JESS3 Blog: 01/01/2003

What does the filler text "lorem ipsum" mean?

http://www.hereinreality.com/familyvalues

Bush Family Values Photo Album

First impressions are obviously important so your first point of contact by whatever means needs to catch the eye of potential employers. So good design on your cv/ covering letter and portfolio website is vital. think about branding yourself.

My current website is pants! done a year ago I thought that a website that could show off my potential flash skills would be the best way. I sacrificed alot of key design principles. Now I cringe and am attempting to design a more user friendly site that is easy to update.

So my advice is that design yourself simple and clean website (and cv etc) thats easy to update as your portfolio grows. Be careful on the amount of time you spend doing this as you will miss out on potential work! give yourself a strict deadline

http://www.createonline.co.uk

http://www.hcstudios.com

HC Studios is a creative and technical partnership located in Salem Oregon.

this app is a site that builds a model of you ...
its uses can be to try on clothes and see what they would look like..>hr>VERY COOL!

bling bling

this pic was taken with my boys sprint cell phone... !!!!
isnt that good quality for a cell phone?

http://www.massappealmag.com

Stowe Mountain Resort uses Macromedia Studio MX to deliver a Rich Internet Application that integrates back-end, real-time snow data to inform skiers before they hit the slopes.

Police Use Web Site To ID Guns N' Roses Rioters
The fallout from Guns N' Roses' aborted winter tour continues. Police in Vancouver, British Columbia, have set up a Web site with photos of 47 fans they suspect were part of the riots that marred what was supposed to be opening night of the band's first North American tour in more than nine years.

"We believe all of these individuals participated in crimes ranging from causing a disturbance to taking part in a riot, criminal mischief, and breaking and entering," said spokesperson Sarah Bloor of the Vancouver City Police Department, which posted the Web site on Wednesday.

Bloor said three suspects marked as "identified" on the site represent a trio of fans identified before the page went up. They are expected to face charges related to the rioting but have not been charged yet. So far no tips from the site have led to the identification of any suspects.

When Guns singer Axl Rose failed to show up for the November 7 concert, approximately 8,000 fans began to riot, causing more than $400,000 in damage to General Motors Place. Police have struggled to identify and arrest those suspected of inciting the riots, which is why they decided to try this unorthodox method of policing, Bloor said.

"The Web site allows us to go to a wider market internationally and nationally and might allow people from British Columbia or Alberta to help us identify these individuals," she said.

The images and video clips of the suspects were obtained through warrants served on media outlets who covered the heavily hyped tour kickoff.

The concert was canceled before the doors to the venue opened, angering fans who then rammed glass doors with metal barricades and threw bottles and rocks. Rose's management company has said the singer was en route to the venue when the plug was pulled. After 20 minutes of unrest, police moved in with dogs, pepper spray and batons.

Bloor said visitors to the site can anonymously identify the suspects if they wish. Though she did not have a count of how many people have visited the site, Bloor said police have received three dozen tips over the past week.

The future of the band was thrown into doubt when the tour was abruptly canceled following a second Axl no-show and riot in Philadelphia.

A Guns management spokesperson would not comment on the Vancouver investigation but confirmed that "Axl and the band are continuing the recording of Chinese Democracy," the group's long-delayed new album.

—Gil Kaufman

in researching this site i will possibly be redesigning... www.hospitallaw.com, it occured to me.. i should start a web design firm that caters to lawyers!!!
i have the inside track because i work in the industry... i have a few connections...and most importantly they have money to pay me !, unlike some other companys... www.atr-2020.com for instance...

lawyers all use the same format and style... i really think its a good plan... i can see it now jess3 law design

http://www.lawfirmdesign.com

Create a new file in 16 RGB mode. Create some text with the type tool.
Layer->Type->Render Layer.
Layer->Duplicate Layer.
Pick the new layer as your current editing layer.
Edit->Fill.
Use: White
Mode: Multiply
Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur. ( In this example "Radius" was set to 1,4 pixels.

Filter->Distort->Polar Coordinates.
Options: Polar to Rectangular
Image->Rotate Canvas->90 CW.

Filter->Stylize->Wind.
CTRL + F or Filter->Stylize->Wind again.
Image->Adjust->Auto Levels.
Image->Adjust->Invert.
Filter->Stylize->Wind.
CTRL + F or Filter->Stylize->Wind again.

Image->Rotate Canvas->90 CCW.

Filter->Distort->Polar Coordinates.
Options: Rectangular to Polar.
Set Layer Mode to Hard Light.

Image->Adjust->Hue/Saturation.
Check the "Colorize" checkbox and play with the settings of "Hue" and "Saturation".
In the example to the right Hue was set to 32 and Saturation to 79.

Man Beating Dog With Gun Shoots Himself

WINCHESTER, Va. - A man trying to beat his dog to death with a gun was fatally wounded when it apparently went off accidentally, police said.

Raymond Poore Jr., 43, called his wife at work Thursday and told her that their dog had bitten him and he intended to kill the animal, police Capt. David Sobonya said.

The wife came home about 6 p.m. and found her husband unconscious, with a number of dog bites and scratches. Emergency medical personnel discovered that Poore had been shot. He was pronounced dead at Winchester Medical Center.

Sobonya said Poore must have beaten the 30-pound shar-pei with the gun that went off. He said the stock of the weapon, a combination rifle and shotgun, was broken and there appeared to be blood and dog hair on it.

