Entropy By Design

No Such Luck

2011-09-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

What is luck? Outcome determined by chance? That is probably a definition many would agree with. But is it real?

Superstitions exist in the belief that it is. They hope to perform some action to obtain good luck or avoid bad luck. While superstitions may be difficult to prove via a rational analysis, there may be a practical basis at the origin of some. The September 25th, 2011 edition of Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley puts a humorous perspective on several.

One final thought for Christians who confess Christ as their Lord and Savior. By their own statement they will acknowledge that the God is in control of their lives. If so, what place does random chance take in their lives?

The biblical worldview makes no such allowance for luck. Instead it shows the plan and purpose God has for everyone and that plan can be known.

Something to think about.

Enjoy.

Adding Windows Truetype Fonts to Linux

2011-08-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

Out of the box, modern Linux systems have an adequate number of fonts for any task. However like all things Linux, they are different from what the user who has just migrated from Windows is used to having, even with the ttf-mscorefonts package installed This post will be a quick tutorial on how to add those "missing" Windows fonts to your Linux system.

Quick legal disclaimer: this is a technical how-to article, not a legal interpretation of Microsoft's EULA for Windows or any other software that may have installed Truetype fonts under Windows. If you have any questions or concerns, read the license agreement for yourself or seek other counsel before proceeding.

The assumption is that Windows is still available in a multi-boot configuration and that the Windows partition can be mounted in Nautilus, the Linux file manager. If that is not the case, there are many sources of truetype fonts available on the web for free, even including handwriting fonts if you're interested. The basic steps are:

Open the Nautilus file manager and select the correct "nn Gb Filesystem", to mount the Windows partition
Open a terminal session and become root via the su command
cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype
mkdir winxp
cp /media/your_mount_point/Windows/Fonts/*.ttf /usr/share/fonts/truetype/winxp

The above mixes using the UI and terminal to use the easiest of both. Details of using the mount command can be found quickly elsewhere on the web - both to mount the Windows parition from the terminal or query the mount point Nautilus selected. It'.s probably the only really long hex number though. Mounting the partition via the UI and verifying that /Windows/Fonts exists was also much easier to write up.

Lastly, there's nothing unique about the choice of the winxp/ directory name. If you choose to add additional fonts from other sources, choose any name (ex: myfonts/) for the directories you create, as long as they are all under /usr/share/fonts/truetype.

I just walked a relatively new Linux user through this and so thought a quick post might help someone else too.

Enjoy.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

2011-03-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

Not just Twitter actually, but any type of social media. Some form of the subject question seems to come up on a semi-regular basis, probably more so in circles where the age creeps upwards and usage of social media is not a de-facto way of life. The question came up recently where I work, so I thought I'd put a somewhat more reasoned answer in one of the forms of media that sparked the question.

Cutting right to the chase - why do I tweet, blog and book? There is no one easy answer. I took my time entering the field of public posting, attempting to make sense of it all first. I doubt I've made perfect sense of it all now. However, I think I have learned some things and can provide a "how it works for me" answer. So in no particular order, here we go:

Staking out a claim in cyberspace. With a name like mine, there are not too many of us with the same name - but somebody had to be first.

Preventing XPFA. Short for Cross-site Personality Framing Attack. Semi-related to the point above, follow the link for a not only a good explanation, but the original coining of the acronym.

Connecting with old friends. I have found and been found by friends that I'd known all the way back to Junior High. We'd disconnected for various reasons, mostly unintentional and benign neglect. The boundary free nature of social media provided a way to reconnect.

Staying connected with current friends. Short quick status updates initially seemed like shouting into cyberspace. Over time, face to face meetups started to include conversations seeded from something that had been posted. Instead of eliminating in person connections, social media has enhanced them.

Keeping my friends. I previously had the habit of occasionally sending out mass emails to various groupings of friends and family with everything from vacation pictures to political views. I'm a realist, probably a lot of time they were just deleted. Social media allows the recipient to tune how, when and if they view content you share - maybe helping me keep a few friends in the process.

Professional connections. I spent a couple of decades with a large international business that I still very much admire. However at the time I was there, it was very much inward focused, not participating and thereby missing out on a lot of good people and ideas in the industry as a whole. Focused national organizations and business networks provide a way to maintain connections and share very specific ideas.

Giving something back. It goes without saying that like most people, I've learned a lot through other people posting their experiences to the internet. Not that anything I've put up is necessarily unique or special, but it just might give someone another perspective to consider.

Overall, it has been a very positive experience. In addition to the benefits above, I've been contacted by persons who found my words to be useful and found my content cross linked in positive ways. Being more in the public space has resulted in some harvesting of my name into various bogus listing services, but so far no harm done.

Sometimes blogging can still seem to me like answering questions that haven't been asked. I started this post with one and will end with another. Whether you consider yourself a reader, subscriber, follower, connection or friend - are you yet a writer? There are a lot of choices, don't try and make too much sense of it, just get started and what is important will become clear.

Enjoy.

Fret Dressing

2011-03-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

Collecting guitars is a trap many players fall into. There's always thoughts of a "next guitar". I'm likely no different. The youngest of my first two sons (Steven Cimijotti) and I both agreed for years that the Fender Stratocaster sunburst finish was our favorite guitar style. Neither of us did anything about it at the time, but I never changed my mind.

Fairly recently I came across one at a great price and decided it was my next guitar. The neck was solid and straight. The action was low and fast. The finish was beautiful. The one not so perfect element was the frets. They were rounded nicely, but the cutoff ends were not finished well for a number of frets. It was accounted for in the price and so I bought it, knowing one day I'd fix them. That one day turned into many until our recent run of snowed in days. It was time.

Let me say right off the start - I am not a luthier. I have adjusted truss rods, replaced nuts and experimented with many different strings in making several guitars I've owned more playable. However, I've never dressed frets before. Never needed to actually. So if you're using this as a guide, proceed at your own risk, but it did work for me.

There are lot of sites and videos that will show fret detail and dressing techniques for various repairs. The problems I needed to correct were sharp edges on the bottom of multiple crowns where they'd been cutoff. Also three frets where the tang was not flush with the neck. Here are the steps I took to correct them.

Preparation

Assemble the following: micro file set, painter's tape, wire cutters, polyurethane (optional).

Setup

Relax and cutoff both E strings. To keep tension on the neck during the work, I left the middle four intact, just removing what was needed for filing.
Tape down each side of the neck, just below the frets. Using blue painters tape insures that it will come off easily and be easy to see if hit with the file.
Tape down in parallel to the frets, as close as possible without touching.

Dressing

Pick a flat file that seems suitable, maybe one with a taper. Starting roughly parallel to the fret, draw the file around the end of the fret and down.
Start near the bottom, around 12th where still have some room, develop technique in a lesser played area.
Use the flat side of a tapered file. One direction, rolling motion, starting parallel to fret, rounding over end and down (end of stroke illustrated)

A couple of tips to keep in mind along the way:

If you're tempted to not use tape - don't. The tape, especially the blue tape which turns white when roughed up, provides a visual of when getting too deep. Plus a thin margin of error for slips.
Place the tape across the frets like laying out string for a setting a fence - as close as possible without touching.
Near the body frets are narrower than the tape so you can't pre-tape the whole neck to do the job factory style. There will be iterations of tape removal and resetting. This is more craft anyway, take your time.
Since the strat is a double cutaway, I was able to dress 16 on one side and 19 on the other side. I never play further down the neck anyway, so risking the paint shop finish on the body (the main reason I bought the guitar) wasn't worth it
Filing took about two hours, a slow and meticulous process, running my hand along entire neck many times as comparision for each one as it was being worked.

Completion

Overall, this was a great success and I'm glad that I did it. The neck feels much better now when playing. There are one or two spots where I should have stopped which resulting in a couple micro fine and very short grooves next to a fret. They weren't enough to require any refinishing, therefore the polyurethane was listed as optional above, more as a warning.

The neck more than passes the 6x6 rule (visible at 6 inches, but not from six feet) which is good enough for me. However, if you're really particular and/or have a very expensive guitar, finding a professional luthier to do the work for you might be less stressful.

The picture below (that I couldn't get the lighting just right on) provides some idea of what the finished product looks like, restrung and back hanging on the wall.

For me, this project was probably as much about customizing the guitar as it was just trying something different to see if I could do it. Looking back, I'd do it again without hesitation.

Now to take it back off the wall and enjoy.

The Best Discussion

2011-03-02T20:11:00.000-08:00

STRTweets posted an entry last week linking to Joe Holland's blog post on "8 Tips for Talking to Kids About the Sermon". In that original article Mr Holland begins and ends with two observations about kids:

They retain more than you think they do
They understand more than you think they do

Both are accurate statements in my experience. The first is encouraging to any parent wanting to pass along their values to their children. The second echoes my previous thoughts on the ability of children to think critically.

In between those two observations, he makes a number of good suggestions on how to create opportunities to introduce your children to Jesus. My own experience as a parent is filled with both failure and success, many of each, in making those introductions. Especially in the area of post sermon discussions. The remainder of this post focuses on some elements of the successes, as additional considerations in addition to the "8 Tips" linked above.

We've tried a number of techniques to both emphasize a sermon message and to use it as spring board into broader family discussions. When children were very young, completing the picture in a children's bulletin was a start. That graduated into writing any three notes about the sermon, which typically became a song title, picture and Bible verse. Finding the right balance after those early stages has been more challenging and varies between children. Particularly when as a parent you believe a child isn't "working at their potential", to use a common school phrase.

Two things that have generally worked well in our family have been big picture discussions and chasing rabbit trails. The big picture is typically easy to grasp, even for wandering attentions, and leads naturally to a discussion on life application. Often though, it branch off down a rabbit trail, which has lead to all sorts of interesting insights. In both, open ended questions help encourage thinking and typically provide guidance for where the conversations will or should go.

In the end, the best discussion might be not be a specific discussion technique at all. It might be the experience of spending time and talking with your children. It just might provide a memory of what you value to them, in more ways than one. Something to pray about.

Enjoy.

Learning to Love Linux

2011-01-24T18:15:00.000-08:00

My entire family has been converted to Linux. While I drove the adoption as the tech support in residence, the conversion wasn't always met with open arms by all. In the end the the fear of the unknown was overcome and everyone did learn to (mostly) love Linux.

This post is a summary of the applications that have helped in that adoption. There are many Windows to Linux application equivalence charts. This won't be another one. Nor is this a detailed analysis of the merits of various alternative applications. Instead, like most posts on this site, is more statement of what worked for us, with minimal explanation.

User Interface

This is the area where adoption begins - initial navigation. Being able to find, start and stop programs is crucial. Like it or not, the 800 pound gorilla is Windows and it's navigation paradigm. Following it has benefits both in home adoption and in transferring skills to systems outside the home, such as at school. Based primarily on that plus overall out-of-the box functionality, Linux Mint is our main choice, however we have at least one of each below.

Linux Mint - best Windows equivalent: start menu, taskbar, min/max/close buttons
Ubuntu - the foundation for the other two distributions: inverted UI for Windows users, a lot of "the same only different"
UNE (was UNR) - Screen optimized for netbooks: nothing the same here, launcher very unique

Identical - Linux

These applications comprise most of the home computer usage in our family. Either originally on Windows or once converted to Linux, these are identical. It should probably be noted that no one is a PC gamer. Those that enjoy those use dedicated consoles.

Firefox - customizable web browsing
Office - word processing, spreadsheet and presentations
Picasa - photo management
Google Desktop - desktop, email and web searching
KeePassX - password manager

Office above refers to Open Office, which is cross platform. Since most home users don't use 3% of the installed function of Office applications, switch the default file type to the Microsoft format (for sharing) and you'll never know the difference.

Alternatives - Linux

These are the native Linux applications that round out the functions wanted by the family. Note that these links are given for information only. Applications are installed via the package manager within a Linux system, not via web downloads.

Banshee - music manager and mp3 sync. Syncs perfectly to multiple mp3 players and Android.
Songbird - music manager and iPod sync. We have only one iPod owner and this works well for him.
Totem movie player - DVD playback. VLC has more options and may be use less CPU though.
apcupsd - software control for APC UPS. Battery operation options for UPS.
gnuCash - accounting software. Amazing software, gave it 14 months of usage, but switched back to Quicken.
simplescan - multi sheet scanning to PDF. The 300Mb+ of HP Solution Center is gone.
Tomboy - cross platform - sticky notes, useful with DropBox.

Productivity - Linux

Many people create written content either to send (email), print (documents) or remember (sticky notes). Those that make a discipline out of creating content, in the hope they'll be more productive, might be interested in these.

Nevernote - an open source, cross platform (near) clone of Evernote, focused on creating the "missing" Linux client
Rednotebook - an open source, cross platform (including Windows portable version) journal and calendar application

Alternatives - Cloud

A switch in operating systems might also be a good time to look at cloud, or web based services. Consider your access, storage and security needs. You may find this is a good time to move to a computer anywhere model.

Springpad - cross platform, web and mobile. Social and email linkage. If I ever switched from Evernote, this would be it. Maybe when I upgrade to Android 2.1, hmmm.
Mint - Owned by Intuit, "Quicken Lite" - limited to pulling 3 months history when starting, relatively inflexible categories, very coarse grained tax designations. But, like GnuCash, great for a free application.
Google Docs - All office type applications and data are web based. The performance lag, plus existing critical mass keep me from this, but there is a lot of positives if starting fresh.
Dropbox - cross platform, web and mobile. Synchronized file access for all your computers via the web. Allows access from any web browser.

Identical - Wine

This section gives me a deja vu from my time as a OS/2 Version 3 (aka Warp) support engineer. The Win 3.x compatibility and IBM's inability to market small systems led to OS/2s downfall, but I digress. In any event, while trying alternatives I did test the following two 32bit Windows applications, which worked perfectly for everything I tested under Wine 1.2 (Windows emulator):

Quicken 2009 - personal finance management
Evernote 3.1 - tagged note taking, cross platform (except Linux), web and mobile

Don't Need

A short list of some of the things you'll no longer need to have bogging down your system, keeping updated or having to spend.

Anti-Virus
Anti-Spyware
Disk Defrag
Adobe Reader
PDF Writer
Proprietary Scanner
Validation
Upgrade $$$

Problems

Linux is not Utopian computing. At the end of the day there are still some computer "they're all like that" issues - see the "mostly" comment at the start. This is our short list of items that I haven't solved due to time, expertise or interest. One of our Linux Mint systems loses X-Windows only occasionally when two users are logged in. The UNE system uses a launcher that removed Places which makes local file sharing more inconvenient than it should be. Our lowest end system (1.8Ghz/512Mb) runs movies better on WinXP, although everything else runs better under Linux Mint. If none of these situations apply (or make sense to you), have no worries.

Still not sure? Try one of the Live CD distributions. While the actual boot is about 20 times slower than off a hard drive, you'll have full functionality once its up and running. It will even allow installations (for that session) of additional software.

Hopefully this can be a small additional resource to those considering the move to Linux or just starting out. Net: the benefits far outweigh the small learning curve to be climbed. You just might end up loving it.

Enjoy.

Computer Donation

2011-01-07T19:05:00.000-08:00

How do you safely donate a computer to a person or organization when you've moved on in your technology needs? How can you do so without putting your own digital information or identity at risk? The difficulty in answering these questions keep many old computers sitting unused in closets.

