Sirius Stuffhttps://www.siriusventures.com/2020-11-14T00:00:00-08:00Improving Your Website Security with Mozilla Observatory and Netlify2020-11-14T00:00:00-08:002020-11-14T00:00:00-08:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2020-11-14:/improving-your-website-security-with-mozilla-observatory-and-netlify/<p><a href="https://observatory.mozilla.org">Mozilla Observatory</a> will test your website and assign it a letter grade based on how well your website implements things like implementing a good Content-Security-Policy, blocking clickjacking, enforcing HTTP Strict Transport Security, and so on.</p>
<p>When I started, this blog was rated F. After a few changes, it's now rated …</p><p><a href="https://observatory.mozilla.org">Mozilla Observatory</a> will test your website and assign it a letter grade based on how well your website implements things like implementing a good Content-Security-Policy, blocking clickjacking, enforcing HTTP Strict Transport Security, and so on.</p>
<p>When I started, this blog was rated F. After a few changes, it's now rated at B+ and I'm heading for A+. One of my other <a href="https://jimdeibele.com">blogs</a> started at A and became A+. That's because the other blog uses <a href="https://gohugo.io">Hugo</a> and a very recent theme.</p>
<p>This blog uses Pelican, which has been updated recently, but the theme is old. So it doesn't implement things like Subresource Integrity, where the blog passes along a hash so the browser can verify the JavaScript or CSS file hasn't been substituted.</p>
<p>Here's the netlify.toml for the Hugo blog</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">[[headers]]</span>
<span class="na">for</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s">"/*"</span>
<span class="s"> [headers.values]</span>
<span class="s"> Content-Security-Policy = "default-src 'none'; font-src https://fonts.gstatic.com; img-src 'self' https://i.imgur.com; object-src 'none'; script-src 'self'; style-src 'self'"</span>
<span class="s"> Referrer-Policy = "strict-origin"</span>
<span class="s"> X-Content-Type-Options = "nosniff"</span>
<span class="s"> X-Frame-Options = "SAMEORIGIN"</span>
<span class="s"> X-XSS-Protection = "1; mode=block"</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>and this blog</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">[[headers]]</span>
<span class="na">for</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s">"/*"</span>
<span class="s"> [headers.values]</span>
<span class="s"> Content-Security-Policy = "default-src 'https:'; font-src 'self' https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com https://fonts.googleapis.com; img-src 'self' https://i.imgur.com; object-src 'none'; script-src 'self' https://www.google-analytics.com https://code.jquery.com https://cdn.jsdelivr.net style-src 'self' https://cdn.jsdelivr.net https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com https://fonts.googleapis.com; base-uri https://www.siriusventures.com; frame-ancestors 'none'"</span>
<span class="s"> Referrer-Policy = "strict-origin"</span>
<span class="s"> X-Content-Type-Options = "nosniff"</span>
<span class="s"> X-Frame-Options = "SAMEORIGIN"</span>
<span class="s"> X-XSS-Protection = "1; mode=block"</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>It's possible to add these as Meta-Tags in the base template for each blog but it's much nicer to have them show up in the netlify.toml. </p>Use oysttyer to Tweet Blog Posts and Other Twitter Status from the Command Line CLI2020-11-07T00:00:00-08:002020-11-07T00:00:00-08:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2020-11-07:/use-oysttyer-to-tweet-blog-posts-and-other-twitter-status-from-the-command-line-cli/<p>I write these blog posts for myself but I certainly don't object to other people reading them and (hopefully) finding them useful or insightful. What seems like a good way to get them out into the world is to tweet the blog title and URL. Maybe somebody will be looking …</p><p>I write these blog posts for myself but I certainly don't object to other people reading them and (hopefully) finding them useful or insightful. What seems like a good way to get them out into the world is to tweet the blog title and URL. Maybe somebody will be looking for what I'm writing about.1</p>
<p>There have been a few scripts or programs written to tweet over the years. Unfortunately, most of them were abandoned years ago.</p>
<p>The only one that seems to be relatively active is <a href="https://github.com/oysttyer/oysttyer">oysttyer</a>. The last update was two years ago but while that was a while ago, there are still people posting issues and some back-and-forth about how to fix them. So not very active but not dead.</p>
<p>I installed it via HomeBrew on my Mac because that's the simplest way to do it. If there's an update, it will flow automatically onto my Mac. There's clear instructions for other ways to do it.</p>
<p>I tried it from my <a href="https://twitter.com/jdeibele">jdeibele</a> account and it worked fine. The <a href="https://oysttyer.github.io/docs/userGuide.html#commands-oysttyer">instructions</a> are clear and easy to follow.</p>
<p>But I wanted to post blog posts for this blog specifically. So I opened up a private window and set up another <a href="https://twitter.com/siriusventures">Twitter account</a> just for this blog. No problem. But in using oysttyer with the -rc and -keyf commands it turns out that it's hard-coded to look at your home directory.</p>
<p>So what I did was pretty simple:</p>
<p>oystttyer -rc=oysttyerrcsv -keyf=mykeyfilesv -status="my new blog post"</p>
<p>I put that in a little shell script so I can tweet out the new post right after I've written it. </p>
<ol>
<li>That's why the long and specific title for this blog post.</li>
</ol>How to Read Blogs with RSS in 20202020-11-05T00:00:00-08:002020-11-05T00:00:00-08:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2020-11-05:/how-to-read-blogs-with-rss-in-2020/<p><a href="https://laurakalbag.com/how-to-read-rss-in-2020/">How to Read RSS in 2020</a> is a nice article on how to use RSS.</p>
<p>RSS is a great way to follow people who post longer content on their blogs. You fire up your reader of choice and it pulls in the articles without you having to visit all those …</p><p><a href="https://laurakalbag.com/how-to-read-rss-in-2020/">How to Read RSS in 2020</a> is a nice article on how to use RSS.</p>
<p>RSS is a great way to follow people who post longer content on their blogs. You fire up your reader of choice and it pulls in the articles without you having to visit all those websites. If there's no change, nothing shows up in your newsreader.</p>
<p>Some of the neat uses of RSS to follow someone's Twitter or Instagram without having to follow them on Instagram have faded away as companies put up walls to keep you on their property.</p>
<p>The article does mention <a href="https://ranchero.com/netnewswire/">NetNewsWire</a>, which is a nice and FREE! app for Macs and IOS devices. I like it on my iPad but not my Mac because it doesn't implement the vi editor keystrokes that <a href="https://reederapp.com/">Reeder</a> does. Both of them sync with <a href="https://feedly.com/">Feedly</a>. That means I can read articles on my iPad or on my Mac and the other one knows what I've read and what I haven't read.</p>
<p>What would be nice is a way to way to compare lists. For example, I have a Portland group that's made up of people who blog mostly about Portland, OR. I'd like to see other groups that people have made up that contain the same blogs. </p>Welcome to Apple News+2020-11-01T00:00:00-07:002020-11-01T00:00:00-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2020-11-01:/welcome-to-apple-news/<p>I've been using Gmail with the setting for "Display Images" set to off. It helps cut down on tracking and it cuts down on the visual clutter so I scan quickly.</p>
<p>I got free 4 months of Apple News+ for buying a new Apple Pencil and I activated it. This …</p><p>I've been using Gmail with the setting for "Display Images" set to off. It helps cut down on tracking and it cuts down on the visual clutter so I scan quickly.</p>
<p>I got free 4 months of Apple News+ for buying a new Apple Pencil and I activated it. This is the message that Apple sent me:</p>
<p><img alt="Welcome to Apple News+" src="/images/welcome-to-apple-news.jpg"></p>
<p>Apple makes a lot of how they've improved accessiblity and rightfully so. But this is not very good for the visually impaired, Apple.</p>Moving from Blogofile to Pelican2020-10-29T01:01:01-07:002020-10-29T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2020-10-29:/moving-from-blogofile-to-pelican/<p>A couple of years after I <a href="https://www.siriusventures.com/switched-from-wordpress-to-blogofile/">wrote</a> about how happy I was with Blogofile, it stopped being developed. The <a href="https://github.com/EnigmaCurry/blogofile">last update</a> on GitHub was in 2015, the owner has archived the repository, and Blogofile.com doesn't answer anymore.</p>
<p>I looked for forks and didn't find any active ones. So as …</p><p>A couple of years after I <a href="https://www.siriusventures.com/switched-from-wordpress-to-blogofile/">wrote</a> about how happy I was with Blogofile, it stopped being developed. The <a href="https://github.com/EnigmaCurry/blogofile">last update</a> on GitHub was in 2015, the owner has archived the repository, and Blogofile.com doesn't answer anymore.</p>
<p>I looked for forks and didn't find any active ones. So as much as I liked the look and feel of my blog, it was going to have to switch software to something that was supported. I looked at several different options but the only one written in Python that seemed active was <a href="https://blog.getpelican.com">Pelican</a>.</p>
<p>Converting the old Blogofile posts to Pelican was pretty straight-forward.
Blogofile and Pelican both can't handle the "---" or "+++" that mark the start and end of the post header in standard Markdown. </p>
<p>When I first tried Pelican, I found problems and I didn't know if they were coming from the program itself or the themes. For example, I'd get the name of the post "stuck" as part of the URL, so every link was "/some-blog-post/about" or "/some-blog-post/category/blogging". </p>
<p>Eventually I would learn that this is an ongoing problem with blogging software and themes: presumably the themes worked with the software when they were created but over time they stopped working properly. What <strong>I</strong> would like is 10 themes that work instead of 100 that might or might not. I'm looking for something that works so I can get familiar with the software. Later, I might want to customize a theme or come up with my own. But Day 1, the writing is hard enough without taking on graphic design, too.</p>
<p>I probably should have left my posts alone, since Pelican seems to handle the mixing of HTML and Markdown as well as Blogofile did. But I converted them to pretty much standard markdown.</p>
<p>I actually got <a href="https://gohugo.io">Hugo</a> up and going with another blog before I did Pelican. Basking in that success, I came back to Pelican and tried 6 or 7 themes until I found one that worked. There seems to be a common problem with blogging software: there are (or are <strong>not</strong>) settings in the config file and that dramatically affects the theme working or not. There isn't a guaranteed configuration that will work with every theme or even most.</p>
<p>I chose the <a href="https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes/tree/master/aboutwilson">AboutWilson</a> theme because it worked well out of the box.</p>
<p>Deploying with Hugo to <a href="https://www.netlify.com/">Netlify</a> was straight-forward and Pelican was only <a href="https://www.siriusventures.com/moving-from-aws-s3-and-cloudfront-to-netlify/">slightly more complicated</a>.</p>Moving from AWS S3 and Cloudfront to Netlify2020-10-28T01:01:01-07:002020-10-28T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2020-10-28:/moving-from-aws-s3-and-cloudfront-to-netlify/<p>After almost 10 years of letting the blog sit, I wanted to bring it into the modern world. One of the issues was that I had last touched the blog back in 2011 when SSL connections were only for transactions. The blog was just fine serving pages at https:// but …</p><p>After almost 10 years of letting the blog sit, I wanted to bring it into the modern world. One of the issues was that I had last touched the blog back in 2011 when SSL connections were only for transactions. The blog was just fine serving pages at https:// but the rest of the world has moved onto https:// Notice the "s" for HyperText TransPort Secure.</p>
<p>I was able to do that with some work but the biggest problem was that most of my URLs end in / but some didn't. I was able to find a blog post on how to use Lamdas from AWS called from Cloudfront to handle adding a "/" to requests. But some-url/ and some-url and some-url/index.html were treated differently.</p>
<p>I was prepared to suffer through this but I was working with <a href="https://netlify.com">Netlify</a> for another <a href="https://jimdeibele.com">blog</a> and that made me want to move this blog to Netlify, too. I liked having the blog sitting on S3, working fine as long as I paid for my domain and the AWS bill. But there's too much technical debt in having Cloudfront->Lambda->S3.</p>
<p>I found a great article on setting up a <a href="https://www.brainsorting.dev/posts/create-a-blog-with-pelican/">Pelican blog</a> and using Netlify. The instructions almost worked perfectly.</p>
<p>What didn't work? By default, Netlify wanted to use Python2.7, not any variants of 3.X. I tried using RUNTIME.TXT but guessed wrong on version - I tried "3.8" and then "3" and those didn't work. Eventually I was able to determine that the latest version of Python was 3.7. I put that in as an environment variable and I was almost there.</p>
<p>Netlify wasn't happy about "importlib-metadata" not being pinned. I didn't have this in my pyproject.toml or requirements.txt so I'm not sure where it's coming from. But I was able to add </p>
<p>importlib-metadata ="^2.0.0"</p>
<p>to pyproject.toml and then run poetry export -f requirements.txt > requirements.txt After that, my build completed successfully.</p>Using custom fonts on a web page, including internet explorer2011-05-18T11:00:10-07:002011-05-18T11:00:10-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2011-05-18:/using-custom-fonts-on-a-web-page-including-internet-explorer/<p><a href="https://symphony-of-dot-net.blogspot.com/2010/03/making-css-custom-font-works-with-ie.html">Making CSS Custom Font works with IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari</a> has a clear explanation of how to use custom fonts on your site. </p>Namebench for the win! Bad DNS makes my mac slow2011-04-29T16:00:10-07:002011-04-29T16:00:10-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2011-04-29:/namebench-for-the-win-bad-dns-makes-my-mac-slow/<p>Really bad performance on my MacBook has been driving me up the wall the past few days. Closing all un-needed programs didn't help. I ran several Mac utilities on my system, rebooted and so on and so forth. </p>
<p>Still no good. </p>
<p>There's 8GB of RAM in my (latest model - fall …</p><p>Really bad performance on my MacBook has been driving me up the wall the past few days. Closing all un-needed programs didn't help. I ran several Mac utilities on my system, rebooted and so on and so forth. </p>
<p>Still no good. </p>
<p>There's 8GB of RAM in my (latest model - fall 2010) white MacBook and that really sped things up when it replaced the stock 2GB. It was very frustrating. </p>
<p>Activity Monitor (in your Application/Utilities folder) didn't reveal anything interesting. Everything seemed slow, from opening a file with vi to browsing to a web page. </p>
<p>Searching for "slow mac" brought up references to pages loading slowly. And that reminded me of <a href="ttps://code.google.com/p/namebench/">namebench</a>, a program that tests the fastest DNS servers for you. </p>
<p>Picking the fastest DNS servers isn't as simple as using <a href="https://www.opendns.com/">OpenDNS</a> or Google's <a href="https://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/">Public DNS</a> because some sites like Netflix return different answers depending on where you are and what internet provider you're using. What's right for OpenDNS may be much slower for you. </p>
<p>After running namebench, it detected that 75.75.75.75, the DNS provided by Comcast, my ISP, was not working. Using the advice from namebench I put 3 different DNS providers into the router, including two other Comcast addresses and a Google Public DNS. </p>
<p>Today, it's like I have a new machine it's so fast. Opening files is faster, browsing web pages is much faster, etc., etc. </p>
<p>Because of things like Dropbox or other background processes running, it seems like those slowed everything down, even something like vi on a local file. </p>
<p>So if your machine seems inexplicably slow, try using namebench and follow its advice. </p>Script to Update Blogofile Blog on Amazon S32011-04-29T16:00:10-07:002011-04-29T16:00:10-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2011-04-29:/script-to-update-blogofile-blog-on-amazon-s3/<p>Because <a href="https://www.blogofile.com">Blogofile</a>(at least the 0.7.1 version I'm using) regenerates every file and directory every time it makes it hard to update just the changed files on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a>'s <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/s3/">S3</a> (Simple Storage System) can scale incredibly high</p>
<p>So I wrote a shell script that updates only the changed …</p><p>Because <a href="https://www.blogofile.com">Blogofile</a>(at least the 0.7.1 version I'm using) regenerates every file and directory every time it makes it hard to update just the changed files on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a>'s <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/s3/">S3</a> (Simple Storage System) can scale incredibly high</p>
<p>So I wrote a shell script that updates only the changed files and also pings <a href="https://www.googleping.com/">GooglePing</a> so that Google and other services come along and read your update. </p>
<p>Over time, the difference between what the old page 2 on S3 has and what it should be will build. There's a simple answer, which is to just upload all of the page files. </p>
<p>Every 10 blog posts or so, you could just update all the category and archive files as well. Maybe that's somthing to automate as well </p>
<h1>!/bin/bash</h1>
<h1>jdeibele [ at ] gmail . com</h1>
<h1>What this does:</h1>
<h1>builds your blog with blogofile, then builds a list of key</h1>
<h1>files that have changed. Blogofile is a python program</h1>
<h1>that uses Mako to generate static pages.</h1>
<h1></h1>
<h1>Blogofile: https://www.blogofile.com</h1>
<h1></h1>
<h1>For me, these files are:</h1>
<h1>the post itself</h1>
<h1>the first page of the categories it appears in</h1>
<h1>feeds for the categories (RSS and atom)</h1>
<h1>the archive page (year/month)</h1>
<h1>the first page of /page</h1>
<h1>feed for the blog (RSS and atom)</h1>
<h1>the main page (index.html) for the blog</h1>
<h1></h1>
<h1></h1>
<p>BLOGURL="www.siriusventures.com"
BLOGNAME="Sirius Stuff"
BLOGHOME=$HOMEDIR/siriusventures</p>
<h1></h1>
<h1></h1>
<p>cd $BLOGHOME
blogofile build
rmdir *</p>
<h1>blogofile builds extra directories for these but they're empty</h1>
<p>cd $BLOGHOME/_posts
file=<code>ls -t * | head -1</code>
permalink=<code>grep "^permalink:" $file | cut -f3 -d: | cut -f4 -d"/"</code>
archive=<code>grep "^date:" $file | cut -f2 -d: | cut -f1,2 -d/ | sed 's/ //g'</code></p>
<h1></h1>
<h1>"slugify" the category names</h1>
<h1></h1>
<p>categories=<code>grep "^categories:" $file | tr [:upper:] [:lower:] | cut -f2 -d: | sed s'/^ //' | sed s'/ /-/'</code>
echo $categories
cd $BLOGHOME/_site
IFS=','
echo index.html > /tmp/postit
for category in $categories
do
echo category/$category/index.html >> /tmp/postit
