Jun 4, 2008  •  In Geek

Mac OS X 10.6 on the Way?

Every Apple fan has two events to look forward to every year: Macworld in January, and WWDC in June.

Very often at these conferences, the keynote will be delivered by none other than Steve Jobs himself, announcing drool-worthy products and upgrades. Even those who are not in the industry travel from across the world to attend these events, just for a chance to be present at the world release of the next “it” product, to mingle with fellow MacHeads, and revel in the presence of some of the greatest minds in the world of Apple.

Yes, attending a Macworld (and sitting in on a Steve Jobs keynote) is on my list of things to do before I die.

This Joy of Tech from 2001 illustrates the fervor magnificently:

With this year’s WWDC coming up just next week, there has obviously been a lot of speculation about what Steve will reveal during his keynote. Will it be the 3G iPhone? An update to the MacBook/MacBook Pro lines?

The latest rumor is that Apple will debut the latest build of its operating system, Mac OS X 10.6. TUAW predicts that “10.6 will not include any new significant features from 10.5; instead, Apple is focusing solely on ‘stability and security’.”

If this report holds true, I welcome the news with open arms.

I personally think it’s a great strategy.

My first Mac, a PowerBook G4, ran 10.3 (nicknamed “Panther”) and I actually waited in line at the local Apple store for the release of 10.4 Tiger. I’ve since gotten two new Macs – an iMac and a MacBook Pro – and faithfully upgraded to 10.5 Leopard in the process.

As much as I love my Macs, I have to say that the latest versions of Mac OS X haven’t been as stable as my original 10.3 Panther. Was it the transition from PowerPC to Intel? Was it the addition of new features such as Dashboard, Stacks, and Spaces?

Mac OS X is still far superior to Windows XP or Vista. However, the occasional bugs make me long for the days of my PowerPC 10.3 which stayed true and loyal and STABLE.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed until next week…

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Jun 4, 2008  •  In Personal, Relationships

How I Met Him

I have been married for a a month and a half now, and realized I’ve never written about how I met my husband.

J and I attended the same university. He was quite the ladies’ man in his college years, so he had already established a reputation by the time I entered school. In fact, I had heard about him before ever meeting him in person.

Our first time meeting face to face was at a party during my freshmen year (he was a senior). He tried to hit on me, and I ran away.

Of course, he swears he doesn’t recall this incident at all.

Fast forward a few years. I had taken a couple of years off and just returned to school. J had decided to stick around in Baltimore after school, and so still hung out with a lot of undergraduates. Since we had many mutual friends, we began to run into each other more and more.

He admits that he was always attracted to me, and in hindsight I should’ve seen it. He would stalk me online, and always nag me to come and hang out.

He even proposed to me (jokingly) multiple times during the course of our friendship.

At first I was a bit annoyed and put off by his forward nature, but soon I discovered that we actually had a lot in common and we became good friends.

Months into our friendship, J started seeing a girl who was considered by many to be one of the most attractive people in our wide group of friends. “What does she see in you? You’re such a dork,” I chided him.

Then I discovered that many girls, in fact, liked him. I again racked my brains. I thought to myself that he was a charmer and a natural flirt – could that be the reason?

More time passed. Then, one night, we were watching a movie together at my place when he made the first move.

Perhaps the other girls had planted a “what if?” seed in my mind. Perhaps it was the sake we had drank with dinner that night. Whatever the reason, I found myself not pulling away. In fact, it felt very…natural.

Three and a half years later, he proposed (again). This time, he was serious.

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Jun 3, 2008  •  In Home

My Home…It’s Getting There

After having lived off cheap Ikea furniture for the majority of my twenty-something years, I vowed to furnish my new condo with good-quality, “adult” furniture.

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

Because after the damn wedding, we really couldn’t afford anything other than Ikea furniture.

We (well, it’s mostly me doing all the work while J stays hooked on the XBox) are still working on the two bedrooms, but I’m happy to say that the living room, kitchen, and the master closet are finally done!

