NYC IMC: feature/106015

NYC IMC: feature/106015

Why is this happening? This is really pushing the envelope. It reminds me of past mistakes our government has made and what we expect in China, not the US in 2004.

The guy they arrested (picture below) developed a system to 'sky write' using spray paint onto the street. He can link his bike via WiFi so you can actually send messages to the bike and write onto the street real time.

OK, what he did was to 'deface' the street. However, he got a lot of press earlier and this can actually be considered art. They could have arrested him at any time.

Why did they arrest him the day before the RNC in NYC? I think this is strictly a political issue. The Bush administration, more than any other before, has really limited personal freedom and free speech when it impacts their agenda.

I am not a Kerry supporter, at least not yet, but I find more and more troubling issues about what Bush and Chaney are doing that impact me. Extention of copyrights, Broadcast Flag, No Child Left Behind are a few that really piss me off.

If Bush is elected, its just a matter of time before Chaney gets in hot water about his (continuing) connections with Halliburton.

ALA | 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000

ALA | 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000

Its absurd that "Lord of the Flies" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" are 'black listed'.

However, "Private Parts'" is just crap and although I am against book burning, this would be a cantidate.

Windows XP SP2

I installed Windows XP SP2 on my primary home workstation. This is an Athlon XP, 512 Meg RAM, lots of disk and peripherals. I use this daily and this system has progressively been upgraded from Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 Pro to Windows XP. It has been absolutely rock solid and I run lots of test software

I installed SP2 using Windows V5 Update. The download was ~75 Meg in size and the upgrade was performed in several steps, progress displayed in an installation window.

After a restart, a few minor changes were obvious.

First, before logon, a prompt to enable Automatic Updates. The recommendation is to enable.

My workstation is a member of an AD domain and DHCP client for my local Domain Controller.

Logon was normal. After logon Windows Installer re-initialized MSN Messenger 6.2. It started normally and connected without any errors, but I didn't expect Installer to run. Similar to Office when you attempt to run an uninstalled feature.

AIM started correctly, the SP2 firewall blocked the connection, but prompted to allow access, which I OK'ed.

The only puzzling 'problem' I encountered after the install was a dialog box named 'Form1' that appeared after Outlook initialized. The dialog was blank, I closed it and no futher problems cropped up.

I checked the Firewall settings in Control Panel. My VPN connections (Windows and Cisco 4.0 VPN client) were automatically detected by the firewall and enabled.

So far, so good. I'm impressed and will install on my laptop and other systems over the weekend.

DFL - Last Place Finishes in the 2004 Olympics

DFL

Celebrating last-place finishes at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Because they're there, and you're not.

I don't know why this fascinates me, but it does. Its just good to know I ran a faster marathon than Luvsanlkhundeg Otgonbayar of Mongolia because the top women in the marathon can kick my sorry ass.

At the same time, some of the last place finishers are still quite a bit better than the average athlete. I think its an honor to compete as a true amateur in the Olympics.

Gmail Notifier

Gmail Notifier

I'm testing this now.

I think Gmail is generally useful, but its a pain to check Yet Another E-Mail Account.

If you don't have a gmail account, but are interested in getting one, let me know by sending me mail (paul at begley dot net). I have (yet another) six invitations available.

Samsung SCH-i600 phone

I upgraded from a classic Motorola StarTAC to a Samsung SCH-i600 and I am very pleased with the upgrade. I research things to death and I like to purchase the right tool for the right price and use it until it breaks or is obsolete.

My motivation was upgrading Sarah's phone before she left for college. We got a two-for deal at Verizon, but after attempting to synch the Samsung SCH-650a with Outlook, I gave up.

I had already researched phones to death and my requirements were

• Stay with Verizon
• Local synch with Outlook ~800 contacts, calendar, tasks, and Notes (if possible)
• E-Mail access min, full remote synch icing on the cake

Benefits of SmartPhone over 'commodity' phones

• no additional software or cables required
• full synch with Outlook
• inexpensive peripherals (miniSynch cable and power $12-15 each)
• greater capacity for contacts
• 'free' ringtones (copy WAV/MP3 files to phone)
• external storage using same card as camera!