echo category/$category/1/index.html >> /tmp/postit
echo category/$category/feed/index.xml >> /tmp/postit
echo category/$category/feed/atom/index.xml >> /tmp/postit
done
echo archive/$archive/1/index.html>> /tmp/postit
echo feed/index.xml >> /tmp/postit
echo feed/atom/index.xml >> /tmp/postit
echo page/1/index.html>> /tmp/postit</p>
<h1></h1>
<h1>s3cmd can be installed with homebrew - brew install s3cmd</h1>
<h1></h1>
<h1></h1>
<h1>s3cmd needs -recursive to upload a new directory</h1>
<h1></h1>
<p>s3cmd put --recursive $BLOGHOME/_site/$permalink s3://$BLOGURL</p>
<h1></h1>
<p>while read file
do
s3cmd put $BLOGHOME/_site/$file s3://$BLOGURL/$file
echo $BLOGHOME/_site/$file
done </p>What's not perfect with Blogofile2011-04-28T15:00:10-07:002011-04-28T15:00:10-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2011-04-28:/whats-not-perfect-with-blogofile/<p>In <a href="/switched-from-wordpress-to-blogofile">Switched from WordPress to Blogofile</a> there are two good things about using Blogofile:</p>
<ul>
<li>flat files are almost impossible to hack</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a>'s <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/s3/">S3</a> (Simple Storage System) can scale incredibly high</li>
</ul>
<p>There's some downsides:</p>
<ul>
<li>blogofile build seems to copy or regenerate every single file</li>
<li>it's not totally happy being on …</li></ul><p>In <a href="/switched-from-wordpress-to-blogofile">Switched from WordPress to Blogofile</a> there are two good things about using Blogofile:</p>
<ul>
<li>flat files are almost impossible to hack</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a>'s <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/s3/">S3</a> (Simple Storage System) can scale incredibly high</li>
</ul>
<p>There's some downsides:</p>
<ul>
<li>blogofile build seems to copy or regenerate every single file</li>
<li>it's not totally happy being on S3 - it doesn't make index.html files for the archive and category directories.</li>
<li>there's no easy way to post-via-email or send a link to start a post</li>
</ul>
<p>Right now I'm writing this with vi and that's far less comfortable than WordPress's editor which I really liked. But I'm sure I'll find TextWrangler or something as suitable for writing blog posts. </p>Switched from WordPress to Blogofile2011-04-28T13:24:10-07:002011-04-28T13:24:10-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2011-04-28:/switched-from-wordpress-to-blogofile/<p>I really like <a href="https://www.wordpress.org/">WordPress</a> for the huge number of themes and utilities that it has. What I don't like, though, is the need for constant vigilance to make sure that your blog hasn't been hacked. When I started the conversion, I found two blog posts that had been secretly altered …</p><p>I really like <a href="https://www.wordpress.org/">WordPress</a> for the huge number of themes and utilities that it has. What I don't like, though, is the need for constant vigilance to make sure that your blog hasn't been hacked. When I started the conversion, I found two blog posts that had been secretly altered so that they had links to spam sites. I wasn't sure whether to be grateful that only two had been altered or disappointed that my blog mattered so little that that's all they did. </p>
<p>So it's with some relief that I've switched to <a href="https://www.blogofile.com/">Blogofile</a>, a python program that generates flat files that can be hosted on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a>'s <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/s3/">S3</a> (Simple Storage System). This has the advantage of being almost impossible to hack. It also can scale even if this blog was featured on the front pages of <a href="https://digg.com/">Digg</a> and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/">Reddit</a> and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/">Daring Fireball</a> and <a href="https://slashdot.org/">Slashdot</a> and ... </p>
<p>Not that that's likely to happen little ol' me but it's comforting to think that everyone in the world could read my incredible prose. </p>Twitter phishers are after your password2009-10-29T10:10:10-07:002009-10-29T10:10:10-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2009-10-29:/twitter-phishers-are-after-your-password/<p>I was burned by this one! Graham Cluley writes a nice article on his blog called <a href="https://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/10/28/twitter-phishers-password/">Twitter phishers are after your password</a></p>
<p>What was really appalling to me was getting burned by this screen:</p>
<p><img alt="Fake twitter login screen" src="/images/tw-phishing-550.jpg" title="Fake twitter login screen"></p>
<p>Twitter, like Facebook, lets you use other sites by handling authorization. I'd been having serious problems …</p><p>I was burned by this one! Graham Cluley writes a nice article on his blog called <a href="https://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/10/28/twitter-phishers-password/">Twitter phishers are after your password</a></p>
<p>What was really appalling to me was getting burned by this screen:</p>
<p><img alt="Fake twitter login screen" src="/images/tw-phishing-550.jpg" title="Fake twitter login screen"></p>
<p>Twitter, like Facebook, lets you use other sites by handling authorization. I'd been having serious problems with Twitter not accepting my password (as were thousands of others, apparently) and it just got fixed last week. </p>
<p>So even though I was logged in and active on twitter.com, I wasn't surprised to be prompted to login. And I didn't look closely enough at the URL.</p>
<p>Of course I wasn't surprised to see this:</p>
<p><img alt="Fail whale" src="/images/tw-over-capacity-550.jpg" title="Fail whale - you've seen this"></p>
<p>Takeaways? Twitter has becoming more and more reliable. They are fixing bugs. And we all need to watch where we're going - sometimes we think we're someplace we're not. </p>
<p><em>images courtesy of <a href="https://www.sophos.com">Sophos</a> I copied them so they won't take their bandwidth or disappear if they change their links.</em></p>Cargo bikes for greener business deliveries in congested cities2008-12-24T12:12:12-07:002008-12-24T12:12:12-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2008-12-24:/cargo-bikes-for-greener-business-deliveries-in-congested-cities/<p>These <a href="https://springwise.com/eco_sustainability/cargo_bikes_for_greener_busine/">cargo bikes</a> seem really neat for emissions free deliveries in the city. Do wonder about security - not only the cargo being stolen but the whole bike. </p>Greasefire - automatically find greasemonkey scripts2008-12-17T12:12:12-07:002008-12-17T12:12:12-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2008-12-17:/greasefire-automatically-find-greasemonkey-scripts/<p>This Greasemonkey script <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8352">Greasefire</a> looks interesting but it doesn't run on Firefox 3.1 beta, which I'm running now. I find the Greasemonkey scripts for Google Reader very helpful.
It'd be nice to look into later.</p>Smart Google Reader Subscribe Button2008-12-17T12:12:12-07:002008-12-17T12:12:12-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2008-12-17:/smart-google-reader-subscribe-button/<p>If you're like most people, you've got more feeds in your news reader than you can keep up with. What's neat about this script is that it not only makes it easy to subscribe but also shows you if it's already in your subscription list. If it is, it's shown …</p><p>If you're like most people, you've got more feeds in your news reader than you can keep up with. What's neat about this script is that it not only makes it easy to subscribe but also shows you if it's already in your subscription list. If it is, it's shown with a checkmark over the RSS icon. </p>
<p>My only objection is that it's not posted to <a href="https://userscripts.org/">UserScripts</a>, a central repository for Greasemonkey scripts.</p>
<p><a href="https://blog.persistent.info/2006/05/smart-google-reader-subscribe-button.html">Smart Google Reader Subscribe Button</a> is highly recommended.</p>Enter credit card number to see if it has been stolen scam.2008-12-15T12:12:12-07:002008-12-15T12:12:12-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2008-12-15:/enter-credit-card-number-to-see-if-it-has-been-stolen-scam/<p>It's almost tempting to implement this just to see if anybody enters their info, isn't it? <a href="https://failblog.org/2008/11/14/scam-fail/">Scam fail</a></p>Google Reader - Colorful List View2008-12-02T12:12:12-07:002008-12-02T12:12:12-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2008-12-02:/google-reader-colorizer/<p>If you're like me and like to read your feeds sorted by tags, you'll find yourself jumping from blog to blog. Some Greasemonkey styles for Google Reader drop the feed name to save space, making it hard to tell articles apart.</p>
<p>Color is an efficient way to cue people that …</p><p>If you're like me and like to read your feeds sorted by tags, you'll find yourself jumping from blog to blog. Some Greasemonkey styles for Google Reader drop the feed name to save space, making it hard to tell articles apart.</p>
<p>Color is an efficient way to cue people that things are changing. Unless you're color-blind, I guess. But since I'm not, I appreciate the <a href="https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8782">Google Reader - Colorful List View</a> script because it makes it simple to tell that there's different feeds.<br>
<strong>Note: updated to show correct script</strong></p>Florida boy, 12, arrested for farting in class2008-11-27T11:11:11-07:002008-11-27T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2008-11-27:/florida-boy-12-arrested-for-farting-in-class/<p>Gotta love our zero-tolerance society showing up in situations like this: <a href="https://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24704139-5002700,00.html">Florida boy, 12, arrested for farting in class</a></p>
<p>Does anyone doubt that if this was the principal's kid it would be handled differently?</p>Global Warming & Epistemology2008-11-27T11:11:11-07:002008-11-27T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2008-11-27:/global-warming-epistemology/<p>Matt Maroon in <a href="https://mattmaroon.com/?p=610">Global Warming & Epistemology</a> articulates far better than I can the reasons for believing that global warming is happening, is caused by mankind, and needs to stop as soon as possible.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nobody can be right about everything, and the nature of climate change is
that the ultimate decisions …</p></blockquote><p>Matt Maroon in <a href="https://mattmaroon.com/?p=610">Global Warming & Epistemology</a> articulates far better than I can the reasons for believing that global warming is happening, is caused by mankind, and needs to stop as soon as possible.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nobody can be right about everything, and the nature of climate change is
that the ultimate decisions have to rest with citizens, the politicians
they elect, and entrepreneurs, most of whom can’t be expected to know
everything about everything, or even everything about global warming.
The best they can do is take the most informed opinions around and act
on them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well worth reading.</p>MyAd Display Case for businesses2008-06-25T06:06:06-07:002008-06-25T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2008-06-25:/myad-display-case-for-businesses/<p>We're starting to talk about some of the things that we've been working on with <a href="https://www.myad.com">MyAd.com</a>. One of my favorite features is the <img alt="Display Case" src="/images/display-case-example.thumbnail.png" title="Example of a display case"> Display Case, which lets you put items you've posted on MyAd in a widget on your own site.</p>
<p>Many businesses have a site that doesn't get …</p><p>We're starting to talk about some of the things that we've been working on with <a href="https://www.myad.com">MyAd.com</a>. One of my favorite features is the <img alt="Display Case" src="/images/display-case-example.thumbnail.png" title="Example of a display case"> Display Case, which lets you put items you've posted on MyAd in a widget on your own site.</p>
<p>Many businesses have a site that doesn't get updated very often. This is an easy way for a business to show what they have to offer on their own site.</p>TipToeTurtle.com - neat concept, easy to do business with2008-01-26T01:01:01-07:002008-01-26T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2008-01-26:/tiptoeturtlecom-neat-concept-easy-to-do-business-with/<p>I ordered from <a href="https://www.BicycleTrailers.com">BicycleTrailers.com</a> a <a href="https://babyjogger.com/tailwind.htm">Baby Jogger Tailwind trailer</a> that I ended up returning. I ended up returning it mostly because it had no storage room at all. I'm toting my son in the trailer and he needs his lunch, sometimes a change of clothes, etc. And it's nice …</p><p>I ordered from <a href="https://www.BicycleTrailers.com">BicycleTrailers.com</a> a <a href="https://babyjogger.com/tailwind.htm">Baby Jogger Tailwind trailer</a> that I ended up returning. I ended up returning it mostly because it had no storage room at all. I'm toting my son in the trailer and he needs his lunch, sometimes a change of clothes, etc. And it's nice to have that behind him where he can't get at it. </p>
<p>The trailer itself, while a bit on the heavy side, was extremely well built and had some very nice touches compared to our <a href="https://www.burley.com">Burley</a> LadyBug trailer. It seems likely that the Baby Jogger folks were aiming this at people who want to jog with young kids and that having no storage room was a feature, since the missing space gives a runner room for their legs to step forward.</p>
<p>Part of the packaging was a flyer from the parent company <a href="https://www.TipToeTurtle.com">TipToeTurtle.com</a>. As well as BicycleTrailers.com, they have 8 other domain names that focus on <a href="https://www.highchairs.com">high chairs</a> or [travel beds] (https://www.sparebed.com) or <a href="https://www.childcarriers.com">child carriers</a> and so on. They seem like a really nice, organized company.</p>
<p>I was expecting to have problems when I sent the trailer back - it's never as easy to package it back up . However, they were as fast and responsive with updates on receiving the trailer and processing the refund as they were on the order. I would happily do business with them again.</p>Kudos to Dell on making it easy to add parts - Dimension 92002007-11-01T11:11:11-07:002007-11-01T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-11-01:/kudos-to-dell-on-making-it-easy-to-add-parts-dimension-9200/<p>I bought a Dell Dimension 9200 with a Quad Core processor. It hasn't helped a lot but I'm reserving judgment on that until I get a second hard drive into the box. I'm suspecting that things are more I/O bound. Anyway, I didn't want to pay what <a href="https://www.dell.com">Dell</a> wanted …</p><p>I bought a Dell Dimension 9200 with a Quad Core processor. It hasn't helped a lot but I'm reserving judgment on that until I get a second hard drive into the box. I'm suspecting that things are more I/O bound. Anyway, I didn't want to pay what <a href="https://www.dell.com">Dell</a> wanted for a DVD R/W drive instead of a DVD drive so I got the box with just a DVD drive. I tried buying a DVD R/W drive at Target but the connections are wrong for my box. </p>
<p>So I ordered a DVD R/W drive from <a href="https://www.newegg.com">NewEgg</a>. I thought I was getting a deal because the drive had free shipping but as an OEM model, it didn't come with a cable ... and it turns out that SATA drives use individual cables (meaning they run directly from each drive to a port on the motherboard) instead of the IDE cables I'm used to. So I had to pop for a cable for $6. </p>
<p>Got the right side of the case off easily without tools but couldn't figure out how I was going to put screws into the left side of the drive - the left side is riveted to the rest of the case and is clearly not meant to come off. Got it and working with Ubuntu without too much trouble. Had to enable the drive in the BIOS but that was the only issue. </p>
<p>After browsing for info, I came across <a href="https://support2.jp.dell.com/docs/systems/dim9200/en/SM_EN/parts.htm">Removing and Installing Parts: Dell Dimension 9200 Service Manual</a></p>
<p>Turns out that you can remove the 3 screws screwed into the back of the blank faceplate for the 5 1/4" drive, put them into the drive you're installing and then slide it into the case. Very, very neat. Gotta get my camera hooked up to the box so I can show you. This was the nicest design that I've seen in a while. </p>Why I ride fixed - article from Bike Hugger2007-11-01T11:11:11-07:002007-11-01T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-11-01:/why-i-ride-fixed-article-from-bike-hugger/<p>I really liked this article from Bike Hugger called <a href="https://bikehugger.com/2007/09/why_i_ride_fixed.htm">Why I ride fixed</a>. It fits very well with why I ride a <a href="https://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/redline-925.html">Redline 9-2-5</a>. I've got fenders, which I need for the wet here in Portland. It's got brakes, which I need to slow Ben and I down in the …</p><p>I really liked this article from Bike Hugger called <a href="https://bikehugger.com/2007/09/why_i_ride_fixed.htm">Why I ride fixed</a>. It fits very well with why I ride a <a href="https://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/redline-925.html">Redline 9-2-5</a>. I've got fenders, which I need for the wet here in Portland. It's got brakes, which I need to slow Ben and I down in the trailer. And to slow me down - my legs aren't up to stopping the bike by themselves yet. </p>Breezer Uptown2007-09-25T09:09:09-07:002007-09-25T09:09:09-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-09-25:/breezer-uptown/<p>I read Sheldon Brown's article on <a href="https://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/breezer/uptown8.html">Breezer Town</a> where he says </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Breezer Uptown 8 is the best commuter bike available in the U.S.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There's a lot of things to like about the <a href="https://www.breezerbikes.com/bike_details.cfm?bikeType=town&frame=d&bike=uptown">Uptown 8</a>. I was able to test-drive one at <a href="https://www.velocebicycles.com">Veloce Bicycles</a> on Hawthorne. </p>
<h2>Pros</h2>
<ul>
<li>Shimano 8-speed …</li></ul><p>I read Sheldon Brown's article on <a href="https://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/breezer/uptown8.html">Breezer Town</a> where he says </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Breezer Uptown 8 is the best commuter bike available in the U.S.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There's a lot of things to like about the <a href="https://www.breezerbikes.com/bike_details.cfm?bikeType=town&frame=d&bike=uptown">Uptown 8</a>. I was able to test-drive one at <a href="https://www.velocebicycles.com">Veloce Bicycles</a> on Hawthorne. </p>
<h2>Pros</h2>
<ul>
<li>Shimano 8-speed hub</li>
<li>Hub-powered headlight and taillight - no batteries, hard to steal<br /></li>
<li>Full chainguard - reduces wear</li>
</ul>
<h2>Cons</h2>
<ul>
<li>No disc brakes - want to pull trailer down a steep hill in the rain<br /></li>
<li>Noise from rack and fenders<br /></li>
<li>26" x 1.5" tires - seem slower than 700c tires</li>
</ul>
<p>The deal breaker for me was the disc brakes. How much of an issue this is really going to be, I don't know yet. The downhill is at the start of my ride, so the bike will be relatively dry and any brakes might work well. On the other hand, the end is the top of a "T". If I can't stop and manage to avoid being hit by the SUVs and mini-vans taking kids to school, I'll run right into a house.
