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Journal Oct 2006

31 Oct 2006

Happy Halloween! We went trick-or-treating at UTC instead of hanging around home. Timmy was Mickey Mouse, and Evelyn was a bumblebee. Expect pictures to be posted sometime next year. Or maybe by the end of the year in time for the family newsletter.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

30 Oct 2006

It's starting to be crunch time for Halloween. (Starting??) Oh, and the midterm election is coming. Is everyone ready to push for checks and balances, oversight, and accountability? (Or is that triply redundant?) Watch out for bogus campaign material, deeply negative ads, and surprises left and right (figuratively and politically).

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Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

26 Oct 2006

Ever since starting work in engineering, I always wondered about becoming licensed as a professional engineer, and why I would need to do that. I can understand that licensing implies some standard or minimum level of competency, but I have yet to find a use for one in my own job. Something to think about, though.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

25 Oct 2006

The free Taskbar Shuffle takes one of my favorite programs, TaskArrange (not just because it's also free), and makes reordering the Windows taskbar buttons as easy as drag-and-drop. If you want to figure out the order before making it finalizing it, TaskArrange is still the program for you. Now if I could find one for KDE (which is what I was looking for when I stumbled onto Taskbar Shuffle).

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

24 Oct 2006

The best antidote to clutter is regular maintenance. At least that's what I have to keep telling myself in order to get the office clean. Now that Maureen and I share a desk at home, I'm better at it, but I've still got folders of mail to go through. At least I've already filtered out the important bills and rebate checks. Ooh, did I just win ten million dollars from Ed McMahon?

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

Other news and opinion from the past:

23 Oct 2006

Well, apparently, some douchebag hacker got into my home server over the weekend. I think it was just a hit-and-run because all he (or she) did was try to become root and delete all the files on the server. He couldn't become root, so he just deleted what he could as my currently logged in user (via VNC) and leave a calling-card kind of looping message. Luckily, the bastard didn't know I had another terminal window already logged in as root. Moron!

Well, that insult may as well be directed at myself because I enabled him. I used the standard VNC port, left the port open on the router, and left the password an easy dictionary-based one only because all those things made it easier on me. What a dumbass! I rectified that immediately. And since the VNC server was still running, I could capture some of my settings still in memory using my laptop and also see the history of what was done, which appears to be only in the one terminal window. Regardless, I changed all of my passwords, including my online ones, and VNC is no longer accessible from the outside.

Also lucky for me were several other things. I back up my music about every week with my external drive, and my web page and personal files continuously, so I lost nothing except about 3 months of non-personal work, including fixes to my mp3 files since last Monday. The main web server, of course, was untouched. My home server was back up in less than a day, and with most functionality by tonight. I should have it back up to its former functionality by the end of the week. But most importantly, I learned to follow my own advice about security. I also learned to limit working on the computer so I can spend more time with my family.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

20 Oct 2006

Well, I fixed one problem with the TiVo to MPEG conversion. Apparently, I needed the Media Access Key from my TiVo in order to configure TiVo Desktop properly. Now .TiVo files play in Windows Media Player (thanks, really), and Direct Show Dump makes proper .MPG files out of them, but the video somehow got compressed from 640x480 to 480x480. What happened?

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

19 Oct 2006

I'm not quite ready yet, but early voting is now available in San Diego County. This just means you can go to the Registrar of Voters and vote there in person before Election Day. There's a list of addresses for the registrars of voters for each county in CA. I'm hoping, as reported by voters in other states, that you can vote on paper at the registrar. If I can get my homework done, maybe I can vote early too.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

18 Oct 2006

Well, I tried out this TiVo conversion thing, but it's not happening. I've been using Galleon to transfer recordings from the TiVo to my server to back up onto DVD (in the native .TiVo format), which is useful when you want to watch a program back on the TiVo, but I'd like to covert it to MPEG video so I can make DVD video out of it without having to buy the commercial Sonic MyDVD software. Maybe I'll try installing TiVo Desktop just like the guide says.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

17 Oct 2006

Halloween is coming up, and so far we haven't figured out Timmy's and Evelyn's costumes. Timmy wanted to be "Super Timmy" from his imaginary game, Super Timmy Game, inspired by Super Monkey Ball and Mario Kart. We have to figure out what that should look like, but there will probably be no capes!

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

16 Oct 2006

David from our church has a great idea for the Pledge of Allegiance: we should be pledging to the Constitution, not the flag; that's what our elected officials pledge an oath to. Along with Lisa, we also talked about how "God Bless America" is a little smug, and what about other nations? I told them I saw a bumper sticker with a better phrase, "America Bless God," which I think goes along the lines of a sermon I heard (probably Fr. Dominic from the same church): instead of asking God to be on our side, we should try to be on God's side.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

12 Oct 2006

I've fixed my EAC configuration, but now I'm getting different FLAC files from those identical .WAV files between my work and home computers. I'm using the exact same version of FLAC for both of them, but they come out different sizes. So far it looks like my laptop is getting better compression, though. I'll get to the bottom of this one.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

11 Oct 2006

Success! I tried one more thing in EAC to get identical results between my laptop drive and my work computer drive.