The dog was in the custody of an animal control officer. Sobonya had no detail on how badly it was injured.

http://www.hospitallaw.com

The Orbit® 3D takes your Web experience to a whole new level, by allowing you to actually feel buttons, icons, links and more as you scroll across them. Precision never felt so good.

Cool Hand Luke poster...15$

Player design company links...etc

http://youworkforthem.com

http://www.thebrainbox.com

http://www.designiskinky.com/coversubs/brainbox/index_brainbox.html

http://www.redrabit.com

http://www.blkmrkt.com/

Radio Station in Court Over Dry Ice Stunt

A British radio station was in court Friday for running a competition during which four listeners suffered severe frostbite.

During the "Coolest Seats In Town" challenge by BRMB station in Birmingham, central England, four listeners competed to see who could sit on dry ice for the longest time.

"They suffered frostbite, permanent scarring and were hospitalized," a spokeswoman for the safety watchdog which brought the prosecution told Reuters.

"The temperature of the dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) was minus 78 centigrade," she said.

The prize for the contest held in August 2001 was tickets to "Party in the Park" -- a music festival.

The Health and Safety Executive said the radio station could face a fine of up to 20,000 pounds if found guilty in the magistrates court.

BRMB was not immediately available to comment.

The station has run several publicity stunts in the past which have aroused controversy.

One promotion led to two strangers getting married, winning cash, an exotic honeymoon and the use of a upmarket flat. The competition prompted criticism from church groups which said it demeaned the dignity of marriage vows.

The couple separated after a few months.

http://www.davidbenioff.com/

i saw the 25th hour last night... it was pretty good

the author is signing books...

February 6, 2002
Washington, D.C.
Olsson's Books / 1200 F Street
7 PM

CD Lawsuit Could Earn You $20

Suppose someone was handing out $20 bills and no one wanted one?

That's what's happening in a massive price-fixing settlement paid for by the recording industry.

The top five U.S. distributors of compact discs and three large music retailers have agreed to pay $44 million in refunds to settle a lawsuit that accused them of cheating consumers by illegally inflating prices. The companies settled to avoid an expensive legal battle. Anyone who bought CDs between 1995 and 2000 is eligible for a refund of up to $20, even if you don't have a receipt to prove it.

"I want free money, but it seems like there would be a catch," said Jayla Fincher of San Jose.

There is one catch. If more than 8.8 million people apply, the per-person share would drop below $5, and the customer refunds would be cancelled, because sending out so many small checks is too expensive. That seems unlikely, however, because only 30,000 people have filed claims in the last three months, leaving most of the money untouched.

Filing for a refund is simple. Just answer a few basic questions at www.musiccdsettlement.com and tell them where to send your check. I made $20 in less than three minutes. Most music buyers call that easy money.

"Twenty bucks?" said Susie Caustrita of San Jose. "It's another CD."

There is a limit of one claim per person.

930club.com

@ the 930 club

LYRICIST LOUNGE presents DEAD PREZ
w/ Youngbloodz
Early Show! 6pm Doors.
SAT. FEB. 8
$10.00

i am all about this!

DIK frontpage covers... archive, pimpin

http://www.930.com

Ludacris
@ 9:30 Club • Washington, DC
SAT. FEB. 22
$35.00

Common
w/ Gang Starr • Talib Kweli • Floetry
@ 9:30 Club • Washington, DC
WED. FEB. 26
$30.00

JESSE-do this !

Blogger now has over [to be said in your best Dr. Evil voice...] 1 Million Registered Users. Mwahahahaha...

The Oakland Raiders take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII this Sunday at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. It will be the fifth Super Bowl appearance for the Raiders, and the first for Tampa Bay

everything you need to be a better journalist

invest in pyra!!!

The future of Pyra Labs
For those of you not acquainted with Pyra Labs, they are the people that brought Blogger to the world, and in doing so unleashed thousands of amateur publishers upon the Net. If you don't know what a weblog is, here are a few examples:

A personal weblog

A topic specific group weblog:

A mass general group weblog:

A newspaper weblog:

A journalist weblog:

In short, it is a form of publishing that allows even the most tech unsavy to throw their thoughts onto the web.

Blogger was not the first weblog service, however it was the first to provide a service through a central server, i.e. like Yahoo mail: you aren't required to download any software, and the service can be accessed from any computer. The simplicity of it, and the fact that it was free, fuelled enormous growth from its launch in 1999 - with upward of 400,000 websites now powered by Blogger.

Like a number of companies, subsequent to their initial success in terms of scope, they have been trying to develop ways to generate proper revenue.

Earlier this year they launched a premium service - Pro Blogger - sold under the tag line 'it's better.' In doing this they followed what I consider to be the correct approach - they kept their initial offering free and positively introduced a premium service that was genuinely a premium service. No one lost out.

So what is Pro Blogger like?

For sometime I've wanted to start a weblog covering online marketing, but have resisted the temptation, knowing the level of commitment required to consistently produce something half decent. However last week I decided to throw caution to the wind, and take the plunge headlong into this time consuming vortex, from whence few return. As I was already familiar with Blogger and liked and admired the people behind it, there really was no competition for my custom. Pro Blogger it was to be.

Being the spontaneous individual that I am, I decided to signed up for Pro Blogger immediately, so as not give myself the opportunity to change my mind. In doing so I did not read the FAQ section particularly carefully, assuming that I knew exactly what Pro Blogger was.