The twist shifter worked OK and would work well with gloves. I preferred the feel of Shimano's RapidFire shifters but not sure that they're as glove-friendly. I've also found the twist shifter seems to have more issues shifting smoothly than I would have thought. Some of this definitely may be due to my inexperience as a cyclist but I haven't liked the sloppiness of my SRAM shifters (old Specialized Crossroads) or the Shimano 7 on an <a href="https://www.electrabike.com/04/bikes/06bikes/townie/06_twn_22.html">Electra Townie 7</a> I test-rode the Townie from the <a href="https://www.bikegallery.com/">Bike Gallery</a> on Sandy.</p>
<p>I'm pulling a trailer with my son in it 3 days a week for 3.5 miles. Not very far compared to some commuters. Because of the trailer and a couple of close calls the first week of riding, I'm picking routes with lots of bikes but also lots of stop signs. I can start my road bike in any gear - have more trouble with getting my foot in the pedal cage. But with a trailer on the back on the slow Crossroads bike, it matters a lot more. I'm assuming that it'll be helpful to have the ability to shift up and down easily (without having to pedal) with the trailer. And after I've dropped the trailer, a chunk of riding is on one-way downtown streets with red lights. Again, useful to pick the gear on the spur of the moment.</p>
<p>Another issue may or may not be front shocks or lack thereof. I love the ride of my road bike, where the carbon fiber forks and seat stays tell me I'm hitting bumps but my hands don't feel tired. I hate the feel of my old Specialized Crossroads, where the aluminum transmits all of the shock. In riding the Uptown 8, it seemed fine without the front shock. And I've been warned enough times about the loss of efficiency front shocks cause to believe in it.<br>
On the other hand, pulling a trailer over speed bumps causes its own issues. I'm guessing my preference would be for a commuter bike with carbon forks ... which nobody makes.</p>Why I hate Ubuntu sometimes - crontab not enabled2007-08-09T08:08:08-07:002007-08-09T08:08:08-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-08-09:/why-i-hate-ubuntu-sometimes-crontab-not-enabled/<p>I'm trying to set up cron to run jobs for me. I have to go look up the weird syntax but OK. Found it. Everything looks fine but the jobs don't work. Go on vacation. Come back and try again. Syntax is OK. Everything looks fine but the jobs don't …</p><p>I'm trying to set up cron to run jobs for me. I have to go look up the weird syntax but OK. Found it. Everything looks fine but the jobs don't work. Go on vacation. Come back and try again. Syntax is OK. Everything looks fine but the jobs don't work. Dig, dig, dig. Find this <a href="https://www.adminschoice.com/docs/crontab.htm">Unix Crontab - setting up cron jobs using crontab</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>You can execute crontab if your name appears in the file /usr/lib/cron/cron.allow.
If that file does not exist, you can use crontab if your name does not appear in the file /usr/lib/cron/cron.deny.<br>
If only cron.deny exists and is empty, all users can use crontab.
If neither file exists, only the root user can use crontab.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and, of course, there isn't an empty cron.deny in /usr/lib/cron. OK, Ubuntu uses /etc a lot and that - according to <strong>man cron</strong> - is where the cron.deny file should be. </p>
<p>Granted that a lot of people might never have need for cron but doesn't it seem reasonable that there would be an empty /etc/cron.deny file so people who are using Ubuntu and aren't power users and just want to back up their files automatically have things work?</p>Tact Filters - how to deal with nerds2007-07-24T07:07:07-07:002007-07-24T07:07:07-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-07-24:/tact-filters-how-to-deal-with-nerds/<p>I thought this was a great explanation of why I've had trouble dealing with some excellent technical people. They had wonderful skills and cared about doing a good job but were very abrasive. <a href="https://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html">Tact Filters</a> has been around a long, long time but it's as true today as it was …</p><p>I thought this was a great explanation of why I've had trouble dealing with some excellent technical people. They had wonderful skills and cared about doing a good job but were very abrasive. <a href="https://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html">Tact Filters</a> has been around a long, long time but it's as true today as it was 10 years ago, when it was written. Or 20 years ago, when I first started working with techies.</p>Feisty Performance - “Fly Like A Butterfly” Ubuntu2007-07-01T07:07:07-07:002007-07-01T07:07:07-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-07-01:/feisty-performance-fly-like-a-butterfly-ubuntu/<p>Haven't implemented all of the things here but this looked promising on speeding up Ubuntu: <a href="https://www.xsol.se/index.php/2007/04/29/feisty-performance-fly-like-a-butterfly/">Feisty Performance - “Fly Like A Butterfly</a></p>SSH your Debian servers without password - sftp2007-07-01T07:07:07-07:002007-07-01T07:07:07-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-07-01:/ssh-your-debian-servers-without-password-sftp/<p>I was looking to do an unattended backup of some important files and found this very helpful: <a href="https://www.debianadmin.com/ssh-your-debian-servers-without-password.html">SSH your Debian servers without password</a></p>Web 2.0 how-to design style guide2007-07-01T07:07:07-07:002007-07-01T07:07:07-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-07-01:/web-20-how-to-design-style-guide/<p>This seemed like a great article on how to develop modern-looking pages. I barely know some of the HTML tags but <a href="https://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2.0-design-style-guide.cfm#star-flashes">Web 2.0 how-to design style guide</a> was clear with great screenshots.</p>HowTo Mount NTFS Filesystem Partition Read Write Access2007-06-27T06:06:06-07:002007-06-27T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-27:/howto-mount-ntfs-filesystem-partition-read-write-access/<p>Found this article on <a href="https://www.swerdna.net.au/linhowtontfs.html">HowTo Mount NTFS Filesystem Partition Read Write Access</a> very helpful as I continue to dig out from under the Feisty Fawn -> Gutsy Gibbon explosion ... er, upgrade. </p>
<p>The key thing here is the ability to mount the files so that they're readable and <strong>writeable</strong> by an ordinary …</p><p>Found this article on <a href="https://www.swerdna.net.au/linhowtontfs.html">HowTo Mount NTFS Filesystem Partition Read Write Access</a> very helpful as I continue to dig out from under the Feisty Fawn -> Gutsy Gibbon explosion ... er, upgrade. </p>
<p>The key thing here is the ability to mount the files so that they're readable and <strong>writeable</strong> by an ordinary user. I am in the process of moving photos and music off my second NTFS-formatted drive. I may reformat it as ext3 or I may not but I want to know that I've got copies on my first NTFS-formatted drive (which is split with an ext3 partition) and my <a href="/ubuntu-linux-simpleshare-nas-and-nfs/">SimpleShare NFS NAS</a>.</p>
<p>Also am putting copies on a DVD to take to work. Last step is to have a USB drive capable of backing up the SimpleShare and taking that to the office. DVDs hold a lot of pictures but CDs ripped in FLAC format take a lot of space.</p>Test for blogrefs.com2007-06-27T06:06:06-07:002007-06-27T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-27:/test-for-blogrefscom/<p>This is a test for <a href="https://www.blogrefs.com/">BlogRefs</a></p>Ubuntu Linux, SimpleShare NAS, and NFS2007-06-27T06:06:06-07:002007-06-27T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-27:/ubuntu-linux-simpleshare-nas-and-nfs/<p>Had an upgrade to Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon go badly. Now I'm digging out from under. Part of what was lost was my /etc directory getting scrambled so I couldn't read my old /etc/fstab entry. Been fighting to remember how things worked to mount my SimpleShare for backup and access …</p><p>Had an upgrade to Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon go badly. Now I'm digging out from under. Part of what was lost was my /etc directory getting scrambled so I couldn't read my old /etc/fstab entry. Been fighting to remember how things worked to mount my SimpleShare for backup and access to my ripped CDs. I finally found this article on <a href="https://www.odonnellweb.com/?p=3409"">Ubuntu Linux, SimpleShare NAS, and NFS</a> which includes this key part:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>mediaserver:/shares/SimplePool/Photos/ /mnt/photos nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It still didn't work for me, though. Was getting "can't read superblock" which was a little scary after not being able to boot due to Grub error 17 or the system just not coming up. Found the solution on <a href="https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=519292"">LinuxQuestions</a> try using the -o nolock option from the nfs mount command. So the command is now:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>mediaserver:/shares/SimplePool/Photos/ /mnt/photos nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr,nolock</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and everything seems to be working well. Well, with NFS, anyway.</p>Local DNS Cache for Faster Browsing using dnsmasq2007-06-26T06:06:06-07:002007-06-26T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-26:/local-dns-cache-for-faster-browsing-using-dnsmasq/<p>Looking for a way to speed up recurring DNS lookups on my Ubuntu box. I found a reference to <a href="https://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/08/02/local-dns-cache-for-faster-browsing/">Local DNS Cache for Faster Browsing</a> on <a href="https://ubuntu.wordpress.com/">Ubuntu Blog</a>. Works like a champ. </p>
<p>I like that dnsmasq allows me to configure the size of the cache easily. I don't like that …</p><p>Looking for a way to speed up recurring DNS lookups on my Ubuntu box. I found a reference to <a href="https://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/08/02/local-dns-cache-for-faster-browsing/">Local DNS Cache for Faster Browsing</a> on <a href="https://ubuntu.wordpress.com/">Ubuntu Blog</a>. Works like a champ. </p>
<p>I like that dnsmasq allows me to configure the size of the cache easily. I don't like that I had to chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf to make it immutable so that the system wouldn't drop looking at 127.0.0.1 (localhost) first. I tried using the package resolvconf but it caused all lookups to fail. So I used apt-get again to remove it and stayed with just the dnsmasq package.</p>Inside the Monkeysphere2007-06-25T06:06:06-07:002007-06-25T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-25:/inside-the-monkeysphere/<p>Seriously good article on why we don't think of other people as "people". <a href="https://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/monkeysphere.html">Inside the Monkeysphere</a> is terrific.</p>Kodak and their great video...2007-06-19T06:06:06-07:002007-06-19T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-19:/kodak-and-their-great-video/<p>Found a link to this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz6XjXu-oT8"">Kodak video</a> from Jason Calacanis' blog. His article about <a href="https://www.calacanis.com/2007/04/10/kodak-video-winds-of-change/">winds of change</a> has one word: genius.</p>
<p>It is a <strong>phenomenal</strong> video. Too bad that <a href="https://www.kodak.com">Kodak's web site</a> is messy and confusing and has nothing of interest to me. For me, the video just brought home …</p><p>Found a link to this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz6XjXu-oT8"">Kodak video</a> from Jason Calacanis' blog. His article about <a href="https://www.calacanis.com/2007/04/10/kodak-video-winds-of-change/">winds of change</a> has one word: genius.</p>
<p>It is a <strong>phenomenal</strong> video. Too bad that <a href="https://www.kodak.com">Kodak's web site</a> is messy and confusing and has nothing of interest to me. For me, the video just brought home how much they don't matter to me. </p>
<p>I can't remember the last time I bought a Kodak product. I suppose that they do sell paper and stuff like that to Walgreens or Costco or wherever I get the few photos I want on paper printed out.</p>
<p>But it could be Fuji or Xerox or whoever for all I care.</p>How to create a PDF printer (print to PDF) in Ubuntu2007-06-17T06:06:06-07:002007-06-17T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-17:/how-to-create-a-pdf-printer-print-to-pdf-in-ubuntu/<p>I found printing to a PDF file useful occasionally useful under Windows. Neat to have a way to do it in Ubuntu: <a href="https://www.arsgeek.com/?p=1720">5 steps to create a PDF printer (print to PDF) in Ubuntu</a></p>Celebrity Worship and the American Dream2007-06-15T06:06:06-07:002007-06-15T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-15:/celebrity-worship-and-the-american-dream-violent-acres/<p>Love this quote from <a href="https://www.violentacres.com/">Violent Acres</a> about <a href="https://www.violentacres.com/archives/204/celebrity-worship-and-the-american-dream">Celebrity Worship and the American Dream</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Speaking of the American dream, has anyone noticed how much it’s changed?
The American dream used to be about owning a modest home, having a happy
family, and supporting yourself with honest, hard work. No one …</p></blockquote><p>Love this quote from <a href="https://www.violentacres.com/">Violent Acres</a> about <a href="https://www.violentacres.com/archives/204/celebrity-worship-and-the-american-dream">Celebrity Worship and the American Dream</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Speaking of the American dream, has anyone noticed how much it’s changed?
