http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2006/03.php .
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We all got a good laugh a few years ago, when former U.S. Vice President Al Gore claimed that he had invented the Internet. I have no idea what he was thinking when he said that. Here's an interesting interview with the man who really invented the World Wide Web part of the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee.
What would be worse than living in a place that has hurricanes or tornadoes or earthquakes? Maybe living in a town that has been slowly swallowed by an underground coal mine fire since 1962.
What's the smallest pair of eyeglasses you've ever seen? I bet they were nowhere near as small as these glasses on a housefly. Please close your left eye and read the third line on the chart. "Bzzz, bzz, bzzzz, bz, bzzzzz." And now the one below that...
Those of us who live in the more civilized parts of the world know that tomorrow is April Fools Day -- a day in which we express our profound love for our family and closest friends by subjecting them to cruel, traumatic, and humiliating practical jokes and hoaxes. I'm guessing that the people who pulled off The Top 100 April Fools Day Hoaxes of All Time must have really had a lot of love in their hearts.
Everyone loves cats. Well, maybe not everyone, but most people love cats. Well, maybe not most people, but I love cats,
and if you're like me, you'll love to see this video of
funny cats.
If you look through this site's CSS file, you'll see that its colors are specified using the 6-character hexadecimal standard. Do you know the difference between #FF0000 and #0000FF? If not, then How to Read Hex Color Codes will explain it to you.
If you've ever tried to search through online employment want ads, you know how frustrating it can be to find hundreds of jobs, but only a few that are what you're looking for. If you go to exactly the right place in Google, you'll find it much easier to refine your search to exactly the types of jobs that you want to see.
I just finished adding 2,272 more quotes to the script that randomly displays a different quote each time you load my home page. It now has 5,468 different quotes to display. I dare you to try to read them all.
The world is going to end tomorrow. Okay, it's probably not, but have you ever predicted something would happen, only to be proven totally and completely wrong? Plenty of people have. Well, now someone has created a Web page with a bunch of stupid predictions that never came true. They call it Top 87 Bad Predictions About The Future.
Here's a video of another amazing automotive innovation: a car that can go about 100 miles at city speeds on a single
charge of
compressed air.
And there's nothing in its exhaust except cold air.
5 Tips For Coding XHTML/CSS Layouts has some good advice for anyone who has their own Web site.
PC World has compiled a list of free downloads, sites, and services that they call 101 Fabulous Freebies. Do you know anyone in real life who uses the word, "fabulous?"
How many Interesting Facts do you think are actually true?
You only have to drop most laptop computers once to damage or destroy them, but here are three videos that show three very special models.
Here's a video of one of the newest automotive innovations: a car that automatically
parallel parks itself.
If you think that's impressive, you're going to love
the portable car.
Monday afternoon, I drove about 100 miles away, to visit three of my oldest and dearest friends from high school: Bob, his wife
Judy, and Judy's sister, Cathy. Bob and Judy are from up north, and are visiting at Cathy's house this week. In high school, Bob was
one of my best friends. When I got married, he left his college in Kansas and drove 900 miles to my wedding in Ohio, then turned
around and drove all the way back to school afterward, all without telling his strict father. If I had had a best man in my wedding,
it would have been Bob. Judy and Cathy were two of my best pals in high school, and we all hung out
with a large group of friends that had all kinds of fun together, supported each other spiritually, and helped keep each other out
of trouble. It was a great joy to
catch up on each others' lives a little, knowing that our shared faith has sustained each of us through some really tough times
over the years. That's one of the things that I appreciate the most about these three dear friends -- they actually live
their faith by making a difference in others' lives. It's an honor to know them and a blessing to be their friend.
While we were visiting, Judy told me about a very useful site that I hadn't seen before. At Zillow, you input the address of any home, and it shows you a satellite or street view of that home, along with some details about it, and its current estimated value. When I tried Zillow on our dream home, I thought its estimate was about $10K-15K less than what our home is probably worth right now, but that's pretty close, considering how volatile the real estate market is in our area. Thanks, Judy!
Ah, old wives tales -- they aren't true, but we just keep believing them and passing them on from generation to generation. See which ones you've believed in the awkwardly titled article, 10 Science Stuff You Got Wrong.
