Bruce's Place to Ramble

Alcatraz, CSI and Lytro Bits...

2012-01-27T06:12:00.001-08:00

Want to read something silly about Fox's new show and what fans are now asking for on the real Alcatraz?

Fox's Alcatraz Is Cause For Annoyances On Alcatraz Tour

Have a peek-see at my thoughts on Marg's final episode of CSI... it could have been a great emotional building episode, if it weren't for the previews blowing it.

Willows Exit from CSI & How The Tension Was Spoiled with Previews

Check out these cool images taken by a very cool camera...

If You Haven't Seen This… Lytro: Pretty Interesting Image Manipulation

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BruSimm.com
BruSimm on Facebook , Twitter , Google+,
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Terminator 5 Rated-R, A Quick Review of TOUCH, AMC Network Premiere Dates and more links

2012-01-26T14:52:00.001-08:00

Below is a rough reference for some posts and I'm wondering out-loud if you folks would like to see this general bookmarking processing I'm considering using here on this site? -B

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BruSimm.com
BruSimm on Facebook , Twitter , Google+,
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Testing Post, Testing One, Two

2012-01-26T14:40:00.000-08:00

This is a test of the bruce posting system... Just checking to see what happens when a new post shows up. It's been a while... and for those of you viewing via the RSS feed, well, hello!

Wait a minute... has Google finally installed a page break on this bad boy???? Whoa.... that could change everything... again, for the umpteenth time!

Fake Movie Posters Are Annoying

2010-06-07T13:52:00.001-07:00

I am getting pretty tired of all the "fan made" posters. Are fan made posters of movies like The Avengers really worth it to you? I keep seeing artist's renditions and things folks are pulling together and mashing up. Egads, there is way too much Photoshop out there!

Mozilla Thunderbird Bits, Peet's Maple Scones, A Garmin Sale and Review

2010-03-26T19:10:00.001-07:00

Garmin's, Tec Wear and Hamburgers!

2010-03-22T06:31:00.001-07:00

Yep, I fell into the pit of needing a GARMIN GPS device. It's a good pit though...
I also happily test out a double cheese hamburger from Jeffrey's in Menlo Park and
I found LAUNDRY DETERGENT that actually can keep tec wear clean!

Get into Disney, FREE; Saving Fuel, CA Closes Parks but still Pays Rangers + more

2010-03-02T10:09:00.001-08:00

Get into Disney, FREE; Saving Fuel, CA Closes Parks but still Pays Rangers? + more

Facebook and Flashlights... no relation, it's just what I talk about today.

2010-02-14T11:42:00.001-08:00

Today I talk a bit about why Chili's left Menlo Park (It wasn't their choice), I talk about how Facebook is starting to force us into some of their marketing schemes and I talk about the handy factor of Flashlights... much to my wife's chagrin!

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Bruce

Berkshire, Favicons, Texting While Driving and more

2010-02-10T09:38:00.001-08:00

Martha Stewart, Artie Lange Suicide Attempt, Jeff Gluck, SGU and BSG

2010-01-07T20:43:00.001-08:00

Today's edition looks at the cast of SURVIVOR announced, Artie Lange's sad story, the rediculous amount of money that a Kardashian gets per tweet, who Jillian Michaels called a monkey, STARGATE UNIVERSE season 2 news, and a few other things! Have at!

Rotten Tomatoes Sold, JMS News, Dr Who Review, Bay Area High Speed Rail Noise, The Bachelor and More

2010-01-06T07:57:00.001-08:00

Here's the latest on the new website I have, my last, latest and greatest effort to break the rules and keep you informed!

Enjoy!

Time Capsule: Headlines From 6 Months (Jan) Ago

2009-07-21T04:09:00.000-07:00

Locally, Palo Alto (Palo Altans) don't want more housing in their neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the city still enforces resident-only rules in some of their parks. Go figure.
Tesla was going to move their HQ to San Jose, but the economy stopped them in their tracks. Oh... no pun intended there!
CA OK'd a mandatory 2 unpaid days off a month for CA state employees.
A low snowpack threatens to make 2009 the worst drought for CA. (That's what happens when you cultivate a desert folks!)
For some reason, identities of anti-Prop 8 donors were trying to be kept secret. A judge blocked that ruling, quoting the laws intent to protect the public. (Now why would someone dumped funds and still remain unknown? Guess they should have thought of that one before they did it!)
Ill governor Blagojevich was eviced from office... not a single lawmaker came to his defense. (Ya think!?)
Obama declared that it's shameful that Wallstreet paid their people $18 billion in bonuses, that's BILLION, while still asking for bailout money. Obama says they need to show restraint, discipline and repsonsibility.
Unemployment jumps to a 25 year high.
Royal Caribbean's 2008 fourth quarter earnings drop 98%.

Time Capsule: Headlines from 6 Months Ago, Dec 08

2009-05-06T04:10:00.000-07:00

Here are some local (Nor Cal Headlines)

7 arrested in L.A.-area protest of Propostion 8
Carlsbad man arrested in fight over Prop. 8 signs
Hundreds of Prop 8 protesters take to L.A. streets
Schwarzenegger proposes 1.5 cents sales tax increase to close budget gap
Craigslist to crack down on prostitution ads

And CNN Headlines from today, the 6th of November, 2008

Emanuel accepts chief of staff offer, aide says
CNNMoney: Dow falls in accelerated selloff
Democrat Merkley takes Oregon Senate seat
Rabid fox bites jogger, hangs onVideo
WCVB: Zoo gorilla gets colonoscopy
WNEM: Car slams into house, 2 dead
At 90, Billy Graham remains 'America's pastor'
Factors in the retail price of gas
Real 'man cave' priced at $900k
CNNMoney: Oil falls as demand woes resurface
CNNMoney: Gas prices down 2.6 more cents
CNNMoney: Gas falls to $2.45 a gallon
DOW Down 435.44 after Obama elected.
Dow tumbles below 9,000
Fidelity to cut nearly 1,300 jobs

It's Your Head: Wear A Helmet

2009-04-22T05:24:00.000-07:00

by Bruce Simmons

First I have to say that I rant because I care. I want to see people getting the best opportunities afforded to them whether it be with consumer knowledge to save money, save time, save being ripped off. At other times, I just want to vent so I can get someone thinking and maybe, just maybe, I help one person with my work. My ranting, if you will.

See the entire post over on my new publication site, Bicycle Helmet Safety at Bruce's Place of Thoughts.

Is Piracy No Longer Piracy, Or Just An Excuse?

2009-04-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

Articles around the web have been published talking about the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie leak where an uncut rough draft of the movie made its way onto the internet.

The articles question the premise of piracy and that despite the social issues, the bottom line is that it is illegal to make available, download and view copyrighted content without paying for it.

Despite the letter of the law, there's an amazing perceived gray area to the issue.

Read more after the break over on my new "Thoughts" page. (This link takes you away from Blogger.)

Time Capsule - Headlines from 6 Months Ago (Oct 08)

2009-04-01T03:42:00.000-07:00

These are headlines from early October of 2008

Market Confidence Plunges
Bailout Package Sparks a Worldwide sell-off
Bank of America Reports 68% Profit Drop
EBay To Trim 1,600 Jobs
Dow Dips Below 10,000
Rescue Plan Woes Contribute to Sell-Off
European Governments Go Their Own Way on Crisis
Fed to Provide As Much As $900 Billion In Loans to Banks
Oil Prices Fall as Financial Turmoil Heats up Worldwide
Iceland Going Broke?
All 5 Stock Market Measures drop

A chilling Headline from that week:

N. Korea to Restart (Nuclear) Facility.

I have to wonder as I put this together in October, what things will be like when this post goes to print from it's timed posting.

The day before I wrote this, I was in the dentist office getting a tooth filling and I watched the DOW drop 200 points while I was in the Dentist chair. (He's got TV's hanging over the chairs.) My filling represents a 200 point drop in the stock market.

A New Term

2009-03-26T21:51:00.001-07:00

I was chatting with someone today and called them "Snarky Dark"

They always have something pessimistic and sarcastic to say on their comments on blogs...

I like it.. Snarky Dark. Dark Snark.

What's Comcast Up To?

2009-03-26T15:36:00.001-07:00

So I got a notice in my mailbox that says I need to contact Comcast before April 6th and let them know how many TV's I have that are not on cable boxes.

They say that for me to continue to get a sub-range of channels, I need a box on these TV's. No extra charge they say. Once they found me in their database... (for some reason my only phone # didn't come up with the 3rd party they've contracted with to carry out these communications) I've got my adaptors coming.

Now all I have to do is once I receive them, hook them up, have Comcast initialize them once connected, and away I go.

My normally suspicious nature makes me a basket case when things like this happen. Why? I remember some years ago when my "cable provider" distributed a "survey" asking what channels we, the subscribers like.

Afterward, it seemed that the channels that were upvoted by many people, were then put on their own additional entertainment tiers and we were then charged more for our "favored" channels. That's why I'm nervous.

I'm waiting for this extra information to bite us in the back side later on down the road. Bookmark this post and wait. I'm a gambling man.

Travel and Your Passwords

2009-03-19T03:49:00.000-07:00

How often do you change passwords? Once in a while? Sometimes? Never?

In theory, one should change their passwords every 6 months to a year. In practice many never change their passwords because it's just too much trouble, but changing your passwords is one proactive method for protecting your online accounts, financial data and other personal information.

Concerns When You Travel
When you travel, public computers are a great sand trap for keylogger software and spyware. A multitude of users have access to the computer and you never know who's been on it last.

But you're probably thinking that these computers have password controlled access and you have to be a hotel guest to use it. Sure, but web bots can find these systems, or a disreputable user might have a network drive out on the internet that he can access his malware from and install it. For the general user, it seems insurmountable to break a login screen. To the professional, it can be a matter of minutes with the right software.

Travel Security Tips
When you know you're going to travel, change your passwords before hitting the road to online accounts you know you'll be accessing. Change them back when you get home.

If you end up using an account you weren't planning to while you're on the road, change them to something new when you get home.

When you're done using a public machine LOG OFF properly. Don't just close the window with the X in the upper right corner.

What Kind of Passwords to create / use?
When creating passwords, try using a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and or symbols with a minimum of 6 characters.

You want to make it as complicated as possible to break while still being able to remember it.

One common piece of advice is don't use things that are related to you: Birthdays, anniversaries, initials, etc..

I create sentences to make my passwords. Today is Monday the 31st or TiMt31st. Ok, that's too many t's, but you get the idea.

It's up to you to create some simple first defense to your sensitive information because if you don't, you only have yourself to blame if someone happens across your unprotected account, and I don't want you regretting any lack of action on your part and saying, I should have listened to Bruce.

It's your financial information online or on your computer. Protect it accordingly.

image: freedigitalphotos.net

Comcast And The Most Inopportune Advertising

2009-03-17T20:50:00.001-07:00

So I am trying to contact COMCAST because my cable reception was pretty iffy. So I am already somewhat miffed.

While I am on hold, it probably isn't the best time to try and advertise to me an additional service to tack onto the system that's presently ticking me off.

Do ya think?

Word Of Warning To New New Real Estate Agents

2009-03-14T04:13:00.000-07:00

It's been a few years since I got out of the real estate business and canceled my real estate license. You'd think that once you got out, you're out.

Nope.

To this day I still get loads of junk email from all these prospective business partners who have all kinds of good information to share with me.

First off, if you're going to be spamming people as a real estate professional, you should try your own domain you lazy twits. Hotmail and gmail business offers just look terrible and don't inspire anyone. - Well, at least not me.

Secondly, once you scrape the real estate association list of realtors, or buy them from the associations, you ought to do it more than once every few years. For example, Jerry AT The TallGroup seems to think that despite my using their opt-out links in their emails for the last few months consistently, that I still want their emails. Boy, do they have a surprise coming. That's because violating the spam email laws can land you a fine of up to $10k. Hope it was worth it.

IF YOU ARE THINKING OF GOING INTO REAL ESTATE:

First, you're nuts. But if you have an in, more power to you. But what ever you do, set up your email or new domain account before you jump in.

Brand yourself by using your name as your brand, but whatever you do, go make an email account that you want to give to the different associations you are forced to sign up with and pay dues to. (You see, even in an iffy economy, all the associations with their required annual education restrictions guarantees that the backing associations will still do well, regardless of the individual state of business. Nice, huh?)

I recommend Yahoo or Gmail for signing up with the associations. I leave out AOL because they filter some mail before it even gets to you and you may never see it.

If you don't plan ahead, you'll be getting 10 to 20 wonderful business offers every day AT EACH email you've used, for quit a few years to come. Yea... you see, my problem was that I used one email, then thinking I'm being smart, changed it to another. Now both are getting spammed regularly, years after the fact.

Maybe I should make a list of the spammers and publicize it... let you know who the unprofessional, desperate entities are... hmm. I like that.

Why I Like Photobucket Over Flickr

2009-03-12T03:45:00.000-07:00

I just tried uploading a bunch of pics to Flickr. I've liked the service, but found out their free service limits you to 200 viewable images. Meanwhile, Photobucket doesn't.

Flickr won't let you put video out there, Photobucket does.

I didn't look to see if there is a bandwidth limit on Flickr. Photobucket has a 25Gb monthly limit, so for most, that should be fine.

Of course, regardless of the service, you can always get around the limitations by upgrading to their pro services!