What you see as soon as you walk through the door:

I’m not thrilled with the curtains…I just bought whatever I could find that was on sale, because we needed window coverings. I’ll probably end up making my own with my mother (the amazing seamstress) out of the fabric when I have more time.

More of the living room:

The sides of the coffee table pull out to reveal hidden drawers (I *heart* hidden drawers!). Next project: adding some colorful cushions to the couch.

Our big splurge: the 52″ LCD television. At first I was worried it was too big (that’s what she said) but it’s starting to grow on me (that’s what she said!). The tall cabinet to the left of the TV houses half of my DVD collection (I had 300+ the last time I counted…and that was in 2003). And there’s my darling Rooma on the right!

The HUGE bookcase, complete with sliding doors! Yes, I need the little stepping stool on the left to reach the top shelves because I’m so short. And yes, I know I have a lot of books…but these aren’t even half of my collection – there’s more in my parents’ house! What can I say? I’m a total bookworm.

Right next to the living room is the kitchen (the sixth chair is currently residing in the bedroom as a makeshift desk chair). I’m still not in love with the cabinets or the granite, so we’ll probably gut and redo the whole thing next year. The doors are, from left to right, the boiler room, laundry nook, and pantry.

With the lack of counter and cabinet space, we bought a sideboard to keep extra dishes and kitchen appliances. I like how the video intercom matches in with the small appliances!

Did you notice this little beauty in the last picture? It’s my rice storage cabinet! As soon as I finished setting it up (and poured a large bag of rice into it) I declared, “Now it feels like home!”

The pantry! This was just a regular closet with a clothes rail and shelf on top. We trekked down to Home Depot this past weekend and proceeded to build the shelves. I’m soooo happy we have an organized kitchen now…

The master closet. If we had the money, I would’ve went with the California Closet Company (can you tell I’m an organization nazi?). We didn’t, so we made do with the closet system from Ikea. Let me tell you, these were a MAJOR pain in the arse to build – it was very heavy and the almost-9′ height made for a lot of sweating and swearing. But I’m happy with the end result. I have an L-shaped space for my clothes, and we have drawers aplenty for the both of us.

That’s it for now. I feel so…domesticated.

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Jun 2, 2008  •  In Personal, Wedding

My Wedding, In Retrospect

I first starting blogging in 2001 and have had several blogs since then. (Although Geek in Heels is only 3 months old I’ve transferred some of my favorite posts from those blogs to the archives.) When I got engaged I naturally started a wedding planning blog and was delighted to be accepted as a blogger on one of the largest and best-known wedding blogs in the U.S. – Weddingbee.

Due to its immense popularity, I sometimes get recognized on the streets. Once in a while, I meet new people and they exclaim, “I know you – you’re on Weddingbee!”

Thus, I think it would be safe to say that my internet identity is mostly tied in with my wedding, which occurred 1.5 months ago.

I personally find this pretty amusing, especially since the wedding did not wholly represent my tastes and personality.

When I mentioned this topic to a friend, she protested, “But why? Your wedding was so beautiful and everyone had such a great time. It was a fairtytale wedding!”

I do not dispute this statement – it really did seem like a fairytale wedding, complete with a tiara on my head.

However, I have to admit that in real life I’m a lot more, for a lack of a better word, ghetto.

If I weren’t so hell-bent on trying to please the ‘rents, if I had the time (and money), if I could do it all over again…it would’ve been completely different.

A NY loft. No or very little flowers – I don’t care for them much anyway. I would’ve found creative ways to incorporate all the little things that I treasure in life: computers, gadgets, art, food, and beer. Maybe a Wii station in one corner. Karaoke in another? BBQ – a must. And I would’ve worn a dress comfortable enough to bust out my amazing DDR moves.

It doesn’t sound like a wedding much, does it? Well, it would’ve been one heck of a party nonetheless.

But the day has come and gone, and although it didn’t represent the true Geek in Heels, I was happy about it. I was happier still to see that our guests had fun, which, I believe, is essential to any sort of celebration.

