Category Archives: General Tech Stuff

Devin just got his first OS X machine. I thought I’d make a list of a few helpful tools he might want or need. In no particular order:

• TextWrangler, a powerful but easy-to-use text editor, plus it’s free!
• GraphicConverter, a useful tool for editing and converting various graphic file formats.
• WeatherPop: put weather and forecast information right in your menu bar (free for the basic version!)
• ChangeDesktop: automatically updates your desktop background with a random picture, plus it’s free
• Huevos: hit a hotkey to search any number of search engines, or customize your own.
• LaunchBar: terrific keyboard application launcher. Not free, but well worth it.

Since he’s running Windows, he’ll also want the Remote Desktop Client from MS (hint: make two copies of the app, give them different names, and run them at the same time to get two concurrent sessions). He’d also better run the MSN Messenger client so I can give him work assignments 🙂

Hitachi has a very funny Flash video called Get Perpendicular that explains their new perpendicular recording technology. If you ever laughed at a Schoolhouse Rock cartoon, go see this now. Great for kids: Matt just asked if we could get a season pass for it.

I can’t wait to get one of these! IBM and Sanyo are showing a prototype fuel-cell laptop power station. You put in methanol and get out electricity and water vapor.

I just set up a new radio: an Icom IC-706 Mk II-G. This is a huge improvement over my previous station, which consisted of a single Alinco handie-talkie. The new radio covers VHF, UHF, and HF, so I can use it for ARES traffic and for long-distance communications (once I get an antenna set up, anyway). I still have to mount the control unit to my desk and set up a better speaker; eventually I want to hook the rig to my computer and start running MacLogger with it.

So far, I have to give my new BuckeyeTel service mixed reviews. The good: the phone service works well, with clear audio. I like having voice mail, and I love not paying for long distance or giving SBC any money. The bad: there are several minor annoyances that they’re still working on. For example, if I forward my desk phone to my cell, the caller ID on the cell phone shows the number of my desk phone instead of the real number. Every forwarded call thus appears to be from me, which isn’t too helpful.

More seriously, my download speeds have fallen to almost zero– really. My most recent speed test shows 21 kbps down, 43 kbps up. In other words, I’m getting roughly 1/3 the speed of a dial-up modem connection. The last time that happened, two Buckeye techs came out, fiddled with the cable pedestal and my internal wiring, and replaced the modem, which ended up fixing the problem. I called last night and was put on the tier-2 support queue, but so far they haven’t called me back. That’s not exactly the kind of support I expect for a commercial account. At least my phone’s working.

Update: after switching NICs in my ISA Server box, and doing several different variation of voodoo tricks suggested by Buckeye, things are somewhat better.

My installer arrived about 5:30pm. He left about 8pm. In the interim, he got my office phone line working (but not the jack upstairs in Arlene’s office). In fairness, I have unusual, and poorly installed, phone wiring, and he was both diligent and patient. The phone service itself seems to work as advertised. However, something (maybe the new Arris Touchstone cable modem/NID?) has sent my download speeds right into the toilet. The best speed I’ve seen since the installer left is 1046 down/224 up. This is on a line that’s rated at 5000 down/512 up. Something’s amiss, but I don’t know what yet and I’m too busy writing a paper to spend any more time on it– there’s always tomorrow (which, coincidentally, is when my installer is due back to get the other jack on the air).

In my continuing quest to try every single communication service I can find (well, not really, but it sure seems that way), today the BuckeyeTel installer should be here to port my existing office line over to their service. I now pay SBC about $100/month for two lines, plus some features on the first line; Buckeye offers a $40 all-you-can-eat plan that includes long distance (bye bye, Qwest), voice mail, and a bunch of other features that I’m now paying extra for. Actually, it’s $44 since I no longer have cable, but who’s counting.

They’re not officially offering service in Perrysburg yet, but they have a “friends and family” program, and Jason was kind enough to hook me up. I’ve generally been pretty pleased with their other services, and although I have no beef with the quality of SBC’s phone service, their customer service has been spotty, and their prices… well, let’s not go there. Now, if I could just get Vonage to port over my home phone number I’d be in business.

Don’t want an iPod? No problem; for $30 you can play MP3 files in your car, using any USB memory stick. Where can you get this magical device? How about (drum roll)…. WalMart! Yep, the VR3 MP3 FM modulator (link) takes files off a flash drive and plays them. No word on whether it works well or not, but it’s a cool, and cheap, idea.

