Too Many Bits, Bytes and Tech?

At the risk of the GSD blog losing its focus from being a scratch-pad/notebook for my interactions with technology and shifting to a curmudgeon's front yard, I have lately been re-considering the role technology plays in my life.

My “pay me” job is to manage technology at work both for our customers and our organization. Truth-be-told I don’t “create” technology, I just manage the consequences (good and bad) that it offers and brings. Usually that is pretty fun and rewarding when we succeed.

My “don’t pay me” job is to help friends and family understand and cope with the never-ending upward thrust of technology in their lives. What used to be calls of “can I get that family recipe for grandma’s dinner rolls” has become “hey, a new update for Java/Flash/Windows was released, we need to update your PC. By the way, made chili lately?”

When those who know me engage in “hobby talk” I share about a few books I am reading, a few movies/TV shows I follow, volunteer work doings at the church-house, and mostly about relaxing by keeping my eye out for new utilities, applications, and for/sec trends and news.  They usually just nod politely at the last one.

So recently when I read each of these these posts, the experience gave me pause.

• Confessions Of A Digital Hoarder - ReadWrite - Taylor Hatmaker
• Why I'm glad my iPhone broke - Simon Hørup Eskildsen
• Complicating Our Lives - Echo Hub - Jonathan Malm

I don’t do Netflix. I do buy DVD/BluRay movies and TV series I really, really like.  We do buy digital entertainment media - song/album downloads -- online. I still prefer to buy CD hardcopies but the writing is on the wall as even in the BigBox stores the CD section is shrinking. And that bookcase unit full of VHS tapes (mostly Disney movies) from 20 years ago stands as an accusatory judgment about investment in a technological media-delivery standard.  Sure I “own” all those wonderful movies and the delivery cassettes they come encased in, but cold-comfort when our HiQ-VCR finally dies. Should I (can I legally?) convert them to a digital file? Why bother. The quality will be sub-analog in the HD-standard world. And my time is much more valuable now than the hundreds of hours it would take to do so.

Bin them? EBay them? I don’t know.

How long until those DVD/BluRay’s will be the next VHS tapes in our house? Probably sooner that I care to admit.

Then there is that drawer of audio cassette tapes. Alvis found them a while back and used some of the “blank” cassettes (I hope) for an art-project.

Really?

I have a cassette player in my car but it only is used for the cassette adapter for me to play my iPod/iPhone/Shuffle through. That’s it.  Lavie and Alvis’s cars don’t even have one in them; just radio/CD units.

I guess an art-installation is as good as any solution I can come up with for them…probably better.

My personal digital hoarding issue seems to be centered around collecting of Windows utilities; portable ones.

I have a folder I keep these in -- as well as on my USB flash drives -- and currently it is just under 10 GB. Seriously!

Do I really need (or even use) all of them?  Not at all, but then I might need one of them; a specialized digital tool for a specialized task. So I add to the collection, watch for updated versions, etc.

A digital version of the Boy Scout’s mantra of “always prepared” gone amok perhaps.

And now that I have a wonderful, super, life-enhancing iPhone (5) with 64 GB of storage, I find it calling me to dig deep into the App Store looking for additional productivity apps, tools, and what-not to fill it with.

So over the next year I have resolved to:

• Carefully review that 10 GB collection of utilities to honestly see if I can pare it down to a core set of tools and utilities that will allow me to accomplish what I need to do and support without all the overhead. A journey in coming to trust my skills and knowledge rather than the tools in-of-themselves to provide the solution perhaps?
• Negotiate the clear-out of VHS tape-based media in the home…if nothing else to get the DVD/BluRay disks off the pile on the floor.
• Get the hard-copy books I have out of storage and begin to interact with them again; to supplement the Kindles/Nooks in the house….and to make it a point to re-read them with relish. Shakespeare and Homer still are alive and relevant today for good reason. Let’s not forget that.
• See if I can live with (and thrive) on a few choice quality cable/broadcast/radio media sources rather surf aimlessly through the hundreds I have on hand at my disposal right now.

Technology is part of our lives and a major part of the culture and experience that makes us “human,” but it should never, ever, be a balm and substitute for human “being.”

