tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61574186799447996912012-01-21T14:57:59.562-05:00This blog is intended to give me a place to comment on things which strike my fancy, hence the title. Being a software geek, many of these items will be of a technical nature.Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.comBlogger1201100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-5165880597634353892012-01-21T14:56:00.001-05:002012-01-21T14:57:59.570-05:00

An acquaintance of mine has been roped into providing computer tech support for a family friend and is entirely too polite to complain about the situation to the correct people to prevent a reoccurrence. I've got friends who are mechanics or at least very mechanically inclined who face similar problems in their field.Hearing about the headaches associated with this has brought back memories of

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-16266731245106801212010-08-07T21:44:00.004-04:002010-08-07T22:06:30.506-04:00

One of the many things I use my iPod Touch for is to store databases of information I want access to on the go such as books I have, books I'm on the lookout for, car maintenance histories, etc. Bento fits the bill nicely for my purposes and there's a Mac version which allows you to synchronize your databases between a Mac desktop or laptop and your mobile device.It's a full featured database

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-30183717934596357432009-10-11T22:43:00.003-04:002009-10-11T23:03:49.559-04:00

A while back I made a post questioning the hype surrounding Cloud Computing. Since that time, I've read a number of articles which support this sentiment.Since last week's outage at Microsoft's Danger subsidiary, a number of articles like this one have been written questioning the security of data in cloud services. Personally, I trust my incentive to ensure adequate backups much more than I

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-85623523834190423382009-09-25T21:06:00.003-04:002009-09-25T21:09:26.313-04:00

Wow. I was lucky to get 4 out of 10 on this really tough word quiz. It features words from the 14th through 17th centuries. I feel like such a Jobbernowl.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-54104007126663935902009-09-16T21:19:00.004-04:002009-09-16T21:49:37.701-04:00

I'm relieved to report my enthusiasm for the iPod Touch as a replacement for the long line of Palm PDAs continues unabated. This little device continues to amaze me.I managed to find this very useful article which helped me get secondary calendars in Google Calendar syncing with the iPod Touch. That was really the last piece of the PDA puzzle I needed to solve.Tonight I downloaded the free

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-6474716321967632302009-08-26T23:57:00.007-04:002009-08-27T00:46:15.439-04:00

I've finally settled upon using my iPod Touch as the best PDA replacement device for my Palm. Having used Palm PDAs since I bought my first one at the employee price working for U.S. Robotics in 1996, I've come to rely heavily on a number of key applications to keep my life organized. Fortunately the iPhone application market has matured to the point that I could easily find replacements for

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-29650271524710460742009-07-04T15:44:00.002-04:002009-07-04T15:52:38.948-04:00

PC World has an interesting list of the 25 worst tech products of all time here. I agree with most of their choices. I think I might have added most MP3 players aside from the iPod and a general category for "stupid gadgets which derive power from a USB port". You've probably seen examples of this. Little Christmas trees complete with lights, humping dogs, etc. Just because something is

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-28693421568811739052009-06-27T16:47:00.004-04:002009-06-27T17:55:11.574-04:00

I just got back from a very pleasant afternoon at the Northern VA Summer Brewfest with a couple friends. A good time was enjoyed by all involved.Here are some of the beers which I enjoyed at the festival. I'm definitely right about the breweries. I'm not quite as sure about the actual beers I tasted from each. I was too busy enjoying the beer to take notes at the time.Stone Brewing Old

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-90732548658572234472009-06-25T22:14:00.004-04:002009-06-25T22:51:11.719-04:00

For a long time I've been listening to audiobooks to make commuting or exercise more bearable. Our local library used to have a great selection of audiobooks on cassette. The last time I checked, they were slowly transitioning to CD based audiobooks. I never borrowed a book in that form as they only seemed to stock recent bestsellers and I don't find most recent books as engrossing as some of

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-52362211184617955782009-06-25T21:45:00.007-04:002009-06-25T22:52:16.357-04:00

My old bluetooth mouse, a Logitech which I really loved, recently developed a problem which caused it to skip erratically. Needless to say this served to annoy me greatly. I finally got fed up with the problem and being a bit reluctant to get another mouse which might fail prematurely, purchased a Microsoft Notebook Mouse 5000 (see image above) instead. The new mouse is smaller than the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-45370977243460537582009-06-16T22:18:00.004-04:002009-06-16T23:03:29.342-04:00

I think I've reached my saturation point with the term cloud computing. It seems every few years someone comes up with a silly idea just because it's technically feasible and mysteriously everyone jumps on the bandwagon. I remember when push communications was the next big thing. Companies thought pushing data down to PC client software so it could be displayed as a screensaver was clever.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-39892855653239139292009-06-09T23:09:00.003-04:002009-06-09T23:26:24.612-04:00

In case anyone thinks I'm one of the Apple fanboys oblivious to their shortcomings, I'll disclose my top pet peeve about Macs. Their default HFS file system is case insensitive. This can cause problems for software engineers like me as some engineers use the file extension .C for C++ source code (I prefer .cpp myself) and .c for C source code. It's not out of the question to want to have

