smorg

So, after months of sitting in the basement, I decided to bite the bullet and get rid of my computer collection. 12 iMacs, 3 busted laptops and 2 G3 Macs - off to the thrift store.
With a $100 deduction each, they are worth more as a tax deduction.
:(

The unofficial price list:

iMac: $898-$1958
MacBook: $998-$1398
.Mac: $68
iPod Nano (except Reds): $138-$228
iPod: $228-$318
Wireless Mighty Mouse: $58
Shure earphones: $78-$238
Contour iPod Cases: $14-$24
Belkin TuneBase FM: $58
JBL On Stage Micro: $78
JBL Spot Speakers: $108
LaCie Hard Drives: $148-$888
Incase Sling Pack: $48
Xtreme Mac Micro Memo Voice Recorder: $48
Sonic Impact Video-55 Display: $238
Nike+iPod Sport Kit: $24

Holly got one for her birthday…very slick, and for a definite good cause. Some pics over on techpedia.

As seen previously, I had quite a week in regard to some screenshots taken from a DVD I got at WWDC. The DVD was a preview release of Mac OS X ‘Leopard’, and I posted several screenshots on Techpedia.org. The screenshots were, I am proud to say, the first to hit the web.

While the attention and the traffic were cool, the downside is that Apple considers screenshots a iolation of the NDA that we developers agree to when we join the ADC program. Needless to say, I got a cease and desist from Apple via email.

After a couple of days and a few email exchanges with their lawyer, I opted to remove the screenshots, for several reasons.

*Yes, in looking at the agreement for ADC, screenshots are listed and are certainly protected.
*I like Apple. I love Apple. If Apple were a fruit, I would eat it.
*I don’t have the money to get sued/fight a losing battle, just so I can be an internet tough guy.
* I’m just a simple cave man…your ‘electricity’ and ‘words’ scare me…
*I don’t want my $1500 ADC membership revoked.

Anyway, it all ended nicely I guess. The Apple lawyer sent me back the following message:

Thanks for removing the screenshots, Scott. Apple appreciates it.

Regards,
Ian.

To which my new best pal zeverken said:

:)

Anyway, by this time there are HUNDREDS of sites using mine (and their own) screenshots, so maybe someday I can put mine back up. Of course, by then they will be irrelevant, but oh well.

(Bonus points if you get the title reference)

Today one of my sites, Techpedia.org, got it’s digital ass kicked.

Digg.com is a very popular technology news site. Users submit stories of interest (not original content in most cases), and other Digg visitors vote them up/down based on the cool/usability/techy value of the site.

An article I posted on Techpedia a few days ago about Apples new OS, codenamed ‘Leopard’, contained some of the first publicly available screenshots of the new OS. Being at WWDC recently, i was one of the lucky 6000 people in the WORLD to get their hands on a preview release. I, of course, being a huuuuge geek immediately installed it and posted the screenshots and some commentary on my site.

Well, after a couple of days with a few hundred visitors, the Digg effect really kicked in, and yesterday and today we had over 50,000 visitors.

That’s not page views, my friends…that’s unique IP addresses. Yeah. More people than you, I and our familes combined know.
:)

So the server itself got its butt kicked. MySQL failed bigtime, as all of the screenshots were stored in the DB. Not the pics themselves, just the metadata for them and the filesystem references. But poor php, wordpress and mysql as a team were beaten down badly. OH, so badly.

At this point, I’ve created a simple html page with the images, and redirected all ‘real’ traffic to that page, to ease the load on the server and to alleviate the downtime for the other sites on this server. Sorry guys.

Anyway, it’s kind of a back handed compliment…I’m thrilled that my content is so popular, but at the same time, a little disappointed that only 2 of 5 visitors got to see it in context.

Ah well. That’s life on the internet, I guess.

Oh, if you want to see the content mentioned, check out: www.techpedia.org …if it’s up.
;)