Just My Two Cents http://www.jeffself.net/blog Miscellaneous Ramblings of an Apple, Linux, and sports geek Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:21:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 en Vote for me http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/08/30/vote-for-me/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/08/30/vote-for-me/#comments Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:56:53 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/?p=52 I’ve entered a photography contest. More specifically, the Aperture Nature Photography Workshops contest.  I learned about it on the MacBreak Weekly podcast.

Vote for my photo!vote
]]> http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/08/30/vote-for-me/feed/ It’s time to blog again http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/08/11/its-time-to-blog-again/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/08/11/its-time-to-blog-again/#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:41:40 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/?p=36 This time, its been six months since I last blogged.  I keep thinking that I’m going to write my own blog using Django, but with 5 year old twins, there isn’t a lot of time to do this.  So I’ll stick with WordPress for now.

What have I been doing this year?  Well, I went to PyCon in March.  It was awesome.  I went to CFUnited in June.  I thought it was second rate.  And I got some training in Flex in July with FigLeaf.  Waiting on my copy of Flex Builder to come in so I can start coding with it.  Its some pretty cool software.

I’ve been looking at using Groovy and Grails for some future development at work.  I’d like to integrate it with Flex for some applications I have in mind.  I’m really getting interested in doing some serious mapping stuff especially since ESRI has opened ArcGIS up with the release of 9.3.  They have API’s available for Javascript and Flex.

I bought a new MacBook Pro in June.  I downsized from a 17″ to a 15.4″.  I really could have used a new Mac Pro, but I can’t afford one of those right now.  So I’ll get another year out of my PowerMac Dual 2.0ghz G5.

]]> http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/08/11/its-time-to-blog-again/feed/ Can’t wait for PyCon 2008! http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/02/26/cant-wait-for-pycon-2008/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/02/26/cant-wait-for-pycon-2008/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:06:59 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/02/26/cant-wait-for-pycon-2008/ I’m set to go. I’ll be arriving in Chicago on Wednesday, March 12 in the late afternoon. I’m attending the tutorials on Thursday and going to the conference through Sunday. I can’t wait. I want to learn Python and Django so much that I’m paying my own way. I didn’t even ask my work since I doubt they’d ever send me to a Python conference.

]]> http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2008/02/26/cant-wait-for-pycon-2008/feed/ My college rankings get shuffled a bit http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/10/01/my-college-rankings-get-shuffled-a-bit/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/10/01/my-college-rankings-get-shuffled-a-bit/#comments Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:21:08 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/10/01/my-college-rankings-get-shuffled-a-bit/ Thanks to all the upsets this weekend, my rankings have been shuffled a bit. LSU continues to be a dominant #1. Virginia Tech climbs to #13 which is pretty amazing since they still have no offense.

]]> http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/10/01/my-college-rankings-get-shuffled-a-bit/feed/ My NFL rankings are out. http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/25/my-nfl-rankings-are-out/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/25/my-nfl-rankings-are-out/#comments Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:45:15 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/25/my-nfl-rankings-are-out/ America, the wait is over. My rankings are out. No surprise here, New England leads the way, followed by Green Bay, Dallas, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh.

]]> http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/25/my-nfl-rankings-are-out/feed/ My college rankings are out. (A week early) http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/25/my-college-rankings-are-out-a-week-early/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/25/my-college-rankings-are-out-a-week-early/#comments Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:40:32 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/25/my-college-rankings-are-out-a-week-early/ I’m publishing my college rankings a week early this season. No surprises. LSU and Oklahoma are at the top. My Hokies are #17 but I predict they will fall over the next three weeks. Why? They face UNC, Clemson, and Duke in their next three games. UNC and Duke will kill their strenght of schedule and Clemson will probably just kill them.

If Tech doesn’t find an offense soon, its going to be a long season.

