Friday, January 07, 2005

Updated Windows Application Selection

I referenced my post on Windows Application Selections, and I noticed that I use some different stuff nowadays.

For example, I now use a wonderful program called PSPad for a text editor. It wraps some great functionality into a tight package.

There's also the OUTSTANDING desktop search application called Copernic Desktop Search. When I passed this link to my IT co-worker, I accompanied it with the following statement: "This is going to make you crap your pants." He heartily agreed. In a comparitive review, this was the pick of the litter.

The other addition I can place before you is Xfire. Xfire is a gamers IM client. It allows you to see what your gaming buddies are playing, and supports over 260 different games. In fact, in over 100 of those you can actually join them in the game, and join them in the voice chat server they're using. It's revolutionized online gaming. In fact, you can also view "Friend of Friends" - my network is over 1000 strong right now.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

D'oh!

I got home last night to find that my power had been shut off. I'd forgotten to pay the power bill! It was, of course, completely dark aside from the light reflecting off of a waning moon. Inside my house was no better. But the boy scout in me (I never really enjoyed boyscouts and shortly quit; here I'm just referring to the motto: "Always be prepared") had placed a rechargable flashlight in the kitchen by the door, hanging from a wall-socket.

So I turned it on and tried the phones. Dead. Except for the emergency old-school style phone I keep in the living room for such an occasion as this. I used the flashlight to find the disconnect notice I knew was hiding somewhere in the pile of unopened mail I've accumulated in the past few weeks, and sure enough I found it. I called the number and paid the bill, and will contact them today to ensure they turn the power on.

After I took care of that last night, I was pretty much at a loss. What was I supposed to do with myself with no power in the house?! No computer, no TV, no desklamps working. I couldn't cook (though I could grill), my refrigerator was slowly losing it's cool. Outside it was FREAKING COLD so I knew I wasn't going to have a problem with the freezer that's out there (*bonus!*), but inside it was still _relatively_ warm. I moved the ice cream out of the inside freezer and into the standing freezer on the porch.

So what was I to do with myself last night? I could have gone out to get something to eat, gone to a movie, etc. That was a no starter though, I didn't really feel like either of those. So I made myself a bowl of cereal by flashlight illuminescence, took one of my two new issues of "Whistleblower" upstairs, and lit some candles on the lampstand next to my bed.

This didn't really cut it. Who wants to read by the light of 3 weak candles nearly below bed level? Plus I knew I'd hardly be able to see my cereal! I did have other assets available to me, however. I went out on the porch and found a camping lamp that's battery operated (though I myself would have preferred a coleman with those crazy superbright white things inside that you light with fire) and hung it off of a hook right above my head in bed!

I ate my cereal and gave the remaining milk to the cats. Then I settled down to read some of one of the issues of "Whistleblower". I'm not a big fan of magazines, but this is my kind of super conservative anti-big-goverment stuff. I read for a while, and when I felt myself growing sleepy I turned off the light and drifted off.

I woke up feeling quite rested. I didn't have a clock that worked in my bedroom, so I went downstairs to shower (I had ensured I had hot water last night). Every morning when I wake up it's dark, so I was surprised to see that it was actually 2am! I'd probably slept for a good 6 hours, but what the hell was I supposed to do at 2am?! Shower and go to work?

I considered it. But I rejected the idea because I knew I was going to stay until 5 anyway, and I have a monster drive each night and I didn't want to be too sleepy. And that could easily upset my next night's sleep and start a chain of wierdness through the whole week. So I went back to bed, and spent the night in fairly lucid dreams I can hardly remember now.

When I did wake up in the morning, it was right on time: 5:15 or so. I was cold, even under my down comforter. Inside my computer room the temperature was reading about 54 degrees. I had slept in pajamas and a comforatable shirt last night, though without socks. No wonder I was so cold!

These things happen to me. I'm forgetful && a procrastinator, so . . .

D'oh!

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Walking back the cat

It's been a while since I posted to my blog. Last week I worked a ton (53 hrs + about 15 hrs commute time) and on the weekend I BINGED on Guild Wars. By binge, I mean I played until 3AM on Friday, got up on Saturday morning and played from 8:30 to midnight with about an hour break, then on Sunday morning from 8:00 to 10:30, at which point I played for a couple hours more later in the day before burning out. It was strictly a weekend event, as the game isn't even released yet, but I enjoyed it immensely.

