eric's blagg

Cheers to th 21st Amendment

2011-12-05T16:26:00.001-06:00

On December 5, 1933, Utah, Pennsylvania and Ohio ratified the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving it the three-quarters majority needed to legally repeal the 18th Amendment and end the 13 years of national Prohibition.

Proof that when laws are wrongfully passed the will of the people will be heard.

Industrial Hemp Farming Act H.R. 1831

2011-08-25T17:00:00.000-05:00

There was an online campaign yesterday to notify your representatives of support for H.R. 1831. This campaign was headed up by VoteHemp.com. I participated by emailing my Representative Reid Ribble with the following message:

I am writing to ask that you please become a cosponsor of H.R. 1831, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2011. The legislation allows American farmers to once again grow hemp to the extent that it is allowed under state laws. The text of the bill is available from THOMAS:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.01831:

To become a cosponsor, please contact Adam in Rep. Ron Paul's office at 5-2831 or Pilar at 5-5931 in Rep. Barney Frank's office.

If you or your staff would like to learn more about this agricultural issue, please read the latest version of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) report "Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity," which is dated December 22, 2010 and has the order code RL32725. The report can be ordered from the CRS or it can be downloaded from the National Agricultural Law Center at:

http://nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL32725.pdf

Please also consider watching the video "Controversial Crop" from America's Heartland, which is produced by KVIE in Sacramento, California:

http://www.americasheartland.org/episodes/episode_315/controversial_crop.html

To date, twenty-nine states have introduced hemp legislation and seventeen have passed legislation; nine (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research. Passage of the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2011 would finally allow these states to choose whether or not to let farmers grow industrial hemp.

I would specifically like to know: Will you become a cosponsor of H.R. 1831, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2011, which will permit agricultural hemp farming in the U.S. once again? What is your position on supporting farmers in the U.S. having the opportunity to once again farm this valuable agricultural crop? What did you, or your staff, think of the CRS report and the video?

I look forward to your reply.

Representative Ribble replied in less than 24 hrs with the following:

Thank you for contacting me about the Industrial Hemp FarmingAct (H.R. 1866). I always appreciate when constituents contact me about issues important to them.I must apologize for my delayed response; I have received more than fifteen thousand letters from constituentssince I took office.

The Industrial Hemp Farming Act was introduced in the lastCongress by Rep. Ron Paul (TX-14), but the bill has yet to be reintroduced this year. As you know, theIndustrial Hemp Farming Act aims to allow for the production of the cannabis plant by amending the ControlledSubstances Act to exclude hemp from the definition of marijuana. To date, the last major action on thisbill took place on May 26th,2009 when it was referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

I appreciate you contacting me about this important pieceof legislation. Should the bill be reintroduced, I will carefully study its content and review cost estimatesfrom the Congressional Budget Office.

Again, thank you for contacting me on this important issue.I hope you continue to engage in the legislative process.

Sincerely,

Reid J. Ribble

Member of Congress

Unfortunately it is obvious he(or his staffer) did not read the email nor was he aware of Rep. Ron Paul's efforts. very disapointing

Bitcoin

2011-06-02T23:15:00.043-05:00

I've been checking out Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining. Neat stuff. More and more sites are accepting it everyday.

I've been using GUIMiner and contributing to slush's pool . It's taken me about 24 hrs to generate .20 BTC using both my GTX 260 GPUs. I'd like to setup my own pool if enough people were interested.

MyBitcoin Payment Address is: 1HcySuyJ8APR345VTzWufQDNPg2jiKK9Tz

Wikipedia-

Bitcoin is a digital currency created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. The name also refers to the open source software he designed that uses it, and the peer-to-peer network that it forms. Unlike other digital currencies, Bitcoin avoids central authorities or issuers. Bitcoin uses adistributed database spread across nodes of a peer-to-peer network to journal transactions, and uses digital signatures and proof-of-work to provide basic security functions, such as ensuring that bitcoins can only be spent by the person who owns them, and never more than once.

Bitcoins can be saved on a personal computer in the form of a wallet file or kept with a third party wallet service, and in either case bitcoins can be sent over the Internet to anyone with a Bitcoin address. Bitcoin's peer-to-peer topology and lack of central administration attempts to make it infeasible for any authority, governmental or otherwise, to manipulate the quantity of bitcoins in circulation or induce inflation by producing more of them.

Stopping the FWD Scourge (PSA)

2011-02-02T18:00:00.000-06:00

Please do not forward chain letters, urban legends, potentially offensive jokes, videos or photos without first considering the following:

1. Mass forwards pass ever increasing lists of addresses along with the email that may end up on someones system, that is infected with viruses, that may potentially harvest those email addresses for malicious intent.

2. Your email address along with those attached may end up on a spam list. Making it difficult for recipients to receive legitimate emails from you.

3. You may be spreading false information or hoaxes.

4. Or worse.. spreading viruses, trojans and malware.

Please refrain from mass forwarding not only for the sake of your recipients but to help the overall security of email and the web as a whole.

