Miscellaneous, Acer Drivers Extracting, WGA, Flock Blog Editor, Firefox Beta, Gimp, Jefferson County Wiki, Snow and the "Billy Bob Contractor"

Miscellaneous

Ummmm! We decided it was time to break out the home-made applesauce from last summer! Nothing quite like it.

A little tweaking on the blog template. I've got it to expand to fill your browser screen, no matter what size it is - though if you're using 800X600 it may be a bit squashed. Some of the graphic background need re-sizing or re-positioning, but the one that overlaps this text is kinda cool where it is, I think.

Acer Drivers Extracting, WGA

I continue to get feedback from people wanting help installing drivers for their Acer 5520-5334. Remember - if the install program for the driver doesn't work (like if it says it's for Vista and won't run) you can sometimes load up your trusty Winzip (or clone) and drag'n'drop the driver install program right into Winzip. If it's a compressed install file (I believe the ones I listed in previous blog entries are; the video one is for sure) you will see all of the raw parts of the drivers. So if nothing else works do the above, then extract all the files to a temporary directory, after that go into your Device Manager and DELETE or UNINSTALL the devices in error. Then click ACTION on Device Manager and "Scan for Hardware Changes". When a Windows' dialog box pops up click "Install from a list or specific location" and browse to where you extracted the files from the installer.

You might have to go through this process a couple times until you find the right errored device but likely it will work if you can't install it any other way.

We got it good though (relatively), compared to some of the cheaper models of Acer laptop. No having to mess with BIOS or harddrive settings.

If you're looking for a good fan/CPU temp monitoring program check out Notebook Hardware Control. It works pretty good, and I like it better then Speedfan and some others I've tried, I think. Shows remaining battery, lets you do power management better then the E-power program from Acer. Very configurable. Check it out.

And, of course, occasionally you may have problems with Windows Genuine Advantage and it's gang of programs - even if you have a legitimate copy. MuBlinder is the answer in that case, or if you just don't want all those WGA programs and quasi-spyware running.

Number one problem with installing MuBlinder on a brand new legitimate copy of XP? Not having .Net framework installed; at least version 2.0. (link here)

There seems to be some problems with the newer versions even with even with the .Net 2.0 installed. Sometimes it can be solved be using the .Net install program's repair function, sometimes you need to uninstall it completely and re-install it, sometimes you need to delete MuBlinder and it's corresponding KRX directory in \Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data to get it to work. Or you may need to do a re-install of Windows even (usually it repairs whatever is wrong by just re-installing XP right over top of your old installation, thus negating you having to set everything up again).
Flock Blog Editor, Firefox Beta, GIMP 2.4.4 Install Problem

I really like this blog editor built into the Flock browser. The browser itself doesn't overmuch thrill me (being just Firefox in a wrapper), though if you're looking for a social networking-oriented browser it's probably for you. But the editor is nice, lets you save drafts even when offline, and uses the spell-checking of the browser. I think I like it better then the ScribeFire addon for Firefox.

"Share the wealth." Well, when it comes to my money I'm not sharing it with anyone; especially the crooked government. But I will share this with you - the new Firefox V3 Beta is looking pretty good. When I say "looking", well, it's not like MS's bells and whistles when a new browser or piece of software comes out. It's more under the hood. The Mozilla guys have really done some good stuff with resource- and leak-management, it seems. And comparing it to resources that V2 uses on the same computer gives you a real good idea of some of the changes they've made. Though a few of the options slowed it down, like the automatic scanning of your bookmarks when entering a website URL.

Sure, there's going to be some people disappointed when the new Firefox doesn't look like a Ipod or something, but those who use it everyday are going to notice a difference.

I have to say I didn't do any extensive testing, just some preliminary tests. I did hack some of the addons that wouldn't work with the newest Beta version .

But if you are playing around with V3 betas then you can try making the extension work, like I did. I won't go into it here as there are many sites on the Internet to tell you how to do it. Basically, you need to extract the XPI file and crank up the highest version number the RDF file will tell the addon it can run on (but that's not any guarantee that the addon will work past that point, of course. Tab Mix Plus didn't work at all, even though it installed).

