October 08, 2009

Quickset has encountered a problem

Recently I started getting error messages when running Dell Quickset to the effect of

Quickset has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

So very frustrating. The error details weren't much help either

Faulting application quickset.exe, version 8.3.17.0, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 5.1.2600.5781, fault address 0x00012afb.

I used Microsoft's Process Monitor [microsoft.com] to see just what was happening and found that right before faultrep.dll was loaded quickset.exe was looking for a DLL that didn't exist. A little farther up the chain I noticed it successfully probed a registry entry for a product I didn't have installed anymore (Inte'l WiFi software). Putting 2 and 2 together all I had to do was remove the orphaned registry entry (which pointed at this DLL that didn't exist) and voila!

I'm much happier now that I have my volume and brightness OSDs back in place.

Posted by Guy at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 29, 2008

Graduate School

I recently started my application for graduate school (again), this time with North Carolina State University [ncsu.edu]. I chose them because they offer an all online Masters degree for Computer Engineering. Sure there were other choices (namely Purdue), but NCSU had the right combination.

1. Cheaper
2. Less classes

The first point (cheaper) is because their classes are all 3 credits at 700 USD / credit, so 2100 USD per class. Compared to other schools, Purdue for example, where credits are 875 USD / credit or 2625 USD per class. Right off the bat that's a savings of 525 USD per class; spread that over 30 credits (10 classes) and you're looking at a difference of 5250 USD.
The second point (less classes) is important to me because I really don't want to still be doing this in 5 years. Some schools, Drexel for example, require 15 classes or 45 credits for a Master's degree. True they are only 10 week classes, but they charge 875 USD / credit.
The discrepancies in pricing between universities has me wondering if you're just paying for the name or are you paying for the education? The answer, of course, is that it depends on the school. I learned more about fuzzy math and combinatorics are SUNY IT than I think I would have at Syracuse, but the Real Time Systems class I took at SUNY was par with my undergrad classes. Hopefully NCSU will live up to my expectations.

Posted by Guy at 05:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 11, 2008

WTF Facebook?

After being bombarded with friend requests on MySpace for obvious spam accounts I pretty much stopped using it. Now I'm all into Facebook, but tonight I got a Friend request from someone I (or any of my friends) didn't know. Okay, so I checked out their profile and wouldn't you know...Check out my 18+ pictures...

What a PITA! I hope Facebook fixes this soon or at least comes up with a better solution than MySpace. Actually almost any solution is better than MySpace's.

Posted by Guy at 09:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 17, 2007

Instant Technology

I was in the car today thinking about consequences of time travel. Assuming that all things can be worked out or created given a sufficient amount of time it can be argued that a consequence of time travel (even one way) could result in (what I'm terming) Instant Technology. For example, I want some basic research done that enabled me to create a solid state battery that can be recharged via solar power with an efficiency of 90%. This would take a long time using conventional research methods, but if I could send someone (or a team) back in time to perform the research for me then it wouldn't matter because I could have the research completed instantaneously after I sent them back (or before). Even if they couldn't complete the research in time for my deadline they could just go back again and continue their work.

This thinking could be applied to lots of different areas and eventually we would all probably end up dieing at some lunatic's hands. Another example, apply the same principal to generating weapons. I need 100 nuclear warheads, send back the required personnel, let them acquire the raw materials, build the warheads and stash them somewhere where I could pick them up. Bam! Instant nuclear arsenal.

There are some other interesting applications of this thinking also. Consider this applied to computing, instant unlimited computational power. Consider this applied to food, instant field of grain. And so on.

It's really all in the eye of the beholder though because these things aren't "instant" for the people doing them. They have effectively sacrificed their lives for someone else's "instant" gratification. Could it be for the greater good, sure, but it could just as easily be for nefarious purposes.

Posted by Guy at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 03, 2007

MeddLinks

A group of my friends and I started this site called MeddLinks [meddlinks.com] that we just launched publicly. In theory it's like a health and medical version of Digg, sort of a democratic version of WebMD. From the site:

Meddlinks is a community resource to gather health and medical articles from across the world via the web and provide the community easy access to them.

Everyone should sign up and vote!