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-67430774316277339472009-06-05T00:14:00.002-04:002009-06-05T00:28:52.374-04:00

Unix celebrates its 40th anniversary this summer. This article from ComputerWorld recounts the history of the world's most productive OS.Not a week goes by that I'm not somehow reminded of just how powerful Unix is. Treating all devices as files was brilliant. Being able to combine command line utilities via I/O redirection gives an amazing amount of power and flexibility to the Unix/Linux

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-54815727957360848492009-06-04T23:42:00.003-04:002009-06-04T23:50:02.977-04:00

This quiz from the Pew Research Center is designed to test your knowledge of people and events in the news. I missed one question out of twelve which means I performed better than 82% of the general public. What's even more depressing is how the various age groups stack up. Young people perform much worse on this quiz than geezers like me. It makes me want to go read a newspaper. I guess we

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-57783742117699128682009-05-30T17:39:00.002-04:002009-06-04T23:50:31.350-04:00

I took another of those silly quizes to find out what type of beer I supposedly am. It told me I'm a local micro-brew. Whew! I was afraid I'd be one of those tasteless mass produced beers.Which Type of Beer are You Test from Dumb Spot

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-55734286457939745752009-05-18T23:01:00.002-04:002009-05-18T23:02:22.660-04:00

What's more manly than a pizza cutter? Why a pizza cutter shaped like a power tool, of course!

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-70763613706290586132009-05-04T08:20:00.003-04:002009-05-04T08:36:48.339-04:00

One complaint my wife had was after the data restoration I spent much of the weekend on, all of her photos ended up with yesterday's date. This causes her problems locating photos because while she can typically remember the approximate date when she took a picture, she always can't recall for certain what she named the directory. Recently she's taken to my simple approach of prefacing the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-84189233113053183552009-05-04T08:10:00.003-04:002009-05-04T08:17:28.247-04:00

Last night while poking about the web in my typical pseudorandom fashion, I found a new tool which may help prepare for the next time Windows decides not to boot. TestDisk is a tool designed to run under multiple OSes which can perform lots of handy data recovery functions including repairing and restoring an NTFS boot sector.It turns out it's already available on the System Rescue CD I've been

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-84073618102937366942009-05-03T21:16:00.004-04:002009-05-04T08:08:18.462-04:00

Despite the fact I made the switch to a Mac about 6 years ago, Windows still manages to be a thorn in my side from time to time. Yesterday morning my wife discovered that her XP laptop which had been working Friday night had decided not to boot. What was even more entertaining was it decided to display a completely blank screen so there was no clue what was causing the boot to fail. What's

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-1690491604326541652009-04-20T23:47:00.003-04:002009-04-20T23:59:22.758-04:00

One of the things I've always dreaded about switching phones the laborious process of entering the phone numbers of friends and family members. I've got all those in my Mac Address Book so why can't I sync it straight to my phone? I've gotten used to doing so with my Palm Centro but wasn't sure it was easily accomplished using my old Razr. Apple comes to the rescue again. It turns out they've

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-9675304553376183122009-04-12T22:57:00.006-04:002009-04-12T23:27:41.635-04:00

The phone portion of my Palm Centro has been slowly dying for the past few months. The signal strength varies wildly over time. Occasionally I'll look at the Centro's status display and see the full 4 bars indicating a strong signal. Minutes later at the same location it may show a single bar or worse yet, the dread "SOS Service Only" message. A visit to Google indicates that this is a very

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-61395188587744164162009-03-28T15:45:00.003-04:002009-03-28T16:13:17.044-04:00

I'm doing my monthly offsite backups and am seriously frustrated by the limitations of the FAT32 file system again. FAT32 is something of a de facto standard since most external hard drives and USB flash storage devices come pre-formatted with FAT32. However FAT32 carries with it the limitation that the size of an individual file may not grow beyond 4 GB. Many backup programs don't handle this

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-17218621461031391512009-03-28T00:19:00.002-04:002009-03-28T00:47:21.544-04:00

Every time I think I've learned all of Vim's tricks, it manages to surprise me with some new feature. There are two things I've discovered recently which have made it more enjoyable to use.The first is Vim's ability to edit files on remote systems which can be reached via scp or ftp. Since I frequently need to edit files on embedded Linux systems which don't have X11 installed, this feature is

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-83773757660815694402009-02-28T22:13:00.003-05:002009-02-28T22:31:41.280-05:00

I've been learning Python at work and I have to admit that it's slowly winning me over.I was skeptical at first. I've been a low level programmer (firmware, diagnostics, operating systems, device drivers, etc) for most of my lengthy career. A mixture of C and assembly language has served me well for most of that time with a little shell scripting thrown in for good measure. When I started my

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-8315152895447677352009-01-28T23:03:00.004-05:002009-01-28T23:21:08.585-05:00