Third party applications I really like (and purchased):

Power Tasks from Developer One - $15

• very flexible Task applet
• full management of Outlook Tasks
• synch w/Outlook Tasks

SmartPhone Notes - $13

• Outlook Notes not synched by default
• Synch and edit notes w/SmartPhone 2002/2003
• I maintain my to-do, shopping and other info in Notes
  

Tivo hard disk died

The hard disk in our Phillips 704 DirecTV Tivo died. It was installed 24 March 2004. This makes the Tivo disk the earliest disk failure I have ever experienced. I have some drives from the early 90's that will still spin up, but somehow the Tivo drive craps out after ~100 days.

To compound matters, it dies during the Olympics! Aaarrrggghhh! It also took with it the Lance Armstrong interview and Lance Chronicles from the 2004 Tour de France, the Judo and other Olympics finals I recorded recently and several of Megan's beloved anime programs.



To make matters worse, the exchange fee is $99 to install an 80 hour (Gig) disk. I bought a new one for $84 (with tax) and I have spare 80 and 120 Gig drives, so I might see if I can figure out if I can revive the old Tivo with a new drive.

SIRC - Passport to the Pub

SIRC - Passport to the Pub

One of the things I miss most about Ireland is the local pub.

NPR RSS Feeds

NPR %3A RSS Feeds

I like NPR.

Here is a page of RSS feeds for NPR and some NPR Member.

2004 Olympics - Hyperlink Policy

Hyperlink Policy

OK, not only are half the seats empty, but its a shame that the Greeks (home of civilization), let the lawyers loose on the hyperlink policy for the 2004 Olympic Games.

Below is exact text from published policy. A saving grace is that you can link immediately and they will contact you if there are 'issues'. I suppose they are avoiding links from 'adult content' sites, but...



In order to place a link embedded in copy interested parties should:

a) Use the term ATHENS 2004 only, and no other term as the text referent

b) Not associate the link with any image, esp. the ATHENS 2004 Emblem (see paragraph below)

c) Send a request letter to the Internet Department stating:
Short description of site
Reason for linking
Unique URL containing the link (if no unique URL than just the main URL)
Publishing period
Contact point (e-mail address)

2004 Olympics - Schedule - Results

Schedule - Results

Pretty nice site. I love the Olympics and only hope I have enough space on my Tivo...

History Timelines

parthenongraphics.com

Nice collection of timelines. Ancient Civilizations, US History, World history, Religion, Arts, Sports, others.

Back in NJ

Yeow! The Begley's are back in NJ.

It was a long trip. We stayed overnight in Greensboro, NC and drove through most of NC in the rain Sunday.

I promised Sarah that we would stop calling every hour. Our next call will be tonight to check on her first day of classes.

Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech!

Last Sunday, we left NJ to take Sarah to Georgia Tech.

WOW! What a week! We are all exhausted, but everything worked out in the end. We drove down Sunday, stopped in NC overnight and arrived in Atlanta Monday afternoon.

Tuesday we moved Sarah into her dorm and took care of some housekeeping issues. Her roommate is a very nice girl from Atlanta and we had a chance to meet her parents as well (her Dad founded a large engineering company and Mom is an Emory grad).

Wednesday and Thursday we participated in FASET (Familiarization and Adaptation to the Surrounding Environs of Tech).

Current Recommendations for Memory Optimization in Exchange 2003

Interesting article.  Its getting tougher and tougher to stay current with 'best practice' for various Server products.  I was aware of the /3BG and /USERVA switches, but not 'HeapDecommitFreeBlockThreshold'

Q:  What are the current recommendations for memory optimizations in Exchange 2003?

A:  The article 815372 “How to Optimize Memory Usage in Exchange Server 2003” mentions the current recommendations.  There you will find information about the /3GB switch as well as the /USERVA switch.   What you may not have been aware about is the recommended change in the registry having to do with the HeapDeCommitFreeBlockThreshold.  The recommended value to use for HeapDeCommitFreeBlockThreshold is 0x00040000 (in hexadecimal format). For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 315407 “XADM: The 'HeapDecommitFreeBlockThreshold' Registry Key“.

You may have noticed that the Registry key name is mentioned as either HeapDeCommitFreeBlockThreshold or HeapDecommitFreeBlockThreshold (case difference) in some articles.  While some Registry key values are case sensitive, Registry key names are not, so either should work for you.

 

UPDATE:  Changed a broken link to 315407.

Related...

[Gerod Serafin's WebLog]

Bicycle Messenger video

v i d e o g a l l e r y

OK, its pretty outrageous, but its also very slick video. I got dizzy watching the NYC 'drag race' video.