2006-Sep-24 13:13:10 +0000 @592

This is what my email inbox has looked like for the last several months. I admit it – I use my inbox as a storage device. I do the same thing with my desktops, both virtual and physical.

It’s interesting to see how, no matter how hard I tried at cleaning out the box, there is always a “hum” going on of messages that just came in, messages that go with current issues at work, and messages I just don’t want to throw out or know where to file. It’s normal for me to get 50-75 emails per day, so having that many in the box doesn’t seem that odd to me.

One of the things I have noticed is that back-date spam (spam that has the wrong date and tries to hide in your stack of emails) accumulates and artificially inflates the graph. Since I don’t use a spam filter on my personal account, those start to pile up after a while. When I finally clean them out, it contributes to the “crash” seen every six weeks or so.

Another issue that builds the number of emails up are multiple messages from clients that pertain to the same issue. I can’t seem to get clients to put the information on the ticket that it goes with. So, perhaps I should start making temporary file folders for each ticket, or take it upon myself to add the details to the ticket. That would work for clients where I charge by the hour, I guess, as it would add up to an extra $200 or so per month just to keep them organized.
Read the rest of this entry »

2006-Aug-14 13:31:08 +0000 @604

I know a bunch of people who are using WAMP, an Apache, MySQL, PHP pre-compiled package for Windows. It’s a very good product as it is kind of challenging to install all of these services together on Windows, but it does leave several things in the default configuration and is therefore not very secure. Here are a few notes on the basic things you need to change in order to make it safer. Note that this is not all-encompassing and will not make an airtight system – this is Windows after all. However, it will at least follow 1985 standards of security.
Read the rest of this entry »

2006-Jul-11 16:39:22 +0000 @735

Here is a page with about 200 news articles from my RSS reader. These are articles that have accumulated over the last year or so that I thought were neat enough to not delete. So, if you’ve ever wondered what kinds of things catch my attention, here’s a good sample.

2006-Jul-06 18:20:16 +0000 @805

In the midst of moving, I have misplaced the USB drive that reads the memory sticks from my camera. This means that I can’t really look at the Space Shuttle photos I took until I get a new one, find it, or borrow another one this weekend.

It’s kind of retro to think I now have to wait for my photos, just like when we used to “develop” our pictures.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting thought to step backwards like that.

2006-Jul-05 11:10:50 +0000 @507

I went to Cape Canaveral with a few friends. We figure there are only a few more shuttle launches left and the timing worked out well where we could take off a few days and be able to wait it out of there we any delays. As it turned out, there were several, but we were very happy that we stuck it out.

We had a radio scanner to listen to the launch control, which is a good thing because if you don’t hear the countdown you might miss it. You don’t really hear the shuttle when it takes off because it takes sound some time to travel from the launch pad to you. In addition, the shuttle was surprisingly quiet, maybe as loud as a 747 or an F-14, but not as loud as a lot of other military jets. Building implosions are similarly not-loud.

It would be very difficult to make a launch photograph that truly shows the launch as we saw it. The flame from the engines was intensely bright, more than a welder or a magnesium flare but less than the sun. It was actually hard to look at because it was so bright. Some people had trouble looking at it, even with sunglasses. Some of our cameras produced almost night looking images in order to balacne the brightness. The flames lit up the smoke plumes.

The shuttle quickly becomes just a dot and it is difficult to see many of the events after 2 minutes. I could barely see the solid rocket boosters eject and deploy their parachutes. I could not follow them all the way to the ground. For several minutes, the shuttle was just a bright star in the daytime before it finally dissipated.

The smoke plume left at the launch pad was white on the outside but had an orange cast inside. Apparently, the SRB smoke reflects white but transmits orange.

On the delayed launch days we toured Kennedy Space Center, saw the IMAX movies, and hung out on Cocoa Beach.