What I required from Pro Blogger was fairly simple. I wanted a site up and running quickly, I wanted all the hosting stuff to be sorted, and I wanted to be able to put it under my own chosen domain name. Oh yeah, I also want to be able to have a newsletter.

Stupidly I thought that Blogger Pro would deliver most of this. However, that was not the case. In the end I wasted a reasonable amount of time, money and effort, before finally ending up with a solution, Net Marketing, that was not quite what I wanted. Part of this fiasco included me buying hosting from easyspace.co.uk only to find that they wouldn't let me ftp to their site using Pro Blogger.

So what can be learnt from this experience, apart from how useless I am? Well, Pro Blogger was to my mind meant to have made it easy for me to get up and running. In that respect it failed, based on the specific criteria that I set it. Now I totally accept that I'm technically incompetent, however that is not the point, many people are. I ended up forking out $100 ($47 to Pyra Labs) and in the end did not get what I wanted. I also wasted a lot of my time, and others, probably to the tune of $200+.

Pro Blogger is great, however getting a site up and running using Blogger is not as simple as it could be, which to me is an important part of the equation. Were my expectations really too high?

Pro Blogger

Domain name

Full hosting without advertising

A newsletter

Visitor statistics logging (something else that I had to waste time sorting out).

That is the package that I wanted, and I would have paid up to $200 for it. Others will have different needs. The point being, why don't Pyra Labs offer a variety of packages? Clearly a teen diarist needs are different from those of a journalist looking to further extend their ego.

When you have a userbase the size of Blogger, there is great potential for leveraging significant value out of it. Add to that a product as good as Pro Blogger and the possibilities become considerable. However to maximise this potential Pyra needs to offer a variety of options. That is the basic principle of up selling. Furthermore, as illustrated above, making peoples lives simple (even those like me that are so stupid that they don't really deserve it) is in itself a service, and something that would be greatly appreciated, and happily paid for. Pyra offered me 1 Pro Blogger package, or 2 if you count the option to remove ads. As someone who likes choice, I would have preferred to have been offered 5-10 choices. Look at it this way - they will get $50 out of me yearly, from now on, but with a touch more thought, they could get a great deal more, and made my relationship with them a great deal stronger.

Increasing Pyra's business scope

From where I'm sitting Pyra Labs has a wonderful opportunity to build upon their base, and turn themselves into a really successful company for the long term. In crazier times, analysts might have valued them at $20 to $50 million. However, in today's market up starts need to really prove their worth, and do so to an almost unreasonable degree, before they are taken seriously

Pyra, in my opinion, deserves to be taken very seriously. They have a community of 400,000 websites, everything about their set up is positively compounding in nature, and they have limited direct competition.

Pro Blogger is very good as it stands, and there are a number of improvements in the pipeline that will make it even better. However, what they perhaps need to remember is that business is not just about developing great products, but also requires attention to be paid to the overall customer experience. Pro Blogger is not just publishing tool, it is/should be, a service that allows people to develop and run a multi-functional website with as little hassle as possible.

So what is the problem?

As outlined above, they need to offer more, and start building more aggressively on their existing proposition. The impression that I get is that there is the will to do as I suggest, but not the manpower and resources required for delivery. Through bad timing as much as anything, the level of funding that they deserve does not appear to be forthcoming, and therefore the company is being built upon the toil of far too few people. Looking at their operation from the outside, I get the strong impression that it is still far closer to being a techi project/hobby than a proper company. To my mind, such a situation is unacceptable given their potential.

To be honest, it actually somewhat surprises me that this appears to be true. Pyra has good investors, including O'Reilly & Associates, Advance Publications, Jerry Michalski, and The Accelerator Group. In combination, these organisations have an extraordinarily clear take on the future direction of technology and the Internet. I would have expected such backing to have allowed Pyra to grow at a rate that was at least vaguely consistent with its potential. As things stand, that is certainly not happening.

In a certain respect I think that Pyra's position may be somewhat indicative of this post Boo! era. If Pyra had kicked off 2 years early it is likely that they would have been hit by a flood of venture capital, and then fast tracked to IPO. As things stand it appears that they are being drip fed, preventing them from expanding at anything more than an organic rate. That is a serious error.

Weblogging is starting to explode into the mainstream, and Pyra should be the major benefactor of this a trend. My fear is that without proper resources, numerous opportunities will be missed. It seems clear to me that Pyra is in real danger of becoming an example of excessive prudence at its very worst. To my mind, their investor would do well to remember that potential can still be equally as strong, regardless of the market conditions that surround it. The process should be simple - If you find a winner, trust your convictions and back it to the hilt.

Robert Loch is the Deputy Editor of Dotcom Scoop and a marketing expert. He can be reached at robertloch@dotcomscoop.com. Robert publishes the Net Marketing blog as well.

Yahoo! Express is part of a suite of services Yahoo! created to serve the needs of businesses like yours. Yahoo! Express provides expedited review of web sites you submit for possible inclusion in the Yahoo! Directory. We will respond to your request within 7 business days.

For web sites that do not feature adult content or services, the Yahoo! Express service costs US$299 (nonrefundable) for each Directory listing that is submitted. Furthermore, for each listing accepted into the Directory, there is a recurring annual fee of US$299 to maintain the listing in the Directory for the subsequent year.

