http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2008/03.php .
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This Journal entry is now a separate article, An Idea That Just Popped Into My Head, which appears in this site's Teach & Train section.
I got a call yesterday, saying that the hurricane-protection guy will arrive this coming Tuesday to continue work on installing our dream home's hurricane shutters. Unfortunately, the weather forecasts are predicting that it will rain on Tuesday and Wednesday. If they're right, he won't be able to work those days. That would be OK with me though — just as long as he ends up doing the job correctly when he's able to do it. In the meantime, we could use a couple of good rainy days.
A couple of days ago, I told you that Microsoft appears to have known that it was lying to customers when it certified new PCs as "Vista Capable." Now, there's even more evidence that seems to support that theory: "Even internally, Microsoft couldn't agree on what the base requirements to run Vista were, but that didn't stop it from inaccurately promoting the OS as running on some hardware,
new email evidence in an ongoing consumer class action suggests."
It's very bad news for spammers, but very good news for the rest of us: "A divided Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the nation's first felony conviction for illegal spamming on Friday, ruling that Virginia's anti-spamming law
does not violate free-speech rights."
What group tends to benefit the most from new computer technologies? Sometimes, it seems like it's the military — other times, it's very clearly
gamers. It could be argued that that's because there's a lot of overlap between the interests of those two groups.
This looks like it might be another huge medical breakthrough: "A team of researchers at the University of Alberta has discovered a gene that is able to
block HIV, and in turn prevent the onset of AIDS."
If you have a dark sense of humor, you'll probably think that
this comic is very funny. If you don't have a dark sense of humor, you'll probably think that it's very sad.
My Journal entry from two days ago is now a new article, An Idea That Just Popped Into My Head. It appears in this site's Teach & Train section.
I've mentioned it before, but since it's an ongoing problem, and since about 75% of this site's visitors are still using Microsoft Windows, it's well worth repeating: "Six botnets are responsible for 85 per cent of all spam, according to an analysis by net security firm Marshal." So what are you doing to make sure that your Windows PC isn't a member of one of those botnets?
It's a neat idea: use the heat from a computer's chips to drive a tiny engine that runs a fan that cools those components. It's just too bad that the whole thing really, really looks like
a tiny toilet.
If you like exciting, interesting, educational videos, you'll love Wired's choices of the
Top 10 Amazing Chemistry Videos.
Your life may be going along just fine, but if someone, somewhere commits a typo in an important database, the U.S. government is going to
think that you're dead. Unfortunately, you may be dead by the time you finally convince them that you're not.
If you have serious health problems, they might be related to you
not getting enough sleep.
Which is more secure — Windows or Linux? I have absolutely no doubts about it, but if you do,
this thread in the Debian User Forums does a good job of summarizing the issues and clarifying the facts.
In the current class-action lawsuit against it, Microsoft has claimed that it suffered from internal confusion over whether Windows Vista would run on computers that the company had certified as "Vista Capable." Apparently, that's a lie, since according to internal company documents,
Dell warned Microsoft about that and other problems.
If you're a Windows user, you're probably already aware that, along with regularly downloading and installing megabytes worth of Windows Updates, you also need to run a firewall, anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, anti-adware software, anti-phishing software, and other anti-malware software. Well, now it looks like you're also going to need something else: "A slew of software companies new and old are shipping tools aimed at slowing the botnet epidemic, but the emergence of this new market is seen by some analysts as
an indictment of the existing anti-malware industry."
It looks like the next big breakthrough in the fight against Type 2 Diabetes may come from the slimy skin of
a South American frog.
If you live in the U.S., then this coming weekend, you're probably going to be "springing ahead" by setting your clocks forward by one hour to begin this year's daylight savings time. Most of us were taught that Ben Franklin thought up the idea of daylight savings time as a way to increase the number of hours of usable daylight each day, and thus save energy. The problem is that, according to a new study,
daylight savings time wastes energy.
Yesterday, Brian arrived, and in just one day, he did a great job installing the vast majority of our dream home's hurricane shutters. He probably could have finished the whole job, except that heavy rains arrived in the mid-afternoon, forcing him to quickly pack up his tools and stop for the day. Although it rained on and off the rest of the day yesterday, this morning is sunny and warm, with only a 10% chance of rain, so I expect that he'll be back in a little while to finish the job.
In related news, congratulations to our wonderful next-door neighbors and good friends,
Mike and Annamarie! This past Saturday and Sunday, Mike and I installed hurricane shutters on their home — the last job that needed to be done before calling the city permit inspector for the last time. Then yesterday, their home passed its final inspection with flying colors. It took two years, required thousands of hours of both contracted and do-it-yourself labor, and — thanks to the skyrocketing prices of building materials — it cost significantly more than what was originally planned, but now they're finally officially done completely renovating and adding about 70% more living space and a huge wrap-around back deck onto their now-palatial home.
I'm very happy that, during the past two years of working with Mike on their home, I've gone from thinking of him as great next-door neighbor to thinking of him like a brother. (A really good brother, for those of you who know my family history.)
It's more than three months old, but an article called
We Need Some Linux Standardization! is causing
some new controversy among Digg users.
If you're a Windows user who's looking forward to Vista Service Pack 1, you're probably not going to like
a new review that says, "I had really thought that Vista SP1 would be an improvement. I didn't think it would be a big improvement, but still that it would be more competitive with Windows XP and the modern Linux desktop. I was wrong."
Four hundred years ago, the Vatican persecuted and prosecuted Galileo for believing that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Now the Vatican is willing to admit that
Galileo was right.