Weird problem with the new version of GIMP. (need link). After installing the newest version (2.4.4) I found that a bunch of the stock plugins and scripts as well as some I installed and modded didn't show up. Lots of installing, un-installing, and hacking around in the registry didn't help. A few quick checks online and I was starting to get an idea of the problem - apparently some of the earlier installs kept things in the GIMP sub-dir in Program Files while later ones kept them in an entry under Documents and Settings. I tried a few different ways; like doing a fresh install, installing an older one then a newer one, and going into GIMP and changing the preference settings that points to the scrip and plugins directory (they were correct but still wouldn't work right). So I moved the scripts and plugins to the location in Documents and Settings and out of their location in the GIMP dir in Program Files.

This doesn't seem to happen with very many people, but if you have this problem this is the solution that worked for me. At least until they fix this particular not-very-common bug.

If you need a nice (but slightly complex) graphics editor this is the one for you. Don't support Photoshop and it's evil familial spawns. ;)
Jefferson County Wiki

The Jefferson County Wiki is back up ! Yea, crappy, crappy server that we tried it on originally - cost me many weeks of (unpaid) work - fortunately I'm good at multi-tasking other things at the same time. But we went back to Wikispaces.com, and I found a bunch of hacks and codes for sprucing it up a lot. Looks quite nice. But I miss the Tikiwiki software. Gradually pages are being added to the wiki and we're all doing a little publicizing here and there. I also set up a photo album on the server to cover some of the features we lost by having to go to a hosted wiki. Oh well.

We still have a lot of hope that this will become THE resource for Jefferson County. A lot of people have been working on it, but we hope many more will get involved.
Snow and the "Billy Bob Contractor"

I'm a weather spotter for NOAA weather (no, not one of those geeks that go out an stick their finger in the snow for the local radio stations - I take it a bit more serious then that).

The last few months we've actually gotten a bit more snow then the last few Global Warming years. Remember - with Global Warming weather's going to be pretty random, as most of us probably know by now.

Anyway, I was out checking the snow and looking at the roofs. It's interesting how the wind patterns affect how much snow builds up. We live on top of a hill with lots of wind, almost always, blowing across the valley and open fields around us.

Your local "Billy Bob Contractor" is probably going to tell you that you need a certain pitch of roof for this area and while that's the case for most conditions; for people like us a flatter slope is much, much better. In fact, it's pretty easy to see how the snow usually builds up more against the roofs that have a higher pitch then our addition that has a much lower one. The wind sweeps it right off the lower pitch but packs it up, over, and on top of the roof with a more conventional pitch that's common for this area.

Just goes to show - it doesn't matter how much of a professional someone tells you they are, or how much they have told you they have done or learned or how much experience they may brag about - it doesn't mean they know everything there is about a particular field, especially when it comes to your own stuff.

Kinda like what I mentioned previously; there's always someone who thinks they're more of an "expert" on your pets, kids, house, finances, etc and you-name-it; then you are yourself.

No substitute for using your own head, even when someone who thinks they're "in the know" or is an "Expert" tells you the complete opposite. More people should live by this.

Acer XP Drivers, HD Confusion, Laziness - Contactify

Acer XP Drivers

Wow, a lot of feedback from people wanting to switch from Vista to XP on this laptop, and similar models. I guess that tells you something.

Here's a few things to help you in case you're not dual-booting with Vista and need your computer's specs (and/or you can download a freeware system info program like the last free version of AIDA):

Acer 5520-5334
Nvidia GeForce 7000M/nForce 610M
Atheros AR5007EG (Wireless adapter)
Nvidia nforce networking controller (wired network adapter)
Realtek HD digital audio (Audio)
HDaudio soft data fax modem with SmartCP (modem)
Phoenix BIOS

Some of the drivers I found said that they were for Vista with no mention of XP. Some worked, some didn't, some still worked by manually using the drivers. The latter I had to extract and then manually update the drivers from the extracted files.

So, below is a list of the drivers themselves that worked for me. You can find these, for the most part, at this site (this dude is doing similar for his laptop but it's a slightly different model) and this site. If you still can't find them do a search for the filenames or driver names or device names in Google or at one of the free driver download sites, like Driverguide.com.

Here's the driver filenames, in the order I think it best for installing them:

Foxconn Modem Driver 7.62.00 or foxconn_modem_driver.zip
Modem driver. Unzip to a directory and run the SETUP, I had a few problems getting this installed because, I think, I installed it after the audio driver. I'd recommend installing this first or second.

15655 nvidia video drivers.exe
This was for the video primarily. It installed and worked great, no problems.

realtek_hd_audio_driver.zip
Unzip this and run the exe. Installed fine.