The American dream used to be about owning a modest home, having a happy
family, and supporting yourself with honest, hard work. No one vies for
things like that anymore.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She certainly expresses herself in ways that I wouldn't. But like the way so many of her posts cut to the heart of things. Recommended reading.</p>OS X Style Google Reader2007-06-15T06:06:06-07:002007-06-15T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-15:/os-x-style-google-reader/<p>I'd referred to using CSS to <a href="/google-reader-optimized/">make Google Reader look better</a>. </p>
<p>If you're using <a href="https://www.google.com/reader">Google Reader</a>, <a href="https://userstyles.org/styles/2318">OS X Style Google Reader</a> makes it much more usable. The font's better, it's much prettier in layout, etc., etc. Great stuff.</p>Google Reader Optimized2007-06-13T06:06:06-07:002007-06-13T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-13:/google-reader-optimized/<p>I've been using Google Reader more and more. I'm not thrilled with the layout, so I was really pleased to see that I could modify it either using the <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2108/">Stylish FireFox Extension</a> or via <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748">Greasemonkey</a> <a href="https://userstyles.org/styles/1236">Google Reader Optimized</a></p>
<p>I started out with Stylish but am trying to cut down on …</p><p>I've been using Google Reader more and more. I'm not thrilled with the layout, so I was really pleased to see that I could modify it either using the <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2108/">Stylish FireFox Extension</a> or via <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748">Greasemonkey</a> <a href="https://userstyles.org/styles/1236">Google Reader Optimized</a></p>
<p>I started out with Stylish but am trying to cut down on the number of extensions I have. Of course, whether it's better to have it as a Greasemonkey script seems more open to problems than an extension. You're one level away from the scripts and they don't go through the official Mozilla check-in process. </p>How to change the root password on Ubuntu2007-06-13T06:06:06-07:002007-06-13T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-13:/how-to-change-the-root-password-on-ubuntu/<p>This is one of the things I meant to investigate. I know I have a password and can use sudo to do almost anything ... but what's root's password? <a href="https://www.zolved.com/synapse/view_content/28041/How_to_change_the_root_password_on_Ubuntu">How to change the root password on Ubuntu</a> was one of those "duh" moments but I'm glad to have this as a …</p><p>This is one of the things I meant to investigate. I know I have a password and can use sudo to do almost anything ... but what's root's password? <a href="https://www.zolved.com/synapse/view_content/28041/How_to_change_the_root_password_on_Ubuntu">How to change the root password on Ubuntu</a> was one of those "duh" moments but I'm glad to have this as a prompt to change the password. You should, too.</p>Set Gmail as Default Mail Client in Ubuntu2007-06-09T06:06:06-07:002007-06-09T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-09:/set-gmail-as-default-mail-client-in-ubuntu/<p>As much as I love <a href="https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/">Thunderbird</a> with <a href="https://www.imap.org/">IMAP</a>, I'm finding that I'm making mistakes because of using Linux and <a href="https://www.google.com/reader">Google Reader</a> more and more. I use vim and both it and Google Reader use the vi-style commands of the j key for down, k key for up, etc. I can't …</p><p>As much as I love <a href="https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/">Thunderbird</a> with <a href="https://www.imap.org/">IMAP</a>, I'm finding that I'm making mistakes because of using Linux and <a href="https://www.google.com/reader">Google Reader</a> more and more. I use vim and both it and Google Reader use the vi-style commands of the j key for down, k key for up, etc. I can't find a way to re-map the keys in Thunderbird to do the same under Linux. Also, using Thunderbird means keeping two addressbooks instead of one. </p>
<p>So I'm now using <a href="https://www.gmail.com">gmail</a> as my primary mail program, reserving Thunderbird for the times when I actually do need to work off the 'net. One of the things that I found useful was a way to <a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/set-gmail-as-default-mail-client-in-ubuntu/">Set Gmail as Default Mail Client in Ubuntu</a>. This is working like a champ.</p>Pointer to Reviews of Dell computers with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn preinstalled - XPS 410n, E1505n2007-06-08T06:06:06-07:002007-06-08T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-08:/pointer-to-reviews-of-dell-computers-with-ubuntu-feisty-fawn-preinstalled-xps-410n-e1505n/<p>I've been waiting for people to start getting and reviewing their Dell machines with Ubuntu before ordering mine. There's a nice article on the Ubuntu Forums:<a href="https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2764621#post2764621">Review of Dell XPS 410n with Ubuntu Feisty preinstalled</a>. Also good coverage of the <a href="https://www.bryceharrington.org/Photos/DellUbuntu/index.html">Dell E1505n</a> laptop. </p>
<p>I'm not ready to convert my 4-year-old …</p><p>I've been waiting for people to start getting and reviewing their Dell machines with Ubuntu before ordering mine. There's a nice article on the Ubuntu Forums:<a href="https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2764621#post2764621">Review of Dell XPS 410n with Ubuntu Feisty preinstalled</a>. Also good coverage of the <a href="https://www.bryceharrington.org/Photos/DellUbuntu/index.html">Dell E1505n</a> laptop. </p>
<p>I'm not ready to convert my 4-year-old Inspiron laptop over to Ubuntu because of suspend/hibernate and wireless issues but it sounds better with more modern machines. Maybe if Dell or HP or Lenovo comes out with a backlit LED screen like Apple's I'll be ready to switch. Also liked the tips on <a href="https://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/3952/dell_what_gives">wireless with Ubuntu</a> here.</p>This Blog Entry is Urgent2007-06-05T06:06:06-07:002007-06-05T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-06-05:/this-blog-entry-is-urgent/<p>Eric Sink writes a great article called <a href="https://software.ericsink.com/entries/Urgent.html">This Blog Entry is Urgent</a> and it includes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I see an envelope that says, (Do not discard this envelope(, I know immediately that it will be safe for me to throw it away unopened.</p>
<p>When I see an envelope that says (Special …</p></blockquote><p>Eric Sink writes a great article called <a href="https://software.ericsink.com/entries/Urgent.html">This Blog Entry is Urgent</a> and it includes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I see an envelope that says, (Do not discard this envelope(, I know immediately that it will be safe for me to throw it away unopened.</p>
<p>When I see an envelope that says (Special Offer(, I know with certainty that the offer contained therein is not special, and was in fact distributed to everybody with a pulse.</p>
<p>When I see an envelope telling me that Ive won, I see a completely unambiguous message. There could be no clearer way to communicate to me that I have in fact not won anything at all.</p>
</blockquote>I'm Sorry You Feel That Way2007-05-29T05:05:05-07:002007-05-29T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-29:/im-sorry-you-feel-that-way/<p>Wow, this is a great post. <a href="https://www.violentacres.com/archives/187/pet-peeve-7-im-sorry-you-feel-that-way">Pet Peeve #7: I'm Sorry You Feel That Way</a> totally sums up how snotty some people are when saying "I'm sorry you feel that way". </p>
<p>Wow.</p>Bookmarks Power up Firefox with keywords - Lifehacker2007-05-23T05:05:05-07:002007-05-23T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-23:/bookmarks-power-up-firefox-with-keywords-lifehacker/<p>I have this working on my laptop. But I have to remember to get it going on my desktop machine. That's the only problem with having two machines - even with Google's browser sync it's hard to keep the FireFox configurations absolutely identical. <a href="https://lifehacker.com/software/bookmarks/power-up-firefox-with-keywords-248451.php">Bookmarks: Power up Firefox with keywords - Lifehacker</a></p>Hack Attack - Firefox and the art of keyword bookmarking2007-05-23T05:05:05-07:002007-05-23T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-23:/hack-attack-firefox-and-the-art-of-keyword-bookmarking/<p>Another article on FireFox and bookmarks. <a href="https://lifehacker.com/software/bookmarks/hack-attack-firefox-and-the-art-of-keyword-bookmarking-196779.php">Firefox and the art of keyword bookmarking</a></p>Convert Physical Windows Systems Into Virtual Machines To Be Run On A Linux Desktop2007-05-18T05:05:05-07:002007-05-18T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-18:/convert-physical-windows-systems-into-virtual-machines-to-be-run-on-a-linux-desktop/<p>Another article on how to <a href="https://www.howtoforge.com/vmware_converter_windows_linux">Convert Physical Windows Systems Into Virtual Machines To Be Run On A Linux Desktop</a></p>Running a Windows Partition in VMware2007-05-18T05:05:05-07:002007-05-18T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-18:/running-a-windows-partition-in-vmware/<p>I'm still trying to figure out whether I'm going to try and keep running XP on my laptop or try to run XP under Ubuntu. Big problem with running <a href="https://www.ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a> is that hibernate does not work and I've spent several hours on it. Enough time that I'm not willing to …</p><p>I'm still trying to figure out whether I'm going to try and keep running XP on my laptop or try to run XP under Ubuntu. Big problem with running <a href="https://www.ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a> is that hibernate does not work and I've spent several hours on it. Enough time that I'm not willing to spend more without confidence that the time will be well-spent. </p>
<p>I may just wait for Dell or someone else to come out with Ubuntu on their machines officially and then buy one of those. Hopefully WiFi and hibernate will work without the kind of work I'm having to do.</p>
<p>Right now, I'm sticking with XP on laptop and Ubuntu with desktop. This looks useful for <a href="https://oopsilon.com/Running-a-Windows-Partition-in-VMware">Running a Windows Partition in VMware</a></p>
<p>I'm using <a href=""https://www.virtualbox.org/">VirtualBox</a> and am pretty happy with it so far.</p>Things I can do in Linux that I can't do on Windows. | dmartin.org2007-05-18T05:05:05-07:002007-05-18T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-18:/things-i-can-do-in-linux-that-i-cant-do-on-windows-dmartinorg/<p>This article lists some of the <a href="https://dmartin.org/weblog/things-i-can-do-in-linux-that-i-cant-do-on-windows">things I can do in Linux that I can't do on Windows</a>.</p>
<p>Nice article.</p>You Can Switch to Linux! - willsmith - Maximum PC2007-05-18T05:05:05-07:002007-05-18T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-18:/you-can-switch-to-linux-willsmith-maximum-pc/<p>Apparently it's Ubuntu day for me. Wondering if you can <a href="https://www.maximumpc.com/linux?page=0%2C1"">switch to Linux</a>? Here's a nice article on how to do so. Published in Maximum PC magazine, it's clear and current with Feisty Fawn, released just less than a month ago. Good stuff.</p>How to choose the right screenshot program2007-05-07T05:05:05-07:002007-05-07T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-07:/how-to-choose-the-right-screenshot-program/<p>I need to get pictures of screens for reporting problems. I don't usually want to take the full screen or even a window - I want the smallest section that will show the problem. Using Ubuntu, I wasn't able to find anything that would do it as easily as I would …</p><p>I need to get pictures of screens for reporting problems. I don't usually want to take the full screen or even a window - I want the smallest section that will show the problem. Using Ubuntu, I wasn't able to find anything that would do it as easily as I would like. I'm guessing with some certainty that I could have rigged The Gimp or something to capture the screen but then I would have to work at reducing the size, etc. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/1843204">How to choose the right screenshot program</a> there was a reference to Ksnapshot. It installed with just one file, though it referenced khelpcenter as suggested. With a bit of clicking, I found that the "region" mode was what I wanted. It works nicely with Gnome-based Ubuntu.</p>Linux Audio Players Compared2007-05-05T05:05:05-07:002007-05-05T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-05:/linux-audio-players-compared/<p>Really liked this article. <a href="https://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,128636/printable.html">Linux Audio Players, Tested and Graded</a>. I'm working my way through the Linux equivalents of Windows apps. I've used iTunes under Windows because it would talk easily to my iPod. </p>
<p>I tried <a href="https://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/">Rhythmbox</a> but it was out immediately. I want to keep my songs on a …</p><p>Really liked this article. <a href="https://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,128636/printable.html">Linux Audio Players, Tested and Graded</a>. I'm working my way through the Linux equivalents of Windows apps. I've used iTunes under Windows because it would talk easily to my iPod. </p>
<p>I tried <a href="https://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/">Rhythmbox</a> but it was out immediately. I want to keep my songs on a network-attached storage drive. Basically, the <a href="https://www.simpletech.com/commercial/simpleshare/">SimpleShare</a> is a hard drive with an ethernet port. I don't expect it to be as vulnerable to attacks as Windows XP. I don't have to punch holes in its firewall that might allow people to get control of my Linux box or my wife's Mac. Rhythmbox wants import all my music to one local location. <strong>No</strong>.</p>
<p>I moved on to <a href="https://www.exaile.org/">Exaile</a> because it didn't require me to bring music locally. It's OK. What I don't like is how hard it is to play one song. If I want to listen to song X by artist Y, I can find it easily. But I expect to be able to double click. Or click to select and then play. Or something. Also, it's not obvious how I connect my iPod.</p>
<p>So I tried installing Banshee. Gorgeous. Good (apparent) support for iPods and podcasts. But it again wants to import all my music to local disk. <strong>No</strong>. </p>
<p>So I found the PC World article. Looked at exaile again. It has simple, clear instructions on how to upgrade from the 0.2.8 version distributed with <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeistyFawn">Feisty Fawn</a> to the current 0.2.9. I'm not thrilled about adding sources to apt but OK. The logo for Exaile is now a play button instead of an equals sign or whatever it was. Good improvement. Has plugins for SoundJuicer and iPods and other things. Cool.</p>
<p>So I've removed Banshee and Rhythmbox. One of the things I hated about most Linux distributions was that they gave you 10 ways of doing things. None of which quite worked. Part of the value that I see with using Ubuntu is that they're making decisions about what players to include. I might say that their choice was wrong for <strong>me</strong> when using Rhythmbox instead of Exaile but at least they're making some decisions.</p>
<p>Next week's project will be looking at movie players. Is gxine the best for me? Or is there something better? </p>Official Google Reader Blog - There are people who don't use feed readers?2007-05-03T05:05:05-07:002007-05-03T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-03:/official-google-reader-blog-there-are-people-who-dont-use-feed-readers/<p>Do you use <a href="https://www.google.com/reader">Google Reader</a>? I've thought that other readers were better beause they're faster. I really like <a href="https://www.rssowl.org">RSS Owl</a>, which uses IE to display pages. It's based on Java and is cross-platform, usable on Macs, Windows and Linux. It uses one file to track what feeds you read. </p>
<p>Problem …</p><p>Do you use <a href="https://www.google.com/reader">Google Reader</a>? I've thought that other readers were better beause they're faster. I really like <a href="https://www.rssowl.org">RSS Owl</a>, which uses IE to display pages. It's based on Java and is cross-platform, usable on Macs, Windows and Linux. It uses one file to track what feeds you read. </p>
<p>Problem is, there's no standard way to show how far you've read in a newsfeed. Articles are updated, the online services fetch them at different times - Google and Bloglines are online all the time but your RSS reader probably is not. So I can't easily keep offline readers in sync unless they're hooked up to something to like <a href="https://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct.aspx?ProdID=FeedDemon">FeedDemon</a>. </p>
<p>That costs money, which would be OK, except that they have Mac and Windows (and BlackBerry) but no Linux. Plus I don't - or want to know - what their licensing scheme is. If I have it on my laptop and my desktop, is that one instance? It's probably two. </p>
<p>So I made the decision to stick with Google reader which also works on my Blackberry, though not in a great fashion. </p>
<p>I've really not been happy with the way that they did "email an article". But they've introduced a new way of doing that and I'm much happier with their implementation. Hmmm. I'd show you a screenshot except that I don't know how to do that in Linux. I will figure it out.</p>
<p>Prompted by <a href="https://ooglereader.blogspot.com/2007/05/there-are-people-who-dont-use-feed.html">There are people who don't use feed readers?</a></p>Firefox - Open diverted links in new background tab instead of new window2007-05-01T05:05:05-07:002007-05-01T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-01:/firefox-open-diverted-links-in-new-background-tab-instead-of-new-window/<p>I really like to be able to click on links while reading an article but not have to deal with the links until I'm done. I've got enough ADD issues without tabs popping up. So I was very happy to find this reference to making tabs work better (for me …</p><p>I really like to be able to click on links while reading an article but not have to deal with the links until I'm done. I've got enough ADD issues without tabs popping up. So I was very happy to find this reference to making tabs work better (for me, anyway): <a href="https://teuton.blogspot.com/2004/12/firefox-open-diverted-links-in-new.html">Firefox: Open diverted links in new background tab instead of new window</a></p>
<p>It's kind of an adjustment process because FF is relatively "quiet' - the tabs are opening all the way to the right and not grabbing attention. Just the way I've wanted but it's a little unnerving - I'm checking to make sure the tabs did open.</p>
<p>Highly recommended.</p>What’s With the Ubuntu Version Number Scheme?2007-05-01T05:05:05-07:002007-05-01T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-05-01:/whats-with-the-ubuntu-version-number-scheme/<p>One thing that was kind of exasperating about Ubuntu was the (weird( version numbers. The successor to 6.06 was 6.10? The next version was 7.04? Huh? </p>
<p>Fortunately, somebody finally blogged about this: <a href="https://blogs.tech-recipes.com/johnny/2006/10/31/whats-with-the-ubuntu-version-number-scheme/">What’s With the Ubuntu Version Number Scheme? -- Johnny’s Thoughts</a></p>
<p>No big secret: the …</p><p>One thing that was kind of exasperating about Ubuntu was the (weird( version numbers. The successor to 6.06 was 6.10? The next version was 7.04? Huh? </p>
<p>Fortunately, somebody finally blogged about this: <a href="https://blogs.tech-recipes.com/johnny/2006/10/31/whats-with-the-ubuntu-version-number-scheme/">What’s With the Ubuntu Version Number Scheme? -- Johnny’s Thoughts</a></p>
<p>No big secret: the first number is the year and the second is the month. So 7.04 translates as 200<strong>7</strong> and April or month <strong>04</strong>. </p>
<p>Now I can sleep at night. </p>Why we just have basic cable ...2007-04-29T04:04:04-07:002007-04-29T04:04:04-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-04-29:/why-we-just-have-basic-cable/<p>We got an HDTV last year. After a few months of watching DVDs on it, I started wondering what HDTV was like. I tried getting an indoor <a href="/hdtv-for-free-without-an-antenna">HDTV antenna</a> which didn't work so well. I started looking at DirecTV and Dish Network and upgrading to higher levels of cable with …</p><p>We got an HDTV last year. After a few months of watching DVDs on it, I started wondering what HDTV was like. I tried getting an indoor <a href="/hdtv-for-free-without-an-antenna">HDTV antenna</a> which didn't work so well. I started looking at DirecTV and Dish Network and upgrading to higher levels of cable with Comcast. There's occasional things on ESPN that I want to watch and there's probably a few things that my wife would like to watch.</p>
<p>But what keeps us from doing that are situations like [this]((https://www.marketingheadhunter.com/executive_search/2007/04/spiderman.html). When my daughters (3 and 4 1/2) are at Nana Peg's, they get to watch the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and whatever else is out there for kids. It's a little frightening to see them glued to the screen. Perhaps there's a factor where the novelty wears off ... but it doesn't seem like it. So they'll need to make do with watching Dora the Explorer or Max and Ruby for the n'th time.</p>
<p>We do get some leakage of the marketing stuff on Saturdays, which is the one day they can see commercials. So far that hasn't had much effect. Yet. </p>Dell offering pre-installed Linux?2007-04-24T04:04:04-07:002007-04-24T04:04:04-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-04-24:/dell-offering-pre-installed-linux/<p>Was reading Deep Jive Interests about <a href="https://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2007/04/22/dells-crowdsourcing-more-than-hype-tells-microsoft-to-suck-it/#comments">Dell’s Crowdsourcing More Than Hype: Tells Microsoft to “Suck It!”</a></p>
<p>I've spent some time the past 10 days or so putting Ubuntu 7.04 on 3 PCs, all of them dual-booting some flavor of Windows. Obviously there's a lot of interest in doing …</p><p>Was reading Deep Jive Interests about <a href="https://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2007/04/22/dells-crowdsourcing-more-than-hype-tells-microsoft-to-suck-it/#comments">Dell’s Crowdsourcing More Than Hype: Tells Microsoft to “Suck It!”</a></p>
<p>I've spent some time the past 10 days or so putting Ubuntu 7.04 on 3 PCs, all of them dual-booting some flavor of Windows. Obviously there's a lot of interest in doing this on <a href="https://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/03/13/7985.aspx"">Dell's site</a> but it's not clear at all that Dell is going to reduce the price just because they don't install Microsoft. I still don't have hibernation working properly on my desktop - haven't tried on the kids' or my laptop yet - so I'm a <strong>lot</strong> more interested in paying the same price as a Windows box just to have hibernate and wireless work without a glitch.</p>
<p>Working on the hibernate scripts is not fun for me. I can't imagine it's fun for a programmer. So, OK. I'm willing to pay to have better support for Linux. It would be nice to be able to either specify "just hardware that plays nice with Linux" or have Dell lean on their suppliers to just make it happen.</p>20 must-see Greasemonkey Addons(No Technical Knowledge Req.)2007-04-03T04:04:04-07:002007-04-03T04:04:04-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-04-03:/20-must-see-greasemonkey-addonsno-technical-knowledge-req/<p>I love the way that Firefox and Thunderbird can be extended by extensions. But I've been somewhat concerned about the reliability and stability of Greasemonkey scripts. There were a couple of features that I wanted to try (more on that later) so I broke down and installed it on my …</p><p>I love the way that Firefox and Thunderbird can be extended by extensions. But I've been somewhat concerned about the reliability and stability of Greasemonkey scripts. There were a couple of features that I wanted to try (more on that later) so I broke down and installed it on my laptop. </p>
<p>Wow. I've been very pleased with how well the scripts worked. I'm still cautious about installing them, since they're not looked over anywhere near as much as extensions on the official <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org">Mozilla site</a> are. But the <a href="https://userscripts.org/">Userscripts</a> site lets you look over info from the author and comments from people before installing anything.</p>
<p>A good place to start is <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/20-must-see-greasemonkey-addonsno-technical-knowledge-req">20 must-see Greasemonkey Addons</a></p>This is the way I'm feeling about technology, too2007-03-27T03:03:03-07:002007-03-27T03:03:03-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-03-27:/this-is-the-way-im-feeling-about-technology-too/<p>I found Eric Sink's blog via some references from <a href="https://www.joelonsoftware.com/">Joel Spolsky's blog</a>. This is a nice post about the <a href="https://software.ericsink.com/entries/Technology_Dependence.html">problems with whiz-bang technology</a>.</p>Good summary of why Blu-Ray and HD-DVD won't take off2007-03-12T03:03:03-07:002007-03-12T03:03:03-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-03-12:/good-summary-of-why-blu-ray-and-hd-dvd-wont-take-off/<p>This is an excellent write-up of why I don't think Blu-Ray or HD-DVD are going to matter. And some good insights in the comments, too.