During this time I listened to "The Company: A Novel of the CIA", which I really enjoyed. Last night, I had finished the book, and found an email in my Yahoo mailbox. It was from a woman who had recently moved into my neck of the woods and was looking to hook up with me, based on seeing my "Big Church" profile. I emailed her back, and got an autoreply that said she was using this match site for her email correspondance. To email someone on the match site, you need to sign up for it.

I started to smell a scam. So I began walking back the cat. The email was coming from a domain that was owned by another email host, which provided both pop and webmail. They had numerous domains you could choose from, and while going to www..com brought me there, this particular wasn't one of the ones they offered. I did a whois search on both domains and found that they were operated out of different states, and by different companies. However, both domains were last updated on the exact same day (Aug 17, 2004).

I examined the email. It was written with many gramatical mistakes, and the telephone number given in the email consisted of 8 digits (presumably a typo). The woman said she didn't have much computer experience and that her friend had put her picture up on a matching website. She was very attractive, but the location was "New in town...". When I did a search on this site for people within 50 miles of me, she didn't come up.

She said she moved from "Evanston". There is no Evanston in my state, but I paired the first 3 digits of the cell phone number provided with "Evanston" and found that it was a valid exchange in Illinois. Now, I didn't try calling all of the permutations of the cell phone number that was apparently fat fingered and left out the area code, but I did try two. Both were servicable, but obviously neither was her.

The email sent to me was directed at my Yahoo email account, but this account is unregistered at Big Church (I think, I didn't verify that part to my satisfaction last night).

So what did I have? It seemed to me, going to bed last night, that I had a carefully, skillfully crafted email from the matching website. They would find profiles on other dating sites, send a convincing email from an attractive member of the opposing gender, and allow you contact them only through the site. I was clearly looking at a scam here.

Fast forward to a good nights sleep and an additional check I had neglected last night. I viewed the complete headers on the email and found an originating IP address (which referred to itself as localhost.localdomain, a default configuration on Linux boxes) that was from my state!! In fact, it was from my ISP. This flew in the face of the conclusion I had drawn last night. In addition, there was another email address listed, the email address of her alledged room-mate/friend.

So I emailed the friend with a smile on my face. Now I was utterly befuddled. I laid out in vague terms how I thought that this was a scam email, and how the originating IP address conflicted with that conclusion. I hope I get a reply! I enjoyed walking back the cat.

Friday, October 22, 2004

Said to my co-worker while coding today

"It's just going to be easier to do this the hard way."

Friday, October 15, 2004

Bowling!

I went bowling with my work last night, we had about 30 people there. I did very well. I recall that the few times I've bowled before I was around 100 or so. I played 3 rounds last night. I scored a 148, a 111, and a 160! Pretty good for me! They were calling me a sandbagger! =p

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Cornucopia

It seems like I've gotten used to sleeping a normal 8 hours again. Last night I was out until about 11pm, and I had to wake up at 5:30. So I only got about 6 hours of sleep, and I was feeling it this morning!

It used to be that I would stay up until 11 or 12 every night, and get woken up in the middle of the night a couple of times, and still wake up at the same time. I've certainly been enjoying my sleep; go to bed any time I want, not have to deal with someone waking me up in the middle of the night. I'm getting spoiled! =p

This past week has been busy at work. My copy of "The Sims 2" arrived a couple of days ago. I got a great tip on The Frugal Gamer that it was on sale at JC Penny online (of all places) for like 22 bucks (while it sells for over 40 bucks online usually). I've never played "The Sims", so this is pretty much wholly new to me. I've completed half of the basic tutorial, and the interface seems pretty clean.

I also made a total STEAL on Call of Duty on Columbus day. EBGames was having a sale, where this 30 dollar game (which for a LONG time sat at nearly 60 dollars IIRC) was on sale for a bargain basement price of 10 bucks. This is an unbelievable deal, because this game has garnered many GOTY awards and is still a new game. It's also got a thriving online community and my clan has a division for it. I'm interested in online play, but from the demo I know that the single player is a blast as well.

My climbing subscription ran out on the 10th. I only went climbing twice last month, so it stuck me for 30 bucks a shot. Ouch! I'm still trying to decide if I should pay to play or go monthly again. I guess it depends on if I can find a regular climbing partner. So for the time being, I'll be in pay to play land.

Tonight everyone at my office is going for pizza and bowling. We're all leaving early and hitting Colony Pizza and then we're going somewhere to bowl. Another late night for me, and I'll certainly be missing cell group tonight.

