greg hughes - dot net

Overheard: “TriMet's a great system if you live next to it.”

Uh, yeah.

It's snowing again. No, wait sleet. No, now it's rain. Oh no, now it's snow. Sheez. Ol' Ma Nature must be concerned these days because all the snow from the recent storms melted or something. Luckily, this won't be enough weather to cause a problem, or likely even enough to stick around.

Even IT pro's have home computer problems sometimes, only ours are usually more complicated because we tend to really challenge our computers. So anyhow, I got home yesterday, found my user profile (among a number of other things) in Windows was completely shot. I had to do some fancy maneuvering to even get into the system, and once things were close to being back to normal, so much data was lost I had to almost start like it was a new computer as far as set up goes. Not literally start new - none of this reinstall Windows crap. It needed to be fixed.

In the process of a lot of repair steps one of the things I had to do was to fight an unhappy hard drive and it's file table. I was certain I had lost some critical data, but suspected it was still in a recoverable mode on the drive. So, I decided to register a copy of Active @ Undelete Pro, which helped me in terms of getting a large number of otherwise lost, deleted and unassociated files on the drive back. While the files and directories in question were no longer associated with their original locations (that file table was pretty screwed up), this program still allowed me to browse them and recover every file I needed (like email dbx files, application profiles, some docs, etc.). That software is worth it's weight in gold. The version I bought (Pro) is $49.95, and allows removable disks to be worked with, but if the only locations you want to be able to recover from are your local hard drives (most home users), the standard version is only $29.95 - and well worth it. BTW, for $99.95 they also have an enterprise version that I will be purchasing for work when I get back to the office next week. It allows you to recover from other computers over the network - very cool.

There's one lesson here worth learning for the paranoid among us (yes, that's you, Steve ). Anything you store on/in your Desktop, My Documents, My Pictures, My.* (etc.) folders is stored under your user profile. So, if you want to make sure a Windows glitch is less likely to cause you heartburn, consider relocating the folder(s) or simply store your files elsewhere, not in the Documents and Settings tree.

Press Release: 

IF NASA FINDS CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE OF AN OCEAN ON MARS, AMERICA EATS FREE GIANT SHRIMP

"We have closely followed NASA's recent exploration of Mars and all of us are rooting you on to find ocean water on the Red Planet," Davis wrote. "The 'Free Giant Shrimp' offer is our way of saying NASA's exploration of Mars and the discovery of ocean water would be 'one small step for man, one giant leap for seafood.'"

Riiiiiiight... Hey, ya never know?

If you are interested in what Mars actually looks on the ground, you need to check this out.

Someone named Lyle has put together a web site that takes raw feed images from the Mars Spirit rover and aggregates them onto a web site for viewing. This is from slashdot:

"I've spent a few hours hacking together some software to deal with the Mars Exploration Rover imagery at JPL. The software puts together a webpage and RDF feed of new raw imagery as it is posted to the JPL site, along with technical information decoded about how the picture was taken. It also produces stereo anaglyphs and color images that NASA has not seen fit to convert and make publically available. Be sure to also check out the ultra high resolution image of the lander as viewed from Spirit."

This is cool, and a perfect example of what someone can do on the Internet with a little interest, passion and expertise. So cool.

My friend and coworker, Scott, forwarded me a link to a blog review where Steve Clarke describes his experience with the Acer C300 Tablet PC, which was recently introduced to the market. I have been using the same Tablet model for the last 6 weeks, and have found I like it a lot. Almost to a “T“ I agree with what Steve has to say.

Scott has the newest Toshiba Tablet PC, which is also a cool device. It has a smaller screen/slate, but higher pixel resolution. Like Steve, I have found the larger screen on the C300, even with max res of 1024x768, to be pretty darn nice. But, hey - Scott's into pain, so I am sure eye strain counts for something. Just kiddin' man!

Scott and I have also been running some interesting software for the tablet that I seem to have better luck with on the Acer than Scott has had on his Toshiba, but then again, with all the stuff he installs on his computers, well - who knows, eh!