You've got to give his creators a lot of credit. There are times when Asimo, the Japanese humanoid robot, moves so realistically that you have to remind yourself that he's a robot instead of a human being inside of a robot suit. In this video, Asimo is seen "running" for the first time. Unfortunately, his running is currently more like fast creeping, and he does that like a robot, or at best, like a very creepy human.
Today would have been my brother's birthday. We still love you, Ron.
If you're looking for some simple ways to dress up your Web site, you can find them in Very Simple CSS Tricks.
High cholesterol. Two words that strike fear into the hearts of millions, and mean heart disease to millions more. Fortunately, scientists are testing a method that uses an injection of synthetic RNA molecules to slash harmful cholesterol levels by 60% within 24 hours. I just can't stand to get shots. Maybe they'll figure out a way to put that medicine in a pizza. Or a nice thick steak.
For years, I've told anyone who would listen that scientists would someday figure out a way to reduce or eliminate the radioactivity in radioactive waste. Of course, I always said that the solution would be something really simple like, "Hey, we just discovered that radioactive waste can be rendered non-radioactive by heating it under a giant magnifying glass on a sunny day." Well, Japanese scientists are working on a solution that involves bombarding radioactive waste with protons, which causes it to deteriorate into less-radioactive materials. I wonder if they tried my magnifying glass idea.
Women, are wondering how to be a good wife? Here's some advice from 1955.
This morning, while working in my home office, I heard a gang of several little neighborhood kids outside. When I peeked out my window, I saw six of them on bicycles, looking at Max's Lighthouse. Then the oldest girl started speaking to the statue of Max: "Yes, I'd like a small hamburger, some french fries..."
Some of us live with hurricanes. Others live with tornadoes. Still others have to deal with earthquakes, tidal waves, or
volcanoes. Watch this video, and think about if you'd be willing to move to an island that gets
invaded by millions of crabs
every year. With all of those creatures constantly underfoot, the people of that island probably feel... (wait for it)...
grouchy and ill-tempered.
You'll find some good advice in Web Design And Development: Top 20 Best Practices.
Many people base their stock purchases and sales on a company's "insider activity" -- in other words, if a company's officers are buying lots of its stock, they buy it, too, and if the insiders are selling, they sell, too. If you own stock in Apple Computer, you may be interested to know that Apple Computer founder and CEO Steve Jobs sold nearly half of his shares of Apple stock this past week.
A teenage girl caused quite a stir this week, when she published a video blog describing her breakup with her boyfriend. Her video became an instant hit, mainly because people wondered how she generated its real-time animation effects. Two days later, she published another video, demonstrating more of those effects, which are generated by her webcam software. Pretty cool.
Speaking of amazing digital effects, did you know that pop singer Michael Jackson never physically grew up? In his music videos
and numerous court appearances, he appears to be about 6 feet tall and very thin.
Here's what he looks like without
special cameras and digital effects.
If you use a wireless network, you who do should be aware that there is a lot of published misinformation about how to secure wireless networks. To make sure that yours is secure, read, The Six Dumbest Ways To Secure a Wireless LAN.
With the world's oil supplies increasingly under the control of unstable powers, everyone's looking for ways to produce cheap, renewable fuels. For example, a company in Wisconsin has developed a way to create ethanol from cheese. Insert your own lame pizza delivery vehicle joke here.
Have you ever seen a dog snarl and snap at someone who's teasing him while he's chewing a bone? How about when
his own foot is the one doing the
teasing? Just thinking about this video makes my wife laugh.
As of this writing, this site has had visitors from at least 95 countries. It's pretty rewarding to me to know that others find my site helpful and entertaining. If you want your site to get more visitors, follow the advice in 10 Steps To Increase Your Web Traffic. Remember, though, the most important step is to make sure your site has quality content, or you won't get repeat visitors. After seeing that article, I would recommend an eleventh step -- design your site so that visitors who view it at 800x600 screen resolution aren't forced to scroll left and right to read it.
8 Web Design Warm Fuzzy Feelings lists some worthy goals for Web designers.
I have the power to see through concrete walls. So do you.