While better than going to a landfill, there are uses that are better yet. Job retraining facilities can use older machines for teaching purposes, running local applications for courses such as typing and basic computer skills. Non profits can also use downlevel machines as dedicated kiosks they might otherwise not afford. Whatever the use might be, something is better than nothing. Let's get started with some how-to considerations.

The key is to remove personal information from the machine and any licensed software that you are not including in the donation (including original media, documentation and license). Personal information not only includes information in email and files, also browser cache, cookies, history.

The easiest way to insure nothing is disclosed is to wipe the entire drive. There are several utilities that will do this, including the popular Darik's Boot and Nuke. Download the .iso, burn it to a CD (not as a file, as an image). Insert the CD into the old machine and (you guessed it) - boot and nuke.

The downside to this is that the machine is now unusable without a reload of an operating system. To reinstall on an older machine, find all necessary drivers, configure preferences, etc. can take some time. The staff at your chosen ministry or nonprofit might not have the necessary skills or tools either. It might be faster to do some selective deletion. The suggestions below will provide some steps to get you started.

Open the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs then create a new user with administrative rights.
Write the userid and password on a piece of tape and put it on the side of the machine.
Logoff then logon with the new id
Delete all other ids
Open C:\Documents and Settings, delete all folders except All Users, Default User and the one you just created
Open the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs then delete as necessary
Browse the Start menu for applications that may need to be deleted
Open C:\Program Files, then look for any remaining applications for deletion
Look for files off the root of C:\ such as \Temp, \Tmp etc that could be candidates for deletion
Install CCleaner being sure to add the menu to the Recycle Bin
Empty the Recycle Bin using secure delete
Use CCleaner to wipe free space

I wrote this from memory as a precursor to helping a friend out this weekend. I've been away from Windows support for a long time and wrote this as much to collect my thoughts as anything. Suggestions on better or more current techniques are welcome.

In the meantime, it should help me and maybe some others. Enjoy.

Some People

2011-01-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

While updating a Windows computer on a family member's machine recently I received the unexpected pop up (captured below) when attempting to install Microsoft Security Essentials:

It seems that the copy of McAfee SiteAdvisor I'd just installed on the system was warning me that Microsoft's site had unsafe downloads - as identified by "some people". The McAfee sales force perhaps?

Too classic not to share. More geek humor. Enjoy.

Fix Your Code

2010-12-22T06:55:00.000-08:00

Something a little fun to add to your day. Think of the melody to the American Christmas song “Jingle Bells” as you read the lyrics below. Credit goes to a friend for the overall inspiration and partial lyrics of the chorus. As an otherwise original adaptation, I do like the way it turned out. Geek humor. Enjoy.

“Fix Your Code”

Sung to the tune “Jingle Bells”

Scanning through the code

Using all the tools today

O'er the fields we go

Tracing flows all the way

Bad coding practice brings

Dashboard colors bright

What fun it is to laugh and sing

A scanning song tonight

Oh, fix your code, fix your code

Fix your code today

Oh what fun the assessors have

In the team doing SCA

Oh, fix your code, fix your code

Fix your code today

Oh, no WAF can ever provide

A one fix to open SIAs

Checking all the vulns

Finding needles in the hay

O'er the source we go

Rating findings 'long the way

Bad coding practice brings

Dashboard colors bright

What fun it is to laugh and sing

A scanning song tonight

Oh, fix your code, fix your code

Fix your code today

Oh what fun the assessors have

In an ethical hack today

Oh, fix your code, fix your code

Fix your code today

Oh, no WAF can ever provide

A guarantee for your SLA

Keep Your Eyes Open

2010-12-13T18:22:00.000-08:00

Often after a Windows cleanup or conversion to Linux the question comes up - "Is my PC secure/safe now?" What is usually meant is "Am I safe to surf the web now?" There is a distinction. The short answer is no.

A relatively short and excellent example of why, written in layman's terms, was posted by Jeremiah Grossman. Note that (at the time of this writing) visiting this site will put a harmless link in your Google history by way of demonstration, if you're logged in.

No operating system (Linux, OS X, Windows), full patched, loaded down with watchdog applications like anti virus, anti spyware, ad blockers, firewalls, etc will protect from browser based exploits. No browser (Firefox, Safari, IE) or combination of plugins (NoScript, AdBlock) will make surfing totally secure either. Content filtering and reputation based services (OpenDNS, SiteAdvisor) don't close the door. Browser based exploits rely on vulnerabilities in the web sites you visit.

There are valid analogies between owning a computer and owning a car such as both requiring maintenance. The key is that where and how you drive both can make a real difference in how safe you and your assets are. Knowing what website to trust is very difficult, even for security professionals. How do you make the selection - company size, market share, revenue? Remember the exploit above - it was on Google - which ranks pretty high in each of those categories.

There is no easy single answer. I've listed some suggestions previously for safe PC usage. Secured operating systems, browsers and addons can help. They just don't make things completely safe so you can close your eyes while ~~driving~~ web surfing.

A Big Savings

2010-12-11T18:08:00.000-08:00

Everyone thinks their dog is the best in some way. I recognize that when I say that we thought our Yorkie-Poodle mix was too. Last October, after thirteen plus years of companionship, we had ample opportunity to reflect on that when she passed on.

We knew we'd get another one. It was only a question of when. There were a couple of months of contacting shelters, rescue operations and private breeders. That odyssey itself is enough material for another post, particularly the rescue operations that required more paperwork to just talk to us than I've signed buying some cars.

The question was finally answered when my wife visited the Petland Arboretum location. The frustration of the previous months and the irresistible nature of holding anything small, warm and furry won out. A full AKC Yorkie, now named "Oscar" resides with us.

This many months later, while organizing some files, I ended up handling the receipt for Oscar. These little dogs are in demand. We learned that from the private breeders. We really learned that at Petland. Such is a free market economy. Nobody forced us to buy him, but he was well over our original target amount. What struck me fresh today was at the bottom of the receipt:

"You Have Saved: $13.10". Hmmm. What exactly was the cost comparison here? This wasn't a commodity purchase. No mass market comparison shopping is possible on individual dogs that I know of. Possibly on the "free" stuff that was thrown in as part of the package? So what is the amount - an automatically added random number designed to induce customer loyalty? If it wasn't for the seemingly random and inconsistent pricing on the dogs we've seen there since while buying supplies, it probably wouldn't have struck me this way.

Oscar is a good dog, although a bit of a rascal since he is still a puppy. All in all I'd have like to have paid less, but we did get what we paid for. Most importantly, my wife loves the little dog so I guess it was a big savings.

Eating My Own Dog Food

2010-12-10T20:04:00.000-08:00

I've written about "needs based computing" before as part of the decision process in buy vs clean in the Cleaning an Infected PC post. This last week I had an opportunity to eat my own dog food when the integrated video failed on our home desktop.

This desktop is over six years old. The power supply failed first a few years ago, which I replaced. Then the integrated NIC failed a year later, which I disabled and added a 3Com PCI card to restore. Lately the power supply has been running warm and I'd started to think that the over 52K hours that this machine has been in service had taken its toll. When the video failed I was sure of it.

So what were the family computing needs? Had they changed? Increased? Not really. Basic web surfing, document creation, money and photo management, podcasts and music. Pretty pedestrian stuff that the old 3.0Ghz system handled well. Given the chance, I'd like to swap the desktop for a laptop, but this isn't the time to spend the significant money it would require to get comparable laptop performance.

Therefore, I decided to find a used system compatible with the known good components from my current system. While there was some risk of transferring age related problems to the next machine, the immediate value equation seemed balanced.

So began checking Craigslist and the local computer shops for systems with comparable performance and compatable hardware to my current system. The memory would be the biggest concern and the detailed specs at MemoryStock really helped speed the identification process. The third leg the stool was insuring that the new target system was hardware compatible with my OS of choice - Linux Mint. The Linux HCL is the definitive single source, plus Googling never hurts.

In the end, I purchased a Dell mid tower system from a local computer shop (Best Tek Support) and added in the working parts from the old machine. Besides offering a 30 day warranty, they were incredibly flexible in configuring and pricing the system with only what I needed in it.

There's probably a "never say never" lesson for me in here too. I stated when I bought the last desktop new, that I'd never build another custom system, piece by piece. This came close, but I had a little fun with it too. It has every kitchen sink media component I own installed (3.5", 250M Zip, 6-in-1 media reader, CD-RW/DVD-RW, IDE, SATA and more USB ports than I can count).

All in all a good value. So far, we're enjoying it. It meets our needs.

A New Front Porch

2010-11-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed for Halloween that focused on the apparent lack of real physical danger to children participating in trick-or-treat. I'm a little behind in my news feeds (what else is new?) but jumping through the articles I'd missed, this one gave me pause with two different thoughts.

First of all, the guilt release after allowing our youngest to consume the confections he brought home. Not all at once mind you, even now there's more to go than already consumed. Just that it might not have been the risk we may have been led to believe (except for the dental issues). Turns out that through statistical analysis there might be merit for claiming Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year.

The second I almost missed toward the end of the article. Its a little more subtle. The author states that "...trick-or-treating is building the very thing that keeps us safe: community." If this had been a typical year where we simply responded to the doorbell's ringing at random intervals, I wouldn't have thought this applied to us. With a combination of grown kids and those old enough to be tour with friends and their parents, it would be easy to isolate ourselves from the day's tradition. Instead, this year we choose to put ourselves directly in the middle of it. We created a new front porch at the end of our driveway, as shown below.

This purposeful setup allowed us the opportunity to connect with the adults who typically stay at the curb. The flags, fall produce and heart carved pumpkin all provided conversation points. Keeping a safe distance for the little ones, the fire pit proved very popular as the evening turned out to be fairly chilly and people would linger a while to warm up. Closer to tradition, we did give out "goodie bags" my wife assembled of nominal value with candy, school supplies and novelty million dollar bills.

It seemed to be a good combination of purely social and outreach elements. We talked to people who lived only blocks away, but yet we haven't talked to in years. There was catching up on kids, jobs and the small things that when combined, weave the fabric of life. We also met new neighbors that similarly hadn't found or made an opportunity for expanding their neighborhood connections. A truly unexpected event was when a tractor pulled hayride pulled into our village and most of the riders jumped off to visit.

So while it might not bring back a 1950's front porch atmosphere year round, it did provide a re-union of sorts among neighbors that have drifted into benign neglect. We have a great neighborhood with all the superlatives you'd hope for in suburban America or most anywhere. However, that sense of connection can't help but further increase the sense of community in our neighborhood.

Besides, we enjoyed it and are already thinking of how to create the same experience again. Hmmm, BBQ....?

In God We Trust

2010-10-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

The American Family Association (AFA) commissioned Christian songwriter/singer Eric Horner to write a moving patriotic song to honor our national motto, "In God We Trust."

A very nice song with great lyrics. Enjoy.

Windows XP Security - Linux Alternatives

2010-09-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

This is the fourth and (intended) final article in a series on Windows XP security. The first three focused on cleaning malware, preventing malware with software and preventing malware with defensive computing habits. This article will identify how to prevent operating system level malware by switching operating systems.

There are a lot of reasons why Windows in all its versions, has the predominant market share in desktop computing. Discussion of those reasons would branch into the depths of marketing practices and technical merits. Without going there, I'd submit that at the end of the day it is due to preloading. Virtually every retail PC sold has Windows preloaded. Not many consumers will take time to research alternatives, learn new skills, potentially spend additional dollars - when they have something that works. As long as it works for you, I agree. For those that find it not working, at whatever threshold that is for you, continue reading.

For the vast majority of home users, at least those that I deal with that don't make their living in some form of technical field, it doesn't matter what they're running. Any device that allows web surfing, web mail, plays video and handles file attachments (documents and spreadsheets) will do just fine. With that market segment in mind, major PC manufacturers have started offering alternatives such as Dell does with Ubuntu (a distribution of Linux), often at reduced fees - because most all distributions of Linux are free.

The good news is that PC owners don't have to buy a new system to try a new operating system. It can be downloaded for free, tried without any risk or changes to the current operating system, then installed in a variety of co-existent or replacement modes. All at your own pace and comfort level.

Many choices exist for free and open source operating systems. Most will be some base form of Linux assembled into a bundle of applications called a distribution. The selection of which distribution is "best" or "right" is subjective, however all will offer security advantages over *a default* Windows XP installation. This is primarily because Linux distributions, like all Unix variants, are designed to work with the principle of "least privilege". Users do not run as system adminstrators. If elevated level of access is required, the user is prompted for their password, the task is completed then the default level of privilege is restored. All applications will run within this security model without additional steps. As described in earlier articles, it can be implemented in Windows XP, but not all applications will run seamlessly with this change. There have been modifications to the architecture of later versions of Windows, but this series focuses on XP.

For the majority of Windows users looking for alternatives, I believe Linux Mint will make for an extremely smooth transition. Linux purists will howl at this statement, but it is the most "Windows like" right out of the box. What it means to the "average" PC user is that it provides full multimedia support without any extra effort, meaning that you can listen to MP3's watch DVD's and view web pages that require Flash technology right after install. Wireless internet connectivity and printing will work seamlessly as well.

As many Linux distributions do, Linux Mint combines both the installation CD with a Live CD that will run the full operating system straight from the CD, without modifying the hard drive. Download the "Live CD, 32 bit, The standard version" from http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php The filetype of .iso you've downloaded is a CD image, meaning it must be opened by a CD burning program that can use it to make a CD. This is different than simply burning a file to CD. If you need a CD burning program for Windows, a good free one is CDBurnerXP from http://cdburnerxp.se/ The same site describes how to burn an ISO image to CD at http://cdburnerxp.se/help/Data/burn-iso

Boot from the CD for a couple of sessions and see how things work. Recognize that the boot from the CD will be much slower than from an operating system installed to the hard drive because of the orders of magnitude speed difference in the two different disk technologies. When you're ready to install to the hard drive, for the speed improvement and ability to save your customizations - backup your data! Then you have several options: installing under windows as any other application; installing in dual boot mode; completely replacing Windows XP as the sole operating system on the hard drive. There are advantages to each. Booted from the CD, selecting the Install icon on the Desktop and installing in dual boot mode may be the most comfortable choice for those starting out.

Additional information is available in the excellent Introduction to Linux Mint document, the Ubuntu (on which Mint is based) community documentation and many sites with guides to getting started using Linux for persons whose only experience is Windows. If you want a system that runs clean and fast - and stays that way - it may be worth your time do do a little reading. Don't be afraid to experiment either, with computers it can be the best way to learn.

In this series, I've attempted to cover the short course on tools and techniques I use when pressed into service to assist someone with a malware problem on Windows XP. The articles have covered cleanup, two types of prevention and my recommended alternative to almost everyone (especially anyone I've helped more than once). There are other similar articles around, written for there own purposes. This series provides the answer for when I'm asked "what would you do?".

Now you know. Enjoy.

Edited 2010.10.04 - Added Ubuntu community documentation reference.

Windows XP Security - Safe PC Usage

2010-09-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

This is the third in a series on Windows XP security. The first two focused on cleaning malware and preventing malware with software. This article will identify how to prevent malware with defensive computing habits.