300 dollars is a lotta money

February 6, 2002
Washington, D.C.
Olsson's Books / 1200 F Street
7 PM

The Hacker Diaries : Confessions of Teenage Hackers
by Dan Verton

Computer hacker turned author Kevin Mitnick poses for a portrait in this 2002 file photo. No longer on probation, Mitnick can log on to the Internet for the first time in eight years. Mitnick, 39, had been under strict probation since he was released from federal prison three years ago after serving a five-year sentence.

che fu... new zealand band

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
by Sijie Dai

which one ?

The North Korea Central News Agency released posters depicting North Korea's military power on January 20, 2003. The letters read, 'U.S. imperialists shouldn't carelessly provoke war.' A Russian envoy held six hours of talks with reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and described the meeting on the nuclear standoff between Pyongyang and Washington as substantive and successful.

Tupac: Resurrection

U.S.A., 2003, 115 Minutes, Color

Director Lauren Lazin's Tupac: Resurrection is an extraordinary documentary about the pivotal hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur that is narrated entirely in the words of the deceased artist himself. Through a variety of interviews, journal readings, poetry performances, private home movies, and never-before-seen concert footage, Lazin weaves an incredibly compelling and insightful "self-portrait" of a cultural icon whose career and persona continues to grow from beyond the grave.

Before his violent and controversial death, Shakur was already a cultural phenomenon. The son of former Black Panther Afeni Shakur, Tupac revolutionized rap and captured the imagination of an entire youth generation. Rarely had the public seen a rap star so handsome, charismatic, fearless, and convicted to speaking out about his cultural and political philosophies. Tupac: Resurrection follows the artist from his childhood in Baltimore through his rise to stardom in the worlds of music and cinema. It also illuminates Tupac's philosophy of "Thug Life," his reaction, to quote one of his song titles, to "The Hate U Gave" perpetuated by mainstream American society to black ghetto communities.

Lazin's documentary is intimate, revealing, entertaining, and inspiring, and it proves that the soulful, indomitable spirit of Tupac is still very much alive.

organic pixels design

http://www.jointen.dk/

this dude is chill

http://www.designobject.com/

ATI-TV Wonder USB

125-channel TV tuner for your PC lets you watch TV full-screen or in a window while you work. Using just one cable, plug TV Wonder USB Edition to your computer and turn it on! USB makes the whole process hassle-free. You don't even have to open up your computer! With TV Wonder USB Edition you can instantly add TV capabilities your notebook. Enhance your PC's video capabilities using video input support of the TV Wonder USB Edition that lets you capture still images and save them in Stills Gallery.

this shit is old but i still want it

Personal Computing Environments chair
See a fully customized computer chair complete with the following features:

Dual 17-inch flat panels
Dolby 5.1 sound
3-GHz Pentium 4 processor
2GB of DDR RAM
180GB hard drive
Radeon 9700 Pro

http://www.coptechinc.com/

links from a class on creative design

You can find some Simpsons fonts, games, freewares, cursors, icons, wallpapers and screen savers.

bling

ultimix

Rhythm & Scratch Tracks is not just typical beat loops. Each rhythm track starts with a beat intro followed by a short clip (usually 30-60 sec.) of the actual song. This allows you time to set up for the following 6 minutes of continuous rhythm. Add over 40 great, superclean samples to overlay, scratch, and be as creative as you can imagine possible.

free beat loops

https://www.webcertificate.com/webcert/welcome_begin.asp?redirect%5Ftarget=xt%5Fmaredir%2Easp&mscssid=CR4UQHJH8VWT9HHT2V46VVW5MVG9A1U1

Dual monitors are passé. So why not have three? No wait - how about four? With the Predator ProMedia card from US company Colorgraphic, that's exactly what you get. For the price of a single full-length PCI slot and £1166 you get a card that delivers four VGA outputs and four TV outputs (composite and S-Video). There are a number of different configuration options on offer, depending on your working needs, so you can also have two or four DVI flatpanel monitor outputs, up to four Video Decoders (PAL/NTSC/SECAM), TV tuner, 1-5 Digital video I/O, MPEG decoder and audio processor, though not all at the same time.

The card we reviewed features the TV tuner and four video I/O, as well as four VGA outputs. The card has 16MB VRAM per port and uses four S3 Savage4 chips for 2D and 3D acceleration. There is no OpenGL support at present, but OpenGL drivers are expected to be available soon - look out for the free update at [w] www.colorgraphic.co.uk. Speed-hungry 3D jockeys may have to look elsewhere for a multi-monitor system until then, but for screen-hungry video-editing and page-layout apps, the card looks like a very good idea.

Imagine having your video-editing app on one screen, another screen for all the floating palettes, another for the clip windows and another for Photoshop, a Web browser - whatever you like. Likewise for audio editing, illustration and Web design - in fact, any situation where you need to see all the information at once without the clutter of palettes and floating windows, or the inconvenience of having to switch between open apps.

As we mentioned, although the card is perhaps not a great idea for full-on 3D production, for casual 3D use it's fine. Perhaps you're an illustrator who uses a 3D application and Photoshop together, creating simple 3D shapes for artwork. The 3D performance of the card in this situation may not be that much of an issue.

2D performance was decent, but there was a problem where the image on a monitor would disappear when using the MultiVue video display app. Photoshop was also confused, and prevented you from seeing all of a maximised image on one monitor, though we suspect that this was due to Windows NT rather than the card itself.