Do you remember that old Alfred Hitchcock horror thriller, The Birds, in which birds go nuts and start killing people? Well, over the years, the birds have gotten lazy.
Here's a video in which astronauts show what happens when you
pop a water-filled balloon in space.
See, our trillion-dollar space program isn't a waste of money.
I'm working out of town, so I'm updating my Journal remotely, late at night on March 22. I don't have time to decide which of several good things to show you today, so I'm going to show you all of them!
IT Agony Bingo is a game for tech support people to play while they're talking to their users on the phone. See if you can win the game before you lose your mind.
10 Intermediate Ways To Speed Up Windows contains... you know.
Rowdy Jack Russell Terrier appears to be the place to buy stuff that has pictures of dogs that look like my little Mini.
Here's the perfect shirt to wear if you want to impress everyone by looking like you're carrying a FedEx envelope. Yes, you read that correctly.
The Japanese have invented a lifelike, swimming, robotic snake. Aaaiiieee! Snakezilla!
When my father-in-law sneezes, everyone in his zip code knows it. Here's a video of
one of his sneezes.
OneWord may improve your writing skills. Its premise is "One word. So little time." Here's what it says: simple. you'll see one word at the top of the following page. you have sixty seconds to write about it. as soon as you click 'go' the page will load with the cursor in place. don't think. just write. When you're done, it displays your creation online for everyone to read. Man, that site's creators must spend a lot of time deleting spam messages.
The Power of Old People is basically a short video of a "revenge" urban legend. It's cute, but if you can't tell that it's completely staged (and also pooly acted), I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.
Have you ever been in a job interview in which they asked you an inane question like, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree
would you be?" I would be a deciduous tree, because I'm leaving (ba-dump-bump). At least now you'll know what to say if they ever
ask you,
"What kind of sports car would you be?"
By the way, I would be a Mazda RX-8. I can't argue with that.
Years ago, my wife and I used to play Risk, the classic game of world domination, with her siblings. Looking back, it seems an odd choice for our group of pacifists. My wife had incredibly good luck with rolling the dice, getting 5s or 6s almost every time, which made her armies nearly impossible to defeat. It seemed like any match that she didn't win, her brother Neal won. Just one time, I managed to win. I could hardly believe me eyes when I finally took my rightful place as the supreme ruler of the entire world. My first official duty was to announce my retirement from playing Risk, and I never played it again. So, technically, the world has enjoyed decades of peace since then, and I am still its supreme ruler. The dawn of my golden age might have come sooner if I had read Improving the Odds in RISK.
"The following sentence is true. The previous sentence is false." Those two sentences are an example of a paradox. If you enjoyed thinking about it, try wrapping your brain around 10 Favorite Paradoxes, and see if you can find the fatal logical flaw in at least one of them.
If you spent any time watching the PBS television network in the past, you've undoubtedly heard Pachelbel's Canon, that
royal-sounding, but incessantly repetitious musical piece in which the same 8-chord progression repeats over and over. And over.
And over. And over. For about 6 hours. I think it was used as theme music to every PBS program in the 1980s and 90s, and could also
be heard in the background of every PBS "Please send us some money" pledge drive. Well, I have no idea what made him think
to do it, but a kid named "Funtwo," sitting on the side of his bed, playing his guitar amazingly well, has managed to liven up
Pachelbel's Canon and make it bearable. Even interesting. Take a look and a listen to
his video.
Way, way back when, there was a hit song called "Signs." Its chorus said, Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind. Do this! Don't do that! Can't you read the sign?" Here are some funny signs that you'll want to read.
Have you ever wanted to know how magic tricks work? Wikipedia has descriptions of several magic tricks. It sounds to me like there's no real magic involved with any of them.
Most automobiles and trucks use an internal combustion engine that has four strokes (intake, compression, power, exhaust). They generate a lot of power, but they also generate a lot of waste heat that must be removed by an engine cooling system consisting of antifreeze, a water pump, and a radiator. A new six-stroke engine adds a stroke for the intake of a water/air mixture (which instantly turns to steam and creates "free" power), and a second exhaust stroke for the steam. The two additional strokes cool the engine, so even large six-stroke semi-truck engines won't need heavy radiators to keep them cool. But they will have to carry large supplies of water. No word on whether they would also have to carry window and cab heaters in cold weather.