ACDSEE, You Suck My Back Side

2009-03-11T19:13:00.001-07:00

ACDSee, your accounting department / ordering process stinks.

In January, you sent me an email offer you can't seem to fulfill. 3x on the phone you said you'd contact me to take care of the problem. Helloooooo!?

Your online ordering system is asinine with no clear cut instructions until you screw up and then you get the red print or error. Only by making errors do you get the full gist of what is required.

I've tried ordering things 4 frakking times now, and your effing accounting department has put a kabosh on my name because they don't like my mailing address that I use with all my credit / cash accounts. Their online purchasing system continues to fuck it up. And calling you 4x doesn't seem to help either.

On top of this, they've blocked my name so the system won't even accept my certified paypal account that has cash in that account.

In the end, the online supervisor says they can't process my order due to complications with the address I use for running my business... They wanted me to change the business address I associate with my company for "24 hours" so they can process my order. You're kidding me right? Change my entire business infrastructure for one company... yea, right. Bullshit to you ACDSee.

I get it. You're so effing big, with 25 million customers that I don't count. No problem... Open Source GIMP it is.

Thanks for shedding light on this issue.

Sincerely, an ex 10 year standing customer.
--
Bruce

PS: Despite this going on to 3 months of banter and no one calling me back, the folks on the phone were very civil and tried their best to work with me, but they were stumped by their dumbass purchasing department.

Bah Bye Acdsee... bah bye.

When I Say "Understood" - It Really Is

2009-03-09T08:51:00.001-07:00

It's rarely a good thing when I reply with a single word, basically, "Understood." It's not bad either, but usually, it means I see the brick wall and I stop here.

I picked up this phrase after watching a show called DUE SOUTH starring Paul Gross who played Constable Benton Fraser.

Fraser was a wood-lore savy Canadian Mounted Police officer, attached to a Chigaco police precinct, for reasons that we don't need to explore at this juncture! (LOL). But the character infected me. I've most notably picked up two terms from the show that seemed to not only stick with me, but I tend to use.

One is "Thank you kindly." I use that all the time these days. It's a nice way to say thanks and it stands out.

The other phrase, I rarely use, is "Understood." Fraser used this catch phrase to reply to people who made no sense, was in the wrong or was just damn moot to the point of the situation. When there was really no point in arguing with someone, or he was on to something beyond what was being said, he tended to reply with this infamous, short, one word reply, "Understood."

Here's an example I can come up with: Fraser might be talking to a bad guy with a gun. He's asked him to put the gun down. The bad guy might say something to the affect that no, he's here to rob the store. Fraser would then say, "Understood", but with the intent that it's moot to try and talk him out of it, but that he (Fraser) will be disarming him in some form in the immediate future, but there's no reason to go into that now.

It's classic, it's meaningful and says that there is so much more going on in my head, but what is the point of me even going there? Whether it 'is understood', or 'what is understood' or 'understood by whom', it just says - "fine."

I've learned a long time ago that sometimes, trying to make your point with some folk is meaningless and a waste of everyone's time. When they're set in their ways to the point of using stubborn emotional blinders to any other process, I just don't see the point. It's better to just have an understanding and move on. Trying to get someone else to see your point when they are NEVER going to change is more frustrating than anything else.

And that, is why you sometimes see or hear my one word response, "Understood", in our conversation. For those who know me, if they care, they inquire. For others, it's a sufficient end to the conversation. "Nuff said, as it's been put.

Thank you kindly for hearing my rant.

Palo Alto Strikes Again - Thank You Daily Post

2009-03-09T07:04:00.001-07:00

I seem to like picking on Palo Alto, CA. Previously I've mentioned how they have this wonderful park up in the mountains - it's big, it's scenic, it's connected to the wildlife in the region... but oh, you can't go in unless you are a resident of Palo Alto.

That's because back when other cities had a chance to pitch in and provide funds for the land, they didn't. So the Palo Alto infrastructure struck back at everyone by saying since we paid for it, no one else can use it.

Palo Alto also started looking at some plan to charge non-residents fees to park in their city. That would also include the non-residents who own businesses in Palo Alto, but don't live there.

Now the latest fun I'm having with Palo Alto... which some around here use the term affectionately, Shallow Alto, is that over the last few months they were looking to build a new police station for their cops. It was projected to cost $80 million. Fine, I get that. But wait! After all this time, something was being overlooked.

My new favorite newspaper, called the Daily Post ran an article last week titled "Mystery Floor May Help Cops" points out that there's been this 3rd floor of the present police headquarters that is empty... and has been empty since the building was built back in 1968... crickets... 10,000 square feet of empty space, just waiting to be occupied.

Palo Alto doesn't seem to want people to come to their little neck of the woods and doesn't seem to think there's a limit on their spending. Or their vision of advancement is obscured. How do you miss an entire floor of a building? Eh, I'm not involved in the process. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation.

For now, the Daily Post is my fav paper. They're been calling out local municipalities on various issues. Red Light Traffic Cams that cost the city $6k a month for each intersection to run. Or that the Yellow Light time frames at these interesections seemed shorter than the national recomendation. Or how they've been outing the income of city officials in different locations. I liked the list from Palo Alto. Street Sweepers making $72k... librarians - $100k... the paper is a fun read.

I hope more people pick it up and read it. The only short coming is that the paper doesn't think it needs a website... so we can't visit it vicariously through the web... sorry. I'd like to see them be able to monetize an online existence. I'd be there everyday.

Making AOL Uncluttered

2009-03-05T03:39:00.000-08:00

Pondering Dropping AOL E-mail?
If you've ever pondered the idea of dropping your AOL email because you're sick of the junk in the box, but not sure if you want to try another provider, there is a way to control the influx of crap to your in-box and suddenly make your AOL email semi-useful once again!

What I've Done:
I have a particular email address I've set up that is specifically designed for interaction with 5 email addresses only and it's wonderful. No junk, no spam, (Ain't that the same?) no unsolicited offers to enhance my male talents or my wallet or my career.

Just plain old fashion communication with the persons and entities I choose. Ahh. It's good, and it does have it's drawbacks, but the empty in-box sure is nice to see.

How'd I Do That?
This method is direct from the E-mail interface, but I'm sure you can find this same option under the AOL application. That's how I initially set this up, via that 'application'.

Once you're signed in on the Email Web Interface,

Near the Upper Right corner,

Click on Settings
Find Spam Controls on the left side,
There's an option called Spam Filters by Address.
I've chosen the Custom option.

In Custom, I've added specific email addresses to only receive email from.
Type in an address and click on the '+'.

Walla!

This function does work. I've had it set up under one particular address for the last year and only received 1 email all year long. The email I want. With this setting, nothing gets put in your spam folder either. All but your permissioned email addresses get bounced.

Is There A Downside?
Hell yea! It's AOL. Everything has a downside these days doesn't it? More to the point, you need to know the email addresses of people or entities that will be sending you email and you'll have to interact with your email settings folder every time. If you don't have many of either, it's a low maintenance way of controlling the noise in your in-box. I love it.

Is This A Reason To Stay With AOL?
Hell no! I've converted to Gmail's unique system of E-mail organization and I love it. Everyone that's taken a gander at it that I've sent there has also touted it as a godsend. If you have a lot of email from various sources, GMAIL is the best way to tackle and track it all.

At first, I didn't like it because it was "different" and people in general don't like different. But in this case, different is not only good, it's dang efficient in how it handles email strings, sorting, labeling (As opposed to folders) and retention methods. Not to mention Google's Gmail gives you a ridiculous amount of disk space to use for your email.

Right now I've used 103 Mb of my 7,047 available MB's. You do the math.
http://mail.google.com

Remember, I've set up several AOL accounts for my junk or specific purposes. And maybe they haven't noticed, but anything of any importance gets forwarded to my Gmail account. Ha!

Not to mention right now, I get error messages EVERY TIME I log into AOL. Sigh. It's almost like they want us to go away.

Bowflex Recall

2009-03-04T12:11:00.001-08:00

Wow, haven't seen a recall on such a widely advertised item before, but for you Bowflex fans, here it is:

The Bowflex® Ultimate 2 Home Gyms are being recalled because the horizontal seat rail is designed to be latched in a vertical position for storage. If the seat rail is not manually latched, it can fall unexpectedly on the user or a bystander, posing a risk of serious injury. 18 injuries have been reported so far.

This affects ~ 78,000 units... a few more than their 68,000 home gym recall that took place in December of 2007!

The injuries are not minor, as some have required stitches or staples. Ouch.

What's the saying? If it doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger.

For additional info, you can contact Nautilus at (800) 259-9019 or visit www.bowflex.com

Source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

ACDSee Doesn't Want My Business

2009-02-26T06:59:00.001-08:00

When you're really big, you don't need to pay attention to the individual.

Some time ago I got an email advertisement from ACDSee that sported a package sale. Yet I couldn't order it online. And when I called to order it interactively the sales reps didn't know what the offer was either. They've sent my forwarded email to the sales coordination department (Or some such named dept) to look it over and in both cases, I was told they would get back to me.

Despite reminder emails from me as to what's up, no one replies. I've already spoken with 2 reps. Both said the same thing. I wouldn't even mind it if they came back with the excuse that it was a mistake. But instead, I get the silent blow-off treatment. Nice.

Well, there's always Picasa 3 or the much vaunted GIMP 2 or even InfanView. All free, all just as powerful.

Picasa takes some getting used to. It constantly wants to index your hard drive, no matter how many times you tell it not to. It also has a different way of showing the images. If you have privacy issues with images, I don't think this is for you.

InfanView is just that, a viewer. Works fine for me.

GIMP is complicated, but I believe to be the most effective piece of software there is out there and at least being open-source, you can get the service you expect from open-source. Unlike the service I've received after being a 10-year running loyal customer to ACDSee.

They're getting too big. I'm too small.

Locking In That Foil Roll

2009-02-26T03:35:00.000-08:00

So how often have you had the roll of saran wrap or tin foil come flying out of it's container so that you end up covering half the kitchen in either? And how many times have you wanted to take that roll box out and run it over with your car?

Now, just how long have you been using tin foil or saran wrap? Have you ever really looked at the end of your Reynolds Aluminum Foil box? No. Maybe you should. I never did until recently.

At the end of these boxes is a small printed statement that says:

"Press here to lock end"

What? Is this for real? Are you kidding me? Am I that much of a blind moron? (Don't answer that one.)

There's a perforated tab section at the end of each box that you can press in to lock that dang roll of foil or wrap inside the box so you will never have to deal with flying roll tubes again!

I just found this out and I'm amazed at how simple of an item that's there that I have never seen.

It's not on all containers, but it's on almost all of them. ... You're running off to the kitchen right now, aren't you?

Thanks to Karen, via Amy for sharing this with me.

Shoelaces Coming Untied? Sanity Threatened?

2009-02-24T11:43:00.001-08:00

Of late, my shoelaces have been threatening my levels of sanity.

I remember the days when I used to tie my shoes and forget them until I got home at the end of the day. Ah, the good 'ol days. But recent times have shown me that most brand new shoes these days come with shoelaces that seem to undo themselves within the hour after tying them.

I tried double knots, triple knots and even four knots but my latest brand of shoe has an aggressive shoelace that seems to want to desperately escape the region of my feet.

I finally took a few minutes to visit my local shoe guy... not store, a cobbler, shoe repair kind of guy and he dispensed the following wisdom upon me:

"New shoes come with Nylon laces and they don't stay. Buy the cotton laces."

What? Cotton? You kid me, right? No, he was not kidding me. I bought cotton laces, strapped them up and then discovered I now have a completely new problem. After a few years of cranking down on my nylon shoelaces in frustrated anger, it seems I tie my shoes too tight now!!! And yes... they now stay tied.

The packages don't always say what they're made of. I am lucky. My local shoe repair store stocks lots of shoelaces. He knew which ones were cotton and guided me upon my way to safer and sane bi-pedal powering!

Can Cell Phone Usage Be A Right?

2009-02-23T14:33:00.001-08:00

There's this fellow that took out a $10k bulletin board in the Bay Area venting about how the new Cell Phone law in CA is stupid and it is his right to talk on the phone whenever he wants. The impetus of the billboard is to get people to start a petition to revoke the law. ... crickets...

First off, the law isn't working here. Everyone around here has not let up one bit in regards to driving around incoherently while craning their necks to talk on their phone. No one seems to understand that a tiny little $10 ear piece would not only simplify their lives, but keep me safe.

Yea, keep me safe.

Twice I've almost been plowed under my some moron who for whatever reason has to beat that gap in traffic that is thinner than his car whilecraning their neck to talk on their fracking phone. I've seen proof that most people can barely do two things at the same time, never mind three. That is if you count balancing that gelatinous mass of what some would call a brain over the precious cell phone, while dodging oncoming traffic and gunning it to make their aggressive left turn cutting the traffic pattern and almost clipping me. Oh, wait. That's four things if you count trying to run me down.

So to the fella that thinks it's his right to talk on the phone while driving, I guess he feels it's his right to make it an even set of odds of running me down in the process too!

This feels like a similar scenario where people are saying that flashlight the registers alcohol on their breath is a vioation of their civil rights. Frack you! If you're driving toasted, you give up your rights. Do you really think it's your right to plunder about and put people at risk from your intoxicated effort at manuevering your multi-ton vehicle with your crossed up eyes and buzzed brain in the dark of night while little lights from cars and intersections blink away annoyingly? - Give me a break.

Some folk need to take inventory. That's all I'm saying.