On top of the several inches of snow we had yesterday, we had a lovely coating of 1/2" of ice overnight. That gave me a very slippery path to take the dog for her morning walk. Fortunately I'd picked up a pair of YakTrax in anticipation of just such an ice storm.YakTrax attach easily to the bottom of your shoes and feature coiled wires to provide traction. They did a great job, keeping me from

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-69429797828573608212009-01-25T17:23:00.004-05:002009-01-25T18:16:14.109-05:00

I just watched part of the first recording from the Neuros OSD (a Linux based DVR) my wife got me for Christmas. What a cool little device! I'm serious about the little part... it's only about 5.5 inches square and just 1.25 inches tall. Just check out the image. The device itself isn't much bigger than the small remote included. It records programs onto SD or compact flash cards. There's

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-25655228983765135052009-01-20T21:16:00.004-05:002009-01-20T21:38:33.342-05:00

Here's a picture of my latest obsession. I used to have a 1993 Corvette AKA a C4 (the fourth generation of Corvettes). After 5 years with it, I decided I wanted something a bit more refined. The old one was noisy and more than bit uncomfortable. I'd resigned myself to the fact that sports cars had to be uncomfortable. Then over the holidays I had a talk with a friend of my uncle's who has a

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-54824785717370671732009-01-10T20:56:00.003-05:002009-01-10T21:05:04.851-05:00

This quiz was borrowed from my friend Laura Goodin. It pegged me as a "Dedicated Reader". Given my many stacks of books around the house, that seems pretty accurate.What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-37285506186381444722009-01-01T22:01:00.002-05:002009-01-01T22:14:06.026-05:00

My neck is sore from so much head shaking over the Zune freeze problem. I would have hoped that the development teams at Microsoft would have held regular code reviews which should have caught a glaring error like this one. I understand why they may not have done so. It's quite hard to get people to review your code if company procedures don't demand it. This is especially true in consumer

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-26028392614511563182008-12-29T21:51:00.006-05:002008-12-29T23:04:36.243-05:00

I finally got our new Epson Workforce 600 all-in-one printer working properly today. It wasn't an easy installation by any stretch of the imagination. Their setup software isn't what I'd call user friendly. I was close to having it work on several occasions but something always went awry. The most annoying problem was when the printer found the WiFi network during setup and allowed me to

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-37739761185111227602008-12-22T21:47:00.006-05:002008-12-22T22:10:38.707-05:00

Last week I finally got fed up with the numerous quirks exhibited by the cheap flash only MP3 player which will remain nameless (suffice it to say I should have never strayed away from the Apple fold for price alone) and ordered a refurbished iPod Touch. I figured I could use it as a light MP3 player when I was exercising or walking the dog. Plus it gives me the ability to play with some of the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-79467976809860445332008-12-02T22:39:00.002-05:002008-12-02T22:54:08.946-05:00

According to this article at least some politicians are aware of the problems posed by NASA's steadily dwindling budget. With the economy as strained as it is now, there's very little chance they'll get the increase they so desperately need. The problem isn't widely understood either. According to this article, most Americans grossly overestimate how large a part of the nation's budget NASA

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-69132546641347465492008-11-27T15:36:00.002-05:002008-11-27T15:38:45.454-05:00

We watched the finale of The Shield last night, a fact which fills me bittersweet happiness. It was a thoroughly enjoyable series. It's hard to believe that it's been seven years since it started. I'm going to miss marveling at the havoc Vic Mackey and the rest of the Strike Team managed to wreak each week.The writing on the series was amazing, especially when contrasted with the drivel that

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-81946398514768326282008-10-26T10:33:00.002-04:002008-10-26T10:51:05.856-04:00

Just in case anyone doubted that the web is a dangerous place, this article discusses the very real possibility of getting a virus just by visiting a web site with scripting enabled. See, it happens to the ubergeeks among us too. ;-)The safest way by far to browse the web is using Firefox with the NoScript plug-in installed. I keep scripting disabled by default and only enable it on sites I

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-4995581537682043232008-10-13T20:47:00.005-04:002009-03-28T00:10:24.015-04:00

A lot of people I've talked to don't seem to explore features added by new releases of their software. A case in point is the smart keyword feature of Firefox. It allows you to enter a quick search on the web site of your choosing just by entering a few works in the Firefox's address bar.An example will probably make this a bit clearer. I frequently visit the Internet Movie Database to look up

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-58925476868645630962008-09-30T21:39:00.004-04:002008-10-01T06:58:26.073-04:00

After a few visits with a friend who has recently suffered from a major stroke, I think it's a good idea to pass along some information because strokes are not well understood by the public at large.It's important for people to learn to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. If you or your family members don't recognize the fact that you're having a stroke, you may not get treatment quickly enough

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-32170021734892963742008-08-24T13:53:00.005-04:002008-08-24T14:20:34.285-04:00

One of the first Leopard features I started using was Stacks. I used it to replace the program launcher I'd been using. The Dock is a great way to organize your most frequently used apps but since it also gets populated with an icon for every program currently running on your Mac, it can get a bit cluttered. Fortunately Stacks offers a great way to tame that unruly list of icons.Leopard comes

