1FPS|by David Chartier

I can’t say I agree with John Siracusa’s conclusion that it’s Apple’s fault for not delivering earth-shattering keynotes at every single Macworld and WWDC event. Anyone who’s pumped themselves way up before a keynote by reading every scrap of rumor and speculation only has themselves to curse if the actual announcements come across as a let down. Apple isn’t to blame for artificially inflating our expectations, we are.

Continuing down this path of reasoning, there is certainly another argument to be made that sites like MacRumors, AppleInsider, and anyone who covers their reports could also be partly blamed for not exercising caution and reason before publishing. But that’s a road I don’t have time to travel this morning. Sure I cover my fair share of the rumor stuff, but even then I’m using some internal filters and always disclaimer it with a bit of reason and a warning that patents and “anonymous sources” don’t always add up to what we hope. In fact, I don’t have any hard numbers on me right now, but I’m willing to bet that, more often than not, patents and anonymous sources turn out to be nothing more than hot air and wishful writing (note the omission of “thinking” from that phrase).

When we were kids, our desires for gifts at the applicable times of the year could easily spiral far beyond the realms of reason, what our parents could afford, and what was proper for a child to receive as a gift in the first place. Puppies, ponies, lego sets, that hot new video game console, a trip to Disney World. Was it our fault we went nuts with the wishlists? No. We were freaking kids, and we didn’t understand anything about how anything worked.

But we aren’t kids anymore. We’re adults or, at the least, teenagers (anyone younger shouldn’t be pining over Apple rumor sites all day. They should be outside playing and being a kid). Hopefully, we’ve all picked up reasoning skills along our journey through life, and I think it’s about high time the Apple enthusiast community starts using some of them. Apple’s a great company that does some wonderful things, but I think anyone who consistently finds themselves disappointed that Apple keynotes didn’t fulfill the outlandish rumor site wishlists needs to back away from the keyboard. Maybe reorganize some of these sites into a “Fiction” bookmark folder to serve as a reminder of what’s really going on here.

Maybe Siracusa’s right that “a keynote to end all keynotes and begin them anew” is coming, but I’m not holding my breath. It isn’t exactly a “don’t pay attention to anything so every keynote is a surprise” approach, but at some point I think we need to stop running around and grabbing everything we see in the candy story of Apple rumors and speculation. Not every keynote is going to blow our minds, in the same way that not every episode of your favorite TV drama will knock your socks off either. It just isn’t a practical expectation to have.

For about two years now I’ve run 1FPS at my own hosting, handling all the WordPress setup, maintenance and upgrades on my own with each new release. It isn’t necessarily hard work by any means, but the tedious aspects of this it have grown more heavy on me lately. I’m getting tired of having to stay on top of updates and worrying about security while simultaneously having to kindly ask (read: bug) my theme’s author to update for the changes in the new WordPress build before I can upgrade my site. I’ve always wanted to learn PHP and possible make my own theme some day, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon, if ever.

I’ve been a DIYer with a lot of technology stuff ever since I got into computers in 1995. But for the same “it just works” reasons that I bought a Mac and haven’t looked back, I’m considering giving up the WordPress DIY lifestyle and moving to TypePad. I looked at WordPress.com as an option, but TypePad seems to be a clear leader in the managed blog market in terms of features, power, speed and customizability (good grief, both their backend and live sites are fast). Of course TypePad is a commercial service and WordPress.com is free, but that aspect doesn’t concern me much anymore.

Now I have questions for you: are you a TypePad user? Did you by chance move away from WordPress or another DIY option? What was your experience? Do you have any advice considering my goals? One major caveat to the move is that 1FPS has always lived at dcharti.com/blog, and I’m not entirely sure if it’s possible to get TypePad’s domain mapping feature to map to a subdirectory like that (technical advise on this aspect is much appreciated). If I have to completely uproot and keep my blog at the domain level that’s fine; it’s probably what I should do anyway, considering that’s all I really want this domain for. In that case, I could also use advice on any tricks I can use to redirect current links to 1FPS posts to their new home at TypePad, considering /blog/ would be dropped from the URL and .html would be added.

So please, sound off. My trial TypePad account expires in a week and I would love to know whether I’m going to commit or not before then. I’m down for hearing your thoughts or reading posts from others who have shared their experiences, but I’m not that interested in the feature-for-feature rundowns that sites like Mashable have done. I already have a good grasp on feature differences ‚Äî I want to know how they pan out with real world use, especially among those who have already made the switch I’m considering.

Thanks in advance for any help.

For those looking to find where else I write on the web, I’ve added a link to my Vox blog in the navigation up top. I post more personal stuff there: what’s going on in my life and with my wife, Jessi, pictures and other bits of web culture. Basically anything that doesn’t fit into the tech and tech culture focus of this 1FPS site goes over on my Vox blog. I also dive into Vox’s Amazon, YouTube and Flickr integration there, so my Vox blog is a great place to see what else I’m reading and looking at. I invite you to swing by and see what I’m up to, but I offer no warranty and take no responsibility if it scares you away or sets fire to your computer display.