Anyone who's ever completed a home-improvement project knows that "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray." And so it goes with our dream-home's hurricane shutters. Brian worked long and hard on installing them, but while he was working on them yesterday, I discovered that, although it appears to be no one's fault, they're still not right.
As you can see from this front view of the guest bathroom window that's right above my stack of 3/4" plywood, he did a nice job installing them. But, as you can see from these side photos (left and right), there's a 1" gap between the angled flanges of the aluminum hurricane shutters and the white vertical side rails. As I walked around the house, I discovered that the hurricane shutters on all but two of our windows have that same 1" gap. That didn't seem quite right to me, so I got out our city building permit and read through several pages of the hurricane shutters' installation technical specifications — something that I've never done before. As far as I could tell, according to the technical specs, that gap is supposed to be a maximum of only 1/4" — I'm guessing that that's not only to prevent small projectiles from going through that gap, but also to prevent high winds from getting behind the shutters and tearing them off of the house.
With the technical specifications in my hand, I very carefully and politely brought the problem to Brian's attention. He studied the technical specifications with me, and he agreed that they appeared to show a maximum allowable gap of only 1/4", but since neither of us is qualified to know for sure, I called his boss. It turned out that my interpretation of the technical specifications was correct. The problem had occurred because the hurricane panels themselves are "higher profile" (deeper) than the panels that are programmed into their company's computer program. The side flanges on these high-profile panels come out at a 45-degree angle instead of laying flat like the side flanges on the panels that their computer was expecting them to install. That 45-degree angle is what caused the 1" gaps between the hurricane panels and the side rails.
I'm guessing that most customers wouldn't have noticed those gaps. I'm also guessing that most customers who would've noticed those gaps probably wouldn't have gone to the trouble of deciphering the technical specifications to figure out that they are a code violation — or been bold enough to tell the installer that most of his two days of work had been done incorrectly. But although I felt sorry to have to tell Brian the bad news, I want my family to be as safe as possible if there's a hurricane, so I had say something about it. I'm very happy to report that I was able to do it very diplomatically, and since I was dealing with professionals, there were no hot tempers or hard feelings.
But the bottom line is that Brian will have to remove the 2" side panels from both sides of all but two of our windows and replace them with 3" side panels.
And for everyone's good, I hope that someone programs the specs of these high-profile hurricane panels into his company's computer system, to prevent this problem from ever happening again.
I have a feeling that if I had chosen to be a professional building inspector, a lot of contractors would've hated me — but a lot of their customers would've loved me.
Yesterday, Brian arrived around lunch time, after spending the entire morning cutting new side rails and gathering other parts in his company's shop. He finished installing hurricane shutters on our Florida room (except for one outside corner that's proving to be a puzzle), and replaced the 2" side rails with 3" side rails on a few of the other windows. On those windows, the deeper side rails eliminated the 1" gaps that I showed you yesterday. But once again, a heavy thunderstorm forced him to pack up his tools and leave after just a couple of hours. I hope that today's weather will allow him to finally finish the Florida room and redo the side rails on the rest of the windows that need them.
If your web site has a blog, a forum, a guestbook, a photo gallery or any other feature that juggles a lot of data, then there's a pretty good chance that your site uses one or more MySQL databases. You should be aware that if any of your databases ever get corrupted or deleted, you'll lose all of your blog entries or forum threads or whatever. That's why it's vitally important to make regular backups of your site's databases. Until recently, that task has been kind of a "geek chore," but
phpMyBackupPro makes it easier for everyone to be able to do it.
In the U.S., a "Dear John" letter is one in which a woman breaks up with a man. I think it originated in the trenches during one of the World Wars, when soldiers would get "Dear John" letters from their girlfriends back home, saying that they had found new boyfriends. Then there's the old joke — Question: "How did the farmer's girlfriend break up with him?" Answer: "She sent him a
John Deere letter." Here's a "Dear John" letter
to Microsoft Windows.
If you're thinking of buying a new Windows computer, but you don't want to be stuck with Windows Vista,
you'd better buy it soon.
Is it a really cool scientific breakthrough or a huge invasion of personal privacy? Or both? Slashdot's readers have pretty strong opinions about a new brain scanner
that can tell what you're looking at. See what you think (pun intended).
After two weeks of work, our dream home finally has all of its hurricane protection in place. Yesterday, it was powerfully windy all day, but two more inches of rain didn't arrive until a few hours after Brian had finished his work. I'm very, very happy with how it all turned out, including our new hurricane wind-and-impact-resistant garage door, our new hurricane wind-and-impact-resistant garage side door, and all of our high-profile, heavy gauge, removable aluminum hurricane shutters. As I had hoped and planned, our entire dream home now meets the Sunshine State's most stringent Miami-Dade standards for hurricane resistance, which will keep us as safe as possible while saving us a minimum of 40% off the yearly cost of our homeowner's insurance.
I'm really glad that I asked Brian to replace all of the side rails with deeper ones, to eliminate the 1" gaps that I told you about the other day. Now that those gaps are gone, the hurricane panels comply with the building code standards as well as their own installation standards, and the whole house looks like a fortress. See for yourself:
After I get rid of all of the 3/4" plywood that I used to use to board up the house when hurricanes threatened us, my next major project will be to build a storage rack somewhere, to store all of the new removable hurricane shutters when we're not using them.
For my email, contact and calendaring needs, I've been using the combination of Icedove (Thunderbird) and its Lightning calendaring extension for the past several months, since the more-powerful KMail and Kontact still don't support HTML mail the way I need to be able to use it. In the meantime, I'll be keeping an eye out to see if newcomer
Spicebird ends up being good enough to fit my needs.
