mtn-man's thoughts

iPod Touch External Speaker Not Working

2009-12-16T01:57:00.004-05:00

I use my iPod Touch as an alarm clock. Kind of a cool use for it. One day, I don't get my alarm. I wake up and look at it and the alarm is set. No wakey though. I start checking around and I have no sound at all on my external speaker. Yikes!

I start Googling around and I just cannot find a solution. Lot's of people have the same problem, but no solution. I read a lot of things along the way trying to figure out what happened. I still have no sound on my external speaker. I can plug in the headphones and all is well, but nothing else. I kept trying to think what I did that was different, backtracking to the time the problem started.

Suddenly, it hit me.

I had used a thing that you plug into your car power port (cigarette lighter) that plays your iPod over the FM radio. My truck does not have an auxiliary plug. I had unplugged my iPod incorrectly from the FM device. I had just grabbed the FM player device and unplugged it from the power port without removing the iPod Touch first. That is the mistake that causes the issue. I've figured out that there is a proper procedure to follow to unplug it correctly. If your iPod is also not playing on the external speaker and you have this type of FM player device you can easily fix your iPod Touch.

When you have it plugged into the FM player device, the music volume slider bar disappears as shown in the picture below.

What you have to do is make sure your iPod Touch is powered up with the screen visible. Before you unplug the FM player device from the car power port, you must unplug your iPod Touch from the FM player device first. When you unplug it, you will see the volume slider bar appear again and push the "previous song", "play", and "next song" buttons up. You can see this configuration in the picture below.

If your iPod Touch is stuck, just go out and plug it in again. Make sure you follow the directions above and unplug your iPod Touch from the FM player device with the iPod in full power mode. Your speaker slider bar will be reset and you will be good to go.

Enjoy, and I hope this helps someone out there.

Oh yeah, and "Just Dance". :-)

William Orbit, not Nostalgia, Found by Shazam App!

2009-08-04T19:17:00.005-05:00

I love Sirius Radio, but they do have a song or two wrong on the display. One that was frustrating to me was a song that is listed on the display as "Occulta Fama" by Nostalgia. I've downloaded that song because it is OK, but that isn't the song that Sirius is playing.

I've searched the internet trying to find what the real song is to no avail. Recently I got a Blackberry though. I saw that the Shazam application was available (at a cost, not free like on the iPhone) and so I snapped it up. I finally got a chance to give it a test on the mystery song. I am driving home from Birmingham in the middle of the night. The mystery song starts to play.

I start Shazam.

First try... "try again". Oh man.
Second try... "try again". Noooo.
Third try... SHAZAM!

"Story of Light"
William Orbit from Cafe Del Mar Volume 1.

The original album is Strange Cargo 3. The Cafe Del Mar series is a compilation of songs from various artist. I have downloaded songs from many of these sets, including Volume 1. It was funny that it was pretty close the whole time. I post this here simply to see if it can get picked up on search engines. I did find a message wondering what this song was on a message board somewhere at some point. Hopefully I can help someone find this song in the future.

Shazam really is awesome. If you get no return at first, keep trying. The third time was the charm on this song. I finally have the right song in my iPod.

Pens Win The Cup! Hossa Is Still a Loooooser!

2009-06-12T21:57:00.003-05:00

I am so happy the Penguins won the cup. Hey Marion Hossa, I think it is safe to say that you are cursed! You played as bad as you could for the Atlanta Thrasher so you could get traded. Karma is coming around to bite you at this point. Those of us that saw you phone it in over and over here and saw you do NOTHING during the Thrashers playoff games a few years back are sending you nothing but negative waves.

So, what do you do next year? Lose!

iPhone ---> iCan (maybe iCon)

2009-06-10T08:33:00.007-05:00

Well, AT&T continues to be high flying buttheads and continues to ignore its customers. I mean really, is that surprising? An interesting blog today talks about how AT&T didn't even show up for the Apple WWDC release of the new Apple iPhone 3GS. I am as shocked as I was when I heard that rocker Adam from American Idol is gay (like who didn't see that coming, duh, and should have won). The only thing I see AT&T staying focused on is calling my place of business every couple of weeks asking us if we want to drop our current provider (T-1 line) and switch to their DSL service for business. How many times do you need to hear "no".

