ezra of antioch

I Don't Get it.

2008-06-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

I don't get why I am already getting these errors on my virtual machine. I try and try again, restart, and the problem persists. There does not seem to be an easy auto detector for the problem. I will have to write down the names of the failed updates and research them by name and attempt to manually override whatever was planned.

No really big deal though, it does work, and it's not like I have to depend on Windows to work for me. That's why I have a mac now anyways. I purchased XP so I can help others and browser test my web pages in a native setup, as most people in the world have to do things, with Internet Explorer, because they don't know better, or have no choice.

Borrowed Time

2008-04-08T13:21:00.001-07:00

It seems like all of my time is borrowed time. I have more ideas than time to implement them. I remember when I was a teenager and had more time than I knew what to do with, and there was nothing to do because I had no money, but all kinds of ideas about what to do with money I did not have. I imagine some day if and when I retire, I may have time and money to do things, yet have no strength to do them. Then I will give money to hard working teens and time to overscheduled parents (by watching their kids), and remind them that it is not wrong to ask for help. Perhaps I should lend my strength to someone who is retired. Perhaps I should give some money to a teen who needs some income as well. I need more sleep too.
Thanks to God for the perspective.

Here's an idea for the future

2008-02-29T14:54:00.001-08:00

Whenever there's an advancement in technology that stays for the long haul, it is accompanied by a lot of people thinking, "Well that just made sense, I wonder what took so long for people to realize that."
Some people in the technical field believe that a love of science is chosen in rejection to faith in God. That those who believe in Jesus Christ as the savior of their soul must chuck all logic out of the window when they claim a faith in God. There may be some who reject all of science fearing all of the complexities of asking questions and the humility that that entails.
I believe that God created the universe as described in the Holy Bible. I don't know how a scientist might describe it if God allowed him/her to watch a time-lapsed version of it from an omnipotent point of view.
I also believe that no technology created by mankind rivals that designed by God. The best breakthroughs in technology come from a close study of the inherent designs found in nature/creation. God made mankind in His own image, and I believe that includes His nature to create, and to be pleased by His created things working as designed. I have a strong God-given desire to create things, but I don't always have opportunities to excercise that. I tell friends and family about ideas I have regarding technology and inventions, as well as how certain products and even hardware are crafted/engineered. Not everyone is as excited by such discussion as I am.
Instead of just pointing out that this product or that software does exactly that thing I told my wife about a few years back, I decided to just blog it out, so that it at least gets published. Hey, maybe I can get some credit in the years to come. It sure beats clamming up and considering the cost of trying to sell ideas to businesses built on making money from a generation of people told that they all deserve an 'A' because they are special.
I was thinking about digital cameras. The sensor is built to mimic film both in form and function. The lenses we pay so much money for direct beautiful light through a nearly circular aperture to a square sensor. Cameras like my wife's Canon 20D are helpful because they sense when the camera is sideways and rotate the RAW image in-camera. If the sensor was a hexagon shape, it would seem you could get a lot more efficient use from the real estate on a sensor. If the pixel arrangement were not in rows and columns of square or rectangular pixels, but more like that of a honeycomb, with interlocking hexagon shaped pixels, I imagine that would produce a much better resolution image in the long run. I also think of natural sensors like the eyes of a horsefly or other insects. Even the cells viewed at the microscopic level of the human eye, I am sure are not arranged as a square grid, it's just not natural. I have a hunch that when High definition camcorders, screens, displays and
sensors are using screens with a hexagonal pixel arrangement, even if still square at the macro-level, will look back and think, "Oh, how horrible looking those square pixelated antiquated screens and images look from the past."
That's my idea. Let me know if someone else thought of it already and when I can get a honeycomb sensored Canon DSLR where portrait and landscape is a postprocessing afterthought as white balance currently is in shooting RAW.
I will let you (the reader) know when I get another idea worth writing about.
-Ezra J. Engle
Artist and otherwise creative guy

weird ipod usb error message

2007-12-19T22:55:00.000-08:00

I keep getting this popup when I plug in my ipod, and as far as I know, both of my USB ports are 2.0. At first I thought that maybe one port was 2.0 and the other was 1.1, but I switched which port the ipod was plugged into, and the same error happened. It still synchs just fine, maybe it's a glitch.