Here's are two videos that are guaranteed to make you smile: Tyson, the Skateboarding Bulldog,
here, and
also here.
To me, most of The Top 10 Geek Watches are unusual, but their unnecessary complexity implies that geeks like to do simple tasks the hardest and most impractical way possible. I take offense to that, and vow to spend every waking minute of the next 3 weeks creating an extensive multimedia presentation to prove my point at our next monthly geek meeting. But since that story uses the words "geek" and "chic" together in its very first sentence, I felt like I had to mention it.
Have you ever worked in a situation that you felt was unsafe? I bet you were still much safer than the people in these unsafe working conditions. Of course, your working conditions were real, while I suspect that some of the online ones were created in PhotoShop.
Urban Ninja is a one-man Mountain Dew commercial who apparently wants to be hired as a stuntman for Jackie Chan movies. Too bad Jackie is too old to do that type of movie any more.
Well, if anyone had any doubts, I think their latest roles clearly demonstrate just how incredibly valuable their consulting skills are.
It's a 2-video day at ComputerBob.com! Here's one that answers the question,
What would happen if you dropped some Mentos mints into a bottle of soda pop?
It also begs the question, "What would happen if you ate some Mentos after drinking some soda pop?"
For the past few years, my wife and I have been paying only 2.75 cents per minute for our out-of-state long distance telephone calls, with no monthly fees and no minimum usage requirements. As I've mentioned before, we got that deal from a long distance company called EGC, which is the top-rated provider at the excellent long distance comparison site, SaveOnPhone.com. ECG has saved us a lot of money over the years, but you know me -- I'm always looking for an even better deal. With that in mind, the other night, I analyzed our long distance usage for the past few months and discovered that it has changed. These days, we use far more in-state long distance minutes than out-of-state ones. A quick look at SaveOnPhone.com showed me that ECG's in-state rate per minute in The Sunshine State is nearly 4 times their rate for out-of-state minutes. A little while later, I had figured out that we would save about $12 (U.S.D) per month if we switched to TCI, another SaveOnPhone-recommended carrier. That's because, even though TCI charges a little more than ECG for out-of-state minutes, they charge significantly less than ECG for in-state ones. So yesterday, I switched us to TCI and their better (for us) deal, but I'll keep an eye on our long distance usage, to see if it makes sense to go back to ECG in the future. Thanks, SaveOnPhone.com!
It has appeared in so many TV shows, books, and articles that most people recognize the twisted double-helix shape of DNA. Now, astronomers have found a nebula that has that same twisted double-helix shape. Further proof that what we think of as our entire universe is really just a few molecules in the body of some really big giant guy. And that really big giant guy's entire universe is really just a few molecules of... you get the idea.
Remember the clever and funny Budweiser frog commercials from several years ago? Now Volkswagen has its own
clever and funny commercial
featuring a frog. The VW commercial turns into a sort of surreal fable about the dangers of drinking
if you imagine that its star is one of the Budweiser frogs.
How good is your PC manufacturer's tech support? Dell tech support is so good that even when a guy writes to them to praise his new Dell 19" flat panel screen, they still apologize and offer to replace it for him at no charge. I wonder what they would've offered him if he had complained about it.
Every once in awhile, a story comes along that has nothing to do with computers, education, web design, technology, medicine, or any of the other subjects that I usually cover in this Journal, but I publish it here anyway, just because it's just such an incredibly cool story. Here's a perfect example: Amish Neighbors Take Just One Day To Rebuild Home Destroyed By Twister. I hope this finally ends the old myth about the Amish being a ruthless, warmongering people.
MIT bioengineers and neurocientists have invented a way to
restore vision to blind rodents.
I just don't get it. Is this really a problem? I mean, I guess I didn't know that rodent visual impairment was such a big research
priority. Call me insensitive, but I only watch a few minutes of that annual "Three Blind Mice" charity marathon on TV... I
only tune in long enough to see how they run.
Every few months, someone new rewrites the same basic article, but it bears repeating for anyone who needs to know When and How To Use Internet Image Formats.