I certainly hope Apple gets it soon. AT&T sucks. I love my Verizon service and don't want to change. I want the iPhone really bad, but I continue to wait. I am past my Verizon phone contract "new every two years" time-frame, but I continue to wait. I'll stick with my LG enV phone for now. I've had a taste of the Apple technology with my second generation iPod Touch.

Hey Apple, I've got an idea for you.

Verizon would probably go for anything you ask to get the device Apple offers. AT&T continues at their own pace (basically their hands in their pockets). One thing I have seen is that Apple may call the new device something else. Since the iPhone is way more than a phone at this point, don't go in the "iPhone Light" direction. That is moving backwards. Instead, call the new device the "iCan" or something progressive. Your technology is a full communication package after all. Don't hold back on features, move forward and put stuff in it that AT&T continues to ignore. Show AT&T that the "hands-in-your-pockets" and "too-good-to-show-up" attitude doesn't cut it these days. Leave AT&T in the dust and make *them* work to get better technology for a change. Complacency is the sure-fire way to be left behind.

Apple, don't fall into the AT&T sleep mode.
Verizon customers are here waiting for you.

Maybe the iCan could be the new icon. :-)
Call it the iCon, the icon of the communication world.

Dogs and Cats

2009-06-01T19:20:00.002-05:00

The saga of the new kitty continues. Bobo has been diagnosed with Feline Aids. It is only contagious to other cats and only through bites. Since Bobo was fixed he has chilled out pretty much. We were concerned about him fighting with neighborhood cats. If he did, we were going to put him down. We cannot keep him inside at this point since he owns the dog door. He tries to play with Bubba, but he doesn't try to bite him at least. Bubba is too old to play, so it doesn't get too far. He is really turning into a good cat, though we know that he probably won't last for more than eight or ten years if we are lucky. He is a cool kitty and pretty affectionate. It is too tough to put him down.

In the back yard where he likes to hang out, we found a wild catnip plant. No wonder he likes it back there. If he sees me go back there he follows to make sure I leave his shrine along I think. We bring some of the catnip in for Bubba (inside only cat). So J.C. decides that if the cats are eating something, it has to be good for him too. Oh yeah, he LOVES catnip. It obviously does not make him crazy like it does cats, but he really wants his share if we bring some in. The boy will eat anything. We thought lemons and limes were odd enough. He is a crazy catnip loving puppymonster. What can I say.

Bobo and J.C. do still play some in the backyard. It is so funny to watch the two of them chase each other around. J.C. has a funny quirk. Every night at 9 PM, he begins his milkbone dance. You can pretty much set the world clock by his antics. The funniest part is that he wins I think. Daily milkbone. Too funny.

Dogs and Cats. Love the dudes.

Mom

2009-05-01T20:34:00.005-05:00

It has been a tough couple of months as mom has slipped away from us slowly. I spent the weekend with them before the Tuesday/Wednesday when she passed away. Some of the kids have been sort of playing tag and staying with them since mom had her mild heart attack. We knew it took a lot out of her and knew time was short. In the end though, she went much faster than we all expected. We thought it would be another couple of months at least. We think she had another mild heart attack maybe the week before she passed away. She was noticeably weaker the last weekend I was there. One of my other brothers that was there for the couple of days before me noticed the same thing. I wonder if it happened with the move from the hospital back to the house. No telling.

Though her body was tired, her mind was still there and she was our mom until the end. She also told us that she never really had any pain. That was so nice. She spent her last days at home at the lake with the spring flowers blooming. I hope I can live to 81 myself. The morning she passed I was going over anyway and I was about to leave the house when dad called me. They had called the night before and told us she was losing her battle. It was so fast. I went on over and three of us kids pretty much did all of the arrangements. It really didn't hit me until we were at the wake and I finally got to stop and think about it all. The funeral mass got to me too.

Unfortunately we are not done either. Mom and dad are going to be buried in the Alabama Veterans Memorial Cemetery they are building and it is not done yet. It opens in a few weeks. She was placed in a mausoleum for now, and we will move her when they are ready. I'll be making that trip with her and so will a few of my brothers and dad. She wanted to be buried there with dad, so we felt that was the best short term plan.