</plug>

That being said there were a lot of technical challenges especially in regards to backwards (IE6--) support. Maybe I'll blog about them one day...

Posted by Guy at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 24, 2007

A Korea-ing We Go

Yeah, I know. No posts since April. Blah, blah, blah, I've been busy.

I'm in Korea (Seoul) right now and I just got back from the Electronics Market. What a let down. I was hoping for homegrown electronics, stuff you can't find in the US and general coolness of gadgets. What I found was keyboards, mice and USB/Portable drives. Not even some cool knock-off MP3 players!

Now yesterday I went to Itaewon for some wife-shopping. Yeah, clothes, shoes and accessories coming out the Yin-Yang. High quality stuff too if you were careful. Custom tailored suits for like 350 USD, knock-off Coach bags for like 60 USD and everything can be haggled for, especially when paying cash.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to try Hong Kong or Japan (Akihabara?) for the experience I'm looking for.

Posted by Guy at 12:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 13, 2007

Dublin or Bust!

I just bought my tickets yesterday for Dublin. Why you (so cleverly) ask? Why not, it will be St. Patrick's Day and what better way to celebrate than to be at the Emerald Isle with pint(s) in hand?

However, I don't think my phone [verizonwireless.com] will work out there, which sucks! To aid that situation I've been looking for portable hard-soft phones that I could use Skype over. Hello Mylo [sony.com]. This thing looks pimped out! Wi-fi, music, movies, Skype, Opera browser! It looks like it has everything except AIM (my favored IM) and NetStumbler/AirSnort. The latter being a great combo for any portable Wi-fi device.

I'm currently looking into purchasing one via eBay and will (hopefully) post my joys of the device.

Posted by Guy at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 31, 2006

Can An Atheist Sin?

I wondered about this question, is it theological? Perhaps there are moral implications? I just couldn't reconcile the answer because the whole notion of sin is (at least in my mind) theological. Therefore, someone that doesn't hold theological tenants to be true cannot hold themselves accountable to these tenants. That would indicate that indeed, No, atheists cannot sin.

Digging further, specifically analyzing the definition of sin [reference.com]:

1. transgression of divine law: the sin of Adam.
2. any act regarded as such a transgression, esp. a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle.
3. ...

It's the second definition that gets atheists held up. Being atheistic [reference.com] does not (again IMHO) dictate that an individual is not moral, just that they don't believe in a higher power. Morals may have tangential relationships to religious societies, but are not intrinsically religious.

Therefore, Yes, an atheist can sin.

Posted by Guy at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 23, 2006

StumbleUpon

StumblUpon [stumbleupon.com]: I don't think I've ever mentioned this site before, but every time I use it I can't believe there's no alternative or not as popular as it is. Here's the gist, click on the Stumble button and get a random website. It's great for exposing yourself to websites that you might never of thought of to visit.

It's usually hit and miss, but the stuff you'll find can definitely waste time.

Posted by Guy at 09:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 15, 2006

Unix on Vista?

According to the Windows Vista Enterprise page [microsoft.com] the Subsystem for UNIX Applications (SUA) can run unmodified UNIX applications on Vista. From the page:

Additionally, Windows Vista Enterprise includes Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA), which enables you to run UNIX applications unchanged on a Windows Vista Enterprise-based PC. Whereas today a UNIX database administrator or system administrator needs to have a UNIX workstation in addition to a Windows-based PC, Windows Vista Enterprise enables you to consolidate both functions into a single Windows Vista-based PC.

I wonder what kind of UNIX they're talkig about? There's no specifics about which ABIs [wikipedia.org] are supported or what versions of support libraries (CLib, X, Motif, QT, GTK, etc).

I think I'll have to dig deeper.

Posted by Guy at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 21, 2006

Fixing Computers

Recently I was fixing a friend's computer and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. It would power on for like 5 seconds (no video) then shut off. Hmmm, maybe the power supply or motherboard, right? Tried those, no dice. Maybe the CPU/RAM. Got some parts from a recent computer show and again no fixy (I think I just made that word up).

What's the one constant I had in all this? The damn case. It was a power button that was getting stuck down. Didn't used to be a problem until ATX style power supplies where the time a button is held down means different things. Man, I felt stupid. On top of that I didn't have a button to replace it with!