The Predator ProMedia enables you to output to TV monitors as well as VGA screens. The Set Array control panel means you can define the shape of the array (number of rows and columns), and you can even spread the output across all four displays for video wall apps - superb for presentations or conferencing.

The ProMedia card may be a niche product, but thanks to the number of configuration options this is a very flexible card. It's a shame there's no OpenGL as yet, but it does offer good value for money, especially if you can profit from the workflow improvements a four-monitor set-up will provide.

Computer Arts' Verdict: 4/5
Speed: 3
Documentation: 3
Ease of use: 4
Value for money: 4

For: Up to four VGA and four video outputs · Four video Ins · TV tuner

Against: Does not suppress all of NT's multi-monitor glitches · No OpenGL as yet

http://www.lamarzocco.com

they make player coffe machines...

i love this magazine...!

http://hine-digital-art.com/

links

The posters of Philippe Apeloig are all about poise. One exemplary piece shows a photograph of a Japanese Butoh dancer crouched before an upright egg the size of his head. A ghostly glow illuminates the dancer’s face as he approaches the egg, his fingers nervously splayed before him. Hovering vertically to the left is Apeloig’s delicately balanced type bearing the name of the dance troupe, Sankai Juku—“studio of mountain and sea” and the title of the work, Unetsu—“the egg stands out of curiosity.” The type seems to approach the egg with the same trepidation as the dancer, and for Apeloig, a deft typographer, the relationship between the two is not accidental. Moving type around is a great deal like choreography, he says. “When you read a text most of the time it’s very static—you don’t even look at the shape of the letters, you consider the meaning—but one of the goals of the designer is to make text appear spectacular, like a show that really catches your eyes.”

In fact, Apeloig, who was born in Paris in 1962, spent ten years of his early childhood learning to be a dancer, before arriving at the revelation that he wasn’t a natural. “I was very bad, I think, because I never had rhythm, but I loved the movement.” He discovered graphic design “by accident” he says, at the Paris École Supérieure des Arts Appliqués, where a general arts degree included a class in what the school titled “visual expression.” This led him to calligraphy and a schooling in the French-traditional approach to design (think Cartier). But it was during internships at the Dutch graphic powerhouse Total Design that he acquired a taste and understanding of the Modernist approach that became the underpinning of his work.

"What's The Wall?"

Toback was inspired by the volatile subject matter of "Black and White" -- the combustible mix of actors and non-actors, the spontaneous nature of such a large, diverse cast, and the general sense that anything could happen when you film in the streets of New York "It adds an air of authenticity that is impossible to fake," he says.

"It's urban New York, and it's real," says Kim Matulova, whose favorite scene was the conversation among the high school kids, Brooke Shields and Robert Downey Jr in Central Park "It was cold, it was late and we were in Central Park shooting until six a in" she remembers "But we were really putting our feelings into it, it felt so natural and real, all of us just talking freely about everything."

Authenticity also was an issue for New York natives Wu-Tang Clan Method Man, Power, Raekwon (all of whom appear in the film), Inspectah Deck and other Wu-Tang members painted a mural in 1994 on a wall in Staten Island's Park Hill Projects There's not a graffiti artist in town who would tag over this monument to hip-hop, however, the Wu intended to repaint the mural for its appearance in the film, but later decided against it This artwork, first done to promote Wu-Tang's video "Can It Be All So Simple?" appears in the scene when Sam and Terry invite themselves to follow the rappers to "the wall"

"White people are as different from each other as black people; you can't just lump 'em all together like that."

http://wuwearusa.com/

WU BAT TEE SHIRT
TEE SHIRTS WITH LARGE WU BAT ON THE FRONT
Price: $35.00 Sale Price: $25.00

click for full story

Summer Fun
Day Tripping: Staten Island
The borough that man -- or Manhattanites, anyway -- forgot is a ferry tale of pony rides, windswept beaches, and the world's first Wu-Tang Clan gift shop.
By Chris Smith

When most New Yorkers think of Staten Island -- if they think of it at all -- it's as the butt of a joke about a trash dump. And oh, yeah, there's the Staten Island Ferry -- but the glorious view everyone cares about is of Manhattan.

But to me and my brother, Jason, Staten Island was the birthplace of our parents and the home of our revered maternal grandparents. This was the exotic land we visited to fill up on the affection and the heaping plates of macaroni (pasta being an unimagined yuppie locution) offered by our saintly grandmother Regina Serra. This was where we -- two wimpy boys growing up in a leafy upstate college town -- were awed by the blue-collar manliness of our gruff, heroic grandfather Joe Serra, a turn-of-the-century Italian immigrant. He dug subway tunnels; then, in 1920, he used his sweat and a secondhand truck to open a garbage-hauling business, Village Carting.

With the help of our family, my brother and I saw a hidden side of Staten Island. The biggest surprise when we visit now isn't that everything is smaller than we remember -- it's that today, Staten Island offers even more underappreciated attractions for the outsider.

One, the Great Kills section of Gateway National Recreation Area, is tucked behind the strip-mall ugliness of Hylan Boulevard. Gateway stretches from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to a chain of marshy islands in the shadow of JFK airport, out in Queens. After languishing for years, Gateway has improved under the stewardship of Kevin Buckley, the administrator who guided the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. He didn't create the amazing view from Great Kills Beach -- where you can sunbathe or swim in the Atlantic while gazing at the Rockaway Point lighthouse and the Verrazano Bridge -- but Buckley has replaced the rotting wooden beach houses with simple, functional structures for changing clothes. On the bay side is a spiffy marina, glistening with 300 boats, from preening yachts to humble dinghies. Set between rolling hills is a field reserved for model-plane fliers. Snaking throughout the park is a trail for Rollerbladers and nature hikers. It's almost pastoral enough to make you forget the whole thing is built on top of a landfill.