ACDSee: Where Art Though

2009-02-23T04:01:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back I received a promotional Valentine's Day e-mail. It was set to expire by the end of February so I sat on it for a week. Last week, I decided to partake in their newest deal that ACDSee sent me.

Disclaimer: I've been a very happy customer of ACDSee software since it's inception MANY years ago when it was free-ware.

So last week (Thursday) I logged onto the website, went through their enitre process and at the end of the process, I get the message that transaction can't be processed. Hmm? I tried 3 different times, different browsers, etc. Same results. WTH?

Last Friday I spoke with a sales rep of ACDSee who said he will put the order in and get it going and I will be notified when I can get my product. THAT WAS A WEEK AGO! Oh, and I had to send him my email because he couln't find the special offer I was looking at.

So here's my observations on the issue so far:

Digital River handles their product ordering. Digital River needs to update their error messages. If you don't format the Cr Cd number properly, it doesn't tell you that, it just says there's an error in my order.

When it tells me it can't complete the transaction, it gives no explanation. I've seen better sites give much better feedback in terms of my order windows. I am leery of DR.

I'm also miffed that though it's been a week, no one has contacted me. I called last night to find out that the order was ix-nayed and the sales person can't tell why. Their own sales person! So they tried putting the order in again, and even the sales person got an error message.

So here I wait, day 7, for trying to purchase a download from ACDSee. Are they getting too big for their britches. I can say they sure don't seem to know what the L and R hands are doing. Not if they're sending me special offers they don't even know about.

Despite all that, I still am fizzled about the fact that no one called or emailed me to say there's an issue. They just left me hanging. We'll see how it goes after yesterdays call.

More to follow.

PETA Defends Nudity

2009-02-21T07:59:00.000-08:00

This is just an opinion from the hip, but I passed by a TV where PETA was trying to defend itself in a FOX News interview on it's approach to its campaign where they pitch nude stars to promote not wearing real fur or to become a vegetarian.

So basically, reverting to the "sex sells" theme, to me starts to cheapen them. They no longer stand above the rest. Now they are swimming with the rest.

I have nothing against PETA. To each their own, but I don't think people draped in skimpy rags or angled in such a way to see most of their body and calling them naked are going to persuade people one way or the other. If someone already is leaning towards the idea of not wearing fur, well, they probably already are. If not, this won't do it. And if it does, are they a keeper of a client, or just someone outside the 1% retention sales effort that will flit in and flit out when they find they don't have the focus to be a friend of PETA.

I mean come on now if I came across this,

: Annalise Braakensiek posing "nude" for PETA

I'd um... ah, be willing to have a conversation on the virtues of not being cruel to animals... yea. Cute lamb, huh?

But they do have some incredibly awesome causes under their PETA umbrella. They just seem to have an overtly aggressive way of approaching some of them...

The present video on PETA TV at their website, PETA, shows one of their programs where they build dog houses for families who can't afford them. It's a sad vid. Of course, now that they're into staging things, can you believe them? This is where their credibility comes into play now.

I WAS going to host a few YouTube vids here, but they're too graphic for my taste and you need to be warned if you go to these links, they HAVE GRAPHIC KILL AND TORTURE SCENES.

YouTube Vid 1: Official PETA video, Vid 2: Exotic Animal Cruelty.

After seeing these, maybe the nude angle ain't so bad. At least I can stomach that!

Menlo Park (And Surrounding Areas) Raising Their Trash Rates

2009-02-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

The City of Menlo Park, CA obviously has some issues, just like the rest of us do. Why?

We just got a notice that the City of Menlo Park is raising its solid waste trash rates by 24%. Oh, and though you just got the letter, it's retroactive to January 1st. It must be nice to do what you wish with your business practices, unlike the businesses they govern.

They're raising the rates to give the contractor a rate of return based on approved costs.

And even though renters are the ones that are paying the bill, the notice is written to such that only the home owner can write a petition letter.

Ouch and thank you MP. Will you at least provide the lubricant?

Fine... I thought I'd look into what I can do to reduce my costs. The reason I thought I could was that I have this giant blue thing (96 gallon wheeled beast) and most of my neighbors have smaller, store bought cans.

Turns out the service I was given was the most expensive service they have. They base their service costs on the size of the can!

So if a 96 gallon trash can costs $185 for 3 months, a 45 gallon can costs around $80 for 3 months. Zoinks! Here's one time where downgrading is a good thing.

The moral of the story is when you sign up for services, ASK about your options. ASK if there are options! ASK ASK and ask some more.

Silent Hunter III, A Moment In The Storm

2009-02-21T07:53:00.000-08:00

The storm was horrendous. More so than I thought. All I wanted to do was get to my patrol zone and settle in for 24 hours. Despite having set my engines to flank speed, we were only doing 14-15 knots. I didn't realize how bad it really was as the bow dipped down deep into the water then lifting completely out of the water.

Suddenly through the sleet I saw what I thought was a cloud of lighter grey mist but as we charged in closer, I realized we were headed straight for a C2 Tanker. It was less then 400 meters away!

I bellow hard to port, all emergency back! The horrid part was waiting for the crew to respond to the orders. It felt like forever but finally the rudder was slammed left, the engines strained against the storm.

Our boat was turning and slowing. We were still headed towards the tanker but despite being tossed in and out of the ocean, it looked like we were going to be ok. We could reach out and touch the tanker from the conning tower bridge.

I was just about to start pondering how I'm going to take this tanker down. The weather is so bad my sonar and radio guys never detected it. No one spotted it from the deck. We started to back off to trail it.

As we dropped back from the tanker, I thought they were shining a spot light on us because the ship lit up. Suddenly I turned around and there the source of the light was. A patrol boat was rushing down on us no more than 200 meters out.

Bullets ripped across the water toward the boat, ripping into the forward deck, taking out the deck gun. Crap! We had no options, I had to get away from that beast and put the tanker between us.

I order a crash dive, rudder hard to starboard. Yes, into the tanker. My hope was to get under it and put it between us and that pesky patrol boat who let rip with another salvo of bullets and a cannon shell taking out a part of our batteries. Watching the bullets striking the water, the bullet splishes coming straight at us was not a good site. Down went the flak gun... oh well, it's fairly useless anyway. I've hit quite a few planes with that thing, but never brought anything down.

Waiting... that's all it is now. 50 hours of boredom, 50 seconds of trauma, followed by the waiting. Ug, the waiting. The depth meter is semi-useless, but as we pass the 15 ft depth mark we've hit nothing, so I order a hard to port manuever all the while at flank speed.

All I want to do is get lost in the noise of the tanker. After I hit my desired direction, I order all slow while the damage repair crew works on the batteries. Gulp!

All in all, we silently dropped to a 70 meter depth and just putted away from the danger zone. Now the sonar man is reporting in. Apparently I was in the middle of a convoy and we never saw them. Thanks bud.

Lowering Your Property Taxes Is Free

2009-02-20T11:40:00.001-08:00

I just received an email from my county Assessors Office reminding me that a "A "Decline in Value" request is FREE to any homeowner".

a property owner requests a Decline in Value review by filling out a simple form and sending to the Assessor's office (online, by fax, mail or in person). It only takes a couple of minutes to complete.

They are warning me of this because apparently many tax payers are getting "offers' by private corporations to lower their tax rates for a fee. (That's pretty efffed up!)

I've previously written about how your taxes took off with the property boom, and now in this recession, your taxes should be going down with your house values.

So folks - Keep your eye out, don't pay someone to do something for you that's free, and be aware. This isn't specifically a scam perse, but it still sort of reeks!

--
Bruce

Rodale News Is Aggressive Spam Source

2009-02-19T03:32:00.000-08:00

Apparently I signed up for something. What I didn't know was that what I singed up for has an s**t load of sources to send me "email" from.

The website that I'm getting pummeled from is *@rodalenews.com. This is my own fault, but still, I am getting besieged with spam from them.

I've received PVNews, bikenews, enews & MHNews@Rodalenews.com. Those are the ones I've tracked. I couldn't tell you what others I've received.

Each email address has an "opt out" option that I use, but because they are from different sources under RodaleNews, they legitimately can keep spamming me.

So word of caution: If you hate signing up for spam from a company that uses technicalities to continue spamming you, beware of whatever@rodalenews.com!

2008 Internet Usage Stats

2009-02-16T04:07:00.000-08:00

Here's some interesting statistics for ya:

The 10 more popular purchases that were made online were

books,
clothes,
travel arrangements,
gifts,
CDs,
videos,
electronic goods,
software/games,
products for hobbies, and
computers/peripherals.

Hmm, I tapped 4 of those myself last year!

16% of internet users checked for facts on a daily basis,
7% went online to look up definitions. (That's a good sign!)

On a weekly basis, internet users were involved in the following:

E-mail (96% )
Internet surfing without a specific destination (71%)
Looking for news online (60%)
Finding product information (43%)
Conducting online banking or other financial services (38%)
Instant messaging (37%)
Playing online games (35%)
Searching for humorous content (25%)

source: Center for Media Research

Sap-Spammy Comments Do Not Help Your Site

2009-02-12T03:24:00.000-08:00

An Observation by Bruce E. Simmons

As I traverse the web-o-sphere I can't help but notice how folk leave comments on the more popular sites.

I get it.

Leave a comment on a site that gets 25k visitors a day, and you are bound to snag ONE visitor to your site because in some magical way, they actually ended up clicking on your website link that you embedded with your name on your incredibly insightful comment. I get it and more than likely the commentator is a new blogger who doesn't get how to properly grow their blog traffic and might be taking the easy way out.

Something to Know
First off, be aware that the comment section in Wordpress based blogs don't contribute to your own SEO.

Second off, comments like

"This is some really good info."

just doesn't inspire anyone to take notice of you. In fact more than likely, this kind of comment annoys people, if they even pay attention to it. Why? because it's a reactionary, self centered type comment. It's not impressive and appears to be a blatant effort to get attention.

If you want to impress people, leave comments that extend the subject matter or add depth to it.

More importantly, leave your comments where people actually do interact with each other.

Find Sites Where Comments Are A Community
Watch the comment patterns. Over on ProBlogger, it seems to me that people are leaving comments in the hopes of generating their own traffic. Why do I think that? Because it's rare to see the comment authors interact with each other to further the conversation.

I've popped in on several posts and leave comments that are responses to previous comments and no one responds back. You can dang near insult someone but they don't take note because they've come, they've spammed, they left. It's rather disappointing and I've given up trying to ignite conversation.

There are sites where the comment section is an active participation of a subject. Those are refreshing and it helps weed out the "brighter" folk. And when I mean active participation, I don't mean Digg or Topix style commentary where within half a page people are calling each other colorful names. That's not the constructive participation I'm thinking about.

It's hard to find a blog where comments extend the subject with constructive conversation. ScreenRant.com is one such site. They've got tremendous depth of knowledge and the readers that visit the site often further the conversation in the comments section. Sites like that are a goldmine... if you don't spam it.

Spamming is obvious. It's rude. It's the odd man out kind of feel and if it's a blatant spam, you'll find your comment left out in the dark when one of the admins catches it.

In Closing
Do yourself a favor. If you don't have something to add, resist. In the long run, it will help you. You'll learn to read into the conversation more critically and you will find in time that this talent will help you leave constructive comments. The kind that do catch readers attentions and will help you generate traffic.

SpyWare Detectors: A Reader Asks A Question

2009-02-09T04:19:00.000-08:00

The question posed to me was:

