In our tech-centered Web world, a hack is usually a bad thing - bringing up images of shadowed evil-doers aiming to break into computers or networks, looking to gain access to things not theirs, or instead, a hack is sometimes seen as a quick and dirty version or update to software - and not a good one at that. But in the world of media and reporting, a hack can instead mean "one who works hard at boring tasks" or "a mediocre and disdained writer" (Source: thefreedictionary.com).

My old editor in chief from days at the Daily Cal in Berkeley, Ryan Tate, has started up a new blog called "The Hack", self-described as "a journalist with delusions of computer science." While the blog's just getting off the ground, Ryan's already posted a few stories of note, including a get rich quick scheme building off my idea of converting .PST files to GMail-compatible mailboxes, a new killer feature for RSS feeds, and 7 suggestions to improve Google Docs.

While he and I overlapped terms at the Daily Cal, from 1996 to 1998, Ryan and I tag-teamed on some of the earliest editions of the newspaper's Web site, saw the paper and its reporters (including the two of us) repeatedly recognized in state-wide competitions, and occasionally clashed politically, as two aggressive, opinionated people working closely together will do. Now that time has healed those wounds, we're both vocally rooting each other on from the sidelines, and I hope this self-proclaimed "hack" keeps his blog on course.

Check it out at http://thehack.webmasher.com/.

It's been too long since my last entries on The Apple Blog - about a month. Obviously, I've been using my Mac every single day, so there are plenty of things to write about. Today, two small items I use frequently were highlighted: iAlarm, a program that gets your Mac to act like an alarm clock, interacting with iTunes, and a desktop utility called EarthDesk, which makes your background look like a real-time satellite image of the Earth.

I recommend both for any Mac users who like good software.

You can see both posts on The Apple Blog at iAlarm Wakes Me Up to iTunes and The World Is Your ... Desktop. Enjoy.

Obviously, given last night's post, I've been giving some thought to upgrading my car. But as much as I dream, I'm honestly nowhere near making that kind of jump. Today, I belatedly took my car into the shop, and found it will cost more than $2,000 to get it back to speed, and while that astronomical number had me momentarily thinking it'd be best to drive it off the face of a cliff toward an unpopulated area, I recognized a "small" financial hit now will save me money in the long run.

As noted yesterday, the car was telling me to "Service Engine Soon", was reporting "Low Coolant" and the "Brake" light tended to be on longer than usual, even when the brake was released. Combined with the oil last being changed over 4,000 miles ago, it was time to take it in.

I started the expedition by putting water in the car, solving the immediate issue. Dropping the car off at Midas, they took a look and found:

1. The Service Engine Soon light was coming on due to a bad O2 sensor.
2. The Brake light was coming on as my front brake pads were extremely low.
3. The Low Coolant light was happening all too frequently as it turns out the radiator's cracked.

Add on an old belt here, a worn-out spark plug there, and pretty soon, you're talking about a pretty serious sum of money - just enough to basically make my eTrade investment unprofitable, once you take out the government's share of profits for taxes.

Given Midas takes Sundays off, I definitely won't be seeing my junky old dirty car until at least Monday night. Hopefully, although this is certainly inconvenient, and expensive, it'll be better to put $2k into this heap of metal and grease now than putting $20k, $30k or $40k into something right away. Nothing like a spur of the moment big decision to foul things up long term, after all.

But if this keeps happening... the only thing you'll be hearing about my 1998 Mercury Tracer will be in the past tense.

Doesn't it say... Buy me?
Since 1999, I've had one boring, American-built, cheap, not impressive, dirty, car. As I've watched the miles pile up, to more than 130,000 at this point, the car's held up, for the most part, but in the go-go Silicon Valley, I'm simply not measuring up. It seems, incorrectly or not, that everybody else has a nice car. A BMW. A Lexus. A Porsche. Or they got kids and traded up to an SUV, often a massive bulk of a beast with all the bells and whistles, including satellite radio, GPS, in-seat DVD players... you name it.

Meanwhile, the only "upgrade" my car's had in the last 8 years was when I put in a 10-disc CD changer in the trunk no less than six months after I got it. Wheeee....

At this moment, my car's sitting parked on the street, in the gutter, appropriately. If I turned it on, two warning lights would display: "Service Engine Soon" and "Low Coolant". Service engine soon, huh? How soon? Two days? Two weeks? What happens if I don't?

On two separate occasions in the last few months, that light came on, only to go off again by the time I reached a service station, and they couldn't do anything. Flipping brilliant.

So, I've started to poke around the Web and look for cars I can't afford. I can rationalize ditching my 1998 Mercury Tracer. I can even think about making monthly payments for a car again, after years of not having to do so. I might even stomach a down payment, if I take money out of eTrade. But the sticker shock is a sight to behold. It's around $40k to get anything I really want, like an Audi A4 Convertible or a BMW 3-series. And yes, I know maybe I should get a Prius or a Hybrid Camry, but that sounds boring, and after a decade of boring, cheap, cars, I am ready to waste my money and have some fun, before that window closes.

So... I want a nice-looking car, with deep dark blue coloring. I want a car that has GPS navigation and Sirius/XM Radio pre-installed. I want a car that won't have the brake light on the first 10 minutes I drive it every morning like mine does now. I want a car that doesn't look like I am the hired help every time I visit Palo Alto, Woodside or Menlo Park. I want to have a car that's as good looking as my MacBook Pro or flat screen TV. A car that's more iPhone than rotary phone, one that's good enough I'll have to park two parking spaces away from anyone to worry about dings.

Think I should do it? Part of me wants to hit the buy button and damn the consequences.