Mom beat lung cancer with chemotherapy (not smoking related) a year or so ago, she beat a tumor on her brain about seven months ago with radiation therapy and finally was taken when her heart gave out. She had two children when she met my dad. Both of them were widowed, and my dad had five boys. That is a heck of a lady to take us in as her own. They had my little sister together. That is a great picture of them both at the top of this post. I am happy that I spent lots of time with her in the last few weeks. Knowing I could give her a warm towel or some apple juice or a cup of coffee, giving her comfort and familiar companionship, watching her sleep and tap her foot as if she was listening to music in her dreams are memories I'll treasure. Her smile is something I will take with me everywhere.

"I love you mom."

Bobo's Bling

2009-02-04T00:13:00.004-05:00

Well, Bobo is feeling right at home at this point. Over time, he watched J.C. go in and out of the dog door and figured it out. Funny to see him slink in and out of the door. The bad thing is that he *is* a black cat. He easily jumps the fence in the backyard, so he is pretty much a wild man at this point. We worry about him being out and about and getting in the road. We also wanted those that see him around to know that he does have a home. Time for some bling.

We got a breakaway collar from PetSmart. We also got a tag with his name and address and phone number. The collar has a bell on it, and we didn't know if he would like the bell. It seems that he does (probably why every collar has a bell on it).

He never really tries to get it off. He has scratched at it some at first, but he is pretty much used to it at this point. If it gets hung up as he crosses the fence it should pop off. We hope so. I figure he will eventually lose it, but at least it shows up well. The little white fish are reflective and the red color shows well against his black fur. He is a cool dude!

A couple of funny shots

2008-10-31T01:11:00.005-05:00

Bobo is becoming more at home. I am glad the pets allow us to take care of them and hang out with them. It is fun being their "staff".

OK, OK, Bobo is more at ease there than J.C.

This is a little more normal.

And then there was Bobo...

2008-10-26T22:14:00.006-05:00

About a month ago I came home and saw a black kitten outside in our front yard. He was hiding in the bushes next to the neighbors yard. I'm such a sucker. I went over to see what he looked like. There are some stray cats around, but he looked different. He came right over to me and rubbed up against my leg and was purring. I petted him and went to the door. He followed. Oh boy. He was a bit thin and he stayed on the front porch. He didn't seem to have anywhere to go. Tina felt sorry for him and fed him. I guess you can see where this is going.

We did not want to bring him inside because of our 18 year old cat Bubba. We did not know what to do. The kitty had a hurt back leg and our guess is that he was tossed out by someone, literally. He hung out on the front porch for several days. Over time, J.C. figured out that there was a cat on the front porch. We brought him out and the kitty was a bit nervous at first, but he saw that J.C. wasn't going to hurt him I guess. J.C. figured that we were OK with this kitty too. We decided to give him a name. He became Bobo, named after Boris Valabik, a young part time player for the Atlanta Thrashers.

About a week later, Tina came home and the kitty wasn't around. That would happen, so she figured he would come up eventually. She went out on the back porch, and there he was on the table. Inside the fence. Inside J.C.'s domain. He was acting like he owned the place, which was slowly becoming the case. Even funnier, he would hide in the bushes in the back yard and charge out at J.C. when he would trot by. They now chase each other around the back yard and play. It is funny to watch. They have become pals.

It is hard to catch them chasing each other, but you can see Bobo's face on the far left as he darts out from under a bush.

So, we had Bobo outside and Bubba inside. We started bringing Bobo inside, and Bubba let him know that this is his house. Bobo slept outside at night, but began to peer inside the dog door. The door is sort of smoky gray. We brought him in more and more and began to feed him inside. There is a lot of posturing between the two, but they are finally at least getting along somewhat. Bobo finally spent a night inside the house and now is part of the home. You can see from the pictures that he has a short tail, which appears natural (no abuse in that regard). He is fascinated by Bubba's flippy tail. I think Bubba does the tail flipping sometimes to drive Bobo crazy.

Just as we thought we were close to having no cats for a while, we now have another kitty. It is funny that Tina and I both had commented that we would miss cats when Bubba was gone (he is now on kidney medicine and probably doesn't have much time). It looks like fate. Bobo's back leg is better and he looks so much more healthy.

Two black cats. Too funny.

URU Live V3.0

2008-07-01T12:01:00.004-05:00

It seems that URU Live may get one more chance.