Lest we forget where having too many bits and bytes and capability can take us:

• U.K. spy agencies plan to install Web snooping 'black boxes' - ZDNet
• The Logic of Surveillance - Ian Welsh
• bullying in New York State - Popehat
• Nineteen Eighty-Four - Wikipedia

Moving on…

Claus V.

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I’m probably the only Sysadmin bothered by this TV ad

A certain American automaker is running a summer advertising series you may have seen in some edited form or other where the host mills around and “interviews” various folks.

In the main advertisement opening there is a very brief shot of the well-known and respected host quipping about grillin’.

And it bugs me every time!

My what a nice rack you have there Mike!

Luckily, both Brian Adkins (who kindly provided the video above to YouTube) and Gizmodo writer Sam Biddle also seem to be eagle-eyed on this particular grilling technique likely learned from a hungry sysadmin trapped in a network room with a lot of food but no pit.

• Discovery Channel Superstar Is Grilling on a Shelf, Not a Grill - Gizmodo

While Mike’s technique and equipment probably won’t earn him a guest spot on Barbecue University with host Steven Raichlen anytime soon, I have to confess, it appears that use of a “baker’s” wire rack (also seen in network rooms holding server and system equipment) apparently is not completely a made-for-TV gimmick after-all.

…though I have to confess, Warren Schwartz’s rack and technique looks more sexy!

That one actually looked quite professional and culinary-grade. Never one to shirk from a mystery, it took me just a bit of detective work, but between shots of the grill seen above used by chef Warren Schwartz and images in the Gizmodo comment section I was able to trace down what is probably the actual grill used by Warren.

Turns out it seems to be a Big John 5 foot Charcoal Grill from Big John Grills & Rotisseries.

Who knew?!

So the next time you sysadmins want to impress the other techies at your backyard barbeque, see if you can pull one of these Big John babies out!  Who knows, maybe Mike will show up and help you flip.

However, judging from his grill work in the ad versus his handiwork as seen in his role as a host in another show, his dirty-job handling skills might be better put to use opening up your PC and server cases and blowing out all the dust and guck from inside them while he’s there!

CC attribution: by "eurleif" (Leif K-Brooks) on flickr.

Now that’s a dirty job!

Though in my mind, Mike’s grill will still be associated with use as a server rack.

--Claus V.

Bonus Link: What’s on the grill in France? via Justinsomnia

Now that’s my kind of grill and delectables! -Yummers

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Not there yet, but if I click my heels together three times…..

Spotted this the other day and it gave me hope, even if I’m not there yet on the salary data presented:

..caught via The Best Jobs in America – Sociological Images Blog – Context.org

Super-big graphic and expanded list of fields at Best_Jobs_in_America

For the full list of jobs, including details on us poor Information Technology Project Manager folks see the

• Best Jobs in America 2009 - Top 50 - Money Magazine on CNNMoney.com

What they do: Keep big tech projects like software upgrades running on time--and on budget. "We bring order to chaos," says April Ellison, an IT project manager in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Drawbacks: Hours (and hours and hours) of meetings. Aggressive project timelines. Staff jobs can be outsourced to consultants.

Fun and challenging but yes, long hours and bad-crazy timelines on projects seem to be my norm of late.

I really like what I do most days; a mix of SME work, incident response, advanced desktop troubleshooting, IT project management, and policy development. 

The trick is applying all the tricks such as those at Zen Habits, zen family habits, and the very tiny but digestibly filling :mnmlist blog to keep things in personal balance and harmony so I stay sane in the process.

It definitely is a work in progress.

Speaking of clicking of heels together, Dr. Isis has some crazy reds highlighted on her most recent Dr. Isis's Shoe of the Week.

Wouldn’t look good on my tootsies but Lavie likes.  Maybe she can get us both there if we hold hands while she clicks them for us…

Claus V.

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A Census 2010 Drive By…

Just in case you have been living under a rock for the past two months, the radio, television, and news outlets have been rife with warnings and PSA’s about the March mail-out of the 2010 Census form.

• Census forms coming to Houston mailboxes this week - Houston Chronicle

Completing of the Census is mandatory.  Regardless of you personal feelings and perspectives on the gobermint asking for all this personal info, it does help determine some critical baselines and information that might qualify your community for additional benefits and representation.

