Watertown Dog Park, Firefox Memory Leaks, Google Chrome, Vista & HP

Congratulations to my niece and her husband for their new baby boy (and sympathy for the long hours of labor), named after my Dad.

Watertown Dog Park

A good example of why Jefferson County stays the same.  Some of the people of Watertown and Jefferson County were almost up in arms when a group of citizens wanted a dog park in Watertown.

I love this area; the land and landscape, the history, and most of the time the people.  But the ignorance and backwardness of some is disheartening, especially those who we rely on to govern and see further ahead then their own wallets.  

A moderator on a local webboard even closed the topic about the dog park at one point, after the city council refused to take it any further.  So further discussions were ended abruptly there on that webboard.

Fortunately there are those who are a bit more with the times and can see benefits beyond themselves.  Fort Drum now has a dog park for military people, as well as the SPCA (though only for members).

The old rednecks and staunch Old Guard/Good Old Boys of the local government always wonder why the young people leave here.  A dog park may be a small thing, but it's a reminder and maybe even a symbol of larger problems we have here.

Firefox Still Has Memory Leaks?  No!

What did you expect - they fixed Firefox up but third parties who make the addons that most of us use are under no obligation to do so.  Many of the addons hemorrhage memory like there's no limit, and sometimes the interactions between them are only making it worse.  If you find your memory consumption high in Firefox 3 try alternative addons.

Google Chrome

 

I've yet to be as impressed about Google Chrome as some people are.  It doesn't seem to be that significant in features or speed.  And Google's terms of use are scary at worse, questionable at best.  The German government even told people not to use it!  Not that that means a whole lot.

Sure, I know - the argument is that if you're not doing anything wrong with it why do you care if they know what you're surfing.  Same with their e-mail, online applications, etc.

Many down through history have thought similar.  And fervently regretted giving up their privacy.

Google is a bit scary in general.  They've far surpassed Microsoft in terms of the niggling feeling at the edge of my thoughts that whisper "World Domination" ;)

Vista and HP Computers

My new HP computer with Vista continues to perform well and impress me.  The occasional older program doesn't work in Vista of course, I guess I've run across four or five so far.

And some of the features they did away with is perplexing.  

Sound recorder is nearly useless.  I normally use Cool Edit for heavy duty sound projects but there's still a need for a simple sounded editor.  Fortunately you can just copy the old one out of XP and it works fine.  

You can do this with some other XP programs too, though if you are actually replacing a Windows Vista program instead of adding one, you will need administrator privileges.  Like for Notepad.

But the number-crunching ability of the computer, the 64-bit dual-core processor is impressive.  Rendering photorealistic objects is blazing and working with multiple graphics programs and websites is smooth and fun now. 

I ran into a bit of an issue yesterday.

One of the reasons I got this computer was the ability to make a recovery disk(s) from the recovery partition.  If the hard drive goes flooey two days after the year long warranty runs out I have an option; outside of buying a new copy of Vista or going back to XP.

So I went to the HP Recovery Disk Creator, only to find that it won't let me create a disk now.  It only allows one creation (easily hacked) but I hadn't even made one as yet!

Why?  Well, apparently you can't add a partition or mess around with the hard drive too much, as it detects size changes, etc.  And won't let you make the recovery copy.  I even tried setting the partitions back (overwriting my XP partition), no luck.  I tried hacking the config for it, making the sizes line up again.  No luck.

After doing some checking online it seems to be a common problem (a few years back HP got into some trouble for problems along these lines, if you remember).  

The only alternative is to back up everything, and use the recovery partition to set everything on the computer back to stock, build the recovery DVD's, and then restore everything again.  A huge PITA.  But I see no other way.  

Though I bet there's a way to hack the recovery disk creator to ignore the changes.  Ugh.

A few good links - if you miss the "Copy to" and "Move to" here's how to add them to Vista.

Successfully Debricked WT54G V5, Drilling Limestone and Annoying Know-It-Alls, Turning off UAC Notification in Vista Windows Security Center

What?! You say, two blog entries in two days?


Successfully Debricked WT54G V5

Well, a few hours was all it took... Hours better spent making money or working on finishing our house or something.