Is Microsoft thinking of eventually replacing Windows with a new operating system that would look very familiar to Linux users? See what you think after you read
Approaching The Singularity At Microsoft.
It's scary enough that cybercriminals are able to invade the computers of private corporations and individuals, but to me, it's a whole lot worse that they've been able to get into insecure Windows computers
at the Pentagon.
He's trying to help make the area safer by being
a neighborhood vigilante, but I'm afraid that it won't be long before either he gets sued, or both he and his invention end up in pieces.
Linux users will want to check out
Linux Product Insider, "keeping you on the cutting edge of new products and services in Linux and Open Source."
Point, click and type. Point, click and type. Point, click and type. We all do it hundreds of times every day as we use our computers. But some people think that soon,
that's going to change.
When I do tech support, if a client tells me about a particularly baffling problem, one of my favorite running jokes to help relax them is to suggest, with a straight face, that the source of the problem might be sunspot activity. Then, of course, after a short pause, I smile and tell them that I'm kidding, but don't worry — I'll figure out what the real cause of the problem is. Unfortunately, no one's kidding now when they say that your PC could have problems that are caused by
cosmic rays.
If you smile knowingly when you read the phrase, "the answer to life, the universe, and everything," then you'll enjoy reading about the 30th anniversary of
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Four years ago, it cost me about $2,000 (USD) to buy a two-foot tall stack of 4' x 8' sheets of 3/4-inch-thick plywood, the permanent studs to mount them in a removable way over our windows and doors, and the pressure-treated lumber, lag bolts and other hardware to build an extremely heavy-duty rack, set in concrete, to hold the entire stack of plywood between hurricane threats. Yesterday, I used my circular saw to cut each sheet into manageable pieces, then used my very tippy wheelbarrow to move it all, one or two or three pieces at a time, from the far-back corner of our house, all the way around to the street, so that it could be taken away. It's sure a good thing we don't need that plywood any more. Four years ago, I applied two coats of all-weather stain to every surface of every sheet, to protect it from the rain. But all-weather stain wasn't designed to protect wood from sitting in rainwater for long periods of time. Yesterday, I discovered that the heavy-duty tarp that had covered the stack of plywood had basically dissolved after spending years in the hot sun. That had allowed rainwater to pool between the sheets of plywood. Many of them had wicked enough rainwater that they were soaked all the way through, and were much, much heavier than they had been when they were new. Not only that, but at least one sheet had tiny termite babies crawling all over it. It took a long time, but I worked carefully and was finally able to cut and wrestle the entire several hundred pounds of plywood into a three-foot-tall stack in one corner of our driveway. Then, this morning, The Claw (my name for one of the city's waste disposal department's trucks) took it all away. I love The Claw.
Now I'm trying to think of ways to possibly reuse parts of my heavy-duty plywood-storage rack to build a small rack or storage shed for our new removable aluminum hurricane shutters. And I'm hoping that the city building inspector will show up tomorrow morning, to sign off on our permit, confirming that our entire hurricane-preparedness job is done.
The basic idea behind all open-source operating systems and software applications is that everyone can see the underlying code. That makes it easy for everyone to make improvements to its functionality and security. But what if your company's whole business depended on selling closed-source operating systems and software applications that were buggy and insecure — would you ever want to make them open-source?
I didn't think so.
Some time ago, there was a big controversy over a proposed airport security system that could look through everyone's clothes, allowing airport security workers to see everyone naked. Now the makers of a new system say that their camera can look through everyone's clothes
without revealing people's body parts. Insert your own lame joke here about an expected drop in the number of people applying to be airport security workers.
What's in your drinking water? You may not want to know.
What's an easy, fun, risk-free way to significantly reduce your risk of having a heart attack?
Get a cat.
Are you curious about what features, enhancements and fixes the upcoming new Firefox 3 browser will have? You'll know after you read Losing My Religion: Firefox 3.
We all know that there are many choices in Linux backup software, but which one is best? There's an old saying that the best backup solution is whichever one that you actually use. With that in mind, you might find that
Backerupper suits your needs just fine.
You'd probably have a hard time trying to figure out which group of computer users hates Windows Vista the most. Recently publicized internal Microsoft documents show that some of Vista's most frustrated users and harshest critics were
Microsoft insiders.
Many people think of IT workers as passive white collar drones, sitting and staring at their computer screens for hours at a time. That certainly isn't the case for those of us who have done any of
The 7 Dirtiest Jobs In IT.
I sure hope that you're keeping your computer's security systems updated. I also hope that you're smart enough not to fall for social-engineering tricks, because according to Google, spam and virus attacks are going to use
increasingly clever ways to fool people into infecting their computers.
It's hard to believe that people went to all the trouble and expense to create such beautiful homes with such ornately crafted wooden details. It's even harder to believe that they
abandoned them.
Linux users know that, unlike Windows, Linux gives you several different choices for desktop environments and windows managers. The two most popular desktop environments are
KDE (which I prefer) and
Gnome. Gnome fans will be glad to hear that the new Gnome 2.22 is reportedly pretty impressive, according to both
Tectonic and
Softpedia.
Technophiles have known about
OLED technology for decades. In recent years, OLEDs have appeared to potentially be the next great super-efficient lighting and display method. Now a company says that it has successfully invented a way create OLEDs using a relatively inexpensive
roll-to-roll process.
Even those of us who would never dream of going on a gambling trip may find it fascinating to learn something about
how casinos handle security.