Anyway, for the past few weeks I was a bit confused about this.

As I said, the PSA’s were all saying how the official 2010 Census form would be arriving in the mail in March.

Only I had filled one out in early February.  A really long one, that I had ignored for some time until they sent it to me a second time along with more than a few letters reminding me I had to fill it out.

So I did, and it asked all kinds of personal household questions and details and took about fifteen minutes or so to finish.  It was really big.

Then about three weeks after mailing it in, I got a phone call from someone official like saying they were from the Census and needed to clarify a few of my answers.  I did so and got a big laugh when they confirmed that my salary was not in fact 100 times higher than what I actually earn.  (Not much, btw as doing my 2010 income tax made painfully clear).

So I didn’t think much about it; mostly.  I had done my civic duty.  But why were those PSA ads saying I would get the official census in March by mail?

And when it did arrive last week as promised in our mailbox…my heart sank.  Had I been royally scammed?

US Census Scams

I would like to think that I practice very good skepticism towards my mail and email boxes.  I perform due diligence to vet the authenticity of requests for personal information; particularly of a id or financial nature.  It doesn’t take but a moment’s relaxation of guard to get whomped.

In this case the mailers seemed legitimate, they had all the right words, the pre-paid return mail envelope looked accurate, the fact that I got several follow-up mailers as well seemed positive factors.  The form itself seemed professionally composed (spoken as a sociology major). And the call-back indicated an acknowledgement of my submission.  All the parts fit.

So why was I getting the official 2010 Census form in the mail?

What happened?

Was a victim of one of these?

• Beware: 2010 US Census form scam alert: List of 10 Census required answers - Washington Examiner.
• How to Avoid 2010 Census Scams - ABC News.
• Are You In a Survey?: Fraudulent Activity and Scams – US Census Bureau.

Digging Deeper

Regrettably, I had shredded the 2nd survey form I had received and all the associated mailings.  Bother.

So I got to digging on the Net and started to see if I could find out any information on the possibility that maybe I had received a Census “Long” form survey.  I remember Dad got one once while I was a kid and it took him quite a while to fill it out. Maybe that’s what it was?

Nope:  2010 Census: What Questions Will They Ask Me? Why Should I Fill it Out? - Associated Content.

2. When and how will I get my 2010 Census form, and how lengthy will it be?

Census forms for the 2010 Census will be mailed out in March of 2010. These forms are short and to the point, and will "less than 10 minutes to complete." Whereas one in six households used to get a census long-form to fill out, in 2010 there will be only short-forms for everyone. This should serve as an encouragement to you. The 2000 Census long-form asked nearly ten times the questions per person as the short-form.

Now I was really getting concerned.  What had I done!

I was starting to feel like Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in No Country for Old Men.

Uncovering the Perpetrator; ACS

Finally, after additional digging and refining my search I started to flesh out the corpse that was my pride.

My first clue was this How the 2010 Census is Different - Population Reference Bureau tidbit.  From that post…

However, for the first time since 1940, the 2010 Census will be a short-form-only census. This is because the decennial long form has been replaced by the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is a nationwide, continuous survey designed to provide reliable and timely demographic, housing, social, and economic data every year. The ACS will replace the long form in 2010 and thereafter by collecting long-form-type information throughout the decade rather than only once every 10 years.

That led me to this Wikipedia post: American Community Survey

The planned sample will be 3 million housing units and group quarters in the U.S., in every county, American Indian and Alaska Native area, and Hawaiian Homeland, and in Puerto Rico annually (250,000/month). Data will be collected primarily by mail, with Census Bureau follow up.

The Department of Commerce has stated that those who receive a survey form are required to provide answers to a long list of questions about themselves and their families, including their profession, how much money they earn, their source of health insurance, their preferred mode of transportation to and from work, and the amount of money they pay for housing and utilities. Those who decline to answer these questions may receive follow-up phone calls and/or visits to their homes from Census Bureau personnel, and are threatened with prosecution and fines up to $5000.

That seemed to fit my experience.

Fortunately, the article had additional links at the bottom to follow, including the money ones;

• American Community Survey (ACS) – US Census Bureau.
• About the ACS: What is the Survey? – US Census Bureau.
• About the ACS Main – US Census Bureau.