The lists below are terse. Quick soundbites, easily digestable. Not so easily explained. The rationale behind some, including attack vectors, exploits and countermeasures could fill volumes. There are many blogs by security experts that cover vulnerabilities and exploits extremely well. In this space we'll just focus on practical security measures, again for the "average" PC user.

Safe Computing

Don't login with Administrator rights. Make yourself a standard user and Run As... a separate Administrator privileged account only when needed. At least run applications that connect to the internet with reduced privileges via programs such as DropMyRights
Don't install programs unless they're absolutely necessary. Screensavers, wallpaper switchers, video players, system "upgrades" and other freeware utilities often have a hidden (malware) reason they're free.
Install programs only from trusted sources such as SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/ or those reviewed by reputable third parties such as Gizmo at http://www.techsupportalert.com/ (yes, the name - I know) or to a lesser extent CNet at http://download.cnet.com - read the user reviews, not just the editor rating.

Safe Surfing

Select websites from Favorites/Bookmarks or manual typing
Never click on links in email, even from a sender you believe you can trust
Search for websites instead of guessing the URL or risking a typo
Use different passwords (and userids) for each website (use an encrypted password database like KeePass)
Heed the warnings provided by McAfee SiteAdvisor in searching for websites
Examine SSL certificate security warnings, don't just click through them
Close popups via the taskbar vs clicking anywhere in the popup - right click on the taskbar, select Close
Consider carefully entering personal data on a site that has a "This page contains both secure and nonsecure items" warning when visited
Understand unexpected program launches caught by the outbound firewall
Log out then close all browser windows after done using any site with financial transactions
Keep only one browser window or tab open when performing financial transactions, don't multi task by general surfing
Remember "Google is your friend" - search for file names, program names, virtually anything that you encounter that you don't understand. You don't need to be a computer genius to understand most results and make decisions.

Notes

Firefox will not make you invincible.
Even trusted websites can be compromised by partner content or bad programming
NoScript is good, but actually makes you more susceptible (by default) to ClickJacking
No one security program can do it all - think before you click

Windows XP Security - Protecting a Clean PC

2010-09-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

Part two in a series on Windows XP Security. This article focus on keeping a clean PC clean - from malware. We're going to start with the assumption that we have a newly loaded Windows XP machine, preferably from the manufacturer's recovery CD, not yet connected to the internet. Possibly even from a cleanup on an infected machine, using techniques described in the first article in the series.

The steps below can be done in virtually any order, however do not place the clean machine directly on the internet without having installed a hardware router. Don't wait to do it later, you're not as fast as the bad guys - they're automated. Also, some may question the necessity of installing this many tools. Each covers primarily one space and together they implement what is known as "defense in depth".

As with the first article's selections, the tools chosen may not represent an absolute best in breed, but focus on tool availability (aka "free") and potential acceptance for the "average" Windows PC user. Based on personal experience with these recommendations, I believe they are within the grasp of all moderately experienced computer owners.

Install a hardware router in between your home network and the cable modem. Even if you only have one machine. Even if that machine is wired. Even if you don't think you can do hardware. This will greatly remove threat and network load on your PC because of the firewall implementation in the router. One I've recommended and installed for friends and family which is absolutely foolproof is the Cisco - Linksys E1000
Install all updates from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com Configure automatic updates to occur on a scheduled basis, using the link on the site. Note the firewall warning below.
Set a system restore point following the instructions at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/getstarted/ballew_03may19.mspx . This can be done multiple times when known good configurations are achieved and in theory reverted to in the event of system corruption. This is a good point to make the first one. Learn how to restore from one too, before you need to.
Install a firewall that blocks outbound connnections. This is noisy at first because each first time you start an application the firewall will ask you if you want to allow the connection. If you can be certain that the requested action is the direct result of an an application you started, create a rule for it and you won't be asked again. One caveat is that you may have to manually run system updates as the firewall can block this process. Well worth it. My recommendation here is: Comodo - http://www.comodo.com/home/download/download.php?prod=firewall
Install Microsoft Security Essentials. This contains anti-virus and anti-spyware from the mother ship, for free. http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ Note that the vast majority of anti-virus applications on the internet are frauds. They themselves are malware. Choose from a major vendor or a trusted freeware evaluation. These protections focus on free software tools. Particularly in the anti-virus space, there are excellent paid alternatives such as (in alphabetical order) Kaspersky, McAfee, Nod32, Symantec and Trend Micro. Your ISP may provide one as well.
Install a monitor that watches when applications are added to one of multiple startup areas on your PC. You will be asked for permission before the application (or malware) can imbed itself there. Don't just say "No" to malware attempting to install an auto-start however, you'll still need to deal with the malware running somewhere on your machine. One warning to this is that some programs that have auto-updaters will attempt to have their "Check for updates" program install each time they're loaded. It can be a nuisance, but the trade off is improved performance and free memory. You choose. My recommendation here is: Startup Monitor http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml
Switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox. I'm not going to wade into the fervor that surrounds this one, however there are several add-ons to Firefox that I feel make the difference for the average user. Install Firefox from Mozilla, then the following add-ons: AdBlock Plus and optionally NoScript. NoScript may disable valid functionality on sites that you want to re-enable on a per-site basis (the discussion can get complicated quickly on this one). Like the firewall, this activity will be less over time, but helps reduce some browser based exploits on untrusted sites. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html
Install McAfee SiteAdvisor to provide a first level threat rating of sites returned in Google searches. http://www.siteadvisor.com/ This ties directly to a safe computing recommendation (for the next article) - never type a url directly - search for it, then click the correct result.
Install Microsoft DropMyRights and configure to be able to run Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express for example, with non-administrator icons. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972827.aspx The following article de-mystifies implementation http://cybercoyote.org/security/drop.shtml An alternative which is even better is to run everything as a non-admin, as described below.
Run as non-administrator. This really should be first (second behind the hardware router/firewall) but is last because of the amount of software to be installed listed above. In daily computer usage, new programs are almost never installed and so administrator rights are not needed and in practice are almost always a bad thing. Open the Control Panel, start the User Accounts applet and create a new account. Give it administrator level rights. Log in as the new administrator account, open the User Accounts applet again and drop your original account to a standard User. Insure that the Guest account is disabled. Insure that all accounts have non trivial, different passwords. Log in to the original account. You're done, start surfing. If you ever find the need to run as an administrator, don't login to the administrator account, instead right click the program and select Run As... choosing the created administrator account.

One step not listed in above because it isn't really a preventative step is backing up your data. Select a program and process that is workable for you. Then execute it on a regular basis. How often depends on how frequently your data changes and how much you can afford to lose. I would personally recommend backing up to an external hard drive. Others favor a burning to DVD's with offsite storage rotation. Just do something.

While we're at it, if you're using a constantly on desktop PC, consider investing in a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). Not only will they provide battery backup in the case of power failures, they can condition line voltage to extend the life and reliability of your equipment.

Additional information on protecting your Windows PC can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/security/pypc.aspx and many more places on the web. Remember "Google is your friend."

Disclaimer - no warranty is expressed or implied by this article. Proceed at your own risk. Understand all directions and consequences before using any tools or making any system modifications. I have no affiliation with any product, service, or retail establishment listed above as they are given for illustration purposes only.

Windows XP Security - Cleaning An Infected PC

2010-09-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Every so often I'm asked for advice on PC's. Usually running Windows XP. Typically running so slow that the owner is ready to buy a new one. The question then usually comes in one of the following two flavors: "What computer should I buy?" or "What would you do?". To avoid keeping anyone in suspense, my two answers are "The computer you can afford, which you can test running all the applications you want to use." and "Backup all data, reload an operating system, prevent it from happening again." respectively.

So for those adventurous souls that want to remain on Windows XP and control their own PC destiny, I've decided to write what will likely be an article series on my recommendations for the following Windows XP Security topics: Cleaning an Infected PC; Protecting a Clean PC; Safe PC Usage; Linux Alternatives.

The series will cover malware software issues on marginally running machines. Not software boot errors. Not hardware problems. Not Windows versions other than XP. Not using tools I personally haven't had some measure of success with. Let's get started.

Like most who find themselves in their circle of family and friends as the designated "computer expert" I have my own answers to both questions in the first paragraph, using my own set of preferred tools and techniques. While this is not part of my current professional role, in the past I have been part of infrastructure support teams. That experience guides some of my choices but really isn't reflected directly in the tools and techniques chosen. Mostly because I've chosen to focus on tool availability and comprehension for the "average" Windows PC user. For this reason as well, some tools and techniques might not be the choice of the experienced technorati, but should be well with the grasp of most and still provide good results.

If you're unsure if this is what you want to do, those with virtually unusable PC's have the following options:

Pay a computer tech to fix the problem. The well known Geek Squad charges fees that start at $149 for in store service. I've personally known friends that have paid close to $300 when everything was said and done. Too expensive for me.
Buy a new computer. A decent laptop will still set you back around $600. This is the most expensive option, and does have advantage of temporarily having a new machine. If the problem machine still exceeds specs for the applications you need to run, I'd rather make sure its truly hopeless before going this route.
Fix it yourself. Obviously where this article comes in. The financial cost of this route is minimal, limited to a blank CD or two and possibly a USB flash drive. It's likely that most people already own both. The real cost here is time, potentially lots of it.

Realize that in order to save hundreds of dollars in support fees or for a new system, you are becoming your own computer expert. You don't have to be an expert in every computer domain - that's impossible for anyone. You just have to become enough of an expert this one time to fix this one problem. Another thing that is impossible is for this article to contain enough prescriptive advice to cover every situation and every tool usage scenario. As an aside, its primarily for that reason that I've resisted writing an article like this before now. Therefore, the instructions provided assume some level of computer usage (not support) proficiency and leave it up to the reader to Google specific questions regarding a tool or technique recommended.

Having a cleanly running second computer available to search for information, download utilities, burn CDs and other tasks can make this odyssey a whole lot faster and easier, effectively determining the success of the effort.

Backup Data

Backing up data at this stage, before any changes are attempted has the risk at this stage of potentially backing up infected files, such as malicious macros contained in the above filetypes, but do it anyway. If something goes wrong later, it will be worth every second spent. You can always make a second known good backup later.

Create a bootable CD from a Linux live cd distribution on a working system. Linux Mint is a good choice.
Boot the suspect system from the CD. You may need to set the boot order in the BIOS of the system to select the CD ahead of the hard drive.
Copy all data to a USB flash drive. USB 8Gb drives under $20 can be found on sale. Booted using Linux Mint, select Menu then Computer. Those who have used copy and paste file operations with Windows Explorer should be comfortable copying directories to the USB device.
Make sure that data for all users is backed up. Look in "C:\Documents and Settings" to see the profiles of each user on the machine. Under each, good starting choices for backup would be "My Documents" and "Favorites".
Only backup data files such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, financial, music, photos, etc. Don't backup the actual applications themselves.
Backup your product keys, especially for Microsoft products such as Windows and Office. Product key finders can make this easier. Some applications will list their keys under the menu items Help / About.

Set Limits

Don't skip this step. Even for experienced PC technicians, cleanup can take hours of research, utility execution and experimentation. Professional support teams usually have limits they'll expend in investigation on unknown problems - some as short as 10 minutes for a unusable machine - then they reimage (reload) the operating system on the machine. Its faster (and more enjoyable) to reconfigure a clean, fast machine once reloaded, than to spend more time trying to clean a painfully slow infected one.

Clean Up

Download the tools below on a known good machine. Malware may block and/or infect these as the download and attempt to run. Plus the performance will likely be terrible - why you started this in the first place. Burn to a CD - not a USB flash drive, but a device that malware can't corrupt. Boot the suspect machine in safe mode with networking by pressing F8 once a second or so, after the BIOS spash screen (the first screen of any type) displays. Login as administrator, insert the tools CD you just burned, run or install each one at a time, according to directions on the download site. Some may not run in Safe Mode and will tell you so. Its still best to try first.

McAfee Stinger - http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/ Follow the steps on the download site.
Ad-Aware - http://www.lavasoft.com/ Install the application and all updates. Run a full scan.
Spybot-S&D - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html Install the application and all updates. Run a full scan.
CCleaner - http://www.ccleaner.com/ Install and run the application. Use the Tools to investigate and Disable any suspected malware that is set to Autostart. Google Tools you don't recognize by File, initially disabling (vs deleting) ones that are suspect. Analyze and clean the system with the Cleaner. Scan and clean the Registry. Reboot after usage.
Malicious Software Removal Tool - http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.aspx Install the application and run a full scan. Note that the tool itself is updated the second Tuesday of every month, with additional threat removal capabilities.
Browser Hijacks - For Internet Explorer, follow the steps at http://www.microsoft.com/security/spyware/browserhijacking.aspx For Firefox, follow the steps at http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox You may want to have a clean download of Firefox on the CD.

The next set of tools are actually built into the Windows operating system. No download needed.

Task Manager - Ctrl-Alt-Del, choose Task Manager. Choose the process tab and look around. Columns can be sorted by double clicking on the header. Start with Googling "Image Name"s that have high CPU utilization, either constantly or in spikes. Stop any that you believe are malware by Right Clicking, then choosing End Process. Choosing the wrong one may de-stabilize your system.
Service Management - Press the Windows Key + R, type services.msc, press ENTER. Focus initially on items that show Startup Type as Automatic. Google ones you suspect, then Disable by right clicking, selecting Properties... and using the dropdown for Startup Type.

The next tool isn't for downloading and burning to CD, but for execution on a machine that is running to the point where it can reliably bring up a browser to connect to the internet.

Trend Micro Online AV Scan - http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Deep Cleaning

Can't get the anti-malware programs to launch from the CD? Perhaps a window or splash screen opens momentarily and then goes away? You no longer own your machine - a malware supervisor program is controlling what loads. Seriously think about reformatting the drive and reloading everything. If you're still in the game, these next two bootable CD's may keep you going. Focus initially on populating only the anti-malware tools. Be sure to have your original Windows CD handy. Building these is another task to perform on a clean machne.

BartPE - http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
UBCD - http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

A good summary of bootable utility CDs is available on LifeHacker. Another good summary, including using PhotoRec to recover deleted files, is from CGSecurity.

Investigate

These can be used at any time. Check for high CPU utilization, strange file/process names, listening ports open to sites you don't recognize, etc. This is the truly deep dive territory, but remember - "Google is your friend".

Process Explorer - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx Lists all running processes and open files.
CurrPorts - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/cports.html Lists all process and applications which have open connections (ports) to the internet, potentially sending out information or waiting for instructions
HijackThis - http://download.cnet.com/Trend-Micro-HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html Lists all locations on the PC that process are started from.
WinDirStat - http://download.cnet.com/WinDirStat/3000-2248_4-10614593.html Graphically displays disk space utilization

So in closing, manage your time carefully and consider my original advice: "Backup all data, reload an operating system, prevent it from happening again." Backup was covered in this article, we'll get to the rest later.

Disclaimer - no warranty is expressed or implied by this article. Proceed at your own risk. Understand all directions and consequences before using any tools or making any system modifications. I have no affiliation with any product, service, or retail establishment listed above as they are given for illustration purposes only.

Edit 2010.09.28 - Added specific browser hijack advice. Clarified a few lines.
Edit 2010.10.04 - Added product key backup.
Edit 2010.10.15 - Added bootable CD links

Struts 1.x Logical Flow

2010-09-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

Java programmers should be familiar with Apache Struts as an extremely popular free and open-source framework for creating web applications. Although the 2.x branch of the project is the one currently being developed, the 1.x version continues to be widely used for a variety of reasons.