Speaking of missing, last night I was supposed to scrim with my clan against some other clan, but I didn't know if it was that night or not and though the scrim was at 10pm (I should have been back by then) I didn't make it home until 11, so I missed. I sent an apology to Isaiah when I got home after I verified that it was indeed last night.

My co-worker Mike is doing well with VB. He's learning the basics of how to pass variables to functions, and how to use control structures. At the beginning yesterday, he was stuck in "GOTO LABELNAME" land, and by the end he was passing variables to functions/subs with the best of them =) He used VB to create a form that would edit some registry settings on a remote machine based on his input (location, machine name). I spent some time doing some VBA myself yesterday, in Access. I'm supposed to streamline a basic data import process.

We've got this spreadsheet with a bunch of data ordered through it. I wrote a macro like a year ago that will reformat this into a "flat" format and dump it to a CSV on a shared drive. This CSV is then linked in Access, and the data imported into our Sybase database. I made a function yesterday that first checked if there were things that would be left out of the join, and then display how many there were and give the user the option to import as is, display the items that are left out, or to cancel. I did it because I know in my mind, it's the users responsability to keep that crap in sync. Yet, 3 months from now when 2 or 3 of these things are left out because of typos or trailing whitespace or something, it will be me who will have to deal with it. Best to just integate that part into my process. But I know I will most likely forget, so I wrote the macro so I wouldn't have to remember. Not a macro, per se. It's a subroutine in it's own module.

I've really been enjoying my audio book. I'm listening to A Game of Thrones again, and I'm impressed at the readers ability to infuse emotion into the characters. He really does a great job, and his character voices are great. I remember the story very well, so there are no surprises for me this time, yet I enjoy it all the same.

I've been wondering about the definition of "droll" lately. The dictionaries and online resources don't really give me any example of what "droll" humor is. As an aside, I remember playing a game called "Droll" on the C64 which in retrospect seems a bit like Donkey Kong, though perhaps it's just the format of the level I vaguely remember.

My daughter is coming to visit me this weekend. We'll be celebrating her birthday. She turned 5 a little more than a week ago, and I have some presents for her here. She was very keen to know what they are, but I am adamant that birthday presents should be a surprise. I've got a new winter jacket for her (that's actually a 4 part system, shell, fleece, etc), a "Water Baby Bathtime Wiggler", and I think something else. My parents also sent some gifts for her, and my grandfather a card.

This weekend, I plan taking her to the Lyman Orchards Corn Maze. I've also invited Brad and Srini and Jaya to join us. The corn maze should be fun. I'd also like to pick some apples. We will most likely go to Chuck E Cheese as well, and perhaps a movie if something is playing.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Climbing!

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been climbing. I got a one month subscription at the gym for 60 bucks on 9/10, and that was the last time I went climbing. If I go 4 times a month, it makes sense to get a monthly pass. I've been slacking!!

I made plans last night to meet up with this guy I met on the connecticutclimbers Yahoo group, George. I didn't know what he looked like, but I told the gym manager/owner that I'd be meeting George there and he directed me to where he was climbing, because he'd already arrived.

We climbed until my arms were shot. Started off on a little 5.5, then moved to some 5.7's and 5.8's. My fingers are obviously still not tough enough to handle little pinchers, but I was able to hold my own. In fact, I didn't fall almost at all. There was one climb (5.8+) that I simply couldn't get more than 5 feet off the ground on. I don't think that it's entirely because I was blown, either. I just have to puzzle it out.

George just started climbing last year after visiting Yosemite (or another big name park). He did well. His footwork needs practice, and he still has to learn about how to mentally approach the climb. He saw me do it a couple of times and commented that he didn't have that "chess-like" approach to mentally planning out the next few moves. I spoke with him about the virtues of it, and I saw him mentally going over the moves. That should help him with his ascents in the future.

Climbing is half physical, half mental. I am physically "weak" where it counts as it stands; my fingers start to hurt on crimps way too early, and my hands don't have much endurance (compared to how I used to be!). But mentally, I'm still pretty strong. I mentally play out the climb in my head before I actually start it. I pick out akward points and how I can deal with them.

Also, if I'm heading on a climb that I know I will probably fall on a couple of times, that I won't just "walk", I prepare myself shortly beforehand by breathing. Those deep, steady breaths that focus the mind and relax the body.

I love to climb =) I really do need to go more often.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Trite details of my weekend

I went to see Napoleon Dynamite today. It was a fun, clean movie and I laughed a lot.

