The blog that will not die

I’ve gone back and forth about trashing this thing.  I have a new place that I blog, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the right place for everything I might want to blog about.  But what goes best there and what goes best here?

I think one of the reasons I don’t trash this thing is there are a couple of entries that get hits almost every week.  I just think it’s funny to get hits through searches reading “easiest cars to steal” or some variation thereof.

What I might do is just dual post the entries that could fit in both blogs.  I dunno.

Still alive… for now ;-)

Yeah.  It’s been forever since I wrote anything here.  I guess a little update is in order…

I have changed jobs.  I’m no longer a consultant and now do my thing for just one company.  Well, that’s not entirely true — I helped another local division with an Active Directory domain rename last month.  I started here back in September on a contract-to-hire basis and finally got hired on in March.  Yep:  I’m now just a speck in the corporate turd.

I’ve started a quest to read some books I’ve wanted to for a long time.  Currently, I’m taking my time with the Lord of the Rings books.  After that, I want to go through The Chronicles of Narnia.  This is going to take me quite a while because most of my reading time is currently devoted to technical material.  I’m going to update my technical certifications over the course of the year.

Hmm…  I don’t really have anythign else to say.  Not that there will be anyone reading this who’ll be terribly interested 

Microsoft sez: Move over, Google Earth

I was perusing /. this morning and came across this:

“Today as we were biking around our neighborhood in a small city we saw a strange vehicle slowly driving around. It appeared to be an SUV, bristling with cameras mounted on the roof, and pointing just about every possible direction…  I asked him if this was Microsoft’s answer to Google Earth, and he indicated that it was…  The Windows site appears to be http://preview.local.live.com/…”

This looks kind of cool.  It’s similar to what I envisioned back in the 90’s when I found out about VRML. 

Now, imagine if Microsoft made structures in the heads-up display clickable.  This could be a new way to go about online shopping.  If you knew of a shop’s location but can’t remember how to spell its name or what their web address is, you could navigate to them on the site and click their storefront.  Chains could link to customized pages based on which store you clicked on.  If you’re trying to sell your house, you could have it linked to your listing.  There are lots of possibilities here.

Required gear for urban warfare: Silly String

Time Magazine is reporting on an unusual use for Silly String:

Stratford, N.J., mom Marcelle Shriver recently got a call from her son Todd requesting … Silly String. Marines working with his unit in Iraq had shown the Army combat engineer how it can be used to detect trip wires.

Link

I also found another report of this use of Silly String from a year ago.

This is great.  I can totally see this being true.

Dynex? WTF?

This actually happened several weeks ago.

The company I work for does not keep computer parts in stock.  We usually place orders through a distributor.  However, if the need is for one or two common parts, we’ll just make a quick trip to a local retailer.  On this particular day, I was at a client who had a computer where the network adapter (NIC) went bad.  The closest place that would have a NIC happened to be a Best Buy.

So… I make a quick trip.  I walked in to be dismayed by the dearth of networking options.  It seems that most of the networking products at Best Buy are now wireless.  I understand this since, for most people, it’s simple and cheaper than having to run cable.  Unfortunately, this sucks for people with office needs.

Since I was the only customer in the computers area of the store, I ended up with a shadow.  I looked around for a minute and finally found one NIC with an RJ-45 interface.  The brand?  Dynex.  I had never heard of it before.  Keep in mind:  I’ve been working in the Information Systems field for 11 years.  Ten of those years have been working with the infrastructure side of the field (non-programming). 

I said out loud:  “Dynex?  What the hell is Dynex?”  To which, my Best Buy employed shadow responded:  “Oh!  They’re a respected name in networking.”

???????

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO K.  I wanted to call “Bullshit” to his face but I exercised a little restraint.  I looked around a little more and found a Linksys adapter.  This was the only other option and cost $15 more.  Since I’m actually familiar with Linksys and they’re a division of Cisco I decided to go with that one.  I wouldn’t normally go with them but I didn’t see myself as having a real choice.  I made the purchase and went back to the client and installed the NIC without incident.

