junk filtering

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for the last two months i’ve had spam filtering turned on, and the floodgates of junk mail have finally turned off. i used to receive over 10,000 e-mails a week, and took it upon myself to sort through them about every two weeks. it certainly felt like a needle in a haystack finding a e-mail that was not junk, and actually is a bit fun sorting the 50,000 e-mails into subject and sender, and when 10 to 30 e-mails came from the same location, it was easily deleted.

unfortunately, it also took a few hours to get through all the digital debris. so now with spamassisin on, i get 2,000 junk mails a month, and it’s a little harder to sort, since the subject lines seem legit. i think i might actually open 15 of the 2,000, and it takes 20 minutes, instead of 20 hours. i rely mostly on mac OS X mail.app fine junk mail filter to get through the chore of finding the new needles.

moving blog to westhost.com

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so i experimented with http://www.blojsom.com/ on mac OS X server tiger, and it’s completely trivial to set up. now after a day using it, i’ve installed worldpress onto cloakmedia. and it works! it’s such a pleasure to escape the monotony of HTML editors like golive or dreamweaver (both adobe companies) and go directly to the page information. that’s why we visit sites, not to awe over the tables or CSS tags, but to read and learn. i will include some pictures in a future blog post, but for now enjoy the day to day updates on cloak media weblog service. i think i’m going to dig up my older ical blog so it can be published to the world.

this is not my first blog. i tried ical, but it was too buggy and did not display properly. now three years later, i start up my second log using a mature web application.

looking through mac OS X server 10.4 tiger edition

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i started exploring the apache services available to mac OS X server, and what a beautiful experience. in the old jaguar server, you had to edit some hidden files to enable PHP and mySQL, now there is a web interface or small app that does it for you. i just learned that i have a built in search engine for my blog and other website i deploy on the server using this unque url:

www.mywebsite.com/.spotlight

so no more going to atomz.com for free search. mac OS X server tiger will do it for me.

cloak media birth

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if everything in life was this simple. install mac OS X server 10.4 tiger on a legacy powermac G4 cube. install any and all updates. load the default bonjour website. hit start weblog. begin typing. that’s all i had to do. i learned this web application in under 20 minutes!

today i finished off my resume and business cards for my siggraph 2005 launch. in around a week i will know if i’ve made some headway into the los angeles marketplace. my solutions are a quarter away, but i’ll have a few experiences to write about. pray for me.

comet impact

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i like planetary science, but the $330 million mission to make a crater on a comet may have gone too far. we are at war, and now we are making impacts on other celestial bodies? it rings odd to me.

the pictures from the JPL NASA website are breathtaking, but why call your mission after a movie that pretty much destroyed the earth? it’s all very puzzling. take a look at the next to last image of the interactive slideshow flash site, it’s the earth getting destroyed. are they preparing us for some future event?

greenconcepts.com expands into consulting

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my business is regional, with a global reach via the web. i’m an online member of the apple consultants network, based primarily out of Los Angeles, CA. soon i will have my premiere membership, to move up in the consultants rankings.

first, at comdex 2002 in las vegas, i was fortunate enough to hear apple computer and microsoft discuss the future of the digital home (music sharing, home automation, home server, and the digital hub). The mac is many years ahead of microsoft in tight integration of software and hardware. i was even quoted in CNET coverage of the comdex event (at the end of the article).

in response to this, i’ve expanded my business to consulting on mac OS based solutions and home building. The new website will launch 7 January 2003. But you can see the work in progress at my site:

by late 4 January 2003, most of the content i want to include will be ready. today, please see my mission statement and basic web layout. the rest of the site (excluding the consulting) is completely finished and i think interesting to explore (green living, building hints, etc.).

Mission Statement
Green Building Concepts offers information exchange for building a more resource and energy efficient home. Using Apple Macintosh based solutions, we can integrate home and small business systems to reach the computer network, home office, and digital hub dreams of customers around the globe. Think of Green Building Concepts when you need assistance in OS X jaguar (both client and server platforms), digital photography, internet media creation, wired and wireless networks, home automation, and selecting products to fit your digital and web lifestyle.

photokina summary 2002

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much has happened in two months since the german digital photography tradeshow photokina. finally, but only in japan, the sigma SD9 is shipping, the greatest imaging camera on the planet, including all 35 mm cameras. if you shoot medium format, you don’t have to worry yet.

kodak and olympus announced a new DSLR standard initiative. they realize that the large 35 mm film plane is too great for future CMOS development, and companies know how to cram more transistors into smaller spaces, not larger spaces, so yes you’ll have to buy all new lenses, but at least they should work across multiple digital bodies (nikon, canon, pentax, etc.) so you can work similarly to 35 mm today. i like it. read about how in 2001 these two imaging companies announced that they will share patents, and in 2002 how they will make the new standard. i like kodak E100VS and E100SW ektachrome film very much. i still have a few rolls left, just enough to get me to the foveon or i hope the 4/3 system of kodak/olympus/fuji. still shoot good old film until august 2003!

ACN & WWJD

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i signed up! i’m an online apple consultant. this is no guarantee that i can actually do anything, but it does give me the imprimatur of apple to market my skills. i even rebranded greenconcepts.com to accommodate semiconductor technology. i have a new mandate, not just information exchange for resource and energy efficient home building, but also digital hub and web lifestyle management. i wonder if anyone other than a friend in dallas, TX actually reads this, but just like prayer, writing is a release of emotion and leads to good mental health.

i reveal a lot of my trade secrets in the blog, so don’t share it with too many. in the coming weeks, i will have to password protect this site, but it will be an easy password, like wwjd, or hero. have you never heard of wwjd, it stands for “what would jesus drive?” it’s a new movement by evangelical christian environmentalists.

2003 planning

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it’s the start of a new month, and all is well over here. i’m looking forward to january, as my life schedule will explode. new year’s day is a japanese film festival (asahi homecast) and new english subtitled programming. then the epiphany comes on the 6th, followed by a two day macworld SF 2003 blitz, and then directly after the CES show. next comes the building show in las vegas.

i just made my roundtrip train reservations taking me from van nuys to moscone center in san francisco. to take an airplane and BART would cost around $100, i’m going for $38.50 roundtrip. i leave at 2 AM on the 7th, and come back on the 9th on the starlight express. now i need to find out if i’m staying with cousin tim or finding a cheap room.