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-18296043859077300052008-08-24T13:04:00.003-04:002008-08-24T13:39:30.258-04:00

We went to see Chris Isaak earlier this week and had an absolute blast. Even though I've seen him perform before, I'm still amazed at how good a show he puts on. Chris set the tone early on with a trip around the theater using a wireless mike, singing the entire time. Not many artists go to such lengths to connect with an audience. Introductions to songs were laced with lots of humor. Chris

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-31369911847371825272008-08-18T21:19:00.004-04:002008-08-18T21:27:43.066-04:00

I found out tonight that a close friend of mine suffered a stroke last week. He recognized the symptoms and was able to describe them to the doctors before his speech was too affected. Knowing how bright he is and how much he reads, it doesn't surprise me that he'd taken the time to learn this valuable information.The Stroke Association has a list of symptoms which everyone should commit to

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-48947246716036537412008-08-02T18:24:00.006-04:002008-08-02T18:46:51.762-04:00

A friend of mine just took the Mac plunge so I've been sending him links about useful Mac software I use most frequently. I thought it might be nice to collect all those recommendations here.ClamXav is a high performance virus scanner for Macs. With the Mac's steadily increasing market share, it's becoming a more attractive target for malware authors.TNEF's Enough is a handy little utility

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-62856617486113339572008-07-25T21:54:00.005-04:002008-07-25T22:16:05.093-04:00

I'm a long time vi/vim user. I don't know that I'd recommend anyone who doesn't already know vi go through the heavy learning curve necessary to become proficient at using vi. There are a number of gui editors which are more easier for new users to learn. However vim (vi improved) is available on very nearly any computing platform you might use. I also find that vim allows me to accomplish

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-3741553216373225512008-07-20T18:15:00.003-04:002008-07-20T18:34:28.170-04:00

I've managed to recover a fair number of files from my stepdaughter's failing hard disk. You might recall I used a program called dd_rescue to do a raw copy of the sectors of the failing hard drive to an image file on a larger USB hard disk. That was important because the old hard disk seemed to be getting progressively worse, as hard disks which have experienced a partial crash are wont to

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-90511451934866627442008-07-20T17:15:00.005-04:002008-07-20T18:10:24.799-04:00

I spent part of this morning doing some remote troubleshooting of a problem my in-laws were having with their broadband connection. Their broadband provider supplied a no-name router. Somehow it had decided that my wife's laptop had made too many outbound connections and therefore must have a virus. Once having decided this (and quite erroneously so), this poorly designed router continued

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-84639320837675277832008-07-06T22:53:00.003-04:002008-07-06T23:33:35.974-04:00

I've been trying to recover the data off a failing hard drive for a family member. I've found a few programs which claim to be able to do just that but they always get hung up by the numerous retries the drive keeps doing in the failing areas. Then I came up with the idea of using the dd command to make a copy of drive image which I could then manipulate having gotten the retries out of the way

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-24047596979845162122008-07-04T13:24:00.002-04:002008-07-04T13:48:22.605-04:00

I've long thought that most CEOs of large companies aren't worth the huge compensation they receive. Sure, there are exceptions. Jack Welch at GE always managed to maximize shareholder value. John Chambers at Cisco seems to be one of the few who manage to do acquisitions which make sense. But for every exception, it seems there's also an example of a CEO who didn't perform so well for either

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-49834435684077736432008-06-21T19:03:00.002-04:002008-06-21T19:37:32.535-04:00

I just got back from spending a very enjoyable afternoon sampling a variety of beers at the Northern Virginia Summer BrewFest. It has helped fill the void left by the fact that Old Dominion Brewery is no longer able to host a Beer Festival behind their brewery as they did for many years. I had a lot of fun at their beer festivals over the years so I'm happy to see someone step up to carry on

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-5087329110393771062008-06-17T21:01:00.002-04:002008-06-17T21:09:21.248-04:00

Ugh! I just read that Hollywood is making a movie out of another of my least favorite cartoons from my youth. Astro Boy was one of several cartoons I never cared for as a kid. Speed Racer was another and they've already made a movie of that, albeit a movie I have absolutely no desire to see. What's next, Marine Boy or Kimba the White Lion?

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-49215566848190009802008-06-15T23:11:00.003-04:002008-06-15T23:34:22.736-04:00

We went to see The Incredible Hulk today which I enjoyed much more than I expected to. One of the previews we saw was a trailer for the upcoming movie, The Clone Wars. I couldn't get past the strange looking animation. I've come to expect realistic looking animation in recent movies. Movies like Beowulf and The Incredible Hulk have used very believable CGI characters which sets the bar pretty

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-38894057337707069892008-06-15T16:05:00.002-04:002008-06-15T16:29:46.153-04:00

My wife is seeing to it that I'm having a great Father's Day even though neither of the kids can be here this year. She made me a great omelette breakfast this morning. The omelette itself was incredibly fluffy and tasty and was accompanied by homemade home fries. That more than made up for the fact that I had had to postpone mowing the lawn until this morning because of rain yesterday.Then