Some “experts” have say you should employ at least two spy ware detection programs since this stuff comes in so many forms. But I've However, I have also heard that running more than one of these programs at a time can cause problems if you are not careful about their compatibility. What's your take on this?
~~~

Bobby: I haven’t come across any blaring outcry of conflict issues BUT with that being said, you probably don’t want to run any of these programs simultaneously, but there are good resolutions within reach of any user. If you don’t already have spyware detection embedded in your AntiVirus software, there are apps you can purchase or processes (Like Yahoo’s or Google’s Toolbars) that you can get for free.

Different applications come with different sets of rules, so multiple platforms are good ideas. But if you are running an app fulltime in the background, you probably want to play it safe and only have one running. This can eliminate that potential system conflict you're worried about, and possibly prevent resource usage bottlenecks and what not. You can always check with your software provider for potential conflicts.

Additionally, there are some good free utilities out on the web to scan your system with. The most heavily used and relied up free spyware removal programs for automated spyware detection and removal are Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D and the recently introduced Microsoft Anti-Spyware.

I use Ad-Aware and Spybot. When I run scane, I run Ad-Aware first, then follow up with Spybot. They compliment each other very well

Check out these links below for good reading in regards to your question:
PcWorld

Geeks.com

Cnet.com

Techrepublic.com

Cnet.com

I’m including the below link for the frightening statistics on the right side of their web page: http://security.utm.edu/spyware.php

Thanks for the question.

Human Nature Looking For New, Wanting Things and Twitter

2009-02-05T08:26:00.001-08:00

I found an interesting aspect on the attitude of new and existing social media websites:

Social networks (SN) flourish with early adopters, who are by nature fickle when it comes to technology and any bright shiny object, but social networks have difficultly embedding themselves in the mainstream.

They are referencing the ability of a SN to not only last, but flourish. The writer said that when his wife is familiar with a technology, it has crossed over into the keeper side of passing websites!

Which is interesting. Obviously a site like Twitter had something everyone liked because it flourished despite itself. IE: In the early days, it was always down due to heavy traffic demands. Yet people come back. Some folks have their website go down once, and that's it... off to another provider. I don't blame that attitude. When you run a website you don't want interruptions. Yet I don't think I've ever encountered any website, anywhere, that hasn't been down at least once. My rule of thumb: Give anything and anyone at least 2 chances. After that, it's hatchet time!

Back on track:
This is a fantastic example of human nature in and of itself with regards to the "bright shiny object" catch. People don't always think ahead. They sometimes don't even think. They see, they want, they do. Something new, leave the old behind. See the green light turning yellow, go go go. Don't bother looking for anyone else running their light.

As it was put once, people only seem to be able to see what they can hold in their hand, now.

Fascinating: A Bit About Digg Financials

2009-02-05T04:20:00.000-08:00

Here's some fascinating info on Digg from an article, Digging For Digg's Revenue Model
by Catharine P. Taylor; MediaPost Publications :

(n 2007 Digg made $4.8 million and a posted a loss of $2.8 million.

Through 2008's first three quarters, it had $6.4 million in revenue (good news!), but lost $4 million (bad).

In other words, it's not even close to being profitable. (I can report the numbers because BusinessWeek had the good fortune, or the reportorial chutzpah, to secure a copy of privately held Digg's most recent financial statement. )

I'm dazzled by the numbers, but not surprised. Digg is a pretty central focus point of social networking on the web, which in turn draws others along the way. It's a hard beast to ignore, especially for the serious blogger.

Here's the BusinessWeek article, if interested.
Thought you'd be interested!

Generating Commentary on a Post

2009-02-03T05:45:00.001-08:00

Over on ProBlogger, they offer suggestions on how to generate comments, and thus some form of traffic on a post.

Their suggestions are:

    * Start a Debate
    * Ask for Advice
    * Ask for Tips
    * Ask for Examples
    * Ask for Experiences
    * Give Opportunity for Self Promotion **
    * Run a Poll

And thus, making the post about the comments.

All great and dandy, if you have traffic already. The problem I see though is that it is embarrassing to ask a question where the post is dependent upon already having traffic! I hate asking what I think is a real good question, only to have the post sit empty and unresponded (Is that actually a word??) to!

This does not generate comments unless you already have traffic. Plain and simple.

**Giving the opportunity for self promotion is a nice idea, but in most cases, it truly is self promoting. Promoting to yourself. A lot of blogs that generate tons of comments, well, the commentating participants skip right to the comment section and don't even see the other comments, and most of the comments in blogs like that don't even contribute to the subject. They're mostly chest thumping link bait posts saying, "great post!" Blah.

But once you are already a traffic generating blog, then, yes, these are all great ideas. All of them.

See, for me, my big question in life, if I were to ask the blog reading community right now, is: Where the H*** does one find show laces that don't untie themselves in less than an hour?

Yea, it's a life bender indeed! Every pair of shoes I buy, they have cheap ass shoelaces that tend to not hold the knot you make, and you find yourself within the hour retying your shoes. That makes for several back stretching sessions a day! Unless you triple or quadruple knot them. Then they look stupid!

But since my blog sits in a quiet corner of the internet, I'll probably come back to this in a few months and answer my own question if I've found the answer myself. Oh my, so now I'm talking to myself. Great!

Is Jack In The Box Killing Jack - Again?

2009-02-02T07:14:00.001-08:00

I have a quick write up on the Jack ad at Cinema Static.

Computer: Some Internet Myths and Premises

2009-02-02T04:05:00.000-08:00

I came across an article that touches on some popular perspectives that they either diss or support. Here are a few items of interest:

If you type a URL into your browser, you're safe from phishing attacks.

There's still the possibilities of "pharming" or "domain name poisoning" attacks. These two processes intercept legitimate URLs and redirect the web requests to bogus sites.
~~~

Google finds everything on the Web, and once it has your information, it can't be removed.

Google will only find things on the web, if other sources link to it. This is a form of validation in their search engine code.

Ya know what I say? If you don't want information found, then don't put it on the Web. Or password protect the web page the information is on!
~~~

You're fully protected when you buy something on eBay.

There are some protective measures when you use PayPal that soothe myself, but nothing is fool proof in the long run, depending on your spending practices.

If you pay via some other means, like personal checks, money orders or wire transfers, the ball is entirely in your court of daring trust. Especially with nonphysical items like software or electronic documents.
~~~

Rechargeable batteries are more cost effective than disposable ones.

The most cost effective use of rechargeable batteries depends upon the type of battery you choose and how often you use your gadgets.

For instance, daily bicycle riders who end up using their headlights every day, rechargeable batteries are the way to go. Rechargeable batteries for a flashlight you use once in a blue moon is a different story.
~~~

'Unlimited' 3G broadband access really is unlimited.

When service providers tout unlimited high-speed data plans, you rarely have free rein over what you can do with that bandwidth and the words used could sometimes be considered a liberal use of terms or a product available that maybe you can't afford.

In some cases, some carriers have skeletons in their unlimited closets.

One carrier advertised"unlimited" broadband that really wasn't. Although EVDO subscribers could surf the Web and send and receive e-mail, the terms of service forbade them from uploading or downloading files, viewing Webcams, or using Voice over IP services. The company also placed an undisclosed 5GB cap on each account.
~~~

Airport X-ray machines can damage or erase your digital camera's memory card.

The Transportation Security Administration puts it succinctly: "Our screening equipment will not affect digital cameras and electronic image storage cards." As some independent testing may also support.
~~~

Here's my favorite that disses those stupid Mac ads that seem to push the idea that macs are above all the issues that windows pc's have:

Macs are safe from malware attacks

Mac users had their misguide perceptions tested when a security researcher took home a $10,000 prize for remotely hijacking a MacBook Pro running Mac OS 10.4. It took him less than 10 hours to uncover a vulnerability and set up a Web page to exploit it.

In a later interview, Dai Zovi declared the Mac OS to be less secure than Vista. Duh.
~~~

Color inkjets that use combination ink cartridges cost more to run than those that use separate cartridges

That could be true because when you use multiple color cartridges, you only have to replace one of them and not the whole kit and kaboodle.
~~~

If someone has hacked your PC or turned it into a zombie, you'd know about it.

Nope. Most people don't catch when their systems slow down a tad or have heavier than usual disk activity.

Additionally, if you're unlucky enough to get snagged by one of the top tier hackers, Malware can often shut down your antivirus software, firewall, or Windows Update service software and then it can operate freely and you may never know it.
~~~

source: PCWORLD.
Image source: Wikipedia Commons
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Obama Snaps At Wall Street

2009-01-31T03:28:00.000-08:00

Filed Under Common Sense?

President Obama declared it shameful that while Wall Street cried for federal aid, they were paying out $18 BILLION in bonuses.

Obama called for some future restraint, discipline and repsonsibility from the greedy Wall Street types.

Change is definitely coming!

If You Believe In Something

2009-01-31T03:24:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting bit: Cash donors who were in support of opposing CA's Prop-8 want to remain anonymous for some reason.

A group tried to make it happen, but a judge squashed the idea and said the law is there to protect the public.

My take? They should have thought of this one before they stuck their foot in our business! I have to wonder what they're worried about? Losing 1/2 their business once their beliefs are found out?

Satellite Radio Doomed To Fade?

2009-01-29T04:06:00.000-08:00

Satellite Radio Tidbits
According to Business Week, Sirius XM will end 2008 with 19.1 million subscribers and a mere 7.9% growth anticipated for 2009.

MP3
Did you know that the enemy of Satellite radio is the MP3 format? It was first developed in 1987 and became a viable market in 1999 through an entity called SubPop.

iPod Time
In 2001 Steve Jobs introduced the iPod. Then iTunes followed to sell licensed music to the consumer.

Apple has sold 174 million iPods. iPods and other MP3 players are the device of choice today for music listening.

The expansion of the iPod/MP3 player market into phones, plug in systems to play at home, cars with jacks built in, etc. means that iPods and generic MP3 players will be the hardware format for sound in the future. Music, news, features, etc. RIP, Sirius XM. It's only a matter of time.

Source: Podcasting Killed the Satellite Star, by David L. Smith. Media Post Publications

Welcome to CA, Now Gimme Your Money

2009-01-28T20:54:00.001-08:00

It was announced tonight on the news that CA will not be giving back tax refunds. This was bound to happen sooner or later the way the state has been going over the last few years, and this economic ping was the straw that broke the camels back.

Bowling: How To Improve Your Game - Pt 1: Your Target

2009-01-27T08:13:00.001-08:00

by Bruce Simmons
PBA member since 1995

This short informational tutorial is directed at mid to entry level bowlers who average up to around 150 or 160.

So you hit an all time high in your average but you feel stuck. You just can't get past that damn average mark you seem to be stuck with? What's up? Well, let's break it down to a few components on what it takes to knock some pins down.

Bowling Ball:
That's a given. Right? Do you have the bowling ball (gear) best suited for you? Is it the latest and greatest on the market? Don't you dare tell me it's a house ball! Having the newest ball is not critical. I've seen someone with tons of talent use 10 year old gear to dust the league in average.

Shoes:
A decent pair of bowling shoes will last forever and really make a difference in the long run. Good shoes are, well, good to have and last so much longer than the "affordable" ones.

Approach:
Do you have a consistent approach? Does it incorporate balance in the equation? I've seen all kinds of different approaches in the PBA. As long as it's consistent, you're fine.

Power:
Are you generating sufficient power? Power can help at the pocket, but usually when people try to generate power they think it means throwing the ball harder. Nope. Throwing harder pulls your shot off and makes for an inconsistent shot. Power comes from a combination of factors.

Release:
Does everything come out at the time it is supposed to come out? A consistent release helps predictability, and can actually help in generating power, but not in the way you think it does.

Follow Through:
Is your follow through consistent? Yes, what you do after you let go of the ball can be beneficial to your game.

Reading The Lane Oil:
Are you playing the correct part of the lane? Most days, proprietors want you to come back, so they set up pretty easy lane conditions. Still, if you're playing the wrong area, that won't matter.

Hitting The Pocket:
Did your ball hit the pocket decently enough? Getting to the pocket is important, but can you get there every time?

Spares:
Can you pick up those spares? Spares are pretty important in this game. Getting all spare games can get you in the 190 average range. An occasional strike in those all spare games can push you over a 200 average, easy.

Hitting Your Target: <-
Despite everything else, can you hit your target? Do you approach it consistently? Roll over it consistently?

If you can't hit your target every time, or most every time, then all of the other things above are completely moot.
That is the principal we need to think about today. How do we hit the target consistently. Once you master hitting your target, everything else can be developed off of that.

Hitting your target comes from a decent approach, smooth release, decent follow through and believe it or not, some grace and balance on your part!

That's what I have for you today. A principal. Everything noted above comes together over the target. If you can't hit your target, you won't be consistent in your spare game. You won't have a shot at the intermittent of semi-common strike we all covet.

There is also luck in the game. Of all my 300's, I can't say I've hit the target every time in each game, but being there on the target area definitely helps. Being consistent helps, big time.

Next time around, I'll touch on just how to get to your target in a consistent fashion.

Thanks for coming by. Feel free to leave questions or comments.

GM Full of Nasty Liars?

2009-01-26T13:49:00.001-08:00

The auto makers went to the feds begging for money so they would not fail.

Now GM is letting 2,000 people go? 1,200 in Lansing MI. Feds, take back your money.

yahoo news,

Computer: Internet Censorship and Whole Governments

2009-01-26T04:01:00.000-08:00

It seems some governments wish to control certain aspects of online exposure these days.

According to a report I've come across, 26 of 40 countries that were surveyed utilize some degree of software filtering.

China, Iran, Syria, Tunisia, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Morocco, and Singapore were mentioned as countries actively filtering its citizens.

The study found that many of the Middle Eastern countries mainly filtered international news while Saudi Arabia censored political sites, pornography and gambling. Tunisia censors pornography, human rights and political opposition to the government. South Korea enabled filters to eliminate North Korean web sites.

I personally know someone who had a dickens of a time accessing sites because they were blocked while he was in China, covering the Olympics.

For more details, see the dailytech.com article.
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Blog Social Traffic Spikes And The Fun Of It

2009-01-24T09:02:00.001-08:00

Darren Rowse wrote about how one of his blogs had a 250k spike in traffic from some decent StumbleUpon and Digg awareness for a DPS post on Long Exposure Photography.

He wrote about the traffic zoom on ProBlogger and just dissected the day and how it developed to the point of tapering off.

There were a few things he touched on, and a few things the visitors commented touched on and what I had to say! The post had the usual number of shameless or spammy comments and a few good comments. See! I do read the comments because if you have a good following, the comments help extend or add to the subject at hand. I added my 1.5 cents to the fray also!

I've had good Digg and StumbleUpon traffic on occasion and it's kind of fun to follow and then the let down comes as the excitement dwindles, but you're left with the appreciation of how someone saw fit to submit your post, and then further appreciation as others followed suit for whatever reason.

Darren touched on the spike in Ad Revenue and the potential 1-2% conversion to permanent readers. The ad revenue will go back to normal but he did hit on a solid, static number of converted permanent readers with that 1-2% conversion estimation.

I can attest to that percentage number. I spent some years in sales and this will support how cold calling and email spamming works. In the day, about every 100 contacts, whether it be via phone or email converted usually into at least 1 interested buyer. Usually, after about 50 interested buyers chatted me up, 1 to 2 of them converted into a transaction.

