Amazon dumps Stanza, so I do too

One of the first apps I put on my iPhone 3GS was Stanza, to replace iSilo from my Treo for reading e-books. At that time, Amazon had just acquired Lexcycle and I remember wondering they would end up combining the Kindle and Stanza apps. Well, now we know the answer: nope. A recent update to the Stanza iOS app (version 3.2) added iOS 5 compatibility, but effectively killed the app on iOS 4.x. It just crashes immediately.

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They’re creepy and they’re kooky …

This afternoon we caught a matinee showing of the just-started US tour of “The Addams Family” musical at the Straz Center.

It was an enjoyable, funny show and our whole family had a good time watching the antics of the Addamses and the Beinekes. I didn’t find the music/songs to be as earworm-worthy as those from “Wicked” or “Rent” but they were still pretty good. As a comedy goes, though, I found myself laughing a lot! If the US tour is coming near you, I recommend you check out a showing.

Obtaining the Oneiric Ocelot

I learned my lesson last time and decided to hold off a few days before upgrading to the new release of Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot.

That was a smart decision since the upgrade took just under two hours this time instead of over eight. I did have one (self-induced) snag during the ‘do-release-upgrade’ step. I was trying to copy some text and accidentally used Control-C in my screen session which killed the process! Luckily I was able to resume it with a ‘dpkg –configure -a’ command and I haven’t noticed any problems due to my screw-up (yet, whew!).

I also had fewer post-upgrade problems this time than with Natty. In fact, both issues were related to the newer version of Perl in Oneiric. They were easily fixed by re-building ZoneMinder and MRTG so I was back in business relative quickly.

Since I run Ubuntu on my server I don’t normally see (or care about) any of the user-facing changes like the Unity interface so I can’t comment on those features. The only real change for me is the new 3.0 Linux kernel.

Up next in April? Precise Pangolin.

WIJFR: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest

Lisbeth Salander, the brilliant computer hacker who was shot in the head, is alive, though still the prime suspect in three murders in Stockholm. While she convalesces under armed guard, journalist Mikael Blomkvist works to unravel the decades-old coverup surrounding the man who shot Salander: her father, Alexander Zalachenko, a Soviet intelligence defector and longtime secret asset to Säpo, Sweden’s security police.

“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest” by Stieg Larsson is the final book of the Millenium trilogy and I finally finished reading it this past weekend during my trip up to Ohio.

“Hornets’ Nest” picks up immediately where “The Girl Who Played with Fire” ended: Mikael Blomkvist has found Salander miraculously alive after being shot in the head and buried at a remote farm where she tried to kill her father and half-brother. Lisbeth and Zalachenko end up in the hospital under police guard while the authorities try to piece together the events that occurred in the second book. Meanwhile, The Section, the secret division of the security police is mobilizing to protect its secrets and its past history. Once again Blomkvist and Salander are at the center of a political, legal, and far-reaching scandal that threatens both of their lives and the lives of their associates.

In “Fire” we learned about Lisbeth’s backstory and history with Zalachenko and The Section. “Hornets’ Nest” unravels the inner workings of The Section, its history inside Säpo, the players involved, and explains how the conspiracy started and continued into present day. It gets a bit complex and at times I found it hard to keep everyone and everything straight, but Larsson does a good job of intriguing the reader and keeping the plot moving forward at a good pace. Even the big courtroom scenes at the end, which are mostly expository, are riveting to read. It’s not until the final pages of the epilogue when everything finally falls into place and is neatly wrapped up.

Having cancelled Netflix recently, I won’t be able to watch the third installment of the Swedish movies, but the US version of the trilogy starts in December.

Dayton: Day 3 (homeward bound)

We got to “sleep in” a bit this morning, compared to the last two days. By 8:15am, we were checked out of our hotel, picking up breakfast at Starbucks, and back on the road to the Cincinnati airport (in Kentucky).

The travel gods were looking out for us again (plus it was early Sunday morning) so we encountered no traffic or issues on our way. By 10:30am we were checked in, through security, and at our gate. One two-hour, uneventful flight later and we were back in sunny (warm!) Florida.

By 2pm we were back home and ready to relax. My daughter and I had a great time on our trip but tomorrow it’s back to work and school.

Dayton: Day 2 (Go Flyers!)

The day started early again as we got up at 7am, grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel, and the headed out into the chilly, windy morning over to the University of Dayton Arena for rehearsal with the alumni band. Practice ended a few hours later after we rehearsed the pre-game and halftime shows with the student band on the football field Welcome Stadium.

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Down to the wire!

What a spectacular final night of regular season baseball! The Rays started September 9 games behind Boston. Tonight started with Tampa Bay and Boston tied for the AL wildcard, facing a potential single playoff game Thursday night at Tropicana Field if they ended up still tied after tonight’s games.

But that game won’t be necessary. The Rays, down 7-0 in the 8th inning, tied the game with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and then beat the Yankees 8-7 in the bottom of the 12th inning, just after midnight. Minutes before, after a lengthy rain delay in Baltimore, the Orioles came back to beat Boston, eliminating the Red Sox from the post-season. The Rays are the 2011 AL wildcard winners!

I loves me some October baseball. Go Rays, and bring on the Rangers!

The Indians’ season, however, is over. They finished second in the AL Central, but just shy of .500 and 15 games behind the Tigers. Oh well .. 190 days until Spring Training 2012!

Leaving the red envelope for the red box

Like millions of other Netflix subscribers last week, I received CEO Reed Hastings’ strange “apology” for the recent price increase, along with the announcement that the business is splitting into two companies: Netflix for streaming, and Qwikster for the DVDs-by-mail service. The end result is two web sites, two accounts, two queues, two payments … and two headaches for customers.

Wha-huh?

I was already considering cancelling my Netflix service (after the original price increase was announced a few months ago) when my gift subscription expired, but this latest change sealed the deal: I’m dropping Netflix. I enjoyed my gift subscription and really loved using the service. Over the past year I’ve gotten to watch five seasons of Dexter, the first three seasons of Mad Men, and a bunch of other movies and TV shows on DVD and over streaming.

Time will tell if I’ll miss the streaming service but to “replace” the DVD rentals, I’ll be giving Redbox a try. It won’t be as convenient as DVDs direct to my home but in the long run it will be cheaper than keeping Netflix/Qwikster and there will be less pressure to watch more stuff just because I’m paying a monthly fee for it (I already have plenty to watch on my TiVos, especially with the new fall TV season starting up again).

Thus ends my second stint as a Netflix customer (I first subscribed to the service from 1999 until 2002). I’ll watch the new companies’ progress with interest to see if this is the end of the DVDs-by-mail model, and if there’s any more subscriber fallout/backlash from these changes. And who knows … maybe at some point I’ll come back to Netflix a third time.