Chipset_MCP67M_1313_vista_x64_x86.zip
This was trickier. You need to extract this to a directory. Then go into your Control Panel, click System, then Device Manager. Find the system devices that are in error, like the coprocessor and some fo the unnamed ones. Right-click on them and select Update. Click the second option (Install from a list or specific location) and navigate to where you extracted the file. Go through all the sub-directories, eventually you will find that it updates the coprocessor and the MCU. It takes a few tries of the above process.

TouchPad_ALPS(PNP0F13)_V7.0.1101.11_Vistax32_WHQL.zip
Installed fine. I wouldn't normally install this as the default mouse driver works fine for the touchpad on this and other laptops. But I couldn't get the settings for the mouse driver to be exactly the way I wanted. The " increase accuracy" made it pause too long before moving. The ALPS software fixed this, and the nice edge scrolling and tap-right-click is nice too.

There are some more drivers list at the second site above available for the webcam, webcam software, smartcard reader, etc. I didn't install these as mine worked fine after installing WinXP.

You can also find the other miscellaneous software for the extra buttons and Acer's e software, none of which I installed. If anyone else tries these and they work in XP let me know. In fact, please drop me a note or feedback if you find any better methods, better order to install the drivers, more drivers for this laptop, or whatever. I'll post it here.

HD Confusion

There's certainly a lot of confusion when people are discussing HD TV, Blu-Ray DVD, HD DVD, whether people need to do anything before the shut-off of the analog TV signals comes along next early next year. Then throw in HDMI cables and all the different kinds of TV's and you triple the confusion, at least.

One thing people get confused about right off the bat is the difference between "digital" and "HD" TV.

All HD TV is digital, but not all digital TV is HD. Digital is a way to transmit the signal, HD is the format of the signal itself. Just plain digital is usually a lower quality picture then HD, but higher then analog (low quality). Plus, digital can carry a number of channels on one frequency in the same bandwidth as analog carries one channel.

HD TV is capable of resolutions up to 1080 of vertical resolution (1920 horizontal), progressive or interlaced. But right now you probably won't see a whole lot of them at that high of a resolution. Most will be the 720 or so. Consider your old analog TV signals - 250 lines of resolution or so.

Blu-Ray and HD DVD are also capable of 1080. Even though there are two difference formats with very different methods of presenting the data on the DVD; they are similar in what you see and their use. Blu-Ray DVD's do hold a slight amount more data then HD DVD's, but to you; the consumer, they are going to look the same on your HD TV - whichever one you use. Some DVD players are coming out that play both formats.

And it should be mentioned that your regular, run-of-the-mill DVD's have great picture quality as is (depending on the studio and release of course). An HD DVD or Blu-Ray DVD is only going to be a portion better then an "old" style DVD, visually.

To get the absolute highest resolution on your TV you need HDMI cables at this time. If your TV doesn't have an HDMI jack there are probably going to be other connections that are going to give you a good or great picture, maybe even components jacks that will still give you 1080.

One thing to remember about HDMI cables - they're all pretty much the same. As long as they are built correctly and don't break on you or fall apart; it just doesn't matter whether you bought them for $15 or for $100. Of course, the guys in the electronics stores are going to tell you differently.

It's just like these stereo shops that try to sell you gold-plated, super-thick monster cables. Unless you plan on running your Dolby Surround Sound speakers a mile away from your receiver you're wasting your money. Hate to tell some of you audiophiles but copper's copper and aluminum's aluminum.

As to the whole switch-over to HD...I'll leave the "why's" and "whatfor's" to others; the reasons and conflicts and justifications by the FCC and television networks and such (I already ranted a bit about this in a previous message).

Firstly, technically (and contrary to popular belief) the shutdown doesn't mean specifically that everything broadcast over the air must be HD, but it MUST be digital. And it doesn't cover low-powered TV stations. And some specific-purpose ones will still be transmitting in analog a bit longer then the official deadline - February 17, 2009.

If you get your TV off an antenna then you definitely need either a TV with an HD tuner built-in (everything you buy from now on) or an external tuner/receiver that will receive and convert the signal from HD to either plain analog or a high definition signal your existing TV can interpret. You can sign up for the voucher from the government that will help you get a cheapo HD converter box.