Even though the space center is geared more toward kids, I did really enjoy it. Actually, I think I enjoyed the other visitors the most. I’ve always been a space buff and it was neat to be surrounded by people who shared that interest. KSC does allow you pretty close to a lot of stuff and has lots of toys to share. Everyone I know who works with NASA seems to really enjoy it and there is palpable sense of family.

2006-Jun-26 09:21:33 +0000 @431

Some friends and I are going to see the Space Shuttle Launch. Good information about seeing a launch is hard to find, so I think I might post these links to sites that I found useful.

NASA - Off-site viewing location tips

Information on Kennedy Space Center Passes for Launch Day

Other things to do in the area… in case of delay

Directions to one of the better public spaces

Technical information on Launches

A detailed explaination of KSC Passes

Best of luck to everyone at NASA. Blue skies!

2006-Jun-26 09:15:55 +0000 @427

A few friends and I saw the Al Gore An Inconvenient Truth film last night.

I’m very pleased that the public is interested enough in this type of film for it to make it into mainstream theaters. Maybe there is some hope after all.

I think they did a good job explaining what global warming is and how we can use ice core samples to judge temperature and CO2 levels back thousands of years. While the film focuses on “consequences” of our inaction, Gore does remind us that there is plenty of time to act and that we have reversed our environmental damage before – the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons, for example.

The visuals do a good job keeping the audience’s attention, and I was excited to see them using an Apple computer. At the same time, there were several statistical flaws. The flaws are relatively minor, but this film is going to become the Fahrenheit 9/11 and you know that people are going to attack it. Whether Gore planned on it or not, he might end up being a poster child for the film. I can already see the oil industry saying “Al Gore says he invented Global Warming.” Among the errors I thought I caught:

• list of deaths did not add up to the same number Al Gore says in the narrative (35,000)
• Some of the temperature graphs indicated a range of only two degrees. The temperature in the theater probably fluctuated more than that.
• During the end sequence about technology, photos of the Very Large Array, a radio telescope, are used to represent “satellite communication”

I would feel better about the representations if they put the charts and graphs on their web site. Many of them fly by faster than you can read. “These are not the statistics you are looking for.” To make this even funnier, one of the commercials during the previews was about subliminal messages.

Whether you believe in global warming or not, I think it is easy to see that our society’s pollution is not a good thing. If you don’t understand what us environmentalists are talking about, seeing this film will help you understand our perspective. I recommend it, but you might want to wait for it to come out on DVD. Hopefully they will fix the above errors, plus you will be able to pause and back-up.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the “follow-up” movie Who Killed the Electric Car? that was advertised during the previews. I don’t think electric cars are the whole answer, after all we create carbons and nuclear waste to make our electricity, but it seems to me that it should be a commercially available option at this point.

2006-Jun-21 00:31:01 +0000 @063

While lots of my time will be sucked up by moving, I do have a few goals for fun things I want to do this summer. If you think any of these are neat, you should join me. Let me know when you want to go:

• Tour the Georgia Dome – There is a “behind the scenes tour” that I think would be neat.


• Go back to the Aquarium – I have an annual pass and haven’t been in several months. I hear that they cut back on the number of people they allow at once. Also, I need to remember to bring my earplugs.


• Go to the BODIES exhibit Done – highly recommended!


• Hike/bike/skate the Alpharetta Greenway


• Go hiking in Cloudland Canyon


• Bike Repair class at REI


• Do something with fireworks for 4th of July


• Take a Segway Tour

2006-Jun-19 00:47:33 +0000 @074

So, I picked up the keys to my house a week ago. This being my first house, the process continues to be a little different. Here are the main points:

• Unlike an apartment, they don’t repaint between tenants. They don’t clean either. Oh, and furniture tends to cover damage to the walls and carpet. So far, I’ve spent more than 25 hours cleaning. The place wasn’t a disaster or anything. The sellers were not slobs. But it did take a long time.


• Landscaping needs water. It looks like the sellers didn’t water for a while and all the flowers and plants are wilting. It also takes a lot of time to stand there and water them. Sprinklers and timers are your friends.