Just goes to show you, with today's computers even the case can break.

Posted by Guy at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 19, 2006

Telecommuting Roundup

Now that I'm working (mostly) from home I've been more interested in what other's think about telecommuting. Here's some comments from around the web.

• Working from home...: A collection of experiences from people working from home (duh!)
• Am I the only one that is struggling to work from home?: Comments on dzone [dzone.com] about the previous article.
• US: Terrorists telecommuting to work: Something a little more sinister.

Posted by Guy at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 13, 2006

Here I Am

So here I am in PA. I finally made the move from DCLand to Pennsylvania for personal (family) reasons. I keep on hearing more and more about how Americans are telecommuting, in fact I think2 recent articles just came across my desk about telecommuting. I'll have to make time to read each one.

So far my impressions are favorable. I don't have to drive anywhere (less stress) and I don't have the constant bother of people stopping by my office and other's peoples conversations. Not that I minded people stopping by, it was just a productivity killer. And don't even get me started on other peoples conversations...let's just say they were definitely productivity killers.

Posted by Guy at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 13, 2006

Billing = Stupid

Why can't businesses get billing right? Case in point, I cancelled my Comcast cable service. They told me it would be cancelled on 9/2/2006, okay that's fine. Then I get a bill for service from 9/9/2006 to 10/9/2006, WTF? I called them and they said, "Oh yeah, that's our automated billing system. You can just ignore that bill."

My question to you, Ann Landers, is why can't the billing system see that my service was turned off on 9/2/2006 and just send a final notice? Stupid...

Posted by Guy at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 11, 2006

Moving Sucks: Part 3

I decided to go with Perry Moving [perrymoving.com] for a couple of reasons.

1. Local
2. Small company
3. Easy to work with
4. Personable
5. Good quote in writing

They came in just under $2500 after high-balling the estimate. Because of my unique situation I really wanted someone to come out to my apartment to see what I wanted moved and these guys were the ones that volunteered to do just that. I had requested others come out, but no one was really receptive, even the ones that advertise on-site estimates as what they do.

Posted by Guy at 06:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 10, 2006

Obligatory 9/11

I still remember 11Sep2001 like it was yesterday. There are only so many days in my life that I can say that about, my wedding, college graduation...you get the idea. I was going to class [rit.edu] in upstate NY when one of the secretaries put a TV outside my department's office. At first no one knew what was going on...then we all sort of tuned into the TV at the same time. My first thought was they were showing clips from some new movie. Weird I thought that, I guess it was just hard to fathom that these images were real.

Then my fiance (now wife) called me to let me know what was going on. I guess she was at home watching the news while I was driving to class. Five years...

This being upstate NY almost everyone had relatives/friends in Manhattan and other places within the city. Needless to say it was quite emotional because no one knew if their relatives were caught up in everything or if they escaped. I had one friend who's uncle worked on one of the higher floors of the first building (I can't remember which building). Coincedence as it was he just decided he didn't want to work that day and took the day off. I don't think luck like that happens very often...

The entire week after that was quite surreal to say the least. I would blog more, but it's late here on the east cost.

Posted by Guy at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 06, 2006

Zombie in the family

Zombies [wikipedia.org]: I guess technically they are undead, right? Well isn't an undead a corpse that has been re-animated aka "brought back to life"? If so then my uncle-in-law is a zombie and I'm officially related to one. He was technically dead for a while, but he came back (that's a good thing). At least getting him holiday gifts [brains4zombies.com] will be easy now.

Posted by Guy at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 03, 2006

Moving Sucks: Part 2

Perry's quote is kind of in. They quoted me $3K, but then I reminded them of some stuff and they are supposed to be getting back to me on Tuesday.

Posted by Guy at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 30, 2006

New Home

Well, not really. This map shows a road that's not quite completed yet. The address is correct, but the pointer is definitely wrong.

Posted by Guy at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Moving Sucks

Like the title says, moving sucks! So I'm moving something like 160 miles and I also need to store some stuff for maybe 60 days until I can move into my new house. I have *maybe* 2500 lbs of stuff. That being said I got some ridiculous rates.

