Archive for April, 2007

Ethernet Tester Looks Like Spam

Published April 30th, 2007 in fun. 0 Comments
Automatically scan mode, rapidly testing, the streamline shape is in accordance with the design of somatology
Durable design, working well even in construction location
Super handy device ensures your good mood.

The prices were good, but reading the description of the Multi-functional RJ45 and RJ11 LED Network Cable Tester made me worry a bit about the company. I almost expect to have stock pick suggestions on the next page.

Computer Thoroughly Hosed

Published April 30th, 2007 in Misc Othr Stuf. 1 Comment

Well, I have only demolished the boot record of the primary hard drive, but that shouldn’t be too hard to fix.

I have finally decided to turn my computer over to using multiple operating systems. Since I had no desire to partition drive 2, I decided to partition drive 1. Since Drive 1 has the recovery information for my system on the initial partition I believe that my partitioning of the other chunk of the drive may have been my downfall.

I have done some repartitioning using the gparted livecd I had on hand, but that 6GB fat32 partition at the front must be throwing me off. Tomorrow I am going to wipe that out and start with a clear drive.

So long Compaq Recovery Partition! You have caused me enough annoyance, I shall not miss thee.

For the record, I had installed XP Pro on the system, but the recovery system uses XP Home. Recovery tries to use the recovery partition to take the OS back to original installation state while leaving added programs in place. Trying to recover XP Home SP 1 over XP Pro fully patched did not turn out well. It was painful to use.

Blocking Snap.com

Published April 21st, 2007 in Personal Issues. 2 Comments

I finally got tired of it. I know, maybe I am just a cranky geek (maybe I should contact Dvorak), but I just got fed up with Snap.com.

They are the ones who provide a service in which mousing over a link will bring up an image of the page being linked. It used to just be obnoxious advertisements that did this now people are sticking it into their WordPress blogs. And this is wrong. I’ll give reasons:

  1. Pop-ups are annoying. Especially unexpected and unnecessary pop-ups.
  2. Someone visiting your site should not have to be constantly worried about where they are moving the mouse. Popups like that just get in the way and cause aggravation.
  3. If I want to see what a site looks like I will click on the link. The small image that Snap provides shows me nothing about the content. I am just not interested.
  4. This skews people’s traffic stats. It is just like that evil prefetching that the FasterFox plug-in is capable of doing. I don’t want to constantly be serving pages to Snap jsut to have it show up as an image somewhere.

I do have some advise for those who are sick of it as well. I just used my hosts file to block the domain that serves the activating javascript. For Windows XP go to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts and add the following line:

0.0.0.0 spa.snap.com

And for all you web masters I say “Don’t be that guy.” Really, don’t be him.

Block Posters: Make Images into Large Prints

Published April 21st, 2007 in Personal Notes. 3 Comments

This is an interesting idea. http://www.blockposters.com will take an uploaded image and reproduce it as a multipage PDF which can be printed and then hung up like a large poster.

I am noting this because I know of some youth and young adults ministries which would be able to make great wall decorations with this. It has an interesting look to it which catches your eye. Sure, you could do this on your own, but could they? It also takes only a moment to produce and is ready for your printer. I would recommend not using a little ink jet for this, and a dot matrix would be right out.

Trapped in the Skinner Box

Published April 19th, 2007 in Personal Issues. 1 Comment

I have ordered three items that I am greatly anticipating right now. An mp3 player from Woot.com being shipped via Fed Ex and expected to arrive on the 21st, a laptop from Dell being shipped via DHL and expected to arrive on the 20th, and a 320GB Seagate external drive from TigerDirect via UPS and expected on the 23rd.

Any one of them could show up a little early, so I have all three tracking pages open and I have trouble not hitting refresh every few hours just to see where the item currently is. Does that make me a sick individual?

I hope someone else out there empathizes with my condition. I really want the mp3 player tomorrow but it is out in Irving, TX; the Laptop is in Orlando, FL so I may have it tomorrow; and the $120 Drive (shipped and all) is up in Hodgkins, Illinois. I love getting good prices online, but I am too impatient to be as cheap as I am. All items ordered with slow shipping.

Circuit Bending: A Scourge on Society

Published April 18th, 2007 in fun. 0 Comments

My daughter has lots of battery operated noise toys, and some of them make very freaky noises when the batteries run down. That is the natural form of the deliberate “art” known as circuit bending. Battery operated noise toys use circuits to create wave forms that are converted into sounds by the piezo-electric disc speakers. If you alter that circuit by changing the resistence or by shorting different areas you make some funky noises of your own.