Would you believe me if I told you that Albert Einstein had six toes on one of his feet? If you said yes, you'd be wrong, because he had the normal five toes on each foot. See how rumors get started? If you want to know some true strange stuff about the famous genius, take a look at Ten Obscure Factoids Concerning Albert Einstein.
Years ago, my goddaughters used to love it when I'd give them pieces of bubblewrap so they could pop all of the bubbles. One time, I took a bunch of it to Ana's daycare so that she and her friends could stomp on it for fun. Wouldn't it be great to have an unlimited supply of the stuff? Well, now you can.
Here's a very special shout-out to the PC Support/Web Design students at High Tech North, a few hours away from me, whose teacher
signed my new guestbook on their behalf yesterday. It's a great honor and pleasure to know that
you find my site useful. Now stay in school; it's your "job," so do it well if you want to land a better job after you graduate.
And say "no" to drugs. I mean it. Don't make me come down there.
Scientists in California have been studying a woman whose memory is so good that she can accurately recall specific memories from any date in her past. If I remember correctly, it was deadpan comedian Steven Wright who said, "One time, I... Oh, wait, that wasn't me."
I wonder if someone is eating pancakes right now.
When I was bored in grade school, I liked to play with whatever pen I was using at the time. If it was one of those old Bic pens, I'd pull
its plastic end off, or take it completely apart and blow through its clear plastic tube. One time, I made the mistake of
pulling off the plastic end and sucking on the clear plastic tube while holding one finger over the tiny breather hole on its side.
It was several days before I finally got the last of that bright blue ink off of my mouth and hand. Instead of sucking on that pen,
I should have done
some cool pen tricks.
If you're a graphic designer, a web designer, a webmaster, or just someone who has their own Web site, 145 resources on Online Tools, Generators, Checkers is your one-stop source of popular free online tools.
Let's relax by watching a funny video of some
talking cats.
UPDATE: Today, I added a guestbook to this site, to allow visitors to leave comments about this site. Due to my concerns about how easy it is for spammers to abuse most guestbooks, this site has never had a guestbook before, but the Lazarus Guestbook's powerful anti-spam features satisfied my concerns. Please sign my guestbook when you get a chance, by clicking its link above, or by clicking on the new Guestbook menu item in the left navigation column.
Most webmasters concentrate on getting as many incoming hyperlinks to their sites as possible. I've never worried about getting incoming links. I figure that if people find my site useful or entertaining, they'll link to it without me trying to make them do it. Instead, I always concentrate on making sure this site has lots of great free content and lots of valuable outlinks that take you to other great Web sites. That strategy doesn't help my site get noticed by the big search engines, but I know that at least one guy thinks that people like me are doing the right thing for everyone on the Internet. Hey, that's why I'm here.
You've probably noticed that lately, I've linked to interesting videos that appear on other sites. If you'd like to be able to download and save those videos, visit KeepVid.
I understand that David Hasselhoff -- the nearly 54 year-old, slightly pot-bellied former Baywatch TV star -- is
currently a really popular singer in a couple of European countries. So, if you're German or Austrian, you may want to use KeepVid
(see story, above) to save
David Hasselhoff's music video
on your computer, so that you can enjoy his incredibly sexy talent over and over. On the other hand, if you live anywhere else, you
may want to save his video so that you can laugh at how embarassingly foolish he looks trying to act like he's 20 years old in a
series of comically amateurish
bluescreen
scenes. So it's truly a video that has something for everyone.
Back in 1978, I bought a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle for $200 (U.S.D). Its engine wouldn't start until I replaced a $3 sleeve bearing in its starter. Then it ran pretty well, but it took about 30 seconds to get up to highway speed, its top speed was only about 60mph, and its air-cooled engine provided virtually no heat in the winter. I bet I wouldn't have had any of those problems if I had bought a jet-powered VW Beetle. But that probably would've cost more than $200.
I'm really tired of having to shred all of the credit card and insurance policy offers that I receive in the mail. So last night, I called the toll-free OPT-OUT telephone number and asked to be removed from the top 4 credit agencies' referral mailing lists. Learn more about credit card offers and the OPT-OUT number at the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Web site.
What will a burning toothpick do if you microwave it? I had no idea until I saw
this video.