Random Thoughts

2007-12-05T14:12:00.000-08:00

I got a new to me/ used Palm Treo 700p to replace my 650. It's quite an upgrade. The software to synchronize with my computer is not ready to use/ still in development- so I am synchronizing with Palm Desktop Software on my small Windows XP partition for now. I like the idea of having everything synchronize perfectly across my web, computer and mobile devices, but it seems once you have 3 things involved, things get messed up soon enough. I wish I understood the Palm OS better, so I could figure out which file to delete to stop this alert that happens every 5 minutes telling me that "The Default Scheduled Get failed" whether or not I have my email set to auto synch or not. One solution to ridding myself of the problems associated with synching is to have 1 device that was my computer and fit within my pocket, and did not require plugging into a main computer to get software onto it or updates on it. Every device out there that is portable and "smart" needs to be intermittently
connected to a base computer to stay up-to-date. I like my laptop and have grown to depend on a pretty high performance computer, but for all of the regular pc users out there, who could care less whether or not they could have a great Desktop Experience, they just want to browse the whole internet, and view all standard attachments, and have a full featured email and calendar client with the ability to reliably make and receive phone calls. I think the computer experience for this sort of consumer should be within a phone and may dock at home to have the same interface on a larger screen display- for viewing movies, if desired, but would not require that. I think it can happen within 3-4 years. It would require cheaper and prevalent open access to high-speed wireless data, consumer demand, and impressive advances in battery technology. I want to have a single data bill and no itemized phone call charges with long distance & peak minutes discrepancies, just unlimited data sold a
t different speed rates. Everything today seems so redundant. Redundancy is good for police, safety personnel and Some proffesional types, but not for me. If I can't rely on one service, then it's not worth having around and paying for. Oh, my lunch is over.

Back to My Mac is inspiring.

2007-11-20T14:46:00.001-08:00

I tried this program that works with Apple's new OS called Leopard and their subscription service called .Mac the other day, and wow, I am impressed. I used to use a free program called Chicken of the VNC and also tried a shareware program called SpyMe with HamachiX, and they worked, after some fiddling, but Back to my Mac is amazing, and I think I an guess where Apple is going.
Back to my Mac let's me click an icon in my computer that represents another computer I have and select share screen button which instantly opens up a window with an excellent scaled version of the screen of the computer, giving me remote access to it as though I were using it directly. Because it's built into the new OS, I don't have to download 3rd party software and worry about upgrades and compatibility so much. The thing that struck me was when I clicked the green resizebutton in the window, it resized it to a 2" square, and I could still use the mouse at that tiny illegible size to drag items around on the desktop and click icons on the dock. This resizing used to be a pain with other programs I used previously and even using the mouse and clicking things was irritating due to the lag time between the click and seeing what happened when the sreen refreshes like a slow strobe effect. Apple must have put some time into making this all very flexible.
I think that there's gotta be a back to my mac icon coming to the iPhone by January to show off that you can now control your desktop at home with your iphone from anywhere in the connected world. After seeing that it's possible to control the desktop in such a tiny window, I know it can be done, with a little magnifier and some panning and zooming capabilities. They just need to make sure the .Mac service as easy and reliable as the desktop experience I have had. This would make it useful for everyone while waiting for native 3rd party application approval by Apple for the iPhone.
I tested the usability of the Back to my Mac by controlling my Macbook Pro's screen from my old ibook g4, and accessing the Windows version of Palm Desktop on my bootcamp partition through VMWare Fusion's window That's a lot of hoops to jump through and control in a way that felt close enough to real time and native that I was sold on the possibilities of doing that through a future iPhone. I am waiting for the iPhone to open up a little to do all the stuff my Palm Treo 650 currenty does natively, except for the automatic soft resetting feature, of course.

Waiting for Leopard

2007-10-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

I was planning to purchase a new laptop since Spring this year, but wated to buy it after the new operating system from Apple was launched. Since it has been delayed, I have been following all Apple Hot News, Mac Break Weekly, The Mac Round Table, Mac Attack, This Week in Technology, Engadget, NPR Technology, and recently Google Technology News.
I assume that no matter when I purchase a new laptop, I will be disappointed if I hear a new announcement shortly after with a significant upgrade that makes my system seem relatively useless. I must have quite a bit of restraint up to now, however, since my current laptop is a 12" ibook G4 Power PC with 1.07 GHz I have had for 3 years or so. I did upgrade the hard drive from 30GB to 160GB so I could install Final Cut Studio (which required 40GB at the time all by itself) and the memory from 256MB to 768 MB of RAM. I just wanted to have all of my software on one machine, slow and limited as it was (it took 3.5 days to render a 12 minute HD video slideshow in Compressor, but it did it!).
Since I am using professional applications, it made sense to plan to get the "pro" series of macbook. I was thinking of holding out for a 12" macbook pro, without a DVD drive and a secondary 32 GB Flash Drive which would supplement RAM and speed up the system startup process. I may even hope for some pressure sensitive touchscreen features if they got Wacom Technology on board in their development process, but that may be asking for too much for less than a year from now.
I am writing all of this down perhaps for bragging rights if that's exactly what Apple does, and perhaps to get it out of my mind, so I don't feel compeled to talk to non-Apple fans about what they care nothing about.
Then I will wait for the first CDMA iphone to be announced in the spring/summer of 2008 with 3rd party applications opened up so I can turn off the phone and use a future Bible application offline, without worrying about text/email distraction.
Thanks, I feel better now.
-Ezra