Why the sudden wedding-related post? Because tonight, I will be reliving the memories. J and I are being interviewed for a new (small) television show which showcases weddings and wedding-planning tips.

I’ve never been on TV before, and I’m pretty camera shy. However, I think this will be a memorable experience so I’m pretty excited.

If you want to see me on TV and live in the NY/NJ area (and have cable) let me know and I’ll tell you when it will air.

Wish me luck tonight!

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May 29, 2008  •  In Thursday Geek-isms

Hump Day Hook-Ups

I’m sorry about the lack of updates. This past weekend I took a trip to the unknown wilderness known as the Pennsylvania Poconos (with…*gasp* no internet access!) for a mini-reunion with some old friends. I returned Monday feeling absolutely shiesty…and I’ve been bed-ridden ever since. But alas, here they are, my favorite articles for the past week:

  1. Guitar Hero World Tour Debuted, Engadget. The full-band version of Guitar Hero looks a lot like Rock Star, but I’m crossing my fingers that Activision put a bit more finesse to it. The best part of this intro video has to be the people involved: Paul Abdul judges, while Tony Hawk and Brody Jenner play the two guitar parts.
  2. Discovery Channel Slideshow of a Young Gates, Jobs, Woz, End User. Pretty cool if you’re into computing history like me (and actually liked the TNT movie Pirates of Silicon Valley).
  3. Mashed Frontier Airline Safety Rules, Boing Boing. I actually LOLed while going through this list.
  4. Nokia E71 Review, Boy Genius Report. I still have a fondness for Nokia phones…after all, who can forget the 3200 and 6100 series, the first cellular phone for many people of my generation? BGR declares the E71 “the best phone Nokia has made to date.” Go read the review and drool over the pictures and specs as I have.
  5. Starting Salaries but New York Tastes, NYTimes. An homage to the young generation of New Yorkers whose salaries are below the six-figure mark. Yep, I too can be living the high life if I didn’t live in the NYC region.
  6. The Original Indiana Jones, Neatorama. Have you seen the new Indy flick yet? It’s entertaining, but not too great. Now read about the inspiration for the character – a Nazi archaeologist!
  7. Apple Receives 188 Mysterious Cargo Containers: 3G iPhones, New MacBooks or the Finest Colombian Snow? Gizmodo. I’m pretty sure they’re the new iPhones, to be debuted at WWDC. What do you think?
  8. MacHEADS: The Movie Interview, Gizmodo. I’m definitely going to watch this movie. It reminds me of my favorite coffee table book, The Cult of Mac, which I purchased shortly after buying my first Apple computer.
  9. The Secret History of Star Wars, Slashdot. I actually downloaded this book in PDF format and started reading it. Some of it was not surprising; after all, I had written a 20-page paper on Star Wars and the impact it had on American culture. Nonetheless, it’s a must-read for any Star Wars fans.
  10. He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died, Mental Floss Blog. I was reminded of Project 365, which I started a few years ago and eventually stopped. Some of the photos are a bit eerie and creepy, but still interesting and captivating.
May 22, 2008  •  In Career, Personal

5 Pieces of Advice for Recent Graduates, Part 5

Part 1: The world doesn’t owe you anything.
Part 2: It’s never too late.
Part 3: Make the best of it.
Part 4: Be ballsy.

5. Sometimes, it really is pure luck.

When I first started job-hunting, I didn’t have much going for me. My grades weren’t good, I had little experience, and I had no clue what I wanted to do for a living.

I sent out my resume to hundreds of companies and never heard a peep.

Soon, the bank of mom and dad threatened to cut me off. “Get a job or move back home.”

I decided to try temping while still job-hunting, just so I can prove to the parents units that I wasn’t lying on the couch watching TV all day.

I contacted a temp agency, and what happened next was one of the luckiest, most fortunate events of my life.

