An occasional outlet for my thoughts on life, technology, motorcycles, backpacking, kayaking, skydiving...

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Please, let me buy your products!

For those of you interested in a Samsung SGH-T809 (or other) but cannot buy it because it would require manual contact management (an impossible task for most of us these days). I just sent this message to Samsung via their feedback page http://www.samsung.com/ContactUs/ContactUs.htm and I suggest all of you do the same!

To whom it should concern,
I am on my 5th Nokia phone because I know that I can use the syncing software of my choice with their phones. I am wanting to buy an SGH-T809, but your lack of support for industry standards like SyncML and OBEX is going to force me to buy a Motorola RAZR even though I feel it is a less appealing product.

You need to do you ever it takes to get you phones on this list: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/isync/devices.html Apple users are passionate, evangelistic, loyal, and tend to have discretionary finances. These are the kinds of customers you want.

I've bought one flat panel television from Sharp this year. ( I'm not lying http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/172854#172854 ) I am in the market for 2 more. I am also in the market for an up-sampling DVD player, camcorder, and color laser printer. Until you embrace my community (educated, demanding, consumers) none of your products will make it into my home, even though you have some beautiful TVs that meet my wife's strict bezel requirements.

Please do yourself a favor and embrace SyncML in your mobile phones. I want to buy your products, but cannot.

--Richard Bronosky

Sunday, June 4, 2006

We can’t keep it a secret any longer!

First we told Christy's family. Then we told my mother. I announced it a Q100.5. Today I announced it at church, so I guess it's now safe to blog about it.

After 3 years of trying we are finally pregnant!

It's been a long hard journey, which I will describe in detail later. For now I just want to get a post out here so that those who are interested can share in our excitement.

Here is a link to my photos tagged "baby". Until the 2nd week of January these will all be ultrasounds, but we've been asked by many... So enjoy.

Monday, May 22, 2006

So you are saying that you DO care?

The part of speech used in:
I could care less

...is used incorrectly. Unfortunately this is often the case. I see this done all the time and it drives me crazy. As a child I misunderstood the intended meaning for years due to its frequent misuse. I would often hear "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less". I assumed that they were properly used and that their meanings were opposite. It took me years to discover that the only difference between them, as irony would hold, is that one was used "with care" and one was used "without care".

If you ignore what you understand "could care less" to mean, and evaluate it as if hearing it for the first time you will realize that it is making a statement exactly opposite of what you wish to convey.

In order to do something less, you must currently be doing that something to a magnitude which would allow you withdraw slightly without ceasing all together.

If I am juggling (one handed) three balls in the air, I "could juggle less" by subtracting one of the balls. I would then be juggling two balls. (juggling two balls two handed isn't REALLY juggling.) But at this point I "could NOT juggle less." If I were to remove one of the balls, I would then be tossing one ball in the air, which is certainly not juggling.

So, to convey your message, you must say "could not care less". This literally means one cares none or next to none.

Thank you for listening, and choose your words wisely. (People are judging you by them.)

Friday, April 28, 2006

Another bookmarklet

Well, I have to admit: I use GMail on my MythTV box. I've tried out a lot of email tools, and it works the best with my MythTV. Everywhere else I use Yahoo! Mail Beta.

One of the biggest complaints I have about GMail is how little real estate you have for reading mail. (Come on, that's what your supposed to be able to do right?!?!) So I created a bookmarklet that toggles maximizing the reading area.

Here it is --> Maximize GMail

  1. Drag this link to your bookmark toolbar then go view a message in gmail.

  2. Click the bookmark once to hide the left and right columns, again to unhide them.

  3. If you think it sucks, just delete the bookmark and post a comment here on my blog. If you like it, keep it to yourself. (Wait a minute, I got that last part backwards. But, that will probably lead to more comments!)



Edit:
This does not work with Internet Explorer. I hate Internet Explorer. If it did work by coincedence, I would through something in to sabotage Internet Explorer. I don't want panhandlers spending my money on liquor. I don't want people spending my code on Internet Explorer.

It's harsh, but it's my right. See: Kill Bill's Browser dot com


I set a "keyword" of m for this, so I can use "ctrl+l m enter" to call it quickly.

Although it does hide the ads, this is not the purpose of it. (I don't believe in hiding ads unless they are animated and annoying, or feature scantily dressed women. I do, after all, get paid by ad revenue from Yahoo!) The purpose is to make it easier to read email from a "10Ft. UI"

Enjoy!

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

GoDaddy say it ain’t so!

In response to this news article. I posted this comment to the forum.

I just sent this letter to GoDaddy.com

I was very disappointed to hear about your switch from Apache to Microsoft web servers. I'm going to do more research before I jump to conclusions.

So far it seems that Netcraft Ltd. shows a 5.9% drop in share for Apache to do this move. I will move my registrations and begin advocating against you if this is true.

Geek credibility is a terrible thing to waste.


This is a very sad event!

Monday, April 10, 2006

I wrote my first bookmarklet. It’s pretty cool, if I may say so.

I don't have much time to get into the details. I'll rewrite this later.