If you find something that you want to pass on and you genuinely think the recipient will enjoy it then forward it to that person only (not in an email blast to all your friends and family) and include a personal note about why you enjoyed it and why you think they will too.

IF you do feel a mass emailing is appropriate please use Blind Carbon Copy(BCC). So as not to pass on a massive list of addresses to potentially insecure systems. Also before forwarding either edit out any attached email addresses or use a tool like emailSTRIPPER. You may also want to do a little research to see if the story your passing along is factual or not via Snopes.com, TruthOrFiction.com and good ole Google.

To all the thoughtless or naive uncontrollable forwarders out there, if you get asked by someone to not forward future emails, kindly respect their request. Don’t get hurt feelings and certainly don’t act like you have a right to disregard someone’s legitimate desire to not get emails they have no interest in receiving.

Know that those who make these requests still want to hear from you — they just don’t have the time or their email volume is such that extraneous forwards about silly, political or humorous topics that they are not interested in are what they no longer want to receive. This includes those chain emails no matter how noble the cause may seem — it’s probably hooey

Also there are much better tools and sites to be sharing the humor that is the web ie: Digg, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Reddit etc....

Resources to aid in stopping the FWD scourge:
StopFowarding.com - Politely and anonymously ask them to stop forwarding you junk email.

NetManners.com - Common courtesy, social graces and socially acceptable behavior on the web.

Today is 010111

2011-01-01T22:08:00.000-06:00

It’s the dawn of a new year and just like last year, the first day is a big deal for math geeks and numerologists as today brings us a unique take on the date.

January 1, 2011 when translated into binary code is 010111.
That number when translated into decimal is: 23.

Because:

0 = 2⁵ = 0
1 = 2⁴ = 16
0 = 2³ = 01 = 2² = 4
1 = 2¹ = 21 = 2⁰ = 1

so, 16 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 23.

You can use this binary converter to check out yourself.
Some says that this will be a good year because 23 is a prime number.

Hmm, let’s just hope so.
Happy New Year everybody!

Got a new PC: Now What

2010-12-30T14:00:00.002-06:00

So you got yourself a new pc, now what to do with it.

Do a fresh install. Find the OS install disc (if your system came with one) not a restore disc, but the original Windows install disc. If your system did not come with an original Windows 7 disc than try out PC Decrapifier This is all in effort to remove any of the nagware, crapware, or any unwanted manufacturer pre-installed program. Cuz there's nothing like buying a new system only to have it run slowly.
Get updated. Run Windows Update and get all the latest drivers and updated for Windows.

Get protected. After you've done Windows Update go and get a copy of Microsoft Security Essentials. Security Essentials is a lightweight, unintuitive, no nonsense anti-virus.

Install what you want. Ninite.com creates a customized automatic installer for unattended bulk installation for many of the most popular open source software. Some of what I recommend is Chrome, VLC, Picasa, OpenOffice, SumatraPDF, Dropbox, KeePass, Malwarebytes, ImgBurn, uTorrent, 7-Zip

Back it up. Once your updated and got everything installed the way you want, go grab and install a copy of Macrium Reflect and create your own restore image. So if something goes bad...crash, virus, corruption etc... you can quickly get back to a good starting point. and always, always have your personal files, pictures, music, bookmarks, account data files and anything you cannot afford to lose backed up to multiple separate locations. Dropbox is a great tool for providing off site "cloud" like redundancy, but at the very least have an external drive that mirrors the files using something like SyncToy.

Written while watching Tekzilla Top 5 Tips For A New PC. so it's a basic transcript.

Westhost Data Center Outage

2010-02-22T21:40:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, February 20th at approximately 2:20 p.m. MDT, the server your account is on experienced some hardware failure as a result of an annual fire system inspection at our Data Center (DC). An inadvertent release of Inergen was triggered in the DC environment. The release was triggered by an actuator that was not removed as required in the DC's pre-test checklist. As such, the entire DC was impacted at some level, however not all servers were affected. This error was not the result of a mistake by WestHost employees, our hardware or systems. The mistake was triggered by an error from a vendor. With that said, we take responsibility and are doing everything we can to restore all systems completely.

There were multiple servers impacted by this outage; some of the servers have had damaged hardware replaced while other servers need to be restored from backups. A large majority of the servers that were affected have since had all services restored and are back online. We still have a few remaining servers that are experiencing problems. We are doing everything we can to restore those remaining servers as quickly as possible.

UPDATE: 6:12pm

At present, we have restored service to all but 12 shared and 6 dedicated servers. To our great concern, your account is residing on one of those servers currently being impacted by this outage. Our team of Systems Administrators and Engineers are continuing their work to restore the remaining servers and have been working non-stop for over 48 hours with little or no sleep. We continue to place the highest level of urgency on restoring these remaining servers. This is our number one priority at all levels within the organization.

New System results

2009-11-02T18:30:00.001-06:00

I got my system all done. Here are my final specs and thoughts.