Yes, it can be fun, but it can be very annoying to those around around you. The problem is that just like you don’t realize how annoying your teeth grinding, headphone inspired singing, finger tapping, and general nervous noises are to others you may not realize the pain you are causing someone else. That is why I found this video to be very funny.I can almost hear an authoritative voice-over talking about circuit bending as being a scourge on society. It reminds me of those “Just say NO to Drugs” videos where they show people being idiots while intoxicated.

Anyway, here is the video at YouTube

Firefox Inside Firefox

Published April 12th, 2007 in Personal Notes. 0 Comments

Copy and paste this into your Firefox address bar.

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

Yes, it is almost completely useless, but you can have a Firefox window inside a Firefox tab. That means tabs inside tabs too.

Multiple SSID Security options on wifi

Published April 7th, 2007 in Techie. 1 Comment

After this post on needing new access points I received a comment from Tony Dye about Multiple SSIDs, I have been looking at some options.

3Com® Wireless 7760 11a/b/g PoE Access Point (about $200)
Linksys WAP200 (about $120)
Linksys WAP54GP (about $150)
Asus WL-320gP (about $130)
SMC2552W-G2 EliteConnectâ„¢ Wireless Access Point (about $230)

Has anyone else been doing this? Does it work well to have one SSID protected by WPA and able to access the network while another SSIDis open to the public but only able to go to the internet?

Simple Fun with Windows Run

Published April 5th, 2007 in Techie. 2 Comments

3 years ago my primary usage of the command line was on Linux web servers. occasionally I would need DOS prompt access for doing mysql maintenance on my Windows machine, but the Windows Run box was mainly used for regedit.

I use Run a bit more now, but I find myself using the same commands most of the time. Windows experts out there will probably know most of these already, but it is worth listing them anyway.

  • Runas

The one I use most often is “runas.” The story behind hunting for this is posted here, so I won’t bother with the long story. I use runas mainly in our domain to access content on other machines, run programs as admin, and use the Control Panel as admin. It sure beats logging out and in and then out and back in.

runas /user:domain\username “explorer /separate”

Once you hit enter a black box will ask for your password. If your command and user info is correct then Windows Explorer will pop up with that user’s full privileges. From Windows Explorer you can make it into Internet Explorer or evenmake any settings changes you want.

  • Shutdown

I use remote desktop a lot. I use it to reach systems from home (usually through a VPN or computer hopping) and to run some security camera boxes that I have not physically touched in months. I usually reboot them once a month as part of the update, file cleanup, and maintenance I do on them. Since I don’t touch them I rely on reboot.

shutdown -r /t 1 (”r” for reboot, the “t” for setting the delay time, and “1″ because I am impatient

shutdown -s (”s” is for shutdown and I just use the default 30 sec countdown in case I change my mind

shutdown -a (”a” is for abort when I realize I didn’t mean to shutdown)

shutdown -i (”i” is for interactive GUI. This makes shutting down other people’s computers easier. Remember the fine line between having fun and getting your nose punched.)

  • Remote Desktop

mstsc

The Microsoft Terminal Service Client is typically located at Start > Programs > Accessories > Communications > Remote Desktop Connection. I typically give it the shortcut [ctrl]-[alt]-r but I have been on computers where the shortcut is lost. All I need to remember is the mstsc.

What Run commands do you use?

There is a bunch here: 156 Useful Run Commands, but many are just typing the exe filename of the application. I am interested in stuff that is more clever than that.

Another 10 Signs Your Church is Geeky

Published April 5th, 2007 in fun. 1 Comment

It has been a while, but I have had some more signs of geeky churches going through my head. You can read the previous posts on this topic at “Signs Your Church is Geeky” and “10 More Signs Your Church is Geeky.”

  1. Services are enhanced by Twittercasting.
  2. Your ministries are referred to as “nodes.”
  3. The timing of your last congregational photo relied on inside information so that it appears on Google Maps.
  4. Forget the open WiFi in the building, you’ve gone WiMax.
  5. When someone talks about “Original G” it isn’t a rap reference, they’re just talking about a standard 54Mb wireless connection.
  6. The only references to XP in the office are historical, sometimes about the OS and sometimes about the Labarum.
  7. Considering a satellite congregation in the Netherlands Antilles so you can register the domain name Christi.an
  8. Not only are the teens goofing off in the back row,but they are being disruptive on the backchannel.
  9. Sometimes your prayer gatherings are so deep they are only described as “Meta.”
  10. Your preacher wears an 8-bit tie.

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