If you have an older TV without HD you can still get a good HD picture by getting a converter box that outputs with RCA cables, S-Video, Component, or HDMI. With an HDMI output you'll get a high quality HD picture, same with Component if your TV supports it. With S-Video and RCA cables it won't be as good, but still very nice. If you have an old television with just a composite plug (the thing the big thick cable sticks into) then the best you'll get is an analog picture (though it likely will be better then your TV without the HD converter box).

This switch-over doesn't directly affect cable or satellite providers. Notice I said "directly" because it's more complicated.

Your cable provider may want you to get a box if you don't have one, or switch to digital or even to HD. They probably don't need to, but they may anyway.

Most people with cable get their local channels through the cable, so this all won't affect them for the most part (again, depends on your company and possibly their equipment to some extent).

Satellite signals have been digital for years. You don't need to do anything differently either - unless you happen to get your local channels off an antenna in addition to getting your other channels off the dish.

So this is where it gets tricky.

I heard a guy at Wal-Mart a few weeks ago explaining this whole thing to a co-worker. He did a great job at going through the whole concept and who needs to do what until he got to the satellite part. He told his co-worker that those with satellite wouldn't have to worry about switching over either.

Wrong. Incorrect. But, it depends...

If you have a dish and get your local channels off the dish (like if you're in a good-sized market) then you have nothing to switch over or worry about. You're digital, you're golden, no worries.

But not all local stations in all parts of the country are on the satellite dish. Basically, the local station has to send their local content to the dish company, who then re-transmits it to their satellite transmitters, which then gets sent to the satellites, which in turn rebroadcasts it back to the people in that market who want to watch the local channels. It's round-about, but those people don't need an outdoor antenna or the aggravation of having it and maintaining it, switching back and forth, lack of signal, etc.

As you can imagine it's not always fiscally possible for smaller local TV stations to do this, or at least not at this time.

So some people with satellite dishes get their local stations off an 'old-school' antenna, or not at all; which puts them right in the same boat as the people who ONLY get their TV off an antenna.

So you may have a nice dish sending you high quality digital signals or even HD signals, yet if you're in the boonies your only local TV stations (like if you want local news, local programs, etc) come off a pair of rabbit ears or a roof-mount antenna and in crap-a-vision analog.

Speaking of antennas; there's absolutely no difference between an analog antenna and an HD antenna. But it's another rip-off by some of the electronics stores, both big chains and small shops - because they'll tell you that you need a new antenna for HD. Yes, a "special" HD antenna. A good rip-off for them, right up there with "monster cables".

Don't forget your audio too. Who wants incredible video without at least good sound? Even a cheap Dolby Surround Sound Systems can sound real good. Bug a good one sounds REAL good!

And course if you don't want to run wires there's alternatives.

Wireless speakers come in both RF and IR but they don't always have enough bandwidth for a full frequency range, and there can be timing and interference problems. The new (and expensive) "psychoacoustics" sound bars use a bank of speakers in a kind of "audio trickery" to make it sound like you have speakers all over your room. This idea has been around for many years but never quite perfected until now. I remember experimenting with it as a kid.

There are, of course, multitudes of kinds of TV's. The most common:

Plasmas - the best pictures, but prone to fading and burn-in and a definite lifespan - 5-7 years. These can theoretically be extremely large.

LCD's - usually your blacks aren't so much black as dark gray and there can be long response times so you see pixilation and compression artifacts in scenes with lots of motion, this is getting better and better. Plus dead pixels are fairly common.

Rear projection - these can be CRT projectors where the picture is bounced off a large mirror onto a display screen (good picture but prone to fading, burn-in, etc) or DLP where micro-mirrors, a high-powered lamp, and spinning color wheels or prisms are used to project the picture onto the tiny mirrors, many times one to a pixel. Drawbacks can be long response times and the possibility of certain people being able to see the prismatic "rainbow" effects (and sometimes subsequent headaches and such). Another major con is the lamps have a definite lifetime, some say a few years (would depend on your usage of course). Some new ones use an LED in place of a high-powered arc lamp, increasing the lifetime of the TV (likely it will last as long as you have the TV, or at least as long as another component fails). But sometimes this can be at the expense of a higher response time, causing the possibility of an increased "rainbow" effect and more compression artifacts when there's lots of motion.

And lastly good old CRT's. Big, heavy, but tried-and-true. Limited to 'smaller' size screens.

Sorry there's no reference links above. Wikipedia is your friend.

