I've always enjoyed looking at other people's desktops, I guess to see how theirs is laid out, how they work, what apps they decide to put in the dock or where they position them on the screen, what they keep running. I'm not sure why I want to know these things, but I guess it's to see if there's a better way to compute or if there are any apps I am missing out on. The shot above is what my desktop usually looks like on any given day.

Back when I ran Linux, there were threads in the distros' forums that were all about screen shots, and they were fascinating. There's endless combinations of window managers, docks, conky configs, and much more. Some were downright beautiful. That's something I miss about Linux, I wish OSX were as configurable. Lifehacker does screen shot contests sometimes, and those are the best since they're made by Lifehacker readers. But anyway, I know there's others like me, so if you'd like to share your desktop, I'd like to see it. I've posted mine and some points of interest and pointed out some apps out that weren't too obvious.

I know, my desktop is a complete mess. Do you have a better way to organize so many windows? Post yours in the comments, or if this is a stupid idea, let me know that too. Doesn't even have to be OSX; Linux and Windows are welcome. I used Skitch in OSX to make the screen shots you see here. And if you have any questions about anything you see, I'm glad to talk about it.

With the recent announcement of Google Calendar supporting CalDAV, I think we're getting closer and closer to replacing MobileMe. Why is this good? From some recent reports, I don't think I can trust MobileMe with my data. Plus, it's an overall fail-fest. Here are some current replacements of MobileMe's features:

• Email: Google IMAP baby! I've been using this to "sync" email on all my machines and devices and it works beautifully.
• iDisk: Mozy, S3, any online storage will do really. Most have clients to have it show up as a drive just as the iDisk would.
• Photos: Not even going to explain this one. Do we really need another online photo sharing service?
• Calendar & Contacts: Ok, don't actually have a replacement for this yet, namely for the iPhone, but it's getting harder to justify buying MobileMe just for this purpose, so we need something. gCal's CalDAV is getting us closer with it's seamless syncing and integration with iCal, we just need CalDAV support on the iPhone, which I'm sure Apple has no interest in implementing because as I said, it's getting easier and easier to shut out MobileMe.

Some day...

But don't watch this version, watch the HD version at Vimeo!

Ever since the local news started broadcasting in HD, I've wanted to send in some HD footage for them to show. Last night, I got my chance, and it was awesome. Weather was the top story of the night, and they used the premiere of my HD footage to tease the weather segment.

I sent in the footage with the intention of them editing it in Final Cut or something since it's just a simple QuickTime file, but I guess they just didn't bother or wanted to leave the "amateur" feel to it. I'll remember this next time.

If you have a good eye, you can see me making typos in the chatroom and acting like a jackass.

It may have a damn sexy login page, but MobileMe is making Kevin a sad panda. Upon watching the WWDC Stevenote, I was captured by the pure magic that seemed to be MobileMe. Make a change to your email or calendar, and boom, the change is made everywhere else. It was too good to be true.

Instead of pinging the "cloud" each time a change is made, it waits a while and gathers all your changes and sends them all in bulk, even with the MobileMe update installed for Leopard, still kind of in a "syncing" fashion. Where's the instant gratification we all saw in the demo? What if I make a change on my calendar and then close my laptop? Do I have to manually make it push so I know it makes it? Will the delayed updates cause problems if I make changes on multiple computers? On top of that, there's all the random errors and issues:

I will continue to hope and hold out for improvements to MobileMe because this is something I've been needing for a long time. Right now, as much as it wants to be like Exchange, it's not. I'll give it till the end of my 60-day trial, k?