This time I configured the "sample offset" option on both my work computer and my laptop. I get a +2398 on my Lite-On drive at work and a +1900 on my laptop, and now I get identical .WAV files!!!! The key is using a CD that EAC has in its database of discs with known sample sections so it can calculate the offset between its reference (whatever that is, probably the author's drive) and a particular drive (of a user of the software). I used ABBA Gold, and EAC recognized it no problem. Just for fun, I tried some of the other discs on the list on the "Technology" section of EAC's website, but EAC didn't recognize any of them, unless it's expecting different pressings than mine (such as the German version, since the author is a German CS student).

Well, I've already configured EAC for use with FLAC, so I can archive my CDs with perfect CD quality in about 60% of the space regular CDs take. I just have to figure out how to store it all.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

10 Oct 2006

I found a guide to help configure EAC today. Maybe it'll help me get consistent results among different computers and CD drives. I'm determined to figure out what makes different drives give different (but same-size) .WAV files.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

09 Oct 2006

Galleon works pretty well for backup up TiVo recordings and serving photos and music to the TiVo for entertaining. But I was hoping to make the backups more portable, even leaving the commercials alone. There is a software package and a guide that show promise. So far, I haven't gotten it to work correctly, though. I'll report on it later when I do get it working.

For those who want to go the alternate route, namely watching other video files on the TiVo, the free Videora converter is one way to go.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

06 Oct 2006

I've been lagging in getting journal entries posted, but they're up now. "I apologize for the inconvenience."

So far, I'm getting different MD5 sums for the WAV files for one of my CDs under Exact Audio Copy between my work computer and my laptop. Is EAC really working? It looks like they get the same Read CRC, but the wave files still come out different, but the same size, just as my server produces using cdparanoia. The tests go on....

On first listen, the new albums from Evanescence and The Killers sound good, but none of the songs yet stand out upon first listen (while I'm working), but they both follow the style of each band's debut. I'll keep on listening before forming an opinion of them.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

05 Oct 2006

I've always been curious about why ripping CDs in different drives can result in different WAV files even when using the same software and the same music CD. One solution is a Windows-only program called Exact Audio Copy, or EAC. I've got some experimenting to do with EAC across different computers, but so far the results differ between my laptop on Windows and my server on Linux (using cdparanoia). A better test, of course, would be to try to get EAC running under Wine (as is reported to be widely done), but I haven't gotten it to work under FC5 yet. I'll try to get some other tests going and report back.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

04 Oct 2006

Today, the new albums from The Killers and Evanescence were released. All Music Guide has a featured review on The Killers' Sam's Town, laying out the pros and cons of the new album. Evanescence had a small lineup change over the years, so Amy Lee is the lone head of the group. I anticipate the new albums continue the form of the debut, as the second Franz Ferdinand album did, but Keane's second album showed some evolution in their style.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

03 Oct 2006

Back in college, I noticed a lot of common song titles, i.e. frequent song titles by different bands for different songs. Both U2 and Metallica have a song called "One," and Elton John has "The One." Radiohead, Stone Temple Pilots, and TLC all have a "Creep." And Oingo Boingo, U2, Lisa Loeb all have a song called "Stay."

Wikipedia has a much more comprehensive list, in alphabetical order, with grammatically similar titles (such as plurals, "A" and "The" prefixes, parentheses, compound words, punctuations, etc.) grouped in a single list item. From that list, I found that the following song titles are extremely common: "Angel," "Breathe," "California," "Crazy," "Home," "I Love You," "Lullaby," "Maria," "Money," "One," "One Love," "Stay," and "Wake Up." I also updated the list by adding Dixie Chicks to the list of artists with a song called "Everybody Knows." The power of Wikipedia.

Eventually I was going to make a mix tape (or CD when that became available) of these songs grouped together. I was even going to do a "Thank You" collection to include songs that feature the phrase in the song (such as TMBG's "Snail Shell," Geggy Tah's "Whoever You Are," and especially Natalie Merchant's "Kind and Generous") even though it isn't or doesn't appear in the title. Maybe I still will.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

02 Oct 2006

Today I learned that Windows NT/XP uses a system service to allow the use of a mixer. After some potential (automatic) OS updates over the weekend, I reset my computer at work to find that suddenly the sound didn't work in MPlayer or WinAmp or anything. Also, I heard the default PC speaker beep when Windows asked if I should change my password now (it's that time). Huh.

I reinstalled the sound driver but it didn't help, not immediately at least. I was able to play sound in WinAmp by using the driver directly instead of the Windows wrapper to it. Huh.

After some digging (Googling), I found that Windows has a service for the mixer, and it was stopped even though it was supposed to be on automatically. The easy way to get to it is Win+R (hold Windows logo key and press R) or select Run from the Start Menu, then type services.msc, then click OK or press Enter, and double-click "Windows Audio." The rest should be obvious.

A Windows service is like a daemon in Unix that runs in the background and affects all users. Usually web and FTP servers run this way. Just a little FYI.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

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