(Oh, and Scott turns 30 on Thursday, so be sure to give him a ration if you happen to read this and have a chance!)

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today ...

 - Dr. MLK Jr.

Before you run the linked file, read the instructions below - It is important that you follow them closely.

Check this out:

1. Keep one hand on your mouse throughout the whole time you are doing this.
2. Download, unzip and then run the attached program (optical.zip, linked below).
3. Concentrate on the small dot in the center of your screen for about 30-40 seconds.
4. Now look closely at your hand (the one which is still on the mouse).
5. Now enter a comment below.

 - g

The image of a toilet in the middle of a tranquil pond is strange enough. But that's not the weirdest part. Or maybe it is, I dunno.

Uh, yeah. Let me think. Not. Who the heck comes up with this stuff, anyhow?

 - g

(p.s. you need Quicktime to view the movie thing)

I was blog surfing here, meaning hopping from the blog of someone I know to some blog they had linked, and through several iterations of that process, whenever something seems like it might be interesting (sounds kinda like “my sister's girlfriend's cousin's brother's second-grade teacher's daughter, eh?). Sometimes you find things you can't help but read and tell others about. Some of those things are, well, just wrong. Others I can post to my blog.

So, here is one I can post, and you gotta read this. But first, for the record, how I got there:

I'm reading an RSS feed from Tom's Adventures in Troubleshooting web site (and no, I don't know him, but someone else somewhere has his site linked and it was interesting to me). Tom had a comment (link above) about a problem Julia is having on her web site (which I am respectfully not linking to because I know there are a number of younger readers of my blog and the language is a little too colorful for those people). Julia, in the midst of her troubles, consulted an attorney named Adam Rosman, who practices law in Washington, D.C. and apparently worked in the White House as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Staff Secretary in 2000-2001. Cool. Makes me wonder if he likes to watch The West Wing, too? I mean, he worked there. Can you watch a TV version after actually working there?

So anyhow, that's the end of the surfing trail, because Adam Rosman's web site contains a truly-interesting article he wrote entitled “A LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS - Gandalf as Torturer: The "Ticking Bomb" Terrorist and Due Process in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.”

I write this from my bed, only because I can't get out of it right now. Thank goodness for notebook PCs, better batteries and the advent of wireless networking. If it wasn't for these, I would have to watch TV, and that's not exactly a really exciting prospect on a Sunday morning, if you know what I mean.

Having finally made a run for it in 4WD-Low-range, I busted out of this snow hell with my neighbor, spinning tires and sliding out as I went. Fun. Worth it? ABSOLUTELY. You know, it's not that I mind being home all the time - that's actually not so bad. Rather, is the fact that I couldn't leave if I wanted to that bothered me the most.

Yeah, so - anyhow... We busted outa here late Friday evening. I promptly drove to the Honda dealership where another neighbor works and purchased the 4-wheeler ATV I have been planning to get for the past couple of months. I really should have acted earlier, but hey - oh well. The next time it snows like this (yeah, right), I'll be ready. And I won't get lost (or at least won't have an excuse to) since it has GPS on-board. Ohhhhh geek machines have hit the marketplace. W00t!!

Hmmm, seems I lost my train of thought. Ahhh, age - yes, that was it. Let's just say that if you already know you have an bad back, and you decide that - despite your physical condition - it would be really fun to load the new 4-wheeler up with snow shovels and stuff to clear the drive... Well, anyhow my lower back is keeping me in bed for now. If anyone has any muscle relaxants, let me know and I can fire up this nifty GPS on my really cool ATV and email you my latitude and longitude so your helicatoper pilot can find me out here in The Middle of Nowhere.^TM

And since someone's bound to ask (in email of course since no one I know seems to understand the concept of blog comments, LOL), it's the green one. Well, “olive“ really. Got Windows Media? Here's a video.

Argh.

http://blogs.msdn.com/

'Nuf said.

I can't take it anymore! I'm making a run for it - cross your fingers!!!

EDIT: Dunno what I was thinking. 4WD and no traction - sliding everywhere. Must be crazy. Dog thinks so.