My grandparents were never much for the beach, but we go way back with the Staten Island Zoo (614 Broadway). It opened in 1936, and my father and his father soon became regulars; their favorite was Jocko the gorilla. Jocko has long since been paroled to the great jungle in the sky, but the zoo has other nostalgic wonders: Fences and paths are the perfect size for young children; peacocks range freely, showing off their feathers; and petite deer calmly submit to petting by small hands. The Staten Island Zoo operates on a shoestring, unaffiliated with the city's other "wildlife centers," so it doesn't have many gadgets. But that's part of its old-school charm. As are the crowds, which are a fraction of the hordes that clog the Bronx and Central Park zoos. A good recent addition: three Shetland ponies. Last month, when Jack, my 2-year-old son, rode away on Apache, he became the fourth-generation Smith to grin widely on this site.

Jack will have to wait a few years to appreciate another of the borough's idiosyncratic highlights, the Wu-Tang Clan's clothing and souvenir store. Wu Wear (61 Victory Boulevard) is hard by the housing projects that produced the members of the platinum-selling rap act, but the store, selling T-shirts, hoodies, albums, videos, and posters, attracts Wu-Tang fans from Maine, Germany, even Manhattan.

About a mile south on Victory Boulevard, and an ethnic galaxy away, is the best cannoli on Staten Island. "It's all about freshness," says Sal Tartamella, one of the managers of Alfonso's (1899 Victory Boulevard and 4366 Amboy Road). "As we need 'em, we make 'em." It's appropriate that the scene in The Godfather where Clemenza says, post-hit, "Leave the gun, take the cannoli" was filmed on Staten Island.

Turning on to Port Richmond Avenue brings a glimpse of the time when rural Staten Island was dotted by distinct "towns." This street used to be the thriving shopping district for Port Richmond. Malls killed the stores, and the towns have melted into quasi-suburban sprawl. Yet two of the avenue's oldest outposts still attract lines of hungry customers. Denino's Tavern, established in 1937, has fine cocktails, but its pizza is the real star. Denino's (524 Port Richmond Avenue) is the kind of throwback restaurant where asking for a salad brings laughter. Crunchy-but-not-brittle crusts are the foundation for pies ranging from basic mozzarella-and-tomato-sauce to the ricotta-onion-and-meatballs blowout. For a beverage, try the unexpectedly tasty sangria. You'll be the one laughing when the check arrives and it's under $20.

Save some room for Ralph's Famous Ices and Ice Creams, right across the street (501 Port Richmond Avenue). Open since 1929, Ralph's has that perfect roadside takeout-food design: You have to stoop to look in the windows and read the menu board behind the teenage scoopers. The board is divided into ices (from lemon to rainbow), cream ices (including a wonderful banana-flecked Chunky Monkey), and ice creams. Ralph's alone is worth the $7 Verrazano toll.

Across the island stands a grittier small-business landmark. It's at 551 Midland Avenue. Joe Serra fed a large family from his labor in this brick garage. He lost one of his sons here; an explosion killed Andrew. Another son, Pat, runs the company today, even after the heavy loads blew out one of his knees. Uncle Pat is 78 now, and small, honest operators like Village Carting are trying to compete with giant corporations from out-of-state. Near the garage this summer, on the South Beach boardwalk, there's a series of open-air concerts. If you find yourself on Midland Avenue, slow down a little as you pass. Village Carting will never be a tourist attraction, but it's worth a moment of respect.

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KRAMER'S REALITY TOUR OF NYC'S UPPER WEST SIDE

by Carole Terwilliger Meyers

This article won Honorable Mention in the 1999 Society of American Travel Wrtiters Western Chapter awards competition

To celebrate a high-numbered wedding anniversary, which here will remain unnamed, my husband and I planned a visit to New York City. And, being "Seinfeld" freaks, to make it really special we decided to do something, instead of nothing, and signed up for "Kramer's Reality Tour."

When I called to make the reservation, I got Kenny Kramer himself, who by now everyone must know is the real Kramer the TV Kramer is modeled after. He informed me the tour was booked up but could squeeze me in if I was willing to sit on my husband's lap during the bus tour. He thought it an appropriate concession considering it was our anniversary. He went on to ask how many years we'd been married and was amazed at my reply, wanting to know how we managed it. Then he asked about our children, their ages, what they do, and more. I felt like I was talking to a friend. From the phone call until the trip, I told everyone about who I had personally talked to. Even my kids were impressed.

On the big day we and many other very excited "Seinfeld" fans gathered at the tiny Pulse Theater on West 42nd Street. We milled around for a while, then took our seats and were entertained by a stand-in stand-up comedian, who warmed us up with jokes and introduced us to Kenny Kramer on a videotape. Kenny rattled off congratulations to the various anniversary and birthday celebrants and then, to our delight, the big guy appeared in person. He did some stand-up himself, then explained the logistics of the bus tour, breaking for photographs, autographs, and a last chance for the bathroom.