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-4973600899485029162008-06-02T22:47:00.003-04:002008-06-02T23:07:37.854-04:00

Today I was working on some old code at work. I discovered at least one duplicate include file which is a personal pet peeve. It's far too easy to allow multiple include files get out of sync so you have different versions for different source files. What I needed was a quick way of finding all the duplicated include files within this project directory (and subdirectories). It turns out

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-34325507549647677302008-06-01T22:45:00.004-04:002008-12-11T19:51:10.949-05:00

I've used a Palm PDA without interruption since the first one was introduced in 1996. I was working for U.S. Robotics which owned Palm at the time and the employee pricing helped me decide to take the plunge into PDA life. After all these years, I've come to rely heavily upon a few key PDA applications (in addition to the standard PDA applications). I use SplashID to securely store the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-81072920995902111542008-05-04T08:44:00.011-04:002008-05-04T13:01:22.250-04:00

One of the most useful features of the Linux, Unix, MacOS, and to a lesser extent Windows (more on that later) is the concept of I/O redirection. In this discussion, we'll restrict ourselves to the pipe form of redirection which is invoked by the vertical bar character "|". This tells the command interpreter to take all output from the first part of the command and send (or pipe) it to the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-67245288729670805862008-04-11T23:48:00.003-04:002008-04-12T00:09:27.737-04:00

Here's an interesting article about Ernest Hemingway. The part I find most interesting occurs on page 4 where Hemingway that the symbolism which English teachers so often attribute to stories is not premeditated. He states "No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in".This quote supports my long held belief that the symbolism English teachers

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-38698180291228393292008-03-23T13:00:00.003-04:002008-03-23T13:46:07.203-04:00

When I was a kid, my favorite part of Sunday mornings was reading the comics. I relive that experience in a fashion with web comics. Here are a few of my favorites.Dilbert - This is the grand old man of geek comics. Though it goes through occasional slow times, it still brings a smile to my face pretty consistently.Calvin and Hobbes - This is one of the funniest comics ever to appear in

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-16382794889422564412008-03-21T09:02:00.005-04:002008-12-11T19:51:11.120-05:00

I've been looking for the perfect (or at least a reasonably good) laptop mouse for a few years now. A wired mouse is acceptable on a desktop computer because they're usually set up in a fixed location; with a little thought you can create a comfortable environment for both keyboard and mouse to coexist. Laptops are another matter entirely. I've got a laptop desk which is really little more

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-43883306239919765182008-03-12T21:51:00.002-04:002008-03-12T22:20:31.230-04:00

I've just abandoned my use of the Firefox add-on Google Browser Sync after it deleted all my bookmarks for the second time. I've used this for a while and hadn't had problems. About 2 months ago I added a third computer to be synchronized. Instead of taking my large collection of bookmarks from the two original computers in the sync group, it deleted all of those and replaced them with the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-15071159999444801122008-03-03T22:41:00.003-05:002008-03-03T23:17:45.074-05:00

I saw the movie Cloverfield recently with a couple friends recently. After looking at the reviews on IMDB, I find my opinion varies wildly from most reviewers. It's probably good to hear all points of view before spending money on this movie. I wish I'd seen a dissenting opinion so I hadn't wasted money on a full price ticket.I found the silly shaky camera work for which the movie is infamous

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-11951824356890002662008-03-03T22:26:00.002-05:002008-03-03T22:33:41.428-05:00

The Register has an online poll which allows you to vote on your favorite SciFi movie quote. I liked the results since a quote from my favorite SciFi movie was winning when I voted.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-52992153263450746162008-03-01T21:36:00.003-05:002008-03-01T21:57:16.030-05:00

I took the quiz below which supposedly can tell what science fiction writer you're most like. It says I'm most like Gregory Benford, probably because he's a working scientist and being an engineer, I tend to have a fairly scientific approach to most things. While I'm not sure I would have picked him out of all the science fiction writers, I can't say I'm displeased by the comparison. I've

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-84801609006203190132008-02-10T17:53:00.000-05:002008-02-10T19:14:27.149-05:00

I've been struggling trying to find a decent solution for backing up my wife's laptop computer. The program I'd been using ended up not backing up some key files. We almost ended up losing all her photos when the hard disk in her laptop started dying recently. It's never a good sign when you hear clicking noises when you try to list a directory. Fortunately the use of SpinRite and a little

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-54024593882499912972008-02-10T00:53:00.000-05:002008-02-10T01:10:10.196-05:00

Sorry if the headline made you think of people opening their lab coats and revealing far too much of themselves. I wanted to spread the word on one of my favorite podcasts, The Naked Scientists. This morning while walking the dog, I listened to an older episode and was amazed to find out it's possible to estimate the speed of light using just a microwave oven and a few slices of bread with

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-48694053624494481942008-02-03T23:54:00.000-05:002008-02-04T00:21:14.638-05:00

A relative called recently asking about her friend's laptop computer which was running slowly. Her friend had asked someone from the IT department at work how to make the laptop run quicker. The IT guy's response was to suggest they replace the hard disk with a faster model.This is wrong on so many levels that it makes my head hurt. First, the IT tech didn't ask any questions to determine what