• North American: $4500
• Allstate: $3000
• Perry: Pending

When I moved from Upstate NY to the Baltimore area (something like 3000 lbs 400 miles) it cost me right around $2200. So, WTF?

Posted by Guy at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Cool Art

Kerri Lawnsby [kerrilawnsby.com]: [Plug] I just love [plug] this artist's [plug] work. Did I mention this is a plug?

Posted by Guy at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2006

GMail - Denied!

It really sucks when seemingly ubiquitous technologies get blocked because of how they are perceived. Case in point, the facility I work at blocks access to the usual suspects, MySpace, eHarmony, etc. But then they also block things like GMail. This really sucks because I do a lot of business with my GMail account. Of course I also have personal emails flowing to my GMail account, there's no denying that, but for location to block a business tool, i.e. something I need to get my job done is ridiculous!

For too long had I simply stood back and said, "Okay, that's the way it is, that's how I'll play." I started looking for alternatives. First, of course, were the proxies. Absolutely none of them worked in accessing GMail. It could be because my server is hosted outside the US, but I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem was the fantastic javascript GMail uses to make itself so responsive and pretty. Then I ran into libgmail and GMail-lite. Long story short, I put GMail-lite on my site [lunaflare.net] and now I can access my GMail anytime I like. Sweet!

Feel free to use it, but help a brother out with ISP costs. If you find one of the advertisements helpful or interesting then explore the opportunity.

Update: Whoops, it's actually libgmailer [sourceforge.net], not libgmail.

Posted by Guy at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 21, 2006

Shadow Internet

I wonder how many people know about the "shadow" internets there are around the world? Talking just US-only defense networks there are 3 major ones, each one with their own classification. It starts with NIPRNET [wikipedia.org]. This is the lowest classification for things that are sensitive, but unclassified (SBU). This network actually has gateways to the internet so a user on NIPRNET should be able to access all internet resources.
The next classification is secret, enter the SIPRNET [wikipedia.org]. This network is for classifications up to secret and is what most of the DoD uses.
After that is JWICS [wikipedia.org], the top secret network. Actually it's SCI [wikipedia.org], not just top secret. This is what most of the Intelligence Community and intel-related DoD users use.
Each of these networks is supposed to be air-gapped from each other, but they do everything the normal internet does. There are websites, email, IM, blogs, wikis, you name it. A user can access these networks (I'm guessing) from almost anywhere in the world.
Interesting that the internet is so powerful it has been replicated like this in these shadow internets.

Posted by Guy at 08:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 19, 2006

MySpace Crazies

Where do these people [myspace.com] come from? Did that say San Francisco? Okay, I get it.

Posted by Guy at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 17, 2006

Required Maintenance

My Pathfinder was making some noise last month, kind of a rattling. I had thought it was the last piece of heat shielding that I just couldn't get rid of, so, no problem, I'll just take it to Midas and get them to remove it. Well no, they tell me that it's actually my muffler and it needs to be replaced. Okay, it's old and I've spent a couple winters in a high-salt area, I can float the $300 for a new muffler.

No, actually it's closer to $700 because I actually have 2 mufflers (one's a resonator) and some gaskets. Hold on a minute, $700 because one of my mufflers is "broken". I said I'd think about it and get back to them.

When I got home I checked it out myself and it turns out that the muffler had heat shielding on it too! It was on there pretty well, so I couldn't remove the heat shielding on the muffler without really break the muffler, so I did what most red-blooded Americans do, Google.

Thank goodness I found an About.com article [about.com] describing just this problem. I was able to go to Home Depot to get some hose clamps and tie that bad boy down. Worked like a charm and I was able to save myself about $695!

Posted by Guy at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 15, 2006

An Age Old Question

After reading this blog [tekmonkey.org] about Scientist vs. Engineer I was reminded of when I first was looking at colleges. Did I want to be a scientist or an engineer? What was the difference? No one could explain to me the differences to my satisfaction so I decided engineering because I akined engineers to the people who designed and built things people use whereas scientists performed abstract thinking that could one day effect people's lives.

Posted by Guy at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 21, 2005

Yeah, I'm Rated

I blogged a couple of days ago that I was going to finally perform in a TopCoder competition and I did so here's my thoughts. Everything went fairly well considering it was my first contest, but Ido have some tips for first-timers.