On the almost down side of getting a spike in traffic, you best have a good hosting plan with your provider! I suspect Darren purchased sufficient services to hold up, but a lot of folk can only afford what sustains them and this kind of traffic spurt tends to hurt their bandwidth and they go dark until they have at least a one time resolution with their provider. Unless you have money to spare and already have a decent traffic rate for your services.

Any day of the week, a blogger would love to see spikes in traffic. Sometimes it confounds me, but I am still, always appreciative, and hopeful! Me? I gave up on "building" my blog and now, I just speak my mind and let the cards fall where they may. I also us my blog as a kind of bookmark service for myself. LOL. That makes me more picky what I bookmark, and keeps the important stuff right where I know it is, no matter what computer I am on, but internet bookmarks? That's a topic for another day.

Wanna Be A Nemesis?

2009-01-23T23:17:00.001-08:00

A buddy of mine pointed me to an interesting CraigsList post from Toronto, Canada from a man who's looking for a "nemesis" who will "keep him on his toes".

Someone who on occasion spill his coffee, trip him, etc.. He says complacency will be the death of him. Too bad I don't live up near him. This sounds right up my alley.

Check out his request at Craigslist. Anyone in Canada can make themselves a quick $700.

AOL Announces New Web Email Interface - Oh Goody

2009-01-23T10:34:00.001-08:00

I've done nothing but complain about AOL email. With my issues, I come from a few perspectives: I want email I can trust & not be inundated with ads. Yet I can't say that about AOL email. First, let me present to you the press release from Time Warner, the parent company of AOL:

AOL's Products and Technologies Group today announced the launch of an enhanced version of AOL Web Mail that offers users one-click access to Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and a variety of third-party sites and destinations directly from the AOL Web Mail page, http://mail.aol.com. Over the past year, AOL has added more than 30 new features and a variety of new functionality to Web Mail in an effort to make it more open to third-party content and to offer more monetization opportunities to advertisers. The new version is being released globally, making it available in more than 38 countries and locales around the world.

Back to my rant:

I've experienced email that's been actively blocked, even from my spam folders. That's happened numerous times in the last few months. They're usually confirmation emails, that both Yahoo and Gmail receive within seconds of signing up. Hmm.

I also don't want to be bothered with AIM or dragging my personal information into AOL itself. Yet it keeps taking up 1/3 of my email screen everytime I login.

There's a reason I have different providers and a reason I use and maintain a password schedule. Having AOL be my central point for "all things email" just sounds like an interesting way to consolidate your competition into one spot and try to slide customers your way. It reminds me of bloggers who quote content from other popular blogs to try and generate their own traffic based ad revenue off the same subject matter. They are called scrappers. AOL a scrapper?

I like my security, I like my privacy. That's why I don't share my info, why I don't let online services "remember" my passwords and what not. Yet my woes and my own personal concerns may be just that, something only I have an issue with.

Time Warner further reported that with 48 million users, their email service was the 2nd most popular free e-mail service. They clumped that statistic from all of AOL proprietary email, AOL.COM Mail and AIM Mail users. Interesting padding. Don't you love how you tweak numbers to make you look good. I can say I'm the No. 2 ranked Alexa site! Or more accurately, Google is ranked No. 2, and the services I use, and hence provide to you, of theirs are an extension of them.

So maybe my web woes are just my own. Maybe you aren't so critical of missing email. Or why I prefer Gmail now a days. And maybe I'm too hyper-sensitive about paying for AOL e-mail services and still suffer the advertising footers. Am I too picky about my daily error message from AOL? (web woes). Or that I didn't like how it SEEMED I had no options when it came to upgrading AOLVR. (See my prefer Gmail link above.) Actually that post is from October. That's how long I've seen these error message.

Well, maybe this is my last AOL rant. (I've said that before, haven't I?) But then again, I keep getting errors. Maybe they've seen my rants and that's why I get error messages. Who knows. If you've happened upon this article and say, I know what he's talking about, well then, you're not alone.

source: time warner press release

PetSmart Dog Snack Recall

2009-01-22T10:44:00.001-08:00

Excerpts from PetSmart Website:

With the recent FDA announcement of a salmonella investigation involving peanut butter products distributed through the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), ...... we are conducting a voluntary recall as a precautionary measure and have removed these products from our shelves and website.
Effective January 20, 2009, PetSmart® is conducting a voluntary recall of seven of our Grreat Choice dog biscuits (peanut butter and assorted flavors). The recall affects U.S. stores only. We initiated the recall after determining these products sold between August 21, 2008 and January 19, 2009 contain peanut butter product linked to the salmonella recall announced by the FDA.

See the details on PetSmarts recall webpage. (It loads slow because we dog owners are ALL looking at it!)

AOL Web Email Woes - Error Code: C0FE1700

2009-01-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

You would think that after several months, AOL would actually try and fix their internet E-Mail interface. But that's just me.

Maybe they are quietly trying to coerce you to install their software? I don't know, but that's something I will never ever do again. It has behavior that I don't like, so I play it safe a keep their hands out of my stuff.

Every single day I see this the first time I log into AOL. Subsequent logins are fine. I suspect it's because I minimize the AOL services running in the background.

If you look at their suggestions, they want you to clear your cookies, clear your cache, clear your head... whatever. I've been encountering this on 4 different computers, and on FireFox and Internet Explorer both for months now, but they don't seem to motivated to make this issue go away.

I'm also tired of the new side panes where they're trying to shove AIM down my throat or try to get me to add all my different email login accounts to their service. Are you NUTS! The last time I played with AOL software, (AOLVR) when I got done installing it, it had, without asking, snatched all my email contacts and what not from my address books on my computer. No-No! My computer is my personal zone. Keep out AOL.

Sigh... it's not even good for junk mail anymore since they block emails at THEIR source now instead of send 100% of your email to your inbox. Sigh. That's OK... it's like fire. As long as you know it will burn you, knowing how to handle it still makes it a useful tool!

I've got on email address that's perfect for me. I've restricted it to only receiving email from 5 different email accounts and that's it. Flawless, in a restrictive sense.

Thank you for letting me vent!

Related Links

AOL is Blocking Email For You And Why I Like Gmail or Yahoo

Reduction of Services From AOL - The Beginning of the End?

AOL is Blocking Email for You...

AOL Email Footers - Paid or Not

Red Light Cams Are Money Makers

2009-01-22T04:28:00.000-08:00

In the Dec 22nd edition of the Daily Post (Nor Cal, Bay Area, Peninsula based paper) they put out some numbers that seemed pretty interesting about those traffic light cameras that are popping up all over the place here.

In San Mateo County, they're raking in $50k a month from those things. That's from only 3 of them.

The camera are managed by an Australian company called Redflex and each intersection with cameras cost $6k per month to maintain. In other intersections, these cams are taking just under 500 pics a month. At just under $400 a ticket, that's a nice profit if you twiddle with the math.

Menlo Park slapped 3 cameras in and received over $35k in fines in 5 1/2 months since their installations.

There's a quirky catch though.

Some say the cameras aren't fair. I don't know how that is. If you run the light, you get an Effing ticket. Seems fair to me. In fact, to help make it fair, quit gunning it from 1/4 block back when the light turns yellow. Oh! There's a thought. But I guess you're in too much of a rush, for some unnamed reason that even you can't come up with, huh driver?

In Menlo Park I watched when they installed these intersection cameras. There was definitely a ramp up time. At first they would go off when no one was in the intersection. Then I'd noticed that they were going off even when people are not breaking the law. (It's easy to figure it out when you're sitting on your bicycle at 6:00 AM in the morning and there's only 2 cars at the intersection.) Heck it went off once when I was alone on my bicycle!

I myself got my picture taken in my vehicle and I wasn't doing anything wrong. I got my left turn arrow, heading S on El Camino Real, turning left onto Ravenswood. Light (arrow) turned green and as I started to go, I got the camera flash. Hmm.

A few days later I called the Menlo Park PD to inquire about the accuracy of the things. It seems they're taking so many pictures that they hired an extra staff member to review the associated video tape what is taken with the picture snapping to make sure they're good pics.

The reason I called was there was an article in the paper on how one man had spent over 15 hours fighting a red light cam that was wrong. The system itself seems stacked in making it a challenge to fight the electronic photographers.

In Ca, if you fight a traffic ticket, you forfeit your right to attend traffic school. Basically, CA will get money from you one way or the other. Either in the ticket, or in the traffic school. If not, you spend near equivalent in your time. But that is still better than paying for it in your auto insurance.

A thought on ProBlogger Comments

2009-01-21T11:05:00.001-08:00

I love Darren's ProBlogger site. It's got tons of great insight. What I can't stand is how disjointed the comment section is.

I've been to sites where the commentators actually communicate with each other and it's a great community effort... I'm not talking bulletin boards, I'm talking comments section.

But wow, from what I've seen, and tried, no one reads the comments. They hit the post and then head straight to leaving a comment, with of course, their website as their signature, or linked to their sig.

I've tested the comments section and left some fascinating remarks that should have pissed someone off, but nah. You're safe to leave whatever you want. No one cares about what is said. They just think they're getting themselves traffic by spamming the posts. Come on people, "Another good post" is such a useless statement and it is obvious what you are doing.

They don't realize that they aren't being seen and that unless specifically set, WordPress doesn't add to your SEO. In fact it blocks it actively as a default. I like leaving comments and signing up for the comments that come later, but I stopped subscribing to the comments on ProBlogger. The visitors are useless there. Heck, why do I even try leaving something worthwhile for anyone to read. Hmm. Good point.

Me done. But it is a great site with great intuitive articles. Or as some say, "Great insightful post that i will apply to my very own blog".

Chasing A Live Obama Feed, The Inaugauration

2009-01-21T03:32:00.000-08:00

This was fun.

8:50 AM: I got online around 8:50 am... thought I'd prepare ahead of time. I went to ABC news at first. It's where I usually go.

ABC kept giving me an Audi Ad... and the spinning arrow saying the live feed was loading... after 15 minutes I moved on to CNN since I'm missing the beginning.

9:05 AM: At CNN, I had a "Place in line". Because the Leader of the Band, ABC stalled me, I'm now on the outside looking in at video queues... thanks to ABC and their sponsor, Audi for that.

9:12 AM: Now I'm checking out C-Span. Hot dog... I hear cheering! It's intermittent but it's closer than I've gotten to so far. I feel hope, yet all I have is sound.

9:15 AM: Let's check MSNBC... see if that's any better. Another Audi ad. I have to wait for an ad to see a live stream. Nice. And now my IE explorer croaked. Nice. Now I have nothing!

9:18 AM: I went back to CNN and now I have to upgrade something... Flash. But now my Flash needs a plugin... Octoshape... LOL... I'm coming!!!

9:22 AM: And now... now it's frozen. Once I got CNN up, I now had to endure another ad. This one from NEXTEL Direct. I would think that you do not want your ad stalling internet travellers from seeing what they want to see live, but that's just me.

9:24 AM. I AM IN and watching. Woo hoo. I get to see Obama talk. Finally! Sigh.. 9:26, he's done.

9:40 AM: National Anthem, and the parties leave the stage. GOOD BYE bush.

9:43 AM: The live feed has an ad or two before they return.

Wow, Barack Obama has his hands full, that's for sure. How'd you like to start a job where almost everything about it is upside down and effed.

With that, all parties concerned leave for their day jobs

The old and the new watches.

After watching history, the crowd disbands.

The Bush's leave.

Well, I had a blast chasing my own tail at least. This is what is called Bruce's World! Big time!

Onward. I'll have to go find one of the many millions of videos out there. Sigh.

How Many Cell Phones???

2009-01-20T21:24:00.001-08:00

Did you know that there are 3 billion cell phone subscriptions right now and that by 2011 it's predicted that there will be 5 billion! I don't think the cell phone companies are doing too badly, so feel free to squeeze them for everything they're worth and get yourself the good deals!!

[Informa Telecoms & Media's Global Mobile Forcasts]

Prices Came Down, So Why Didn't Prices Come Down?

2009-01-20T07:16:00.001-08:00

So when fuel prices jumped, the commercial sector raised prices to compensate. That was understandable, considering how our products are transportation based.

For instance, my fuel prices are way down from $5 a gallon here in the Bay Area to just around $2 a gallon.

Now that fuels costs are back down, why haven't our commercial goods prices coming down too? They used fuel prices as their reason for raising their prices. That's no longer an issue... for now. Maybe they should adjust accordingly.

Of course this then brings to mind a quote, purportedly by Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747–1813):

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years."

Which reminded me of when I saw this recession coming in late 2005 when I was in the real estate industry. Home owners being greedy, real estate agents being greedy, lenders being just as greedy... No one was putting up a hand of caution to anyone else because the bottom line drives folks to stay within their own sphere of financial survival. Most can only see what they can hold in their own hand. It was a wonderful cycle to watch and I lept from the plane before it imploded completely, as it has.

Is that the tip of the iceberg? I hope not, but come on. Some things are inevitable. Once gravity takes hold, there is only so much one can do while falling, and falling up isn't one of them.

[quote from Quoteland.com]

Be Aware of the Latest Virus / Worm

2009-01-19T16:06:00.001-08:00

The software is known as Conficker, Downadup, or Kido is out there and infiltrating computers worldwide. To date, this worm nailed over 3 million machines.

This one has been known to rename itself with every install and also connecting to random online servers.

According to Switched, it has the power to do whatever it likes, including steal your passwords and private information.