<a href="https://reality.org/2006/12/01/the-unwinnable-war-in-high-definition-dvd/">The Unwinnable War in high definition DVD</a></p>Ouch! Apple gets it right on Vista2007-02-06T02:02:02-07:002007-02-06T02:02:02-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-02-06:/ouch-apple-gets-it-right-on-vista/<p>Yesterday, I referenced what it was like <a href="/living-with-vista/">living with Vista</a></p>
<p>Today I ran across an <a href="https://images.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-security_480x376.mov mocking Vista">Apple ad</a>. Unfortunately, they pretty much got it right.</p>
<p>I'm hoping for an update that fixes this. Please, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/">Microsoft</a>?</p>Living with Vista2007-02-05T02:02:02-07:002007-02-05T02:02:02-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-02-05:/living-with-vista/<p>OK, I've had Windows Vista installed for 9 days now and my verdict is ... it's not worth upgrading. Vista is supposed to be more secure than XP but this manifests itself in really annoying ways. The screen flashes black and a box pops up that must be dealt with. That'd …</p><p>OK, I've had Windows Vista installed for 9 days now and my verdict is ... it's not worth upgrading. Vista is supposed to be more secure than XP but this manifests itself in really annoying ways. The screen flashes black and a box pops up that must be dealt with. That'd be great if it were only for important things but it happens <em>all the time</em>!</p>
<p>I've had it happen when I want to change the smallest system setting. I've had it happen while downloading files. C'mon, get out of my way.</p>
<p>I'm having trouble doing backups with Quicken. Intuit probably had to do something so that they could force writes of data every time you changed something so that it wouldn't be lost. But wow, this was coming for a while. </p>
<p>I wanted to look at Vista before thinking about Mac OS. It's tough, though, because you can get a 17" HP or Dell laptop for $1000 less than a 17" MacBook Pro. Granted that it might take another $250-$300 to bring the laptops up to apples-to-Apples (heh) specs but that's still a lot of money to spend on an OS. Guess I could be one of the elite then, though.</p>
<p>Makes me wish for FreeBSD or Linux. But I don't really want to deal with an ugly, clunky windowing system as well having to reboot to run the few Windows programs I need.</p>Too many choices = problems2007-01-31T01:01:01-07:002007-01-31T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-31:/too-many-choices-problems/<p>I installed Vista on my home desktop machine on Friday. I've already been bitten twice by the new (off( button with Vista. I'm going to have to figure out how to change its default behavior. </p>
<p>I enjoy reading Joel Spolsky's articles. In <a href="https://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html">Choices = Headaches</a> he talks about the problems with …</p><p>I installed Vista on my home desktop machine on Friday. I've already been bitten twice by the new (off( button with Vista. I'm going to have to figure out how to change its default behavior. </p>
<p>I enjoy reading Joel Spolsky's articles. In <a href="https://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html">Choices = Headaches</a> he talks about the problems with Vista:
<img alt="Vista off" src="https://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21vistaOff.PNG"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every time you want to leave your computer, you have to choose between
nine, count them, nine options: two icons and seven menu items.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He thinks that's too many. So do I. </p>Buzz Monitoring and Tracking2007-01-28T01:01:01-07:002007-01-28T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-28:/buzz-monitoring-and-tracking/<p>Not that it applies to this blog at all but Web 2.0: <a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2006/11/24/buzz-monitoring-observing-und-tracking/">Buzz-Monitoring and Tracking</a> is a nice write-up of some solutions and I need to look at it more closely.</p>
<p>I've been trying to use <a href="/nice-article-on-using-google-notebook/"">Google notebook</a> to track things but it's not working so well for me …</p><p>Not that it applies to this blog at all but Web 2.0: <a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2006/11/24/buzz-monitoring-observing-und-tracking/">Buzz-Monitoring and Tracking</a> is a nice write-up of some solutions and I need to look at it more closely.</p>
<p>I've been trying to use <a href="/nice-article-on-using-google-notebook/"">Google notebook</a> to track things but it's not working so well for me. The interface is kind of clumsy. Need to get back and try it some more, I guess. In the meantime, I can use the blog to call attention to articles that are useful for me and for my hordes of readers. <img alt="smile" src="/images/smiley.png"></p>Keep your add-ons/extensions while upgrading Thunderbird2007-01-28T01:01:01-07:002007-01-28T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-28:/keep-your-add-onsextensions-while-upgrading-thunderbird/<p>I installed Vista on my home desktop machine. I say "installed" rather than upgraded because Microsoft's installation routine refused to let me upgrade. I spent a couple of hours on trying to figure out how to get around that and, in the end, decided that I'd rather install FireFox, Acrobat …</p><p>I installed Vista on my home desktop machine. I say "installed" rather than upgraded because Microsoft's installation routine refused to let me upgrade. I spent a couple of hours on trying to figure out how to get around that and, in the end, decided that I'd rather install FireFox, Acrobat Reader, iTunes and the other programs that I want or need.</p>
<p>It so happens that Thunderbird 2 beta 2 was released recently. I tried "nightlies" or alphas and it was a little too experimental for me. No lost mail but just some inconsistencies in how things worked. Fair enough, they're alphas. And beta 1 had issues with message filters. So I dropped back to 1.5 In the meantime, I've started using IMAP and procmail and message filters are less important.</p>
<p>In about 48 hours of testing, beta 2 seems pretty solid. One problem I had was that I wanted to have the same contact info on my desktop and laptop machines. So I've started using Plaxo again. It's working pretty well. </p>
<p>However, the <a href="https://www.plaxo.com">Plaxo</a> add-on isn't compatible with anything past 1.5.X I found <a href="https://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=973">Bumping Extensions</a> and it's got some useful tips for dealing with this situation. </p>
<p>The one I found most helpful was this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This method changes one setting in your Mozilla Firefox configuration.
This is a really easy and quick way to get your extension to install again.</p>
<ul>
<li>Start Mozilla Firefox</li>
<li>Type <strong>about:config</strong> in the address bar</li>
<li>Type <strong>extensions.checkCompatibility</strong> in the filter bar</li>
<li>only exists in Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.0 and later</li>
<li>Right click the entry and choose modify</li>
<li>Change the value to false</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>For Thunderbird, you just need to do "options", "advanced", and it should be on "general". Pick config editor and you're in the right place. You can just type in "check" and Thunderbird will show you the matches.</p>
<p>PS: I don't know why Mozilla switched from "extensions" with Thunderbird and FireFox 1.5 to "add-ons" with the 2.0 series. Whatever. </p>Like your drinks fizzy?2007-01-28T01:01:01-07:002007-01-28T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-28:/like-your-drinks-fizzy/<p>Found a neat idea if you're into doing things yourself. You can use this device to make your own bottles of soda, mixing the flavors and setting the carbonation the way you want.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.coolbusinessideas.com/archives/create_your_own_fizzy_drinks.html">Create Your Own Fizzy Drinks</a></p>Seattleite patronizing Portland again2007-01-28T01:01:01-07:002007-01-28T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-28:/seattleite-patronizing-portland-again/<p>I enjoy reading <a href="https://360digest.com">360digest</a> when I get a chance. Not only is my brother-in-law Dave a newly-minted real estate agent but the house next door was up for sale for a while recently. Real estate is one of those things that we all have to deal with, because we all …</p><p>I enjoy reading <a href="https://360digest.com">360digest</a> when I get a chance. Not only is my brother-in-law Dave a newly-minted real estate agent but the house next door was up for sale for a while recently. Real estate is one of those things that we all have to deal with, because we all need a place to live.</p>
<p>Anyway, I was amused to read that on the blog this quote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>In Portland, Ore., $300,000 means a clean and simple floating home on the Pacific ocean</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ummm, it would not be a clean and simple home. Because the Pacific Ocean is 90 miles away from Portland, which is on the Columbia and Willamette <em>rivers</em>. </p>
<p>100 years ago, Portland was a more significant city than Seattle because of those rivers. It was simply easier to float things up and down the rivers than to try to move them across land. With trucks and interstates and container ships, that's changed significantly. </p>
<p>Now it's important to have deep water and make it easy for big ships to navigate into docks as quickly as possible. So new Portland is "little sister" to Seattle. Which never lets us forget it. </p>Testing MyPages linking2007-01-28T01:01:01-07:002007-01-28T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-28:/testing-mypages-linking/<p>We're experimenting with linking back to blogs who reference a business on mypages.com For example, a business that listed itself recently was <a href="https://www.mypages.com/503-235-1035">Hammy's Pizza</a>. It's in the <a href="https://portland.mypages.com/restaurants/pizza/">Portland Pizza</a> category.</p>What I now know about Wordpress 2.12007-01-28T01:01:01-07:002007-01-28T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-28:/what-i-now-know-about-wordpress-21/<p>What I now know about Wordpress 2.1 ... is that I can't run it because my host is running MySQL prior to 4.0. Tried doing the upgrade and it sort of worked ... but not really. So I reverted back to 2.0.6 and found 2.0.7 which …</p><p>What I now know about Wordpress 2.1 ... is that I can't run it because my host is running MySQL prior to 4.0. Tried doing the upgrade and it sort of worked ... but not really. So I reverted back to 2.0.6 and found 2.0.7 which is what we're running now. Really have to get credit to the folks at <a href="https://wordpress.org">WordPress</a> - they have made a solid piece of software that's easy enough to work with that many people have made plug-ins ... but it handles stuff like 2.0.6->2.1->2.0.7 without messing up. Very comfortable feeling, relying on it.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.technosailor.com/10-things-you-should-know-about-wordpress-21">10 Things You should Know About WordPress 2.1</a> is a good summary of key changes.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Merging of Links and Categories</p>
<p>[...] While those philosophies can be discussed in other posts, the important
thing to recognize is that the Categories table is now prepopulated
with a Blogroll category and all links are assigned, by default, to the
blogroll category. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>That's actually something I'd like to have. Trying to make two sets of categories is a pain. Much nicer to link to Wordpress.org in the blogging category, etc.</p>
<p>So I just need to figure out how to back up my blog, then make WordPress work on a different port. Yeah, easy-peasy. But I will get to it so I can see what the other features are like.</p>Good article on online communities2007-01-24T01:01:01-07:002007-01-24T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-24:/good-article-on-online-communities/<p>I've had this article on my hot list for a while. In <a href="https://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2006/10/human_scale_nei.html">Human Scale, Neighborhoods, and MySpaceaphobia</a> Stowe Boyd writes well about some of the issues with online sites like MySpace or Facebook and even proposes some solutions to the problems they have.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Human-oriented social contexts should allow users to …</p></blockquote><p>I've had this article on my hot list for a while. In <a href="https://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2006/10/human_scale_nei.html">Human Scale, Neighborhoods, and MySpaceaphobia</a> Stowe Boyd writes well about some of the issues with online sites like MySpace or Facebook and even proposes some solutions to the problems they have.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Human-oriented social contexts should allow users to control scale:
how many people can access what aspects of my on-line persona, what
sorts of communication are available based on what degree of connection,
and so on. If I want to limit my profile on Facebook to only current
students of my university, I should be able to do so. If I want to
rectrict access to my music playing habits to only those people that
I know, then Last.fm should allow me to.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Good stuff.</p>DRM = Digital Restrictions Management2007-01-14T01:01:01-07:002007-01-14T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-14:/drm-digital-restrictions-management/<p>In their article <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/business/yourmoney/14digi.html">Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs</a> published today, the Times makes a number of good points. Probably the best one is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As some wags have said, the initials D.R.M. should really stand for
“Digital Restrictions Management.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the reasons I'm reluctant to switch to …</p><p>In their article <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/business/yourmoney/14digi.html">Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs</a> published today, the Times makes a number of good points. Probably the best one is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As some wags have said, the initials D.R.M. should really stand for
“Digital Restrictions Management.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the reasons I'm reluctant to switch to an <a href="https://www.apple.com/">Apple</a> computer is because of the apparent lack of alternatives on the Mac. I don't use Microsoft's software or formats for music, I use <a href="https://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/">AudioGrabber</a> to rip to MP3 format and then listen to those in <a href="https://www.apple.com/itunes/">iTunes</a>.</p>
<p>I'm looking at various lossless formats now because ripping is enough pain that I only want to do it once. Will I listen to the same music 30 years from now? Maybe. </p>
<p>So trying to get it onto the computer in a format that won't have to be re-purchased or re-ripped makes a lot of sense to me. That's why I'm avoiding anything that has Digital Restrictions Managment on it. </p>HDTV for free without an antenna2007-01-12T01:01:01-07:002007-01-12T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-12:/hdtv-for-free-without-an-antenna/<p>Last summer, I bought a 40" Sony Bravia at <a href="https://www.costco.com/">Costco</a>. I did it knowing that 1080p was going to be what I really wanted but also aware that there's not much out there that you can use <strong>at</strong> 1080p. Only recently have Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players become available for under …</p><p>Last summer, I bought a 40" Sony Bravia at <a href="https://www.costco.com/">Costco</a>. I did it knowing that 1080p was going to be what I really wanted but also aware that there's not much out there that you can use <strong>at</strong> 1080p. Only recently have Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players become available for under $5000 and there's almost nothing available for either of them.</p>
<p>We have cable internet service from <a href="https://www.comcast.net">Comcast</a>. It's not cheap at $53/month but it's rarely down, it's very fast and it's gotten faster. I don't like Comcast but let's not go there.</p>
<p>Anyway, when we move from Vancouver, WA to Portland, we could get a $10/month discount for having a second service with <a href="https://www.comcast.com">Comcast</a>. So we have basic cable for about $4/month over what just having cable modem internet service would be.</p>
<p>We could get higher levels of service and every once in a while I think about getting it for <a href="https://www.espn.com">ESPN</a>. But my wife and I really don't want to have a bunch of channels to hook our kids. Or us, as a matter of fact. I spend too much time on the computer screen already.</p>
<p>I kept reading about how people who bought HDTVs but were just using a standard signal and therefore not getting the real value of their TV. I tried using an HDTV antenna instead of using the cable signal but didn't see much difference except for occasional glitches in the signal and very slow channel switching. So I took back the antenna to Fred Meyer and went back to SD - Standard Definition. Which was OK and DVDs looked very good.</p>
<p>Months passed ...</p>
<p>I decided that I wanted to see things in HDTV. Knew I didn't want an inside HDTV antenna. Knew I didn't want to mount an outside TV or HDTV antenna. Which seemed to leave Comcast HD service or Dish or DirecTV. Didn't want <a href="https://www.directv.com/">DirecTV</a> because of the service contract. </p>
<p>Looked at Comcast but they're pretty blunt about there not being any deals except for first-time customers and then just for a year. That didn't leave me feeling warm and fuzzy. So I started looking at <a href="https://www.dishnetwork.com/">DISH Network</a>. Pricing seemed reasonable and I really liked not being locked into a contract.</p>
<p>I was about to put in an order online when a friend mentioned that people in her neighborhood had problems with wind on their dishes affecting their signal. And we get a lot more wind here than I had expected. So that decision got put on pause.</p>
<p>In the end, I found a discussion on <a href="https://www.avsforum.com/">AVS Forum</a> that was just about <a href="https://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=339961">Comcast in Portland</a> Reading that, it made it sound like I could get digital signals from my basic cable. There was something more complicated about running one cable into the first cable input and another into the second, getting analog on the first and digital on the second. Except I only had one cable input ... and one cable jack. Hmmmm.</p>
<p>What to do?</p>Would you pay to have less crapware on your new Windows box?2007-01-11T01:01:01-07:002007-01-11T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-11:/would-you-pay-to-have-less-crapware-on-your-new-windows-box/<p>What's <em>crapware</em> or <em>craplets</em>? <a href="https://arstechnica.com/">Ars Technica</a> says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just what are craplets? It's a cute nickname for all of the software
an OEM installs on your new Windows PC before it arrives on your doorstep.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In <a href="https://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070111-8598.html">$60 to keep crapware off of a Windows PC?</a> Ken Fisher talks about how much …</p><p>What's <em>crapware</em> or <em>craplets</em>? <a href="https://arstechnica.com/">Ars Technica</a> says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just what are craplets? It's a cute nickname for all of the software
an OEM installs on your new Windows PC before it arrives on your doorstep.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In <a href="https://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070111-8598.html">$60 to keep crapware off of a Windows PC?</a> Ken Fisher talks about how much it OEMs - Original Equipment Manufacturers, like <a href="https://www.dell.com/">Dell</a> or Hewlett-Packard - might want to sell you a machine that's not loaded with limited and trial versions of software. Because people aren't likely willing to pay anything extra, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/">Microsoft</a> can fume but not do anything about it.</p>
<p>I'm most likely not going to buy any of the software that comes on my new computers. I suppose some people do, particularly the anti-virus software. And I don't know how else a software vendor is supposed to reach people like my parents - they're not going to be reading computer magazines or participating in forums. </p>
<p>I haven't found any issues removing the pre-installed (crapware( and replacing it with something else if necessary.</p>
<p>So, long and short, I'd much rather save a few bucks and spend some time tweaking the list of programs.</p>Why buy Windows Vista Ultimate?2007-01-09T01:01:01-07:002007-01-09T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-09:/why-buy-windows-vista-ultimate/<p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/">Ars Technica</a> has a <a href="https://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/1/8/6526">write-up</a> of some of the features available in yet-to-be-released <a href="https://windowsultimate.com/">Windows Vista Ultimate</a>. </p>
<p>There's 3 features and none of them sound very appealing. </p>
<p>In reverse order:
1. a Texas hold 'em game. Yeah, we know, this is extremely popular. We have it featured in the latest James …</p><p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/">Ars Technica</a> has a <a href="https://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/1/8/6526">write-up</a> of some of the features available in yet-to-be-released <a href="https://windowsultimate.com/">Windows Vista Ultimate</a>. </p>
<p>There's 3 features and none of them sound very appealing. </p>
<p>In reverse order:
1. a Texas hold 'em game. Yeah, we know, this is extremely popular. We have it featured in the latest James Bond movie. But "Hold 'Em may cost you time, but your money is safe because the chips are not real?" Pass.