And finally the final verification, a sample form on-line to match the one I completed.

• American Community Survey (ACS) - English Sample (PDF) – US Census Bureau.

Whew.

But really?  What a load of confusion!

Recommendations, Lessons Learned…and Not

This still needs some way-additional public relations management improvement.  In a flood of media saturation about the 2010 Census and the importance of it, I didn’t hear one single mention of the ACS.

None.

It took quite a bit of Google work after the fact for me to track down just what was going on and why I was getting “two” census forms when the media PSA’s only seemed to indicate one.

It would be nice to see some wider public media attention provided to the ACS as well.  Maybe they are trying to avoid confusion by not mentioning the ACS, but the sword cuts both ways and I feel like I’ve been halved right down the middle.

Think I had a hard time with the ACS?  That’s nothing compared to the work in 2008 that Robert Hueston went through.

His posts and analyses are still spot-on, over two-years later.

• American Community Survey: Big Brother or Scam? – Tactical Leadership.

If they really want me to fill out this survey, or the 2010 census in two years, they really should:

• Provide a way I can authenticate that the survey came from the US government. Giving me a phone number is useless; anyone can get a phone number these days. Instead, the instructinos should provide something more authentic, like the URL of a web page, based off of census.gov, that confirms the survey is authentic.
• Provide a way I can ensure that my data is really going to the right authorities, for example, on the web site list the address that should be on the return envelop.
• Encourage, no mandate that everyone visit the web site, and verify the address on the envelop before they mail their response! Anything less is just encouraging people to believe whatever they get in the mail with an official-looking seal; it's tantamount to abetting identity theft.
• Allow people to fill out the survey on the web. Personally, I trust ssl encryption far more than I trust my local mail carrier. On the other hand, I don't really trust the government to secure their servers, so maybe that's a bad idea, too.

Finally, I thought to google '"po box 5240" jeffersonville', and got a hit. Looks like this is a real survey from the Census Bureau, albeit conducted in one of the most shady, disreputable, and hard-to-authenticate manners possible.

• American Community Survey: The scam that keeps on scamming – Tactical Leadership.

Two weeks after mailing in the survey, we started to get phone calls from a mysterious 800 number. No name on the caller id, just a number.

After, literally, hundreds of these unanswered calls, we slipped. I was traveling and my wife answered the call, despite the anonymous caller id, thinking it might be from a hotel or calling card. But it was someone claiming to be from the Census Bureau wanting to "verify" our answers to the American Community Scam. If these calls were really from the Census Bureau, why would the caller id name be blocked? Obviously, this is a follow-on scam.

(snip)

Ironically, the US Department of Justice, has a web page on Identify Theft and Fraud. On that page, the DOJ gives some good advice about avoiding identify theft at home, including:

    * Start by adopting a "need to know" approach to your personal data. A person who calls you and says he's from your bank doesn't need to know information if it's already on file with your bank; the only purpose of such a call is to acquire that information for that person's personal benefit.
    * If someone you don't know calls you on the telephone and asks you for personal data -- such as your Social Security number, credit card number or expiration date, or mother's maiden name -- ask them to send you a written application form.
    * If they won't do it, hang up.
    * If they will, review the application carefully when you receive it and make sure it's going to an institution that's well-known and reputable.

Based on the guidance given us by the Department of Justice, it's clear that we should all discard the American Community Survey if we receive it in the mail, and hang up when they call.

• American Community Survey: Avoiding A Scam – Tactical Leadership.

…the Census Bureau has rolled out a new home page with a link called Are You in a Survey? This new web page gives the following information and advice:

    * The address that the American Community Survey response should be sent to, so you can verify that the data you provide is going directly to the Census Bureau.
    * If you have received a telephone call from someone at the Census Bureau, and you have any questions, you may speak directly via telephone or e-mail with an employee of the National Processing Center (at 1-866-226-2864).
    * If a person claiming to be from the Census Bureau comes to your door, ask to see their identification badge and a copy of the letter that was sent to you from the Census Bureau. And if you have any questions about their authenticity, call the National Processing Center.

