|
 
|
Sunday, September 30, 2001Better WiFi@ 01 pm | PermaLinkProxim is bringing out a WiFI (802.11b) aka wireless ethernet adapter. That ought to be pretty good for some stuff, but USB's upper limits for transfer don't come close to the 10Mb transfer rate for Wireless Ethernet. At first I was pretty excited about this: having a USB to WiFi gateway would be really flexible and useful with lots of machines. http://www.proxim.com/products/all/skyline/pn474/ But now on reflection, I still think it would be better to get a PCI to WiFi card that will allow the card to run at full speed. That way I can put the PCI card in my B&W G3 or move it into Amy's old 6400 or I can put the PC Card into my notebook from work. It's $180 which is a little steep but it's a pretty flexible piece of equipment. http://www.proxim.com/products/all/skyline/pn476bld/ The never ending quest for the perfect home network continues...
Saturday, September 29, 2001A Recent E-mail@ 05 pm | PermaLinkAn e-mail that came by recently: Somebody told me to e-mail you. Can you tell me where they have info on home dwellings. Yes, that's the full text of the mail. I would love to know who's telling people to talk to me regarding their domicile issues. If it's you, please stop. I just hope that it's not the voices in Christina's head that are telling her to e-mail me. How do you reply to this? A complete stranger, potential newbie on the line looking for some juicy info. Of which I have none. Um, I have an online journal that has the title Dwelling. I don't really have any info regarding Dwellings like homes and such. Perhaps you can ask the person again. It's a big ol' net out there... Previously, that same day...Self-teaching and Corporate Software@ 09 am | PermaLinkOne of the problems in the computer field that I've seen of late is the divide between software that's available in Open Source terms and those that must be purchased in terms of site licenses and require large budgets to install and learn. There's a case to be made for creating and selling software that is large and expensive. Robust, networked, team oriented software is notoriously difficult to develop. Often this software will have gone through years of development with large teams of developers that rightfully ought to be paid for their labor. This software ends up being very expensive and generally this leads to it only being available in large companies. It also means that only the staff of those companies have access to that software, and generally only when they are in the company's network/environment. Take Lotus Notes for example. Here is a large, complex tool that is affordable and makes sense only for larger corporations. But the problem is that most of the people who are really 'into' their occupation in the computer field don't just learn while they are at their job. It's been my experience that those people who bring the full force of their concentration and effort into the field often devote much of the time outside of their work hours to technical endeavors. These projects range from home networks to public works (http://www.freegeek.org comes to mind.) that benefit the community as well as provide the individual with valuable hands-on time with technology. This time outside of the work place is what really separates the dedicated computer enthusiasts. But this outside time is limited by money and access to platforms. Want to know why Linux continues to grow in popularity in the computer industry, despite the best intentions of the entrenched software providers? Because geeks can run it at home. Want to know why wireless networking is gaining such momentum? Because geeks can play with it at home. These are great tools and they are used by dedicated people who really grasp the technology and it's limitations. All of this ends when the software becomes too expensive and to costly to install. The kind of environment that is required to learn, play and experiment with software generally doesn't exist in the corporate world. Workers must be sent away for week and multi-week training courses to learn the basics of difficult software. Where is the sense in this? Why not leverage the knowledge that the die-hard computer geek is already seeking, already bringing to the plate? It would make more sense to use a set of tools that are within the grasp of the dedicated enthusiast, allowing them to bootstrap, grow and refine their own learning, which they already have an innate drive to expand. To follow this idea is a win-win situation. I shake my fist and yell, "Why not?"
Monday, September 24, 2001Song Request@ 07 am | PermaLinkI really think someone ought to do a Trance or House style remake of The Wheels on the Bus. And Ramstein should cover Rock a-bye Baby.
Thursday, September 20, 2001Google Searches@ 09 pm | PermaLinkEver since I moved OrderSomewhereChaos over to the new server, I've been able to better track the traffic that's been coming into the old server on smartnetworks.net. The more interesting aspect has been the Google searches that have found relevent links on my site. Since I switched over the site around 3 Sept, I've had quite a variety show up. Take a look for yourself:
I find it fascinating that certain words like 'variables' and 'dwelling' ended up getting so high on Google's rankings. At least, high enough to be clicked on, anyway.
Tuesday, September 18, 2001Good Birthday@ 11 pm | PermaLinkI had a really nice b-day. I got cards from the Hot Pepper office and the PGE office, plus my mom and dad were in town, on their way to Wisconsin. Amy got me a beautiful watch (big pic) and I'll pick something out from my wishlist as well. I got lots of clothes, and despite Amy's best efforts to take us out to a 'special' place for dinner, we had a wonderful meal at DiNichola's, a chintzy little Italian restaurant on Powell, that I really like.
