Tony Bevilacqua

How are you reading this blog? Probably just browsing around, and you caught some freak ass link that somehow landed you on this page. Nice Job, read on, add me to RSS.

Wait… what is RSS?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed,” “web feed,” or “channel,” contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.

Now that you are up to speed, it’s time to become an RSS master, and it doesn’t really take much effort at all to make it happen. See, I use a nifty little app called “NewsFire” developed by David Watanabe. This fantastically stable, and reliable RSS application has provided me with an oasis of streaming content delivered to my desktop every 15 minutes, for over 45 websites.

I am probably a more advanced RSS user than most, as I monitor quite a few feeds. I find this useful for:

• Tracking Software Updates from Companies I Purchases Products From
• Reading up on the next “Make Money Online” schemes from the SEO brigade
• Keeping up with corporate blogs, such as Apple, Microsoft Technet
• Read news headlines for Silicon Valley Gossip, Game Politics, and GamesPress
• Monitoring my own feeds, and the status of SpawnPoint.com
• and of course, keeping up on the activities of my friends.

Stop wasting your time “surfing the web” and let NewsFire bring the web to you, when something worthwhile is available to read. Go grab a trial copy of NewsFire right now… below are some of the great features:

A Dynamic Performance
NewsFire is the first RSS reader to use animation to alert you to news and convey meaning. Watch your feeds and groups swoop around as news streams in.

Intelligent Search
Search for news, blogs, and podcasts everywhere directly in NewsFire and save the results as live feeds. Even cooler, NewsFire articles show up in Spotlight.

Groups and Labels
NewsFire lets you group and label your feeds, so you control the news reading experience.

Smart Feeds
NewsFire takes feed organization to the next level, letting you create smart feeds that match whatever criteria you want.

NewsFire Main Window

NewsFire Preferences

NewsFire Viewing Blog + YouTube

Are you on a server that shares it’s IP with many clients? Are you guaranteed a “dedicated IP” and not really sure if your host is really providing you with that service? MyIPNeighbors uses Reverse IP DNS technology to check the records that exist for your IP address.

This is a demonstration with tonybevilacqua.net, which is hosted on Site5.

Just a note on Site5, they have been a fantastic host, and I have been with them for several years. Recently I converted Lucas, a programmer for SpawnPoint over to Site5: “It’s one of most pleasant web hosting experiences I have ever had”. Anyway….

My Site5 package provides me with a dedicated IP address. I was humbled to see only domains that belong to me, pointed at this address. Although I have a dedicated IP address with my Site5 account, this is still hosted on shared hardware; nothing really interesting to see here.

This is a demonstration with toph.ca, which is hosted on MT.

Christoph hosts toph.ca on a Media Temple’s (gs) Grid-Service“. MT doesn’t provide a dedicated IP with his package - you can find out some interesting information with this tool… like who your IP neighbors are! In the query below for “toph.ca”, you can see a variety of other sites that are hosted at Media Temple.

Yeah yeah, it’s a network TV show, of course it’s got some secrets… I am an avid viewer of Iron Chef America, a popular show that airs on “The Food Network” several nights per week, featuring a 1 hour duel between two culinary masterminds, tasked at creating 5 unique dishes - featuring an unknown secret ingredient.

I was a bit shocked when I recently read a post on Village Voice; they have an in-depth review of the entire taping experience, and the how the show works. However, at the end of the review, I found myself a little bit shocked, disgruntled, that a show that I enjoy so much, was completely and totally staged.

It’s obvious that several parts of the show are staged, like the menu, timing, delivery of menu to the judges… but I was a bit surprised at some of the details of this article.

At one point, with only minutes in the real-time hour to go, one of Nicotra’s sous chefs—an attractive and poised brunette named Lara—was seen kneeling next to the ingredient table, stacking and restacking the spice jars so that the one she had used would fit perfectly back in the shelf. Urgency, indeed!

I expected the dishes to be whisked over to the judges for tasting, but where were the judges? The finished concoctions—many involving raw fish—languished on a side board as the judges ambled around and production people wiped their brows and relaxed. At one point, one of the judges—Queer Eye guy Ted Allen—strolled over to our bleachers and chatted up the guests like he was running for political office.

Anyway - check out the full post at The Village Voice….

This morning Apple announced the release of updated MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, larger hard drives, and 2GB of memory standard in all models.

The new MacBook Pro is now boasting hot new NVIDIA graphics capability with up to 512MB of video memory. The highly acclaimed “Multi-Touch Trackpad” first seen in the MacBook Air at release, has been integrated into the MacBook Pro line, but not the MacBook line. [Edit]

The New MacBook

Featuring a gorgeous 13-inch glossy widescreen display, and with prices still starting at just $1,099, the new MacBook lineup comes in three models and includes faster processors and larger hard drives across the line; sleek white 2.1 GHz and 2.4 GHz models with 120GB or 160GB 5400 rpm hard drives and a stunning black 2.4 GHz model with a massive 250GB 5400 rpm hard drive, previously only available as an option. The 2.4 GHz MacBook models ship with 2GB of memory standard, expandable up to 4GB across the line.

The New MacBook Pro

The new MacBook Pro features the latest Intel Core 2 Duo technology with
up to a 2.6 GHz processor with 6MB of shared L2 cache; up to 4GB of 667 MHz
DDR2 SDRAM memory and up to a 300GB hard drive, plus NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
graphics with up to 512MB of video memory.

The 17″ MacBook Pro also incorporates an optional LED screen.

The new line is looking fantastic, and I’m excited to see what else is coming out Apple in the future… They have 1-1.5 years before I am going to want to drop a wad of cash on a MacPro and some massive screens.

I was a bit skeptical about buying an iMac for a desktop solution. The machine itself is a sealed unit… there is no “diving in” and “resolving the issue” like a desktop PC, or average white box. Very much a laptop style machine- I mean, it uses SO-DIMM Ram… the iMac has only one external screw on the entire chassis.

That being said - I felt it important that I drop the extra dough, and go for the AppleCare extended warranty. It was an extra $200 on top of the price of the iMac, but it did extend the warranty up to three years:

Even though I wasn’t executing AppleCare at this point (I was still within 365 days of my purchase) - I had the need to use their services to resolve an iMac related issue I was having. My keyboard squeaked… chalkboard style.

I gave them a call on Thursday afternoon, spoke to a very nice gentleman on the phone - He received my iMac Serial Number, I told him my problem, he asked for my address - all set. I did however, have to provide them with my credit card number; apparently if you don’t send the defective part back, they will charge your credit card (pretty standard, at least when I worked with IBM and HP).

The keyboard came on Monday morning at 9:15AM via DHL in a nicely appointed box. The keyboard was accompanied by a well written set of directions in both English and French - as well as return labels for UPS ground.

Overall - AppleCare has been good to me so far. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.