During the bus tour of New York City's "Seinfeld" sites, Kenny delivers a mesmerizing motormouth monologue of quips and behind-the-scenes anecdotes. "I lucked ass-backward into this career," he says. "This tour is the longest I've done anything in my life."

Kenny always wanted to be famous, and now finds he is famous not for his own talent but because he lived across the hall from someone who became famous--Larry David, co-creator of "Seinfeld" and the person whom the TV character George Costanza was modeled after. And with his "Reality Tour" he's busy milking that association for all it's worth. (There is a "Seinfeld" episode that pokes fun at his tour.)

Kenny has a lot to say about nothing. About Jerry Seinfeld: "His act is so clean it's like a giant antibiotic. Which is not to say that his show hasn't been funny." About Larry David: "He is full of angst. He has every neurosis known to man. And he was always visiting me and taking my food." Yada, yada, yada.

Along with more inside scoops on the "Seinfeld" characters, highlights of the bus tour include munching on refreshing Junior Mints while passing by Roosevelt Hospital (where in an episode one of those very same kind of candies wound up sewn into someone's operation), seeing The Regency movie theatre (where Jerry was busted for making out during "Shindler's List"), stopping at famous Tom's restaurant for picture-taking (on the show it is called Monk's, but in reality it is owned by Pete), and viewing the storefront of the "Soup Nazi"--who claims all this attention and resulting business is ruining his life, and who doesn't like being called a Nazi (Kenny now calls him the more politically correct "soup rat bastard").

Kenny Kramer is like no other tour guide I've ever encountered. He manages to come across as enthusiastic even though he must, by now, be at least a teeny bit bored. His descriptions are sprinkled with colorful expletives, and he feeds you. During our tour he distributed free boxes of Junior Mints and ended the tour at a casual restaurant where we were all served a complimentary junk-food snack of pizza (he plans to market soon a frozen version that we fans can snack on while watching "Seinfeld" reruns), soda, and a full-size Snickers bar--meant to be eaten as per a TV episode with a knife and fork. Yum.

As we filed out of the restaurant at the end of the tour, we passed by an informal collection of Seinfeld items for sale. Kenny was ensconced in the middle making change. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I had Kenny autograph the back of the red baseball cap I purchased. His autograph now wholesales for $20, and I paid $15 for the cap, meaning, as he pointed out, that I actually got it for free and made $5 on the deal!

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Macworld's Third Annual Look at the Year Ahead in Macs

DATELINE: February 2003
What's in the Cards
By Philip Michaels
No one can say with certainty what to expect from Apple in 2003 -- no one outside of the immediate vicinity of Steve Jobs's office, anyway. But we've managed to find a dozen people willing to give it their best guess. For the third consecutive year, Macworld has pulled together a panel of contributing editors, industry observers, and Mac experts to peer into their flat-panel LCD crystal balls, and tell us the answers to the following riddles:

* What will be Apple's most significant hardware product released in 2003?

* What will be the most significant Mac software product released in 2003?

* What will be the most important news to come from Apple this year?

* What will be the most significant thing to happen in the Mac market this year?

So what do our panelists foresee? A year filled with digital devices like PDAs and cell phones, ongoing migration to Mac OS X, and an increasing market share for everybody's favorite platform. We only hope folks in the immediate vicinity of Steve Jobs's office are taking notes.

David Blatner, Macworld Contributing Editor
Hardware: The Apple iPDA, based on the Palm desktop software, but combining a 5GB hard drive, built-in 2-megapixel camera, easy integration with all the i-apps, and featuring Microsoft Office v. X, Bluetooth, and voice recorder.

Software: QuarkXPress 6, which only runs in OS X. But alas, it comes too late, as many companies will switch to InDesign in 2003.

Apple News: Apple buys Xerox.

Market News: Two major PC computer manufacturers go out of business, Apple's "Switch" campaign starts to show real results, enterprise users begin to switch because of the OS X's Unix core, and Apple market share goes up to 10 percent again.

Henry Bortman, Macworld Contributing Editor
Hardware: A Mac-controlled digital-video recorder -- or maybe a digital photo album.

Software: A Web browser from Apple.

Apple News: Support for OS X on Intel processors.

Market News: The increased availability of Bluetooth-enabled hardware.

Christopher Breen, Macworld Contributing Editor
Hardware: Venturing out on a very shaky limb I might suggest another "I" device. The iPhone? The iPad?

Software: The next major iteration of OS X, with greater integration with Apple's applications, the Web, and network and personal computing devices.

Apple News: The severing of past partnerships and formation of new, unexpected business alliances.

Market News: The long shadow of OS 9 will finally fade away. By year's end, the majority of Mac users will pilot Macs running OS X.

Jim Dalrymple, News Director, MacCentral.com
Hardware: Apple's most significant potential hardware release will surround what processor the company decides to go with in the future.

Software: QuarkXPress for OS X.

Apple News: What the company will do with HyperTransport interconnect technology.

Market News: Apple will finally start to see an increase in market share from all sources -- education, stores, and enterprise.

Adam C. Engst, Macworld Contributing Editor
Hardware: LCDs everywhere. Prices on smaller LCDs are falling through the floor, so I'd expect to see Apple finally retire the CRT for good in 2003. Plus, there are much-higher-resolution LCD monitors coming on the market that could give us 23-inch Cinema Displays with 3,600-by-2,400-pixel resolution. But full support for resolution independence will be important at that point, or else toolbar icons could be minuscule.