Congratulations on making it through another work week. Wouldn't it be great to spend the weekend laying in the sun next to your swimming pool? It might be even better if your pool was painted to look like animals are swimming in it.
Anyone who's spent any time on this site knows that I really love my pets. If you love your pet(s), you'll probably enjoy Seven Ways Pets Can Save You Money.
Like most people, I've seen hundreds of jugglers over the years, so a juggler has to be extraordinary to impress me.
Michael Moschen is one of those extraordinary
jugglers. If you get a chance to see him live or on video, do it. Today, I saw a juggler named Chris Bliss that wowed me. In an
incredible video, he juggles 3 balls to 3 songs from the flip side of the Beatles' Abbey Road album. Watch him
synchronously interpret
the diferent songs' vocals, drums, piano, and guitars. Notice that he tosses 2 balls into the air when 2 or more voices are singing
in harmony, and tosses a ball especially high during each long note in the guitar solos. See if you can catch him lip-synching some
of the words to the song, The End. And no matter what else he's doing, he never misses a beat. No wonder the audience
goes nuts when he finishes.
You may not have know this, but there are hundreds of online books that you can download and read for free. The Directory Of Free Online Books will help you find the ones you want.
What's the most interesting thing you ever built out of Lego blocks? I'm guessing it was probably a house or some other rectangular building. If so, you'll probably be amazed at the Top 10 Strangest Lego Creations.
Someone I dearly love works for Wal-Mart. In the past few years, they've told me many stories about how that corporation disrespects its workers and bullies them into not forming workers' unions. Now there's a a really funny flash movie of Garth Brooks singing a song that calls attention to Wal-Mart's ruthless campaign against workers' rights. The song is funny, but Wal-Mart's working conditions are not. I'd really appreciate it if you'd watch the movie and then sign the petition that appears afterward. Wal-Mart -- where low, low wages, impossible working conditions, and substandard health care benefits bring you low, low prices.
I've played the guitar since I was 12 or 13 years old. I even performed professionally for about 5 years, many years ago, but I
never even imagined being able to play two guitars at the same time, like
Stanley Jordan.
Sorry, I don't have a video of SJ, but I can show you one of some other guy
playing two guitars. For those of you
who don't play, the technique is called "hammering," and it involves punching the right strings against the right frets at the right
time.
The head of IBM's open source and Linux sales in Germany has announced that IBM Germany will switch to Linux instead of using Windows Vista. I wonder if IBM will eventually stop using Microsoft operating systems worldwide.
Now you can add whirlpool baths to the list of filthy, germ-breeding things that are dangerous to your health.
No matter how you're feeling, you'll probably feel better after you watch this video of
quadruplet babies laughing.
I've mentioned it before, but when I redesigned this entire site a few years ago, I did it using XHTML and CSS. Because this site includes hundreds of pages, and those pages use many different formats, the redesign process took a few months of planning and behind-the-scenes work, plus many long days and nights of manual recoding. Why did I go to all that trouble? Here are 55 Reasons To Design In XHTML/CSS.
Here's a video of some amazing ping-pong playing, though I'm pretty sure that it's against the rules to run over the top of the table to your opponent's side.
For a publicity stunt, a Russian cosmonaut hopes to
hit a golf ball 2.1 billion miles in space. Fore! Fore!
Fore! Fore! Fore! Fore! Oooops -- Sorry! Fore! Fore! Fore! Fore!
On a typical day, I visit 40-60 different Web sites. Research shows that although there are now 76 million Web sites, most people only visit about 6 sites on a regular basis. I sincerely thank you for making this one of the sites that you visited today.
I don't know if it's true, but I read somewhere that the same people who produce The Simpsons TV show, created this really well-done live-action version of the Simpsons opening sequence.
Did you ever wonder what it looks like at ComputerBob Central Command -- the place where this entire site gets created? Take a look at ComputerBob's Desk.
What kind of person are you? Some scientists now think that they can determine your personality type by observing
the way you sleep. Unfortunately,
their study didn't include the way that I slept last night: lying on my back with my head under my pillow, my arms
outstretched, frantically grasping at the air like I was trying to stop my wife from smothering me. Hey, wait a minute...