Speaking of security, when you fly, does it make you feel safer to see long lines of your fellow travelers at airport security checkpoints, standing around without their belts, shoes or bottles of shampoo? We all know that airport security checks can be time-consuming, exhausting, frustrating, humiliating experiences, but there are a few ways to
get through security quicker.
Years ago, movie stars — at least in cartoons — would clutch their Academy Awards and say things like "I'd like to thank all of the little people who made this possible." I think it's kind of fun to imagine that they were referring to
these people.
Sometimes, I wonder if maybe I have an unhealthy amount of empathy, because I start to feel the same nervous frustration as the author when I read tech-support nightmares like
this one.
Most Linux distros are completely free and include between hundreds and tens of thousands of completely free professional-quality software applications. You're free to copy most Linux distros, install them on as many computers as you want, tweak their code any way you want, and even distribute them to other people free of charge. In contrast, Windows is very expensive, doesn't come with any professional-quality software applications, and if you bought a PC that came with an OEM version of Windows XP installed on it, you aren't even allowed to move it to a different PC, due to its
highly restrictive licensing policies. You can do whatever you want to do, but to me, the choice between Windows and Linux is a no-brainer.
I'm really looking forward to Firefox 3, especially now that I've heard that it's going to be
really, really fast.
I think it's safe to say that the folks at MIT know a thing or two about technology. So it's probably also a safe bet that they're right with their list of
10 Emerging Technologies 2008.
Here's some good news for those of us who live in sunny places: "Eleven university solar research projects aimed at developing advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) technology manufacturing processes and products got a $14 million boost today from the Dept. of Energy."
I've mentioned before that, back in the late 1980's, I wrote a paper for a Future of Educational course in which I predicted the creation of a few new technologies. One of those was a brain-to-computer interface that would allow people to access computer memory as though it were part of their own memory. Another was the internalization of a brain-to-telephone interface that would give people "electronic mental telepathy" by allowing them to make and receive cordless telephone calls through thought control. More than 20 years after I wrote those predictions, we began to see stories about people being able to control electronic games through brain-to-computer interfaces. And now we're beginning to see the first successful efforts at
electronic mental telepathy. I guess I'm pretty good at predicting what's coming in the future. Just don't ask me if it's going to rain this afternoon.
Yesterday, our home passed its city permit inspection of its new hurricane protection with flying colors. In fact, the inspector told me that the company that I hired did "a really good job." But he also told me that it's a good thing that I made them redo all of our windows to eliminate the one-inch gaps that I told you about several days ago, because with those gaps, the job would have failed his inspection. This morning, I went to my insurance agent's office with the signed paperwork that certifies that all of our home's windows and doors now meet the Sunshine State's most stringent Miami-Dade standards for hurricane protection. In a week or two, we should receive confirmation of how much we're going to save on our annual homeowner's insurance premiums from now on.
Yesterday, I got an email message from a Windows user with a very unusual request. I usually go out of my way to be as helpful as possible to this site's readers, but in this case I felt that her unusual request deserved an unusual response. Was my reply helpful? Overall, I think it was, but you can decide for yourself. For the details, see Email: How To Upgrade XP? You can find it in this site's CB Guides section.
If you're still sitting on the fence, trying to decide whether to try Linux or not, take a look at
What's This "Linux" Thing and Why Should I Try It? As an addendum to that article, I'd like to say that I highly recommend
Debian Linux and
its support forums for experienced computer users and
Mepis Linux and
its support forums for new Windows converts to Linux. I've been very happily using Debian full-time as my desktop Linux since this past December, and I very happily used Mepis full-time for 15 months before that.
This past December,
I joined the multitude of ISPs, corporations, educational institutions and governments that run
Debian Linux. Now comes word that "The Philippine government's official weather service, PAGASA, has replaced its SGI supercomputer with a clustered Debian Linux system that can process information vital to protection against typhoons, floods, droughts, tsunamis and other wild weather conditions at a fraction of the cost."
A tiny fraction of the cost.
We've all heard of vaporware, which Wikipedia defines as "a software or hardware product which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted development cycle." Over the years, I've looked forward to several products that turned out to be vaporware. See how many products you recognize in CNet UK's
Vapourware: The Tech That Never Was.
One of our nicest neighbors is moving out of state today, so last night, the couple next door to her had a big going away party at their house. I taught last night, but when I got to the party an hour after it began, I saw about 50 adults and children — several more arrived after I did. The hosts provided hamburgers, hot dogs and all kinds of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, while the rest of us brought tons of other things, ranging from chips and exotic salads to casseroles and side dishes to giant shrimp and barbecue beef and chicken to cakes and brownies. I prefer a quiet gathering with a few close friends to having to shout every conversation, but I really enjoyed last night. When I left after 90 minutes, there were still as many people and as much food as when I had arrived. I really love living in this neighborhood.
If you use Windows and/or RealPlayer software, here's something else for you to worry about: "A security firm has identified over 10,000 web pages rigged by cyber-criminals to
hijack the PCs of unsuspecting surfers."
Competition is almost always a good thing for consumers. With that in mind, Google is hoping that people will choose to make friends with its
Android instead of buying Apple's iPhone.
If one robot could help us out around the house, imagine what could be done by
swarms of 10,000 robots. Hey, isn't that the name of a pop-rock band?
Here's a perfect example of the type of technology that makes people say,
"not in my neighborhood."
"Wheef: the other, other white meat."
Regular readers of this Journal know that I very, very rarely ever mention anything about politics, other than to say that I generally have very little enthusiasm about any politician. That's why I thought long and hard for several days before I finally decided to write the following statement:
I recently took the opportunity to view a fascinating video titled Hillary: The Movie. I very highly recommend it. In fact, I came away from it believing that whether you're one of Senator Clinton's supporters or one of her detractors, you can't honestly claim to be making a fully informed decision about her if you haven't seen it.