At one point a couple of years ago I found myself needing to explain the control flow through Struts 1 and was unable to find a visual representation that illustrated what I was thinking. Therefore I created the logical control flow shown below.

It does bear some resemblance to a spaghetti chart, but does illustrate several elements of a simple Struts control flow. While originally created for a single purpose, uses for it still surface occasionally in various forums, so I thought there may be some value in posting it for those learning or teaching Struts 1.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this graphic is freely granted, provided that the original authorship notice is preserved.

One more thing out of my GTD "Someday" category. Enjoy.

Collected Entropy - 2010.09.25

2010-09-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

Collected Entropy since the last post with this title. No particular order, rhyme or reason. Mostly too long to tweet

Special limited time only, while they last, small town edition.

Marshville is the home of Randy Travis, poultry processing plants and the annual Boll Weevil festival of Union County held last weekend. Even based on the erradication of tiny bugs...you just gotta love small town celebrations. Seriously. Charlotte may be think they've outgrown them, but here are a few more small towns that haven't.
Unionville is having it's annual BBQ in a little over a month. Don't let the fact that the event is held at an elementary school fool you. These folks are serious about BBQ and on a large scale. Check out the photos from last year, then mark your calendar for the first Friday in November.
In keeping with the small town trend of this post, here is a calendar of other small town festivals coming up in Union County including the BBQ cookoff in Waxhaw on October 8-9th.
Finishing off with a small town that has a big reputation...the 27th annual BBQ festival will be held in Lexington, NC on October 23rd. Be sure to sample some of the Monk family's BBQ from Lexington #1.

Collected Entropy - 2010.09.22

2010-09-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Collected Entropy since the last post with this title. No particular order, rhyme or reason. Mostly too long to tweet.

"Do you prefer murder, misogyny or simple undirected anger?" Why does this question from the Sept 9th 'Zits' comic strip seem a little too close to real life.
Memorials are to help people remember, even keep them motivated. Apparently there are still people in federal agencies that understand that.
The Charlotte Observer started a public insight network to provide a structured way to obtain reader opinions. If they listen to views that differ from the editorial desk, this might be a blended media experiment that seems worth watching.
Cambridge MA may have Harvard, MIT and now parking tickets with yoga positions printed on them. To reduce the stress of the ticket. You can't make this kind of news up.

Collected Entropy - 2010.09.10

2010-09-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

Collected Entropy since the last post with this title. No particular order, rhyme or reason. Mostly too long to tweet.

Parental fears and reality don't always line up very well. As a parent, are you worrying about (defending against or preparing for) the right thing? Analysis by the NPR, citing independent sources, might help with the decision.
Comedians typically find easy pickings from the world of politics, at the expense of the politicians. Now it seems some politicians are taking their message directly to the comedians. What happened to reasoned analysis and debate?
The next time that someone trots out the old "bear in the woods" footrace analogy to belittle some problem, try explaining the prairie dog ecosystem to them as described by Robert Hansen. You'll get a business security perspective and an executive evaluation in the same article as a free bonus.
An example of where gun control worked, in Miami of all places, from the SunSentinel.

Capitol Tour

2010-09-09T17:17:00.000-07:00

Fascinating perspective on what the Founding Fathers believed and what the meaning behind their words as they framed the documents which formed the United States. I'll let David Barton do the rest of the talking.

A hat tip to B.T. for sending this my way.

Android App Picks + Playlist Solution

2010-08-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

A quick update on life with the Android, specifically a few application picks and one solution to a problem stated back in May. Not exhaustive and excludes the ones auto installed with the phone distribution. There's still a balance to keep in mind, it's not a laptop, but these work for me.

Essential

Seesmic - If you use Twitter, you need Seesmic. Everywhere.
Facebook - I know, but its essential to stay connected to dispersed family.
Advanced Task Killer - One stop application termination to cleanup all the apps you've opened and switched away from.

Fun

Google Sky Map - this has been an fun/impressive app when camping at the beach. Like any astronomy, not so much in the suburbs.
Barcode Scanner - can be used to scan SKU labels for quick price comparisons
Guitar Chords Lite - clean, lightweight UI for quick chord reference
Reversi, Chess, Checkers, MeteroLite - probably haven't played a full game of any, but work well when I hand the phone off on long car trips

In Progress

EverNote - The "Evernote GTD How To" (don't change a thing, trust me) took my favorite desktop app one step up. However, Saved Searches don't translate to the Android app so full GTD is out, but the text and audio notes do allow me to get things out of my mind.

Not For Me

NewsRob - Just not the same as Google Reader

Future

Kindle - My firmware doesn't support it, but this is one I really want to like. Not sure I want to go rogue just to try this either - at least not now.
Any automated task killer - for the apps that auto restart that I don't (think) I need. Need to learn more about why some auto start first. Edit 2010.09.09 - Task Manager does this well. Ignore and Auto-kill lists, plenty of options, don't have to be an Android internals expert.

Playlist Solution

Banshee pulls down and syncs podcasts plus my music just fine, but it nor any Linux app will transfer playlists. Turns out Android will read any .m3u file with a directory structure as a playlist.
So mount the SD card, switch to music/ and issue "find . -name "*.mp3" > PlayListName.m3u", then gedit as needed. Once the file is saved and the SD card unmounted, the installed Music app will now automatically find and use the playlist. Not perfect or automatic, but good enough for me.

If it helps someone...Enjoy!

Linux FLV to 3GP Conversion

2010-07-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

A short how-to post for Android owners who want to run Adobe Flash video they've saved on their Linux system.

The music player on the Samsung Moment handles WMA, AAC, MP3, WAV, MIDI, and OGG format music files. The video player will handle MPEG4, H.264, and XVID formats. A fairly wide range of choices that have all worked right out of the box. The YouTube application works well for streaming video but doesn't have an option to open archived .flv Flash video. They need to be converted to 3GP to be played in the Gallery app.

The tool of choice to convert flv to 3gp is ffmpeg, however Ubuntu ships a version without the required libfaac codec due to licensing differences. To add the support, install the following packages from the packages.mediabuntu.org/non-free repository:

libav*-extra-52
libav*-unstripped-52
libamrnb3
libamrwb3
libavutil-extra-49 (will be added automatically as a dependency)

Once those packages are installed, the following command will produce a video that can be played on the phone:

ffmpeg -i input.flv -s qcif -vcodec h263 -acodec libfaac output.3gp

Valid frame sizes (-s) at 4:3 are 128x96, 176x144, 352x288, 704x576, and 1408x1152. The qcif value is an alias for 176x144, more are listed in the video options linked below. You may want to experiment depending on the ratio of the original source.

Some useful resources if this doesn't work just right for you:

The ffmpeg docs, particularly the video options
The ffmpeg faq
A ffmpeg how-to (very informative on cropping)

Like a lot of things, not too difficult in the final analysis. Just took a little time to find the right pieces and assemble them. Hopefully this will save someone some of that time.

Enjoy.

Memorial Day Observance

2010-05-31T07:11:00.000-07:00

It's difficult to comprehend the debt owed to the men and women who have served in the military. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms. Others are changed in ways that won't be reversed in this life. Yet the majority of those service men and women made their choices knowingly and willingly.

As the first generation of my family to not have served in some branch of the military, I have a direct but still second hand appreciation for part of that cost. Not a romanticized or glorified account, but of the cost in daily life and continual sacrifice. Every day is a good day to say "Thank You" to those that you know who served, today especially. Consider taking time today to contact the veterans you know - or their widows - and thank them for what they've given.

While you're considering doing so, reflect on the following poem, attributed to Charles M. Province:

It is the Soldier

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

Thank you.

Rhyme For Christ

2010-05-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

Regardless of where you stand on television, pop culture - or Christ - I think you'll smile at the rhyme/rap that Tamara Lowe presented at Christ Fellowship.

A fun audible collage of images of the world, yet focused on the Truth - in 1 minute 42 seconds. Enjoy.

Hat tip goes to Tanner of WSOC FM who aired this during the morning drive time show today.

A Fair Comparison

2010-05-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

WBTV reports that "A report from the watch group American Forests and commissioned by the City Council found between 1985 and 2008 Mecklenburg county lost 33% of its tree canopy; the city of Charlotte lost 49%."

In response, the city is reported as studying a increase in the required percentage of trees to be saved during construction, from 10% to 15%. Developers have stated that it would make development too costly.

A justification to the increased cost is then presented: "The city doesn't require private developers do anything it doesn't do. Each year the city plants and maintains tens of thousands of trees along city streets, in the right of way."

Wait...is this a fair comparison? Developers, who are responsible for profit and loss in meeting their payroll, based their response on cost. What is the basis the city used? Probably not the same profitability standard.

Don't get me wrong. I really like the tree canopy myself and would like to see it preserved. However, free market solution and logical reasoning would be nice too.

Collected Entropy - 2010.05.31

2010-05-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

Collected Entropy since the last post with this title. No particular order, rhyme or reason. Mostly too long to tweet.

Two West Charlotte Lions softball players show compassion and faith in an unexpected way - by offering to pray for an opposing team mate during a game. A heartwarming example of putting feet to faith, even in this seemingly small way.
Sarah Dyvig of Oakdale Elementary was honored as Char-Meck's Teacher of the Year. Having a family full of exceptional teachers, has provided an appreciation of the dedication and hard work required for this profession. I also have an appreciation that even while in the spotlight, Mrs Dyvig wouldn't give away her husband's special fishing spot. Is there an award for that?
The WSJ published a nice opinion piece on what we owe to the soldiers currently on the battlefield and to those in the future. The one line summary: "Look ahead, not back. If we commit soldiers to battle, we must support them unstintingly." Well said.

Collected Entropy - 2010.05.14

2010-05-12T17:58:00.000-07:00

Collected Entropy since the last post with this title. No particular order, rhyme or reason. Too long* to tweet.

Buying local and talking directly to growers are just some of the reasons to visit a farmer's market (several times) this season. The Charlotte Observer created an interactive map of all the Charlotte area markets to help find one nearby.
The phrase "world class city" is starting to be tossed around again as Charlotte has simultaneous events with the NRA, MAC and NASCAR happening this week. The list of comparisons to features of other "world class cities" such as New York or Los Angeles for example inevitably follow. Funny how the first light rail mugging recently isn't included in the list.
USA Today reports taxes are at the lowest levels since the 1950's. The key is the how "level" is defined. In late 2009 the US passed the tipping point where over 50% of the citizens don't pay taxes, due to our progressive tax system. Taxes are higher for those that pay taxes but for the larger number who pay no taxes, they're (obviously) lower. Fun with statistics - and your money.
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." -- Margaret Thatcher
This is not a late April Fools joke: YouCut A proposal to text your vote to the government on which spending programs to cut. I think the House has lost sight that our system of government is a republic. Then again, for a culture that knows more about American Idol than American election candidates, it might get more people tuned in.
The end is beginning for the US Space Shuttle program. Only three more launches remain for this program. I've seen Saturn V launches from across the Banana River. There is nothing like it. If you've ever wanted to see one of these launches in person, time is almost up.

(*) OK, so one was short enough. But it fit here better in context. Have a great weekend.

Audio Sync - PC to Samsung Moment

2010-05-11T16:08:00.000-07:00

About two months ago I was fully assimilated into all things Google with the purchase of an Android phone, specifically a Samsung Moment. Overall the upgrade has been very smooth, opening up a whole new (to me) world of mobile communication options. One thing that was initially elusive to track down, was how to sync podcasts and music from a PC to the phone. This post contains the key elements of making it work, to maybe save others some time.

Initially, connecting the phone to a PC produced absolutely no action no the PC side. All my home PC's are various Linux distros so I thought that might be a problem, but attempting on a WinXP box produced the same results. While the following steps defy logic at some level, they are the only known - and repeatable - solution I've discovered:

- Select: Menu / Settings / Application settings / Development / USB debugging
- Toggle USB debugging on, then back to off. Reboot the phone. Connect the phone to the PC.
- The notification bar will show "USB Connected". Select the notice, then choose "Mount"
- The phone will now be available as a 2GB removable drive on the PC

At this point the SD card is mounted, but no music player (Rythmbox, Banshee, Windows Media Player, etc.) will recognize the device. The final puzzle piece is to place the a file named .is_audio_file at the root of the mounted drive. I found a site with documentation on the file format, and using it as a guide, created the following configuration which seems to work well.

audio_folders=music/,media/
folder_depth=2
output_formats=audio/mpeg,audio/ogg,audio/x-ms-wma,audio/wav,audio/x-aac
cover_art_file_type=bmp
cover_art_file_name=cover.bmp
cover_art_size=100

The music/ directory was created just to keep it separate from the media/ directory which was present already. Sync will only use the first directory in the list. Additional entries will allow the PC side player to search all supported media on the SD card. One last tech note - make sure to do a software eject / unmount before on the PC, then turn off USB storage on the phone, before disconnecting your phone when all sync'ing is done!

A few caveats though. Rythmbox shows the device simply as "2.0 GB Filesystem" while Banshee identifies it as "SAMSUNG_Android". Also, the cover_art settings above are effectively ignored as cover art transfer is a known problem with Android. There seems to be some online consensus that a paid app named "Album Art Grabber" will correct the problem, but I haven't tried it personally. Lastly playlists will not transfer as such, but must be recreated on the phone itself - not so good.

That sounds like a substantial list, but to stay current with a few podcast subscriptions and have a relatively small music collection for use during commutes, it works well enough. Those wanting to sync a more substantial collection or that would prefer a more complete experience may disagree.

As stated at the start, there is relatively little info available on this specific phone regarding sync features. The tech support for the carrier wasn't particularly helpful either. If anyone has a better configuration or complete solution for the Samsung Moment, particularly in Linux, feel free to post a comment.

Collected Entropy - 2010.05.07

2010-05-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

Collected Entropy from the previous week. No particular order, rhyme or reason. Too long to tweet.

Quote from Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster "If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise" when speaking of how using PowerPoint removes interconnected political, economic and ethnic forces from military decisions.

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster times release of ten month long investigation the day before elections. Probably just conicidence. That and McMaster's candidacy for governor. Good coverage from the Observer, likely since it showcases a Republican rift.

Quote from a political commentator's radio program on Tuesday: "There is not a solution to every problem, but there is a villian". Made in reference to the nature of politicians to address only problems which further their agenda.

Stephen Hawking claims time travel possible and aliens may have existed. His belief that we cannot currently "...know the mind of God." apparently still unchanged. (A Brief History of Time, pg 175)

Escaped emu runs loose in Rock Hill, SC. Seems Rock Hill is using a string of animal antics to stay in the news. About two weeks ago it was one man assaulting another with a snake.

GTD with Evernote

2010-04-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

If you Google the title of this blog post, you'll probably get a significant amount of results. I've waded through more than a few of them, selected one that I thought fit my mindset and way of working, then implemented it with changes as noted below. It works for me, may not work for anyone else, but should create ideas for everyone interested in maximizing their productive time.