After mulling it over, I decided to sign up for Amazon Prime; after seeing Omar’s analysis, I figured that I too was already spending more than $6.58/month on Amazon shipping, and that I could use Amazon to order a couple of Valentine’s Day gifts for Arlene. Unfortunately, I couldn’t sign up! I completed the initial signup process and got a confirmation mail, but there’s no evidence that I’m signed up on their site. When I click the Prime link in the “manage your account” section, I get an error message. I called them to report the problem, and they acknowledge that they’re having a “technical issue” with new Prime subscriptions. Oops. That means it’s off to do my V-day shopping the old-fashioned way…

Julie and Paul kindly gave me an iPod dock for Christmas. I was all excited about hooking it up, until I noticed the sticker on the box that said “only for iPods with the Click Wheel”. Mine’s a third-generation unit (it has the row of 4 buttons under the screen), so I went hunting for a dock that would work with a 3G and struck out– except for eBay. I couldn’t find anyone else who actually sold the correct Apple part number for the third-generation dock. After a little more experimentation, I found that the 3G iPod fits just fine in the “Click Wheel” dock, provided you use the little plastic cover marked “20GB”. This may not work for every 3G unit, but I’m happily charging mine as I write this. Thanks, Julie and Paul!

Update: so, I was obviously on Dristan when I wrote the above. The iPod fits in the dock, but it’s a little too thick to actually engage the dock connector all the way; thus, it wouldn’t charge. I ended up getting a dock/remote/case combo on eBay, so live is good.

When I was about David’s age, my mom taught English at Vanderbilt Catholic High School in Houma. She gave me a wonderful science fiction anthology that was actually an English textbook. I don’t know if it was used at VCHS as a textbook (I rather doubt it) but it had some wonderful stories. I lost it a long time ago and have occasionally tried to find another copy, but I couldn’t remember the title. Back in 1993, I asked readers of the rec.arts.sf.written newsgroup to help identify a few of the stories that I did remember, and that gave me a few author/title combinations. This morning, I had to idea to search for the title of one story, Fritz Leiber’s “X Marks the Pedwalk”. That led me to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (hosted by Texas A&M), the SF equivalent of the IMDB. From there, it was only about two minutes’ work to find the book: Leo P. Kelley’s Themes in Science Fiction— and then about 90 seconds later, a used copy was in my Amazon.com shopping cart. Yay for the Internet!

Hey, Bob, two notes on your recent journal entries. Actually, these pertain to the 3 other people who read this blog, too.

First, please start using RSS. It’s so much easier for you, and it’s incomparably better for your readers. I monitor about 200 RSS feeds, which are automatically fed into an Outlook folder by NewsGator. That gives me powerful searching and aggregation, flagging, an easy way to mail selected items to people, access via Outlook, Outlook Web Access, NNTP, or IMAP, and tons of other features. I could go on rhapsodizing, but a better idea is for you to snag an RSS client and start experimenting with it. Publishing static HTML pages for daily journals is no longer the best way to do it, and I’ll be happy to help you and Dr Pournelle move forward in any way I can.

Second, family history. Arlene and I just took a terrific class at church on how to use the free Personal Ancestral FIle software to organize your genealogical data. This is an ideal way to capture the data you already have; PAF lets you intermix pictures, text notes, source data (e.g. where you found out that your great-great-uncle Fred was a horse thief), and family history data. It has a wealth of capabilities that I’m ill-equipped to explain, but one thing I do know is that it can automatically print a book with pages for each family member, including photos and text as appropriate. Really slick. You might also poke around on FamilySearch.org; I was easily able to find Dirk Volkertsen and his wife. By all means, you should capture as much of this information as you can and post it. I promise you that it will be worthwhile, and that you’ll find out things about your family you wouldn’t have otherwise suspected.

Julie and Paul kindly gave me an iPod dock for Christmas. I was all excited about hooking it up, until I noticed the sticker on the box that said “only for iPods with the Click Wheel”. Mine’s a third-generation unit (it has the row of 4 buttons under the screen), so I went hunting for a dock that would work with a 3G and struck out– except for eBay. I couldn’t find anyone else who actually sold the correct Apple part number for the third-generation dock. After a little more experimentation, I found that the 3G iPod fits just fine in the “Click Wheel” dock, provided you use the little plastic cover marked “20GB”. This may not work for every 3G unit, but I’m happily charging mine as I write this. Thanks, Julie and Paul!

A simple idea, brilliantly executed: Cooking for Engineers. (Special for Julie: the lead article at the moment is a test recipe for giblet-pan gravy. Mmmm, giblets….) The preparation diagrams are very, very useful, at least to a cooking n00b like me.

I have re-enabled comments, with the added requirement that you use TypeKey (which, fortunately, is free). As soon as I can get MT-Blacklist to work properly, I’ll enable unregistered comments, but for now you’ll need to sign in before commenting. Sorry about the inconvenience.