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Top Ten Reasons I Love My MacBook Pro

I have had my MacBook Pro for a month now and so far I believe it is the best machine I have ever owned. I have owned a lot of machines! The key to loving the MacBook Pro was to make it my main box — my ThinkPad T43p is still here — but over there as my secondary machine now. Now I do everything with my MacBook Pro.

I have been able to nearly replicate my entire Windows experience on my MacBook Pro by purchasing or cross-grading over to the Mac version of the software. Here are the Top Ten Reasons I am loving my MacBook Pro:

1. Mail: I do a lot of email every day. I get a lot of Spam and Junk. I need to easily reply to 11 email accounts throughout an 18 hour workday using IMAP. The bundled Mail application in OS X is truly magnificent. It beats Outlook 2003 and Entourage 2004 in every conceivable way. The application is fast, robust, reliable and super-easy to setup and manage. I could not ask for a better way to manage my mail and the fact that Mail is bundled for free as part of my MacBook Pro experience is a delight unlike no other.
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Hand Jive Book Cover Art

On July 1, 2005 Janna and I finished writing and creating images for illustration in our Hand Jive book published by Barnes & Noble in New York. The book has been in production for the last year and is now ready to be sent to the printer this week for publication and distribution and sale!

You can see images of the Hand Jive book cover art below and if you have any comments or see any errors, please leave a specific comment. The first image is the front cover and spine; the second image is the back cover; the third image is the inside front flap; the last image is the inside back flap.

Hand Jive Book Cover!

Continue reading → Hand Jive Book Cover Art

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An Apple Through the Windows: My MacBooks Review

Last week in my article, MacBook Questions from a Windows Heathen, I asked some questions about the new MacBook line of laptops from Apple computing. I have been using Windows computers since the rise of Windows 3.11.

My previous experience with Apple has been limited to the first generation Newton which I loved so much that Apple used a quote of mine in a press conference but without attributing it to me or asking my permission. I had posted on a CompuServe forum explaining why the Newton was “touching the future today.”

I believed in that technology then and the Apple Newton set the stage and started the trend for personalized, portable computing now. I have also used a first generation iPod and I have used iTunes and QuickTime.

I don’t know much about Apple computers so if there are some things in this review you do not understand or that are wrong, please let me know. After using the MacBook for a couple of days, my plan was to make a permanent move away from Windows and become a MacBoy today and forever. I will let you know my decision about moving from Windows to Mac at the conclusion of this article.

One of the great things about the new Intel-powered MacBooks is you can dual boot into Windows and Mac OS X on the same machine so you, in theory anyway, do not have to make a choice of Operating System preference.
Continue reading → An Apple Through the Windows: My MacBooks Review

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Not Deaf Enough at Gallaudet: Finally Is Not Enough

One of the hardest things for a minority culture to understand is the same history cannot be made twice. History only makes pioneers and always punishes imitators. There is an attempt to warp back to 1988 at Gallaudet, the premier university for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., as some of the 2,000 students enrolled there try to re-enact the historical — and successful — 1988 “Deaf President Now” campaign by erasing the appointment of a new president, Jane K. Fernandes, because she is “Not Deaf Enough” to lead Gallaudet. The students re-created a tent city from 1988 as they camp out to protest her appointment until she steps down. Fernandes cannot and must not be bullied down.

Gallaudet University

Continue reading → Not Deaf Enough at Gallaudet: Finally Is Not Enough

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Script Professor Search Ranking

After less than a week after being alive, the new Script Professor David W. Boles website already proudly hangs in the first few spots in a search for “Script Professor” on Google and MSN and Yahoo! and that is incredibly pleasing.
This is Google:

Script Professor Search Return for Google

Continue reading → Script Professor Search Ranking

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Need Plesk MIME Help

I need help getting my Hand Jive .MP4 (.MOV) video files to play on my new Media Temple virtual server:
http://hardcoreasl.com/handjive/
The video at the bottom of that page has played fine on other servers without me needing to do anything. When I asked Media Temple for help today, their response was this:

You will want to install darwin which is available at http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/streaming/
Please let us know if there’s anything else we can help you with.

That seems like overkill. I don’t need to really stream Quicktime, I just need my server to realize a .MOV file is the same as an .MP4 file so your browser’s Quicktime Plugin will recognize the file type but I cannot figure out how to tell my server to set those MIME types.

Do you have a solution?
If not, do you know someone who might know how to fix this?
I am running Plesk 7.5.3 if that makes a difference.

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Hand Jive: American Sign Language for Real Life

I am pleased to announce my book with Janna M. Sweenie, Hand Jive: American Sign Langue for Real Life is a done deal. This will be a funky and fantastic look at ASL and how you can learn to communicate with the Deaf in a fast and furious way.

Barnes and Noble logo

Our book will be published by Barnes and Noble Publishing, Inc., (yes, they publish books as well as sell them!) and the book will be distributed by Sterling.

Hand Jive: American Sign Langue for Real Life will be available for purchase in the Fall of 2006 and for more information on this book and other exciting ongoing and future projects, be sure to visit us online at http://BolesBooks.com.

Be sure to check out the book cover art.