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-13352257838876580692008-01-23T21:25:00.000-05:002008-01-23T22:13:12.020-05:00

I finally found an excuse to take the plunge and replace my aging Palm Tungsten T3. This is not a transition I make lightly. I've been using Palm PDAs since I bought the first Palm device introduced back in 1996, the Palm Pilot 1000. I got it for special employee pricing since I was working for U.S. Robotics. You may or may not remember that they owned Palm when the first Palm PDA was

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-91002250630623789002008-01-20T20:37:00.000-05:002008-01-20T21:12:26.210-05:00

I was watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home today for background noise while I was doing some post-resurrection work on my wife's laptop. While listening to the movie, I realized that Scotty has probably warped the thinking of engineering managers everywhere. If you think about the number of times Captain Kirk asked Scotty for an estimate of how long it will take to repair some critical system

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-68206741667879851562008-01-08T22:07:00.000-05:002008-01-08T22:34:34.342-05:00

I went to see I am Legend over the holiday weekend and I enjoyed it a lot. It differed from the book on several key points. As is the case with most movies based on books, I thought the book was better but the movie was awfully good as well. Will Smith really brings the role to life and as I re-read the book this week, I couldn't help but picture him as the hero.Richard Matheson's novels and

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-14698836691169266912007-12-31T08:41:00.000-05:002007-12-31T09:01:56.589-05:00

A recent article in the Washington Post about the Tech Boom in China makes me think that some investors have not learned their lesson from the last dot com meltdown. This time the errors are a bit more subtle than the glaring mistakes made by companies like the ill conceived Pets.com who decided that sending huge bags of pet food through the mail at prices competitive with the local stores was a

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-66234219893768035142007-12-31T07:38:00.000-05:002007-12-31T08:06:32.521-05:00

This article from the Washington Post highlights a problem which is bound to increase in frequency. It discusses the fact that Walmart has just cancelled their digital movie download service.When you lock yourself into some form of entertainment which makes use of DRM, you're at the mercy of the company providing the data/service to continue offering it. Now the people who have downloaded

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-61049071135922812392007-12-25T16:44:00.000-05:002007-12-25T17:10:07.144-05:00

This article on Security Mike's blog highlights an exploit which can allow a malicious web site to insert filters into your GMail account if you happen to be logged in while browsing. Since some of us use a number of Google's services such as iGoogle, this has the potential to catch a lot of people. You can avoid this by either avoiding malicious web sites (which can be tough to recognize in

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-67544877517352595062007-12-18T22:42:00.000-05:002007-12-18T23:16:23.646-05:00

I use the Thunderbird email client under Fedora at work. I've been searching for a different email client to use to retrieve my personal email since I prefer to keep those messages totally separate. After doing a bit of research, it looks like Evolution and Balsa are the two top email clients (aside from Thunderbird).I didn't find either to my liking. Evolution (at least the latest version

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-24361389501465357642007-12-18T22:29:00.000-05:002007-12-18T22:40:24.550-05:00

A friend of mine recently recommended iWork. I'd been pretty disappointed with Office for the Mac for a long time now. It occasionally changes fonts for no apparent reason. There are other severe quirks which make it annoying to use. I know there's a new version coming out but I've heard little to recommend it aside from the ribbon user interface. The new UI is great for new users since it

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-55654866389011037262007-12-09T13:06:00.000-05:002007-12-09T13:28:09.807-05:00

I'm reading a couple excellent books at the moment which I thought I'd pass along.During my commute, I'm listening to Spider Robinson's Callahan's Legacy. Whenever I read a new book by Spider or go back to re-read one of his older books, I'm always amazed at how good I feel while reading it and how I don't want the book to end. There are a handful of authors whose work makes me feel this way:

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-5900969282062069202007-12-09T12:40:00.000-05:002007-12-09T13:03:34.763-05:00

This post at the excellent HackADay web site discusses how the security of wireless keyboards has now been compromised. This makes it even easier for hackers to capture passwords and other information you type on your wireless keyboard. They don't need to risk physical access to install a hardware keyboard capture device or install software to perform the same function. They just need to set

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-63861011905150203422007-12-09T11:52:00.000-05:002007-12-09T12:27:18.082-05:00

Quite some time ago, Microsoft quietly added the ability to embed an alternate data stream in another file. This was ostensibly done to improve interoperability with other modern file systems such as Apple's HFS. The problem is that many of the command line and GUI utilities supplied with Windows don't support (or at least easily so) manipulation of these alternate data streams, making them an

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-48958619439388796632007-12-09T11:05:00.001-05:002007-12-09T11:30:51.479-05:00

Since I do a lot of technical reading in my spare time, I find myself becoming more and more interested in computer security. One thing I'm particularly concerned about is is the use of usernames and passwords alone for authentication on web sites which contain any of my financial information. A while back while listening to the always entertaining and informative Security Now! podcast, Steve