What does this mean to you? Update your Anti-Virus software with the latest definitions, make sure your AV software itself is up-to-date. Out dated (old) software may not always be smart enough to capture the newest technology.

Also, don't click on unsolicited links or attachments. Heck, you should even verify anything anyone you know has sent you to make sure they actually did send it.

Computer: Tidbits About Google

2009-01-19T03:49:00.000-08:00

In January of 2007, more than half of all web queries went through Google, Yahoo with less than 1/2 of those.

Google can be used in a myriad of ways which makes it pretty snazzy to use, but there are other options out there, if indeed you are looking for such.

There's

Yahoo,
Microsoft Live Search,
AlltheWeb,
AltaVista,
Ask.com.

Then there are smaller search engines (Or I should say, less known) like

Blogdigger,
Picsearch &
TubeSurf.

(This list was compiled at the time I wrote this about a year ago.)

There's also

Superpages.com &
WhitePages.com

to search for people. (But I can also find the same or similar results using Google. I get tired of the sponsored results in Superpages and Whitepages.. but every now and then, I do get that extra result from them.)

If you want to look for blogs, Google, Sphere & Blogdigger seem to be the favored sites.

Google and Yahoo are reported to have the edge on movie searches.

For displaying RELATED information to your searches, Ask.com is noted to be your site.

For image searching, Google ranked on top.

For news searches, Google.

For mobile searches, Microsoft Live Search for Mobile offered the most accurate local results, but only by a small margin over Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Ask City, and Whitepages.com.

Google maintains a comprehensive index for it's search results that gets refreshed on a daily basis. Many of the smaller search engines license their indices from larger players and then massage the results with their own home-brewed algorithms, or via human indexing, a technique pioneered by Ask.com but now used by several search services. The Yahoo-owned AlltheWeb and AltaVista, for instance, each use their parent company's index, while Lycos hooks into Ask.com, and AOL Search is really Google in disguise.

The edge for smaller sites is personal preferences of the users who may enjoy the interface better. IE: Yahoo search site is overjammed with all kinds of stuff, while the Google search page is a simple text imput window. (Simple and effective is my favorite approach these days.)

The article I've based this report on is at PCWorld.com.

Then again, at times, when I need to see variety of results from multiple search engines, I like to use www.dogpile.com and copernic agent, which is a desktop application that I love to use and when all else fails, copernic has saved my butt a few times.
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How does TinyURL Actually Work?

2009-01-15T03:54:00.000-08:00

I am totally fascinated by the fact that I can go to TinyURL.com and create a link to a site that could have hundreds of characters and convert it to a link that only has a few. Zoinks!

What TinyURL does is store the link you give them into a database and associate with a generated redirect link they retain. At the moment, they use 6 alpha-numeric characters to generate a link at the end of their redirect.

This isn't the best example, but I took
http://www.cinemastatic.org and converted it to http://tinyurl.com/97d3o8

This one is a tiny (no pun, really) bit better:
http://www.brucesimmons.org/Home.html is now http://tinyurl.com/89u4ve

I am being shameless in using my own sites for examples but I think you get the point. The combinations are almost endless... sort of. I've seen some of the earliest tiny urls just have one digit, so that was pretty early on. At some point, they will run out of possible combinations and then they will have to expand to a 7 digit combination of reference letters.

At the moment, the home page says they've made 100 million+ links.

I think with their present system, they can create 2,176,782,336 links... Each character space has a possible 36 different alpha-numeric possibilities. I then did 36 to the 6th, if that's correct.

So they have a few to go. If they ever expand to a 7 digit reference system, they'd expand their potential link collection to 78,364,164,096 links. Unless, for some reason they go out of business, so to speak, we're OK for now.

Different Applications
A fairly decent argument for using TinyURL is for email. I've had too many emails come to me with links that wrap around and don't get transcribed properly. TinyURL can definitely help with that little flaw.

The site also suggests hiding affiliate URL's with their redirect, but for me, that's not kosher. I'll stick with being up front about things.

They would seem to exist via Paypal donations and link off to a few other of their own sites like CoolWhoIs.com and others.

Things to ponder: I've created a few of my own shortened links and keep them in a private document that I can use to distribute if and when needed. That way I'm not wasting space or redoing any "work".

It's a cool service and invaluable to services like on Twitter (My Thoughts Twitter account and my CinemaStatic Twitter account - sorry, more shamelessness). Twitter is a social service. The beauty of it is that it forces you to create messages (Make your point ) in under 140 characters in their message window.

http://tinyurl.com/

Snopes Warning on Obama Video

2009-01-13T07:49:00.001-08:00

There are emails going around trying to convince you to click on a link to watch a video. Don't fall for it. It's a trap. (Snopes Warning) If you feel compelled to pursue the subject at hand, close your email, go to YouTube and search for it yourself. So much safer.

Computer: Internet Auction Fraud

2009-01-12T03:46:00.000-08:00

Internet auction fraud remains the most frequently reported online crime. Auction fraud complaints made up about 45 percent of the complaints received by the IC3 in 2006.

Complaints for non-delivery of merchandise represented 19 percent of complaints & the median dollar loss reported per complaint was $724, according to the FBI.

Founded in 2000, the IC3 is a clearing house for all kinds of cyber-crime complaints designed to track the prevalence of Internet fraud in the U.S. It is run in partnership with the National White Collar Crime Center.

I only use Ebay, and I only deal with sellers who have a 99% or greater positive review mix. (Unless they've sold thousands of items, then I look for 100%) I also use PayPal as a buffer between myself and the seller AND I ALWAYS use my PO or UPS box for deliveries. ((I'm just generally paranoid.))

Article
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UFO Destroys Windmill - Our Imaginations Are Sparked Again!

2009-01-09T23:15:00.001-08:00

The Sun tabloid over in the UK has reported that strange lights (balls of flame) crashed into a windmill, ripping one blade off and damaging another. They report that the missing blade is nowhere to be found, so the mystery is abound. Or is it?

UFO experts are all agog about this latest event of the para-scientific event.

I don't blame them. This seems pretty exciting.

Of course, if you don't work for the Sun, you actually might report the actual event that occurred.

The National Wind Watch website reports that the windmill had a catastrophic failure due to icing. Furthermore, the "missing blade" actually fell to the ground,, damaging the base of the windmill and rolled into an adjacent field. So much for missing.

The lights that everyone seems to mention were actually seen previous to the accident and not during. What are people then saying they saw, if they did indeed see balls of light with tendrils reaching to the ground? Will-O-Wisps? Ball lightning? There are some reports of fireworks in the area so this amount of excitement is nothing but that, much to do about nothing.

Again, the romantic idea that we are not alone is very appealing. Worse case scenario: There are aliens. Then we can destroy their financial infrastructure too!

A Fascianting Cell Phone Precaution

2009-01-08T03:48:00.000-08:00

The Potential Problem
The legend has it that a woman gets her purse and cell phone stolen. A few minutes later her husband gets a text message "from her", asking for their PIN number to their ATM.

Oops.

True or not, no clue in this day and age of "Internet expression", but it makes for a great example. Actually, it's probably not quite true or it's a bit embellished. The tale went on to say their bank account was emptied and that's not entirely possible these days from an ATM or in person at the bank or the bank would be seriously liable. But it makes an interesting point to ponder.

A Potential Answer
In your cell phone, don't disclose your relationships of the people in your contact / phone book list. In the above example, the crooks knew who the husband was from how he was ID'd in the phone and played him hard.

The warning goes on in further detail: If you get text messages from friends or family to meet you somewhere, you should call back via voice connection to confirm. Just to be safe.

Maybe I'll just append all my contacts with the word "cop".

Some December UFO's Finally Explained

2009-01-05T08:34:00.001-08:00

Northern England had a few UFO sightings over the holidays. Some folk saw floating lights that just up and vanished after a bit of time.

In some of the cases from December 27th, one woman called in stating that the sightings might have been her doing when her wedding guests had released 50 orange, candle-lit Chinese lanterns into the sky. They rose in the air and burned for 10 to 20 minutes, she said, adding that "they are biodegradable so they tend to just disappear after a while."

(Bruce: I would they disappear and not burn down a house somewhere!! Eesh!)

You know what this means now? UFO researchers are going to have to over all their sightings and check for wedding events and other party functions around their sightings now. As if they weren't muddled enough with all their fact checking... oh, wait, it would seem only a small percent ever try to verify while the rest just toot horns, and jump and shout and run about.

You can check out the article on AOL NEWS.

Computer: If You Haven't Upgraded To The Latest OS Yet

2009-01-05T03:39:00.000-08:00

If you're one of the die hard dig ins who doesn't upgrade because like me, you think "If it ain't broke, no need to fix it.", there are some things to ponder if for some reason you do decide to upgrade to whatever OS on your favorite computer platform.

Literally, do your research.

I for one don't jump on board because I refuse to be a public guinea pig for a company that should have done more thorough beta testing... but that's a whole different thing.

The software you have installed on your system may not be Vista or whatever compatible and there may or may not be updates for it to be... more to the point, Vista may not run your software.

So before jumping in with the sharks on the biggest, brightest, and newest always check with your software manufacturer to make sure that your software will work with the newest OS. If you don't, you might get bit and find out you have to buy a whole new version of your software if you want it to work.

Of course, as time goes on, things are worked out but it can never hurt to make sure because if you upgrade, find out it doesn't work for you, it's such a pain to "seamlessly" go back to whatever set up you had previously that sometimes, trying to go back makes the upgrade seem better.

Food for thought.

UFO's Spark Our Imagination

2009-01-02T19:43:00.000-08:00

So when life gets you down, the premise of UFO's can make you feel better thinking there's something more out there than what we have here, but in the end, it's probably just us.

Take for example, the newest wave of interest over a UFO sighting that took place in mid 2007, and for some reason, is just starting to get some internet press now.

It's called the California Drone and this is one of a few photos of it out there, spotted over Capitola, CA.

A man going be the name Raji1977 posted some photographs then after some debate, closed his email account.

There are other pics of the flying thing, this being the more interesting one:

(Screen shots of the online photos.. not the actual photos files.)

Debunker groups who live to dis all UFO reports, or so it seems, say it's an altered digital photo while fervent supporters say it's real and there are photos of ten other 'drones' that have been spotted, with the premise we are being watched. (Great, more people watching us!)

The L.A. Times published an article about the pics which has kept the debate going.

A UFO group has hired a few private detectives to figure out if the pics are real or not, but they're not making a ton of head way.

It just keeps on going, and then folks like me redirect our readers to the sights, because you need to either see it, know it, or rebuke it, adding to the raging debate of it's non-existence.

Me personally, I'd like to believe, but until whole cities of people report seeing things in the sky or I personally interact with aliens, I'm the skeptic. I've seen odd things in the sky, but after my initial reaction, I can usually apply some logical interpretation to the sighting.

That's my take. A fun subject, cool underlying theme for movies and weak rated tv shows, but so far, the government hasn't admitted to anything either, so there we stand. It's us, just us here on this slowly dying planet that we are quietly killing.

Source article, LA Times article.
Write up on some conversations with the supposed original photog.
Flickr Pics, More Photos of 'the drone', FULL size photos,

Nothing Says Happy New Year Like A Hooping Cough!

2009-01-01T23:44:00.001-08:00

Yea, I don't know who I got this from but egads it is no fun.

I caught some fretfully entertaining germ. Whenever I move, I drain all the energy out my body and my like noodles.

My chest is on fire from all the coughing I've done and all the unique sounds that come from that endeavor.

Never mind some of the medicines that make the mucal invader the lesser of two evils.

Ahh, 2009. Welcome. *hack*... happy new *hack* year every *hack hack* one! I didn't bring it in with a bang. I brought 2009 in with decongestants! What a wonderful way to spend the holiday breaks. Sigh.

The Joys and Trivialities of Holiday Travel

2008-12-30T00:37:00.001-08:00

Ahh, what a wonderful holiday I had.

I drove down to So Cal to visit family and during the transit, the award for A-Hole drivers on the way down would go to BMW's. More of those cars were prone to be in their own death race rally than the rest of us. Gotta love it when you're doing 80 and a car flies past you like you're in reverse. When the speed limit was 55, everyone went 70. Now that it's 70, everyone is going 85 or 90, thinking they are talented enough to actually drive at that rate of speed.

We then visited family and proceeded to get the flu, an upper respiratory thing or strep throat. Or whatever mutant germ these all formed to attack me with their special version of their green mucal invader. It seemed everyone had something different. I'm waiting for all the different germs to cancel each other out!

A bunch of us had a boys night out while I was down there. I think the girls spiked our drinks or food. Each of us fell ill with something. The odd part is, we all fell ill with something different. Insidious species, the female gender, can be!

On the drive home to the Bay Area, Lexus drivers took the A-Hole cake award on this leg. In a traffic pattern that's a mile long with nowhere to go, I have to wonder exactly what is that is on fire as they change lanes 10x in a mile or two. Just where are you going. All for naught it seemed, since we seem to be on the same off-ramp 40 miles down the road looking at our next caffeine fix for the next leg of the trip.

The holidays were fine and hope you have good ones too!

Manifest Hope Art Contest

2008-12-29T09:35:00.001-08:00

MANIFEST HOPE:DC (www.manifesthope.com) and its partners MoveOn PAC, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Obey Giant launches a contest today, calling for entries of visual artwork from artists across the country in an online contest. The online contest calls for works that use positive messaging to convey the urgency and importance of encouraging a national dialogue about three themes - Heath Care Reform, the Green Economy and Workers' Rights.