Basically, this was the second WT54G router I got for our long-distance broadband Internet experiment. Version 5 of this router. For those who know about the WRT54G's you're probably mumbling "piece of junk" or something similar under your breath.

Why would Linksys take an infinitely customizable unit like the WT54G and half the memory and put on OS on it that was limited and couldn't easily be re-burned with a new one?

I don't know, but I was really happy when someone figured out how to do it. I had burned the micro version of DD-WRT onto this router and it worked fine. But one day while doing some experimenting it turned up dead. All lights on, wouldn't reset even with the hard reset method. No pings to it, and scanning it with a network scanner and packet sniffer showed nothing.

Dead.

So I put it on a back shelf until I had the time to mess with it.

When I did get a chance to screwed around with it I again tried the same reset methods I did earlier, with no luck. So I took a deep breath and popped it open. After identifying the correct chip (why did Linksys feel the need to keep changing the board around? Oh yea; so they could limit the amount of memory it used - seems pretty deliberate when considering the small price difference and the number of people who customize these things) I found the correct two connections to short. Pretty risky stuff but it's dead anyway...

So that didn't work. I proceeded to the next step, ground out one of the afore-mentioned pins to the board's ground.

Boom! As soon as I did I started getting pings from it's default IP address (you have to remember to add the "-t" to the ping command so it doesn't stop after four).

Then it was a quick upload via Linksys's TFTP program (Windows has a built-in command line one also). At first I was going to put the original firmware back on but this didn't seem to work. Hmmm, I forgot - it uploads quickly but takes a few minutes (maybe five) to burn it.

No matter - I'd rather put the DD-WRT software back on it. I got the updated version - hoping the reason it frigged up before was an older version of the Micro that might have had bugs or some such.

The micro version went on fine, a few minutes for it to burn itself, and then it reset and everything was back to normal again.

A quick set up of WPA AES, changing the default IP (and switching my computer's IP back to it's previous - the computer's IP has to be changed to access the web-interface for the router. Unless, of course, your network is in the "192.168.1.? range as a default), the password, turning off loopback, and some other settings and back in biz.

Oh yea, and bumping the power up above the manufacturer's default.

I'm experimenting with a NAT proxy and needed the router for this.

Drilling Limestone and Annoying Know-It-Alls

Ugh. Drilling into stone. We're wrapping up our dining room remodel and want to put a mantel on. The old one came up from the floor and wasn't attached real well. I guess you can't blame the guys who built the house. Way back then it had to be days of effort just to drill a large hole in stone.

But it still takes awhile nowadays. Not that I could go full-blast and drill some holes quicker. But a little research on the limestone our house is made up, and some common sense - says that a little time needs to be taken with it.

Otherwise I'll have what is all over the exterior of the house - spiderwebs of cracked stones from the heat and vibration of the drilling that people did.

I've had people give me lots of (un-informed usually) advice on this sort of thing.

Why is it that people who who have built things, even a number of things, think that that makes them an expert in it? And especially in something specific like limestone?

There was one person who physically got up and walked out the room when I was telling him about how I had taken my time to drill the large holes for the satellite dish mount, because I didn't want to damage the stones. This particularly person apparently thought I should have come to him for advice before hand, and that I hadn't done it the best way. But if I had followed the advice of others right about now I'd be seeing the stone cracks appearing.

I should go out and take a few pics of the holes that were drilled by previous tenants in this house, and the damage they did versus the older holes that were drilled by those who knew what the were doing. But it's just too damn cold and windy and snowy right now ;)

What is it with people sometimes anyway?

Just because they've done something, maybe even a number of times - they think they're an expert on that particular subject?

I see it all the time with our dogs. Outside of a vet or other professional who deals with dogs - what makes someone think they know more about our dogs then we do?

Someone who sees the dogs a few times a year or someone who's with the dogs almost every waking moment?

It bugs me, and it shouldn't matter but it does.

I see the same thing with other people and their kids. There's always someone giving people advice on their kids, many times unwarranted or un-asked for.

Then there's the other thing, along the same lines, that bugs me even more.

Sure, it's annoying when someone comes up to you and begins to tell you how you should do something with an air of superiority. Annoying, overbearing, etc.

Of course there's those who keep it to themselves, or tell others how you should be doing something, or whatever.

