CV of Justin Lang

During our three week vacation this summer, I got I to a habit that I have been meaning to get back into, reading. Sounds stupid right?!? I do that day in and day out for work. While nice and informative about the industry and what is going on, I wanted something different. Something to disconnect me from work and satisfy need for mental adventure.

While up in Copper Harbor I started to read one of my favorite books for my younger years, My Side of the Mountain By Jean Craighead George. it was the perfect setting being in Michigan and reading this book. It always reminded me of our summer house and the great outdoors and adventure.

In a nutshell, the book is about a teenager that runs away from home, the big apple to live off the forest in his families abandoned farmland deep in the Catskills mountains. He comes with nothing but the knowledge of survival skills and living off the land. Thought the course of trial and error, visits to the town library and picking things up along the way, he makes it on his own while training a falcon to be his friend and fellow huntsman.

It was a great escape from the real world and the reading materials that I normally dive into. Yes, it is a preteen level reading material… so what, I still love the story and always wanted to “try” it out.  Little to late for me, but still a great escape to relive through the book.

I love lego.  There is just something so about the toy that I grew up with my whole life.  Lego truly make you think and express your building creativity.  Here is a look at lego in a totally different sort of use that I love!

I posted a tweet tonight about setting up Quickbooks and I got areply from @YourSavvyVA.  She was ready to help and answer questions.  Well, after I couldn’t read the small print in the setup, and I mean SMALL PRINT.  I just gave up and will set it up tomorrow, hell, I have more time tomorrow and the pizza JUST arrived.

Well, I checked out her site realy quick and will have to explore it more, but I found the search feild AWESOME.  BTW, love the design over all.

Your reading it correct, I pulled the trigger and purchased the EyeTc Hybraid from Elgato.  It is basically a tivo-ish item for the mac.  I can record TV shows on my mac and watch them when ever I want.  I can easily transfer them to my iTunes and thuslly my apple TV to watch on the tv.

While the quality is not perfect, I now get to watch all the shows I miss because Renee is watching TV.  Another shitty thing is that I have to edit out the commercials.  While it is not a huge deal, it is another step. What is really nice is that this thing finds my HD channels!

Pretty cool stuff.  I HIGHLY recommened it!

I received this new magazine in the mail the other day called FPO [For Publication Only]. In The Summer 2008 issue is an article about Branding and how it is more then skin deep.  They analized a bunch of magazines through time and how the brand was built and grown over the years.

One of the magazines the they covered was Playboy.  While it is an interesting read, I found the portion about the origins of the Playboy logo the most interesting.

Excerted from FRO

Hefner came up with the idea of a rabbit because of it “humorous sexual connotation: and it’s “frisky and playful” image. The tuxedo was added for sophistication. In addition, he chose a rabbit of means of tweaking the nose at the Esquire and the New Yorker, which uses men as symbols.  The rabbit logo was designed by Art Paul, who was hired as a freelance to design the logo but stayed on to become the art director of the magazine for the next 30 years. According to Paul. “If I had any idea how important that little rabbit was going to be. I probably would have redrawn him a dozen times to make certain I was doing him justice. As it was, I did one drawing and that was it.  I probably spent all of half an hour on it.

I finding really interesting that something that has been a HUGE icon for nearly 60+ years has changed very little and was done in less then half an hour!

I have gotten hooked on the iPhone games like a $2 hooker on crack! I have always read that people are hoping that the iPhone will be the next protable gaming device like the PSP.

Well, after playing Cro-Mag Rally, I can really see that happening.  The games is AWESOME!!!!  While I have only master the desert stage on easy, I am still pretty proud of myself!

The neat part about this game is that in order to stear, you tuen the entire iPhone or iPod Touch like you would a stearing wheel.  If you have $2.00 buck, SHILL IT OUT!!!  The games is a great way to waste some time and actually have fun doing it!

I got a little bored the other day and was messing around on the iPhone and Web App’s.  I found a review on Koi Pond.  While it is not free and doesn’t do much, it is still a pretty cool app. You can shake the iPhone or iPod Touch and that will feed the fish.  You can also run your finger across the pond and it makes a pretty realistic ripple effect.  And just like real fish, they run off!

All and all, pretty fuckin’ cool! Click the image to download the app through iTunes.

Back when I received my training to become a trainer on the Eos/Ion lighting consoles from ETC, I received a client dongle.  I finally had a chance to test out the client software on the dell connected to the Eos via wireless network.  It works beautifully!  It is relatively simple to execute as well!

One thing I did notice is that while logged in as a client and user 1 on the dell, I mimicked everything the console was seeing and doing.  So if I entered something on the dell, it would show up live on the console.  Neat, but then the programmer and and I have to work together doing the same functions.  When I was in blind on the console, so was he on the console.  That could work, but that is not how I want to work.

I found that if you log into the console from the client as another user, you have your own “work space”.  Meaning, if I wanted to be in blind updating cues, while the programmer was still running the show… not a problem!  Now that is nice!  But I can see a slight problem…

If both the client and server (console) are in live and bringing up channels to levels.  When the programmer on the console goto out, the channels that I brought up on the client still remain…. Interesting how that works!  I could see this being a slight problem!

All and all, I LOVE THE CLIENT!  It really beats the old way the ETC line displayed the console on a remote video node!

Saw this over on twitter as I follow Barack Obama over there.  You can sign up to be the first to know who Obama picks for his running mate/Vice President.  You can get it either email or text message.  I signed up for text message as I want to know RIGHT AWAY!!!

Appareently he’ll announce it before the Covention.  Which is probably a smart move.  If he announces at the convention, it is rumored that McCain will announce that friday night or early saturday to take away some steam from Obama.  So announing sooner might push McCain to announce just as soon.

Smart Move Obama!

Again from the guys over at engadget, another neat gadget! This time it is the Freedom Stick. You can read engadgets article here.

With the summer Olympics going on over in china right now, anyone and everyone who tries to access some websites will have troubles due to the fact that china has a national firewall in place restricting access to those websites.  Don’t ask me which ones, I have no idea!

So the Chaos Computer Club came up with the Freedom Stick.  Basically it is a jump drive with software and access to The Onion Router network or TOR.  The freedom stick is great for anonymous surfing and hides your identity.  While you can certainly download the TOR software over at the TOR project page, the Freedom Stick has it all right there for you and you can use it at internet cafes and so forth.

Another option you have is to setup a proxy server here in the states and access that server in china thus allowing you to go to any site you wich.  That is what the guy who bought my OLD G3 Blue tower Mac is using it for!