The Jack Noodle Journal

Yeah. With the whole Mac or PC war, I don’t care too much. People really get ramped up and passionate about it though. I find that PC people argue the most. I’ve had both. I could go either way. I’m currently a Mac.

Really though…
I think you both suck, Mac and PC!

Stupid computers.

I would love to get a new computer. I can’t get one though because they are too freaking expensive! It’s been 4 years since I’ve had a new one right? It’s time.

Mac you’re too expensive. The news tells me the economy is in the toilet and people can’t run out and buy fancy Macs like they used to.

That whole thing about computers only being good for 2 years is really lame as well.
Planned obsolescence. Why can’t they invent a computer that would stay top of the line for at least 10 years? Oh, because they are in the business of selling computers? They can’t make something that would be built to last because then people would stop buying computers every 18 months and the computer companies would go out of business.

You don’t want to stop progress and innovation do you?

Oh yeah, and enough with the software upgrades, alright? Adobe, Photoshop is fine like it is. No need for another version. Operating systems? No more new OSes. Nobody really gives a crap about the OS anyway. Get over yourself already.

Gosh. I’m a little grumpy.

What got me going down this path your ask? Well…

As you may or may not know, earlier this year (or was it last year?) I let my other website, zo-ko.com fizzle and die. Fade. Stop functioning. I got tired of paying for 2 websites when I was mostly just doing stuff with JackNoodle.com. Oh. Here. Looks like I wrote about it in February of this year. Zo-Ko.com was my portfolio website. The work on there hadn’t been updated since 2005.

Zo-Ko had reached it’s obsolescence date. (Oh… “falling into disuse”. That sounds kind of cool.)

I thought back in February that I would be all artsy and Nihilistic and just let Zo-Ko evaporate into the ether. “It will be a cleansing. I won’t back up anything off of the server. I will let it die and start over with a new portfolio!”

It’s October now. My current thinking is that it wasn’t such a great idea to not get that Zo-Ko stuff off of the server. It probably would have been smart to move the Zo-Ko portfolio over to my JackNoodle.com space and just host it there and leave it up.

Now I don’t have a portfolio up anywhere be it old or otherwise. In today’s economic and employment climate it’s not smart to not have your resume and portfolio up and current.

I’m working on a new portfolio now. Well, thinking about working on a new portfolio. Planning stages.

So then with the Zo-Ko, me thinks that surely I have the finished portfolio saved somewhere on a disc. I have quite a few DVD backups burnt of all kinds of stuff. Stacks of discs. Of course when I do find a folder with the Zo-Ko stuff, it isn’t the most current and finished version. Incomplete.

Now I’m getting a tad obsessed. “There MUST be a finished version of Zo-Ko somewhere!”

I then set my sights on my old laptop. I was using that machine when I was constructing the Zo-Ko site, so my finished work is totally on that computer. Well my old laptop’s monitor was burnt out and I hadn’t been using it at all after I got my new laptop. After the computer lab was transformed into a bedroom in anticipation of baby’s arrival, my old computer was stuffed away in the top of the closet.

My thinking then was that I would take the old computer to work, plug it into a working monitor, download all of the contents of the old computer onto my work computer and grab the Zo-Ko website. Turns out that the old laptop doesn’t even turn on anymore! I knew the battery was probably dead but nothing stirred now even when the computer was plugged into the wall.

I took the computer to work to see if somebody or something could get it working there. I thought maybe if I left it plugged in for a long time that it might somehow charge up again. Nothing.

An IT person at the office said that my computer was toast. Apple no longer supported a laptop that was that old. If I could find parts for it online, they would be expensive and it wouldn’t be worth the money to fix it.

I got the old laptop in 2001! Come on! It’s dead and outdated now at 8 years old?

Well of course it is. Don’t be stupid Noodle.

My PC I still have up in the attic from 1996 is from Old Testament times. Call a museum.

The solution my work chums and I come up with is to crack the dead computer open and cut the hard drive out. A work pal had a tangle of wires that one could plug into a gutted hard drive that basically turns the laptop drive into a USB external hard drive.

I won’t lie. Dissecting the old computer and cutting out the hard drive was quite a turn on.

So now I have this gutted hard drive with a mess of wires hooked up to it. I plug it into my work computer and my work computer can’t read it. The Hard drive is too old to be read by our new, top of the line, super computer work machines. Shouldn’t the up to date machine be smart enough to read everything that has ever come before it? The thinking then at the office was that the old hard drive was operating OS 9 and the machines at work were all running OS 10 point a million and couldn’t see OS 9 anymore. There isn’t a copy of OS 9 anywhere in the building of course.