The other day, while troubleshooting and fixing a battered women's organization's PC, I ran several commands from the Windows XP command prompt. Here's a long list of Run Commands For XP, in case you feel like trying out some of them.
Experts say that it's a good idea to always keep your resume up-to-date, because you never know when you'll need it again. To help your resume make the very best impression on possible employers, read Resume Preparation Do's and Don'ts.
Just for fun, here's an impressive video of the guy who may be the very best
quarter bouncer
in the world. Ooooh, I just thought of something else to not include on your resume.
Your Microsoft Word documents may be telling other people a lot more than you think. To be safe, check out how to Remove Hidden Data In Microsoft Word Documents.
When we lived in the Frostbite State, my wife and I heard a rumor that if you throw boiling hot water into the air on a really, really cold day, it will vaporize and then evaporate without hitting the ground. We tried it several times when the temperature was well below zero and discovered to our delight that the rumor was correct. It makes a loud "FFFffff!" sound and looks just like it does in this video (Flash format) of a guy throwing a bucket of hot water. And hotter the water, the better it works.
Don Hertzfeldt's funny and cathartic pencil-and-paper animation (Flash format),
My Love Story!
appears to be his own substitute for psychiatric therapy. I hope he feels better now.
Do you know What Makes A CD Bootable? I thought I knew, but I found out that I didn't. Now I know. I think.
A robber tries to take a girl's purse in an elevator so she bodyslams him. It might be real, but it looks staged to me because, in real life, I don't think anyone who is surprised from behind could react and fight back as quickly as that girl did when the guy suddenly grabbed her purse. In fact, since we never see "her" face, maybe "she" and "the thief" are both men. I think it would be more believable if there was a link to a news story, saying that the robber was arrested afterward. What do you think?
Some people
look like their dogs.
Or maybe some dogs look like their people. No, my dogs don't look anything like me; I adopted them.
I think a new paint that can block out or allow cell phone signals is a good idea. Opponents say "What about the young parents whose baby-sitter is trying to call them, or the brain surgeon who needs notification of emergency surgery? These calls need to get through." My response to those questions is that there were parents and brain surgeons long before there were cell phones. Just tell the babysitter or the hospital the telephone number of where you're going to be. That way, they'll have another way to call you if they can't reach you on your cell phone.
Whenever I see a TV show that features assembly lines, factories, and machinery, I call my wife to come in the room and see it, because she's fascinated by that stuff. I think she would love to see the hundreds of illustrated descriptions of how products are made.
Our weather has been gorgeously sunny and in the mid-to-upper 70s (F) every day for the past few weeks. Several evenings, my wife and I have gone to the coast to sit on the beach and watch the sun set into the Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes, we bring sandwiches, chicken, or other food to eat while we're there. And each time, we see interesting sea birds, including pelicans, herons, and one type of bird that dives head-first into the water to catch fish. We've also gotten pretty good at spotting several dolphins almost every time, either casually swimming by or circling further out in the water. Sitting together "on the other West coast of the United States" is such a peaceful and relaxing activity that I wish we could do it every day, and I don't think an indoor, man-made beach could ever compare to a real one.
It's very foggy here this morning. It's a good thing we have Max's Lighthouse to keep
the ships out of our front yard. On our way to the coast the other night, we drove past a trio of our little 7-8 year-old neighbor
girls, playing on the corner. I stopped, rolled down my window, and asked them, "Did you see the new little dog house in our front
yard?" They all smiled, and one grasped her hands together under her chin and sweetly said, "Yes, I love it."
Yesterday, I spent the whole day working on a battered women's organization's Dell PC, trying to get it to connect to the Web through its DSL connection. When I arrived, the PC had no networking at all. In fact, its DSL connection had worked until January 7 of this year, at which time it suddenly quit for no apparent reason. The head of the organization had spent several hours on the phone with Verizon, trying to fix the problem, but hadn't had any success. I did several tests and tweaks and then determined that although Internet Explorer couldn't find any Web sites, I could open a command prompt window and successfully ping sites all over the world. Hmm, a mystery.