Competition

2007-09-28T11:52:00.001-07:00

There is no competitor greater than one who can't be discouraged, won't budge from his path and never stops. Such a competitor should not be fought with, rather joined. With an ally like that, there is no other competion.
Time is such a competitor. I have fought with time for too long, and now need to learn better how to ally myself with him.
God is not beat by time, so He's even better, and gives me a purpose for trying as well. Then I am working for a goal and for the benefit of others. Only God can help me prioritize time and encourage me to keep moving in positive direction.
I fail when I ignore time and when I ignore God. I need to be more generous with both, not hoarding my attention away from the boundaries given by both.
That reminds me, my break is over. Back to work.

A Sad Realization

2007-09-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

My wife Karyn called me today and told me that she had sad news and funny news. I couldn't imagine what type of news could be both sad and funny, so I assumed that there were two separate unrelated events of which she would shortly inform me.

I am at Youth Camp

2007-06-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

I get to help with the media stuff a little between watching kids and swatting the occasional mosquito.

Outside Work Haiku

2007-06-14T12:45:00.001-07:00

I have no A/C.
It is so hot outside.
At least there's a breeze.

--------------Signature-------------
..you can visit my art website if you want to:
http://www.ejeartworks.com/

one thing about my city...

2007-04-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

I received a postcard in the mail that informed me that the city of Antioch passed some laws that it intends to enforce in the near future to improve the appearance of the community.
Some of the most common problems are:
1. visible waste bins
2. overgrown lawns
3. visible trailers
4. autos in disrepair
These topics were illustrated with photographs of the aforementioned 'crimes' existing in driveways and sideyards of single family homes.
I received a letter shortly after informing me that a City Inspector whose duty it is to report such evils has identified my home as a nuisance. I had been storing my recycle bin and waste bin on my extended driveway's edge, which can be viewed from the sidewalk & street. No, trash was not strewn about, no piles of junk, just two 64 gallon bins neatly parked next to my driveway's edge.
Don't get me wrong, I understand why many people choose to live in planned communities and country clubs, paying for strict controls on what color you can paint your house trim and forbidding residents from parking on a driveway, (which after all is designed only to drive on, not to park on, that's what a garage is for, technically). They keep it necessary for residents to pay an RV storage facility to keep their RV and boats out of public view, and so on. I intentionally avoided such yuppie ghettos for the peace of mind that home ownership should give. Although I smirk at the properties with hot pink paint jobs and peeling trim, I don't complain, because they remind me that I could be stuck in a neighborhood where I would be hassled not only by a mortgage payment every month, but also mello roos taxes & a homeowner's association, with it's fees and fines for landscaping that only the recently retired and gardening enthusiasts could never fear.
I was informed I could be fined $1000 for not putting my bins behind my fence. After some thought and reflection, I moved the bins. (...coward, I know) I choose my battles, and I don't have time to fight this battle, and it cost me nothing but time to roll them to the sideyard. I am now a slightly more informed voter. I guess the majority of deciders at whatever council meetings happen are in homeowner's associations, themselves.
Avoid those who think more legislative control will be the best solution to our city's problems, and support those who promote job opportunities for locals and businesses to want to do business in our good city.