I then figure that my current laptop (not so current really) was still running OS 10 “Tiger” which came with a “classic” option that let you switch back to OS 9. I take the gutted hard drive back home and plug it into my current laptop. Doesn’t work still. I then discover that I had never installed the classic OS version onto my laptop. After a bit of annoying searching I discover that the OS 10 discs that came with my laptop are up in a box in the attic.

Did I mention it’s extremely difficult to get up in the attic?

So eventually I get the OS 10 discs and install the classic OS 9 onto my laptop. Still nothing when the old, gutted hard drive is plugged in!

Another guy at work has one more thing he thinks we should try, but I am now resigned to the fact that the old computer is dead and this amputated, limp and lifeless hard drive isn’t going to give up anything resembling the completed Zo-Ko website. Which remember, was the original goal of this adventure.

My plan now is to put the incomplete Zo-Ko portfolio up and try to refinish it from where it’s at. Have it here on the site as an oldie but goodie and work on a new portfolio.

So, any lessons learned for me here with this long winded rambling post? Not really. I’m reminded once again though how important good solid and frequent savings and backups are.

It kind of makes you ponder with our lives becoming more and more digital, with fewer and fewer copies, printouts, or actual physical, hold in your hand artifacts, maybe we are all planning our own obsolescence…

WOOOO HA HA HA HA! (scary creepy laugh)

The Little Noodle is a year and a half old today. Yes, yes, yes.

It has been a while since I have given a G Man report. I remember when I was counting down every month earlier on. Time moved much slower back then. Time is picking up speed these days. Won’t be long before I will be posting a 2 year old post and then a 10 year post and then a…

I was trying to remember back to his younger months yesterday. There was a time when we hadn’t heard his laugh yet? It’s hard to believe he was that small. I need to go back and look at the photos again. Maybe read the old posts. I still think a year and half old is much more entertaining than a new born but there is something magical and mysterious when they are that small.

Babies continue to get much less fragile with each month and that is a good thing. G Noodle is rough and tumble! He is running around, knocking stuff over and falling all over the place. As parents we are getting more accustomed to the thousands of nose dives and are figuring out which ones actually require freaking out.

G seems to understand what we are saying and is working on getting his own words out. He is working on communicating. He’s really good at pointing to what he wants and squawking. I think he can understand more words than he can say right now. He says da da and sort of says ma ma. He kind of says banana. Sort of says dog. He knows who Abby, Phillip and the cat are and has a kind of grunt for each of their names. Makes piggy noises and moos.

He has quite the sense of humor and has this crazy hearty laugh that he saves up for the strangest things. While reading him a story the other night he kept sneaking up to me and tried to fit my whole face in his mouth! He kept giggling and trying to get me while I squealed and tried to keep my face away from his drooling mouth. I think he might have been trying to give me a kiss. I keep telling him to kiss my cheek not eat my face.

Oh yeah, G gives kisses and hugs. He waves goodbye. He gives hi-fives. I’m trying to get him to do thumbs up. We’re still working on that one. He’s a pretty good dancer.

G is quite the little man.

Yeah, I had some fun making a font from my handwriting yesterday during lunch. You can make a font from your own handwriting here: fontcapture.com.

It’s like magic. You write in your letters on a template you print out and then scan the page into the computer and send it back to the website. They make your font right there on the spot! Magically.

My “Noodle Script” font turned out pretty good. That’s what my handwriting looks like. I have been writing notes and to-do lists using the font.

I think the trick to getting realistic handwriting when penning your letters is to relax and try to write like you would naturally. Don’t think too much about the letter forms while you are making them.

It gives a kind of personal touch to your computer typings.

I was going to give my font out to whoever wanted it, but that’s kind of weird and a tad creepy isn’t it? That’s MY handwriting. What sort of things are you typing with it?

I will be working a lot of hours at the office this October (NOT at the office now typing this, if you’re keeping track). There will also be some overtime. It is very busy. Yeah, whatever. Long story. It’s fine I guess.

The problem with working too many hours is it gets hard to find spare moments for my works like this here journal.

This will be my last “blog notes” post. I won’t explain my blog notes here again. If you don’t know what my blog notes are about check out the whole collection here.

My blog notes 41 email ended up having like 48 replies where I was sending links to myself. That’s too many emails to wade through. I don’t know what links are in there now!

I’m going to start loading all of the links that I want to examine closer at a later date into delicious.com. I know. I should have been doing that all along. I got it started up yesterday. Now if there is a link that I want to talk about here in the journal I’ll save it to delicious and retrieve it there when I’m ready to type.

Sounds good.

Oh yeah, here’s the link to my Delicious page.