All of this is good advice, and helps to ensure that your personal information is only going to authenticated, and authorized, individuals. Interestingly, these are all things I suggested in my recent posts.

I’m not bashing the substance of the ACS, and (once I eventually tracked it all down) they do have quite a lot of information on the US Census home site about it.

It was just a very inopportune time to be one of the few who were randomly selected to receive it, right before the official and primary 2010 Census surveys were mailed out and publicized.

Know we know better.

--Claus V.

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Skipping Links in a Sunday Stream

One of the joys I had as a kid was skipping stones by the lake.

First there was the search for the right stones, wide, round, flat surface (though an oyster-shell half would do fine in a pinch).  Then with my pile collected, I would toss them out, waves or not, seeing how far they could go and how many skips would be produced before the object sank beneath the water.

Here is a mishmash of collected links I’m tossing into the lazy Sunday afternoon waters.

Enjoy.

• VirtualBox’s Seamless Mode: Combine Two Operating Systems Into One Desktop – makeuseof blog.  For those folks who want to simulate Windows7 XPM but don’t have either the hardware and/or the Windows7 version to do so.
• Using 1 cent transfers to validate account numbers « Silver Tail Blog.  Reason # 1 I’m tempted at times to go Neo-Luddite and eschew technology and banking, going back to the money-sack buried in the back-yard at night.  Security and fraud-prevention is a never-ending war of escalation.  Sigh.
• 10 ways you might be breaking the law with your computer - TechRepublic.com.  Reason # 2 for tossing all things related to the digital millennium, Internet, and computer technology in general into the pit of burning fire and walking away.  If you are borderline OCD like me, after a while you end up second-guessing most every thing you do digitally related; is that image really CC licensed?, are those free stock photos really able to be used freely? Now that I gave that CD away to my bro have I really scrubbed all tracks off my iTunes? Oh, wait, did I really even have the legal right to burn them to iTunes to begin with, even if I did buy the physical CD?  Today yes. Maybe or not depending. Tomorrow yes. maybe not period. Don’t even get me started on the debate regarding the slippery slope appropriate portrayal of characters in anime and manga of late.  Oh bother. (Or don’t even bother anymore to ensure you keep 100% on the up-and-up.)
• EnCase + F-Response + EnScript = very affordable network forensics & eDiscovery -- ForensicKB.
• Understanding where your virtual machine files are [Hyper-V] – Virtual PC Guy’s Blog..
• ITsVISTA KB-Link: KB980867 | ITsVISTA – Reminds me quite a lot of this popular GSD: How to Repair Windows Security Center List Items post. Only this time Microsoft now has an official fix for it. Microsoft KB Article KB980867
• Monitoring Your Windows 7 Resources Right From the Taskbar – Windows 7 hacker.  I’m not keen on lots of stuff running in my taskbar but if that’s your thing, here are two sets of great free utilities.
• Why sysprep is an obligatory Windows deployment tool – Part 1: All the important sysprep functions and the followup Why Sysprep is an obligatory Windows deployment tool – Part 2: Unique SIDs are necessary from 4Sysops.  Both good refreshers on system image deployments.
• Print a List of Files in a Folder – Cybernet News tips us to a free utility getFolder. I’ve got a few other tools I use as well but this new one might qualify to be added to the USB utility stick..
• Home of A43 – my former favorite dual-pane file manager recently was updated to version 3.0.
• TinyApps.Org Blog : An embarrassment of riches – TinyApps bloggist does a link-back shout to GSD and in doing so, dives deeper into some handy and tiny utilities offered by Olof Lagerkvist (of ImDisk virtual disk driver fame).
• Sysinternals Site Discussion : Updates: VMMap v2.61 – yeah, they caught a minor oopsie and fixed it.
• NetRouteView - Network Route Utility for Windows – NirSoft has released yet another neat freeware network utility.  This one “…displays the list of all routes on your current network, including the destination, mask, gateway, interface IP address, metric value, type, protocol, age (in seconds), interface name, and the MAC address.  NetRouteView also allows you to easily add new routes, as well as to remove or modify existing static routes.”  Go get it!
• Tenniswood Blog | Technology, Design & Architecture – Tenniswood blog contains a dizzyingly wide-ranging collection of cool and beautiful objects of design in addition to some great Windows tips and information.  Pretty stuff.
• TheCoolist | The Design, Lifestyle and Luxury Community – One periodic source for said items from Tenniswood Blog is TheCoolist.  Lots of great high-end designs and out-of-this world stunning automotives in particular; Bugatti 16 C Galibier Edition, 1937 BMW 328 Mille Miglia, 1946 Saab 92001 Ursaab: The Original Saab, Aston Martin Carbon Black DBS and Vantage (Lavie’s favorite), Superformance MKIII R Cobra (Claus’s old-school favorite), 2011 Audi A8: Lusty Luxury (Claus’s modern favorite of late), and a wicked looking Lotus Exige Scura of which I just love the flat-black paint and wish I could re-finish the old Saturn Ion-3 in….