TXT Blog by Tom Sowa

Myst Online forums are buzzing about it. There is no telling how soon or what will come of URU, but there is something there from the sound of things. Rand mentions user generated content in the interview as well. There is word in a forum topic that Chogon will give more information in the coming days.

I'll be there. Good luck Cyan.
Thanks to you all for sticking with it -- for us.

Me? Quoted?

2008-06-23T00:43:00.002-05:00

I'm stunned.

These spam emails are amazing. My boss will forward me a message from time to time asking if this stuff is true. Most are not. It takes just a few minutes to usually drill down to the truth. Snopes.com or hoax-slayer.com usually have the answers already and it is just a matter of Googling the truth out.

I've seen the gas email thing before. "Boycott -- make a difference" yadda. Ironically, I still don't buy Exxon gas because of the Valdez disaster so very long ago. I don't campaign against them (OK, maybe I just did), it is just a personal choice. The gas boycott email thing was posted in the Groundspeak forums though. Being the good moderator that I am, I squashed the post by closing the topic. My closing message was:

Spam costs the world more than fuel ever will. Ban spam.

Hey, I just did!

Sometimes we remove those topics, but this time I did not. How funny that I left that topic active in the forums. Somehow, my post was picked up by WDSI Fox 61 in Chattanooga. My post was reproduced in an article on their site regarding that particular spam email. I am way down at the bottom. I am surprised and flattered. Thanks to CYBret and koneko for noticing and pointing this out to me.

I am somebody!

Chilling to Sirius Channel 35

2008-05-29T10:12:00.004-05:00

For years I've listened to talk radio in Atlanta. A couple of years ago the station I listened to, WGST, fired most of the staff and reformatted their talk radio. When Kim Peterson was forced out, they forced me out too. We had been thinking about buying a satellite radio and while riding around with a buddy of mine, I got to hear some of the jazz stations on Sirius Radio. I had heard some of the new age stuff when I rented Hertz cars as well.

I decided to take the plunge.

What a great decision that was. My radio allowed me to highlight songs and artists, which is cool. I highlighted Moby at one point. He kept coming up on channel 35. One day I flipped over to that channel, the Chill Channel. It is a mix of electronic and dance music that is a bit slower than the other similar channels, but still rocks. As they said on one of the little blurbs on the channel -- "Nothing but sleepy elevator music, without the elevator and without the sleepy music". A whole new world of music was opened up for me and my iPod is now full of various songs I have heard on that channel. My radio is one that stores music, so I usually back it up 45 minutes and then run though the music stored. I do skip some of the music, but I listen to much more than I skip. Amazing that I now listen to Venus Hum, Zero 7, Thievery Corporation, Single Gun Theory, Tracy Thorn, Massive Attack, St. Etienne, Mazzy Star, DJ Shadow, iiO, Peas, Tricky, Morcheeba, Bliss and many more.

URU Live... The Finale -- Again

2008-04-10T22:45:00.006-05:00

I was not ready to quit URU Live. I did not go into the cavern much after the announcement of the impending shut down back in February. I did go in and I got a ton of screenshots in the widescreen mode. Those will go up on my untiluru.com web site soon, depending on what Cyan will allow. Legal only allows me so many, but there are more than the legal amount that I would like to share.

That said, being in the cavern all night before the shut down was good for me I think. I felt good being around all of the folks that felt the same way. It was good to say goodbye to friends... again. I ended up closing out in the URU Obsession Hood. I had been one of the first members of the hood in UntilURU on the Tapestry Shard. Joclyn and I created the hood at the same time after the last vault wipe. I knew how to kill a hood so I eliminated my version. Supergram came in and joined with Joclyn and I soon followed. It grew from there on Tapestry. I felt the need to be in that hood when it drifted away in URU Live. It felt good to be there. We were dancing and then suddenly, everyone grew still when the error screen came up. We were done. It was over at exactly 12:01 AM as, for lack of a better word, promised. Folks are posting some great pictures of the nights activities.

Only one season was a stinker in my opinion. It did not have much of a chance. We only saw very little beyond what we had already seen before. What new content we did see was great. Minkata took my breath away. It had been a long time since I felt that way. Finally swimming with others in Ahnonay was a treat. Greydragon has posted that they would like to continue on in some way. Who knows if we will get additional content. He sounds like he likes fan ages though. I would like storyline myself. I've read all the books and played all the games. I've visited Cyan in Spokane. I want story.