1. Watch the timer!
2. Practice with past challenges
3. Practice challenging on past submissions

Any more advice as I go along I'll be sure and pass on.

Posted by Guy at 06:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 18, 2005

Little Bots

I saw this article [hackaday.com] the other day and immediately thought of my college Senior Design project. In the years before I was at college line following robots were all the fad, but my partner and I wanted to go a different route, we decided on a 3D scanner.

Well, it works great in theory, but we just couldn't finance the $2k laser that we would need to do the actual scanning. That totally sucked! In fact, we couldn't do that project and needed to switch to something else. Our project turned out to be a line following bot that avoided obstacles. But the kicker was that we only had 3 weeks to design the hardware, order it, program and test it. We went down to the wire! But, everything worked out in the end.

Posted by Guy at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 16, 2005

Time to Get a Life

There is no such thing as time. There I've said it, but bear with me here. The commonly accepted definition of the past is that which has happened before the present. The future has an analugous commonly accepted definition as that which has yet to happen after the present. And completing the trifecta is the commonly accepted definition of the present, which is the current moment or, more specifically, now.

So these are the three definitions that codify time, right? It seems that the definitions of past and future hinge on the definition of present, such that the very definition of present can be incorporated into the definitions of past an future. What if there was no such thing as the present? Given these commonly accepted definitions then the answer is no.

How can we get rid of the present? Simple, just try and rationalize what a moment is or specifically a point in time. Is a second a moment? No, because that can be split into milliseconds, which in turn can be split into nanoseconds which themselves can be split into (I think) femtoseconds and so on and so on. At what point can someone say that it is indeed the present? Time is immeasurable due to it's infinitely splittable nature. Accepting this premise allows one to see that there is no such thing as the present, thus no past or future.

Personally I think the quick fix is to say there is no such thing as the present, but only the future and the past. Of course the definitions would have to be altered to reflect a more cyclical relationship.

And no, I've never done any drugs before in my life (unless beer counts).

Posted by Guy at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 09, 2005

War of the Worlds

I just saw the remake of War of the Worlds [netflix.com] starring none other than the great Scientology spokesman Tom Cruise. Man, what a piece of crap! There was no plot line outside of stay alive, run, stay alive, run, etc. That's it. Better luck next time.

Posted by Guy at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 08, 2005

National Leadership Award

Looks like I won the Natioanl Leadership Award as mentioned here [hackwriters.com], here [theperspective.org], here [aggressive-voice.com] and of course here [jim-frizzell.com]. Personally I can't decide if it's a scam or just a shady operation. You be the judge.

Posted by Guy at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 27, 2005

Professional Organizations

When I was in college my professors told us that one of the most important things we could do would be to join professional organizations. They claimed that these organizations provided a fraternity of sorts and possible discounts on things like insurance, etc. Well I finally broke down and joined the ACM [acm.org], the Association for Computing Machinery.

Now the funny thing about these organizations is that there doesn't seem to professional requirements except the yearly fee. I'm sure that there are some sort of standards (I hope!), but I wasn't asked to provide any credentials or anything like that. Anyways, getting to the point of this entry...

One of the cool things that I get with my membership are free memberships in the Safari Bookshelf [oreilly.com] and Books 24x7 [books24x7.com]. I'm pretty sure that memberships in both of these programs would cost much more that my yearly dues. So, I think that there are some definite immediate benefits to joining these organizations, but I'll hold judgement on the long-term benefits.

Posted by Guy at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 24, 2005

The @Home Revolution

It seems that almost everybody has some sort of spare computing cycles program available today. They range from finding aliens [berkeley.edu] to finding a cure for AIDS [scripps.edu] with everything in between. I've done the SETI@Home thing since college using their "classic" client, but recently they've decided they're going to go with the BOINC [berkeley.edu] architecture, which I guess is better, but when I made the switch I think I lost all my stats. It's not like I'm doing it for stats, but it still sucks. I felt like I made some sort of difference when I saw all the computing time I donated, but now I'm back at 0. I guess shit happens.

I think that these programs are so useful I don't know why everyone doesn't do it. Seriously, our computers just sit idle for so much time that these programs can benefit from so much. I think most people just don't realize how often their computers sit idle when they could be doing things, great things.