Over the next few hours, I uninstalled and reinstalled each networking hardware and software component in the PC. Twice. But it still wouldn't connect to the Web. That made me think that maybe the problem was with the Verizon DSL line or DSL modem. So I called Verizon and spent about an hour on the phone with them, doing basic troubleshooting procedures until the battery in the organization's portable phone suddenly died. I called back and spent another 3 hours on the phone with a different Verizon tech, performing every single troubleshooting procedure he could find in his support manuals. Nothing fixed the problem. Finally, the Verizon tech figured out that the problem was that someone at Verizon had accidently changed the PC's IP address in their database, essentially disconnecting the PC from the Web. It would be like your phone company telling you that your phone number is 111-1111, but then accidently changing your phone number to 222-2222 in their database. Within 5 minutes after he discovered the IP address error, the Verizon tech had contacted his main office and they had corrected the problem at their end. Unfortunately, the PC still wouldn't connect. So he had me enter several cryptic commands to reconfigure the PC's DNS and network connection, still without any success. Finally, the Verizon tech assured me that we had fixed or eliminated the possibility of every single problem that could possibly be caused by the DSL line, so that meant that the PC itself must also have a problem.
Since I had already uninstalled and reinstalled all of the PC's networking components a few hours earlier, there was no point in doing all of that again. So, using the Dell Reinstallation CD that had come with the computer, I "updated" Windows XP, essentially reinstalling it over the top of itself. The PC still wouldn't connect. Finally, I used the reinstallation CD to delete the entire C: drive partition, then re-create the partition, then reinstall Windows from scratch in that empty partition. When I had finished, the PC not only didn't have any networking or sound capabilities, and it could only display at 640x480 pixels, with only 8 colors. So, I went into the Windows Device Manager and deleted all of the networking, sound, and display devices, hoping that Windows would re-discover them and install their correct drivers on the next boot-up. Nope, it didn't work. The Windows Hardware Detection Wizard insisted that there weren't any sound, video, or networking drivers on the Dell reinstallation CD that had come with the PC. It said the same thing about the Dell Drivers CD that had also come with the PC. So, I tried booting the computer with the Dell Drivers CD, just as it said to do on the CD itself. All that did was give me a series of memory, video, and chip diagnostic tests. Finally, I called Dell tech support.
I only had to spend about 30 minutes on the phone with Dell. I had been booting from the Dell Drivers CD, because that's what it said to do on the CD itself. It turns out that you have to boot from the CD only if you want to run diagnostic tests. What it should also say on the Dell Drivers CD is that if you want to reinstall driver software, you have to boot Windows up on the hard drive first, and then insert the Drivers CD. When you do that, a driver installation program starts automatically, making it relatively easy to find, uncompress, and reinstall the required chipset, sound, video, and networking drivers to get all of those things working again. Just as importantly, every time the Windows Hardware Detection Wizard starts and tells you that it has detected new hardware, click on "Cancel" to exit that wizard, because it can't see the compressed drivers on the Dell CDs. The Dell tech told me that he would make a note of my suggestion, so that his superiors will consider adding my suggested instructions to future drivers CDs.
So, about 8 hours after I had started the job, 9 hours after I had left home to drive to the job, I gave a loud cheer of relief when I was finally able to view this Web site on that PC. At various times, the day was frustrating, challenging in a good, making-me-think way, and challenging in a scary, I'm-not-sure-I'll-be-able-to-fix-this way, but in the end, it turned out to be incredibly rewarding, even though I didn't eat, drink, or take any breaks all day. Who would've guessed that the problem would turn out to caused by both a Verizon IP address mixup and a problem with the PC's networking drivers? Looking back, I don't think it was a coincidence that there were 2 separate problems. In fact, I suspect that the Verizon problem caused the PC to have a problem. In other words, I think that, on January 7, someone at Verizon accidently changed the PC's IP address in their database, and that mistake ended up corrupting the PC's networking drivers and/or networking components, preventing them from working correctly, even after Verizon had fixed their IP address problem.
After I got everything working again, I saved a new Windows restore point. Then I downloaded and installed the latest Windows
security updates and saved another Windows restore point. From now on, that that PC can easily be rolled back to how it was working
when I left it. Whew!
It turned out to be a lot more work than I thought it would be, and it took up a lot of my free time for the past several weeks,
but it was all worth it when I finally finished Max's Lighthouse.