Sunday, September 16, 2001Crash Boom Bang@ 10 am | PermaLinkA Volume Map error is a bad thing for most computers. Mine got one and it took down my machine for the last few days. I don't think I lost any data, but I'm sure glad I had split my hard drive into two partitions *and* installed a minimum system folder on the second. My second partition came up and ran just fine, allowing me to use Data Rescue, and move most of my first partition to my second partition. So I seem to be up and running again, with a full backup burned to disc. Whew. Previously, that same day...Afghanistan Maps@ 10 am | PermaLinkAs Afghanistan is such a point of discussion these days I decided to look up some maps. Note: some of these maps are pretty big, anywhere from 200k and up. All links open in new windows. A political map of the country. The United Nations has a highly detailed political map as well. Look who's at the top of the list of least developed countries. A map of the former Soviet states that are north of Afghanistan. That's interesting; there's a border with China, though the area is sparsely populated according to some maps. A map of the Ethno-lingustic groups in Afghanistan. The legend at the bottom organizes the groups into three major categories: Iranian, Turkic and Other. Most of these are culled from U of Texas Library, which I found via a search on Google.
Wednesday, September 12, 2001Cold Calculations@ 10 am | PermaLinkBased on the tenent lists that I've seen online, there were about 17,000 employees listed for the businesses that had offices in the world Trade Center. I would expect that half of these people escaped the buildings: 8,500. Early response fire and police: ~300, Airflights: 265, Pentagon: ~300 I'm expecting a final total of souls lost to be about 10,000. Previously, that same day...NATO, Article 5@ 08 am | PermaLinkThis is the relevant document of the day: NATO's North Atlantic Treaty, Article 5.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001September Eleventh@ 05 pm | PermaLinkI'm exhausted. I've been entranced and completely drained all day long. I was sent home from my job which is in the Portland World Trade Center building. Discuss on the Wiki, using the discussion board link. Previously, that same day...WTC, NY@ 06 am | PermaLinkA list of links that I'll be updating all day long. A public discussion group at yahoo has opened.
Monday, September 10, 2001High Rez Interfaces@ 06 pm | PermaLinkA very High-rez interface has been added to this Mac:  From Jerry's Hardware Museum. Previously, that same day...Eating your own Syndication@ 02 pm | PermaLinkI came across a code generator for RSS Feed Display via JavaScript that takes an RSS feed and displays it in line. So I pointed it towards my own RSS file and now I'm... syndicating my own content. (Over there on the left hand side of the page.) That feels dirty, even a little wrong. But really it's just to try it out. I'm learning about my own journal here. There's nothing to be ashamed of, right? Eventually I'd like to add some real content oriented newsfeeds that are of interest to Portlanders and Oregonians. Might make a good addition to my Portal page, no?
Sunday, September 9, 2001Archives, additions and web transitions@ 10 pm | PermaLinkI have finally brought my old journal archives into a more integrated form for Dwelling. You might notice the "This Week In History" links on the left hand side of the page. Those links point to the entries from previous years that correspond to this week. Those archives now have the proper header and footer HTML that the rest of Dwelling has, which is a step in the right direction. As well, all of the non-entry articles that I usually called 'Extras' are now part of the still-in progress Articles section at OrderSomewhereChaos.com. The extras for 2000 are pretty light, but I've got three for 2001, and a couple others that I'm planning on adding once I've written them up. I'm really working to get all of my personal web sites well situated. For my own purposes, here's where I'm at: OrderSomewhereChaos, (Formerly: For Placement Only, Formerly s.u.r.f.a.c.e): Moved to new domain, New header graphic in place. Need to re-title all of the pages (simple multi-file search and replace in BBEdit should handle it). I should do a more thorough check of the pages to make sure that each link works, but I can also watch the error logs closely to find that out. In the process I've begun moving my code towards XHTML, the first step of which is to make all my tags lower case. Redirects: It looks like the re-directs from the old server at smartnetworks.net are working well. I'm also capturing the referral links that are coming in and once I get a good pack of them, I'll notify the site keepers to update their links. It's interesting. This is the first chance I've had to really see just how much traffic FPO actually generates, as I've never had access to any server stats. Once the smoke clears, I'll probably drop everything down to the root level, out of the /~rosso/ directory which is really unnecessary now that the whole domain is mine. Dwelling: I've got the journal moved over to bad-seed.org pretty well and it looks like most of the links to my journal have been updated. I've got the proper redirects