Processor: Intel Core i7-920
Motherboard: ASRock X58 Extreme
RAM: Geil 12GB DDR3 triple channel CAS 7
Hard Drive: OCZ Summit 120GB Solid State Drive
Secondary HDD: WD 75GB Raptor
Video Cards: (2) MSI 260GTX running in SLI
Power Supply: Corsair 750W
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64bit

The build went pretty flawlessly. Installing Windows 7 was painless as well. The performance boost is ridiculous. When booting Windows from a full off state the loading bar doesn't even show up. From a cold boot to a usable desktop in about 15 seconds. This motherboard features Instant Boot. Which is ASRock doing some weird boot caching voodoo, that when Instant Boot is turned on, the desktop is up and usable in 2-3 secs. Though it is impressive to see, whatever is happening is kinda just fancy trickery. The system will take twice as long to shutdown and during shutdown does a reboot which is where, I believe, the boot process is getting cached.

Two years after Crysis was released I finally have a system that will play it :-) with very high detail and 2x anti aliasing turned on. Have had some problems with Win7 not waking up from sleep mode correctly, like mouse/keyboard not functioning and twice my displays wouldn't wake-up, so I just turned off sleep mode. In the end this build went extremely well.

Samsung Omnia i910 phone

2009-08-12T20:30:00.005-05:00

Two weeks ago I pick up a Samsung Omnia i910 on Verizon. The phone itself is pretty cool. It has a 5MP camera, a 400x240 touchscreen and Windows Mobile 6.1. The WinMo 6.1 is the only short coming, but cuz WinMo has been around for ever you can customize anything and everything. However customizing it, to get what you want out of it, is no easy task. There ends up being a lot of digging through forums and reading up on whats the best apps for the WinMo platform. I personally enjoy it but I wouldn't recommend it for anybody that doesn't enjoy tinkering.

One week after I got it Verizon released a new ROM for the phone which enabled free use of the on-board GPS, bug fixes and several other additions. Than a couple days after that I was on ppcgeeks.com and modaco.com looking at custom ROMs cooked up by various individuals. More than 8 ROMs later I think I've found my cook Bgill55. His ROMs strip out alot of unneeded stuff, add in several of the best apps WinMo has to offer and tweak the touch screen for better responsiveness. I'm currently running his WinMo 6.5 M2D release.

All in all I'm happy with my new tech toy. Only real complaint is the battery life, only lasts about a day under normal usage.

The RF Connection (good business)

2009-07-14T19:31:00.004-05:00

The RF Connection are specialist in RF connectors and coax. I've bought cables and connectors for both a WiFi project and a patch cable for my XM radio. The XM patch cable was needed between the XM cradle and the stock XM antenna on my work truck, absolutely no one locally was able to provide any insight. I emailed the RFC and a few days later I had my patch cable... There was one problem.. The cable they sent had a female SMB and it needed a male SMB. So I called them up the next day. They got it straightened out and rushed me the correct cable. Point being, their customer service is awesome and they have all the hard to find connectors you need.

Hummingbird Cam

2009-05-12T09:29:00.001-05:00

Why the disparity between our own site and the work in our portfolio?

2009-05-09T00:59:00.003-05:00

Nice post by Jon from OnWire

What CC Companies Should Do

2009-04-28T20:30:00.004-05:00

My recent bout with fraudulent charges on my credit card left me thinking really how easy it is to defraud someone. The security of any credit card transaction is null. With a camera in every phone and sub-par security on most business networks, it's a surprise fraud isn't more rampant than it already is.

I wish CC companies offered some sort of second layer of security. Like any of the following:
1. SMS me for transaction approval
2. Require a user created PIN# for approval
3. Allow me to set limits or filters that would freeze the card once a filter is triggered.

But the CC companies offer none of these things nor any comparable second layer of security. Why?

Fraud

2009-04-28T12:03:00.005-05:00

Today I woke up to a message from my Credit Card companies fraud department. I called the number on the back of my card, I always recommend calling the 1-800 number on the back of your card and not calling the the number the CC company leave in messages, just to assure that you are truly talking to someone at your CC company. There are reports of scammers calling card holders, posing as a CC company employee, in which they try to pull info out of you like SS# and CVS# to commit future identity theft or fraud.

Anyhow, I got through the automated service to find out there had been a $3,000 and an $8,000 charges made on my card to "Pollard Contractors IL". WTF!! $11,000... gezzus.. So I talk to an agent and she was very kind and helpful, though hard to understand(from India I'd guess) She said the charges would be credited back in the next couple of days and that I should keep an eye on my credit report. So everything got straightened out, but it still sucks. How does this happen? and Is this the end of the fraud? or Is there more to come? And that's whats sucks, not knowing how deep it goes. I had fraud committed against me once before almost a year ago which I also wrote about http://ericrosol.blogspot.com/2008/05/fraud.html About all one can do is watch your credit report and report any fraudulent activity. I also recommend checking into what kind of fraud protection your CC provides.

