Archive for February, 2006

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Published February 27th, 2006 in Misc Othr Stuf and Techie. 1 Comment

Why do people think that all it takes is an “!” to cause excitement and interest?

I am working hard to train the people who produce information for the web site to avaoid the ! all together.

If it was used properly then it would be just fine, but one sentence I just calmed down read as:

Bring your hammers, sledge hammers, crow bars, rakes, brooms, all-metal cutting blade saws, protective eye ware, and screw guns!

WooHoo!!! Screw guns!!!

Yay!!!! Protective Eye Ware!!!!!

Who let the dogs out!!!! Rakes!!!!!

Update: I figured that I would add in that I am starting to tell people to read over what they write and every time they hit an “!” they should throw their arms into the air and yell “Yay!!”

Sell Your Personal Info for only 99¢

Published February 26th, 2006 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Kentucky Fried Chicken (aka. KFC) has a special offer.

One of their commercials has a hidden message meant to get people to go frame by frame through the commercial to see the hidden code.
“Go to KFC.com, Enter the secret code “Buffalo” Get a coupon for a FREE BUFFALO SNACKER while supplies last.

This sounds like a job for codebreaking through distributed computing, right?

After finding the answer with a quick Google search (and later pausing through the commercial on the site) I decided to submit. I entered my age, but it kept telling me I was too young when I submitted (how many 17-year-olds do you know these days who were born in 1977?). I swtched from Firefox to IE (just for this) and got in.

Now, the only thing standing between me and a free tasty flavorful 99¢ sandwich was giving my name, address, email, phone, and gender (I hope they aren’t gathering the data in order to be discriminatory). After a bunch of fake info I find out that if I am one of the first 75,000 I will get a $1 coupon (taxes would still be my responsibility).

Is your personal data worth $1?

Bootleg Concert Video - Chris Tomlin: Indescribable

Published February 26th, 2006 in Misc Othr Stuf, Religion and Security. 4 Comments

Indescribable Bootleg Video

So, I missed out on seeing the concert live, but I got a top row seat when I got back to my office. Because I am such a wild rebel I figured I would share a bit of the video with anyone who is interested.

I shrunk the video, compressed it, and only included a few seconds; but I think it conveys the flavor of the evening.

Hard Drive Health Monitor

Published February 26th, 2006 in Techie. 3 Comments

My roommate in college was a bit of a metalhead. Metallica, Deliverance, Pantera, etc.

I rarely hear that type of sound anymore unless it is coming from a failing hard drive.

I have a stack of hard drives just a few feet away from me. They are drives that have been ripped from dead computers and most will serve as little more than paper weights and decorations, but there are some good drives.

The problem comes when you have a hard drive you rely on and it fails on you. That is why I have installed HDD Health, which is freeware from Panterasoft (sounds better than Metallicasoft), to monitor my hard drives. I cannot say how well it has worked since all my drives seem to be doing well, but I have installed it.

HDD Health is a full-featured failure-prediction agent for machines using Windows 95, 98, NT, Me, 2000 and XP. Sitting in the system tray, it monitors hard disks and alerts you to impending failure. The program uses Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) built into all new hard disks, and can predict failures on your hard drives. A host of alerting features include email, local pop-up messages, net messages, and event logging, while using no system resources.

Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Personal Goals

Published February 25th, 2006 in Misc Othr Stuf and Religion. 0 Comments

I found this via LifeHacker, it is a list of goals set by Benjamin Franklin when he was a young man.

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.

6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

12. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

This sort of thing has a way of keeping you honest about how you are really doing. The funny thing is that most of us find it easier to keep a scorecard like this on other people, but not on ourselves.

Podcast Recommendation: Good Naming

Published February 25th, 2006 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I know this is cannot be a new idea, but if you are podcasting please may intelligible filename.

I have an mp3 player ful of podcasts that have filenames that impossible to decifer.

For example, I am listening to several NPR podcasts and they use npr_84750923.mp3 where “84750923″ is apparently the number of the podcast. I assume that number is based upon all podcasts no matter what show it is from.

This makes it very hard for me to tell them apart. There is information embedded in the mp3 file that helps with some sorting, It has the artist name which they use for the production campany and the album title which is used for the show’s name. This does nothing to really distinguish between shows.

I am glad that one of them has started putting an incrementing podcast number in the album title, but that does hurt the sorting in the mp3 player.

Here is what I do with the sermon podcast at Christ’s Church.

Continue reading ‘Podcast Recommendation: Good Naming’

Google Page Creator

Published February 24th, 2006 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I am interested to see how well Google Page Creator (aka. GooglePages.com)works, but you can read more about it here
I got to it a little bit late, but I have registered to be notified when they have an opening again. My main worry is the increase in spam on my gmail account considering the address is emailusername.googlepages.com

Update: It works now

How is your church’s online community?

Published February 22nd, 2006 in Religion and Techie. 3 Comments

I want to create an active and vibrant online extension of our local church community, but I want to see another one in action too.

I am going to start poking into ministry forums and asking about churches who have been building online communities.

Successes, failures, and other results.

Have you tried this? Have you seen any?

A Shortcut to EventU

Published February 18th, 2006 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Our church uses EventU from ServiceU.com for scheduling. It is obvious that the security personel would need to be able to see the schedule easily so we have set up some easy tools for them.

The first step was the bookmark and shortcut. Each security staff member who sits at the front desk shares a login. This keeps everything easier for management and search links. When the security member logs into the computer there is a shortcut and bookmark which directly enters the system.

https://my.serviceu.com/login.asp?Login=True&strDestination= &strEmailAddress=Email@Example.com&strPassword=ThePassword&blnAuto= &btnLogin=Log%20In%20Now!&bhcp=1

I have set up the searches I want them to use and made sure they have all options selected so that pending and unapproved still appear just in case reality insist on the event occuring.

Since ServiceU insists on the schedule being for Internet Explorer users only and makes us alienate people who use Firefox to look at the schedule on our site, I have installed the IE Tab Extension (I actually prefer version 1.0.6.4 since it works better with inline frames) and set my.serviceu.com as an “always load in IE Tab” link.

These improvements have made the security tasks much easier when compared to the default setup.

The Poetic Apple (I may get shut down soon)

Published February 18th, 2006 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

If this blog suddenly disappears then it is probably because the Apple-stapo has hunted me down to silence their tightly held secrets.

I am about to tell you about a secret deep down inside of the new Intel Macs.

Your karma check for today:
There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind,
he’d do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.
Please don’t steal Mac OS!
Really, that’s way uncool.

I had never been to the CBN site before, but they had one of the better stories on this bit of verse.

Apparently there is more in store for those who bore and go beyond the door to hit the core and ignore the war that Jobs’ work is for as they shore up the source and implore that people hack it no more but ware before that in the lore of hacking there are surprises galore no matter the company who makes the chips from the ore and no matter who they adore whether Pooh, Eor or the internet inventor we know as Gore no matter the haut couture they will hold down the poor as the pore though the hackers we heard roar as deeper they tore as in days of yore they seek the sense of your understanding that they will do something to get in and figure everything out so OS X will run on regular Intel chips..

You should see my feet, nope they are not LongFellows. However, I did spend too much time listening and immitating a “rhyming prophet” on a local station back in college.

Continue reading ‘The Poetic Apple (I may get shut down soon)’

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