I've said it about a dozen times, but I will say it again. Thanks Cyan. I even thank Gametap for giving it a chance now that I've reflected on it. Cyan let everyone go after the first time around. Gametap brought the people back to Cyan. I hope they can keep them this time. It was a good ride. Maybe, just maybe, the third time will be the charm.

Pins Are In!

2008-02-27T15:37:00.003-05:00

The pins look great! They are so much better than the first batch I did years ago. The first group was really dark. I got a proof on this one to make sure they were OK. I cannot wait to start putting them in geocaches!

Many thanks go to AJIN Specialties for their work on this project. If you like what you see and want to contact them for some sort of specialty printing, you can email them at sales@ajinspecialties.com for more info. They can print on anything.

Puppymonster Geopin Version 2

2008-01-31T00:10:00.000-05:00

I am just about out of my original version of the puppymonster geopin. I made the first "geopin" trade item back in 2002. I was looking for something cool as an addition to my many signature items I leave in geocaches. I made the puppymonster lapel pin and a GGA lapel pin. While not as cool as the first geocoin, the Moun10Bike coin, it was neat to make the first geocaching pin trade item. Pins are pretty hot items now.

Version 2 is now in production. I got the sample the other day and it looks great. I'll post a picture in the near future.

Sticking With Toshiba

2007-12-20T11:04:00.001-05:00

I guess I made the leap and stuck with Toshiba. I like the AMD processor in our desktop and gave it a shot in the laptop. So far so good. I had a copy of Windows XP just in case, but so far Vista has not caused any major issues. I guess it has been out long enough for folks to adjust. PDA, GPS and cameras all have done well after updating software and drivers. GPXSpinner works just fine and the Plucker/SunriseXP combo also worked for the PDA. The bad thing is that it does not work with Office 2000 from what I hear. That's a stinker. I kind of like some of the features of Vista, despite its crankyness. Still, I am ready to reformat the hard drive if needed. Heh.

Jason Bourne on Video

2007-12-10T09:05:00.000-05:00

I can't wait to go to Best Buy to buy the "Bourne Ultimatum". My first post with a trailer for the movie is in my May archives here.

Will Jason be back for a fourth movie?

The Laptop and Pentium 4 and Micro Center

2007-12-10T08:49:00.001-05:00

I've been having some trouble off and on with my smokin'-hot Toshiba laptop. Ironic that I used the term "smokin'-hot" to describe it when I talked about it. It is fast and all, yes, but over time the motherboard failed and it would just shut down. It was from over-heating. I replaced the motherboard once because it was such a high priced laptop.

I did think it was cool that it would run the Myst games with no problem. I also really liked the widescreen format while playing Myst Online since they support the widescreen format. I could see just a bit more on the edges of the screen. Still, the game is so laborious on the computer that it slowly became impossible to play it on the Toshiba. I moved my gameplay over to our desktop, an AMD Athlon 64 dual core HP computer. The Toshiba is becoming unusable and recently gave me some strange errors. It began randomly starting somewhere between regular mode and safe mode, what I termed "unusable mode" since nothing really works when it starts up this way.

I went to shop at my favorite computer store, Micro Center. I chatted with one of the sales guys and described the "unusable mode" startup and heating issues. He said, "Oh, do you have a Pentium 4?" I said yes and he basically said "Well there's your problem right there!" It seems that the Pentium 4 processor runs too hot for a laptop computer. While a great idea at the time, so to speak, in reality it proved to kill these Toshiba laptops. I am disappointed that the people that replaced my motherboard the first time did not know this. This reinforced my faith in Micro Center as well. So if you have a Toshiba Satellite with a Pentium 4 processor, be ready to shell out money on a better computer as some point. At least it shut down before it caught fire I guess.

Vietnam Wall Vandalized!

2007-09-12T00:04:00.001-05:00

It appears that the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC might have been vandalized. Oh, you haven't heard about this? Well of course not! The news media would never publish a story like this now would they. Incredible. If something like this was done at a certain presidential library in Arkansas, we would hear about it for months.

They will probably never find out who did it, but it appears that a type of oil was sprayed onto the wall with something like an old style restaurant ketchup or mustard bottle from the photos. Below is a link to more information and some amazing photos. I got angry when I saw them. These people knew what they were doing. The panels damaged run almost the entire length of The Wall. The videos linked below show how the hate-America traitors who did this had to walk around people who were there visiting.