Time Warner: Bandwidth Caps (pt 2)

2009-04-13T20:25:00.003-05:00

Time Warner bandwidth caps are totally ridiculous. If you agree please sign this petition setup by FreePress.net

Time Warner: Bandwidth Caps

2009-04-09T23:04:00.003-05:00

Time Warner Cable is rolling out bandwidth caps in more areas. Ars Technica wrote a nice little break down of the obscene price per gigabyte that the company thinks is "fair." Yet TWC still is pushing bandwidth hogs like their HBO Broadband and their music streaming service. A 40 gig cap is a joke. My household would blow through that in no time. If they bring bandwidth caps to my area, I will cancel my service. If you are a TWC customer please join me in emailing them(timewarnerwi@twcable.com) our disgust over their paltry internet data caps. Expressing our disdain and threatening to cancel is the only way to stop data caps.

Installing Magento on WAMP XAMPP in XP Win7

2009-03-25T17:46:00.013-05:00

**UPDATE 02/02/2011 - I will no longer be updating this post. I have started using the Magento Appliance from TurnKeyLinux.org and VirtualBox.

**UPDATED 10/20/2010 - For use with Wampserver 2, Magento 1.4.1.1 and Windows 7

I wrote once how to install Magento eCommerce package on XAMPP for testing purposes. Time went by, stuff has changed, and I now am having many problems installing Magento on XAMPP. So I've moved to WAMP which is very similar to XAMPP and easier to deal with in many ways.

WAMP is an easy to install LAMP environment used for testing. Magento is an open source ecommerce package. You should already have WAMP installed and a current copy of Magento, current version when writing this is
1.2.1.1
1.4.1.1

1) Setup a magento database using phpmyadmin (goto: http://localhost/phpmyadmin/)

2) Edit httpd.conf file. Click the WAMP System Tray icon, go to the "Apache" menu click on httpd.conf change line (should be around)116:

#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

(remove the # )

3) Click on the WAMP System Tray icon. Go to the "PHP extensions" in the "PHP" menu and check mark the following extensions:

php_curl
php_pdo_mysql

4) "Restart all Services" on WAMP

5) Navigate to http://localhost/magento/ and follow the Magento install process. The default database username is "root" and there is no password.

That should be it. More details can be found on Magento's Wiki
-----------------------------------------------------------------
If your having problems logging into to admin area of Magento after install

Open this file > app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Session/Abstract/Varien.php

Go to line 96: if (isset($cookieParams[’domain’])) {

and replace it with: if (isset($cookieParams[’domain’]) && !in_array("127.0.0.1", self::getValidatorData())) {

Do a full refresh of your browser (ctrl+F5) and try logging in again.

You may also have to add the following line to your hosts file (C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts):

127.0.0.1 magento.localhost.com www.localhost.com

RRoD (part 4) final chapter

2009-03-01T21:58:00.003-06:00

So I sent in my RRoD 360 to Microsoft. Got it back already, good as new. Turn around time was about 7 days. and it was covered under Microsoft's extended warranty for RRoD issue, so it didn't cost me a cent.

My 360 saga RRoD (part3)

2009-02-11T21:42:00.001-06:00

So it's dead. I'm sending it back to M$. Already picked myself up a new on tho. cuz I wanted the new Falcon hardward.

RRoD (part 2)

2009-01-12T19:28:00.008-06:00

Two shutdowns later, my 360 is now running again. I was able to complete another chapter in Dead Space. I imagine this means it will probably red ring again in the near future though.

RRoD

2009-01-11T14:18:00.004-06:00

I was going for round 2 of Dead Space and my 360 got a RRoD(red ring of death). suck ass. Looks like its outta warrenty and is gunna cost me $94 to get it fixed.

Wasteful Packaging

2008-12-04T20:03:00.004-06:00

With companies like Amazon and Walmart pledging to reduce wasteful packaging why can't more join in.

On a related note my wife just got a new Illuminated Logitech keyboard from the Logitech website and this is how it was packaged:
Besides the ginormous box it came in and the more than 7ft of 24in wide packaging paper.. the keyboard itself is very cool, it's very thin(9.3mm), the keys have a nice feel and they're illuminated so late night coding isn't a problem. The keyboard has an "Fn" key which is found on most laptops to add other functions to the F1-F12 keys, most of the "Fn" functions were natively supported by XP so no other software was needed.

Bailout a bust? part two

2008-11-20T16:14:00.003-06:00

Dow
7552.29 -444.99 (-5.56%)

The DOW is at a 6yr low and S&P at an 11yr low. Jobless claims at a 16yr high. Bailout after bailout. First the banks and now the big 3 car manufacturers. Oh and the Big 3 CEOs Flew Private Jets to Plead for Public Funds. ahhh Capitalism at its finest hour.

Xbox 360 NXE

2008-11-18T16:56:00.002-06:00

Got my NXE installed a couple days ago. Didn't even hit me that I got mine early till I read the email in my 360 account. It's pretty cool. Nice update to the 360.

Beastie Boys and Tenacious D

2008-11-03T20:14:00.002-06:00

Went and seen Beastie Boys and Tenacious D last night in Milwaukee as part of the Get Out and Vote '08 tour. It was a good show, Beastie Boys were awesome and Tenacious D was pretty funny. Jack Black took a little digger but recovered nicely. YouTube video of Jack's face plant:

DOW down: Bailout a bust?

