Ah, the pleasant chirping of crickets

The left-behind cocktail napkins say OmniGraffle 4 is going to be released today sometime a little before noon, which is just going to kill my day, while I can least afford it, as I doubt I'll be able to resist putting it through its paces. OmniGraffle is one of those apps I don't open as much as I used to have to, but still go fanboy for...

Windows users have all sorts of these types of tools -- I used to spend lots of time in Visio -- but if OmniGraffle didn't exist on the Mac whole swaths of users would be up a proverbial creek. They'd buy it even if it sucked, yet they've chosen to not make it suck and rub it shiny, which is the surest way to make me go all fanboy.

On a side note regarding the talk in October, don't email me about podcasts of it, as:

  • The term "podcast" is already generic enough to hold little meaning. It's just dead, and is basically any compressed audio file that can somehow make it onto a media player, but that's not a prerequisite, and it's only a matter of time until it includes video. Oh, I know, someone will start saying "No, a real podcast is an x-formatted file that is embedded within an RSS enclosure and..." but you're going to have to get over it. There are some battles worth fighting, like hacker versus cracker, but this isn't one of them.

  • I just don't think a straight audio file or stream would have any value beyond confusing the hell out of people, which means it'll be video. Basically, if it was just me, or myself and another person, you'd pick up on the different voices (I'd be the sexy one) and could make sense of the conversation. However, if there are 5-7 people in a semi-circle, your brain would have to work incredibly hard to make any sense of just hearing competing voices.

    There may be a stream, it's being looked into, and there's a very high chance of it going out via bittorrent as I'm getting some help in that area so it would be nice and speedy (And yes, my vegan UK reader, I'll have a decent quick-run for bittorrent on the Mac up before then).

I'm going to do my best to make sure people who are too far away, or just don't have the means to make it, are taken care of... And lots are pitching in some help. There may be some things others can do closer to the date too, so I'll keep you informed.

Really, as soon as I can tell you exactly who will be in it and the exact date and time without causing people undue problems, I will.

There's a whole lot going on behind the scenes to make this happen, which is one of the reasons why the site is a little quiet at the moment, but once we're over this initial hump of locking everything and everyone in it'll be so much easier until the date gets nearer.

I'm learning that there's a reason you don't see this type of thing very often, let alone some Joe Blow trying to give it a go: A ton of work goes into something like this, and I doubt one person could get it all done while trying to juggle other things. Thank goodness I have some good people in my corner that also think this could be a cool thing, and I'm leaving little post-it notes everywhere to make sure they're properly thanked.

And now I must go research how much it will cost to have the theme from 2001 - A Space Odyssey playing while I'm lowered from the ceiling, as well as the safety issues of the cape getting tangled in the rigging. I already looked into the fog machine, but they're surprisingly pricey to rent for the volume we'd need to fill.

It was on the table, but you can't have a smog machine without lasers, and that'd be a little silly for a nice casual talk.

yummy alcohol posted button Posted by drunkenbatman
    September 14, 2005, at 12:51 AM


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