This got me curious — who the hell is Dynex?  Later that night I fed “Dynex” into Google.  There happened to be a sponsored link for the term.  Dynex at Best Buy.  When you click their link for where to shop it sends you to a page at Best Buy.  This tells me Dynex is a Best Buy store brand.  If you go to the “Contact Us” links at Dynex and Best Buy you’ll find the mailing address for  Dynex is in Richfield, MN and the mailing address for Best Buy is in Minneapolis, MN.  These two cities are approximately 7 miles from each other.  The Wikipedia entry for Dynex is redirected to the Best Buy entry.

I’m not terribly fond of Best Buy hiding their store brand (generic) behind a different name.  But that’s not really what bothered me in this situation.  What gave me a case of the red ass was the Best Buy schlub trying to sell me on Dynex being a respected name in networking.  Shame on you, Best Buy.

Editing Word and Excel Files

I came across some interesting information in researching an issue for a client yesterday.  When you edit a file in Word or Excel (and one would assume, other Microsoft applications), the application creates a temporary file to do the edits in.  This protects the original document while you’re working on it.  When you want to save your changes, the application deletes the original file and renames the temporary file to the name of the original.  There are two implications of this I’d like to point out:

• To edit a Word or Excel file, a user needs delete privileges in the directory the file resides in.
• If you’ve set up custom privileges on an individual Word or Excel file, these privileges are lost as soon as the file is changed and saved.  When the temporary file is created, it inherits the permissions set on the parent folder.  When you save your edits, the temporary file – with the new set of permissions – replaces the original.

Moved on

As of this past Friday, I’ve moved on from my long time client.  I went out there in June (20th?) of 2005 for a 5 week gig to fill in for their Wintel Technical Lead who had just given notice.  My last day there was August 18th, 2006.  That’s 14 months.

This week has pretty much sucked as far as billable hours goes.  However, I start a nearly 3 week project on Monday and have some other projects lining up so I should be fairly busy for a little while after this week.

The upshot is this has given me more time to work on the team blog at work.

Do you have the smell of burning flesh?

The latest issue of Wired has an interesting article called “The War on Terror.”  It’s about using virtual reality to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Veterans, or Shell-Shock.  Many veterans of war come home with issues.  The problem frequently manifests itself in nightmares and flashbacks.   Also common are depression, anger, and general jumpiness. 

Psychologists are using virtual reality to help soldiers readjust to civilian life and put the ugliness of war behind them.  Technology has advanced to the point where very realistic environments can be created.  Not only with images but sounds and smells as well (hence the title of my post, which is a quote from the article).  Give it a read.

Why no posting?

So, I’ve been rather lax on my posting and it’s been for a variety of reasons.  First, I’m a major procrastinator.  Second, I watch too much TV and play too much World of Warcraft.  I also went to Chicago last weekend for Wizard World (yes, I am such a geek).

However, I’ve also been working on some work stuff.  I’m trying to write another article but I’m having trouble finding the information I need.  The first article hasn’t been published, yet, but we’re working on it.  I’ve been told it will go out in my group’s newsletter at work.  I’ve also been working on my group’s blog.  If you know me, get in touch with me and I’ll tell you where it is.   At least for now, I’d like to keep my personal blogging as seperate from my employer as I can.

More car theft shenanigans

Back in May, I posted about some of the most expensive cars being the easiest to steal.  I was reading BoingBoing today and came across a related story.  It seems if you have one of these expensive car security systems, insurers consider your car unstealable — if it’s reported stolen, you must be involved.  This is a highly ignorant stance as there is no such thing as “absolutely secure.”  The best part of the story is the revelation that many of these systems have an override.  In the case of the story’s writer, his Civic’s startup security can be bypassed with a series of pulls on the emergency break.

Overrides render a security system absolutely useless against a professional thief.  The same can be said in the computer world — any system with a backdoor is of no use against an experienced cracker.