LaZy/Burned Out - Easy Feedback Box

I've been working on a couple big projects this week. One person wanted a "small" eCommerce system set up. He had bought a whole package through his hosting company quite some time ago but he could never figure out. He finally admitted defeat and contacted me, I set it up (though it turned into much more then a "small" system once he saw all that could be done with it, no complaints from me) but I have to say, the ease that the package brought to the whole process was refreshing, though it still was a lot of work involved.

The other project didn't come out so well. I had mentioned in a previous blog about setting up a wiki for Jefferson County.

I've set up a number of wiki's for fun, for learning, for testing, and also for a few customers. They all worked great and still do.

But none of them had the traffic that this Jefferson County one caught once it was opened to the public. Unfortunately the hosting company we set it up on sucks. Ipowerweb. Sucks. Badly.

I'm sure you'll find lots of bad reviews for them, especially their limits on database query access. Ugh. I've put SOOOOO much work into this, just for the fun of it - no pay for this one.

So now the database won't work, I know the temporary fix for it as well as the permanent one (which requires some hacking into the wiki's code) but now the database is corrupted - AFTER USING Ipowerweb's database fix.

What a pisser.

Anyway, I'm just finishing up a few things on another website. But previously I had received some responses here along the lines of not being able to contact me.

There's a contact link at the bottom of this blog, as well as the ability to leave comments.

So I decided to go ahead and add a little contact box for the blog.

On blogs, websites, and other sites on the Internet a lot of times people jsut add their e-mail in a link. VERY VERY VERY BAD! Spam robots will eat this up, especially if your site is linked well to others and in search engines. Over time you'll have so much crap in your mailbox you won't know what to do with it, even with spam filters.

I use either a little Javascript applet that encrypts this from direct harvesting, or a form.

The latter is probably the best method. But I'm lazy today, and got too much I still need to do today. Not to mention a bunch of snow coming down that I'll have to shovel/snowblow at some point on top (Wow, it's really coming down).

So I'm going to use this nice little free service that does the contact box for me. It's called "Contactify" and creates a little form box for you, complete with anti-automation anti-spam verification. Very nice.

XP vs. Vista Again, XP Drivers, Jefferson County Wiki, Cellphone Scams, Strange Lost Notes and Numbers!

Been awhile since I've posted anything here. Winter's not exactly exciting in the "new stuff" department.

XP vs. Vista Again, XP Drivers on Newer 'Vista' Computers

In my home office when faced with the choice between Vista and XP; despite all efforts to switch over or at least give Vista a chance - I still go back to XP. Officially, when it comes to customers - I give them the options and let them make the choice without trying to bias them.

On my new laptop XP blazes, Vista lags despite having gotten rid of any unnecessary programs and such, and after lots of tweaking. I think, as I mentioned previously, your regular Windows user isn't going to notice all that much with a brand new machine. Or isn't observant enough to notice the speed differences.

Now all I need to do is get the 64 bit version of Windows XP (the proper one as there's technically two versions that MS calls "64-bit").

One of the biggest problems in switching back to XP from Vista on newer computers, it seems, is getting a driver that will work. A number of Vista drivers do work fine in XP, and if you have an older computer (i.e. more then five or so months old, heh heh) then you'll probably be able to readily find the drivers labeled for XP for your device. For the most part the people's computers that I have been stitching back to XP have been moderately easy to find drivers for.

But the newer stuff can be more of a headache. And some of the devices, either smart ones or "dumb" ones, need to be installed in various obscure orders. Lots of time involved, and this seems to be getting more involved as the XP-equivalent drivers aren't referenced on manufacturer's websites or driver-download sites.

I've yet to find a coprocessor driver for my laptop while running XP. But without it the computers still renders photo-realistic landscapes at an incredible rate and makes Vista look sluggish.

If you have an Acer 5520-5334 and need XP drivers for it let me know. I'll eventually put a list of them (and maybe downloads) here, as others have for their retro-installs for various computers.


Cooling.

It's amazing how much getting a laptop up off a desk, or your lap, can go toward keeping it cool. Even a cheap laptop stand or a homemade one helps a lot. And the ones with fans are great.

Remember - heat is the enemy of most all electronics.

Picked up a positively antique device - a LAN modem. Fun to play around with.

Cellphone Scams

Geez, I got whacked with a $9.99 bill for "data downloads" on my cellphone. The phone company took care of it but I did some investigating anyway.

It seems that this company 'New Motion' has a thing where you sign up, they send you a confirmation number in text messaging, and then they sign you up for some sort of bidding thing where you can win stuff. Bidzforprizes or something like that. Like hundreds of other sites.