The vandalism was done sometime on Friday night or early Saturday morning. While there are cameras around the site, it is a very dark area. It is like that on purpose. If you have been there at night, you know the power of the memorial when it is lit up at night. Guards are there until 11:30 PM and the lights are usually shut off at midnight on all memorials in DC (I know, I've been out there shooting photos when the lights have gone out). I hope 24 hour guards will be on duty in the future and hope that the area will be able to remain dark at night. If it is lit up it will lose it's majesty.

Some of my photos of The Wall at night are found on my web site.

Photos of the damage to the memorial can be found here:
Free Republic Site

Videos can be found here:
YouTube Video Part 1 | YouTube Video Part 2

Nice to see that the Washington Times FINALLY did a news story this morning about it, four days after the vandalism was found. I've seen couple of other mentions in print news finally.

From the YouTube videos, it appears that the cleaning done today was not successful. See Video 2 for details.

OK, I saw the Bourne Supremacy

2007-08-04T20:32:00.000-05:00

Totally Awesome.

You gotta' go see this movie.

URU Live Heats Up

2007-08-01T23:35:00.000-05:00

As we move into Episode 7, things are really heating up. I wondered if the episodic type of game play would work, but it seems to be going well. There is a lot of interest and a lot of controversy. That just drums up more interest I guess. We still are waiting for another never before seen age. Tonight they said tomorrow or Friday. I can wait.

Jason's Back

2007-05-28T20:56:00.000-05:00

I've loved the Bourne movies. In August, Jason is back. I am so looking forward to this movie. I like the sound bite on the preview where Pamela Landy says that if you try to kill him and fail, it just pisses Jason off. Heh. You could say that.

And... he remembers now. Everything.

Get 'em Jason. Here is the preview.

Geomaniac

2007-05-01T22:05:00.000-05:00

Holy cow. OK, I discover the new www.itsnotaboutthenumbers.com web site. I see something new to try... streaking. As of today, I am up to day 52 of finding caches every day. It has created a new challenge for me on caching. I'm loving it. As a by product, I am finding a ton of caches. In noticed I did 100 caches in no time. I thought I would go for 100 caches in 200 days. I did it in 68 days. I figured I would keep pushing and go for 300. I am not in an overly cache rich area, so it has been tough at times to find a cache a day. Traveling helps and hurts too. I did a long day of flying the other day, so I found a cache at 4:30 AM before going to the airport. I DNF'd one first, then found a tiny, tiny cache.

Still, it is a fun site. I have always liked my own stats and such, so it is cool to see them displayed in so many ways. It is a great site and has been a lot of fun. It also got me caching like a maniac again. That has been nice.

There is no telling how long this run will go. The URU Live thing is awful distracting. That's a whole 'nuther post.

URU Live -- The Return

2006-11-30T19:54:00.000-05:00

I have been a huge Myst game fan for years. When the game "URU" came out (pronounced "oo-ru" with the "oo" sounding like toot), I fell in love with the game quickly. It had an online component that I got in to briefly, but I decided to finish the single player game first. I finished the game and went back online only to find that in about a week, Ubisoft was going to end the online part. Cyan Worlds, the actual maker of the game, did not like the decision, but what do you do. On February 10, 2004, the server was turned off.

In August of 2004, with the rabid Myst fans still wanting to play online, Cyan Worlds released a version that fans could set up on a server if they wanted too. Cyan Worlds named this version "Until URU". There was no new content, but we still found ways to have fun. We made many friends along the way. Eventually hacks were created with the blessing of Cyan Worlds that gave us some cool, fun options. Still, we had no new content. There were hopes that a full URU Live would come back, but it was a distant hope. Those hopes were squashed further when Ubisoft pulled all funding from Cyan Worlds right after the release of "Myst 5: End of Ages" (EoA). EoA was what it sounds like -- the last part of the Myst series. Much of the story of Atrus and Yeesha was tied up in the end of the game. It truly was the end of the Myst series. With Ubisoft pulling funding, Cyan Worlds laid off almost all of their workers and basically closed the doors. At that time, loving URU as I do, I saw that www.untiluru.com was available as a URL. I bought it and the .net and .org versions.