2. BitLocker is kind of interesting. It encrypts your hard drive so it can't be stolen. It also can't be read by hacking tools or another operating system. Seems a lot more useful on laptops than desktop systems. Also makes it impossible for people to dual-boot with Linux and use their Vista files as they can now with XP.
3. DreamScene sounds distracting, to say the least. Instead of a still image, you're able to set a video file as your background. A few people think that ice melting or wheat blowing would be interesting but most people think it would be annoying beyond belief. I'm in the latter camp: isn't that the reason we hate the "punch the monkey" ads, because they're on the edge of our vision but moving? </p>
<p>We're hard-wired to treat movement on the edge of our vision as threatening - it might be a tiger about to leap on us. Or just another person with a club.
Windows Vista Ultimate combines all the various features of Tablet Edition, Windows Media Center, etc. Hard to believe that it's going to be needed on one machine. So I think sales will be tiny.</p>
<p>I am still planning on going with Vista but am waiting for it to be available pre-installed on machines. I reserve the right to change my mind and buy a Mac.</p>Better spam - junk mail - control in Thunderbird2007-01-08T01:01:01-07:002007-01-08T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-08:/better-spam-junk-mail-control-in-thunderbird/<p>On my work accounts, we're using SpamAssassin. For personal mail, I've switched from <a href="https://www.hotmail.com">Hotmail</a> to <a href="https://www.gmail.com">gmail</a> in part because Hotmail does a poor job of detecting spam. </p>
<p>Lately, I've been getting frustrated by the amount of spam that makes it past the spam detecting routines on the mail servers. I …</p><p>On my work accounts, we're using SpamAssassin. For personal mail, I've switched from <a href="https://www.hotmail.com">Hotmail</a> to <a href="https://www.gmail.com">gmail</a> in part because Hotmail does a poor job of detecting spam. </p>
<p>Lately, I've been getting frustrated by the amount of spam that makes it past the spam detecting routines on the mail servers. I don't really want to do something involved on my own system. So what to do?</p>
<p><a href="https://kb.mozillazine.org/Junk_Mail_Controls#Tweaking">Junk Mail Controls</a> gives instructions on how to adjust the spam filter in Thunderbird so it's more sensitive to spam. I'm hoping that this helps reduce spam while still avoiding false positives. I have to say that gmail and Thunderbird have been stellar on this, which is a good thing. I'd much rather get a few annoying spam messages than lose real mail into the spam hopper.</p>
<p>The other reason I switched is because of Microsoft's short-sighted policy of dropping accounts after 30 days without a login. It's bit me a few times but it keeps biting my mom who doesn't use email that often. I think Hotmail is more understandable to the average person than gmail. But at some point, the spam and the risk of losing your mail outweigh that, you know?</p>Message aging in Thunderbird mail client2007-01-08T01:01:01-07:002007-01-08T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-08:/message-aging-in-thunderbird-mail-client/<p>I've (mostly) switched from Outlook to Thunderbird for mail. If you, like me, subscribe to a few mailing lists, you know it's a pain dealing with them. If I don't have time to read the issue from 6 months ago, it's nice to have it just disappear. No stress trying …</p><p>I've (mostly) switched from Outlook to Thunderbird for mail. If you, like me, subscribe to a few mailing lists, you know it's a pain dealing with them. If I don't have time to read the issue from 6 months ago, it's nice to have it just disappear. No stress trying to decide whether to do a quick scan or just do a bulk delete. Just delete them.</p>
<p>One of the features I've missed with Thunderbird was that ability to delete messages automatically. No stress. Well, unless you delete the wrong messages. But Thunderbird has good filters and so it's easy to avoid that.</p>
<p><a href="https://kb.mozillazine.org/Message_aging">Message aging</a> explains how to turn on message aging (as in delete all messages past X days old or delete all messages so there's just X in the folder) for all of your mail or just a folder. </p>
<p>If you're more organized than I am, maybe you can do it systemwide. But I really like being able to turn it on for 30 days on my "Look at Later" folder, where I sort stuff that I might want to read.</p>
<p>I use RSS feeds wherever I can, rather than mailing lists. But my favored reader, <a href="https://www.bloglines.com">Bloglines</a>, doesn't have the ability to delete articles past X days. I have a few favorite feeds that I tend to read first since they only have a few listings, not dozens of them stacked up.</p>
<p>I may have to look at using Thunderbird for RSS, too. More on that later.</p>
<p>There are a few features of Outlook that I miss, mostly to do with calendars and tasks. I'm trying to get a unified calendar that works with Google (or something online) and also works well with my wife, who uses a Mac. So far, it's not been fun. More on that later, too.</p>Just cancel the account!2007-01-07T01:01:01-07:002007-01-07T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-07:/just-cancel-the-account/<p><a href="https://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,128206/printable.html">Just Cancel the @#%$ Account</a> is a neat write-up of experiences with 32 online services, including big names like AOL, Earthlink, New York Times, Netflix and Vonage.</p>Zillows Make Me Move Feature2007-01-06T01:01:01-07:002007-01-06T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2007-01-06:/zillows-make-me-move-feature/<p><a href="https://redeye.firstround.com/2006/12/deja_vu.html">Redeye VC: Deja vu</a> has a nice write-up on <a href="https://www.zillow.com">Zillow</a> offering "Make Me Move":</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A homeowner can easily post a Make Me Move price without exposing any
personal information. Zillow then enables interested buyers to contact
the owner through an email anonymizer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a feature that I wish we …</p><p><a href="https://redeye.firstround.com/2006/12/deja_vu.html">Redeye VC: Deja vu</a> has a nice write-up on <a href="https://www.zillow.com">Zillow</a> offering "Make Me Move":</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A homeowner can easily post a Make Me Move price without exposing any
personal information. Zillow then enables interested buyers to contact
the owner through an email anonymizer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a feature that I wish we had when my wife and I were looking for a new home. We knew - from driving around and around - that there were certain houses that we would be interested in. In retrospect, I wish we’d done the simple thing of leaving a letter on the front steps saying “if you ever sell ..” </p>
<p>Much simpler and also effective. My wife has a favorite rocking chair that she got because she was one of the first in line at a moving (estate) sale. The home was on a tour and my wife wrote them a letter saying “if you ever want to sell any furniture, I’d be interested”. Some time later, the owners were downsizing and we ended up with 2 lamps, a table and chairs and 2 rocking chairs. </p>Amazon Customer Votes Promotion2006-11-24T11:11:11-07:002006-11-24T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-11-24:/amazon-customer-votes-promotion/<p>Found a reference to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a> selling 1000 Xbox 360s for $100. Which is what one would be worth to me. So I showed up and tried it, figuring that I wasn't going to get one of these: <img alt="xbox360" src="/images/xbox360.png"> However, I was interested in how the process worked and also wanted one …</p><p>Found a reference to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a> selling 1000 Xbox 360s for $100. Which is what one would be worth to me. So I showed up and tried it, figuring that I wasn't going to get one of these: <img alt="xbox360" src="/images/xbox360.png"> However, I was interested in how the process worked and also wanted one of the alternate items. I was logged in to my Amazon account on both Internet Explorer 7 and FireFox 2. Things worked fairly normally until about 10:59, when the system became totally non-responsive for about 10 minutes and not very responsive (meaning I got 1 session to work but none of the others) for 15. </p>
<p>I was disappointed that Amazon didn't have something showing on the screen. On the one hand, that might add to the problem of not being able to respond. But on the other, it seems like they could have sent a large image to folks saying that they hadn't won. Why large? To stop people from being able to hit refresh quickly. </p>
<p>Guess I don't as much about the intricacies of TCP/IP as I think I should. I'm not sure what's possible - limiting sessions to one per IP # to stop people from opening multiple tabs, etc. Maybe Amazon was doing that. But having the browser time out without any feedback over and over was frustrating. The first two times it was OK - "yeah, there must be a lot of people doing this" - but then it was "Wow, they need to plan better". </p>
<p>Relevance to local businesses? Well, there is some, actually. If I were running an antique store, there would be various ways of using my display case. I could put items on the floor and post ads as I did so. Certainly that would seem to be the efficient thing to do. But in terms of promotion, you could get a two-fer:</p>
<ul>
<li>Put items out on the floor during the week or over the weekend</li>
<li>Add items to your display case only one day a week</li>
</ul>
<p>What do you get out of this? Well, the people who are going to stop by without knowing what you have are going to stop by. No disadvantage to them. And the people who only come when you have something interesting to them will check your stock once a week. Now if you don't have anything that they like, they're not coming in. But wouldn't you rather have them checking on you? Making it a part of their routine? </p>
<p>The alternate item on Amazon? <img alt="Barbie" src="/images/barbie_.jpg"> No, it's not for me. It's probably for my "plain 4" daughter, though it might end up going to the one who's "2 and 3/4". </p>Why I hate Qwest - (Promise of Value( is just a promise2006-11-23T11:11:11-07:002006-11-23T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-11-23:/why-i-hate-qwest-promise-of-value-is-just-a-promise/<p>I've dealt with my local phone company for many years. From the roll-up of Pacific Northwest Bell into US West and then the merger with Qwest, prices have gotten higher and higher and the reliability has gotten a little worse. At some point my wife or I will decide that …</p><p>I've dealt with my local phone company for many years. From the roll-up of Pacific Northwest Bell into US West and then the merger with Qwest, prices have gotten higher and higher and the reliability has gotten a little worse. At some point my wife or I will decide that we don't really need the land line and it will go away. </p>
<p>The thing that's most annoying about them is the amount of advertising they're doing. They're constantly on the radio, TV, billboards, in the newpaper, ads on the internet and direct mail pieces. It seems obvious that they're not getting a lot of takers. Why not? Well, they could start with the big disclaimer on every ad. Anything that they're promising on the front, they're taking away on the back.</p>
<p>For example, Qwest tells me that I'm paying $18.45/month. I wish. Our last bill was $31.38. That includes $2.20 for Extended Area Calling, $4.26 in taxes, 911 and universal service fees. But what really gets me is the $6.50 "Federal Access Charge": <em>This charge, allowed by the FCC, covers part of the cost for providing access to and maintenance of the local network.</em></p>
<p>So what's Qwest going to charge? We don't know. We know it's going to be higher than they're telling us. We just won't know how much until we hit the checkout button ... and maybe not then.</p>
<p>I'm paying $31.35/month to Qwest and $57 to Comcast for cable modem and basic cable. Plus using a long distance provider at $.03/minute for the little long distance calling we do. I wouldn't mind having one bill that I <em>could understand</em> so we could get ESPN and Nickelodeon even if it we had to mount a dish and get slower internet speed and pay another $20/month.</p>
<p>But what's the price? The <strong>real</strong> price? Qwest won't tell you. And that's why I hate them and most other people do, too.</p>Excellent case study and analysis of HotOrNot2006-11-22T11:11:11-07:002006-11-22T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-11-22:/excellent-case-study-and-analysis-of-hotornot/<p>Nisan Gabbay has an excellent analysis of the site at <a href="https://www.startup-review.com/blog/hotornotcom-case-study-mixing-free-and-premium-services.php">HOTorNOT.com Case Study: Mixing free and premium services</a></p>
<p>My wife and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary a few months
ago. I'm happily married, so I haven't visited HotOrNot in years. I was fascinated by the description of the …</p><p>Nisan Gabbay has an excellent analysis of the site at <a href="https://www.startup-review.com/blog/hotornotcom-case-study-mixing-free-and-premium-services.php">HOTorNOT.com Case Study: Mixing free and premium services</a></p>
<p>My wife and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary a few months
ago. I'm happily married, so I haven't visited HotOrNot in years. I was fascinated by the description of the dating service, which I don't think they offered when a friend first told me about the site.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Thus HOTorNOT was able to fill some pretty basic human needs in a way
that no other online service had before. This would later translate
into financial success once HOTorNOT offered its premium dating service
because their cost of customer acquisition was so low - zero. The
largest cost associated with operating a traditional online dating site
is the cost of customer acquisition, which even for successful sites
can be 50% (or more) of revenue. Because HOTorNOT attracted users with
its free rating service, it could offer its dating service for the low
price point of $6 per month. This is a price that traditional dating
sites can’t compete with because it generally takes $15-$30 to acquire
a subscriber for a traditional dating service."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I wouldn't think that advertising would be very appealing on the site except to a few advertisers like Budweiser. So the idea of adding dating as a way to make money seems terrific. As the article says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Pay $30 a month to troll through profiles? Hell no! Pay $6 to contact a
hot girl who already said she thinks I’m hot too? Probably."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Neat to see somebody come up with a way to compete not only with the usual paid dating sites (Match, eHarmony, Yahoo) but also with <a href="https://www.craigslist.org/">Craig's List</a> and <a href="https://www.plentyoffish.com">PlentyOfFish</a></p>
<p>Can't recommend this article - if you're into web startups - highly enough.</p>Good summary of FaceBook2006-11-22T11:11:11-07:002006-11-22T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-11-22:/good-summary-of-facebook/<p>There's an excellent summary of how FaceBook came to be and what its possible valuation might be at: [Facebook Case Study: Offline behavior drives online usage - Startup Review Blog](https://www.startup-review.com/blog/facebook-case-study-offline-behavior-drives-online-usage.php]</p>Snippy - neat tool for saving parts of images2006-11-22T11:11:11-07:002006-11-22T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-11-22:/snippy-neat-tool-for-saving-parts-of-images/<p><a href="https://www.bhelpuri.net/Snippy/default.htm">Snippy</a> is a neat tool for capturing parts of images. From the description: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>How often have you carefully selected some text from a Web page and
copied it to an email message? Snippy makes this a snap! Simply click
on the little Snippy icon in the taskbar notification area, and …</p></blockquote><p><a href="https://www.bhelpuri.net/Snippy/default.htm">Snippy</a> is a neat tool for capturing parts of images. From the description: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>How often have you carefully selected some text from a Web page and
copied it to an email message? Snippy makes this a snap! Simply click
on the little Snippy icon in the taskbar notification area, and mark
out the region of the screen that you want to copy — that's it, you're
done! The cut-out image will now be in your clipboard, and you can
paste it in another application." </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's very small - fast to download and not much memory use. </p>
<p>It does have a way of doing rectangular selections - hold down the shift key - although I think that should be the default and freehand cropping the exception. </p>
<p>I'm willing to believe that a lot of other people have better mouse control than I do but that still makes for lumpy images: <img alt="example" src="/images/example.png"></p>
<p>The one thing that Snippy doesn't have is an easy way to save the image to a file. I open MS Paint and paste it there if I want to have a file. There are lots of situations where you can upload a file but can't cut-and-paste. Like uploading to <a href="https://www.myad.com/">MyAd</a></p>
<p>But, all in all, this is a useful little tool and I'm adding it to my startup folder. </p>Good customer service costs too much?2006-11-07T11:11:11-07:002006-11-07T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-11-07:/good-customer-service-costs-too-much/<p>As somebody who's spent his fair share of time putting together desks and bookcases and children's toys, one of the most powerful quotes was (paraphrased) "that things should be cheaper - we're making them ourselves". </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://techdirt.com/articles/20061106/164610.shtml">post</a> on "Is it tech rage or customer service rage?", Techcrunch talks about how …</p><p>As somebody who's spent his fair share of time putting together desks and bookcases and children's toys, one of the most powerful quotes was (paraphrased) "that things should be cheaper - we're making them ourselves". </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://techdirt.com/articles/20061106/164610.shtml">post</a> on "Is it tech rage or customer service rage?", Techcrunch talks about how many stories at "tech rage" are but asks whether they're really caused by awful customer service. </p>
<p>I certainly think that's the case. When I see a guarantee from companies like Qwest or Comcast, I immediately discount it down to 0. I'm sure that whatever the guarantee is, there's something in the fine print that will prevent me from collecting. Assuming, of course, that I have the patience to persist in reaching a person.</p>
