Author Archives: Mike

About Mike

If you're reading this, you probably know me. If not, poke around and maybe you'll learn something.

Deepest Sender isn’t working. Argh.

Posted on by
Reply

I use a Firefox extension called Deepest Sender to edit and submit posts to this blog from within Firefox. In the hopes of posting an article or two this morning, I was frustrated to find out that for some unknown reason, the extension can’t log into my blog to do any postings.

I little googling indicates that it has something to do with the xmlrpc.php file in WordPress. I tried a few things but with no luck. So, I’m stuck having to log into the blog itself. Not a big deal and I won’t use it as an excuse for not posting, but it is frustrating none-the-less.

If you learn of a fix, please let me know. Likewise, if I find a solution, I’ll update this article.

New in Web 2.0: eBible

Posted on by
1

Web 2.0 is a buzzword that refers to websites that interactively update their content. A good example is Google Maps. This one appears to be a bible search that provides multiple translations and cross references. Unfortunately, this new service is in private beta so I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but it looks like it will be a good resource.
Of course, if you have a spare invite, please let me know.

Update: Trevor who is working on the site was kind enough to find my email address (I hadn’t registered on the waiting list) and sent me an invite. Very cool of him. Thanks, Trevor.
Continue reading →

Thanks, Kristin!

Posted on by
1

My friend at work, Kristin, tipped me on to an album she thought the kids would enjoy. It’s by a group called They Might Be Giants and the album is No! The group has been around since the 80’s but No! is a kids album they made in 2002 and dang it, the thing is horribly addicting. Every song is fun, creative, and agrivatingly memorable. In the month or so we have had the album, we’ve listened to it about 20 times.

Think of it as musical versions of Shel Silverstein poems. You can listen to samples of the songs at the iTunes Music Store if you’re so inclined.

BTW, if you become addicted, I apologize.

Hippo, hippo. Mop!

Thanks, Kristin.

I am annoyed with city planners

Posted on by
Reply

Well, maybe it’s not a city planner’s fault, but yesterday we again affected by a problem with our address. You see, the street we live on is about a half-mile long and has another road that crosses it in the middle. Unfortunately, due to poor planning or some form of administrative error, the numbering on out street decrease in both directions from that intersection (i.e. 10 14 18 intersection 20 16 12).

The problem is, our house is at one end of the street, but if you turn the wrong direction, the house numbers end before it get to ours. You need to turn around and go to the other end to find us. What end up happening is that delivery drivers usually claim our address doesn’t exist. That’s what happened again yesterday. I was waiting for a package to be delivered by DHL which didn’t happen as they claimed the address was invalid. I called them and verified it as well as explaining the problem. They’ll try again today. Hopefully, it works out.

Happy Easter

Posted on by
Reply

Today is good Friday and mighty good Friday it is. I just wanted to wish anybody reading this a Happy Easter and that you are able to enjoy it with any and all that are close to you.

Perhaps you will get the opportunity to enjoy a tasty treat! Oh, and as I was told by a very insightful pastor once, God can indeed make something like this good for you. His will permitting, of course.

Easter turducken

In OS X 10.5 (Leopard), will Windows be the new Classic?

Posted on by
Reply

John Gruber at the Daring Fireball wrote a very well thought-out argument for Apple to extend their newly announced Boot Camp into a Classic like environment in the upcoming OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard). That is to say, rather than having to reboot your machine into Windows XP (or Vista), you’ll instead just double-click your Windows apps in OS X and they’ll run like OS 9 apps have under Classic since the original OS 10.0.

Of course, he goes into details on how this would benefit Apple but he is just simply a better writer or at the very least has more time to articulate himself. Give it a read.

Windows: The New Classic

Vacation wrap-up

Posted on by
Reply

I took this past week off from work to spend some time with Becky and the kids while they were out on Spring break. One of the other primary goals was to finish the garage (a build-out that started about two years ago) as well as some other smaller projects indoors:

  • Adding shelves in my son’s closet
  • Set up track lighting in the loft (the standard lights are totally inadequate)
  • Install a new doorknob on the front door
  • Clean the den

I spent most of the time in the garage. I was able to finish installing the drywall and did the initial mud but still need to sand and paint it. I also installed the countertops on the workbench. The only thing remaining (other than the walls) is to find a home for all the things currently in my parking space in the drawers and cabinets. I’m also going to clean off and find a home for the workbench my father made. I’d hate to bust it up and dispose of it since it is in fine shape. I learned about Freecycle which people use to give away items. I’ll probably post a notice there and see if there are any takers.

As far as the other items, the door is done, the den is much improved but I did have to throw a few handfuls of things into a box as my nieces were coming over and and to get rid of the "working piles" out in the family room. The shelves and track lighting haven’t been started but I did get the materials and can do those in future weekends. His shelf really shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes to an hour so I’ll see if I can that done by tomorrow. The track lighting will take an hour or more so will probably save that.

Micro-review: Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta for OS X

Posted on by
1

ParallelsParallels released this past week a virtualization product supporting OS X called Parallels Workstation. I’ve been playing with it and wouldn’t you know it, it works. I was able to install without too much trouble Windows 2000. Since it’s using the virtualization options of the Intel Core Duo CPU the client OS runs at pretty much full speed. As a disclaimer, I haven’t put the thing through any serious benchmarking, but it’s clear that this is virtualization and not emulation going on here. The only thing that doesn’t currently work is audio or a convenient way to exchange files with the host OS.

I still think WINE is the ideal, but this is a product I’ll probably end up getting (it’s only $40) so I can easily have multiple virtual machines available (Win2k, CentOS, Fedora Core, etc.) without the hassle of rebooting.

Of course, for fun, I tried to install the hacked version of the OS X install DVD (the one that supports BIOS) and it started booting but crashed quite quickly. That’s O.K. since it isn’t a supported client OS. It would have been neat to have OS X running in OS X. Could I install Parallels inside the Parallels client? It would be like the Russian nesting dolls but geeker.

Here’s a screenshot for those doubters. ;-)