As a little background, I've been a paid Evernote user since 2005. I have no stake in the company or their products, but found their note taking software to be exactly what I was looking for to capture and tag my notes. The original 2.x versions did everything I thought I needed, especially logical intersection of tags (AND, OR and NOT) plus synchronization to USB devices. Then 3.x came along and provided began multiple platform support and synchronization to the web. It all seemed good at the time, but I didn't need it. The synchronization to the web I especially didn't want, given the nature of my work. Lastly, the tag intersection controls changed dramatically, all but removing the functionality. So until a few weeks ago, I've stayed at version 2.2.x.

The number of projects I have been managing lately in my professional life was overwhelming my simplistic usage of ToDo checkboxes and tags that I was using as a task management system in Evernote. The note taking and tagging was still nearly perfect, but something more was needed. I've used Franklin-Covey and Day Timer systems in the past but didn't want to go back to those for various reasons. I've known and skimmed the David Allen's GTD system, even been aware of Evernote implementations, but never really worked with it. Now seemed like the time.

In my web searching, two GTD Evernote hits stood out, from authors I don't know beyond the articles they've written. One article series by Ben Anderson captured the overall mindset of task management and prioritization through lists, tags, etc. but didn't really capture the how-to essence I was looking for. That essence was captured at just the right level for me in an "Evernote GTD How To" article by Ruud Hein. Effectively, I've implemented Ruud's GTD system with my own modifications as documented below. Read his article first, then come back to this one, or nothing from this point will make sense.

Did you read it? Really? If not, the rest of this will not make sense (as if any of the rest has).

Changes

Changed @wf tag to @wait. More descriptive and still short.
Changed sd to @sd. More consistent with "GTD tags" all having a prefix.

Changed all saved searches accordingly.

Various minor title changes to saved Searches
Added/separated "@ Project List" saved search into " - Work" and " - Non Work" versions

Notes

Search criteria takes firewall approach. I.e. tag:@* followed by -tag:@sd works correctly.
Single task notes, unrelated to projects are OK
Keeping tasks in project notes until ready to work on keeps task list manageable
Restrict task levels to one deep (i.e. no task lists in task notes) to maintain project summary view
Saved Searches naming convention:

"@ nnnn" - key searches to flip between while working
"@nnnn" - context views

Usage

Notebooks

Create one for GTD only

Project note creation

Three tags: "@project" literal, context ("@nnnn") and project ("_nnnn")
First line contains checkbox (Ctrl-Shift-C) and "Project: " literal prefix
Actions in bullet lists with checkbox

Action note creation

Three tags: context ("@nnnn"), project ("_nnnn") and timing (05/15/30/45/60)
First line contains copy/paste from bullet list in project note

Action note completion

Mark the checkbox in the action note done when finished
Mark the checkbox done in the project note, datestamp (Alt-Shift-D) the line
Copy detail task notes back into project note, or
View all project notes by using project tag (more Evernote like)

Project/Action note updating

Use outline style bullet lists for all line entries
Datestamp first bullet (Alt-Shift-D) of a note entry session, indent following bullets

Limitations

No priority system other than two: MIT and Next
Due dates must be entered into a separate calendar application

As shown above, the system has a least two limitations in what I originally envisioned for a task management system. Otherwise it has been working extremely well for me now after several weeks. The first "limitation" may not be a bad thing however, as it could enforce a GTD style prioritization and task grooming discipline. Also, there are things I still haven't decided how to handle yet. Some of those questions include:

Questions

Separate notebooks per context? One for GTD makes sense, but the others are then limited to a single context.
How to create a "pure" completed search? "Completed" search picks up any note with one or more completed checkbox
When one project creates a task for another - tag for both projects?

A footnote on Evernote itself. Before this GTD implementation, it had bothered me that I wasn't running the "latest" of one of my favorite applications. Periodically as I received newsletters, I'd make my own personal tests of the releases. In my opinion, and that of may others on the Evernote blog version 3.5 is a step backward. Many features like HTML import, print preview, portable version and more are gone or broken in the 3.5 version. Evernote the corporation must agree since they're keeping 3.1 available. Version 3.1 is the minum version to implement this system, since Saved Searches are required. I'd suggest getting (and archiving) it.

Even without the GTD implementation made possible by the combination of Saved Searches and tagging, Evernote would still remains a must-have application for me. It did finally provide me with a compelling reason to start using 3.1 though.

This overly wordy description of how to use Evernote as a GTD task manager might not make sense by just reading it. Implement it. Experiment with it. Change it to the way you can get (more) things done.

You don't have to be a type "A" personality to give this a try. And besides - Evernote, like this article, is free!

Update: 2010.05.07 ----------------

Based on additional usage of the system and reflection on Ruud Hein's comments, I've made the following changes/updates to the original article above.

Priorities - I have embraced the Someday tag (overcoming my misguided thought that it was akin to procrastination) and now have effectively a three tier priority system: MIT, Next and Someday. Projects are reviewed weekly for additions to the Next pool. The Next pool is reviewed not quite daily to insure nothing critical is being overlooked and needs MIT status. The Someday pool is reviewed on an as needed basis when/if the Next pool becomes small enough to warrant doing so.
Calendar - Google calendar with it's multiple reminders works very well and is not that much of an "extra step" in actual usage. For some tasks, I have taken to prefixing the task name with a due date so a "Next Action" review keeps the dates visible. Mostly work tasks get the prefix and tasks for other context get Google, but not always.
Cross Project - Tasks get at most one project tag. Any additional benefit for later project review would have been overshadowed by the overhead and maintenance required. Voids the frictionless principle.
Work/Non-work - the duality was created to manage what was too long of a Next Action list. The use of Someday described above made it no longer useful. That change also violated the lean nature of the system's original design.
Notebooks - One for GTD (obviously), the rest don't matter
Completed - The dual nature of the Completed search can be useful. Working as designed.

Net - except for some usage notes, this is full circle to Ruud's implementation with a few wording changes. Therefore, I'll close with his quote: "Here is my list but you can do this any which way you need it."

He Is Risen

2010-04-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

"He is risen" -- Matthew 28

Those three words are at the center of the Christian faith and the celebrated by the holiday known as Easter. What do they really mean on an individual level?

Jesus Christ came to earth to provide atonement for man to God. He lived a perfect life, then fulfilled God's plan by going to the cross and dying in place of all men, by taking their sins upon Himself. Three days later He demonstrated His victory over death through His resurrection. Death now holds no power over us and we can now be justified to God by placing our trust and faith in Jesus Christ.

Christ's death was not an accident. It was part of a larger redemptive story. A plan of love and compassion that God has for all men. For you.

No matter what we've done or where we've been, how large or small the failures to meet God's perfect standard are, the gift of forgiveness of sin and having a right relationship with God is available for all. We can be certain of it because - He is risen.

Dumbing Down Our Kids

2010-03-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

The "rules" below are attributed to Charles J. Sykes, author of the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, Or Add. The cheapest used copy on Amazon is only $1.15 plus shipping, so I suppose it would be inexpensive to verify, but that would take too long. Regardless of the original source, its a good funny-but-true list of lessons kids probably won't learn in school. So here it is.

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Americanism

2010-03-10T18:19:00.001-08:00

We just got back a little while ago from the first night of the Real Evangelism conference, being hosted again this year at FBC Indian Trail. These conferences are always excellent and this year Mike Huckabee was the keynote speaker.

If you're thinking "here comes a political rant"...wait. This is simply a collection of observations from Huckabee's speech, which will have a conservative Christian viewpoint, but will not be political. A semi random collection of thoughts from memory. Now decide to click "Jump" in your RSS reader or not.

Bailey Smith (of the conference name) provided the introduction for the Governor. One of the points he made was in providing several definitions of "Americanism" from the latest Webster's dictionary. It provided an appropriate segue for the main elements of Huckabee's speech.

Mike Huckabee spoke for almost an hour on Biblical values and morals in America, from the perspective of those values. To my recollection, he did not mention any sitting politicians by name, nor did he label any current directions in government.

What he did do is identify that our hope can not be in elected officials - and - our blame therefore cannot be either. Two points were identified that would collapse society: consolidate power into the hands of a few; release individuals of responsibilities and risk. Each individual was charged with the responsibility to live according to their beliefs.

There were a set of parallel structures in society he identified, which further illustrated personal responsibility, that went something like this:

- Parents equip their children to live independently
- Pastors equip their congregations to perform ministry
- Leaders should equip people to need less government, not more

There were many other historical points about America, parallels drawn from Judges 9 to current mindsets, the changeable nature of current society and many more topics. Overall an engaging, sometimes funny and overall excellent presentation.

So back to the original definition - Americanism: loyalty to the United States and its institutions. It was clear to all in attendance tonight that Mike Huckabee is most certainly a loyal American and an unashamed Christian.

Speed Flying

2010-03-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

If the Olympics could add ski cross this year, it might not be too far fetched to think this combination of paragliding and skiing might be included in 2014. Apparently its called "Speed Flying" or "Speed Riding":

An Amusement Park Ride?

2010-03-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

This video of a train going through a flooded underpass in Argentina seemed humorous to me on a couple of levels, not the least of which are the people with umbrellas in the center of the picture.

However, I didn't notice them until the second time I watched it. The first time I watched it, I immediately thought of the Whitewater Falls ride at the Carowinds amusement park near Charlotte. If you watch this second video, you'll know why.

Maybe I'm just anticipating Carowinds opening with a new owner, new rides - and a new season - Spring! Yep, all of the above.

Trans Siberian Railway

2010-03-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

At the risk of sounding like a complete Google fanboy, I'll add one more Google offering into my list of vacation posts. Google has put together a mashup from several of its own sources into a virtual trip along the Trans Siberian railway.

The user can use the standard Google map navigation tools to zoom in/out and drag/scroll to different areas of the route. Clicking the blue line along the route loads the correct video and positions to the correct offset within the video. Since semi random selections might not pick up the most picturesque sections, there is also a travel route with starred entries that can be chosen.

There are also some preselected soundtrack options available and other features to explore.

Saving the discussion of the merits of virtual reality vs actual reality for another time, this seems like a neat use of technology to me. It provides an insight into a 150 hour journey that it is very unlikely that I'd ever pursue in real life. For that, the view of the 12 Russian regions and 87 cities is more than enough for me.

So whether its for exploring the Russian vistas or the use of technologies, give it a try. It somehow seems appropriate for a snowy day in Charlotte as well.

Enjoy!

Real Consequences to Religious Beliefs

2010-01-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

The devastation in Haiti is difficult to comprehend through mere images on television. The great suffering that the Haitians are enduring is equally if not more so difficult to grasp. Those that live according to a Christian worldview, who believe that all life has meaning and purpose, no doubt feel moved to reach out in some way. Because of this, many organizations are accepting donations from those who can afford and are willing to contribute to relief efforts.

The media is flooded by ideas and suggestions for what could and should be done in Haiti. In the analysis there is also considerable commentary on the country itself. Questions have been raised about why Haiti, one half of the island of Hispaniola, has great problems that plague it's people and it's culture. While on the opposite side of the island,the Dominican Republic, exists in a vastly different world.

In this week of opinions and analysis, Pat Robertson ignited a firestorm with his comments about Haiti being cursed by God. These words have been repeated and analyzed by many, including a press release by his own ministry. Writers with much greater theological insight than myself have considered and written about his remarks, both for how he was wrong, and how the basis that may have driven Robertson's remarks was right. However you see those remarks, they do serve to open the discussion on the reality of real world consequences to religious beliefs.

John Piper stated a similar view back in April of 2009, on how spiritual beliefs and the lifestyles derived from them can have physical consequences. However, his remarks somehow avoided similar backlash and attacks. There are probably a number of factors to explain the difference in the two comments, not the least of which is how something is said, what is said and who says it.

Tom Gilson, of The Thinking Christian, said Robertson's statements were "...assuming too much freedom to speak for God." I agree. As Christians, we cannot directly identify God's justification or purpose in natural occurrences, like the earthquake in Haiti, anymore than we can the waves on the ocean.

As originally stated, consider what it is that you feel about the situation in Haiti. If you feel lead to give or to go, then do so. If you have a faith that you believe is genuinely real, if you believe that there are real consequences in this physical world for spiritual activities, then begin praying for the Haitians and all those attempting to help. If that isn't your belief, then begin considering what you do believe and why.

One final consideration from Del Tacket, of The Truth Project: "Do You Really Believe That What You Believe Is Really Real?"

A Sense of Accomplishment

2010-01-12T14:29:00.000-08:00

This post might have been better if published before Christmas, but then some family members might have had their surprise spoiled. If you continue reading, you'll have to bear with the Christmas retrospective. You've been warned.

There seems to be a progression in gift giving that goes on through childhood. Initially very young children are included by default in family gift giving. Then they start to give gifts, usually priceless artwork that they've created themselves. At some later point "store bought" gifts creep in, eventually eclipsing all personal creations, even including greeting cards. A rather accelerated timeline, but essentially accurate for many families.

For individuals that have a particular skill that they develop and practice, acquired either through or after childhood, personally created gifts can take on a whole new meaning. Such is the case with our youngest son this Christmas. We've done a number of wood working projects in the last few years. We started out small, with projects of limited size and scope - and the tools they required. Some have required no more than a saw and a drill, others quite a few more. Some were rough carpentry and others finished table pieces. Needless to say, as with any new experience, some mistakes were made - even necessary for learning opportunities.

Sizing of the project, particulary the duration required for completion has also an important element of our journey. One that was created from raw lumber turned out to be too large in scope and the interest was lost. One purchased partially assembled (!) as a mostly stain and finish project that turned out to be not enough action and interest was lost. So this Christmas was a restart of sorts for a start to finish project.

Going down the list family members that, it was decided that a lap desk was the perfect gift for several. We have several around the house (all purchased), with one in particular that everyone chooses first. It was selected as the model for our project. As simple as it was, it was the perfect scope to get in a little of everything in a wood working project. Pilot measurements, cut patterns, wood selection, saw selection, sanding methods, stain preferences, finishing treatments - we got in a little of each. Manual tools, power tools, rags, brushes were all used and understood for their proper purpose. Differences in grain and hardness of various woods such as ash, pine, alder and red oak were learned (we choose the latter). Design and budget choices were even considered when a fancier, slightly more expensive molding was selected for the book rest. There probably isn't anything we didn't touch at some level.

Interest was held throughout the project, four or five separate work sessions I believe. Each stage had new challenges, opportunities and visible progress. And a growing sense of accomplishment. Here's one of the light stained final products with the young woodworker and the recipient. That was another selection point, who got natural oak and who got the Provincial stain. In the end, as you can see, everyone was happy with the result.

So don't infer any deep statements here about commercialism of Christmas or the value of gifts from this post, neither are intended. This is a simple reflection on the observed pride of accomplishment achieved by creation. And a little fatherly bragging. I'm proud of our son for what he accomplished and to have been a part of helping him achieve it.

We're looking forward to many more projects together!

Airline Security

2010-01-07T16:27:00.000-08:00

President Obama held a press conference earlier this evening to assign responsibilities for security failures such as the failed Christmas Day airline bombing. His top counter terrorism aide John Brennan took the blame for that event and promises were made to more effectively link intelligence reports together. The President also acknowledged "the buck stops with me". All good measures for as far as they go and I sincerely hope they do move our nation into a better position to thwart terror plots that would attempt to rob us of our freedom. However, no specifics where given on elements of effective physical security.

What airport security measures are really effective? We've spent literally billions of dollars effectively only avoiding repeat incidents. Restricted container sizes, removing shoes and now staying seated in the last hour of flight are all examples. How effective are these things in really making us safer? How much of this is just "security theater", as Bruce Schneier might say, designed to make us only feel safer?