<p>I don't shop at Wal-Mart. I have 3 small children and my wife and I need diapers and paper towels and formula and string cheese and lots and lots of other bulk items. We pay money to belong to Costco for two reasons: #1, they pay their employees a decent wage and provide them good benefits. And #2, they stand behind what they sell. </p>
<p>I've never had a problem returning something to Costco. Costco is tiny compared to Wal-Mart but perhaps that's why they can provide decent service.</p>How to shrink images in Windows XP without additional tools.2006-11-07T11:11:11-07:002006-11-07T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-11-07:/how-to-shrink-images-in-windows-xp-without-additional-tools/<p>This is an easy way to convert images (photos or pictures) in Windows XP using the paint.exe program from <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/">Microsoft</a> itself. </p>
<p>It takes 3 steps per picture, so it's not the fastest way to do this. But they're really easy steps. But it also means that you don't have …</p><p>This is an easy way to convert images (photos or pictures) in Windows XP using the paint.exe program from <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/">Microsoft</a> itself. </p>
<p>It takes 3 steps per picture, so it's not the fastest way to do this. But they're really easy steps. But it also means that you don't have to download any additional tools. That's good if you're concerned about viruses. Or maybe you're using somebody else's computer and you don't want to download something onto their machine. </p>
<p>Have a large .BMP or .GIF image that you want to shrink before uploading? It's easy and pretty quick. </p>
<ul>
<li>Click on <img alt="Start" src="/images/startbutton.png" title="Start Button"></li>
<li>Select "All Programs", then "Accessories", then <img alt="Paint" src="/images/paint.png" title="Paint icon"> </li>
<li>Select "File", then "Open" </li>
<li>Select the image you want to shrink.</li>
<li>Click "File", then "Save As"</li>
<li>Leave the filename alone but use the pulldown to change the "save as type" to JPEG (<em>.JPG;</em>.JPEG;<em>.JPE;</em>.JFIF)</li>
<li>Click Save. </li>
</ul>
<p>Have more to do? Repeat the 3 steps for each file you want to convert. </p>
<p>When done, pick File, Exit or click the red X. </p>
<p>In testing, this gave me 90% - and more - reductions in image size. Perfect for uploading your photos to <a href="https://www.myad.com/">MyAd</a></p>Today is Election Day2006-11-07T11:11:11-07:002006-11-07T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-11-07:/today-is-election-day/<p>Today is election day. There's an <a href="https://replay.waybackmachine.org/20061110231606/https://techdirt.com/articles/20061106/201138.shtml">article</a> today in Techdirt referencing a movie about the problems with Diebold (<strong>not Deibele</strong>) election machines. </p>
<p>I have to admit that I do miss a little bit the tradition of going to the local school or church and voting. Seeing the volunteers, seeing the …</p><p>Today is election day. There's an <a href="https://replay.waybackmachine.org/20061110231606/https://techdirt.com/articles/20061106/201138.shtml">article</a> today in Techdirt referencing a movie about the problems with Diebold (<strong>not Deibele</strong>) election machines. </p>
<p>I have to admit that I do miss a little bit the tradition of going to the local school or church and voting. Seeing the volunteers, seeing the other people who were motivated enough to make the time to vote. Stepping into the voting booth, drawing the curtain and putting the completed ballot into the box. </p>
<p>But what I don't miss is seeing how few people were there voting. How there weren't any people my age (20s or 30s at the time). How uncertain I felt sometimes about the wording on ballot measures or whether I was remembering the candidate to vote against, not for. </p>
<p>In Oregon, we've had vote-by-mail statewide for 8 years now. There's a nice <a href="https://replay.waybackmachine.org/20061110231606/https://www.sos.state.or.us/executive/speeches/080505.htm">summary</a> by the Oregon Secretary of State of what Oregon did right. In talking with people, we all agree that it's nice to be able to take our time. We can talk to other people, look at printed materials from parties or special interests, look at the newspaper recommendations or check out the web. We can vote with a lot more confidence. </p>
<p>Any downsides? I suppose there are situations where a boss or a spouse could force somebody to vote in front of them. And I miss the feeling of community from voting day. </p>
<p>But we vote on paper. No need for fancy touch screens at the polling places. No worries about who's writing the software. You can vote by mail or you can drop off your ballot at a local library (as I did this year) or even the county elections office itself. The ballots end up in one place. If there are voting irregularities, they may not be easier to catch but at least there's a limited number of places they can happen: the elections offices, the post offices and libraries. I suppose it's possible that an individual mail carrier could (lose( ballots they figure won't vote their way but that's never happened so far as is known. </p>
<p>To sum up, voting by mail is a system that decreases costs, decreases the risk of fraud and increases voter participation. No wonder most politicians don't like it.1</p>
<p>1: Vote by mail was vetoed by the governor and instituted by state initiative in Oregon.</p>Tired of noisy people at the movies?2006-11-03T11:11:11-07:002006-11-03T11:11:11-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-11-03:/tired-of-noisy-people-at-the-movies/<p>Regal Cinemas is testing giving somebody a wireless device that summons an usher. In exchange for being the eyes and ears, you get a free bucket of popcorn. Seems like a reasonable deal to me. Thanks to: <a href="https://techdirt.com/articles/20061129/224028.shtml">Techdirt: Ever Wished You Could Push A Button To Remove A Disruptive Movie …</a></p><p>Regal Cinemas is testing giving somebody a wireless device that summons an usher. In exchange for being the eyes and ears, you get a free bucket of popcorn. Seems like a reasonable deal to me. Thanks to: <a href="https://techdirt.com/articles/20061129/224028.shtml">Techdirt: Ever Wished You Could Push A Button To Remove A Disruptive Movie Watcher?</a></p>Nice to see MyPages revisions2006-08-18T08:08:08-07:002006-08-18T08:08:08-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-08-18:/nice-to-see-mypages-revisions/<p>It's good to see that MyPages is changing to be more interactive. <a href="https://portland.mypages.com/">Portland Yellow Pages and Portland, OR Guide by MyPages.com</a> </p>
<p>Something neat is the ability to link to specific businesses:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.mypages.com/503-758-8126">BodyAware Massage - MyPages.com</a></p>
</blockquote>Web at work? Use Workfriendly.2006-08-15T08:08:08-07:002006-08-15T08:08:08-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-08-15:/web-at-work-use-workfriendly/<p>Browsing at work and don't want people to know? <a href="https://www.workfriendly.net/">workFRIENDLY</a> makes your browser look like Microsoft Word. Hopefully you don't need to use this but nice implementation.</p>Nice article on using Google Notebook2006-08-14T08:08:08-07:002006-08-14T08:08:08-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-08-14:/nice-article-on-using-google-notebook/<p><a href="https://paininthetech.com/get_organized_with_google_notebook?pageNo=1">Get Organized With Google Notebook</a> is a nice article that talks about working with Google's fairly new notebook. </p>
<p>I like the notebook more than I do Google's calendar or Gmail. However, the problem for me is that Google is mixing together different types of services and trying to use one …</p><p><a href="https://paininthetech.com/get_organized_with_google_notebook?pageNo=1">Get Organized With Google Notebook</a> is a nice article that talks about working with Google's fairly new notebook. </p>
<p>I like the notebook more than I do Google's calendar or Gmail. However, the problem for me is that Google is mixing together different types of services and trying to use one Google login for all of them. I don't want to use one login for AdSense, AdWords, Gmail, etc., etc. so I'm faced with having to logout and log back in just to check stats or to make a note. Or run two browsers, one for personal use and another for business.</p>
<p>Google: I like your apps but please stop forcing me to have only 1 "Google account" active at a time. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.google.com/notebook/download/">FireFox extension</a> for <a href="https://www.google.com/notebook">Google Notebook</a> is very nice.</p>Why I don't subscribe to Netflix2006-07-26T07:07:07-07:002006-07-26T07:07:07-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-07-26:/why-i-dont-subscribe-to-netflix/<p>Do you use Netflix? Did you ever use Netflix? I did and ended up cancelling after a few months. The problem was, I didn't want to dedicate 2 hours of my time to watching a movie. 200 hours/month or more of time surfing the net was OK but hey …</p><p>Do you use Netflix? Did you ever use Netflix? I did and ended up cancelling after a few months. The problem was, I didn't want to dedicate 2 hours of my time to watching a movie. 200 hours/month or more of time surfing the net was OK but hey, that's another story. Having access to a huge supply of movies didn't change that. There just weren't that many movies that I really wanted to watch. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/07/the_long_tail_o_1.php">Nicholas Carr</a> references an article in <a href="https://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115255814013802582-M1q9pbUxty8N5ItDg5CdaiVP6_A_20070717.html?mod=rss_free">The Wall Street Journal</a> talking about this. </p>
<p>Yeah, I got the movies I wanted to see but then they started sending me the movies I thought I was supposed to see. And wow, I didn't really want to watch a lot of them.</p>
<p>Eventually I got tired of having 3 movies I didn't want to see around the house and cancelled. Glad to hear I'm not alone.</p>Neat article on the importance of cash flow2006-07-25T07:07:07-07:002006-07-25T07:07:07-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-07-25:/neat-article-on-the-importance-of-cash-flow/<p><a href="https://herman.org/Blogs/2-speed/archive/2006/07/22/206.aspx">My Great Lesson in Cash Flow</a> is a nice article on the importance of cash flow in a start up. No deep lessons but just emphasizing that you have to watch the cash, watch the cash, watch the cash ...</p>Top 10 unintentionally worst URLs2006-07-25T07:07:07-07:002006-07-25T07:07:07-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-07-25:/top-10-unintentionally-worst-urls/<p>It's tough coming up with a decent domain name - all the good ones are taken. But you have to wonder what some people were thinking when they came up with these domain names:</p>
<ul>
<li>Who Represents? - www.whorepresents.com</li>
<li>Pen Island - www.penisland.com</li>
</ul>
<p>and 8 more <a href="https://independentsources.com/2006/07/12/worst-company-urls/">worst company urls</a></p>Jobster and its slightly ominous title for a jobs site2006-07-14T07:07:07-07:002006-07-14T07:07:07-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-07-14:/jobster-and-its-slightly-ominous-title-for-a-jobs-site/<p>Pete Cashmore of Mashable <a href="https://mashable.com/2006/07/14/jobster-relaunches-as-myspace-for-jobs/">writes</a> that Jobster has relaunched as a social networking site for job seeking. Theory is that you can connect with people and add faves. You can add tags to other users, which has interesting implications: who's going to be the first to be labeled "brown noser …</p><p>Pete Cashmore of Mashable <a href="https://mashable.com/2006/07/14/jobster-relaunches-as-myspace-for-jobs/">writes</a> that Jobster has relaunched as a social networking site for job seeking. Theory is that you can connect with people and add faves. You can add tags to other users, which has interesting implications: who's going to be the first to be labeled "brown noser"?</p>
<p>"Meet Your Future" is their slogan, which has Big Brother-ish overtones to me. Though I suppose they don't actually have pictures of a McDonald's fryer or a Wal-Mart cash register.</p>
<p>It's an impressive site with some marquee clients and lots of money in the bank. I'm guessing that some of the stuff is in-house but a lot of it presumably comes from their acquisition of GoJobby.com</p>Neat extension for revealing FireFox passwords2006-06-09T06:06:06-07:002006-06-09T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-06-09:/neat-extension-for-revealing-firefox-passwords/<p>I love how easy FireFox makes it to enter passwords and forget them. But sometimes it turns out to be a problem when I need to remember them. Like when I'm using a different computer or want to change my password.</p>
<p>Today, I found <a href="https://www.contrex.ca/gecko/">Unhide Passwords</a>, a FF extension that …</p><p>I love how easy FireFox makes it to enter passwords and forget them. But sometimes it turns out to be a problem when I need to remember them. Like when I'm using a different computer or want to change my password.</p>
<p>Today, I found <a href="https://www.contrex.ca/gecko/">Unhide Passwords</a>, a FF extension that will show you your password when you roll the mouse pointer over the password field. It's easy to disable when you don't want passwords revealed but it's already proven useful twice today. </p>
<p>It doesn't replace keeping your passwords accessible somehow, someway. However, it seems well written and I highly recommend it.</p>Rose Festival Time ... and people are being jerks.2006-06-09T06:06:06-07:002006-06-09T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-06-09:/rose-festival-time-and-people-are-being-jerks/<p>As a native Portlander, there's a little bit of a thrill every time the <a href="https://www.rosefestival.org/">Rose Festival</a> starts. Every June, it's a celebration of living in Portland.</p>
<p>There are 3 parades but the <a href="https://www.rosefestival.org/events/grandfloralparade/">Grand Floral Parade</a> is the big one. It's a Portland tradition that people tape out space on the …</p><p>As a native Portlander, there's a little bit of a thrill every time the <a href="https://www.rosefestival.org/">Rose Festival</a> starts. Every June, it's a celebration of living in Portland.</p>
<p>There are 3 parades but the <a href="https://www.rosefestival.org/events/grandfloralparade/">Grand Floral Parade</a> is the big one. It's a Portland tradition that people tape out space on the sidewalk to sit or stand and watch the parade go by. And people basically respect those pieces of tape.</p>
<p>What seems a little ridiculous, though, is companies like <a href="https://www.myad.com/azumano/portland+or">Azumano Travel</a> taping out the sidewalk in front of their offices, the restaurants next door and then taking half a block across the street. You might think that people would think that was excessive and ignore it ... which is why Azumano has a security guard patrolling "their turf".</p>
<p>Hmmm. I've bought tickets from Azumano before. There are times it's nice to deal with a person rather than a computer when things change. Even if it does cost extra. But this is not very nice. </p>Great post on web design - Yahoo vs Google2006-06-05T06:06:06-07:002006-06-05T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-06-05:/great-post-on-web-design-yahoo-vs-google/<p>Really liked the article <a href="https://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-05-21-n50.html">Is Google Badly Designed?</a> on <a href="https://blog.outer-court.com/">Google Blogoscoped</a>. He talks about the design considerations with Yahoo and Google and their home pages.</p>
<p>I thought it was interesting that Google was viewed as "friendly" because of its simplicity. Clearly Yahoo puts a lot of information on its page …</p><p>Really liked the article <a href="https://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-05-21-n50.html">Is Google Badly Designed?</a> on <a href="https://blog.outer-court.com/">Google Blogoscoped</a>. He talks about the design considerations with Yahoo and Google and their home pages.</p>
<p>I thought it was interesting that Google was viewed as "friendly" because of its simplicity. Clearly Yahoo puts a lot of information on its page but it also feels very corporate. </p>
<p>From what I read, Google is having trouble getting people to use its other features. It'd be interesting to know what to degree this is because they're not displayed the way that Yahoo's are ...</p>Changes in home pages for Google & Yahoo2006-06-03T06:06:06-07:002006-06-03T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-06-03:/changes-in-home-pages-for-google-yahoo/<p>Just ran across two articles showing the graphical changes to the home pages - www.yahoo.com for Yahoo and www.google.com for Google - over the past few years.<br>
It's neat to see this. One of the things that I find personally frustrating about the real world is driving past …</p><p>Just ran across two articles showing the graphical changes to the home pages - www.yahoo.com for Yahoo and www.google.com for Google - over the past few years.<br>
It's neat to see this. One of the things that I find personally frustrating about the real world is driving past a place ... and seeing a vacant spot where a building used to be. What was there? I can't remember.</p>
<p>So it warms some of my neurons to see the old pages and say "Oh, yeah, I remember that ..."</p>
<p>See <a href="https://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-04-21-n63.html">Google 1998-2006</a>
Contrast with <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com">Yahoo.com 1996-2006</a></p>Mozy - great free online backup for XP2006-06-03T06:06:06-07:002006-06-03T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-06-03:/mozy-great-free-online-backup-for-xp/<p>Found a reference to <strong><a href="https://mozy.com/">Mozy</a></strong> in PC Magazine. If you are looking to backup a small amount of files - 2GB or less - it's absolutely free. Even at 20GB, it's only $40/year. That's much cheaper than the competition. </p>
<p>They do require you to get a weekly newsletter that I bet …</p><p>Found a reference to <strong><a href="https://mozy.com/">Mozy</a></strong> in PC Magazine. If you are looking to backup a small amount of files - 2GB or less - it's absolutely free. Even at 20GB, it's only $40/year. That's much cheaper than the competition. </p>
<p>They do require you to get a weekly newsletter that I bet is full of ads. Don't know, since I haven't gotten one yet. But that seems less obtrusive than having ads every time you read mail.</p>
<p>I back up "My Documents" file on my desktop machine to a friend's UNIX box using rsync over ssh. I don't encrypt it, although I probably should. And I have to run it manually. I'm still figuring out Mozy, which is backing up my files as I write this. Which encrypts files for you and runs automatically. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Backing up your Quicken, favorite photos and other data for free?<br>
What a great deal!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you do signup, please use my referral code of AFR4AD or just go to <a href="https://mozy.com/ref/AFR4AD">Mozy</a> via this link. I can use the extra 256MB!