If anyone knows of similar movies about Senator McCain or Senator Obama, please let me know. I would be happy to mention them here, too.
A few days ago, I linked you to a tech support horror story. Here's one woman's
response to that story.
I hope that this is an indication that the pendelum of justice is finally starting to swing the other way: "Robert Soloway, crowned the "spam king" by federal prosecutors for having sent millions of unwanted e-mails around the globe,
pleaded guilty Friday to felony mail fraud, fraud in connection with electronic mail and failing to file a tax return in 2005, the year he made at least $300,000 through his junk e-mail business."
Have you heard what it's like to use a notebook that has flash memory?
You probably won't.
How do you feel about the idea of using robots to fight wars? Learn about some of the related technical, ethical and moral issues in
America's Robot Army: Are Unmanned Fighters Ready for Combat?
I doubt that this video was "banned by Wendy's" — on the contrary, it looks to me like a perfect example of the "gorilla marketing" technique that some companies have learned to use to draw attention to their products. Nevertheless, it's pretty funny.
Windows Vista users should be aware that Vista Service Pack 1 is reportedly scheduled to be released
tomorrow as an automatic update. Is it ready for prime time yet? I don't know the answer to that question. Have you made backups of your important data so that you're ready for it? Only you know the answer to that question.
If you love to understand what goes on "under the hood" of the coolest technologies, you'll love Popular Science's
How It Works.
If you get angry when you read about elementary school children being branded as "slow learners" — and being educationally crippled as a result — then you're going to be furious about this: "Primary school children should be
eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert." Maybe it's time to pop some popcorn and watch
Minority Report again.
Some people say that behind every legend there's a grain of truth. Keep that in mind while you take a look at LiveScience's
Our 10 Favorite Monsters.
More than a week after we finished having our dream home completely and professionally hurricane-protected, it's still mostly sealed up with our new hurricane shutters. That's because, like dominoes, I'm having to rearrange and remount several large things in our garage, to create a place to store the new shutters. I worked on it all day yesterday and so far, so good, but it's probably going to take a few more days of hard work to finish the job.
Have you ever watched a video on YouTube and then wished you could save it on your hard drive in Linux? Well, that task is apparently
really easy to do.
For a few years, several years ago, I used
phpBB forum software to run this site's forums. I was mainly attracted to it because it was free and open source. The downside of that was that in a few years time, phpBB ended up getting twenty-something updates in a row that did nothing but stick electronic thumbs into its many security.holes. Now comes word that phpBB has
another security flaw. And this appears to be a really big one.
Here's some good news for anyone who's interested in having a "green" PC: "Researchers at MIT and Texas Instruments have designed a new chip that they claim could be up to
10 times more energy-efficient than the current generation."
Some people spend their time trying to think of ways to save energy and reduce mankind's carbon footprint, like the energy-efficient chip in the previous story. Others seem hell-bent on selfishly and frivolously
creating megatons of unnecessary pollution.
My local TV news departments have commercials that brag about how they're concerned about the environment. But a new study reveals that if you were to watch five hours of cable news, you would see
shockingly few stories about science or the environment.
After working on our garage all day yesterday, I woke up this morning feeling like someone had punched me in both shoulders. At least I got some good work done yesterday. My wife and I are really happy that all of our new hurricane shutters fit in just one corner of our garage,
in a raised box that I made by recycling some green-treated lumber from my former
hurricane plywood rack. I hope to finish rearranging our entire garage either today or tomorrow.
As far as I can tell,
Debian Linux runs very efficiently on my computer. But because I know that some people are always looking for ways to make their computers run faster, here are Wired's suggestions for how to
Speed Up Linux. Please don't do any of them without first checking with people that you trust in your favorite Linux support forums — many Linux distros are already optimized for most people's usage, so if you tweak them, you could actually slow down your computer.
KDE 4 was released several weeks ago and was generally praised, but some users complained that it was missing a few of their favorite features. KDE 4.1 hopes to
address those complaints.
The more I read about it, the more I look forward to using
Firefox 3.
If you like to see really cool robot technology, you're going to love seeing
a robotic bat and
a robotic dog. After you read about them, take a look at this amazing video of the robotic dog.
It took all day yesterday, but I managed to build and install a super-strong, 2.5-foot by 5-foot storage area, suspended from the ceiling of our garage. Man, that is really hard work — I lost two pounds yesterday. I hope to complete the other suspended storage area (about 4 feet by 4 feet) today. Then, once I get the whole garage cleaned up, and have stored everything that's all over the floor right now, I hope to build an outdoor storage area for our lawnmower, using what's left of my former hurricane plywood rack. When I'm done, we're going to have more floor space in our garage than we had before I built a place to store all of our aluminum hurricane shutters in one corner.
It was really windy yesterday, with gusts up to 40 miles per hour. In the middle of the afternoon, I heard what sounded like thousands of people crinkling wax paper, so I went outside and discovered that a 25 foot-long, 12-inch thick branch had ripped off of the large tree in our front yard. Happily, it missed Mike and Annamarie's car and mailbox, but it snapped the two power lines that go to all of the street lights on our entire block. Annamarie called the power company, and they came out a little while later to pick up the wires. I assume they'll come back today to replace them. Last night, after I finished working on the garage for the day, I borrowed Mike's chainsaw and cut that branch into what is now a big pile of smaller branches on one side of our driveway, where it will sit until The Claw comes around next Monday morning. I love The Claw.