Posted by Guy at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 25, 2005

Guy - The Day Trader?

I signed up with Scottrade [scottrade.com] today in the hopes of supplementing some large purchases with a little bit of capital from stock sales. I'm already pretty well diversified with my retirement accounts, this is more of a thing for me to play with.

Why Scottrade you ask? Well, out of the three I was considering (E*Trade, Ameritrade and Scottrade) they had the best rates and lowest fees. Compared to E*Trade's $14.99 and Ameritrade's $10.99 trade fees, Scottrade's $7.00 seems like a bargain. Of course I don't plan on making lots and lots of trades, but it's still nice to know it's relatively low-cost to make trades. Also, and this was the real kicker for me, there is no account maintenance fee. Surprisingly, there is an average of $15 - $20 just to keep an account open with other online brokers. However, I'll blog about my future dealings with Scottrade and mention any other (possibly hidden) fees and whatnot.

Posted by Guy at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 01, 2005

Ouch! Not Smart Anymore

Well, I had my wisdom teeth removed today, guess I'm not so wise anymore. 4 in 1 shot! So, instead of going back to work I'm just watching Office Space and encoding some anime that I ripped.

Speaking of ripping, I think I'll write a tutorial on the way I do it and send it to Doom9 [doom9.org], popular purveyors of all things ripping and encoding. It seems that a Nero tool works best for me so far as compared to Gordian Knot. Back in the day I was a big fan of Gordian Knot, but compared to Nero Vision Express - or is it NeroVision Express? Either way, it seems to work for me along with a couple of different codecs.

I really must applaud the Nero team for everything they've done for the industry of working with optical media. Their tools are always relatively easy to use, stable and error-free. A splendid and impressive combination.

Posted by Guy at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 18, 2005

Times Past

I was just thinking about what it was like in college. You work and work non-stop while learning all this cool stuff. You want just a little time to yourself to explore the things you're learning and maybe make something for yourself (I went to engineering school). But, you never have the time because either you're just beginning a new project, studying for a test (or even worse, a final) or you're just trying to recover from the previous session of classes. All through this you keep on promising yourself that when you get the time you're going to do it... All you have to do is make it through the current quarter (semester, whatever) and then you'll have some time to rest and create for yourself.

Then you graduate and life happens. I used to say, "I'm not going to let it hapen to me!" and I really believed that. But, things happen like trying to find a place to live, girlfriend, wife or just keeping that significant other happy. Of course, I would have the time if I worked a standard 40 hour work week and could leave my work for work hours, but that doesn't happen. I think todays "new" crop of scientists and engineers are so worried about the same financial state of the early 2000s happening again that we want to make sure our companies can't live without us. Couple that with an excellent work ethic and you end up with someone like me. Believe me, I'm not trying to brag or anything, that's just the way it is.

Posted by Guy at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 11, 2005

Nothing New

Nothing to see here. Move along please.

Ah Officer Barbrady, you'll live on in our hearts forever.

You know what really irks me? Customers that make crazy demands of you. I found out on Friday morning that I have to be on a plane to the west coast Monday morning. I guess I shouldn't really complain because I've had a job where they could tell me on a Monday that I needed to be in DC (from upstate NY) the next day for a meeting.

Oh well, no rest for the wicked.

Posted by Guy at 07:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 19, 2005

Lazy Day

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, sorry. Yesterday was my birthday and I kind of took the day off from the world. It was pretty relaxing. Something I did do yesterday was pay my local Volkswagen [vw.com] dealership a visit.

I'm kind of in the market for a new Passat, but I can't make up my mind on what kind to get. My wife thinks that I should get a 4Motion (AWD) because she's a big fan of AWD. I think it's the safety issue that she's so hot on. When I talked to the dealer they said that the 4Motion wasn't worth the extra price unless you got some kind of emotional satisfaction from it. They indicated that traction control + Blizzaks gave you just as much protection on snow as the AWD would.

I do remember someone saying that one of the only places that AWD would really help is in Florida because of the oils that rise to road surfaces in hot weather. I guess it's especially bad in Florida as compared to other places because when I was living in Texas it really wasn't that bad. It might have something to do with the humidity, I don't know.