• Follow the directions on cleaning chemicals carefully. For example, I own a steam cleaner, but it was not able to remove some of the stains (probably tea or coffee) from the upstairs carpet. I did, however, find a great chemical called Forex that is getting it out. I sprayed it in and tried to suck it out with the steam cleaner. That didn’t work at all. I guess the chemical doesn’t mix with water because when I followed the directions and blotted it out with a towel, it worked great. The chemical was cheap, in a white bottle, isn’t caustic, and doesn’t smell. I highly recommend it.

The upstairs of the house needs more carpet cleaning (and possible replacement) plus repainting. I don’t have time to do that for several weeks. I finally came up with a great idea. Since I’ve always wanted to try living in a loft, I’m going to put all the furniture on the lower level. That leaves 4 rooms – the bedroom, bathroom, living/dining/office/kitchen, and the garage. That will also allow me to work on the upstairs without having furniture all over the place.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see what I’ll learn this week.

2006-Jun-10 08:09:32 +0000 @381

I just purchased my first home and have some thoughts on the process both for people who are thinking of buying and to remind me of some of the less obvious things I need to know next time around.

Financing:

• Before you shop for a house, get qualified for your loan. No one treats you seriously until they know for sure that you will have money to complete a transaction.


• Mortgage companies don’t call people back. There are many reasons that a mortgage company might not be interested in your loan. They might not be licensed in your state, might not do first time buyers, or whatever. Bottom line, however, is that if they don’t want your mortgage they won’t be polite enough to call and tell you so. Maybe people whine a lot or something, I don’t know, but if you don’t hear back within one business day you should call someone else. Mortgage companies make a lot of money off your loan. When they do want your business, expect them to call over and over again.


• Get some extra phone lines and email addresses to hand out to people. As a new home owner, you are marketing gold and will want to turn off phone lines and email addresses when they get bogged with crap. Likewise, get ready for a lot of credit offers. Vendors were calling me within 24 hours of closing to sell me alarms and all sorts of other stuff.


• Remember the old saying that “banks only give money to people who don’t need it.” Oh, and also, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” Expect to kill some trees in the process.
  

Home Shopping:

• You’ll need an agent. Your mortgage approval will only be good for so many days and shopping for a home on your own will suck up an inordinate amount of time. Your agent will spend nearly as much time doing background work for you as they spend home shopping with you. You’ll have a ton of questions, and it’s nice to have someone who can answer about half of them. Also, most homes on the market have the little key boxes for people to check them out. Agents have access to those. Agents will also save you a lot of time by checking out listings in advance. A lot of listings are already sold, even though they are still listed. Sometimes sellers take homes off the market, but they stay on the MLS sites. Sometimes there are issues with homes that your agent can tell you about. For example, “I looked at that home two weeks ago with another client. It was a rental and the people renting it wrecked it. It needs $40,000 in renovation and has mold. Do you still want to see it?” Finally, the prices homes actually sell for are substantially lower than the amounts people ask for. Your agent can pull MLS records for the area and find out what homes really sell for and use that as a tool to lower the price. Saving 10% on a home is like getting a car for free.


• If you want DSL, find out where it is available in advance of your search. I wasted two weeks of my time and my agent’s time looking in an area that had no service. I would never have guessed that the nearest CO switch was so far away or that homes in such a nice area would not have DSL service. I know it is very hard to find out where the COs are located, etc., but the hours you spend digging this information up will save you a lot more time later.


• Rent an airplane and fly over your area, preferably during rush hour. Not only is it kind of fun, but you will learn a lot. Expect it to run $200-250. If you happen to be a pilot, hire someone else to be pilot-in-command for this flight. You want to get down to 1,000 feet AGL and gawk, so let someone else be in charge of paying attention.


• The best homes sell in just a few days. Homes that stay listed on MLS, therefore, are not necessarily as good. A good agent watches the new listings every day and will call you. Be prepared to look every day and to put in an offer quickly. Sometimes agents know about homes that are not even listed yet.