Cheers.

Claus V.

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One day only deal: WinPatrol PLUS $0.99 – January 29th

Bill Pytlovany is a great guy.

By that I’m not able to say regarding his personal life.  I image he feeds his pets regularly and shows kindness and love to his family and fellow man.

No.  I’m speaking more professionally in that he is the developer of WinPatrol 2010.

WinPatrol Plus does a lot of things, but at the heart it monitors critical points of your Windows system and block/alerts you when changes are attempted to be made.  Normally that isn’t a problem, but many installers and malware will do the same thing and WinPatrol forms a great line of defense against them gaining a surreptitious foothold on your system.

WinPatrol Free has been available as well which offers WinPatrol Free vs PLUS.  Many of the features between the WinPatrolPlus and WinPatrol free are the same, however with the paid version, the biggest benefit may be access to WinPatrol PLUS knowledgebase.  This will help new users understand and make more informed decisions on what is running (or attempting to run) on their system.

WinPatrol supports Windows 98 through Windows 7 systems, including x64 bit systems.

Typically, WinPatrol PLUS is $29.95 for a single-system, lifetime license.  Still a great bargain price.

However, Bill posted to his blog the following bombshell:

• Bits from Bill: The Great 99 Cent Software Experiment of 2010

Yes that’s right.  Bill has gone off his rocker and is offering a single-system, lifetime license for just $0.99.

That’s ninety-nice cents for a darn good application for the common folks.

Now bear in mind that WinPatrol PLUS isn’t really a substitute for a good anti-virus/anti-malware application.  There are lots of great free and outstanding commercial ones out there for those duties.

Nor is it a tool to help you remove malware from a system once it is infected…though it certainly can bring some great tools and features to the workbench to help with the process (see also WinPatrolToGo.).

Please note: this is a special deal and will be valid only for 24 hours on January 29th, 2010.

Why?  Well as Bill explains on his blog notice...

I’m curious and thinking a crazy single day experiment could be fun and may be worth the risk. So what the hell.  If you want to upgrade to WinPatrol PLUS on January 29th, I’ll give you a lifetime WinPatrol membership for less than a dollar. Instead of the regular price of $29.95 I’ll provide a coupon on WinPatrol.com that brings the price down to $0.99 USD. That comes out to approx. .70 € to our international friends

This will be a one-day only “experiment” starting at midnight EST on Jan 29th and will last 24 hours.  Will over 30 times the normal number customers upgrade to WinPatrol PLUS?  If so, will other software developers notice?

Like our current $30 plan, the 99¢ license will be good for life. Like sales in the App Store or Droid Market however, this license is only valid for a single computer. Sound fair enough? If you’ve been someday planning on upgrading to WinPatrol PLUS, January 29th is the day to remember. Just go to www.WinPatrol.com this Friday and you may be a part of history.

Do you think the traditional software industry is in danger? If you think 99 cent software is coming or I’m just crazy than write about this on your blog.  I will need enough people to know about this experiment to make it valid. That’s also why I had to pre-announce a special offer which may kill sales between now and Friday.

It’s just too good a piece of software to pass up for just 99 cents.

Thought I’d pass the tip on to you…and no, I’ve not received anything in return for this post.  It was craziness I just couldn’t help but share with the GSD blog readers.

Good Luck Bill!

Can’t wait to hear of the results.

--Claus V.

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In Texas? Really!