MANIFEST HOPE:DC and its partners are offering the public an opportunity to submit art in an online contest, with three chances to win. The contest is composed of three parts. Artists can make one submission per category, totaling a maximum of three submissions:

Manifest Opportunity - Stimulating The Green Economy

Manifest Change - Health Care Reform

Manifest Unity - Protecting Workers' Rights

Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of judges including famed artist, Shepard Fairey; Director, Spike Lee; Washington DC based musician, Eric Hilton of the Thievery Corporation; Curator of Contemporary Art at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Anne Ellegood; SEIU 775NW Healthcare President, David Rolf; Creative & Cultural Director of MoveOn.org, Laura Dawn; and Co-Founder and President of Green For All, Van Jones. Fifteen finalists will be selected to show in the MANIFEST HOPE:DC Gallery alongside well-known artists such as Shepard Fairey, David Choe, Ron English, Ray Noland, Maya Hayuk, Sol Sender and Mike Murphy.

MANIFEST HOPE:DC is produced by Evolutionary Media Group and brings together a diverse coalition of organizations working to achieve shared goals.
MANIFEST HOPE:DC Gallery
3333 M Street NW
Washington DC 20007
www.manifesthope.com

Source: Press Release - Evolutionary Media Group

Ya Gotta Love Your InBox Offers

2008-12-29T03:51:00.000-08:00

I just love the interesting things I get in my e-mail inbox. Do these people actually think this crap works? Well, sadly, it must if they keep doing it. It's like carpet bombing. Drop 1,00 bombs get one hit and it's worth the payload.

Let's see - - First I must drop some thanks:

Thanks for...

"Emailing me instead of calling me" emails. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that!
Thanks so much for the "Investment Letters of opportunity", but I'm going broke on my own just fine.
The offer to "Launder foreign money for you" has always been tempting, but I don't need any new (jail) friends.
Letting me know I won money, but I don't want to send you my banking information,
For offering to help me Lose Weight I don't have to lose,
The opportunity for Creating Real Estate Success - real estate is such a booming business these days.
For the Unsecured Credit Line offers,
The Viagra Offer,
To all the Online Chemists wanting to help me with all my Health Needs
For the 10k in the next 30 days?? Wow, people must be lined up out the door!
For the "$5k referral" that sounds just like the scenario that has this country in this foreclosure panic. a-hole.

Thanks everyone. Obviously there's tons of money floating around out there that completely unknown but really nice strangers want to help give me,... but I'll just keep plugging along on my own for now.

Twits.

Computer: Excel 2003 Data Label Issues

2008-12-29T03:40:00.000-08:00

The other day I was encountering a problem with a co-worker could create charts with a VB script we put together, and she could see the data labels she placed in the chart. She was using Excel 2000. But when I went to run the scripts in my Excel 2003, I could not see the data labels as is. I could expand the Y scale, and they would become visible, but that is not what we wanted to do after putting together a rather complicated VB script. YET, I could send her the files I created, and she could see the data labels. That led me to believe it was another infamous upgrade/improvement process from MS.

I found this Microsoft KB article addressing a very similar issue, that, when applied, fixed our scenario.

If anyone has a similar problem, check it out.

The Secret Garden

2008-12-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

Did you know there's a real secret garden out there?

It's the botanical garden on Mt Scopus on the Hebrew University of Jerusalem! Founded in the 1930's.

Right now, it's purpose is to preserve groups of plants and species on the brink of extinction. For much more detailed info on this wonderful endeavor, check out haaretz.com.

If you were looking for info on the movie, check out Cinema Static.

A Vent about ACDSee 9

2008-12-26T10:09:00.001-08:00

I've been a faithful user of ACDSee products since they've been shareware. I love(d) it. But I think it's getting too big for it's own britches.

I've got ACDSee 9. It's installed on different computers between home and work. And they (The Photo Manager) are all doing the same thing.

I have to start the image manager 3x to get it to work properly. I sometimes can't do the same thing more than 4 times before it takes a crap and it's just getting annoying. Well, if anything, it makes me leery of any newer version since they've abandoned this version to bigger and better versions. (I keep checking their site for updates for this version, to no avail.)

It would seem I will probably need to buy a newer version and HOPE it is more stable than this POC that is driving me crazy. At this juncture, I'm not sure what to do. I'm acclimated to their features but I should not have to acclimate. And the pecuilar behavior that exists on completely different computers just makes me suspicious.

I don't want long boot times
I don't want to have to start it more than once to use it.
I want to use it and not have it crash, which it does more often than not.
It takes forever to load at times too... well, actually, it loads slow everytime.

So now I have to start tooling around with different apps yet again until I find something useful.

Sigh.

That's my mini-vent because I was in a rush to look at images and couldn'd do it. Thanks for your patience!

Happy Holidays Everyone

2008-12-24T14:09:00.000-08:00

Computer: For the New User - Converting CD's into MP3

2008-12-22T03:32:00.000-08:00

If you need to convert files to MP3, you can use either Windows Media Player or Applie iTunes.

For WMP:
Right-click along the top of the window.
Select Tools.
Then Options.
Click the Rip Music tab.
Choose MP3 as the format.

For iTunes (on a Mac)
Under the drop-down menu labeled iTunes, selct Preferences.
Then selct the icon for Importing.
In the drop-down menu for Import Using, select the MP3 Encoder, then click OK.

Both programs work equally well and allow you to select a bit rate of up to 320Kbps. If you want to take up less space on your hard drive, opt for a lower bit rate; use a higher bit rate if sound quality is more important to you.

A Feel-Good Story of Reward

2008-12-20T03:55:00.000-08:00

With around $100 million in sales last year, Peer Bearing Co. was recently acquired by a Swedish company.

Danny Spungen, whose grandfather founded the company, said it was a unanimous family decision to thank employees with bonuses.

Nice bonuses.

They decided to share a whopping $6.6 million amongst it's mere 230 employees. The funds were pro-rated per time of service, but what a nice thing to do for their staff.

Imagine getting a bonus check in mid-September for $33,000? I'd be lucky to see $330!

Every now and then it's nice to see feel-good moments and deeds like this.

Happy Holidays to everyone.

source

Remember Those "Victims" of the Tiger Attack At The SF Zoo??

2008-12-19T09:11:00.001-08:00

So they taunt a Tiger, (Allegedly of course), they get attacked and the Tiger gets killed for it.
Nice... Zoos need more video surveilance, etc., etc.

Then they sued for damages. Another nice loophole in the Justice System. I firmly believe when you are robbing a bank and trip on the doorway, the illegal activity should trump any possible legal claims about getting hurt tripping on the door, but that's just my humble opinion. (Yes, that happened somewhere.)

So I felt like spreading the wealth on the Tiger attack victims today:

Tiger-attack survivor Amritpal "Paul" Dhaliwal was sentenced Thursday. Highlights include:

He must stay away from all Target stores in Alameda County
He's been linked to other crimes in other Targets in different counties
He is currently serving a 16-month sentence in state prison for violating his parole due to a reckless-driving arrest in San Jose, which involved a high-speed chase
He pleaded no contest to the grand theft charge in exchange for the dismissal of one other count of grand theft and three counts of commercial burglary
Kulbir Dhaliwal, 24, was sentenced last week to 10 days in jail for public intoxication and resisting arrest

But don't forget as his defense attorney reminded us: "He is psychologically and emotionally wounded by the tiger attack,". How do defense attorneys sleep at night... upside down?

Rumor and other past articles have shed an ill light on the two brothers from day one of the Zoo attack and yet they somehow have a legitimate foot to stand on... I don't get it. Funny world, how it's developing with all it's rules and laws.

The entire article is a bit more coherent in structure... I just had to vent.

[ source: The Daily Review, Inside the Bay ]

Computer: Worse Virus Ever WARNING Debunked - No Postcard From Hallmark Yet.

2008-12-19T07:22:00.001-08:00

by Bruce Simmons (BrusSimm)
Tis the time of year where you start receiving well meant, but fraudulent warnings from your friends about viruses that don't exist... again.

I have received yet another well meaning e-mail warning me of the most destructive computer virus ever, coming at me in the form of a fake header saying you have a "Postcard From Hallmark", and other such similar headers. Whoa be me, but don't open anything like that or more importantly, don't click on the links that show supposed warnings! That's where the real virus lurks, at the end of the fake link. Better yet, before you forward this well meaning e-mail to all your friends, do your own research.

Most destructive virus ever?? How much worse can it be than of the three variants already out there:

Erase your files
Make your Computer a Zombie Bot
Collect keystrokes and info like passwords and account numbers.

To calm my nerves, I jump out on Google and verify.

For instance, when I searched for "Postcard From Hallmark", I found results from Urban Legends and SNOPES declaring it a hoax. (BTW: The email declares that Norton Anti-Virus and SNOPES verified the information.)

This brings something else to mind: Have you ever gotten an email that says if you forward this good luck charm to 10 or more friends, something cool will happen at a link in the email? How does that "link" know you've sent the email? How does it know you've sent more than 10 emails? Hmm. There have been subtle and unproven rumors that mass forwarding of emails just helps spammers collect email addresses through the same function.

To be more realistic, when someone who doesn't protect their PC as well as they should gets some form of virus or malware infection, the emails that have hundreds of forwarded email addresses are captured and THEN your email address becomes fodder.

Play it smart and though you are thinking of your friends, think smart first and verify the warning, FOR REAL, at

What surprises me is that the same person repeatedly sends these warnings out and no matter how many times I "reply-all" and debunk the warning, they never change their ways. They do mean well. I just wish they'd read well!

Folks, verify from the originator before opening things. That's all you need to do to stay safe.

Calorie Mindful Eating Out

2008-12-19T03:29:00.000-08:00

I was looking for some info on something I wanted to eat, and came across this site:

http://www.calorie-count.com

It's not all encompassing, but it has a lot of stuff in it as a starter point.

In my case, I was looking up a McDonald's Filet-O-Fish and found the exact info I was looking for, but other places are fully staffed with info too. If there is no grade next to an item, you wont see a calorie chart. At least in the few items I checked on under Applebee's.

Then I came across http://www.nutritiondata.com/ & well, there's lots of stuff out there and it depends on what you are looking for..

My wife hit on this site, Dotti's Weight Loss Zone and it has a lot of info base on points from some Weight Watchers. It's a simple but thorough site.

Millions of New Pics Online from LIFE

2008-12-18T04:14:00.000-08:00

LIFE and Google just released over 10 million new pictures on the internet that have never been seen before.

These images can be found when conducting a search on Google.com or on Google Image Search. Users can also search through the LIFE Collection directly by visiting http://images.google.com/hosted/life.

The collection will be one of the largest collections of professional images on the internet and as the scanning project moves along, the images will become available.

This is ~70 years of photos folks.

On top of that, the LIFE Photo Archive will include

The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination;
The Mansell Collection from London;
Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880's;
Hugo Jaeger Nazi-era Germany 1937-1944;
DMI red-carpet celebrity shots;
Pix Inc. personalities;
the entire works left to the Collection from LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen.

Imagery will also be available to purchase through QOOP.com, a leader in online art sales.

All comments are welcome from Place of Thoughts readers.

source: Time Warner press release

A Vacuum; A Cat Ride

2008-12-17T03:42:00.000-08:00

This is just too funny and I can't help myself in posting this. Enjoy! And here all this time I've been buying my cats mice shaped toys. What was I thinking?!?!?!

Troublesome Home Loan Practices

2008-12-16T03:40:00.000-08:00

Of all the processes that go on within a real estate transaction, there are a few things that need to be paid attention to. Though not illegal, it can be annoying to be on the receiving end of subtle errors in the decision making processes.

Four of the more troublesome practices within the loan process, as recognized by the Federal Reserve are:

Prepayment penalties: When borrowers seek to pay off expensive loans early they may be hit with a fee of as much as six months of mortgage payments. (It's usually specified in your paperwork.)

Failure to require escrows for taxes and insurance: These expenses add to the monthly costs of home ownership but mortgage servicers do not always require borrowers to bank the payments in escrow accounts with them. As a result, the payments may be put off, resulting in tax delinquencies or insurance coverage lapses.

Stated income and low-documentation lending: "So-called "liar loans" that encourage borrowers to exaggerate income to qualify for larger mortgages than they can handle. (Can we say housing market crisis? Or market meltdown?)

Failure to give adequate consideration to a borrower's ability to repay a loan: Many loan originators have no monetary interest in loans after the deal is done. That encourages them to approve borrowers they know, or should know, cannot afford to make the payments.

These practices are not, in themselves, issues, because borrowers may rightly choose a loan with hefty prepayment penalty if that lowers the interest rates on their loans.

The problems arise when loan originators apply these provisions indiscriminately or with predatory intent. (If you read your contracts, you won't be surprised.)

See the whole article (dated Jun '07, but still relevant) over at money.cnn.com
-----

Computer: Do You Have Any Home Wi-Fi Dead Spots?

2008-12-15T03:30:00.000-08:00

Have you noticed that in different spots in your own home, your Wi-Fi reception can be questionable at times? It can be annoying but sometimes the remedy is pretty simple.

Rather than go on and on about repeaters and omni-directional antennas and other such high tech gadgets that are more confounding than useful, I've come upon a few easy fixes. Not to mention that in my own experiences, repeaters have not been that successful for me despite the premise of how they would seem to work.