The price difference is rather significant and the 4Motion is supposed to have higher/more maintenance costs associated with it. According to Kelley's Blue Book [kbb.org] the standard MSRP is only $24,990 versus $26,902 (difference of $1,912), but the 4Motions are in such limited supply that they won't lower the price on them as much as the 4Motions. I think the standard 1.8T could be gotten for around $22,000 while if I fight I might be able to get the 4Motion for $26,000. Taking that into consideration the difference is more like $4,000, Like I said, significant (at least to me).

Enter the next problem, availability. My dealer only had 3 4Motions in stock. It was probably one of those high-pressure sales tactics, but they had indicated that they probably won't be in stock after Memorial Day. If that's actually true then my decision is probably made for me as I don't want to buy before then. However, this begs the question, if those won't last, what about the non-4Motions? How long do I actually have before you can't get the current body-style new anymore?

Decisions, decisions...

Posted by Guy at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 13, 2005

Long Lasting Batteries

When checking the morning news over on Engadget [engadget.com] I saw a new blurb about tritium-powered batteries [eurekalert.org]. Very cool stuff. It seems like these could be used for many different applications, but they probably won't. Why, you ask? Technically they're nuclear (I think). Either way, in it's natural form the batterie's power source gives off radiation. But with a little shielding and a hermetically sealed case it can be contained.

This is great, except what happens if the casing cracks? I'm all for nuclear power in both my home and batteries, so I think that the benefits outweigh the consequences, but I know that a lot of other people and more importantly the Energizer lobbyists don't see it that way.

Also, consider the security risks somehing like this would entail. If this tech were ever consumer-grade stuff and made it's way into laptops/portable electronics then you would see all electronics being banned from flights. That's just the way it is. What happens if someone's battery cracks either accidentally or, even worse, on purpose? You have 90+ people being exposed to radiation in an un-escapable, enclosed area for an indeterminate amount of time.

So, alas, this will probably never see the light of a consumer's day. Unfortunate, but true.

Posted by Guy at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 02, 2005

Laptrap

The Laptrap Laptop Sleeve [powerbookcentral.com] looks really cool. I mean, sure it's only a sleeve as opposed to a full-on bag, but it definitely has its uses. For example, I don't really like dragging my laptop bag around the DC metro area especially if I'm going to two or more places. Something that allows me to carry my laptop, a book and give me enough room for a small notepad would be ideal. Because my laptop gets about 3-4 hours of battery time I don't think I would need the power adapter which works out because I don't think there would be enough room for it using this sleeve.

Oh yeah, too bad it's only for Powerbooks. Doh!

The one flaw that I could find with this (other than the space limitations) is that it might cover any heat exhaust or air intake air holes. Maybe the Powerbooks it was designed for don't have these problems, but I know my Dell Inspiron 5150 gets *real* hot and when the CPU spins up it turns on the blowers for all it's worth.

Well, here's wishing...

Posted by Guy at 07:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 23, 2005

Fat Cat

I found this picture in one of my latest magazines and compared it to my fattest cat, Ophelia. This one was a little bigger than her, but not that much. Anyways, this made me laugh. Who doesn't enjoy laughing at a fat cat?

Posted by Guy at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 19, 2005

Hello

I've been in the industry in one capacity or another since about 1996. I started out as a technician, went to College, did some stuff and now I work for Intelligent Software Solutions. I live in Maryland, a relatively new transplant. Before this I lived in upstate New York in such austere places as Rochester and Marcy. For fun I program (mostly in Java nowadays), work on my EPIA and read up on the world. My favorite news sites are Slashdot.org, OSNews.com and the gadget twins Gizmodo and Engadget. Don't get me wrong, there are lots more sites that I regularly visit, but those are the ones that I check regularly.

The EPIA that I have is eventually intended to be a CarPC, but right now I'm just trying to get all my research done and an initial system built. The initial system should have the ability to play movies, music and DVDs. So far I've got it playing movies (without sound) and I have yet to test the DVD functionality. I'll post more on my EPIA adventures later.

So, that's me in a nutshell. Hi.

-Guy

Posted by Guy at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)