Now this is something you don’t see every day in Texas.  (And I’m not talking snow baby, though we had that too, Friday before last.)

Alvis and I pulled up to the local barber shop to get my head re-shoed.

Imagine our surprise when we saw the following vehicle registration plate directly in front of us.

Didn’t  know Hummer made drivable submarines. ;-)

Anyone from Hawaii is pretty cool in my book just by the fact they live in what is probably the closest thing to paradise in the US of A and parts beyond.  As tough as it is for this Texan to admit.

Good to know that some Hawaiians must feel the same way about Texas if they care enough to drive here in person.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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Update: Never thought I would see the day…

Update: saw a link on the 10.18.2009 – TechBlog linkpost that validates what I was seeing in this post:

• Best Buy loads up for Windows 7 launch | Nanotech - The Circuits Blog - CNET News

Looks like Thursday will be the day to hit the big-box stores for the very latest in computer system hardware/software thrills and chills. -- cv

On a beautifully cool and refreshing fall Saturday, Alvis and I ran some errands around town.

She needed to cobble together the components to make her Halloween costume; a Tour Guide Barbie (from Toy Story 2).  Her other high-school friends are also adopting the characters of Toy Story.  Ought to be fun.

Since we were in the neighborhood and neither of us was quite ready to head home, we dropped in to Best Buy to look for an Enchanted DVD (found), and see what other goodies were to be had.

While I was there price comparing a 2.5” IDE 350 GB laptop drive ($110) against the NewEgg one I’ve been eyeing ($90) for a pre-Win7 upgrade, I was really blown away by what I didn’t see.

Almost no laptops or PC’s were available or on display.

Normally when I have been in Best Buy, just about every horizontal surface in the computer area is covered by laptops or desktop.  Today?  Only four netbooks and two full size laptops.  I saw only two desktop systems.

When we dropped in to Office Depot it was even worse.  Two laptops and no desktops on display.

Is the economy that bad that no-one even wants to carry this merchandise on the shelves?  It was really funny seeing how BB was trying to hide the missing items with all kinds of mice, USB sticks and other small-box products artfully arranged on all the surfaces.

No.

I suspect that all these (Vista) systems have been pulled and I am only observing the lull before the Windows 7 release storm.

I imagine that by next weekend the shelves will be full again, but this time with newly deployed laptops and desktops armed with Windows 7 operating systems.  They are probably already in the back waiting deployment.  No doubt the crack team of sales specialists have been hard at work training on the finer selling points for Windows 7.

It was just kinda freaky to walk into these spaces and not see hardly any computers this go round.

Really freaky.

--Claus V.

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A Toilet Tip and some Self-Centered Links

Mmmm.  Potty talk.

Please tune to another blog post if you want.  Nothing to see here but some really mish-mash linkages and ramblings….

Toilet Bowl Black Streaks - Q&A - Mosby Building Arts – Yeah. I know.  How gross can we get?  Only for the past year I have been fighting an ongoing battle with the toilets trying to get these Amityville Horror-esque black streaks from re-spawning under the rims.  I’ve tried every under-rim bowl cleaner I could find, dumped bleach down the tank-tube to try to nuke the mildew-growth out of existence.  But despite my weekly deep-cleanings, the sparking bowl became re-streaked in less than a week.  It was gross and frustrating.

I was about ready to rip them out and replace the entire toilet.

Then I read that tip that claimed the mildew problem (that I knew) was caused by hard-water deposits.  I took the advice offered, and found some Lime-A-Way under-rim toilet cleaner at the grocery store and gave them a good coating at bed-time one night.  For good measure I also dropped about a 1/2 cup down the overflow/fill-tube in the tank as well that feeds water down the rim-holes and into the bowl to get the inside run above the holes coated and cleaned as well.

In the morning I flushed well, re-scrubbed with standard toilet-bowl cleaner and waited.

Months later the black streaking still hasn’t returned and the bowls seem to stay cleaner longer as well!

What do you know!

I’m continuing with a bi-monthly application just to be safe as we do have a mineral-deposit problem with the local municipal water supply in our area (also tends to be iron-heavy).  But I think the problem is solved.

