem, loginwindow, Mail, rsync, and Syndication. Apple also said that its AES-128 encrypted FileVault disk images are now created with more restrictive operating system permissions and that improved iChat security by using Download Validation to warn of unknown or unsafe file types during file transfers--in part to protect against the recently reported Leap.A worm.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Tiger

Google announced that they are changing to servers featuring AMD processors for most new purchases according to Morgan Stanley. AMD had made a lot of headway into the market in the last several years, but the corporate switch seems to be occurring in earnest now.

My company had gone AMD on all new system purchases and the decision has paid off, at last at this point. One of my coworkers is a bit of an Intel zealot apparently, so he didn't like our decision to switch. The first thing called into question was chipset drivers and reliability.

My best response is that our hardware vendor is required to deal with both of those potential problems. The vendor supplies the same warranty on machines based on both processor types. The drivers for most of the AMD-based platforms have been fairly stable for a while. They certainly have been much better than they were for the early VIA chipsets.

Google Is Reportedly Switching to AMD - Los Angeles Times:
The switch may also come as a blow to Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini, who sits on Google's board. Advanced Micro, the No. 2 maker of computer processors behind Intel, last quarter took more than 20% of the market for the first time in more than four years.

Technorati Tags: Google, Hardware, AMD