2008-10-06T19:08:00.004-05:00

Dow
9,955.50 -369.88 (-3.58%)

is the closing figures for the DOW today. first fall below 10k since '04. Is the bailout a total FAIL? perhaps ... possibly $8oo,ooo,ooo,ooo might have been better divided amongst the people or, lets just have faith in the deepest pockets and count on Big Business and Big Brother to keep our best interests in mind. at this rate 2012 might be an end. the far right and GOP have led us there. I hope you're happy... and I wish I were wrong...and yes vote O in '08

Time Warner and WLUK

2008-10-03T02:19:00.006-05:00

I am a Time Warner subscriber. WLUK (FOX) just went off the air. LIN TV owns WLUK and they want more money for programing that's freely available online, on sites like fox.com and hulu.com. In my opinion which I just emailed LIN TV is "Your stocks at an all time low, your carrying programing that is freely available online and you try and gouge Time Warner effectively gouging their customers. Frankly I could care less, because I will get FOX content elsewhere. Your negotiators and board members are retarded."

LIN TV is dinosaur just like riaa, mpaa and terrestrial radio. either understand the times or succumb to progress.

LINTV - http://www.lintv.com/contact/time_warner.html
Time Warner - http://tellthetruthwluk.com/main.php

Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-10T21:04:00.004-05:00

The 17 mile long Large Hadron Collider was tested successfully yesterday in Switzerland. The world did not end. They did not tear the universe a "new one". Hooray for science! (picture is from LHC control room)

Why Flash still sux

2008-08-25T22:32:00.004-05:00

Some reasons why pure Flash websites are still not acceptable.
1. Large in size. Alienates dial-up users.
2. Deep linking into flash sites is still no go.
3. Back button often doesn't work. Along with tradition keyboard navigation.
4. Flash is reliant on Adobe to update their software. Which than forces the end user to continually update yet another piece of software on their 'puters.
5. Tho Google now indexes Flash most search engines don't.

Don't get me wrong, Flash has its place in small amounts. Admittedly Flash works well as a media delivery system, as a game delivery system and to provide small "bannerish" like content that requires some dynamic flare or animations.

Other reasons why flash sucks:
Top Ten Reasons Why Flash Sucks
FlashSucks.org
Flash Sucks - I'm Mike

Mac vs. PC, enough already

2008-08-25T20:44:00.004-05:00

So I don't know about anyone else but, I am truly sick of the Mac ads. Yes, they were cute at first but now it's just sad. Apple's ad campaign for the last two years trashing Microsoft is old and tired. Smear campaigns never work. In the end all the consumer wants it the best product for the best price. Not BS bashing and slander to make the other guy sound bad just cuz you say so. Please, enough already.

Mugged at The Gas Station

2008-08-14T18:08:00.002-05:00

Trek Stop

2008-07-12T16:50:00.001-05:00

This curious vending machine is currently parked in Madison, Wisconsin and enables cyclists to nab spare parts (an extra tube, patch kit, water bottle, etc.) or healthy snacks while rolling by. As for installation? Prepare to get greasy.

Humming Bird Cam 2

2008-07-09T19:20:00.000-05:00

Watch live video from erosol on Justin.tv

Installing Magento on XAMPP in XP

2008-06-22T22:10:00.008-05:00

see: http://www.ericrosol.com/2009/03/installing-magento-on-wamp-xampp-in-xp.html

(UPDATED-03.25.09) - I have started using WAMP. Magento has a nice install guide on their wiki. The guide covers both XAMPP and WAMP but I've been having problems getting v1.2 or newer of Magento to work with XAMPP. Thus the switch to WAMP. So far I am liking WAMP better.

XAMPP is an easy to install LAMP environment used for testing. Magento is an open source ecommerce package. You should already have XAMPP installed and a copy of Magento. Start Apache and MySql if not already running.

Enable curl in XAMPP
1) Locate the following files:
     C:\Program Files\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini
     C:\Program Files\xampp\php\php.ini

C:\Program Files\xampp\php\php4\php.ini

2) Uncomment the following line on the php.ini files by removing the semicolon.
     ;extension=php_curl.dll
3) Restart your apache server

Create Magento database
1) Open a browser and navigate to http://127.0.0.1/phpmyadmin/
2) Create a new data base named magento

Install Magento
1) Extract the Magento-1.0.19870.4. zip file
2) Copy the extracted files to the httpdoc folder of XAMPP (rename any exsisting index files for your XMAPP install)
3) Navigate your browser to http://127.0.0.1/index.php
4) Follow the Magento install wizard

Ducks 1 week later

2008-06-09T20:02:00.004-05:00

So we've had the ducks for about a week now. They sure grow fast. You can see new duckling pics at my picasa account at http://picasaweb.google.com/erosol/Ducks

Duck Cam has ended

2008-06-09T13:26:00.003-05:00

Sorry but the duck cam is no more. The ducklings have been move outside to a small shed. There is no way for me to get a cam out to the shed :( without some major screwing around. However shortly I will be setting up a humming bird cam. I will also post some pic of the ducklings progress.