I also went to church, and then on an unplanned 2.5 hour hike up to Castle Craig starting from Hubbard Park. I found a driftwood walking staff along the talus I was hiking on. Without fail, if a trail seems to lead out of the way, I will take a "short-cut" even if it's bushwhacking. Eventually, my "short-cut" lead me to the scree along the water's edge. That's where I found the walking stick. The driftwood was very light, and smooth to the touch. When I was done with the hike, I leaned it against the marker at the trail head.

What I didn't do that I should have done was mow the lawn. I had ample opportunity to do it, but procrastinated and before I knew it darkness had fallen. I didn't mow last weekend either. And by the time I get home during the week, it's already dark. Fortunately, the grass isn't growing very quickly anymore, so this weekend I'll be able to hit it.

I tried to get lilo runnin properly, but for some reason the LiveCD I was using wouldn't recognise /dev/hda at all! It saw /dev/hdc, but that's just my DVD burner. So until I can get a LiveCD to recognise my hard drive, I'm in trouble. I did use an old Gentoo 1.4 LiveCD kicking around; perhaps a newer one wouldn't give me that trouble. I've never had that problem before. Here's the wierd thing: The LiveCD recognises /dev/hda, but when I chroot into /mnt/gentoo, /dev doesn't even list it!

I:
mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot
mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash

And that's it. Maybe I should look at the documentation again.

Thursday, September 30, 2004

10 things I bet you didn't know about me

Jen wrote up one of these the other day, and I got to thinking about what I'd write last night. Here are the fruits of my thoughts!

1. When I was a baby, my parents and my uncle built our house on the side of a mountain in Groton, New Hampshire. We lived in a tent, then in the foundation. My memories of that place are big icicles and squashed frogs on the road. I lived there until I was school age, then I moved to Plymouth.

2. I was a pagan witch when I was in the military.

3. I sold educational books door to door one summer when I was in college for Southwestern. I lived on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. I worked like 80 hours a week and barely broke even.

4. I was a virgin until college.

5. I never smoked weed until college. In college, I was eventually a total pothead. I'd get high nearly every day, and I can remember thinking to myself: "I can't remember the last time I *wasn't* high." one time. My favorite pipe was one a friend of mine made out of some wood.

6. I used to read the Illuminatus Trilogy in high school. This is a rather unique book that had a profound impact on my life. It's not written in cronological order. If you can make it past the first 100 pages of the first book, you should be Ok. I've read it a lot of times, and used to treat it like I imagined other people would treat "the bible". In fact, I used to call it my bible. My copy was dog eared, highlighted, and the binding was held together with that clear packing tape.

7. When I was a kid, there was this girl who was my age who lived in the neighborhood. She was one of those "cool" kids. She and a couple of other kids at her encouragement started throwing rocks at me on the street one day. I picked up a piece of broken off pavement from the street and chucked it at her, and it hit her full in the face. My parents made me apologise to her, but I always thought she deserved what she got. Why is the victor always the one who gets in trouble?

8. I joined the military because my car broke down.

9. I got kicked out of the military for smoking weed. I had the highest recorded THC content discovered on the base, ever. I think I had smoked out the day before.

10. I'm a "messy". I lack organisation in my life, and I don't really see clutter. It doesn't bother me. It's a problem for me, and I try and combat it, because it's embarassing to have a house that's messy when other people come over.

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Who's your scapegoat?

I drive in my car 1.5-2 hours each way. So I get a lot of time to think. Time to converse with myself and with pretend people. You know what I mean: playing out a conversation in your head. Today on the way home from work, I was listening to The Bible Answerman on WMCA 570. One of his callers was a reformed catholic. He said he was "born a catholic", which is quite the mindset that these people have, even though they were "raised a catholic". And even that can be quite diverse, usually ending up in disillusionment, a sense of "Christian" hypocrisy, and rebellion.

It got me to thinking about the issue of free will and salvation. God gives us a free will. A will to do what we will. This, of course, doesn't mean we can lift cars over our heads if we want to, but it does mean that we can jump off the ski-lift if we so desire. Have you ever thought that? Been about 50 feet in the air, skis on your feet, soaring along a mountain at about 10 miles an hour and though to yourself: "I could jump here. I could kill myself, or hurt myself. I could do it."

And you could. You could jump there. You could push your partner in the seat out as well. You could put your arm around them and tell them you love them. You could ignore them. You could make fun of their hat.

We all have a lot of choices in life. And we get to make whichever ones we want, because we have free will.