Except, well, I never signed up for it, I never sent them back their confirmation number and yet I still somehow got signed up for a $9.99 download that I didn't even receive.

Some more research discovered lots of other people in the same boat, including lots of related problems with phone companies who insisted the person DID sign up.

Some people are trying to get some class action suits against them since no one else seems to be stopping them. How many other scam are there like this, and how many more will there be if someone doesn't make a stink a bout this?

Another example of technology getting ahead of law and the ability of the law to deal with it.

Jefferson County Wiki

I love this area. A lot of times I don't like the people, but I love the area and it's beauty and it's history and the things that can be done in it.

I have a Jefferson County history page and a Jefferson County History and Genealogy mailing list and such. I've done a lot of research and writing about the area, especially the history of it.

And I thought a wiki where others could add their own research and pictures would be great. So over time I set a couple wiki's up, but none of them really took off. I didn't have the time or the support to get them going to to work on them much.

A local webboard, the Jeffcowebboard.com (which I started so many years ago and handed off to others, and haven't had anything to do with for quite awhile), has some organizers who had the same idea.

While e-mailing them on an unrelated note the main admin there (Mr.EddieLarue) let me know that they had started a wiki up on a free hosted wiki website.

I took a look at it and a lot of people had already done a load of work with it, even though it hadn't been opened to the public yet. But there were also a lot of limitations to the free hosted version.

I suggested that I could set them up a real wiki with the ability to do everything they'd ever want to do with it.

My offer was accepted and I began evaluating wiki software and installing it. At one point I had four wiki's running at once (using prefixes in MYSQL databases is the greatest thing since white bread - you can share a database with any number of pieces of software without setting up more databases).

I finally settled on Tikiwiki, which is a full CMS program with leanings toward the features for a wiki. Nice program, but very very complex from the admin's side.

So many features, but a great program. I did a little hacking to get some of the features the way I wanted them, lots of research on more hacks and mods, and put quite a lot of work into the logo and display and such, not to mention working out some good practices for those entering data.

I plan on continuing to help until the rest of those who will run it get used to the features, then back out. I've also added and edited a number of items for it and plan on continuing with that indefinitely. Hopefully there will be a number of people adding their research over many years time.

It will be opening to the public tonight and we hope it will be a great success. As long as it is not abused I think we'll eventually have a number of people who will both have an interest in it as well as will want to help build it by adding entries. We'll have to see how it goes. Here's the address for this wiki.

(Note - delaying this post for a little later. I doubt many people are reading this blog but I don't want to release the website address for the wiki until closer to the time when it will be officially opened.)

Strange Lost Notes and Numbers!

I have a number of note keeping programs and files on my computer.

There's customer stuff - notes about them and sometimes idiosyncrasies, notes about their computers and what I've done on the computers, contact info, log-in stuff for their websites, website address, whether they paid on time, etc.

Then there's my own business stuff. How much to charge for this, how much to charge for that.

And my personal stuff - passwords and log in info, notes on this or that.

It's all pretty well organized and indexed.

But sometimes I come across things that I have no idea about.

Like a bunch of IP numbers in one file. What website were they from? I assume they were from a website I set up for someone and that these are a bunch of banned members or spammers. But I'm not sure. Why did I keep it? For future reference? Because I just needed a temporary place to store them or because I thought I would need them in the future? Should I keep it, delete it?

Here's another one. A large number of number sequences in groups of two. I have a certain ability for pattern recognition and they seem to mean something (or maybe the reason I kept them is npushing at the back of my mind). But I'm just not sure.

Or this one. A short sequence of mixed letters and numbers. A serial number? A registration number? Something important or not? Who knows?

And this - a person's name, address, telephone number; but I don't ever recall contacting the peson or calling her or what it's in reference to. Should I keep it?

If I keep every scrap of data I'll have a filled harddrive eventually.

Another - what looks like GPS coordinates. Now this one I can check out. Ah yes, some measurements I did of some ruins. Already have transferred these to my GPS database but hadn't deleted the original file. With a little trigonometry (or the right program) and a couple overlapping checks you can figure out the area of an object or the size of any object with your GPS.

Perhaps I need to make notes about my notes. ;)

A weather guy in Syracuse wants to have me stand in front of my webcam and talk to him on the air via my cellphone. Kinda strange - a poor man's remote.