-Ezra

http://www.ezraengle.com/

Spirituality

2006-09-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

If only it were so easy,
To be righteous in your sight,
To read the entire message,
To resist the urge to delete,
If only it were so easy,
To pass the test that Paul failed,
By sending the message on to everyone I ever knew- and some I really never did,
The story did intrigue me,
And it made a decent point,
I laughed at that one part,
And was surprised at the end after I scrolled past the three pages of spacers,
But honestly,
Is this is a test from God?
And I will be one of the seven percent who don't delete it?,
The elect chosen people of God?
The sheep, the ones who please Him?
Who resist the violent flow of this dark world and courageously forward this message to their entire list of contacts?
I sadly recognize my need for more courage, and the general need for more discernment.
To fear God more than man,
To recognize when an email is addressed to me from a person,
And to know that my pride in my faith is better exercised in my community where I can meet the needs of others, because love costs something. Encouragement is of value, but more so when it is directed personally to a known individual, whom has some trust in the encourager.
Satan is the accuser.
I don't want to join his team,
I have enough to do as it is,
I am busy preparing for the grand finaly,
Where he gets dropped into his eternal bucket of dismay, and God's suffering children will be exalted to His prescence, where we will praise Him in a way only the angels knew how to before.
This earth had better get out of her guilt, on to conviction, repentance, and from forgiveness to righteousness. God is waiting, and I don't know how long His patience will last.

I had to work this Saturday

2006-09-02T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm.
I have to work one Saturday every 15 weeks. It is odd, because there is not much work around to be done on a weekend.

Noah with hands full

2006-07-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

I am just testing this...

Hopefully the format looks ok.

Flock is nice

2006-07-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

I just learned about Flock, a new

browser to me, which allows me

to post blog entries from it

without an additional login.

Nice.

Blogged with Flock

2006-01-12T14:02:00.000-08:00

I need to run

Note to self:
Run.
Get up early.
Go to sleep early.
Eat well.
Wake up quickly.
Then Run.

Aim for 154bps.
Repeat every weekday.

A Multi Media Share!

2005-12-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

Invitation to View a Picture Mail Album!

2005-12-23T08:07:00.000-08:00

NOTE: Image upload failed; please try again later.

cutest kids ever.

2005-11-23T17:05:00.000-08:00

Hi, these are the kids' new track outfits. Needed something warmer than
what we have. You can't really see Noah's full ensemble, but he's super
cute.

Time

2005-11-14T10:26:00.000-08:00

I used to be better at saying 'no'.
It's just that I like to say 'yes'.
The problem that happens when I say 'yes' too quickly, and without a prayer, I say 'no' to that which I would not choose to say 'no' to otherwise.
Lord, may I be given the sense to say 'no' to the good things that would displace the best. Teach me to know what is best. Show me the way.
Thanks.

2005-11-12T07:41:00.000-08:00

Haiku #1

2005-11-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

Oh- my stomach hurts.
Why did I not pack a lunch?
Perhaps laziness.

-by Ezra

2005-11-10T20:50:00.000-08:00

Wow! I can send pictures from my phone!

2005-11-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

This is my youngest son.

Not Fresh Enough

2005-11-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

I wonder what I will eat for dinner. I have been thinking, I should increase the amount of fresh produce I consume. I could go for a big salad right now. I used to really like Fresh Choice for salad, but the last time I went, I saw some tofu with brownish dried corners on it, and lost my appetite for the restaurant, especially since their prices have gone up. Ah, if only there were a good Fresh Salad buffet in Antioch, I am afraid I might have to revert much of my wife dating to that location. Well, I have to go.

I don't like junk mail.

2005-11-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

Businesses send mail to me, pretending to be already in a business relationship with me. They put phrases like, "about your mortgage" or warn "Federal Law Prohibits tampering with ...blah blah blah". After opening the envelope, I discover: a credit card application with a 4 inch zero % printed on it with a small asterisk* which symbolically says," We want to deceive the naiive while being legally sound". Without junk mail, I may get an envelope of time-worthy mail every two or three days otherwise. The newspaper-thick bundle of ads and coupons which confuses the stack of mail is less desirable. The price of waste collection has just gone up for me also, so I suppose that is why I am reminded of print advertisement's impact on my household alone. I think I would like if the post office had such an effective filtering system as did google's gmail beta web application. I am not an email purist, by any means, but I do enjoy the benefits of efficiency and frugal innovation. If hand-delivered mail was only hand written, I would look forward to it like I did as a child. The concept of the pen pal is one which seems to be lost now. I think I will write a letter now, or when I get a moment.look at my art- here

Mo-Blog #1

2005-11-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

I am writing my first mo blog today. I downloaded the free program written for the palm os called plogit.
I had a tough time figuring it out, but was able to get it to work, once I found the info button on the application, and actually read the directions, I was finally done! How liberating! Now I just need a something notable to say.