URU is set in modern times. The ability to keep the URU game going is easy since it is in modern times. In the game, "you are you" quite literally. You play the game as yourself. Yeesha, the most powerful of all D'ni writers, has transcended the boundaries of time with her writing abilities. She is still around and her presence is strong in URU, though we have not see her physically... yet.

Amazingly, just as most of the Myst/URU faithful had all but given up hope, a merger of sorts was announced. People at Cyan Worlds were called back. Finally, we heard that Gametap had liked the idea of a Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game. The decided to partner with Cyan Worlds to bring URU back to life again. Testing began is secret at first, and as the Gametap/Cyan partnership was announced there was talk of beta testing for the new game. A link was posted on the new site, www.urulive.com, calling for beta testers to register. I did. I wasn't called until just recently. In fact, last night, a major call was made for as many beta invitees to show up and stress the server. It was something else. Just seeing the game alive with people all in the same place was so cool. We have been spread out over about 10 or 12 different servers, but finally once again we were united in the same game.

There is still a long road to go to get the game out of beta, but from what I saw last night, there has been a great deal of progress. The goal is to have the game ready somewhere around Christmas. The game still has some bugs, but it is sweet to be back. Last night Rand Miller from Cyan and David Reid and Blake from Gametap even came into the game to visit the group of explorers there. It is an exciting time for Cyan Worlds and Gametap and I wish them the best.

One great marketing decision was to change the primary name from URU Live to Myst Online: URU Live. The "Myst Online" name will be more recognizable than "URU Live". It is a fantastic strategic decision and I applaud Gametap and Cyan Worlds for making this change. The new web site is now www.mystonline.com, thought the old www.urulive.com site is still active and redirects.

I would like to thank Cyan Worlds for allowing me to keep the www.untiluru.com web address with their blessing.

"Perhaps the ending has not yet been written." -- Yeesha at the end of URU.

"Again, perhaps the ending has not yet been written." -- Rand Miller, February 4, 2004, announcing the closing of URU Live to the Myst Community.

Myst fans, keep your fingers crossed.

Waymarking... Waycool.

2006-08-18T00:01:00.000-05:00

I've really been getting into waymarking lately. I've learned to carry the GPS and a digital camera with me and to be more observant of my environment around me. There are lots of targets out there. Today, I waymarked my blog. Why not. I also waymarked my two favorite sushi restaurants, four GA Historical Markers, a Radio Controlled Airfield and a National Park. How about that!

Waymarking!

A flash of inspiration...

2006-07-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

I'm on the phone today with the wife and we were chatting about some stuff and talking about people. We were talking about getting someone's attention. Some people were giving her some grief and she did something to get their attention yesterday. Today she said they were being a bit nicer in fact. Her tactic from yesterday seemed to work.

I gave my greatest one liner in life (so far).

"Sometimes you have to use a little electricity on people to get the lightbulb to come on."

Admin Brick Geocoin

2006-03-24T17:04:00.000-05:00

WOW!

I had no idea that admin brick would be so popular. I never would have imagined. I made a fairly small quantity relatively speaking because I did not want to be stuck with so many of the things. They did turn out beautiful though. I guess everything depends on the password presales and how that goes.

I had the idea of making second one if it was popular, kind of like Lucas and Star Wars. I doubt if I will make it to admin brick 6 though. I had thought about waiting about 6 months for round 2 if it worked. I might have to do that quicker too. I guess I need to see what happens as they get into people's hands.

Geocoins and Unexpected Trading

2006-03-20T22:40:00.000-05:00

Boy, it didn't take long for a trade on a geocoin to go bad. Funny in a way, not in another way. I expected a trade to go bad eventually. It did. I won't be sending out two coins to anyone else. Such a shame really. I thought it was one of the better trades and I got some coins I really wanted. Unfortunately, someone that I did not want a coin to go to got one anyway. The person said they were keeping both. They didn't.

Live and learn.

...until URU can slowly grow again.

2006-03-13T21:47:00.001-05:00

The folks at Cyan Worlds have brought on their own shard (server), D'mala. There is encouragement as we move forward in Until URU. Will we get back to URU Live again? Boy, I hope so. I just hope the invites get to a point that the investors like. I wish I could win a big lottery. I would throw money at them. If you get 10,000 people paying $20.00 a month, it seems that you could afford bandwidth and development time, but who knows. Hopefully things will get off of the ground again for them.