Without debating if absolute security is possible (I don't think it is), why not focus on something that worked? Have Jasper Schuringa, who subdued the terrorist during the detonation attempt, assist in updating the flight cards that are shown at the beginning of every flight. In addition to seat belt usage and exit locations, passengers could be instructed on what to do if someone intentionally sets fire to their crotch.

Personal responsibility. Even when it costs something personally. What a concept. Something that the 289 persons aboard Northwest Flight 253 certainly can appreciate. Possibly something Washington should consider as effective - in many areas.

National Debt Made Easy

2010-01-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

I had a conversation with a friend last night who is way ahead of me in his tax planning. He has already reviewed the 2009 instructions and called me to let me know of some additional deductions and credits he thought my family might be eligible for this year. He was right on one and I'll have to do some reading to determine at least one other. I appreciated the call even if it did give me a vague sense of being "behind". I have to keep reminding myself that he has an earned doctorate in statistics and therefore might be more interested in numbers, financially based or not.

He called while I was reviewing our family budget (on GNUCash) from 2009. Just doing some basic things like cleaning up the backlog of entries from the end of the year when I took a couple of weeks off, insuring all the relevant entries are tagged for tax status and looking at cash flows to adjust some budget accounts for 2010. Standard stuff.

In the midst of all the year-in-review type activity though, its natural (necessary even) to determine if you're better or worse off, monetarily speaking, at the end of the year than at the start. The next natural progression of thought is for the new year, for your family and the country as a whole. As I followed that progression a number of thoughts came to mind on socialism, constitutionality and debt. Which reminded me of an article by the Heritage Foundation that I read before my vacation and intended to write about them. So yes, everything up to this point has been an introduction while getting to the real point.

No matter how much planning you do in providing for your family and keeping out of debt, the government apparently has other ideas.

The Heritage Foundation article on The Debt Limit discusses the raising of the national debt limit (slipped in for an initial vote on Christmas Eve, after the Heritage article was written). In a short one page article, they state what that really means for the country and individuals in clear terms. They then present four brief suggestions on how to take real action against the debt.

It's not the most in depth or comprehensive article on national debt, but one that makes it easy to have a real understanding on some key points. Which is exactly the goal. It can provide some new thinking and discussion points even for those who normally turn away from financial discussions, preferring the easier path of trusting career politicians.

So as you set your personal budget for 2010, just remember that you're not the only one spending the money you've earned or creating debt that you'll have to repay.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T10:24:00.000-08:00

Luke 2 contains the Biblical narrative of the birth of Christ which is most commonly read at Christmas. At some point this Christmas, Christians would do well to re-read this passage and meditate on its meaning. A full exegesis of those fifty two verses would be too long for a blog post, however we can begin to examine one verse in particular, in this short space.

Luke 2:14 (ESV) - "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"

This verse is about the vertical relationship between God and man. Not the horizontal relationship between men as it is often misquoted as "peace on earth, goodwill towards men".

The angels are declaring the birth of a Savior, born so God can reconcile men to himself. The peace is among those that God is pleased with. Those that have been reconciled to Him through their acceptance of His Son as Lord and Savior in their lives.

By all means, have peace among your fellow men. However, please insure that you are among those with whom God is pleased. If you have not asked Christ into your life as Lord and Savior, please consider doing so this Christmas. It will be a gift you accept with eternal significance.

Merry Christmas!

This Wasn't On The List

2009-12-12T19:30:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of things to get done at Christmas. Most of them are self imposed. Tasks such as helping my wife decorate the house for Christmas, buying gifts for immediate family and serving in Christmas ministry opportunities are all typical examples. To make sure they all get done, putting things in a list works well at our house.

Earlier today I completed the purchase of something that wasn't on any of those lists, prior to the start of this week. The purchase involved a new (rebuilt actually) one of these:

For those that may not recognize it, this is a Honda transmission. Not exactly what most people think of first in terms of giving and receiving at Christmas time, but there it is. In our case, it was exactly what we needed after our van started having major problems shifting out of second gear.

Since we bought the van, all our service has been done at Metro Honda in Union county. They've always seemed a cut above the typical dealer service experience, but until now we've not needed anything other than routine maintenance. This was a lot bigger. Long story short, they earned our trust and gave us great service. We'll definitely continue going there, hopefully for a lot smaller items, in the future.

There's probably a larger set of thoughts here on trust, planning, control and flexibility but those will be an exercise left to the reader. Right now, I'm just happy to have the van back and be able to get back to things on the original list!

Not While Driving

2009-12-09T20:17:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across a product that I didn't even know existed earlier this evening - a "car desk". The concept seems valid for people who work out of their vehicles. However the implementation as shown below is what got me thinking:

In a society where companies are sued for serving hot drinks, it just seems like a matter of time before someone tries to drive with their car desk still in place. Now in fairness, the company marketing the product does provide the following warning on it's web site: For safety reasons, never use this product while driving. What business model makes the risk generated by this product viable? Not one I'd choose to operate.

The standard disclaimer definitely applies here: I have no association with this company or its products.

How Much Is Enough?

2009-12-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

The EPA has declared carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Carbon dioxide?!!! Before examining the politics and science behind this, lets set some perspective through a simple question: Is this a good or a bad thing? Seriously. Some may state that it is really a complex question, with too many factors to consider.

One test I like to apply in situations where a simple question isn't so easy to answer, is to "test it at the extreme". Often there is clarity in extrapolating the action in question to a larger scale. So for example, if carbon dioxide is a pollutant, pollutants are bad and we want to eliminate all of them - what happens if we eliminate all the carbon dioxide?

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring substance on the Earth. It is required for all plant life. If it is completely eliminated, all plants die. If all plants die, no more oxygen is produced and we die. Sounds like a bad thing to me.

Not so fast you say? Its not that simple? Just reduce it by some amount? To all those questions, I would respond - how much is enough?

This is not a science question. This is a political question that will claim science as its justification. We will now be faced with the question of who do we trust to set that amount? The answer will drive governmental fines, penalties and fees (taxes). Fairness and justice will be tossed around as ideals not to be opposed, upon fear of character assassination. The funds collected will be redistributed to those "in need".

The basis of the original question has now changed from CO2 to dollars.

Domestically, the EPA bureaucrats, government funded scientists and elected politicians will now attempt to create new regulations to transfer funds from the private sector to the government. On the global level, the Copenhagen Climate conference is attempting to function as a world government and transfer wealth, using a similar rationale.

It might again be a good time to ask - how much is enough?

Rights and Requirements

2009-11-17T19:17:00.000-08:00

A question struck me as I heard a radio advertisement earlier today. The ad was for the taxpayer funded give away, which started in August 2008, of the SafeLink cell phones to qualifying ~~citizens~~ residents.

The question that came to mind was - has the government now decided that owning a cell phone is a right and that buying health insurance is a requirement?

Maybe because the reality is that one is about vote buying and the other is about expanding the role of government in daily life. Then again, in different ways, maybe they're really the same thing.

Dodging A Bullet...Or Two Trains

2009-11-10T18:36:00.000-08:00

Regardless of what The Matrix would have us believe, people cannot dodge bullets. However, I have been personally told by combat veterans that some soldiers come to believe they can dodge bullets because they hear them go by, after the bullet has already passed.

Maybe the rail inspector in the video has really good hearing, because thankfully he hears the trains and dodges them before they pass!

A BBQ Tradition

2009-11-07T06:10:00.000-08:00

A sense of tradition connects people and generations. Good food always brings people together. Combine the two and it makes for a good time.

Unionville elementary school held its 60th annual BBQ yesterday. They've been running this BBQ annually since 1949. The BBQ was good and the proceeds went to benefit the children.

It was a beautiful day for a noon drive into the country. Working farms, livestock, country ponds - it all couldn't have been more scenic. A reminder of many of the things that make America great, including hard work and a sense of community.

Its great living in a small town, and even better to get out into the real country every now and then. This event is over, but keep looking - its BBQ season - there'll be more!

Higher Taxes Mean More Savings?

2009-11-06T08:10:00.000-08:00

The title of this post reflects the thought I had when reading the Charlotte Observer's article in today's paper, entitled: Higher NC sales tax means larger break for holiday as shown below:

So does this imply that we should somehow be thankful that we're being allowed to keep more of our own money, rather than paying it in tribute to Rome? Only if we buy what the government wants us to, when they want us to of course.

On a completely different level, it is always interesting that politicians realize real stimulus involves cutting taxes, rather than giving money (obtained through taxes) away. They ought to try it for longer than just one weekend.

Does Motive Trump Truth?

2009-10-13T14:22:00.000-07:00

In catching up on the weekend news, something caught my attention in a article on the reactions to an insurance industry health care report. In the second paragraph, Linda Douglass, communications director for the President's Office of Health Reform is referred as having said: (italics added)

...that the timing of the study, released just hours before the Senate Finance Committee is set to vote on its bill, raises questions about its legitimacy.

This infers that the timing of the report is sufficient grounds for it's dismissal. Certainly there is political strategy in some cases which dictates the timing of releases. The spokesman for this study simply stated that it was only finalized over the weekend. Which is the reason in this case isn't really important. The illogical progression of thought, simply presented as accepted wisdom, is important. A head on attack of the facts presented in a counter proposal or a critical analysis would be more in order.

The goal of any position paper is to persuade its intended audience. All sides in a debate have that as the common goal. So if the stated or even perceived motive of a position statement does not align with the preset agenda of its recipients, is it fair to summarily dismiss it? This makes ~~mind reading~~ guessing the motive more important than understanding the content.

Maybe that is really the political insight into all of this. Particulary if members of Congress regularly vote on bills that don't exist yet.

Does motive trump truth? Just asking...

A Distinction Without A Difference

2009-09-18T09:19:00.000-07:00

How can we hear so often that there will be no tax increases, but trillions of dollars in new entitlements and future obligations (aka debt) are being proposed? How will it all be paid for? Are politicians lying? Or is this simply a massively expensive word game, about to be played well into the future of every tax paying citizen of this country?

In the world of government taxation, there are multiple different categories of tax deductions, tax exemptions, tax preferences, tax benefits, tax credits and more. Quickly it can become overwhelming, even confusing for the average citizen. Enough so that distinctions can be made without actually honoring the original meaning.

Here is just a partial list of the ways that regular taxes can be stated as not increasing, but the total tax bill being paid does:

Installing automatic increments based on Consumer Price Index (CPI)
Failing to renew tax credits
Repealing of tax breaks and incentives
Allowing of automatic tax increases to occur
Adjusting tax brackets (bracket creep)
Calling the increase temporary
Indexing to something other than inflation (indexing higher)
Enacting surtaxes with special conditions
Increasing the sources (of income) subject to taxation
Decreasing Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) exemptions (overrides regular tax rates and breaks)
Doubling taxation of businesses and individuals (via dividends and interest)
...

So in politics it may be considered truthful to say one thing and then subvert that statement with indirect, conflicting actions. Possibly the politicians themselves have been duped by their subculture to believe in a different form of honesty (if it can be called that). Maybe what isn't said is just as, if not more important.

Determining what the words in a political speech mean can be difficult. Citizens must keep themselves informed and diligent concerning issues affecting the nation. If we don't, we risk electing politicians who are being honest in a dishonest way.

Now how our European allies will reconcile the US dropping support for the missile defense shield after pledging to support it "As long as the threat from Iran persists" given recent knowledge that Iran is "...on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead..." might require a different analysis.

Regardless, words have meaning. When they're coming from people who have the power to affect entire nations for generations to come, people everywhere need to listen and remember them.

For Hitchcock Fans

2009-09-11T04:32:00.000-07:00

Fans of Alfred Hitchcock movies and cat lovers may appreciate this very short video of a "cat elevator":

True Hitchcock fans will have made the connection to the scenes in Rear Window when the dog is lowered down to the courtyard, where it ultimately meets its demise - but not due to the elevator basket!

This always seemed amazing that a dog could be trained to overcome their fear of heights in an unstable basket. But a cat?!!! That's beyond amazing. Maybe that's just what you do as a pet owner in a crowded urban environment.

Hmmm, maybe that herding cats video was real after all...

Retroactive Tax Increases

2009-09-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

Those not concerned about paying income tax or whose sole interest is in getting an income tax "refund" (loaning the government part of their earnings interest free for a year) probably should skip this post. Others, particularly those that live in North Carolina, may be interested to learn that the state just approved a retroactive income tax increase last month. Yes, retroactive.

It is identified as a "surtax". The relevant section of Senate Bill 202 is 27A.1(a) and reads as follows (emphasis added):

PART XXVIIA. TAX CHANGES
CORPORATE AND INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX SURTAX
SECTION 27A.1.(a) Part 1 of Article 4 of Chapter 105 of the General Statutes is amended by adding a new section to read:
"§ 105-130.3B. Income tax surtax.
(a) Surtax. – An income tax surtax is imposed on a taxpayer equal to three percent (3%) of the tax payable by the taxpayer under G.S. 105-130.3 for the taxable year. This tax is in addition to the tax imposed by G.S. 105-130.3 and is due at the time prescribed in
G.S. 105-130.17 for filing a corporate income tax return.
(b) Sunset. – This section expires for taxable years

Note that this bill was signed into law on August 7, 2009 (scroll to the bottom of the list of actions). Retroactive over seven prior months of tax planning, now invalidated. Governor Perdue was sworn into office on January 10, 2009 (scroll to the bottom of the media releases). Retroactive nine days earlier than even the Governor's taking of office.

The surtax affects corporations and what the press would term "high income" individuals. Regardless of if this particular action has immediate personal application or not, every taxpayer should consider what principle is being demonstrated by issuing retroactive tax increases. Here are just two.

Is tax planning is useless? Any scheduled planning, giving or investing based on the tax rates at the start of the year are certainly now reduced in effectiveness. Businesses planning investments in the state will surely take this into consideration in the future.

What guidelines exist, or should exist, regarding enactment of retroactive laws? The paying of taxes has a clean yearly boundary due to the payment cycle. If the discussion was over issuance of licenses or permits what would the boundaries be?

FWIW - this is not an indictment of Governor Perdue or any political party. It is however of politicians and politics in general. It is an amazing display of the politics of power and money, this time at the state level. Be careful of the change you vote for. It can change the future - and the past.

Drum Corp Experts

2009-08-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

Alright, so a little editorial license was used in spanning the "expert" title between this and the last post. Watch the video below and you may agree it was justified.

The Top Secret Drum Corps have taken the precision and technical skill required in competition to the highest level. Watching someone who has perfected their craft to this degree is almost always worth watching.

The video quality suffers in the high level shots but is worth staying with for the ground level footage. Like most of these routines, it builds in intensity as it progresses - stay with it!

Even if you're not a drum corp aficionado, you can't help but appreciate the level of talent, discipline and expertise this team has developed.

The caption with the original video states that they practiced almost every day for a year on this routine. How many people are that dedicated to something they say that they believe in?

The Local Computer Expert

2009-08-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

Having a day job that involves anything above simply using computers automatically seems to qualify many people for the role of "computer expert" in their family and circle of friends. That confidence may at times be misplaced as the range of potential software and hardware issues now is so wide, that no one person can keep up with all support methods anymore. So enters Google and the age of instant expertise.