First, you want to verify it's a location issue. Put your laptop right next to your wireless router and make sure it is picking up the signal.

If the signal is fine, great, it's not the router or the laptop.

There are a few remedies for strengthening the signal which could be just as easy as relocating your router to a more centralized location in your home, or raising it up in the room it's in to keep the signal clear of obstructions.

Obstructions? Yep. Materials like brick, concrete, metal and water seem to be developing reputations for signal interference.

Other things that can get in your signal path are things like your CD collection. The mylar on the CD's can refract more than light and if you have a collection right next to your router, or where you sit, if possible, relocate the CD's, the router or where you sit to see if that helps any.

Also, if your router is set to 'Auto Channel", try picking a channel and see if that helps.

There are many options and most of them cost money. My preference is try the old stand by of free first before blowing money on something you may not need. And though there's no guarantee these options will work for you, at least you now have a few ideas under your belt.

Your Cell Phone Battery Life

2008-12-14T03:18:00.000-08:00

Cell phone batteries.

The most annoying little items after about a year in use. On my own older phone, after about a year the battery started to wind down.. after 2 years, my battery indicator would drop by one bar per call. (It only had 3 bars!!)

So I replaced the battery.. sort of.. I bought a new phone, and technically I got a new battery in the process, I hope.

I was tooling around on the Verizon website (I went with Verizon Wireless because under my Consumer Reports online subscription, Verizon Wireless had the best reviews across different markets) and I came across some of the following tips for helping your battery last longer:

Tips for extending battery life
Avoid exposing the battery to extreme heat and cold. (I'm good with that.. I hate exposing myself to extreme cold and heat, so the phone should be safe.)

For the first 3 charge cycles, fully charge the battery overnight and allow it to fully discharge before recharging (battery conditioning). (So you need to be brave and let your phone die on you the first 3 times of use.)

Charge and re-condition a battery after an extended idle period.
A lithium-ion battery may be damaged by extensive overcharging (continuously on a charger for more than 24 hours). (Oops... I might be guilty of that with my old phone.)

Keep your phone, batteries, and the contact terminals clean. The contacts can easily be cleaned with a pencil eraser. (My old phone had bad contact design, or at least a tech at one of the stores told me that.)

Use the battery. If possible, avoid letting your battery sit idle for long periods of time.
Use only the phone options and accessories that you really need. (I tend to minimize my items in use on my phone, so I got that one covered.)

Hope this helps

Gift Cards and the Consumer

2008-12-12T03:03:00.000-08:00

Did you know that almost 50 million people purchased gift cards in 2006?

Of those 50 million folks, 61% of them spend more than the original gift card amount and that 33% of the total value is never used or redeemed by the user.

That's a wacky set of statistics from vantage card, but then gift cards can be quite the convenience. It erases the trauma of figuring out what to get someone, keeps the outlet focused and everyone is happy. IE: If you ever get me a Starbucks or Peets' gift card, you could never go wrong in my book!

Over at couponing.about.com, they note that that in 2007, over $26 billion will be spent on gift cards and that around $8 billion of that won't be used!! WOW!!! Send me your gift cards!! I can make great use of $8 billion worth of coffee.. though I don't think I'd ever sleep again!

Despite the ease of the gift cards, some have hidden fees. Credit card gift cards for one.. (Are you surprised?) Some malls also depreciate the face-value of a gift card when it's not redeemed within a specific time.

So be sure to find out all the details of a card before snagging it. (Yea, I know I'm a bit late for the Christmas season, but I just got this thought today!)

Sources:
vantagecard
couponing

Finding Out Of State DMV's

2008-12-11T02:58:00.000-08:00

Moving just plain sucks. And then once you've moved, if it's out of state or town, it's even worse because you find yourself wandering about lost, dazed, confused... grumbling... hungry... need brains... Oh, wrong blog.

OK, so if for some reason you can't find your own state's dmv website, or you're moving and don't know what that state's DMV website might be called, check out this general link to all the (Well, most) states DMV websites from the USPS.

A Perspective On Lender Fees

2008-12-10T04:19:00.000-08:00

When you are in the middle of a real estate transaction, there is a lot of different paperwork that comes swirling at you. It can be confusing and one tends to follow the advice or guidance of their agents. The trick is, they can only offer guidance and the bottom line of understanding your paperwork falls completely on you. The present housing crisis is a great example of people not getting the best information.

One of the tidbits I'd like to look at right now is Lender Good Faith Estimates. They may look different between the different lender offerings and could be confusing, but they effectively, are all the same.

-----

Read the rest of my article over on my Associated Content account for insight to contracts, closing papers and just how much power you do have over all the agents in the process.

Freaky Computer Avatars That Think

2008-12-09T03:52:00.000-08:00

If you've ever been in Second Life and encountered an avatar named Edd who was terse in his responses and a little focused on his own goal, don't worry - you werent getting the cold shoulder. Heck, you weren't even dealing with a human.

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute put the AI together and set him loose in Second Life.

Don't worry, he's got limited ability to converse and reason, but sure enough, he's been put on the loose! Well, in a controlled sense.

Second Life is a great controllable environment where AI's can be tried out and an inexpensive methodology for testing.

I think it's a neat premise and hopefully it's not going to be called Sky-Net!!!! dOh!

Read the rest of this interesting concept at USA Today.
If that link is dead, this google search should find the info.
---

Computer: Wanna Secure Your Wireless Router?

2008-12-08T04:29:00.000-08:00

When you install or have a wireless network at home, do you secure your network? You should. Folks can pull up within range of your home and use your service without you really knowing about it. I've seen too many cars parked in odd spots in front of homes, with the driver on their laptop. Gee, what could they be doing?

If someone can access your connection, they can also access your computer if it's on. If someone is insidious enough, they can do things you probably don't like. There are too many things to ponder that they can do to your files or computer. Let your imagination run wild.

But there are things you can do to prevent, or at least hamper the hacker who might want to add your computer to their zombie network.

Here are some basics to know:

Change the SSID (the name) of your network and disabling the SSID broadcast. This will protect you from the opportunist who’s in a hurry.

Disable DHCP/Access Control. This will not stop a hacker with even minimal knowledge, as there are many tools which will sniff out available IP addresses on your network, but again, the casual hacker can be stopped.

MAC address filtering again will only hamper the opportunist as a hacker with a little know-how will be able to clone your MAC address--and see everything on your network.

BUT if you really want to put a snare in the process, there's always
WPA: A randomized pre-shared key of at least 10 characters would take half-a-million years to crack. (Note: A random key means that it shouldn’t be a word that exists in any dictionary (hackers have extensive dictionaries that include all common passwords, English words, nicknames, and misspellings of words. This is called a “dictionary attack.”) A random key is a meaningless mix of lower- and uppercase letters and numbers, and sometimes special characters like punctuation, depending on whether your router supports it). If you’re not sure how to get a random key, or have writers block, you can find software that will generate a key for you (type “software generate wpa key” into your favorite search engine).

Keep it smart, play it safe!

Cool Things (More) In Google Earth

2008-12-06T22:18:00.001-08:00

Wanna see some airplanes?

Try typing this in your Google Earth window: (It's been said this works in google maps, but Earth is funner... er, or, more fun.)
44°53'35.66"N, 93°12'12.35"W. Set your eye altitude for 1200 feet. (Eye altitude is on the far, bottom right.)
or
40°45'51.84"N, 74°00'00.61"W. Set your eye altitude for 900 feet.
or
This is called Blackbird Park. These are two retired birds, engines pulled, but for public visiting... free.
34°36'9.48"N, 118° 5'8.86"W. Set your eye altitude to 3268 feet. (Yes, that's a U2 behind them)

Check out this big bird at Edwards Air Force Base:
34°56'49.90"N, 117° 53'09.43"W. Set your eye altitude to 3263 feet.

Check out this display collection at Edwards:
34°56'7.16"N, 117°52'54.19"W. Eye Altitude: 3000 ft.

Of course, if you don't want to do all the typing, and have Google Earth go this Google Earth Blog link and get the add-on for the SR-71's, and planes in flight kmz files.

Have fun gang.

Need a Screenshot But Can't Afford Software?

2008-12-06T03:58:00.000-08:00

Hey all! If you're new to the web, or just don't use computers all that much we don't always know how to tackle some silly or simple needs when they arise.

For example, say you need to send an image of your desktop or an open app window to a friend who's helping you do something.

That's not too hard to do actually.

First, I recommend opening up WordPad. To get that open, you need to go to:

Start,
Programs,
Accessories

It's located there.

See my screen shot showing the open menus on my system while I was writing this.

I say open WordPad because you'll need a place to paste the image you are about to take. If you have Word or some other editor, that's fine too. I'm just picking the simplest application for everyone off the top of my head because WordPad comes with your MS operating system.

Now here's the trick, and it involves a key on your keyboard that has Print Scrn on it.

To snag the whole screen on your monitor, press

Shift and Print Scrn.

If you just want to snag an application window itself and not the whole beast, try

Alt and Print Scrn.

Once you've snagged your screen shot, you just need to go to your open document, and hit paste and bingo: you've got an image from your screen in your document and now you can email that beast right off to your buddy who's helping you out!

There are software applications that do this also, but they're things you have to pay for. SnagIt is one. I use ACDSee and I like their screen shot utility and there are countless others, both free and purchasable. SnagIt has been around a long time.

I have to tell you, writing about screen shots and testing them, and then trying to hop back and forth between the screen, my test document and the writing interface was really confusing at moments. I wasn't sure where I was at spots!! My head spins... I must go.

I hope this helps someone and remember, comments or questions are always welcome here on Bruce's Place of Thoughts. If you have a question, just leave it in the comments section. If you don't want it approved to being posted, just say so upfront in the comment and I can answer your question either through this blog or in email.

Thanks for coming by - Bruce

Easy Food For a Sick Dog

2008-12-05T03:38:00.000-08:00

If you've ever had a pooch who's gotten sick and developed a sensitive stomach and gotten finicky with what they eat, you might want to consider Gerbers Baby Food.

It's easy to eat & digest. It worked for my dog fairly well. -Bruce

Fun With Excel Visual Basic: Reading A Cell

2008-12-04T03:31:00.000-08:00

The other day I desperately wanted to figure out how to read an Excel spreadsheet cell with Visual Basic for Excel. Seemed simple enough but no matter where I looked, all the answers to this rather simple problem were about 10 lines long, minimum.

Grr... programmers.

FINALLY, after a few days of searching, emailing and calling, I came across someone who answered my question. That is, once I got the right question.

If you want to read a cell from an Excel spreadsheet, using Visual Basic into a variable for later use in a macro / Visual Basic script, all you need to do is the following:

var = WorkSheets("Sheet 1").Cells(row,col)

Sheet 1 would be the name of the sheet at the bottom of the page,
Cells(row,col) is the number of rows down, columns to the right, starting your count from 1.
For instance, cell F3 would be Cells(3,6).

I'm not treating it like a database, I'm not doing fancy - I am just reading the cell for latter use in the routine.

Disclaimer: This works for the Excel file that contains both the sheet with the cells and the VB script in the same file. It does not account for reading a completely different worksheet from a different file, but I suspect this tidbit will get you going on the right path.

Enjoy. I finally did!

If You Are Tired of SPAM

2008-12-03T03:50:00.000-08:00

I am tired of spam. When I was a real estate agent, I signed up for my RealtorAssociation not realizing that the real estate industry looks to make money from every angle possible, including having their email lists snagged by every possible real estate related industry business so you get spam forever and a day.

I won't even touch on the advertisers that are allowed to spam you in-network like on the tools you pay for to do your job.

So every Tom, Harry and DICK who's looking to send you their real estate related sales pitch hits this database up and collects the email addresses, in one fashion or another.

I love the "businesses" with the aol or hotmail or yahoo addresses. That's just too funny and so unprofessional looking that it almost doesn't even merit a nod. Just go away people.

At some point, I want to be able to stop some of these nuisances. For instance, the Genesis Training Group based in Idaho doesn't get it. Their link to unsubscribe seems to be fake, or more to the point, does not work. So I've sent them 5 Opt-Out requests to no avail.

I know I've opted out 5 times. I keep an excel spread sheet, sorted by originating email address, the date and the action I took on that date. In my mind, when you keep records and have to refer to them when contacting the authorities it holds more water than just gesturing in air with your arms in words.

So after my fifth request, what the heck to do I do? When I'm just sick enough from a source, I report SPAM. That's what I do.

If you want to report a specific ISP sender, you can use these email adresses:

Hotmail	report_spam@hotmail.com
MSN	report_spam@msn.com
GMail	gmail-abuse@google.com
Report GMail spam*	Menu Option to "Report Spam"
AOL*	tosspam
Yahoo! Stores	store-spam@yahoo-inc.com
Yahoo! Hosted Domans	domains-abuse@yahoo-inc.com

* These options are for internal, ISP users. IE: An AOL account can forward their spam email to tosspam in the AOL system. (source: spamlinks.net)

If you receive emails that appear to exploit children, by all means, report it immediately to the CyberTipLine website.

If you are inclined to get securities related spam, you can forward the offending emails to:
enforcement@sec.gov

Per the SEC Center for Complaints and Enforcement Tips web page.

Anyway, back to my battle. I've got a site that's sent me emails a few more times despite my "Opt Out" messages to them. It's time to test the process!!

Comments are always welcome from Place of Thoughts readers.