As we say...
"perhaps the ending is not yet written."

More regarding Until URU and our hopes for the return of URU Live can be found on the Cyan Worlds Plasma site.

http://plasma.cyanworlds.com/

(tap tap) Is this thing on?

2006-01-28T00:51:00.000-05:00

I kind of wonder who out there reads blogs. I've wondered if anyone is reading this one too. Heh. Why not try an experiment! I love that type of stuff. In advertising we see ads targeted to see what kind of feedback comes back. Sometimes you do a special where you know that if someone asks for that deal, then they had to see that ad. I figured I might try the same thing.

I've been thinking about coming out with my own coin. I have been working on art and all that stuff for a few weeks now. We are officially going into production right now. How about a quick look at the artwork!

I hope people like them. They will be 24k gold plated with enamel fills as you can see. The recessed gold is darker than the polished gold. This will help the US map show more against the background. I hope the effect looks good. They are due in around the end of February.

Now for the deal. The first active geocacher that emails me from my web site email submission form page will get a free coin when they come in. You will need to give me your geonick (geocaching.com user name), your real name and your mailing address when you email me. Once someone emails me I will update this blog and let you know who was quick on the draw.

EDITED 1-28-06 2:20PM: We have a winner already!!!
Thanks Fro.

I'm excited about them. I hope you all will like them too.

Groundspeak Volunteer Geocoins

2006-01-06T21:27:00.000-05:00

Each year for the past couple of years, Groundspeak has sent the reviewers a little Christmas present in the mail. It is nice that they show appreciation for the volunteer services we provide to the geocaching.com site and to the geocachers around the globe.

Just before Christmas this year a box showed up on my doorstep. They told us that something was coming but wanted us to be quiet so the surprise would not be spoiled for others. I opened my box up and much to my surprise I saw a whole bunch of new geocoins! The folks at Groundspeak had created a Volunteer Appreciation Geocoin.

I was speechless.

They look so good and as hot as geocoins are I knew that they would be in high demand. Geocoins are like beanie babies right now. People pay insane prices to get coins that are hard to find. I figured once we got these that emails would start to come in trying to get one, and they did. I did not get as many as I thought I might, but a few did come in from people I had never heard of before. It is going to be hard to decide where I am going to send them all. I have given some of them to cachers already. We take ownership of the coin by activating it ourselves, which adds it to our "owned" profile. From there cachers can log it if they see the coin. I will not be allowing any "virtual logs". "Virtual logs" are where a cacher emails the person who has the coin to ask for the secret number used to log the coin (removed in the photo above and replaced by my nickname). They never actually see the coin, but the coin icon appears on their stats page. I think it is amazing that people are somewhat shallow and want the icon but don't care enough to actually see the coin. It is a practice that is frowned upon by Groundspeak, and I agree with Groundspeak regarding the practice.

So, we will see how the Volunteer Geocoin goes.
I am so honored that Groundspeak did this for us.

New Geocaching Experience Today

2005-12-28T18:01:00.000-05:00

Today I got a call from my boss to go meet someone around lunchtime. OK, is there a cache in this area? Oh man. I had left both of my GPSR's at home in my backpack with all my swag. YIKES!

Hmmm.

I know of several cachers that don't use a GPS. I zoomed into the Google satellite map on the page and printed it out. I figured what the heck. I got there and had fun trying to think like a cacher. Where would I hide a cache in a bunch of pine trees? I kept looking at the satellite photo and comparing where a tennis court was.

Oh yeah, ten minutes after I got there I was signing the log. I might try that again.

Why not join the revolution...

2005-12-09T15:19:00.000-05:00

OK, I might as well blog. Most of it will be about geocaching or Myst type gaming products.

http://www.geocaching.com

http://www.cyanworlds.com

I am still sad to see the Myst series end. I guess it had to eventually. At least some of us carry on now in Until URU. We shall see if it develops further. Since URU is set in real time rather than in the D'ni history, I would think it could. Since "you are you" in essence, no more history or storyline needs to be developed, just take the existing story and let us go visit and explore the places they already have in place.

Still, knowing those guys, anything they do beyond Myst will probably be smokin' hot anyway (we await Latus). Keep up the good work Cyanist.