Time Warner: Bandwidth Metering

2008-06-03T21:21:00.002-05:00

This Thursday, new cable Internet customers in Beaumont, Texas will no longer have unmetered Internet bandwidth - they’re guinea pigs in a new pricing scheme being pushed by Time-Warner that will give users between 5 and 40 gigabytes in total monthly data usage (uploads and downloads combined). Data usage over that amount will be billed at $1 per gigabyte. Competitor Comcast is also considering metered bandwidth.

The goal is to limit average data usage, allowing Time-Warner to get more customers into their existing fiber infrastructure. Since there is little or no competition for Internet connectivity, they don’t have to worry so much about losing customers.

The entire model lies in stark contrast to the competitive markets set up in South Korea and elsewhere, and it’s going to hurt innovation in the U.S. Many new startups, particularly those focused on video and online gaming, rely on their customers having access to high bandwidth, all you can eat connections.

Cable companies have regional monopolies and are able to extract excess profits from these monopolies. Innovation and the health of the ecosystem is dependent on a competitive marketplace. If one part of the market falls behind (and we’re already behind in broadband penetration and average data speeds), it becomes very difficult for the ecosystem to remain competitive.

I’m almost never in favor of government intervention of markets, but monopolies are an exception. We need to encourage data usage by consumers, not the opposite. The cable companies are standing in the way of economic growth and innovation. We can’t afford a decade or more of screwing around before trying to fix this. Let’s start now.

Duck Cam

2008-05-29T21:46:00.002-05:00

DUCK CAM HAS ENDED

Ducks

2008-05-29T18:47:00.006-05:00

I ordered some ducks about a month ago from Murray McMurray Hatchery. They arrived this morning to my local post office. 6 Cayugas, 2 Blue Indian Runners, and 2 Rouens. Unfortunately the male Runner arrived D.O.A. Here's a pic of all the ducklings together. The all black are the Cayugas, the stripped black and yellow are the Rouens and the gray one(bottom right) is the female Runner. I will post more as they develop.

Fraud

2008-05-28T18:45:00.003-05:00

My credit card, I have through TNT Tire, had a fraudulent charge on it today for $600. There are 3 cards under one account. All the cards have different numbers. Mine was the only one that was compromised. What's strange is I only use my card to "pay at the pump" for gas... nothing else. So out of the three of us, my card is used the least, never leaves my hand and never gets used online. So I wonder how my CC number got in someone else's hands. In any case, Chase caught the charge right away and froze my card, which was good. Except I didn't find out my card was frozen until I pumped $80 into my delivery truck. Here's some good links about preventing fraud:
Federal Trade Commission
Federal Bureau of Investigations
ScamBusters - 21 tips to protect yourself

Even though I had already been following these tips, my card was still compromised. So being careful is still not enough. Make sure you watch your statements closely. I suggest checking your credit card activity online every few days. And immediately report any fraudulent activity.

FindSounds Searches and Previews Audio Files

2008-05-20T20:56:00.003-05:00

For YouTube videos, presentations, or even just system sounds, having the right sound effect file can make all the difference. FindSounds, a search engine focused on audio files, is a heck of a lot more convenient than typing ".wav" into Google and wading through inconsistent results. Type in what you're looking for and specify parameters, and the results are offered in playable previews and waveform diagrams. I almost always found relevant results in the 10 or so test searches I performed, and being able to see how long the sound helps winnow down results when you're hunting just the right sound to fit into a project.

FindSounds [via MakeUseOf.com]

10 Reasons Your New Website Won’t Launch Today

2008-04-26T23:22:00.001-05:00

Here’s 10 reasons your site won’t be launched today…..

1. The changes you sent to the design brief on Wednesday
2. The 150 images you sent to us yesterday
3. The text you sent to us Tuesday…. in the post….. er, on paper
4. This is the first time your boss has seen it?
5. You never told us all your organisation used IE4
6. Yes, as we mentioned, 1024�768 won’t fit on your bosses smaller screen
7. What do you mean your logo is changing
8. So you’ve actually not got any content ready for sections 3,4,5,6 and 7?
9. Ah….. so you want sections 3,4,5 and 7 removed from the navigation….
10. The guy who controls your domain is leaving early today?"

2008-04-01T02:13:00.002-05:00

Gmail's new feature. hmmm whats today..?? good to see Google always having a bit of fun.

2008-03-31T17:31:00.003-05:00

I just received my (2) $40 TV Converter Box coupons from Uncle Sam today. Here is a pic of the coupon card. On back the card states it is only good for eligible converter boxes. One time use, No refunds allowed and that it cannot be redeemed for cash or credit. Also it is illegal to sell, duplicate or tamper with this coupon.

2008-02-23T05:41:00.000-06:00

it is all a-b

there is no c-z

2008-02-04T22:14:00.000-06:00

I recently posted an entry to goraiseyourgame.com sponsored by DeVry University. My entry was Zombie Run. Which was featured today by Morgan Webb of webbalert.com

2006-07-05T23:39:00.000-05:00

This is my current network setup.