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-7243819016068324542007-12-02T12:42:00.000-05:002007-12-02T12:52:29.967-05:00

A new post on the Blogger in Draft blog indicates that Blogger, the service this blog and many others depend upon, may soon support OpenID for identity verification for posting. I've been following discussions about OpenID, including one on the excellent Security Now! podcast and have been anxious to give it a try. It appears Blogger may afford my first real opportunity so I've signed up for a

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-26268766332484903652007-12-02T12:22:00.000-05:002007-12-02T12:39:02.975-05:00

There's a new method of running IE (Internet Explorer) on your Mac. Now you may ask yourself, what do I need IE on a Mac? It's only really useful for visiting those annoying web sites which refuse to display properly in Safari or Firefox for the Mac. Yes, you can also download a Firefox add-on called User Agent Switcher to lie about your browser user agent, but that won't emulate all the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-34820178552468202322007-11-26T21:58:00.000-05:002007-11-26T22:05:35.967-05:00

LifeHacker has an interesting article about a free Windows disk image tool called DriveImage XML. It's reasonably quick and offers the capability to restore a disk to an earlier state.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-25395071492250281512007-11-23T11:55:00.000-05:002008-12-11T19:51:11.574-05:00

My uncle let me take his 1973 Vette for a spin yesterday. Boy did that bring back memories! This body style was my dream car back in high school. Back then I was driving a 1969 Chevelle which was a fun car to drive in its own right but there's something different about a Corvette. These days I have my own... a 1993 which is a beautiful car. Still, those cars you lust after while you're young

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-77921282692305191772007-11-19T21:34:00.001-05:002009-03-28T00:03:53.262-04:00

Sometimes it's handy to redirect the output of a Linux/Unix command into an editor. One reason to do this might be to try to weed out unwanted search pattern matches when running grep. Fortunately the Linux (and before that Unix) developers have anticipated this need. Editors like vi, vim, gvim, and gedit (and possibly others I'm not aware of) can all accept the output of a command as the "

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-72313545000996109132007-11-18T21:34:00.000-05:002007-11-18T21:38:36.916-05:00

I think the rating should be more like "Evil Genius". It must be all my posts about obscure Unix commands, eh?

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-75510003268272432682007-11-16T23:35:00.000-05:002007-11-16T23:47:05.661-05:00

Most of the longtime Unix users like me love grep. Regular expressions make the silly wildcards available in Windows seem completely underwhelming.One thing which I find makes grep even more useful is to configure it to highlight matching terms. Like most things I decide would be useful, a little poking about in the man pages shows that the Unix developers have anticipated my needs yet again.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-3045280849592409662007-11-16T23:17:00.000-05:002007-11-16T23:24:03.089-05:00

Earlier this week I walked into the lobby at work while it was pouring rain outside. The building management had placed little signs throughout the lobby to warn people to be careful of the wet floors. The thing I found strange about these signs is they had warnings printed in three languages - English, Spanish, and German. I can certainly understand why they chose the first two but for the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-42210943925979093982007-11-03T23:24:00.000-04:002007-11-03T23:26:22.146-04:00

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-69439185786477564662007-11-03T22:01:00.000-04:002007-11-03T22:06:55.289-04:00

One of my favorite SciFi authors, Rudy Rucker, has kindly released his latest novel called Postsingular under a Creative Commons license. This is a great way for people unfamiliar with Rudy's work to try it out. If you like it (and I'm sure most people will) please buy his earlier books. I like to keep my favorite authors gainfully employed because that means more good books for me to read.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-36774410876736471462007-10-23T21:32:00.000-04:002007-10-23T21:45:02.754-04:00

Oh no... another quiz is making the rounds of my friends. I ended up being an engineer. Big surprise there, eh? Which Star Trek: the Next Generation character are you?created with QuizFarm.com You scored as Geordi LaForgeYou are good-natured and quick thinking. You are good at figuring out puzzels and building things. Geordi LaForge 100%Data 87%William T. Riker

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-9364036609325114742007-10-21T19:36:00.000-04:002007-10-21T20:03:45.481-04:00

I was in the hospital visiting my grandmother this weekend. Last week she had fallen while trying to put on her shoes and broke her leg near the hip. Thank goodness it wasn't her hip as that's supposed to be much harder to recover from. So thanks to a metal pin and 3 screws installed Thursday, she's starting the long hard road to recovery. I was amazed that the physical therapist was able to

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-57052096111428393362007-10-17T20:45:00.000-04:002007-10-17T21:01:20.363-04:00

A couple months ago, my wife was reading the latest edition of the schedule of entertainment from our neighborhood community center. It's well worth doing because they always have some sort of program which we find entertaining. It turns out they had managed to attract one of my favorite new bands, Hazmat Modine, to perform near our house.You might have heard them on NPR about a year ago. I

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-76174192431200406642007-10-08T22:34:00.000-04:002007-10-08T22:43:57.191-04:00