The first job the temp agency offered me was to work as the personal assistant to the CEO of a large, multinational company (you probably heard of it if I told you). The gig would last two weeks – was I up for it?

Immediately the image of the nightmare boss from The Devil Wears Prada popped into my head. However, I quickly pushed my overactive imagination aside to accept the offer.

A couple of days before my two weeks was up, the CEO called me into a meeting he was having with the VPs. He then said to them, “This is Jenny. She’s a good worker and she needs a job. One of you should give her a job.”

The rest, as they say, was history. I had landed my first full-time job out of school.

I’ve said before that you should take advantage of every opportunity, no matter how small, life throws at you. I’ve preached that you need to work hard to be successful.

But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to make it.

Or you may be living the good life and an act of God comes to take it all away.

We should always keep trying. But we also need to realize that there are some things we cannot control. And we have to roll with it.

I hope you enjoyed this series! If you have any ideas for more, please let me know!

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May 22, 2008  •  In Career, Personal

5 Pieces of Advice for Recent Graduates, Part 4

Part 1: The world doesn’t owe you anything.
Part 2: It’s never too late.
Part 3: Make the best of it.

4. Be ballsy.

I have mentioned before that I am a textbook ISFP. I have terrible stagefright and I shy away from being the center of attention. I’m great at giving others a lending hand and making suggestions, but I’m horrible when it comes to helping myself or taking my own advice.

In short, I’m a terrible at selling and promoting myself.

Needless to say, I hate job interviews.

Now I like to think of myself as a fairly polite person with decent manners and a pleasant (albeit somewhat reserved) personality. However, that doesn’t take you very far in the cutthroat world of business.

I actually never interviewed for my first job – I obtained the position through a stroke of luck. (I will write about this in the next and final part of the series.) So the thought of meeting new people and sitting through interview after interview not only terrified me, it was a fairly new experience in itself.

After a few failed attempts I was starting to lose hope. I was getting better, sure, but it still wasn’t good enough for someone to hire me.

Then, one day I had another chance encounter with lady luck. As I waited in line to pay at a grocery store, my eyes scanned the usual titles that lined the check-out counters. My gaze stopped at a small book that read, “How to Get the Job You Want.” It wasn’t a best seller. The cover wasn’t particularly attractive. In fact, it was one of those generic, small, self-help books that end up gathering dust wherever they are sold.

However, I had time. The line was still long. I flipped through the pages.

I don’t remember exactly what the book said, but the biggest lesson I learned in the 3 minutes of scanning the book was to be ballsy. Act like you have a 10-inch cock. Trust that they need you more than you need them, and make them believe this too.

I figured, “why not?” and decided to try this method at my next interview.

I walked into the room like I owned the place. I asked more questions than they asked me. I acted like I was interviewing them for a place in my life, because when you think about it, this is precisely what should happen at an interview.

At times I was certain that I made the interviewer a bit nervous from my direct approach. He cleared his throat and loosened his tie several times as my voice became stronger and clearer.

I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind. I wasn’t afraid to show excitement either, with wild hand gestures and a raised voice. When the hiring manager cautioned that the job at times can become very tedious as every detail need to be triple-checked in their dozens of printed material, I exclaimed, “Are you kidding? I get off on that stuff!”

To be honest I thought I had lost him there. I almost clapped my hand over my mouth and prepared to apologize. But he loved it. He ate it all up. And when he emailed me to schedule a second interview, he mentioned that my “enthusiasm for the job clearly presented itself” during the course of the interview.

I was determined to end my second interview with a bang. When he asked if I had any further questions, I leaned forward, looked directly into his eyes, and said, “I’m perfect for this position and you know it. I’m not looking for a job…I’m looking for a career. And this is it for me.”

I had to rehearse this in my head many times. This was so uncharacteristic of me! I was so out of my element and so far from my comfort zone that my hands shook for the remainder of the day.

But it worked. After I said this to him he paused and looked at me calmly. “I hope to see you again,” he said. And I knew I had it in the bag.