Have you installed Vista Service Pack 1 yet? If you haven't,
here's why you should probably take a "wait and see" attitude about it.
Those of you who really know about electronics might understand how it works — I only know enough to be amazed that it works at all: Scientists "have developed
a microchip fan with no moving parts that operates silently and generates enough wind to cool a laptop computer."
There are certain "Holy Grails" of science — cold fusion, perpetual motion, and room-temperature superconductivity — that everyone knows no one will ever accomplish.
Or maybe they will.
This looks like really good news for proponents of biodiesel technology: "After years of development, the Washington-based company InnovaTek is testing a hand-sized microreactor that can
convert virtually any liquid fuel into hydrogen, producing a portable hydrogen stream for use in adjoining fuel-cells."
Yesterday, I built the second storage area suspended from the ceiling of our garage. And, since the power company hadn't come back to replace the power lines to the entire block's street lights that a fallen branch from the tree in our front had snapped two days ago, I borrowed Mike's chain saw and cut off two more large branches that had hung precariously over those power lines. Then, yesterday afternoon, my neighbor Charles, a tall, lanky fellow in his late 70s, came over with his chain saw and chopped up those two branches for me, while I stacked them on the driveway with the remains of that first branch.
This morning, the power lines to our whole block's street lights are still gone, so I decided that it was the perfect time to finally bite the bullet and pay the big bucks to have a professional tree service cut down the whole tree — a diseased holly tree about 2.5 feet across at its base — that had been dead for at least a couple of years. So, at 8:00 this morning, I called a local tree service company. A little while later, a guy showed up to give me a free estimate. His price was a little bit lower than the estimate that I had gotten from a different company two years ago. And since his company already had a crew in the area, they told me they could do the job today. Unfortunately, you need a City permit to cut down trees around here, and that usually takes a few days. So I called the City permit inspector's office and explained the situation to them. They told me that since it's kind of an emergency, I should go in and fill out the paperwork for a permit right away, then take some photos of the tree to show that it is dead — if I do those two things, then I'd have their permission to have the tree cut down today, and the permit inspector will sign the city permit to have the work done this coming Monday. I ran over to the City offices, which took about 20 minutes. Ten minutes after I got home, the tree-removal crew showed up in three or four large trucks. It took them less than two hours to cut down the whole tree, piece-by-piece, from the top-down, shred all of its branches into mulch, grind the tree stump down below ground level, load all of the debris into their trucks, rake the entire front yard clean, and blow the sawdust off of the driveway and sidewalk. They drove away at 11:30 this morning. The only remaining evidence of that tree is a small, round mound of mulch that will eventually dissolve back into the lawn. It was incredible to watch them do their extremely efficient and professional magic, and it was worth every penny that they charged us.
When my wife gets home from work, I'm going to try to keep a straight face and act surprised that the tree is gone.
I find it very interesting that the latest issue of the Windows Secrets newsletter contains an article called
Carry An Entire Operating System In Your Pocket. Why do I find that interesting? Because the operating system that they're recommending is not Windows. By now, I'm sure you've guessed what it is.
Last night, I told some kids that I teach a few examples of times that I've "done the right thing" when it would've been easier to do something wrong, or just do nothing at all. I hope that you're never forced to choose, but it's good to think beforehand about whether you would do the right thing
if your boss ever asks you to do something that you know is wrong. Here are a few people
who have thought about it.
There's an old saying that it takes a thief to catch a thief. In much the same way, if you want to have a successful career as a security professional, you need to be able to
think like a criminal.
The world's biggest undersea robot is
the size of a small house.
When we were in high school, I used to drive 385 miles to visit my girlfriend (who later became my wife). Sometimes I'd have to pull over to the side of the road and do some pushups or run a couple of laps around the car to keep myself alert during the endless, monotonous miles of turnpike driving. Researchers now think that it may be possible to keep drivers alert by installing
blue lights in their cars.
Happy Easter! As those of us of the Christian faith celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, this is a good day to give of yourself to others. Please shut off your computer and go spend some time with your family. If you don't have a family, please spend some time with someone else who loves you. If you don't have anyone who loves you, please spend some time with someone else who doesn't have anyone to love them.
I'm finally done. Saturday, I spent the whole day working in a cool drizzle that turned into a hard rain for the last 30 minutes of finishing the day's work and putting away my tools. Then Sunday was back to our normal warm and sunny weather as I finished completely rearranging our garage and converting my former
8-foot-by-4-foot hurricane plywood rack into a 4-foot-by-four-foot storage shelter for our lawn mower. When I have time, I'll dig up the two unneeded posts that I set in concrete four years ago. When I was done, it took another 90+ minutes just to throw out the trash, put everything away and sweep the garage floor. It looks incredible now, and for the first time in the nearly 4 years that we've lived here, there's 2-3 feet of floor space on each side of both cars, and all of the things that used to surround the cars is either suspended from the ceiling, hanging on the walls, or stored in cabinets. Whew!
If you're looking for ways to simplify, standardize or customize your Linux installations, you may want to take a look at
Instalinux. Its web site says, "This is a simple, easy way to install Linux. You follow the steps in the System Designer to choose from a bunch of different distributions and versions of Linux, and to choose what software you want included. The final product will be a fairly small ISO image (30 MB or less) that you can burn to a CD and boot from. It will automatically build your system for you, pulling what it needs from the network mirror you selected, while you sit back and relax."