Software: It might be too early, but I think Apple will be building some peer-to-peer networking technologies into Mac OS X. Then, instead of having a central file server, you could have each machine on a network contributing disk space to decentralized file store. You would no longer care where a file was, since all public files would seem to be local and would be gathered by Mac OS X from wherever on the network they actually were located. Plus, such technology could provide a way of backing up data invisibly in the background to this network storage area.

Apple News: Look for Apple to increase support for wireless technologies in Macs in 2003. I expect to see AirPort cards and base stations that support 802.11b, 802.11a, and perhaps even 802.11g. Apple might even build Bluetooth support onto every Macintosh motherboard to eliminate cables, and that might allow them to switch to wireless keyboards and mice.

Market News: Let's go for broke and call 2003 as the year that Apple releases a cell phone, perhaps on their own or perhaps in conjunction with another manufacturer. Why bother? Cell phone interfaces are generally lousy, many don't work well with the Mac in terms of transferring data or acting as a conduit for Internet access, and people are willing to buy new expensive cell phones that offer some interesting combination of features or form factor.

Glenn Fleishman, Columnist, Seattle Times
Hardware: A quad-processor Power Mac and Xserve with 2GHz PowerPC processors.

Software: iHub, a program that offers workflow tools for managing all kinds of digital inputs and outputs, from scanners, DV camcorders, and digital cameras to ink-jet printers, digital video recorders, Web galleries, and other formats, replacing several stand-alone, nonintegrated programs.

Apple News: Apple's commitment to processors other than those from Motorola powering Macintosh systems, while still not opening the OS to commodity hardware.

Market News: The improvements for enterprise support in OS X 10.2 will cause an enormous increase in sales, especially of Titanium PowerBooks, to previously untouchable corporations.

Bruce Fraser, Macworld Contributing Editor
Hardware: G5-powered Macs -- but not in early 2003.

Software: I'm under NDA (but it will have something to do with processing pixels).

Apple News: The existence of a well-documented OS X developers' kit for peripherals vendors.

Market News: Macs that can't boot from OS 9.

Shawn King, Host, "Your Mac Life"
Hardware: Upgraded and redesigned Power Mac towers. They'll have a different look and a whole new motherboard.

Software: It will be a series of product upgrades -- Final Cut Pro 4, iTunes 4, iMovie 3, and so forth that will continue to extend Apple's industry lead in those sectors.

Apple News: Profit, profit, profit. The Apple Stores will start making buckets of money and Apple will look healthier across the board. Wall Street will still ignore the company, though.

Market News: All of the above.

Ted Landau, Macworld Contributing Editor
Hardware: I'm counting on a new digital peripheral from Apple this year (maybe more than one). Either a much-enhanced iPod, or something totally new (perhaps a device that works with Apple's Inkwell software). In second place is the arrival of a G5 Mac. At the very least, there should be some new motherboard designs that help justify why Apple gave up on OS 9 booting.

Software: I expect Apple to release a much-enhanced AppleWorks and OS X 10.3. Both of these are at the top of my list. I'm also hopeful that QuarkXPress for OS X makes it out the door in 2003.

Apple News: Apple's "Switch" ads and other attempts to increase its market share finally pay off: Apple's market share will noticeably increase. OS X adoption also accelerates.

Market News: Same as the Apple news.

Tom Negrino, Macworld Contributing Editor
Hardware: More consumer gear: either a Tivo- or ReplayTV-like digital video recorder that lets you use your Mac as outboard storage, or an Apple-branded handheld that combines the functions of an iPod, cell phone, and PDA -- possibly both, in partnership with other companies, such as Phillips and Sony Ericsson.

Software: QuarkXPress for OS X. Toward the end of the year, possibly Microsoft Office 11.

Apple News: I have no good answer here.

Market News: OS X will become the platform of choice for people and companies looking for an alternative to the Microsoft hegemony, especially larger companies that didn't get on board the new Microsoft forced-upgrades licensing plans that took effect last fall. As those companies that chose not to upgrade from Office 97 have to replace those desktops, they'll look increasingly to OS X as a credible alternative on both the desktop-application side and in the server arena.

Stephan Somogyi, Macworld Contributing Editor
Hardware: Most impressive Macintosh hardware will be if Apple ships something with an IBM 970 in it. I do, however, have high hopes for more digital-hub hardware, something with the coolness of the iPod but in a new genre. Perhaps an Apple personal video recorder? An Apple PDA looks more likely with the release of the Dell Axim, though it's unclear to me whether Apple would take the iPod in the direction of a PDA or whether it'd want a stand-alone device.

Software: With the growing acceptance of OS X as a Unix platform, I expect to see more developers looking at the Mac as a platform in general, so we might see completely new apps appearing. Some of the more interesting growth in the Mac market is in the enterprise space with the apparent success of Xserve.

Apple News: Sustained profitability plus growth would be good.

Market News: Market-share growth beyond 4 to 5 percent worldwide, if Apple can pull it off. In addition, Apple needs to grow the OS X-install base within the overall Mac market. Going past, say, the 50 percent mark would be quite noteworthy.

Franklin N. Tessler, Macworld Contributing Editor
Hardware: I think that we'll see another very cool "digital lifestyle" device, perhaps a PDA and cell phone combo that syncs really nicely with the Mac.

Software: An OS X version of QuarkXPress.

Apple News: One of Apple's top three executives will leave the company.

Market News: Market share will show some growth late in the year.

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Beastie Boys Poster
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