The next day, I received a call from the company’s head of HR with the official offer. They even offered me more money than I had asked for.

I’m not sure where I mustered up the courage to be a self-confident, strong and powerful person for those few hours of my life. All I knew was that I needed to step out of my comfort zone if I were to prove to anyone that they needed to hire me.

The final part of the series will be 5. Sometimes, it really is pure luck.

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May 21, 2008  •  In Thursday Geek-isms

Hump Day Hook-Ups

It’s reassuring to see that my readers like this Wednesday feature. Thanks for the emails and comments!

  1. Air Jordan is Cannes Bound, Perez Hilton. Spike Lee is directing a documentary about Michael Jordan! I am truly, genuinely excited about this and I can’t wait to see it (hopefully) next year.
  2. Death of Society, Eater. Guilty as charged. I too, take pictures of food at restaurants and blogging about the experience the next day.
  3. To Beat Google, Beat Google to the Mobile Web, ReadWriteWeb. I love my LG Voyager, but I don’t particularly like surfing the web on a cell phone (unless that phone had a 10″+ screen). However, the use of mobile surfing is growing exponentially and the writer of this article does a good job of pointing out that Google does not (yet?) have a stronghold in the mobile web market.
  4. Bubble Alert: Facebook Traffic Declines 10% in April, Mashable. I noticed that I’ve been using Facebook less and less these days…what about you?
  5. Jonathan Ive: Apple’s Top Designer Explains Design, Gizmodo. A must-read for anyone interested in product design, engineering, or both.
  6. 10 Free Web-Based Alternatives to Photoshop, LifeClever. I’m a total Photoshop whore, so whenever I’m using a computer sans Photoshop I feel empty inside. None of these programs can ever replace Photoshop (at least for me) but they come close.
  7. 10 Ways to Pimp Your Blog, Stepcase Lifehack. Some great advice for bloggers. Funny how the first advice is to UNpimp your blog.
  8. The “Asian Fit” Sunglasses, That Mofo Said What?!?!?! My friend forwarded me this link and I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or become really angry and write a heated letter/email to Oakley. What do you think? Is this racist? (FYI, the person who told me about this also said he’s thinking of buying a few pairs now because when Oakley stops making these due to the inevitable lawsuit, he can sell them on eBay for a sweet profit.)
  9. Kama Sutra for IT People, Computer Fetishists, Gizmodo. I sometimes want to do this to my MacBook Pro…
  10. Goodbye Toby”, The Office Fan Site. The season finale of The Office was one of the best episodes in the show’s history. Here is the entire episode, just in case you missed it.

As a side note, does anyone else use Twitter? I joined way back when and I only started using it again regularly recently. You may have noticed that I added a Twitter Stream to my sidebar, displaying my latest 5 Twits, and I’ve also installed a plug-in that automatically sends an update to my Twitter account whenever I post a new entry on this blog.

*Sigh*…I love the power of technology.

May 21, 2008  •  In Career, Personal

5 Pieces of Advice for Recent Graduates, Part 3

Part 1: The world doesn’t owe you anything.
Part 2: It’s never too late.

3. Make the best of it.

I hated my first job.

In hindsight, it wasn’t a total waste. I gained valuable experience, learned the importance of office politics, and the salary wasn’t bad at all for an entry-level position.

However, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was miserable. I hated the numbers-driven strategy and the mad scramble at the end of every fiscal quarter to meet the quota. I hated the work I did, which was providing administrative and strategic support for my sales group.

I knew I was capable of more.

During my one-year tenure at this company, I befriended a man in the marketing department. To be more specific, he was a designer within the marketing department. And the more I talked to him and learned what he did, the more I knew this was what I wanted to do.

In a ballsy move very uncharacteristic of my usually shy self, I arranged a meeting with the VP of Marketing and discussed my future with the company. “This is what I want in my career and I know I can do this,” I emphasized. “I want to work for you.”

Unfortunately, her staff was full and she didn’t have room in her budget for a new employee. However, she offered to talk to my supervisor on my behalf.

