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Thursday, August 29, 2002 |
Here's a little device I've been waiting for. It's an inexpensive wireless bridge. The LinkSys Wireless Ethernet Bridge only costs $129.
A lot of businesses will use this to extend their wired network across the hall or across some other barrier where they don't have or can't have wiring. Or to place a printer in a convenient spot that just doesn't have a networking plug available.
I've got my eye on it for extending my network to places in my house were we don't already have ethernet jacks. While most of the rooms in our house do have RJ-45 jacks for ethernet networking, we didn't put them in every room. Like the laundry room. It's only a matter of time before most large appliances, like washers, dryers, refrigerators, etc. will have built-in web access. And you can bet we'll be the first on the block with one of these chatty appliances.
Or maybe I'll want to put a security cam up in the attic looking out over the front yard. No RJ-45 outlet up there either.
It's a good time to be a gadget geek.
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Wednesday, August 28, 2002 |
More interesting commentary from John Hawkins on Iraq and Arabia. This time his "Republican To Saudi Translation Guide" interprets what was said to Prince Bandar bin Sultan when he recently visited President Bush in Crawford Texas. Here's a sample:
"On the topic of Iraq, the president stressed that he has made no decisions, that he will continue to engage in consultations with Saudi Arabia and other nations about steps in the Middle East, steps in Iraq," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer."
Translation: We're not telling anyone exactly when we're going in but we do promise to call you right before we hit them so you can pretend to be in the loop in front of your local press.
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Tuesday, August 27, 2002 |
 Today was the first day of school for Peter. He started the third grade today at Alum Creek Elementary School. We went to the open house yesterday to see his classroom and meet his teacher - and get ice cream. Unfortunately, today he came home early with case of strep throat. Tough way to start a new school year!
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Friday, August 23, 2002 |
Some excellent satire on the RIAA from Brian Briggs - "Ford Testifies to Stop Ride Sharing." A small quote:
William Ford Jr., CEO of the Ford Motor Company testified before Congress about the nationwide problem of ride sharing. Ford cited ride swapping as the number one reason for the the company's declining revenue. "These 'pool pirates' are depriving Ford of rightful income. Three sometimes four people are sharing rides. Less wear and tear on the cars means fewer new car purchases. That's revenue that's being robbed from Ford." Someday we'll look back and laugh about another industry that couldn't adapt and would rather litigate than innovate.
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Mac OS 10.2 will be publicly released by Apple tonight. Some of the Jaguar theme logos people have come up with are very clever. BTW: Jaguar is the Apple's codename for Mac OS 10.2. Lots of people outside of Apple have taken to calling it that as well.
It's a good thing.
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Thursday, August 22, 2002 |
With all the turmoil in the music business these days, one artist is taking a small, but positive, step forward. Brandford Marsalis has launched his own label. From the press release:
Branford Marsalis, one of the leading saxophonists and bandleaders in jazz for the past 20 years, has announced the formation of Marsalis Music - a new record company designed to provide a home for committed creative musicians. The indie label, formed at a time when bottom-line pressures have forced the major labels to drastically reduce or eliminate their Jazz roster, is the brainchild of the 42-year-old, multiple-Grammy winning Branford with the support and collaboration of his father, pianist and educator Ellis Marsalis.
He has signed himself (of course). That should make the company commercially viable. Hope he attracts and nurtures some talented new artists.
The whole Marsalis family is truly a national treasure.
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Wednesday, August 21, 2002 |
Today I ran across two completely different views of modern day America. I doubt one can find two more different viewpoints.
The first, Open Letter to America from a Canadian" by W.R. McDougall, is a fascinating tirade. He starts out with "Your once-great nation has fallen into madness" and ends with "I can only imagine what additional horrors your shadow government might be planning". In between it's all eco-scare, class-warfare, conspiracy, Naderite diatribes. What is going on up in Canada?
The second, Confessions Of An Isolationist Wannabe" by John Hawkins, takes a slightly differing view of current events. This one is about how America is a reluctant participant in world affairs, would rather ignore the whole mess, but finds itself involved to keep the world going to hell in a hand basket.
I'm clearly much more sympathetic to the latter view - in case you wondered ;-)
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Tuesday, August 20, 2002 |
For some unfathomable reason I watched a late movie on Turner Classic Movies until the wee hours of the morning. I was finally catching up on my sleep after a few late nights of coding last week (rediscovering image blurring algorithms).
Oh, the movie was The Glenn Miller Story with Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson. Almost anything with Jimmy Stewart in it will entertain me and this one did just fine. I loved the music too.
Of course, after staying up past 2 AM I'm in a bit of a fog. Am I getting old? Of course, but I was never all that good at staying up too late anyways. Odd for a programmer I know :-)
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Thursday, August 15, 2002 |
I ran across a new word today, nerdistan, that I liked. It was in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal "The declustering of America" by Joel Kotkin about people having fewer reasons to live in central cities. He called clusters of tech workers in places like Fairfax Virginia and Bolder Colorado as nerdistans.
Now Lewis Center isn't Bolder or Fairfax, but I am surprised by how many tech workers there are here. At my sons soccer games, one father turned out to be a regional manager for PeopleSoft. My next door neighbor is a Java programmer (and guitar player for a popular local band). The guy across the street runs a Macintosh based printing business.
Cupertino it ain't, but I'm happy to find that I'm not the only geek in the neighborhood.
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Wednesday, August 14, 2002 |
It's been a tough day. I'm upgrading my main computer to Jaguar (Mac OS 10.2). I've installed it for testing purposes a bunch of times during its development, but this time it was onto the Mac that contains my life - at least all my email.
Of course, I couldn't just install it, no. I had to swap disks between my old PowerBook G3 and a newer, faster, first generation PowerBook G4 that I got for compatibility testing. I actually got the installer to crash for me - twice. So I hooked up the PowerBook G4 as a FireWire drive to my PowerMac G4 and installed 10.2 indirectly. I also had to restore my account containing all my files because the failed install mangled the original. Thank goodness for Retrospect!
Now I'm just picking up loose ends, like reinstalling radio and getting used to the new version of Mail.app.
And now, on top of it all, my last few days of weblog have vanished. Phooey! There wasn't anything that will really be missed in the missing pages of course, but wasted effort is still wasted effort. I hope that's all that disappears after this upgrade!
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