I've got mixed feelings about scoring 60% on this Movie Freak test. I probably would have done better but they asked a lot of questions about the Godfather films and I've never been a big Godfather fan.60% Movie FreakSpeaking of movies, I'm looking forward to the upcoming release of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Blade Runner. Blade Runner is my favorite SciFi movie and I'm anxious to see

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-75554701390255273872007-10-07T22:37:00.000-04:002007-10-07T22:55:33.007-04:00

I've just finished listening to a Point of Inquiry podcast featuring Ann Druyan (widow of Carl Sagan). That would have been interesting in its own right but this episode also features Carl Sagan’s last public address for CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal).While I've always enjoyed Sagan's work, I found this speech particularly interesting. In it, he

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-48829516090859101132007-10-02T22:28:00.000-04:002007-10-02T23:16:49.922-04:00

I've just started listening to the Point of Inquiry podcast and have consequently been catching up on older episodes. The episode I was listening to today featured one of my favorite scientists, Bill Nye. Bill was making a case for improving the poor state of scientific literacy in this country. He was doing it with his usual enthusiasm and humor.With all the environmental challenges currently

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-79189071117623116352007-10-02T08:34:00.000-04:002007-10-02T08:59:32.343-04:00

The always entertaining LifeHack has an interesting article about How to Survive as the Family Tech Support Guy (or Gal). Most of us with more than a passing interest in technical matters get stuck in the role of tech support for family and friends from time to time. Sometimes this can be a rewarding experience but often it can be frustrating if expectations aren't set early.1) This probably

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-3340921086016439652007-09-10T21:28:00.000-04:002007-09-10T22:01:36.776-04:00

A few more pieces of advice occurred to me since I wrote the last post.1) Never accept counter-offers. The chances are pretty slim that the only reason you were changing jobs is money. An offer of more money or a change of titles probably won't fix all the problems which caused you to take the relatively drastic step of looking for a new job. While it's quite flattering to hear how your old

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-78126348000891315702007-09-08T17:32:00.000-04:002007-09-08T17:41:56.208-04:00

I found a better nerd test (see link below) and scored better on the computer categories than on the last one I took. I should hope so just passing my 30 year anniversary in the computer industry. I've worked with paper tape, punched cards, and core memory in my time. Now I'm using a laptop with more memory than the entire computer room with 3 mainframes which I first worked in. It's not

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-29390232160146809352007-09-03T10:47:00.000-04:002007-09-03T19:15:48.123-04:00

A long time ago I was given a bit of advice that has served me well over the years. An engineer with much more experience than I had at the time made the simple statement that "your company doesn't love you". What he was trying to say was there's only one person you can really count on to look out for your best interests and that's you. Over the years, I've refined that simple statement into a

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-3204898060856246032007-08-11T22:40:00.001-04:002007-08-11T22:42:08.831-04:00

Stephen King has written the best article about J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series I've seen to date. Critics seem to lose sight of the fact a big reason which people read is for pleasure. Reading Rowling's books (and King's for that matter), have certainly delivered in that regard. I for one find precious little value in the mindless ramblings of most critics. I typically don't agree with

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-61610502620469974622007-08-11T22:18:00.001-04:002007-08-11T22:42:32.057-04:00

I haven't been very good about posting lately. I've recently started a new job and there's lots to learn. I'm dealing with Packet over SONET (POS) now which is somewhat unfamiliar.I was given my choice of development platforms at the new job - Windows or Linux. I've grown quite tired of the poor performance, hangs, and crashes which seem to come with using Windows a a development platform so I

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-61706232576994089802007-07-25T22:27:00.000-04:002007-07-25T22:49:18.931-04:00

The guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 (AKA MST3K) have a new project called The Film Crew Online. It's sort of a continuation of the work they did with MST3K. I'm giving it a recommendation based on how funny MST3K was.Michael J. Nelson, the former head writer of MST3K, also has a series of MP3 files you can buy and play at the same time you're watching DVDs. They're available at a site

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-25031195487425606682007-07-24T22:34:00.000-04:002007-07-24T22:49:53.200-04:00

Lately I've been listening to Cory Doctorow's podcast available from both his website CrapHound.com as well as from iTunes. On his podcast he frequently reads from his works in progress as well as some of his older stories. I've been finding them immensely entertaining. If you like Cory's work as much as I do, please buy his books to help support his efforts. He's a real stand-up guy. He

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-89772132799121848842007-07-17T22:52:00.000-04:002007-07-17T22:59:37.409-04:00

I just discovered a new web site called Shelfari which allows you to maintain different lists of books which matter to you. They offer a general shelf, top 10 list, and current reading list. You can also participate in discussions about books. It looks like a cool site.My general shelf is shown below.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157418679944799691.post-42898741623825878972007-07-14T14:06:00.000-04:002007-07-14T14:21:01.662-04:00

Gina Trapani has posted a great article on LifeHacker showing how to choose strong passwords that are also easy to remember. I've been using a variation of this method for a long time and have made slight modifications based on advice I've heard from security experts.I use 2 classes of passwords. The weakest is used for the multitude of web sites which ask you to create an account but which

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915343969482360677noreply@blogger.com0