If you’re wondering how I created a page in my WordPress navigation above that directly links to an outside site, I’m using Mark Jaquith’s Page links To plug-in. It’s very easy to install and use, and I’m running the latest 2.2 version of WordPress so I know it’s up to date.

Not only have I been at The Unofficial Apple Weblog and Download Squad for just over two years now, but Weblogs, Inc. gave me my start in the pro blogging and tech journalism business. It is because of this that I am happy (but a little sad) to report that Ars Technica came knocking and asked me to come write for their fine publication. After what some might consider too much deliberation (at first I honestly thought they might be joking), I decided this would be a great direction in which to take my freelance tech writing career.

I finish up at TUAW and DLS at the end of this month and hope to at least get started with Ars over the weekend (sadly, my wife and I have no labor day weekend plans, and her foot is broken right now anyway). If you’ve never read Ars I invite you to swing by and get crackin’; it really is a stellar pub and I’m honored to be brought on board. My primary focus will be the Apple-centric Infinite Loop journal, but I’ll be able to scratch my Download Squad itch by writing about web 2.0, Microsoft and other tech news across the rest of the site and on the front page.

It’s gonna be a good time and a lot of work. Here’s hoping I can hang onto the train.

[tags]Ars Technica[/tags]

Thanks to a post at Lifehacker last year, I set up a project in February ‘07 to take a picture of myself every day. Lifehacker provided a small script that can make this process really simple for those with iSight-enabled Macs, so I attached it to an iCal alarm that goes off every day to ensure that I keep a rhythm to the project. While my Photo a Day project has been pretty successful so far, there are naturally a few days where I never opened my machine, or the photo taken was no good.

Still, I found myself with a growing folder of photos, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what to do with them, until today - it finally hit me. Thanks to this script, Automator and the new .Mac Web Galleries, I now have a .Mac Photo a Day gallery. After my Mac snaps the daily photo of whatever is going on, it will automatically email the shot to the private gallery address to put it online immediately. I know people have made this stuff into movies in the past, and I might do that myself down the road, but for now this might be an interesting little experiment.

I have recently made a few changes to DavidChartier.com as I am building it up to be a springboard for my online writings, as well as a portfolio for my motion graphic and design work. This means that site is no longer technically functioning as my main RSS feed, but my Tumblr blog is. dc.tumblr.com is still hard at work aggregating everything I’m writing at various blogs including TUAW and Download Squad, which means the RSS feed now lives at http://dc.tumblr.com/rss. I know, it’s a lot of shuffling around, but I know you can handle it.

As always, thanks for reading.

To whoever is logging into my accounts on the web and locking them out - please stop. If there’s something we should talk about, let’s talk. If you’re ticked off about something I did or said, let’s have a conversation about it. But please stop trying to crack my passwords and lock out my accounts, because that just isn’t cool.

I’m done with the bi-partisan mud-slinging. I’m done with splitting this country in half. I’m done with the quietly intended practice of boisterously hating those on the opposite side of a fence that shouldn’t exist, simply because they’re on the other side of it. I’m done with the viral behavior of lying, cheating and stealing being spread by those in power who do nothing but lie, cheat and steal.

I’m not supporting either of the major parties because they don’t support us. At best, I’ll probably end up voting for the party that I feel lies and cheats the *least*, but that still isn’t saying much.

The last thing this country needs right now is lines drawn between its citizens, comrades, family and friends due to one belief or solution to a problem being different from another. Right now is a time to come together - that’s why I am showing my support for every citizen of this country by refusing to support a political process that no longer seems to support us.

Pearl Jam: Activism and Information

Many of you know that I have Crohn’s Disease. For those who don’t, it’s a chronic debilitating illness that causes ulcers on the colon or other areas of the digestive system.

My heart goes out to the guy; Pearl Jam was *that band* when I was growing up that blew my mind and introduced me to music. I saw the Jeremy video on the static-ridden channel The Box, a Milwaukee-based music video service that must’ve used a bent metal coat hanger for a broadcasting antennae. The Box allowed you to call in and order a video to be played for $1.99 (inspiration for the iTunes Store video pricing? One can only wonder). As you might guess, in the early days this allowed the service to sometimes be riddled with the same video five times in a row, but Jeremy made it through. I immediately rode my bike down to The Exclusive Company - against my parents’ wishes - and bought this Explicit Content cassette tape in 6th grade before anyone got sued for letting 6th graders buy explicit content albums.

I wish the best for Mr. McCready and his efforts.

[Update: Thanks for the inquiries, but I have sold my BlackJack and am no longer in the market, thanks to a splendid new iPhone.]

I was trying to hold out until the iPhone launches this summer, but Windows Mobile just isn’t for me anymore. I’m looking to swap out my very accessorized BlackJack for a BlackBerry Pearl. If you’re interested, I’ve posted on Craigslist with full details and photos. I would prefer to trade straight up in the US for a Cingular Blackberry Pearl (I hear a Pearl from other networks has funky software that doesn’t play so well with Cingy), but I’m willing to sell for the price I listed on Craigslist (though I’m somewhat flexible). Hit me up if you have questions.