Over the years, I've spent a lot of time doing Google searches to research the details of specific CSS properties. Unfortunately, a lot of the information that I've found has been outdated, incomplete, poorly documented, or it conflicts with other information that I've found. Apparently, I could save myself a lot of time and trouble in the future by buying a copy of
The Ultimate CSS Reference.
A new kind of high-efficiency lightbulb puts out nearly 9 times as much light per watt of electricity as a regular lightbulb. But you probably won't be able to use one in your home because, as this video shows, a bulb the size of a tiny breath mint
is as bright as a street light.
After spending several days working on our garage and getting less than 7 hours of sleep every night, yesterday, I did lots of hard work for an elderly, out of town friend all day. By the time I got home, I was exhausted. It's been years since I've had the opportunity to sleep for more than 9 hours, but last night, I lay down at 5:00 PM and slept for 14 hours. This morning, I'm not sleepy any more, but I still feel really tired. Today's schedule, which includes several hours of errands and minor tasks, is going to seem really easy compared to the past several days of hard labor, but I have a feeling I'm still going to be really tired by the time I finally lay down tonight.
I've warned you before that Windows XP will soon become an unsupported operating system. What will that mean to Windows users and what if anything can they do about it? Find out by reading
Windows XP: Going, going ... gone?
It's not expected until some time in 2010 — so it's anyone's guess when it will finally be released — but Microsoft is reportedly thinking of making Windows 7
modular and subscription-based. That means that Windows users will get to keep paying for it over and over and over, instead of just once every few years. Insert your own lame joke here about how Windows users already pay for it over and over and over.
Up until now, computers and their electronic components have been based on silicon, but it looks like silicon may be about to be upstaged by
graphene.
If you missed my warning about it last week, and now you wish that you hadn't installed it, here's
How To Dump Vista SP1.
For the past few years, I've thought of converting this Journal into a
WordPress blog, to allow my readers to leave comments. At first, I put off doing it because I didn't think WordPress would be secure enough or "light-weight" enough, but I think that more recent versions of WordPress and its plug-ins probably meet both of those criteria. Now the main issue for me is that it would take an awful lot of work to design my own WordPress theme to match this site and then convert my thousands of existing plain-XHTML Journal entries. If you have your own blog, you may want to check out
10 Plugins To Combat Comment Spam.
Back in 1968,
Mechanix Illustrated made some predictions about the future. See how right and wrong they were when they wrote
What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?
I imagine that it's really frustrating for politicians when their opponents tell lies about them, but it's got to be even more frustrating when there's no one to blame for the lies but
yourself — and then, after you claim that you "misspoke" and that your lies had been "a mistake," everyone sees proof that you've told those same lies
several different times in the past. To anyone who knows her extensive family history of unrepentant but politically expedient lies, obfuscations and fabrications,
these most recent lies come as no surprise. I'm just glad that at least
a little bit of truth is finally coming to light. UPDATE: Here's
a summary that offers some insight on the whole situation.
As always, I want to be fair to all sides, so if you have similar evidence about either of the other two U.S. Presidential candidates, I would be glad to mention it here, too.
The more Microsoft continues to try to convince everyone to switch to Windows Vista, the more desperate the company appears to a lot of us.
Windows XP vs. Vista vs. Linux compares all three — guess which one it concludes is the least desirable?
I still remember the story of the little Dutch boy who saved his entire village by sticking his finger in a hole in the dike that protected it. I imagine that working in Microsoft's security department probably feels a lot like using all ten fingers to plug holes, while knowing that the dike has many more holes than you have fingers. Here's
What Spooks Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor. Or at least what he's willing to publicly admit spooks him.
You might never use any of them as a template to redesign the look of your web site, but you might get some good ideas or inspiration from
Grid-Based Design: Six Creative Column Techniques.
"The rules of notebook design and the components that go inside are being rewritten to make the road a better place to work and play." See what Computerworld is predicting in
Hello, Gorgeous! Meet The Laptop You'll Use In 2015.
Many of us thought that it was a good idea for the U.S. military to use them in war zones. See if you still think it's a good idea now that police are thinking of using them all over the U.S., starting
in Miami, Florida.
Today would have been my little brother's birthday.
Linux users know that all of the popular U.S. Income Tax preparation software packages are designed to run under Windows. But that's not going to stop me from
Filing US Federal Taxes Under Linux.
CanSecWest is a security competition that's pitting hackers against a MacBook Air, Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux. Yesterday, at the beginning of the second day of the contest,
the first of the three system was hacked.
If you like to use Adobe's Photoshop Express, and you don't need all of its features, Adobe now has
a free web-based version of it.
They bend. They fold. They stretch. You can wear them. You can have them surgically implanted into your body. It looks like the future of electronics may be
flexible silicon chips.
"For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words 'Mary had a little lamb' on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison's invention of the phonograph
by nearly two decades."
The CanSecWest security competition pitted hackers against a MacBook Air, Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux. Yesterday, on the third and final day of the contest,
the second of the three system was hacked, leaving only one operating system unscathed at the end.
You would think that after all these years, Microsoft would have worked out all of the bugs in its Windows Activation scheme — well, maybe not Vista's, but at least XP's. Nevertheless, a couple days ago, an online tech-support expert ended up asking himself (and Microsoft),
Why can't I activate Windows XP?
This is the final day for countries to vote (before midnight) to either accept or reject Microsoft's controversial OOXML data format as an international standard. To add suspense to the drama that's been unfolding, it looks like some countries are doing some last-minute
vote switching.
Whether you have money to burn or you're not very smart about managing what little money you have, here are
Computerworld's
Top 10 Tech Toys To Blow Your Tax Refund On.