Been playing Super Monkey Ball on the iPod these last two nights and wanted to share some information and tips about the game I've learned so far:

• You unlock the worlds by completing the Easy and Hard versions of each world. This is probably obvious but I wondered what was behind the question marked selections. After you complete Easy, Hard will show up.
• Be sure to start out with your device pretty level, but at a slight angle towards you. This makes sure you don't go shooting off when the level starts, and gives you a good starting position for fine control of the ball.
• The accelerometer is very sensitive, so you don't need to move it much. If you screw up and try to correct, you'll probably over-correct and make it worse and you're screwed, but try anyway and you might get lucky.
• Sometimes the game will crash upon launching. I've found turning the device OFF (not sleep) and back on will fix the problem.
• As far as I can tell, there's no way to save a current game. You have to play all 10 rounds of the Easy or Hard levels to move on to the next stage. Anyone know how to save your spot?

Give me feedback: How has your SMB experience been? Have anymore tips to share? Are there any other must-check-out games you'd recommend?

I saw this video on this week's Digg Reel on Revision3, and I couldn't believe its resemblance to my own job. In addition to my job at the video office, I also do some IT stuff for professors and staff at a department at Virginia Tech. Here are some similarities with the video:

• People don't say what they mean - They'll say something is down or it's broken, but whatever it is will be totally fine and their problem will be something else or they just don't know how to use it. I hate it when people say, "My computer doesn't work," and say nothing more. Do they really think that's enough information for me to fix their problem? The conversations in this are very similar to those I have at work.
• Some people think they're right - Some people are competent enough to understand it's my job to fix things and trust my advice and diagnosis. Others insist they know more and say with confidence the problem is something else. When they're clearly wrong, that's frustrating.
• We do play games - If the servers and everything are working properly, there really isn't much to do, so we play games and other things to pass the time. The problem is that we get too caught up and actual work gets in the way. Total bummer.
• People freak out over remote desktop - They think it's really cool, and probably a little creepy, that we can log in to their session from our office.
• We use Exchange - I though how he added the guy's mailbox and deleted his email was hilarious. We never do this, we have some ethics, but it's definitely possible.

I'm not sure how much more I should go on since my name is all over this blog and anyone can read it. So I'll leave you with a photo I took of my cube a while back:

This is a shot of my current home screen on my iPod Touch (hold Home button and press Sleep button to take a screenshot!). As of now, the 2.0 software hasn't been released, so yes, I had to install the leaked copy (I think Apple won't miss my $10). So for now I've just installed a few free apps to play around with and of course I had to get Super Monkey Ball, the game that wowed everybody at the WWDC Stevenote.

Dude, Super Monkey Ball is hard. Definitely will take some practice, and that's what work is for.

I've been watching TWiT Live for hours tonight and it's actually been a lot of fun. Consequently I didn't get much done so I've felt kind of useless tonight, so I've been telling myself I'll just work this weekend instead. We'll see how that goes.

I was able to sign up for MobileMe during a brief window of uptime earlier but can't fully test it because they haven't released the update for Leopard and it won't stay up for more than ten minutes (that's what she said).

Photo by Thomas Hawk. Yep, about a month after I get my Drobo, new ones come out. Same thing happened when I got my MacBook earlier this year. So if you want a product to be updated, let me buy it so you can reap the benefits.

Anyway, the new Drobo has Firewire 800 and a new fan which supposedly makes it quieter, which is why I am showing you a photo of the back. The front looks exacltly the same from what I can tell. The only thing that seems missing is the integrated gigabit ethernet port...some day I guess.

Both new features sound amazing to me, so I'm thinking of selling my old one to buy the new generation. I'll need to wait till after I do some traveling this month first, but if anyone is interested, let me know. They're selling the old Drobos for $349, so obviously I'd have to sell mine for less (lame!). It's in good-as-new condition, there's not much of a way for it to get damaged since it just sits there.

I took this photo last year and hope to get some more tonight. We're going to the big town gathering to watch fireworks later tonight, so watch the Flickr!

Also, does anyone else prefer to call it Independence Day instead of "4th of July"? It just seems 4th of July is just a date, and while the date does have meaning to us, it seems more appropriate to call it Independence Day, which is more what the day is about. Anyone? Just me? It's ok, people seldom agree with me about that for some reason.