Tom’s Hardware has an excellent article on the technology of 1.8″ iPod hard drives and their increasing capacity. Hard drives are now being produced in 100 GB sizes, which may very well find themselves in new iPods in the near future (although not too soon, as to steal thunder from the iPhone…). Other details noted include transfer rates, access times, and power consumption — all the gritty specs you’d need for building a low-power 1.8″ hard drive based device.

One very surprising fact I learned is that the tiny ZIF connectors on these new drives are rated for a mere 20 insertion (plug/unplug) cycles, which isn’t very many if you plan on moving the hardware around a lot. If you own a 1.8″-to-larger IDE adapter, you may want to consider leaving the ribbon cable connected to the adapter at all times. The article is quite a few pages long, but well worth a read.

For the graphic designers and Photoshop enthusiasts, here are a few resources for identifying fonts:

WhatTheFont
WhatTheFont is far and away my favorite tool in the bunch primarilty because it’s automated, fast, and shockingly accurate. Just upload an image (the more contrast, the better) or provide a URL and their software will match characters and, more often than not, the correct font name.

WhatTheFont Forum
If fully automated solutions are of no help, you can always call upon others in the industry who deal with typefaces every day. Someone out there knows about your font, and the WhatTheFont Forum is one of the best places to get a good response.

Identifont
Identifont helps you find fonts by asking multiple questions about the font you’re looking for. It’s a unique approach that, in my usage, works about 30 to 40 percent of the time. As a last resort, it may very well come through, despite it’s apparently limited font selected.

I normally try to keep posts here on the topic of technology, but I felt I had to mention an outstanding event I attended…

Just recently, my fiancee and I happened to hear on the radio that comedian Brian Regan would be performing at the theater downtown here in Billings, MT. Both of us have been huge fans for several years, so we picked up two tickets that very evening.

Expecting Regan’s regular routine, we were surprised to be presented with an entirely new set of jokes which kept us laughing for hours, to the point where our cheeks hurt afterwards. There were so many that I can only remember a few, and am eagerly awating a new DVD release or TV special in the near future.

Brian Regan had never performed in Billings before, but his clean and energetic humor was met with standing applause, prompting an encore with several of his best-known jokes. Overall, it was an experience not to be missed, and one that was well worth the ticket price. Check the tour dates — if he’s performing in your area, be sure not to pass up the great opportunity.

For the past few years I’d heard the term “sub-pixel rendering” in various font and graphics related writings, and wasn’t really sure what the fuss was about. Today, because I’m a total geek, I read up on the technology and was surprised to find what a difference it makes in display clarity. The crux of sub-pixel rendering is using the three red, green, and blue elements that make up a single pixel to effectively triple the horizontal resolution of an LCD display. More resolution in the same physical space lets you show more data, and thus render more clearly. Wikipedia’s definition left much to be desired, however Steve Gibson has an outstanding page — and freeware utility — clearly explaining the subject. What doesn’t that guy know?

Know how sub-pixel rendering works, it’s easy to see how it could also be applied to graphics and gaming. Where an edge is computed, the resulting line could be shown more accurately (as far as the human eye is concerned) by rendering with respect to the sub-pixel elements of the display. Of course, the technology doesn’t work nearly as well on CRT displays, but for LCDs, it appears to provide ultra-crisp images and text. I wonder if Apple plans to make use of this awesome technology in the next revision of Mac OS X, or perhaps on the iPod and iPhone displays…