]]> http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/25/my-college-rankings-are-out-a-week-early/feed/ Greatest upset ever? Not hardly. http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/06/greatest-upset-ever-not-hardly/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/06/greatest-upset-ever-not-hardly/#comments Fri, 07 Sep 2007 01:54:38 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/06/greatest-upset-ever-not-hardly/ By now, everybody knows about Appalachian States shocking win over Michigan last Saturday. Most of the media is calling it perhaps the greatest upset in college football history. While it makes for great headlines, its far from it. I’ll try and explain.In 1978, the NCAA split up Division I football into two divisions: I-A and I-AA. I don’t know what the criteria was in deciding who went to what division, but it seems like the “major” conferences went to I-A. So when you hear the media say that no Division I-AA school has ever beaten a ranked I-A team, remember that its going back less than 30 years. Who knows what upsets took place in the 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s.Michigan came into this season with a preseason ranking of #5. Why? Who knows. They lost most of their defense. Its amazing how quickly the media forgets about defense.Appalachian State won back to back National Championships in Division I-AA in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, there were 119 schools in Division I-A. There are about the same number of schools in Division I-AA. Should we assume that every Division I-A school is better than every Division I-AA school? Not hardly. Division I-AA schools win quite often against Division I-A opponents. It’s reasonable to assume that there is overlap between the two divisions if you were to rank them from top to bottom. In fact, my computer rankings do just that. And Michigan finished #6 in my 2006 rankings. So where was Appalachian State? If we use the philosophy that all Division I-A schools are better than all Division I-AA schools, then Appalachian State should have been ranked #120 since they were the best school in Division I-AA and there are 119 schools in Division I-A. But in my final computer rankings, Appalachian State was ranked #54. They finished ahead of the following Big 10 schools: #58 Purdue, #75 Indiana, #79 Michigan State, #88 Northwester and #106 Illinois. In fact, they were ranked ahead of 66 schools in Division I-A.So when the media claims Appalachian States victory of Michigan as the greatest upset ever in college football, they are really doing Appalachian State a disservice. It was a big upset, but it is far from the biggest of all time. It just sounds good that a I-AA school knocked off a “traditional” power like Michigan.So what IS the greatest upset in college football history? It’s a matter of personal opinion, but I can point to one game, particularly, in the last 30 years. On October 17, 1998, Temple visited Blacksburg to face Virginia Tech. Temple came into this game 0-6. Virginia Tech was 5-0. Oddsmakers made Virginia Tech a 36 point favorite. In my computer rankings, Virginia Tech was ranked #6 at this point in the season. Temple was ranked #143. Temple was worse than a lot of Division I-AA schools that year. Virginia Tech raced out to a 24-0 lead before Temple scored just before halftime to cut the lead to 24-7. Temple fought back in the second half and won the game 28-24. To this day, it remains the biggest upset according to oddsmakers. Virginia Tech fans have decided that this game never happened and refuse to acknowledge it today!So there you have it. Give Appalachian State its due. It was a great victory. But it was not the greatest upset in history. That happened in Blacksburg on an October day in 1998.

]]> http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/09/06/greatest-upset-ever-not-hardly/feed/ The Elgato Turbo.264 rocks! http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/08/08/the-elgato-turbo264-rocks/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/08/08/the-elgato-turbo264-rocks/#comments Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:42:28 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/08/08/the-elgato-turbo264-rocks/ One of my hobbies is converting Virginia Tech football games from video to digital. I’m using Final Cut Studio to do the job. I export my video’s to MPEG-4 H.264 640×480 resolution at 2500 kbits/s and 128kbps AAC audio. Normally, I export only one half of a football game at a time and let it do the encoding while I’m sleeping. A 30 - 40 minute video will take about 3 to 4 hours on my Power Mac Dual G5 2.0ghz machine.

I had been reading about the Elgato Turbo.264 device which offloads the encoding from the computers CPU to the Turbo.264 Video Encoder Hardware. It looks like a thumb drive and plugs into a USB 2.0 port. Well, I ordered it and received it today.

I did a test to see how it performed. I took a video clip of a Virginia Tech game that was 2 minutes 6 seconds and exported it to Apple TV format. This translates to a 720×480 video at 2500 kbits/s data rate. It took about 9 minutes. Then I plugged in the Elgato Turbo.264 thingamajiggy and had the clip export to the Apple TV (Elgato Turbo) setting. It was done in less than 3 minutes! Amazing! So how’s the quality? Looking at the two video’s side by side, the Turbo.264 encoded video looks far better.

For my final test, I copied the video to my Mac mini which is running Ubuntu 7.04. I brought up VLC and the video looks great on Ubuntu as well.

I highly recommend it. And you too can save $2500 like I did. The Mac Pro is $2499. The Elgato Turbo.264 is far less at Amazon.

]]> http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/08/08/the-elgato-turbo264-rocks/feed/ On my way to CFUnited 2007 http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/06/26/on-my-way-to-cfunited-2007/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/06/26/on-my-way-to-cfunited-2007/#comments Tue, 26 Jun 2007 12:37:09 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/06/26/on-my-way-to-cfunited-2007/ Flying out today to go to CFUnited. Hope to get some good information while I’m there. I need to learn more about Flex, Spry and AIR.

]]> http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/06/26/on-my-way-to-cfunited-2007/feed/ iTunes has DRM-free music now http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/05/31/itunes-has-drm-free-music-now/ http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/05/31/itunes-has-drm-free-music-now/#comments Thu, 31 May 2007 01:39:07 +0000 jeff.self http://www.jeffself.net/blog/2007/05/31/itunes-has-drm-free-music-now/ iTunes started offering DRM-free music today. I was excited. I was worried about how much I would have to pay to upgrade my music to the DRM-free, but much better sounding 256kbps AAC tracks. Would I be spending $40? Maybe $50?

Nope, I had 16 songs to upgrade for a total of $4.80. Jeez. I guarantee I’ll be buying a lot more EMI music from here on out though. Do you hear that Sony? WB?

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