Both router and switch are gigabit. The most difficult thing was the WRT54G AP/Bridge.
Both of the following WRT54g units are running Sveasoft - Alchemy V1.0 Stable firmware

This is the setup of the WRT54G set as AP (Access Point).

This is the setup of the WRT54G set as Client / Bridge

2006-06-28T20:21:00.000-05:00

What I've learned about Time Warner Cable and RoadRunner

I've been a steady TW/RR customer for over 8 years in the Northeast Wisconsin area. In that time I've learned some useful things.

IP Addresses - I was once told by RR support that their network gives out IP addresses via DHCP. Tho this may be true, you will continue to receive the same IP address as long as your MAC address stays the same. Example... I've had the same router in place for about 2 years and I've had the same IP address for just as long. I recently plugged my laptop directly to the cable modem and than when I checked my IP via IP Chicken my IP had changed. Than when I hooked the router back up I than received the same address I had previously. So if you have a router and need to change your IP address for some reason you will need to clone the MAC address of another system from your network.
Cable Modem - If using the Motorola cable modem given by TW/RR you can log into the modem at 192.168.100.1 There's not realy much that can be done in there but it may help in debugging network issues.
Packet Shaping and Torrents - For over three weeks in April/May we were having connectivity issues. I had tried everything to figure out the problem... recycling the power on the modem several times, connecting a PC directly to the modem, changing my IP address (see 1. above) and the disconnections continued. Than I tried "Show all connections" and did a "Status" on the "Internet Connection"/"Internet Gateway" and found two BitComet services running on my network. These services were running on a roommate's system who recently moved in and was using BitComet as his torrent client. The program itself was not running only the unseen services. After these services were disabled and everyone here now uses µTorrent the connectivity issues stopped. This may not be proof that TW/RR is packet shaping but is sure seems that way.
Cable Box - I have the SA 8000HD DVR. If you hold Select for 3 sec. or until the mail icon flashes and than press the Info, the box's status pages will come up. Here are utilities for monitoring signal strength, frequency and more. Use the Volume keys to navigate and Exit to exit the status screens.

Well I'm sure there's a few other things I'm missing but I'm drawing blanks at the moment. I'll update this post as I remember and/or learn more things.

2006-04-08T16:42:00.000-05:00

Atheist Sam Harris: The Truthdig Interview

With the publication of his 2004 New York Times bestseller, “The End of Faith,” a full-throttle attack on religion, Sam Harris became the most prominent atheist in America.

For many, that would be a profoundly dubious honor. A recent national study by University of Minnesota researchers found that atheists are America’s least trusted minority group—trusted less than Muslims, recent immigrants and homosexuals. Americans are also least willing to approve of their children marrying atheists, according to the study.

But Harris, a Stanford graduate in philosophy who is now completing his doctorate in neuroscience, wasn’t trying to win a popularity contest. Far from it. In his book, Harris sets out to shame, embarrass, stun and reason the religious-minded people of the world into abandoning faith-based belief systems, which he argues could soon lead us to apocalypse. He writes:

We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our neighbors believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the Book of Revelation, or any of the other fantastical notions that have lurked in the minds of the faithful for millennia—because our neighbors are now armed with chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons

Link to Full Article

Link to buy the book "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris on Amazon.com

2006-03-07T00:17:00.000-06:00

AllofMP3.com

AllofMP3.com is a Russian based music download site. AllofMP3 allows you to pay per MB. Ends up being about $.10 a song, at 192kb bitrate. But the nice thing is you are able to pick the bitrate and format you would like. Here is a nice rundown of the legallity of AllofMP3.

2006-02-15T21:52:00.000-06:00

Changed my website to a straight blog. Should be much more useable this way.

2006-02-12T19:42:00.000-06:00

So today after the wife got done vacuuming, she shuts off the vacuum cleaner and at the same time my whole office goes dead. I of course figure "AHH... must have popped a circuit breaker". Sooo I go and check the breakers and none appeared to be tripped. Sooo I than proceed to check the current output with my multi-meter and everything checks out. At this point I'm stumped. I'm guessing there has to be short somewhere between the breaker box and the closest outlet to the breaker box. This sucks because not only being a potential fire hazard, I have no idea how I'm going to track down and fix the problem area. I guess I need to mention that I live in a mobile home and all the wiring is contained in the walls and ceiling which make the wiring inaccessible unless you start tearing down dry wall and shit. Just about the time I'm ready to give up and start considering calling a professional, I decided to check the hard wired smoke detector. When I twist and pull it off the wall...... SNAP, CRACKLE and bright flash. Well sure shit... it was the F'ing smoke detector. Well fucken great.. my smoke detector just bout burned my house down....oh the irony. See the following pictures of the wiring on the back of the smoke alarm.

2006-01-23T23:37:00.000-06:00

http://www.filefactory.com/
FREE File Hosting

2006-01-18T16:22:00.000-06:00

This is a test of bloggers image capiblities.