But the worse, at least for me, is another animal altogether. Those who don't have the balls to tell you something face-to-face, yet don't have the civility to keep it to themselves.

I've sure you've run across them. The ones who stand a little behind you, or off to the side, somewhere where they know they are in your earshot but not talking directly to you - and offer up their opinions on your life, how you should take care of your dogs, raise your kids, wash your car; you name it. Usually confronting them gives you a "What? I don't know what you're talking about." or a wave of the hand. Now that's low, cowardly, and just not polite.

Some people are such ignorant, holier-than-thou, know-it-alls sometimes.

How did I get from drilling holes to this? Heh. Anyway, enough ranting for one day...

Turning off UAC Notification in Vista Windows Security Center

For those who have turned off User Account Control or UAC in Windows Vista you also may want to turn off the Windows Security Center's notification of this. Otherwise it's always going to show a big red warning and pop up a balloon each time Windows loads. Unless you turn off the security center altogether (something I do sometimes for some).

Unfortunately Microsoft didn't allow you the option of whether to monitor it or not, at least in some of the Vista versions.

For that (if you're comfortable using the registry editor - which looks the same as XP's) you can go to the entry: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center" and make the entry "UacDisableNotify" a '1'. Reset your computer and it shouldn't show up anymore.

Death Threats, The Gran Paradiso Firefox and Vista and Human Nature, Web 2.0 and My Concession - Rounded Corners

Death Threat

Hmmmm, this is a first for me. Yea, I've had people threaten me before. Both online and off. Yea, maybe some has said they'd kill me once or twice, but that's just people being dumb and usually isn't serious. But I've never had anyone e-mail me telling me that a friend hired someone to kill me, over some un-named offense I did to them.

Sure, it's spam or crap or something (though I didn't find any references to it anywhere as yet), probably fishing for people who reply (irately) so they can harvest the valid e-mail addresses.

But it still makes you stop and think, in general. Is there anyone in your life, present or past, who would actually pay someone to have you killed?

Nah, I don't think so. Me neither.

There's been a few fanatical religious nuts over the years that I've pissed off - those people are whackos. A few really bad fights, some physical (though I gave up that idiocy long, long ago when I was but a youn'in). And lots of people on the Internet who I've royally pissed off (usually people who don't realize the difference between real life and the Internet). But nothing anyone would hire someone to kill me for.

It would be nice to think that maybe I'm important enough, or pissed someone off enough, for someone to maybe hire someone else to kill me. Heh heh.

I sent it along to the abuse resolution of the e-mail service it came from, examined the header info for anything (not relayed), and put it out of my mind. Doesn't seem important enough to call the cops or FBI over. Though I do have my personal 'abuse resolution' method close at hand...

Adding Stuff to Blogger

Anyway...

Blogger.com is great. Sure; there's a lot of free blog sites, free webspace you can install your own blog software on, etc. But Blogger is probably the most popular and there's so many options and customizability to it that it's hard to beat. If you install your own blog software then you have to maintain it, add plugins yourself, submit it to search engines, etc. Other services might not be as popular and have less features.

I wanted to add a custom random quote to this blog (see above). I couldn't find a free addon or plugin that served up quotes in quite the right way to fit what I wanted. For example - no limit to the number of quotes I wanted to add, no ads or extraneous stuff like graphics. So I used a little script that I had that I had previously done a little mod to for using on local webboards. (Interesting side note - it's a little PHP script that converts text to graphics. Good for circumventing the stripping of more advanced HTML code when posting on a webboard. Makes you wonder what an enterprising hacker could do with the same method.)

There's any number of ways to add a script fragment to Blogger. Either use the layout editing function and add some HTML code or to add it directly into the template (which I settled on because I liked it better visually).

Works well, and it serves up a random quote every time a visitor accesses the blog or an entry on my blog (try reloading and you'll see).

Blogger's great, and gotta thank them and Google for providing this for free. And while I'm at it I'll thank Wikipedia - while there's some issues there it's still a tremendous resource.