The web comic xkcd captures this well in their Tech Support Cheat Sheet.

A friend sent it to me and it is funny. Some of the other content on the xkcd site ranges from bizarre to risque, but this one seems spot on. However, the longer I look at the flowchart the more real it becomes. Maybe that's what makes it really funny.

In any event, print it out and tape it near your screen - it just might work!

A Lot Can Kill You

2009-08-06T08:56:00.000-07:00

The video below on "How Not To Wash Your Car" immediately made me think of the lines in the movie Jumangi:

Sarah Whittle: Well, a little rain never hurt anybody!
Alan Parrish: Yeah, but a lot can kill you! Come on!

You might not want to let your kids watch this though...they'll never stand under the tipping buckets at the local water park again!

Self Publishing

2009-07-31T08:10:00.000-07:00

This post is somewhat a follow-up to the Unplanned Obsolescence one from about a week ago. In that time, I think I've got a handle on how to use some of the new self publishing tools. As before, this isn't a guide for anyone else, but simply what works for me.

The one that confounded me the most at the start - Twitter - may turn out to be one of the most useful day-to-day. A personal Twitter account seems well suited for sharing a quick thought that really isn't worthy of a full blog post or for one that I don't have time to write. Also, its original purpose of answering the question of "what are you doing" type status updates for anyone who cares to know, does work well.

The rich media content and access control obviously are part of what makes Facebook successful. Good for sharing family photos and updates that have no value in the public space. Many seem to use it for status updates also. The eureka moment for me was when I found out that Twitter and Facebook could be linked together with a Facebook application. Short thoughts and status updates now only need to be posted in one place. Longer family and friend related posts still go directly into Facebook itself. After reading today's paper, I have to say that I didn't have anything really in mind when I chose my profile picture though.

I don't think there is anything new to expound on related to the virtues or uses of blogging. However, just like using a RSS reader to follow a blog, there are new options for potential readers using Twitter. Using TwitterFeed as an intermediate mechanism, blog posts can also be followed via Twitter.

I'm still wary of oversharing, privacy risks, security and other elements of these mediums. Also, the parodys abound, particulary about Twitter. At times its easy to imagine that I'm just speaking into cyberspace, but if you've read this far - maybe not!

Values and Freedoms

2009-07-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

Christians are still being martyred for their faith. North Korea provides the latest example in the execution of a woman last month, for distributing Bibles. Why don't Western cultures based on Christian values and freedoms stand up against these atrocities? Maybe they're too busy with art shows.

These stories made the mainstream media, but sadly there are many more.

Ideas have consequences. When will we start making choices accordingly?

Positively Contagious

2009-07-24T17:00:00.001-07:00

WBTV in Charlotte has a "Good News" section during their evening broadcast, which is a welcome positive note in a market where news has predominantly become little more than a crime report. As an example, they recently they highlighted a kindergarten class that had a week of "kindness training" and how it can be contagious.

Today they featured a pair of Purdue University students who are known as the Compliment Guys. The are touring the East coast courtesy of Kodak on a Brightside Tour. To get a feel for what they're doing, there is video of them in action. The compliments aren't especially deep or insightful, but all seem to produce a positive uplifting response.

When I saw this I was reminded of the short film "Validation" (embedded below) that I watched last fall. It took me a few minutes to find and at over 16 minutes it'll take you a few minutes to watch, but I can almost guarantee the smile on your face if you do.

If you can mean it, trying telling someone they are amazing. You just might get a smile in return.

Accentuate the positive!

Unplanned Obsolescence

2009-07-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

Is email becoming obsolete? Yet another tech article raised the issue recently and this time it struck a chord with me, as I've been trying to position email, blogs, Facebook and Twitter in my mind. One of my friends is is always on the cutting edge of web trends and has been prodding me to get connected via each. Well, I finally did and now am trying to figure out what to do with them. I've now staked a claim to my own name in multiple parts of cyberspace, but what's next?

This post isn't intended to be a definitive guide to any of these mediums, but more of a notepad as I (publicly) sort out my thoughts. It may have some value to others as they do the same, or explain to those who have tried to communicate with me via various methods why they haven't received instantaneous responses. If neither of those is of interest to you, like any post, feel free to stop reading and move on at any time. OK, now you've been warned!

Email of course is the no brainer of the bunch. Maybe because its what I understand best, but nothing seems to be better at one-to-one asynchronous communications of non trivial size or substance, for either personal or professional communication. It does have its limitations such as threading long conversations.

Blogging is good at one-to-many asynchronous communication. I originally started using it as a replacement for the "group emails" that I might occasionally have sent out on various topics. The RSS syndication and ability to subscribe (or not) provides a level of control for the reader. As a public medium, I'm always careful not to "over share", particularly in respecting the privacy of my family members.

Facebook's semi-public implementation of many-to-many conversation, both asynchronous, threaded and random - seemingly all at once - hasn't quite "clicked" for me yet. It has elements of blogging, with it's own feed reader in the form of a Wall and the ability to comment on posts. Facebook as a whole seems to invite a lot of "over sharing" on personal topics and relationships, which is probably what makes it addictive for many people.

Twitter I'm the most lost on. It seems to be some cross of IM and SMS messaging, but (mostly) sent out into a public void. I know it has ways to tag tweets for certain users, but it seems to be a really restrictive melding of Facebook and blogging.

The bottom line that while there may be overlap and crossover between the various communications channels, there is no right or wrong answer. Just choices and preferences. The irony is that all of them have ways to be alerted via email when one is updated. That tells me email probably won't be obsolete any time soon. So don't be surprised if that's how I continue to respond!

Making It Right

2009-07-19T14:15:00.001-07:00

We recently celebrated my birthday in a way that has become a tradition thanks to my wonderful and understanding wife. This celebration however, involved a couple of twists that made it even better than expected. The tradition is in searching out a new barbeque restaurant that we've never eaten at before (or maybe just not in quite a while). My wife plans these culinary outings as a surprise and some do require a bit of planning - and driving.

Last weekend the tradition didn't involve too much driving, only up to Concord, NC. The restaurant selected this time was R&R Bar-B-Que, at 755 Pitts School Rd NW. There were some good reviews on the net about it and everything on the R&R web site looked like it was the real deal.

So up to Concord we went and arrived after the dinner rush on Saturday. When we arrived there was a good sized crowd, noisy but relaxed. It looked like we'd made a great choice. There was some confusion when we first ordered, about the type of bbq that R&R specialized in and some other things that seemed a little out of place. Nothing to really be concerned about but we began to wonder if they were as serious about bbq as we'd been led to believe.

To make a long story short - at this point, we asked to speak to a manager. Instead we ended up talking to one of the co-owners - Rob Elmore. Even though there was still a good crowd in the restaurant, he took his time with us explaining the bbq he specialized in (Eastern Carolina) and its preparation at R&R (in a state-of-the-art, spotless operation). We even swapped a host of other stories related to experiencing local food specialties while traveling.

They are serious about barbeque at R&R. Rob's personal involvement to make things right for two guests he'd never met before really spoke volumes. When the plates of food arrived, we can attest to the fact that the food is made right too - pulled pork shoulder, lean but not dry, lightly spiced - exactly what we came looking for. The ribs were probably the best either of us can remember having, a real unexpected find. The chicken, bbq slaw and beans were great along with everything else.

I'll stop short of making this a full restaurant review (which I'm not formally trained to do anyway!). The real point is that it was great to meet someone who was good at what they do and enjoyed it. That comes through loud and clear.

Anyway, give R&R a try - you won't be sorry. And remember, barbeque is not a verb!

Worldview Matters

2009-07-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post has an article Three Minutes to Fort Totten which describes the actions of four individuals who were on the Metro train 112, car 1079 which crashed last month.

On the surface it is a great human interest story. It portrays four people who gave of themselves and helped others while overcoming fear and obstacles in the midst of a tragedy. Its the kind of thing that you don't see much of, but when you do, its inspiring.

I find it interesting that two of the persons who stayed behind to help were US military personnel, one was directly identified as a Christian. I don't think that was a random correlation. As BreakPoint points out when referring to this same incident, the military is one of the last places in America where men and women are taught to put others first. As also should Christians.

Worldview matters. Thankfully few of us are called to live out our beliefs in the middle of a crisis. So what's our excuse in everyday life?

Not Until You're Twelve

2009-06-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

Or maybe 10, in the state of Wisconsin.

For those who may miss the pop culture reference in the title of this post, it is from the original 1971 version of Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. A permissive parent (to say the least) interacts with his son in the following quote from the movie:

Mike Teevee: Wait till I get a real one. Colt 45. Pop won't let me have one yet, will ya, Pop?
Mr. Teevee: Not till you're 12, son.

There was a lot of satire in the original that probably was intended to give the children's film broader appeal for adults (similar to the sexual innuendo and double entendres in today's "children's" movies). However in this case, the satire seems to be lost on this group of lawmakers.

Just to make sure this is taken as irony and not an anti-gun position, I'll make the following disclaimer. As a registered gun owner and sport shooting hobbyist, I am clearly in favor of protecting Second Amendment rights. Although I am not personally interested in hunting as a hobby, it should also be afforded the same protection.

Raising responsible children has many facets and at the proper time for the individual child, can include gun safety. Just not in any 10 year olds I've known.

Alternate tag: Things that make you go "hmmmm"...

Which is the Imitation?

2009-06-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

I'm a fan of (selected) comics. Not the type that are called graphic novels these days, but simply the small amusement from those in the daily paper. Some like Family Circus are cute, or funny like Garfield, or simply amusing like Frazz.

The best ones to me take a piece of daily life and find something amusing in it. Although I don't agree with many of their political views, Non Sequitur can be like that. Their recent series on Non Conceptual Scientists is a case in point. The last strip in the series contained the following quote:

...as a Pre Conceptual scientist, you reach a conclusion to a theory first then just ignore all evidence that proves you're wrong...

That was amusing to me from a number of worldview perspectives, but then I didn't think too much of it until I saw a feed today from The Times. It reports on one in seven scientists faking data to support a pre-conceived conclusion, usually in order to secure funding.

Life imitates art?

Easter in June

2009-06-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

Not in the traditional Christian sense of celebrating the risen Savior of course (what did you expect) but in the tradition of software developers to put hidden features in their programs - usually that have nothing to do with the programs primary purpose. Those hidden features are typically known as "Easter Eggs".

Google has produced some amazing services and tools, not the least of which is the most comprehensive search the web has yet to see.

Hidden among all those offerings are a good number of "Easter Eggs". PC World put together a list of the top 17 from Google, including my favorite: the flight simulator inside of Google Earth.

I don't know how much of a hidden feature this is since it is actually well documented in the Google Earth User Guide but the list as a whole is a fun Friday diversion.

Enjoy.

Encouraging A (Perpetual) Mentality of Adolescence

2009-06-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

All parents want better for their children than they had for themselves. Some parents go to great lengths to make this possible in the short term for their children. Others try and shield their children from the realities of life and consequences of their actions far into the child's teen years. Many times that shielding is not just from external challenges, but internal as well - from having to think critically.

Just as failing to let children learn from the consequences of their actions will lead to wrong actions in an adult world, failing to challenge them to think will lead to their acceptance of wrong ideas. Students, particularly at the high school level, are capable of much more than the popular media gives them credit for, with its encouragement of perpetual adolescence. If we can teach biology and chemistry in high school, why not real theology?

A recent article by John Stonestreet, writing for BreakPoint addresses these and several other issues in a high level outline for challenging students. Reading this article might raise some questions on how we're preparing our children, students and ourselves to respond to the issues in our culture.

100 Best Movie Lines

2009-05-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

Something completely random for a fun Friday (warning - some mild profanity):

Was your favorite included?

Hyphenated-American

2009-05-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is going to draw out all sorts of opinions. Those on judicial activism vs strict constructionism are to be expected. The focus on her race as part of her selection, even her suitability for the Supreme Court, are not. That focus reflects poorly on many attitudes in America and how our leaders are chosen.

Many persons, particularly in public service, seem to prefer a hyphenated label to identify themselves. The labels typically indicate a country of origin for one's ancestors and in practical use become an implied racial designation. Does it bother anyone that these labels always precede the term American, almost taking on primary importance? I'm reminded of the following quote by one of our former presidents:

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic... There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else."

Teddy Roosevelt, Addressing the Knights of Columbus in New York City, October 12, 1915

A good friend of mine recently became an American citizen after being legally in America for the required length of time, passing all the required exams and background checks. He is highly educated, having multiple masters degrees and an earned doctorate in statistics. With those credentials and speaking (I believe) five languages he could live and be successful in any part of the world he desired. He chose to come to America and has become very succesful professionally and personally here. The pride he now exhibits in being an American citizen exceeds that I've seen in some new parents! There is no hyphenation for him. He is an American now and nothing else.

Judge Sotomayor herself will effectively be on trial for some number of weeks to come. The views and prejudices of America, from both sides of the political fence, likely will be too.

No Laughing Matter

2009-05-26T18:44:00.001-07:00

This has to be a sign of the times...or that most governments have no clue what their real priorities are. Four states have adopted "no smile" policies for their drivers licenses.

The article states that the facial recognition software in use matches new to old licenses better when people have dull expressions. So all a person needs to do to assume a new identity is smile?

That might not be exactly right, but it is an idea. :-)

A Different Kind of Memorial

2009-05-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

This post is being written on Memorial Day and it would not be right to let the occasion pass without an open "Thank You" to all the men and women who have served the United States in conflicts far and wide so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have today. We are created in God's image according to His purpose and in this fallen world it is the soldier who gives us our freedoms. So to all those who have served, Thank You.

That observance having been made, our household can be as distracted as any American's and we often see a long weekend as an opportunity to get more done. Excusing the play on words in the title, that usually makes for a different memory - usually one anchored to a full weekend of home repairs. That actually hadn't been the case this Memorial Day, until 9pm last night when we noticed water coming from under the dishwasher. Sigh.

The next two hours were spent pulling the dishwasher out, drying everything off and finding the leak. Turns out it is where the motor shaft enters the impeller. Something that might be able to be fixed with a new seal seat ring or seal head inside the impeller. Problem is that the shaft has rusted slightly and is fused to the impeller assembly. Not an uncommon problem according to the repair forums, but one that will potentially result in damage to the motor to pry apart. At that point its not worth it to me to replace both the pump and impeller assembly on an 11 year old dishwasher.

Definitely in the category of things I didn't plan to do when I got up this morning - go shopping for a dishwasher. Oh well, I have the ability and freedom to be able to do so. For that, I am thankful.

Happy Memorial Day to veterans everywhere!

Virtual Vacations

2009-05-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

Time spent on the computer for many people is a form of escapism. Similar to being immersed in a good novel, the experience can expand one's horizons. The analogy isn't perfect and both mediums certainly have their strengths. However, at the risk of sounding too much like a Google fan, Google Streetview can present some amazing sights. Amazing enough to provide some very interesting escapes.

With only a little Googling, some popular tourist sites can be found like: Big Ben, the Eiffel tower, the Roman Colosseum, even Yellowstone National Park. Some, like Mount Rushmore are not nearly as detailed. As you consider your own to search for, think of how close the camera car can get, as well as any travel restrictions in the area or country chosen.

Google has had its share of privacy issues with capturing unintended street views, however any image taken is public by its very nature, if not timing. Legalities and liberties aside, its a great diversion.