Do you know what sin is? It's not doing the will of God.

Let that sink in for a second. The bible says: "If you know what is right, and don't do it, it's a sin." And clearly doing things that are contrary to what God wants you to do is sin. So it's not just action which is sin, but inaction can also be sin. God doesn't want you to sin, but he gave you free will, and if he didn't, you wouldn't be able to sin.

Why is there evil in the world? Free will.

You know, Satan means "Accuser". He was cast down from heaven for trying to set himself above God. Essentially, Satan disobeyed God, and God kicked him and his posse (1/3 of the angelic host) out of heaven. And because of Satan and his angel's disobedience, they're going to "burn in hell". Do you know what that's like? Eternal darkness. Weeping. Gnashing, grinding teeth. And that which has always permeated the universe, the presence of God, will be absent there. "The lake of fire" where "the worm never dies." Sucks, eh? A place designed to hold Satan and his demons (the fallen angels).

But you know what? That's where most of humanity is heading too. God is just, is he not?

Satan's like: "Hey, look what you did to me! Look at my punishment for disobedience! Look, these humans are disobeying you too."

And it's true.

Sucks for us.

God has a plan though. He's already put it into play. He decided He'd take the blame for us. He's our scapegoat. Our kinsman redeemer. Our sacrificial lamb. This plan satisfies his justice and expresses his love for us.

He's done some pretty awesome stuff. Chief amongst said awesome stuff is his death. He willingly was tortured and suffocated to death for you. For who? Yeah, that's right. He did it for you. Because he loves you.

This death was prophecied in Isaiah 53, hundreds of years before he was born. He fulfilled many prophecies. You may have heard this analogy: Fill Texas 3 feet high with silver dollars covering it's entire surface. Mark one silver dollar beforehand. Parachute into Texas blindfolded, reach down, and pick up that one silver dollar that's been marked. That's the chances of Jesus fulfilling just 8 of the many prophecies (hundreds) he fulfilled.

Think about it. Is it hard to think about it? Do you have trouble concentrating on just comprehending what I'm saying here? Tortured, whipped until his spine was exposed, nailed to a special wooden beam naked in front of a jeering crowd. Hours pass and he has to rub his body up and down on the cross just to breathe. And he eventually dies of suffocation, giving up his last breath.

For you.

How would you feel if you did that for someone? If you loved someone so much you'd die like that for them? Just to save them? If you did that for someone and they denied it. They denied you! "Piss off." "Yeah, whatever." "I don't want to hear about it." "That's ok for you, but not for me."

God has already done everything he needs to do for you to be made right with him. For Satan's accusations to be blocked by his righteousness. Jesus is our advocate. When Satan wants to accuse us, he stands in the gap and says: "Whoah, I took the blame for that, remember? He's with me."

Thank God.

But what about the people who deny him? What about the people who don't want to hear about it? What about you?

I mentioned this scripture in a previous post, and it has great bearing right now:

John 3:16-20

3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
3:17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
3:18 "There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God.
3:19 Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.
3:20 They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished.

Is there a veil over your eyes? A hardness in your heart? A buzzing in your head? Or do you feel a tugging at your heart? A compulsion to thank God for what he's done? A drive to give your life away to Christ?

He does love you, you know. God is real.

And behind curtain number one, we find . . . Bill Cosby?

This morning I was listening to Curtis & Kuby on WABC from NYC. They were talking about the proposal to institute a curfew in New York City for minors after a certain time of night (midnight or so). And an interesting point was made: Conservatives are usually all for limited governement involvement, scaling down government influence in our lives. "Liberals" are for increased government presence and power.

What's interesting is this issue turned that conception on it's head, as Kuby noted. Most of the liberals calling in the show were against this, and the conservatives were for it! Kuby marked it as inconsistant.

For me, I think this would be a good thing. Because it's practical, and works for the good of the people. These kids are trouble waiting to happen, and sometimes not waiting (which is why we have a problem). If the cops can just send them home before the crazyness starts, then we'll have a safer society.

It seems to me now that this issue speaks to "prejudice" or "bigotry". Because we all know who the people are that this law targets: The young black male. Riding with his posse, packing heat and baggy jeans down to his knees. The "disenfranchised youth" that today's liberals are so careful to avoid calling "wrong", that Bill Cosby caught so much flack for calling a pox on society. I think that's the root of the issue, the switching of sides: liberals want to protect this MTV generation culture (regardless of how messed up it is) and conservatives want to see it destroyed, and those wasted lives cleaned up.