A week later, the VP of my department called me into her office.

To be honest I was scared shitless. I had never expressed interest in moving to another department. Would she think I was going behind her back?

This wasn’t the case at all. She told me that she believed I was a great worker and praised me on the many achievements I had accomplished in the past year. She didn’t want to lose me and so offered additional projects which were more in line with my interests.

I gladly accepted the new responsibilities that she had created specifically for me, but I also knew deep inside that I didn’t want to stay with this company. In addition, I wanted to move back home to New York (I was in Baltimore at the time).

What I really wanted to do was design work and/or marketing but I realized I had a disadvantage for not having had any formal training.

So in my spare time, I taught myself CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. I delved deeper into Flash and the Adobe Creative Suite applications.

I never never taken any marketing classes at school so I bought some books and read up on the subject.

I took on freelance work whenever possible, even volunteering my services for free, just for the experience and to build my portfolio.

A few months later, when the lease on my apartment was about to end, I decided to move back up to NY and started looking for work in my newly desired field.

And I got it.

Currently, I work in marketing and have a wide variety of responsibilities which keep me mentally and creatively stimulated. I write copy and design the material on which it is displayed (letterheads, envelopes, pamphlets, brochures, posters, websites, gifts, etc). I organize mass mailing campaigns that reach almost 100,000 people all over the world. I design ads that are displayed in some of the most respected journals and magazines in the industry.

But most importantly, I work in a field I love (IT) and I no longer dread going to work every morning.

I feel that anyone who feels they are stuck in an unfavorable position can learn from this experience.

First, I decided what I wanted. (By talking to the man who worked in the marketing department and finding out all I could about the position and the field)

Then I went for it. (By talking to the VP of Marketing)

And since I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, I decided to turn the odds in my favor. (By accepting additional projects, training myself, taking on extra work in my spare time)

I retried, and I got it.

It may seem cliché, but when life doesn’t turn out the way you want, you have to make the best of it by taking advantage of every little opportunity.

Stay tuned for the next installment in this series: 4. Be ballsy.

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May 21, 2008  •  In Career, Personal

5 Pieces of Advice for Recent Graduates, Part 2

Part 1: The world doesn’t owe you anything.

2. It’s never too late.

One of my good friends is beautiful and brilliant (and I’m not just saying that because she’s my friend). Not only is she so gorgeous that a well-known, national brand wanted her as a model, she’s also one of the smartest people I know.

A couple of years ago, after working her ass off in a prestigious pre-law program, she was accepted to Stanford Law School and we were all so very proud of her.

That’s when she announced she would be attending culinary school instead.

Say what?

She then explained to me that food was, and always has been, her passion. The only reason she had pursued law school was to land a stable, respected, well-paying job so that she can save enough money to follow this passion.

“Then I thought…why should I wait? Why not now?

Fast forward a few months, when she was well into her studies in culinary school. It’s tough work, she said. And undoubtedly very intimidating and quite scary to have made such a change. However, she radiated with happiness and I knew she had made the right choice.

She explained to me that her class was full of these types of people. Hedge fund managers. IT guys. Even stay at home moms. All who had realized that it’s never too late to pursue your passion.

To be realistic, not everyone can make a living from their passions. However, just pursuing it as a side job or even as a hobby can do wonders for your health and happiness.

My father is a great artist and won numerous awards in his younger days. However, his family was so poor that he had to drop out of high school to help ends meet. There was no glimmer of hope for art school at all.

Decades later, he has started to draw again. He doesn’t have time to do much, but when he does I can see the calm fulfillment in his eyes.

My mother has always admired pottery. So last year she decided to take up pottery classes at the local Korean community center. Some of the pieces she makes are so ugly that I don’t know what to say to her when she proudly shows them to me. But I can’t deny that they make her happy.

There are always a million reasons not to do something. But are they so cumbersome that you cannot live a happy, fulfilled life?

Next up… 3. Make the best of it.

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