Thanks to Tug over at The Undershirt Guy Blog, I think I have found my long-lost solution to a clothing issue I have also been working on for years.  Long time ago I got a short-sleeved mock-turtleneck shirt from Lavie’s mom.  I quickly found it looked great (to me) under polo's, particularly in the fall and winter months.  I really liked the way the higher collar worked with polo shirts.  The fabric was too heavy though and it wasn’t comfortable for summer.  So I have been searching for a high-collared style t-shirt ever since and never found exactly what I was looking for.  I did find some high-end t-shirts such as in the UnderArmour line and some tactical (police-grade) t-shirts that came close, but they were very pricy and still not a “true” turtle-neck high collar.

Leave it to Tug.  I run his blog’s RSS feed and recently spotted his post Ask Tug Update: Undershirts with a high, tight collar that don’t stretch out or sag.

Turns out Jockey makes a higher-necked collar for the common man. 

Jockey Short Sleeve Mock Neck T-Shirt 8351

Priced at just $7 each, they are from a trusted and quality manufacturer and are easy on the budget.  I just finished ordering several in white and black.  I can’t wait for them to come in.  So if you are law-enforcement, military, work-uniform wearers, or just plain strange like me, this might just be a rare and golden find.

one hundred push ups – Just found this site.  Who knew this task was big enough to rate?  Back in high-school I did a lot of push ups.  And I set the challenge to myself to be able to accomplish 100 reps non-stop.  It took me a while, but I did get to where I could crank out 100-rep sets nightly.  No biggie.

I tried again the other night after hitting this site and was only able to turn out forty five before my arms gave out.

I find that it isn’t just a matter of physical strength but also mental strength to push-up through the pain and “quit” that my shoulders feed to my central cortex.

So starting tonight I plan on reclaiming that goal from high-school.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Men’s Health - Eat This, Not That - 20 Worst Foods of 2009 – I pulled this link the other day and read through the items.  Horrible!  Now I don’t calorie-count (usually) but do try to make healthy choices with food items, snacking, and work to eat in moderation. But it was still as shock to find out just how many calories are packed in some food products.

From that article:

• Worst Burger of 2009 - Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing - 2,040 calories
• Worst Chinese Entrée of 2009 - P.F. Chang’s Tam’s Noodles -1, 678 calories
• Worst Supermarket Meal of 2009  - Marie Callender’s Creamy Parmesan Chicken Pot Pie - 1,060 calories
• Worst Ribs of 2009 - Outback Steakhouse Baby Back Ribs (full rack) - 2,260 calories
• The Worst Food in America of 2009 - Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake - 2,600 calories

Now we eat at all these places and have consumed these items from time to time. Nothing wrong there.  To be fair, everyone likes their indulgences and in Texas, we like our cow cooked and big portioned.  But this information does provide helpful context for dining decisions.  Say, spend a few days eating lighter, low-cal fare before satisfying your desires on one of these items.

Me? I usually get the standard hamburger when eating out at Chili's or Outback and ask for some steamed broccoli on the side.  That gets nods from the family and usually impresses the waitresses (and the waistline).

mandolux | desktops | flags | Hope – I love this dual-monitor desktop from Mandolux.  The colors and textures in Old Glory are fantastic!  And yet the simple field provides a great desktop wallpaper without loosing desktop icons which sometimes can occur with some wallpaper designs.Full size, single-image download available over on Mando’s Flickr page if you want to crop one up on your own.

The Longstockings – Fun blog maintained by a number of teen/tween authors.  I don’t know if I will ever get around to writing that novel, but these folks provide great and honest feedback on the real-life of writing.  It’s fun, frustrating, and glamorous.  Well, probably just the first two.  Great source for finding new teen/tween novels that you might not encounter by looking on the shelves of the local “Fox Books” store.

Are you going to believe me, or your lying eyes? – Dan over at Dan’s Data and his also amusing How To Spot A Psychopath blog goes on a great and thoughtful rant.  This one is aimed primarily at geeks who appear to continually have a need to do hardware-upgrades on their system with little thought behind the real cause of their performance woes.

I love this quote:

My own motto, though, is that if something's worth doing, it's worth knowing what you're doing, and why, and how you can tell if it's really working.

Dan the Dude nails it.  And that’s a motto that you can apply pretty well across life.

--Claus V.

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