Gran Paradiso, Vista, and Humankind

Trying the newest Firefox, version 3 Alpha Gran Paradiso (named after a group of mountains in Italy). Looks about the same visually, so far not seeing much in the way of speed increases in the faster rendering engine. And iffy on whether it's improving the memory leak problems. But I just started trying it, so I can't give you a real review as yet...

Firefox - a great idea. Make something fast, compliant with WC3 standards, open source (an amazing idea), customizable as hell, and let it compete with Microsoft's tired Internet Explorer. Netscape and Opera just never got the market share that Firefox is getting, for whatever reason; neither did the original Mozilla suite.

But unfortunately, as happens with so many human innovations, great ideas get out of whack.

Firefox has been heading toward the inevitable bloated, slow, leaky application. Same with Thunderbird.

They're hard to beat, though. But some people see problems right now. Though I think some of the memory leakage problems (at least from my testing) seem to be from bad addons (extensions for you old-school Firefox users, of course) or interactions between okay addons and Firefox or with other addons.

But it's bloating, and there's alternatives based on the same rendering engines. Like K-Meleon (somewhat scaled down, faster, and a more tweaker-oriented version).

This is a direct parallel with the Windows platforms and it's development over the years.

Someone had a great idea for a GUI operating system, and someone else took it (stole it some would say - I'll leave that discussion to others) and improved greatly on it. Then turned around and made it a bloated, skewed, generally messed it up..., uhm, mess..

We, as human beings, tend to take great ideas and improve on them, then at some point screw them up.

But going back to the original idea of someone taking someone else's good idea and improving on it - who's the biggest innovator? The guy who has the initial good idea but can't quite implement/distribute/boil it down/make it come together in the best way, or the guy who takes that person's great idea and makes it workable and practical? I don't know, probably both.

Personally, I've rarely been the original innovator of ideas; but I'm damn good at taking a good idea and making it better and improving on it. Usually in my case I then hand it off to someone else and they sin turn crew it up.

At some point Vista is going to be fixed and supported and accepted. But right now there's a lot of negativity. Could Firefox go this way for new versions?

I remember when Windows XP came out, some of the same concerns about it were voiced by experts and normal users alike that are being put out for Vista, but on a much smaller scale. Now XP is a very stable operating systems and well-supported, for the most part. Vista's getting there, yet with some major problems along the way and issues to resolve.

I still don't have one computer system in my home office with it installed and, for the most part, I'm still recommending customers stick with XP unless they are buying a new computer (and even then in some cases not...).

I certainly didn't wait impatiently for Vista like I did with XP.

Yea, maybe I'm kinda a geek but when your field of work is computers something like the release of XP tends to make a lot of changes in how things work in that particular field.

And, in an only-slightly related note and fairly tangential note- I've noticed that many of the ones who call me a geek are usually the very ones who can barely get away from their computers long enough to work or sleep because they have to get back on the local webboard to create gossip/read gossip, or whatever. Fill in the blank - you know the kind of people. People living in glass houses, etc.

I try to be a fairly well-rounded person with many, many interests. Usually the ones who tend to throw out the term "geek" are a "geek" themselves, maybe not in computers but in some narrow band of interest. Ah, human nature again.

Fog

A quick shot with the Canon. My first couple shots came out a weird textured pic, because the fog was so dense the flash reflected off them. I didn't want to turn off the flash completely so I used the option to back it down a percentage - another nice feature.

Web 2.0 and My Concession - Rounded Corners

Argh. The whole Web 2.0 concept. It's basically a name for some Internet-related ideas that have been evolving for many years (many of the basic ideas of which have been around since the beginning). Many of the so-called concepts behind it have been things that a lot of us have been trying to do for years. For example - making websites less static and more interactive with the visitor.

I think a good symbol for naming something that's just an natural evolution - is the Web 2.0 logo creator. This started out as a joke and a spoof of the whole thought behind Web 2.0, only to get used by a large number of people who actually are putting these logos on their websites (not that there's anything wrong with how they look).

Funny, and again - goes back to human nature... We're such strange and funny little pieces of meat, aren't we?

Back to the point of my posting - my newest little concession to the whole Web 2.0 idea is on my Old Abandoned Buildings of Northern New York site. I converted all of the picture thumbnails from square thumbnailed pics to ones with rounded corners and drop-shadows. Looks nice, no matter what you call it.