I don't know how much time was spent following these links, or creating some of your own, but I hope you enjoyed this virtual vacation. It definitely saves money on travel!

Childhood Expectations

2009-05-12T08:58:00.000-07:00

There's probably a larger commentary in here than I intend to write. Something deep and insightful that explores the balance between pushing a child beyond their years and conversely not challenging them enough. However, like most matters that involve raising children, those boundaries are deeply personal and can only be decided on an individual level by a child's parents.

That having been said, I do believe that as a culture, we don't expect enough out of our young people. Maybe its because we don't believe that they are capable of more than the underachieving stereotypes commonly presented in the media.

Social dynamics aside, two items caught my interest recently that got me thinking about childhood expectations: Zara Larsson and the Clapham School. On the surface they might appear unrelated, however both are prime examples of excellence from sources we might not ordinarily expect - a ten year old singer and eight year old students.

These children clearly have excelled in their environments, no doubt with the encouragement and support of many adults, including their parents. It would be difficult to know if they were pushed, but clearly they were not inhibited by low expectations.

Its something to keep in mind as we raise up the next generation of leaders. Excellence is never an accident.

Trial Riding

2009-05-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

From the first clip riding across the top of a fence to the last jump, this is an amazing video of street trails riding:

Amazing and inspiring, but now I suspect that riding the Airdyne tonight just won't be the same. A great 5:38 diversion regardless. Enjoy.

Fried Chicken & Hot Sauce

2009-04-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

My job allows me the flexibility to work from home at times and today was one of those days. That flexibility affords many opportunities, one of which being culinary diversions - aka great lunches. Today's was inspired by a downtown restaurant, semi famous for dipping its fried chicken in hot sauce and serving in a sandwich.

I'll confess that I didn't have to go as far as the whole breading and frying route. That was already done for me by way of leftovers. The hot sauce application and consumption was all mine though.

A beautiful day in the Carolinas and a great lunch. Just thought I'd share my inspiration. Enjoy!

Are We Or Aren't We?

2009-04-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

A Christian nation that is. Not that every citizen is a Christian, but that this country was founded on and still operates on a rule of law that is derived from Christian beliefs. This historical foundation is the basis of our freedom today.

The question is particularly relevant as President Obama continues to state that America is no longer Christian. Holding to that worldview has a definite impact.

A guest columnist on OneNewsNow.com puts an excellent perspective on the President's knowledge of history in an article titled "Arrogant Americans, Mr President?" which contains the following quote:

Barack Obama's first foreign trip as President of the United States has confirmed the naiveté so many of us feared during the election cycle. But worse than that, it has also demonstrated that our president suffers from either a complete misunderstanding of our heritage and history, or an utter contempt for it. Neither is excusable.

There are a lot of things going on right now in Washington that I believe are detrimental to our country. But it is our country. Why does our President continually see fit to condemn it?

A Fair Vote

2009-04-11T08:55:00.001-07:00

Our family was selected to participate in an Arbitron radio survey. The poll lasted a week and consisted of simply recording when and what we listened to (individually) on the radio. We were selected by a random dialer as part of a nationwide survey. The results will be used to rank radio stations which no doubt will drive advertising campaigns and rates - although probably not on listener supported stations such as WRCM.

Maybe I'm just naturally suspicious or have let myself be influenced by national news reports on voting scandals (such as the fraud occuring in Minnesota with Al Franken since November). However in this case, I'm trusting Arbitron to administer the results fairly and then represent my preferences as part of the bigger picture.

A capitalistic free market should be driven by consumer demand. Government intervention to "balance" something the market won't support (such as with the politically driven so called Fairness Doctrine) has never proven to be sustainable. Thats why buying locally in your community and "voting" with your dollars is the best way to support the economy where you live.

Indirectly, thats what we did by participating in the Arbitron survey. It seems like a fair vote.

Where Are We Going?

2009-04-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

News story heard today:

Uncle Sam was discovered today wandering aimlessly through the wilderness, many miles from the main highway. He had no cash or valuables and was in the words of one official "severely confused and physically ill". Here's the man who found him: "It was like he didn't know where he was going or where he came from." Uncle Sam has been hospitalized and is reportedly in critical condition.

Credit to Just Thinking - this was the intro to their "Understanding the Spirit of the Age" podcast.

The Best Watchdog

2009-03-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

It looks like the old joke has finally been proven true. We have one of those watchdogs that burglars fear the most - the kind they'll trip over in the dark! WebMd now verifies how effective they are!

In reality, she's a very sweet dog (ignore the reflective eyes in the photo) and an excellent watchdog...but clearly all bark!

Free Information

2009-03-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

Not just the random posts in this blog, but actual useful information - business information. More specifically business phone numbers. I might be late to discover this, but for anyone else who might have missed it, Google has a 411 service that's free to use and even to auto-connect.

The service is described at http://www.google.com/goog411/ and can be used by calling 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411). It might just be because I still have a restrictive cell phone plan, but free 411 is worth $1.50 a call to me if I'm out somewhere and need to call a business for directions.

For the Google world domination theorists, one final thought - it was interesting when I programmed the 411 number into my cell phone that T9 already knew "Google". Ah...I'll use it anyway, its free.

Successful Operation

2009-03-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

This week's operation was a success by any standard. The old part that was causing all the trouble came out without any complications. It was actually an easy operation on a body that is considered old by today's standards. Everything is closed back up and functioning fine.

I'm talking about our main home computer of course, a commodity PC purchased for a rock bottom price about 4 years ago. The power supply quit working a week and a half ago and I've been waiting to be able to install the replacement. It was satisfying that something made to compete in a very thin profit margin environment was also designed to be serviceable. In an increasingly disposable, impatient society that seems a rarity.

My "other" operation was a success this week also. Thanks to all who prayed for me and my family during that time. I won't be like new as fast as our computer, but I'm doing very well.

Laying Down

2009-03-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

This week I'm going to have my gall bladder removed (too much information?). Its an operation that has been becoming increasingly more necessary for me and so I'm hoping for a wide range of symptoms to go away after everything is healed. It is a common surgery, lasting only from 40 minutes to 2 hours, able to be done as outpatient if all goes well.

I'm not really excited about having four holes cut in my chest or the steps that follow, but I'm not really worried either. If I was going to worry, it would be about complications during anesthesia, contracting MRSA or a staph infection while in the hospital. The reality is that of course I have no reason to believe that any of that will happen. However, every time a person has surgery performed, there is a measure of some size in facing death. Without being overly dramatic, it does make you think.

This week I'm going to lay down and place (some of) the trust for my life in a team of medical professionals. Every day when I lay down I'm secure knowing that I've placed the trust for my life in Jesus Christ. This week or many years from now, I know my eternal destination is Heaven and that my salvation is secure. I know this not through anything I have done or accomplished, but because I accepted the free gift of salvation as offered to all by Jesus Christ when I accepted Him as my Lord and Savior.

There is a God. He is real. We can know Him. He has a plan for your life. Have you accepted Him as your Lord and Savior?

If you want to know more about the Christian faith or accepting Jesus yourself, please follow the links provided and/or contact me. When I am back on my feet or at least able to sit in front of a computer again, I'll return any comments privately. At this time I don't have any interest in hosting a moderated debate via this blog. But I'm always interested in sharing the hope that I have. Ask me.

Looking forward to the future.

BBQ Season

2009-02-27T15:26:00.000-08:00

Actually, it is coming close to vacation season. How do I know? Everywhere you turn there are advertisements (with unusually deep discounts this year) to book your vacation now. However, I've always preferred to assemble my own "vacation packages", frankly on a scale well below what the ads portray.

So influenced by Madison Avenue and armed with the false confidence that precedes any trip planning, I wondered what would be a good (great?) vacation to plan. Then I remembered The NC Barbecue Society Historic Trail. Some families retrace historical events from times in the nation's history, so why not do the same on the state level - with some great food thrown in as a bonus?

The Society makes them all sound good, although there are obviously going to be a lot of favorites left off any "best of" list. Additionally there were restrictions such as only two sites per town. I can personally vouch for Hurshey's, Lexington #1 and Bridges. Especially Bridges.

If you're just a little curious, I've mapped the whole tour (less Cobb & Son, which I couldn't find) via Google maps - all 15 hours of driving. Will we really turn vacation season into BBQ season this year? I doubt it, but it was fun to plan.

Now maybe if we can get school credit for the trip, hmmm...

"Merci" or "Mercy"?

2009-02-24T13:36:00.001-08:00

If you've got 8 minutes of your life that you're not doing anything with, check out the downhill run these two mountain bikers make in the French Alps.

Mondial Du VTT Descente de Venosc caméra embarquée
by 103TuRtLe

Its not as much of a roller coaster effect as you might expect, but look at the drop off in the switch backs, just waiting for a rider to enter with too much speed. Also, don't miss the thin rope on the right side of the trail on some of the really steep slopes.

I couldn't tell though, as they passed slower riders (especially the last time - while in the air) if they were saying the French word for "thanks" or asking God for mercy on their descent. You decide.

It is an amazing run to watch. Definitely for a much higher caliber rider than I ever was. The local single track along the Catawba is more than enough for me.

My $0.028

2009-02-23T15:22:00.000-08:00

In 2007, Congress directed the Mint to produce four new commemorative designs for the Lincoln penny to be rotated throughout 2009, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. I'd forgotten about it until just a few days ago, when a link to a newspaper site reminded me. While not a coin collector myself, there was something generally fun in the 10 year schedule of the state quarter program, even if it was only the minor curiousity of what you might have just got back in change.

The timing of this years release of the Lincoln penny is a curiousity of sorts also. In the year we choose to redesign our smallest monetary unit, we are going to create our largest ever national debt. The irony of the government's actions is probably lost in Washington though.

It would be nice if politicians had a better sense of history. FDR's New Deal program is often cited as support for the current "stimulus package" but FDR's own treasury secretary is quoted as saying "...I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot." This isn't unique to the United States. The Heritage Foundation reports on a similar initiative in Japan, from which it concludes "...the Japanese government implemented such a program during the 1990s, and the consequence was two decades of economic stagnation."

What is the real solution? It seems clear that it has to be one built on real free market demand that creates sustainable jobs. Not one that it artificially supported by the government. The best way to do that? Let wage earners keep and therefore direct more of the money they earn. There are politicians that recognize this, such as Texas congressman Lou Gohmert, who proposed his own alternative plan. That is all academic now though, as the spending has begun.

One final economic thought as a footnote - due to increases in copper and zinc values it apparently now costs around 1.4 cents to make a penny. So I guess that makes this my $0.028.

Doing More With Less

2009-02-20T08:23:00.000-08:00

So you say visiting a blog is too much trouble? Already have enough things to read, do and keep track of? You wish blog authors would simply go back to mass emails? RSS can help. You'll still have to decide what is worth reading, but RSS is one of the few things that really enables you to do "more with less". In four easy and free steps that should take less than 10 minutes. Here is how:

Sign up for a Google account and login. If you've already got a gmail account, just login. Even if you never intend to send a single email via gmail, get an account anyway.
Visit a blog site that has RSS enabled (like this one!) and click the RSS icon in the address bar
Choose the "Subscribe to 'Entropy By Design - RSS" choice in the dropdown that appears
Click the "Add to Google Reader" button on the page loads next

Thats it. In the future, instead of remembering a list of sites you want to visit or managing a set of bookmarks, just visit http://www.google.com/reader Any sites you've subscribed to that have new content will be shown. No need to try and determine what news and articles are new, the tool does it for you. There is plenty of online help, such as keyboard shortcuts like "J", "K" and "V", but at this point you've learned all you need to know. Seriously.

To find additional sites, just click the "Add A Subscription" button while in Google Reader. Use any natural language terms ("Fox News", "CNN Money", etc.) to find things of interest to you. You can view and subscribe, all for free. Once subscribed the Reader will allow rapid navigation ("J") between article summaries, so you can select only the ones that interest you to view ("V"). A massive time savings over web browsing, print media and don't even get me started about television!

RSS allows you to read more, in less time, with less effort than you can imagine. Take control. Give it a try.

Banning Books

2009-02-19T08:55:00.000-08:00

Well, sort of. Not directly in the way that the phrase usually makes people think. However, there is a cause for concern and depending on your viewpoint - action.

The CPSC's ban on the sale of children's books printed prior to 1985 went into effect on Feb 10th. On the surface this has an admirable goal - keeping children from being exposed to lead. A side effect is that many children's classics that are out of print can no longer legally be sold in used book stores, thrift shops or any retail establishment. Public libraries also seem required to comply.

There don't seem to be any documented cases of lead poisoning via books on the web. The CDC doesn't even list books as a source of lead exposure on their web site. So how did books get included? They don't flake off edible chips like the old lead paint. They aren't "tasted" in the same manner or frequency as toys manufactured in developing nations can be. Its difficult to say. There is plenty of room for conspiracy theories, but I'm not interested in going there.

There are some efforts underway to modify (but not eliminate) the problems this will cause. The American Library Association, which raised an early warning on this issue, is staking out a position that "distribution" applies only to sales. Senator Jim DeMint has stated his intent to reform the CPSIA. There may be other efforts to mitigate the effect of this act, but in the meantime the danger to many classics is real as shop owners can't afford to risk the penalties they might face. Some might feel compelled to destroy the books rather than be fined.

So if you want to preserve classic children's books, many with a decidedly different religious, social, political value than those being produced today, you may want to consider purchasing a few of your old favorites while you still can. When and if you do, please don't treat them as museum pieces, loan them to others. They only have value if they're read.

It Just Didn't Seem Right

2009-02-13T08:48:00.000-08:00

One of the projects that I'd planned over doing over the long President's Day weekend was repairing my Airdyne. The offset pin holding one of the pedal arms sheared a couple of weeks ago and needed to be replaced. After locating a parts supplier, I thought it would be a relatively straight forward repair after extracting the sheared pin.

However, once the nut was off on the pedal arm, the assembly below - inside the pedal arm - was revealed.

As an added distraction, the part shows an offset between entry and exit to to the arm.

Soooo.....the question is - how do you remove a threaded on one end, smooth on the other, offset "bolt"?

The answer is you realize it isn't a bolt, but rather a wedge pin. Its way too tight to be pulled out by the non threaded end or simply tapped out from the other. The only solution is to put the nut partially back on to increase the surface area while protecting the threads - and give it a good hearty blow with a hammer. Once removed, it looks like this:

Like everything, its easy once you know how to do it. However, getting there took more than a little thinking, experimentation and in the end web searching that found an exploded parts diagram.

Until then though, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Hitting a threaded part with a hammer just didn't seem right.

Somethings Gotta Be First

2009-02-10T15:31:00.000-08:00

This blog has been created for a while and yet there have been no posts. It could be that I was crafting the perfect initial post, or keeping true to the masthead and setting expectations low or maybe I'm overall just more interested in reading than writing. Could be some of each, it will have to be an exercise left to the reader - if there are any.

That having been said, something has to be first and so this post is it. Other than stating the obvious above, the only real purpose is to share the picture above, found on the pilgrim in a foreign land blog, which was in a list of sites recommended to me by a friend.

Which ever side of the political fence you lean to, I hope you found it at least slightly amusing. If not, you probably didn't make it this far anyway.

Disappointed? Oh, well - somethings gotta be first.