2005-09-24T19:50:00.000-05:00

Wicked Lasers

2005-09-22T01:09:00.000-05:00

Web based FTP

2005-09-19T14:55:00.000-05:00

PC in your Car - carputer

2005-09-10T23:19:00.000-05:00

Samson USB Microphone Recommended on TWiT

2005-09-09T19:06:00.000-05:00

Linux LiveCD Router

2005-07-27T21:01:00.000-05:00

Pentagon Strike

2005-07-24T00:18:00.000-05:00

OneMoreLevel.com - Avoider Keep your cursor safe

2005-07-11T00:55:00.000-05:00

FREE Hosting Free Web Hosts

2005-07-08T01:20:00.000-05:00

Server ElementsNASLite Network Attached Storage OS

2005-06-30T23:02:00.000-05:00

Die WagenschenkeHangOver and HomeRun Flash games

2005-06-30T18:05:00.000-05:00

Today's Front Pages

2005-06-20T23:57:00.000-05:00

Virtual Drug Dealer

2005-06-19T14:49:00.000-05:00

PC Flank: Make sure you're protected on all sides.

2005-06-15T00:20:00.000-05:00

Getting your CueCat declawed

2005-06-10T17:20:00.000-05:00

Worse Than Hell: The worst of the bad shirts

2005-06-08T18:33:00.000-05:00

IP Dynamic Signatures | IP Browser .NET - View your IP and browser information

2005-05-24T20:10:00.000-05:00

HOW-TO: Connect your Linksys WRT54G network to the internet wirelessly - Engadget - www.engadget.com.

2005-05-16T21:42:00.000-05:00

How-To: BroadCatching using RSS + BitTorrent to automatically download TV shows - Engadget - www.engadget.comRSSImport for Azureus

2005-05-14T23:14:00.000-05:00

Top 75 Network Security Tools

Temp site for BTEFNET

2005-05-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

Title pretty much speaks for itself.

read more | digg story

Magic SWF2Gif

2005-05-12T18:32:00.000-05:00

This great piece of FREE software will convert Flash files (SWF) to animated Gif's. Great for making avatars for your favorite message board.

read more | digg story

Access all of your media Anywhere!

2005-05-12T18:29:00.000-05:00

We've long harbored the dream of being able to access all our media no matter where we go. But since there's no media player with half a terabyte of storage, that dream has been out of reach. Orb Networks' new product aims to change that, allowing you to stream media from your home computer wherever and whenever you want. The best part: its FREE!

read more | digg story

2005-05-11T21:32:00.000-05:00

Motorola WE800G Motorola WE800G Wireless 802.11g Ethernet Bridge $49.00 WE800G

2005-05-11T21:30:00.000-05:00

I-Hacked.com Taking Advantage Of Technology - Transmit Audio with a Laser Pen

PHLAK 3.0 Is Now Out

2005-05-07T20:38:00.000-05:00

The newest version of the Professional Hacker's Linux Assault Kit is finally here. Updates include 2.6.9 kernel, more tools, more docs, and more overall goodness.

read more | digg story

Ultimate Boot CD for Windows using BartPE

2005-05-06T00:59:00.000-05:00

UBCD4Win is a bootable CD which contains software that allows you to repair/restore/diagnostic almost any computer problem. UBCD4Win uses Bart's PEÃ?Â© to boot into a WindowsÃ?Â® "pre-install" environment, basically WindowsÃ?Â® booted from CD.

read more | digg story

Streaming Audio and Video Jukebox Server (Cross-Platform All Formats)

2005-05-05T17:29:00.000-05:00

What is Jinzora? It's a web based media streaming and management system, designed to stream audio and video files to any internet connected computer - anytime, anywhere. Finally a program that manages music and video files gracefully. Jinzora has a beautiful interface and a ton of configuration options. This program is fully cross-platform!

read more | digg story

Interesting Keyboard

2005-05-05T17:23:00.000-05:00

A keyboard where you can place keys anywhere onto the pad. Its pricey for a keyboard at 149.95

read more | digg story

Internet TV is Open and Independent

2005-05-05T17:19:00.000-05:00

Announcing a new platform for internet television and video. Anyone can broadcast full-screen video to thousands of people at virtually no cost, using BitTorrent technology.

read more | digg story

Damn Small Linux 1.1 has been released

2005-05-05T17:17:00.000-05:00

DSL is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

read more | digg story

2005-05-04T23:42:00.000-05:00

DataPickup.com | Email Large Files For FREE!Email large files up to 1.5 GB

2005-05-02T22:22:00.000-05:00

digg

Near Perfect "Einstein Ring" Discovered

2005-04-30T21:09:00.000-05:00

Universe Today is reporting on the discovery of a nearly perfect Einstein Ring; a gravitational lens of a nearby galaxy working as a natural telescope to focus the light from a more distant galaxy. Gravitational lenses have been seen many times before, but never so complete, with a close lensing galaxy and a distant magnified galaxy.

read more | digg story