If you use Bank of America, you can use this on the page "Bill Pay & e-Bills" This bookmarklet navigates the DOM to find the "Outgoing Payments" table. It cycles through the table and adds a running (declining) total to the table. It's real simple, with now bells & whistles. I wrote it in about 2 hours. But, I always like to get out a calculator and subtract all my scheduled payments from my Available Funds ot see when I would run out of money if I didn't get any paychecks. (It's kind of morbid, but it makes me feel better.) I do this because When ever I am carrying a balance on a credit card, I like to spend nearly every penny each month. It's kind of nerve racking, but it's the best way to make sure those "bargins" that you just HAD to spend credit on remain bargins. (It's amazing how expensive things are when you add in the interest you pay!)
Update:
To use this bookmarklet, just drag this link --> Bank of America Burn Rate Calculator to your bookmark toolbar.

I also cleaned up the code a lot.

The Available Balance was $646.46
Here is the code:
[js]javascript:(
function(){
var getElementsByClassName=function(oElm,strTagName,strClassName){
var arrElements=(strTagName=='*'&&document.all)?document.all:oElm.getElementsByTagName(strTagName);
var arrReturnElements=new Array();
var oRegExp=new RegExp('(^|s)'+strClassName.replace(/-/g,'-')+'(s|$)');
for(var i=0;i if(oRegExp.test(arrElements[i].className)){
arrReturnElements.push(arrElements[i]);
}
}
return(arrReturnElements)
};
var funds=parseFloat(getElementsByClassName(document,'span','payfrommargin')[1].innerHTML.replace(/Avail. Funds $([0-9.,]+).*/,'$1').replace(/,/,''));
var table=getElementsByClassName(document,'table','mod1-bkgd2-hs')[1];
var cells=getElementsByClassName(table,'td','text1a');
for(x=1;x var bill=cells[x].innerHTML.replace(/$([0-9.,]+).*/,'$1').replace(/,/,'');
funds-=bill;
var fundsString=Math.ceil(funds*100).toString();
cells[x].innerHTML='$'+bill+'
$'+fundsString.substring(0,fundsString.length-2)+'.'+fundsString.substring(fundsString.length-2,fundsString.length);
}
}
)
();[/js]

Here it is on one line the way you have to enter in into Mozilla:
[js]javascript:(function(){var getElementsByClassName=function(oElm,strTagName,strClassName){var arrElements=(strTagName=='*'&&document.all)?document.all:oElm.getElementsByTagName(strTagName);var arrReturnElements=new Array();var oRegExp=new RegExp('(^|s)'+strClassName.replace(/-/g,'-')+'(s|$)');for(var i=0;i$'+fundsString.substring(0,fundsString.length-2)+'.'+fundsString.substring(fundsString.length-2,fundsString.length);}})();
[/js]

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Eureka Quote

I use this in moments of Eureka. I'm tired of googling for it, so I'm keeping it here.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097958/quotes#qt0174935

My version:
Hallelujah! Holy CARP! Where's the Tylenol?

Thursday, February 16, 2006

MythTV six months later

Well, just as I predicted it's been six months and I decided I should give an update. I placed an order for this hardware on 08/12/2006. I've been tinkering with it off & on and learning tons about Linux, which I now realize I knew nothing about to start with. After this discovery, I decided to go with the KnoppMyth distro. It is not EASY, but I do think it is the best for a learning noob.

So why did it take so long?

Well, I didn't know enough to realize that I had a half dead tuner card that what causing lockups and all sorts of other problems. The Hauppauge PVR-500 that I ordered has 2 analog tuners and a PCI bridge on a single PCI card. One of the tuners was dead. (Apparently they are like light bulbs in that they don't handle kinetic shock very well. So with shipping...) And, thanks to my virtuous humility, I assume that if there is a problem it's my error not the hardware.

Once I got my new tuner RMA'd from Hauppauge (Great company to deal with, by the way!) I realized that my hardware choices where very good and that I have a Tier 1 KnoppMyth setup which means, you put the hardware together and clean install from the CD and it just works. Of course there are other issues, like getting the signal sent to your TV to look the way you want, over coming overscan, and telling it not to use 5.1 audio output since I am only using my TV speakers. But I'm very excited about the possibilities I've uncovered.

MythTV To Do List (Hollow bullets are incomplete.)



  • Assemble hardware

  • Register at http://labs.zap2it.com

  • Install KnoppMyth

  • Install Vim, ncftp, Firefox, and Thunderbird

  • Configure modelines

  • Adjust MythTV UI setting to overcome overscan

  • Install libdvdcss for DVD playback

  • Fix DVD import bug

  • Get remote to work


    • Learn how USB devices mount

    • Override USB IR reciever HID interface.

    • Custom map USB event to key presses.

    • Configure lirc


  • Configure framebuffer to overcome console overscan


    • Learn fbset

    • Learn lilo

    • Modify lilo.conf to use proper framebuffer configuration


  • Tweak modelines to get 1:1 pixel mapping





Wednesday, February 1, 2006

A brief thought on “Political Correctness”

Political correctness is a distraction. The purpose of language is to communicate, not to follow the latest trend. The correct term is that which gets the point across. If you want subjective correctness independent of functional viability, criticize a person's outfit, not their terms.

Followers