Many of us who understand, use, and have developed educational software systems were shocked and disgusted when Blackboard sought and received patents on previously discovered ideas that essentially gave it an unearned monopoly in the online-learning arena. Well, here's some good news: In a currently non-final decision, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has
invalidated all 44 of Blackboard's patent claims. Unfortunately, that decision may have come too late to rescue some of Blackboard's long-oppressed competitors.
I've only had it since May 17 of last year, but my Brother HL-5240 laser printer has been a real workhorse for the past 10 1/2 months. The standard toner cartridge that came with it is rated for an average of 3500 pages, but by using the printer's "toner-saver" feature, I was able to print a little more than 4500 pages with it. A high-yield cartridge that's rated for 7000 pages costs only about $20 more than a standard cartridge, so that's what I bought this morning.
Early indications predict that
the battle has probably been lost — but the war is far from being over.
A couple of days ago, I told you about Adobe's new, free, reduced-feature, online version of Photoshop Express. Adobe already has to
change its terms of service, after complaints from sharp-eyed users.
Some Germans are alarmed at their country's increased use of biometric data for security purposes, so they decided to take the law into their own hands (pun intended) — by
publishing the Secretary of the Interior's fingerprint on a plastic foil that anyone can use to fool biometric systems.
Extremely rich people love it. Corrupt government officials and deposed dictators love it. Tax evaders love it. Drug kingpins love it. But the rest of the world isn't so happy about it, so the pressure is increasing to
open up Switzerland's scandalous secret banking system.
What good is an "international standard" that people don't want and can't respect? If it had been done in a fair manner, without allegations of Microsoft cheating, bribing and otherwise unfairly, unethically and illegally influencing the voters, then I would have been able to accept the results without complaint. But instead, the whole world knows that the entire process was filled with unprecedented level of shameless corruption as well as countless "irregularities." And now there are reports of
even more sleazy back-room manipulations that may — and probably should — irreparably damage or destroy the credibility of the entire ISO certification process.
There are still many places in the world where people don't have any Internet access at all, or they're forced to use painfully slow, sporadic dial-up connections. If I had the world's fastest Internet connection, I'm not sure exactly what I would use it for — but I know for sure that I wouldn't do
this with it.
They look pretty convincing. I wonder how many people are fooled by PCWorld's
Ten Great (But Fake) Tech and Science Videos.
He's the network manager for a private school in Alabama, where he supports a 60-computer network. He works hard to upgrade his network's hardware and security, while training others to use their computers. Those are all pretty normal duties for a network manager — but extremely unusual duties for
an eleven-year-old boy.
It's a very sad subject, but for some people, this could be the last machine that they will ever buy — and
the last button that they will ever push.
The other day, while driving around, doing errands, I noticed a very slight old woman, slowly hobbling along a sidewalk. It was obvious that she was in great pain and could barely walk. I instantly felt sorry for her, and wondered if I should pull over and offer her a ride. As I passed her, I saw the rest of the story: She was pushing a wheelchair that carried another old woman. The woman in the wheelchair was bundled up in blankets, even though it was sunny and about 75� (24� C).
Have you ever noticed how politicians always refer to themselves as "public servants" and always brag about how many years they've spent "in public service?" Have you ever noticed that politicians are the only people in the world who call themselves public servants? I think that's because everyone else instinctively understands that a public servant is someone who chooses to help others altruistically, without reaping huge rewards — not someone who uses politics as a career path to become very rich and very powerful by shamelessly gorging at the public trough. Other than former U.S. President Jimmy Carter — who has spent the past few decades helping build new homes for poor families through Habitat For Humanity — how many politicians have ever spent more than an occassional photo-op moment doing anything to help any of the "normal people" that they publicly claim to be serving?
As far as I'm concerned, there are very few politicians who have ever been public servants — but millions of other people are. If you volunteer at a hospice, help people at your local senior center, deliver meals on wheels, teach children, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, visit the prisoner, or welcome the stranger, then you are a true public servant.
Please keep that standard in mind the next time you hear a politician speak.
Some people hate Microsoft. They really hate Microsoft, and they make their feelings really clear to everyone around them. Whether or not you agree with them, you'll have a better understanding of why they feel that way after you read
2007: Microsoft in Review.
It's April Fools' Day in the U.S. — a day in which it is generally acceptable for people to play sometimes cruel tricks and practical jokes on each other. Here's are Slashdot's readers' responses to a
Geeky April Fools' Day Prank Roundup.
I guess that there will probably be a market for it, but I don't think I want
my computer to start telling me who it thinks is attractive or not.
I can assure you that I am not — nor have I ever been —
co-opted by or paid by the U.S. military (or anyone else) "to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering." Of course, some may wonder if I would tell the truth about it if I were on some secret payroll. Of course I would. That's one of the many reasons why no one would ever bother to even make me such an offer. Another reason is that I'm not a "prominent" blogger. So, basically, even if you don't know that I'm an honest guy, you know that you can trust me because I'm not important enough for anyone to bother trying to corrupt me.
I guess that's a good thing — if I don't think about it too much.
It appears that now it's official: When dealing with the now nearly totally discredited ISO software standardization process,
the ends apparently do, in fact, justify
the means.
Here's one from the "You've-Got-To-Be-Kidding!" Department: T-Mobile has claimed trademark rights to
the color magenta. Or is it an April Fools' joke?
What would you guess is the latest threat to your privacy rights? You would be correct if you guessed that it's
your car's tires.
As an adult who has long paid a heavy price for a childhood of dental neglect, I'm looking forward to the promises of a newly developed method of
tooth regeneration.