from Smartnetworks to OSC to B-S.org working pretty well. Check it out: http://www.smartnetworks.net/~rosso/notes/ If you get all the way through it, you should end up back here. Archives: All the archives are moved over and now have the proper navigation in place. All links to Extras //should// work. XSSI Library: My redirect log from smartnetworks is showing me that the XSSI Library has quite a few fans. Perhaps I ought to get it in better shape, and add some more articles. It never really evolved quite the way I wanted it to, though it does have some good info, if you can find it. The Library has moved over to OSC and the redirects are working well. Regex Library: Never finished. Moved but need *lots* of work. It's much further along than the .htaccess Library, however. Bad-Seed.org: The Nick Cave stuff have moved into the /cave/ directory pretty well. The Cave Inn stuff is still all there and the redirects from the old Zephyr site are still hanging in there as well. Pretty amazing how long that site has survived. I think I started that in .... 1994? Maybe '95. Crime and the City Solution: Incomplete, but it's got a pretty good structure to work from. Absolutely Volkswagen: Our Club web site is sitting pretty and is working quite well, though I haven't had much to update of late. Of course there are other minor site out there that I have a hand in, but this covers the bulk by far. I've tried to make sure that all of my old URLs point to the new sites and locations as well as possible. It's tough, but some well placed XSSI and .htaccess files have done pretty well for me. Lots of links to maintain, lots of pages to keep track of. I wouldn't wish this sort of thing on any but the most anal of digital organizer types.
Wednesday, September 5, 2001Return of the Kevin Smith@ 09 am | PermaLinkAmy and I went to see Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back on Monday night. Most of the time, I try to lower my expectations for a film so that when it's mediocre, I still feel like I spent good money. I forgot to do that for this film. But it didn't matter. I really liked the whole thing. Kevin Smith's final NJ-based film was a great final episode, pulling together Dogma, Chasing Amy, and Clerks into a a swirling mass of cameos, inside jokes, and one liners. (I haven't seen Mall Rats, so I can't comment as to whether there were any major references to that film as well.) The only part of the movie that lagged was the Diamond heist which took way too long. The credits, as usual, were great, and the final song of the film had the audience in stitches. Good fun movie for adults.
Tuesday, September 4, 2001The Five Wits@ 11 am | PermaLinkI'm always collecting lists of things: the names of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, the seven deadly sins, the seven wonders of the ancient world, etc. Today's list comes from the "Forgotten English" word-a-day calendar that Amy got me for Christmas: The Five Wits:
This is from Robert Nare's Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859. (Oh, the horsemen are Famine, Plague, War and Death.)
Sunday, September 2, 2001Cool Game: AntCity@ 09 pm | PermaLinkThis game: http://www.bossmonster.com/games/antcity.html was floating around the office the other day. It's quite fun. I haven't explored the rest of the site, but the quality of this piece alone is pretty good. (The link will open in a new window.) It seems that I've hit a bigger pocket of 'comedy mail forwarding'. There are always little vortexes of it around, and PGE seems to get quite a few, plus I get a few from the Hot Pepper people as well.
Saturday, September 1, 2001Yearly Wish List@ 10 am | PermaLink
Well, it's my turn again. I get to list out all the cool and neat things that would be fun to have. It's pretty materialistic, but hey, when you're going to get someone something, you might as well get something they want. Am I right? Last year's list worked out pretty well. I ended up getting just about everything over the course of the past year. Some of the wish list items are for Amy's computer. Why, you might ask? Because having her machine work well for her makes me feel good. I brought her over to the Apple side a long time ago, and I feel a certain responsibility for making it a good choice. As for the AirPort card, that's far more selfish. You see, if she get's an AirPort Card, I can move the Ethernet hub out from behind my desk and into the back room. Once that happens, I can move the printer back there as well, and we can hook up the scanner back to the 6400, which we can use as an MP3/File/Print server. The AirPort has a cascading effect for the whole network. Looking back at last year's entry, these lines are worth repeating: "Though I've got to say, any of the above items would make great gifts. But they would be extras. All told, my life is pretty excellent as it is. I've got a beautiful woman who I'm deeply in love with, a couple of cats that adore me, a job where [this year this should say: I can grow my skills and abilities], and very few worries. All in all, it's a very nice life."
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
September 2001
|
Part of the OrderSomewhereChaos family of sites
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