)</p>Complicated government? Some business interests want it.2006-06-02T06:06:06-07:002006-06-02T06:06:06-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-06-02:/complicated-government-some-business-interests-want-it/<p>Lawrence Lessig has a fascinating <a href="https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/posts.html?pg=7">article</a> on how the State of California tried to simplify preparing taxes. It used payroll information to do a "ReadyReturn" that could be just signed and returned. Or they could use the info on it to make their own return.</p>
<p>Of course, the tax preparation …</p><p>Lawrence Lessig has a fascinating <a href="https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/posts.html?pg=7">article</a> on how the State of California tried to simplify preparing taxes. It used payroll information to do a "ReadyReturn" that could be just signed and returned. Or they could use the info on it to make their own return.</p>
<p>Of course, the tax preparation lobby started to pressure for the test program to be abandoned. Which is ridiculous. And some lawmakers listened. Which is more ridiculous.</p>
<p>Really like this quote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And efficiency is good regardless of who it might hurt; it is especially
good if it hurts those who feed off inefficiency.</p>
</blockquote>Can't buy a regular hamburger at McDonald's anymore?2006-05-24T05:05:05-07:002006-05-24T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-05-24:/cant-buy-a-regular-hamburger-at-mcdonalds-anymore/<p><a href="https://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2006/05/24/super-sizing-your-meal-costs-more-than-you-think/">Super-Sizing Your Meal Costs More Than You Think</a> talks about the hidden costs of super-sizing. "Once on the lips, forever on the hips" or something like that. </p>
<p>I stopped off at McDonald's to grab lunch for my daughter Charlie and myself as we drove out to Nana Sue's. To my …</p><p><a href="https://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2006/05/24/super-sizing-your-meal-costs-more-than-you-think/">Super-Sizing Your Meal Costs More Than You Think</a> talks about the hidden costs of super-sizing. "Once on the lips, forever on the hips" or something like that. </p>
<p>I stopped off at McDonald's to grab lunch for my daughter Charlie and myself as we drove out to Nana Sue's. To my surprise, the plain hamburger and "fancy" cheeseburger no longer seemed to be available. There was only the double cheeseburger or bacon cheeseburger. And there was now a "Mighty Kid's meal" that's the equivalent of super-sizing a Happy Meal.</p>
<p>I've read <em>Fast Food Nation</em>. I saw <em>Super Size Me</em>. I eat less and less fast food and there seems to be a virtuous cycle going - the less I eat, the worse it tastes. But it's just amazing to me that it's impossible to get a "regular" hamburger any more. </p>
<p>PS: I went through the drive-through. Maybe they have regular hamburgers on the menu inside. They didn't outside. With a 2-year-old and a not-quite-3-month-old, sometimes you just don't want to deal with unloading and reloading ...</p>Fitness Hacks for Geeks2006-05-24T05:05:05-07:002006-05-24T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-05-24:/fitness-hacks-for-geeks/<p>Not quite sure how I ran across <a href="https://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/01/fitness_hacks_f.html">Fitness Hacks for Geeks</a> but it's a very nice article about some of the options for making it easier to exercise.</p>
<p>I'm lucky enough to live a few blocks away from Mt. Tabor Park. It's notable for being the only extinct volcano within …</p><p>Not quite sure how I ran across <a href="https://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/01/fitness_hacks_f.html">Fitness Hacks for Geeks</a> but it's a very nice article about some of the options for making it easier to exercise.</p>
<p>I'm lucky enough to live a few blocks away from Mt. Tabor Park. It's notable for being the only extinct volcano within city limits in the US. It's a bit silly to call it a mountain, given that the mountain blew up many thousands of years ago. But the little (I assume) that's left still makes for a challenging walk or run.</p>
<p>I particulary like the references to Dance Dance Revolution as a way to exercise. I've got an iPod but I can listen to music or do things - not both. If you can multitask like that, great.</p>Good summary of what Google Base means to vertical web sites2006-05-23T05:05:05-07:002006-05-23T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-05-23:/good-summary-of-what-google-base-means-to-vertical-web-sites/<p>Bill Burnham has a nice <a href="https://billburnham.blogs.com/burnhamsbeat/2006/04/real_estate_car.html">summary</a> of what Google Base in general and the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=homes+for+sale&btnG=Google+Search">real estate</a> section in particular might mean for vertical web sites like <a href="trulia.com">Trulia</a>.</p>
<p>It's not a lot of fun competing in a section where Google is competing. I can vouch for that first hand.</p>Photoshop Manipulation of Models2006-05-11T05:05:05-07:002006-05-11T05:05:05-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-05-11:/photoshop-manipulation-of-models/<p>David Pogue of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com">New York Times</a> <a href="https://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=21">writes</a> about how images are manipulated with Photoshop.</p>
<p>As a dad with 2 young daughters, I find this kind of thing appalling. The images in magazines are what some women (and men) compare themselves to. How in the world can they justify this …</p><p>David Pogue of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com">New York Times</a> <a href="https://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=21">writes</a> about how images are manipulated with Photoshop.</p>
<p>As a dad with 2 young daughters, I find this kind of thing appalling. The images in magazines are what some women (and men) compare themselves to. How in the world can they justify this?</p>
<p>Put me down for requiring a "altered by Photoshop" logo. Or just prohibiting this altogether.</p>How City of Portland could have bought PGE2006-04-15T04:04:04-07:002006-04-15T04:04:04-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-04-15:/how-city-of-portland-could-have-bought-pge/<p>The City Council of <a href="https://www.portlandonline.com/">Portland</a> was very interested in buying <a href="https://www.portlandgeneral.com/">Portland General Electric</a> from what was left of <a href="https://www.enron.com/">Enron</a>. Rate cuts of 10% or more were talked about.</p>
<p>With amazing 20-20 hindsight, it's now obvious what the City should have done:
<strong>Keep PGE's rates the same!</strong></p>
<p>Keeping them the same …</p><p>The City Council of <a href="https://www.portlandonline.com/">Portland</a> was very interested in buying <a href="https://www.portlandgeneral.com/">Portland General Electric</a> from what was left of <a href="https://www.enron.com/">Enron</a>. Rate cuts of 10% or more were talked about.</p>
<p>With amazing 20-20 hindsight, it's now obvious what the City should have done:
<strong>Keep PGE's rates the same!</strong></p>
<p>Keeping them the same would have let them</p>
<p>. Give rebates to other cities. Here, Gresham & Beaverton, here's 10% of the electric bills of everyone in your city boundaries. Now be quiet.
. Give money to Portland Public Schools.
. Fund the tram
. Stop people wondering what would happen when well-paid, unionized private sector workers became well-paid, unionized public sector workers. Did anybody expect there to be fewer people? Less pay?</p>Nice summary of online music options2006-04-09T04:04:04-07:002006-04-09T04:04:04-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-04-09:/nice-summary-of-online-music-options/<p>TechCrunch has a nice summary of <a href="https://www.techcrunch.com/2006/04/07/lets-buy-some-music-part-1/">online music services</a>.</p>
<p>I've been pretty happy with the Yahoo Music service. I've got boxes of CDs that I need to rip some day so I often find myself using the Yahoo service to listen to songs that I have already ... somewhere in a …</p><p>TechCrunch has a nice summary of <a href="https://www.techcrunch.com/2006/04/07/lets-buy-some-music-part-1/">online music services</a>.</p>
<p>I've been pretty happy with the Yahoo Music service. I've got boxes of CDs that I need to rip some day so I often find myself using the Yahoo service to listen to songs that I have already ... somewhere in a box in the attic. Using a streaming service is perfect for me, since I have no intention of buying those songs at $.99/each.</p>Library use of Linux workstations2006-04-08T04:04:04-07:002006-04-08T04:04:04-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-04-08:/library-use-of-linux-workstations/<p>Ran across a <a href="https://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/04/my_parents_home.html">reference</a> to libraries using Open Source programs like Linux and Open Office. Neat.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.userful.com/">Useful</a>, the program that the library uses, sounds neat but it has the lame "we won't tell you the price" approach typical of many companies. At least <a href="/fonality-bait-and-switch/">Fonality</a> sort of tells you a price …</p><p>Ran across a <a href="https://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/04/my_parents_home.html">reference</a> to libraries using Open Source programs like Linux and Open Office. Neat.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.userful.com/">Useful</a>, the program that the library uses, sounds neat but it has the lame "we won't tell you the price" approach typical of many companies. At least <a href="/fonality-bait-and-switch/">Fonality</a> sort of tells you a price. </p>
<p>I really like the idea of locked-down Linux running sessions with keyboard and monitor rather than individual machines. One machine to maintain per location, hopefully. Have another couple of machines at the central library for relatively immediate replacement if a machine melts down. </p>
<p>I bet that there's some open source programs that get the same thing done but there are times that it would be nice to talk to someone instead of posting to a forum and hoping for a reasonably quick response.</p>Windows XP How to move your My Documents2006-04-08T04:04:04-07:002006-04-08T04:04:04-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-04-08:/windows-xp-how-to-move-your-my-documents/<p>I've been looking at re-arranging the partitions on my Sony VAIO desktop. They gave me a 15GB C: and a 100GB D: and even with installing everything I could to D:, it was still getting tighter and tighter. Looked at some fairly scary Linux-based partition shrinking software. Problem is that …</p><p>I've been looking at re-arranging the partitions on my Sony VAIO desktop. They gave me a 15GB C: and a 100GB D: and even with installing everything I could to D:, it was still getting tighter and tighter. Looked at some fairly scary Linux-based partition shrinking software. Problem is that all of my partitions are NTFS, not the older FAT file system. Nothing (easy( and free that I could find would downsize D: and then increase C: </p>
<p>A much simpler solution would be to move the 2.5GB of My Documents. But how do you do that?</p>
<p>Turns out that it's <strong>really</strong> easy. There's a nice article on <a href="https://www.techsupportalert.com/how_to_move_my_documents.htm">how to move My Documents</a> that showed me the proper way to tell XP what to do.</p>
<p>I normally ignore the (close all programs( and that meant since iTunes was running I had to move that folder by hand. Everything else went very smoothly. Feel much more comfortable with optimized C and no concerns about the size of the stuff I toss into My Documents growing every day.</p>Bill Gross rips US economy2006-04-07T04:04:04-07:002006-04-07T04:04:04-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-04-07:/bill-gross-rips-us-economy/<p>Bill Gross is the legendary bond analyst/trader at PIMCO. He has <a href="https://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Late%20Breaking%20Commentary/IO/2006/IO%20March%202006.htm">strong words</a> about the <em>Economic Report of the President</em> and the state of the US economy.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone out there who's much interested in trying to solve the problem. We can't keep spending …</p><p>Bill Gross is the legendary bond analyst/trader at PIMCO. He has <a href="https://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Late%20Breaking%20Commentary/IO/2006/IO%20March%202006.htm">strong words</a> about the <em>Economic Report of the President</em> and the state of the US economy.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone out there who's much interested in trying to solve the problem. We can't keep spending the way that we have. All the big screen TVs and clothing that we're buying from overseas is growing their economies as fast as it depletes our resources. It'd be different if we were graduating more scientists and engineers ... if we were graduating more people period. </p>
<p>His article is a fine read on a day when the market dropped better than 1% across all indices. Highly recommended.</p>Microsoft, I don't want macros2006-03-30T03:03:03-07:002006-03-30T03:03:03-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-03-30:/microsoft-i-dont-want-macros/<p>I downloaded something written in Word for my wife, who's a Mac user, and printed it for her. Now, every time I open Microsoft Word, I get an unintelligble message about </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The function you are attempting to run contains macros or content
that requires macro language support. When this software …</p></blockquote><p>I downloaded something written in Word for my wife, who's a Mac user, and printed it for her. Now, every time I open Microsoft Word, I get an unintelligble message about </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The function you are attempting to run contains macros or content
that requires macro language support. When this software was installed
you (or your administrator) chose not to install support for macros
or controls."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>OK. <em>What</em> function that I am trying to run? <em>Where</em> is it?
<a href="https://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft.com</a> is totally unhelpful. In searching Google, I ran across a pretty good screech about <a href="https://www.desktoppipeline.com/trends/181401995">Microsoft's Scripting Addiction</a></p>
<p>This morning I sold my Microsoft stock. I'm not upgrading to the next version of Office. I'm pretty ambivalent about Vi$ta. Whatever glitz they put on the front and however well it might compare to Mac OS X, you know they're going to be going around underneath making it more difficult to use the content that you've bought. </p>pingback versus trackback explained2006-03-30T03:03:03-07:002006-03-30T03:03:03-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-03-30:/pingback-versus-trackback-explained/<p>I've never really understood the differences between "pingback" and "trackback".<br>
Google likes to display older articles, which has interesting effects The first thing that I found that tried to explain the differences was published more than 3 years ago and has way more detail than I want. But this <a href="https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1033171507&count=1"">whitepaper …</a></p><p>I've never really understood the differences between "pingback" and "trackback".<br>
Google likes to display older articles, which has interesting effects The first thing that I found that tried to explain the differences was published more than 3 years ago and has way more detail than I want. But this <a href="https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1033171507&count=1"">whitepaper</a> led me to more resources on pingback and trackback.</p>
<p>If I can summarize:</p>
<p><strong>Pingback</strong>
* Just ping a blog (or whatever) with your own blogging software
* No detail about what you said about them
* Receiver doesn't link back to you</p>
<p><strong>Trackback</strong>
* Details about what was said
* Receiver can link back if they want. </p>
<p>SixApart has a <a href="https://www.sixapart.com/pronet/docs/trackback_spec">trackback technical doc</a> that explains more.</p>Simplify, simplify, simplify ... is hard2006-03-24T03:03:03-07:002006-03-24T03:03:03-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-03-24:/simplify-simplify-simplify-is-hard/<p><a href="https://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v7i07_pfeiffer.html">WHY FEATURES DON'T MATTER ANYMORE: THE NEW LAWS OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY</a>
is a great article on why the iPod caught on and what to consider when designing anything. Tools (hardware or software) are overloaded with features that people don't have time to learn.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.craigslist.org/">Craig's List</a> drives me a bit crazy …</p><p><a href="https://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v7i07_pfeiffer.html">WHY FEATURES DON'T MATTER ANYMORE: THE NEW LAWS OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY</a>
is a great article on why the iPod caught on and what to consider when designing anything. Tools (hardware or software) are overloaded with features that people don't have time to learn.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.craigslist.org/">Craig's List</a> drives me a bit crazy. It doesn't let me work the way that I want, sorting things this way or that. But given that it's a bunch of free ads for stuff that might or might not be still available, well, OK, sorting latest first works. What's the point of sorting by make and price, then finding out that the item is gone?</p>
<p>And clearly the interface works for a lot of people. </p>Wal-Mart going upscale? Huh?2006-03-24T03:03:03-07:002006-03-24T03:03:03-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-03-24:/wal-mart-going-upscale-huh/<p>Laura Ries has a great <a href="https://ries.typepad.com/ries_blog/2006/03/the_more_expens.html">article</a> about Wal-Mart testing a high-end store in Texas. </p>
<p>$500 bottles of wine at a Wal-Mart? What's the message here? </p>
<p>This is especially interesting coming on the heels of her article about how to properly segment: Scion, Toyota, Lexus or Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic …</p><p>Laura Ries has a great <a href="https://ries.typepad.com/ries_blog/2006/03/the_more_expens.html">article</a> about Wal-Mart testing a high-end store in Texas. </p>
<p>$500 bottles of wine at a Wal-Mart? What's the message here? </p>
<p>This is especially interesting coming on the heels of her article about how to properly segment: Scion, Toyota, Lexus or Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic. Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart? Don't think so.</p>Stop the paper ... and make millions2006-03-23T03:03:03-07:002006-03-23T03:03:03-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2006-03-23:/stop-the-paper-and-make-millions/<p>OK, I've wanted this for years and it's still not available.</p>
<p>I don't want paper statements. From anybody. I don't want to file them away. I don't want to scan them myself. And I certainly don't want to pay someone to do it.</p>
<p>I want electronic statements that are secure …</p><p>OK, I've wanted this for years and it's still not available.</p>
<p>I don't want paper statements. From anybody. I don't want to file them away. I don't want to scan them myself. And I certainly don't want to pay someone to do it.</p>
<p>I want electronic statements that are secure. I want them backed up regularly. I want them authoritative - one of the big reasons that I don't go electronic is that I figure the original statements will carry more weight with the bank, company, etc. Or the court, if it comes to that. </p>
<p>I don't want them alterable. If the bank has an error on their statement, I don't want them to be able to be change it. If I have 2 statements for February 2006 - the right one and the wrong one - that's OK. </p>
<p>I want this to be online for as long as I'm alive. Having my own local copy is fine but the hard drive in my laptop crashed last August. I was and am better about backups than most people but I still lost some data. So I want somone else doing the backup, too. And I don't want to pay anything for it. </p>
<p>I have an account at Charles Schwab. They started charging for paper copies of transactions so I went electronic. Which is a pain in the neck. There are class action lawsuits filed about stocks that I owned years ago. They (courts, attorneys, company, somebody) know I was an owner because they're mailing me. But now I have to show them when I bought the stock, how much I paid for it, etc. This is seriously not fun. </p>
<p>Schwab pokes at me from time to time to go to electronic statements. I have no idea why I would ever do this. They only keep statements online for 18 months. Which means that I'm supposed to downloading, backing it up, etc.</p>
<p>Things are getting better with <a href="https://www.gmail.com">gmail</a>. Now the electronic stuff can come in and just sit in a folder somewhere. Google takes security seriously enough to require encrypted access. But there's no guarantees about reliability or availability. </p>
<p>My house in Portland was built in 1914. It has a mail slot beside the door. You're going to have to break into the house to steal my mail. A lot of other people have their mailbox on the parking strip. If you want to steal their mail, well, you're going to have to open the mailbox. It seems like there are a lot more people in that situation than mine. A few years ago, many people thought it was crazy to have electronic statements. But now, with identity theft, a lot more people would be willing to do it.</p>
<p>So what you should do is start up a company.</p>
<p>More on that later.</p>Got XP? Download LSP-Fix now. Right now.2005-01-18T01:01:01-07:002005-01-18T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2005-01-18:/got-xp-download-lsp-fix-now-right-now/<p>I was really pleased with myself. Not only have I been running AdAware and SpyBot - S&D on a regular basis but now I'd added Microsoft's real-time anti-spyware to the mix in addition to running Norton. I'm locked down, right? So I downloaded a home page editor that looked good …</p><p>I was really pleased with myself. Not only have I been running AdAware and SpyBot - S&D on a regular basis but now I'd added Microsoft's real-time anti-spyware to the mix in addition to running Norton. I'm locked down, right? So I downloaded a home page editor that looked good and didn't pay too much attention to the agreement. Who does?</p>
<p>Then it wanted to update the toolbar it brought along with it. Looked at the agreement. "Oh, dear" as Maxine, my two-year-old would say. Track everything I do in IE and send that off? I don't think so. Even though I almost never use IE any more. So OK, remove that sucker. Hmmm. Things are acting funny. Must be time for a reboot. Hmmm. This is weird. I can't get out to the network. Haven't touched the cable. But XP says we're operating with reduced or no capacity. That's OK, I'll switch cables. After all Max or her younger sister Charlie might have damaged the cable. </p>
<p>Oh, dear. Didn't do any good.</p>
<p>What was another program that I installed recently? The anti-spyware program from Microsoft. Go into that. Hmmm. It's pointing the finger at Google Desktop as the thing that damaged the LSP chain. Oh yeah. I removed that because I didn't think it was very useful. </p>
<p>Credit to the anti-spyware program for identifying the problem. But I can't tell you how frustrating it is to not have a fix either in the anti-spyware program or in XP to fix the problem. "Oh, dear" doesn't cover it. I'm not a power user, I'm somebody who tries to stay a bit ahead of the curve so I can help my mom and sisters and other family. </p>
<p>If Microsoft is going to let programs jump up and down with hobnailed boots on essential parts of the operating system, they also need to have a fix. Removing the device and reinstalling it doesn't work. And in my humble opinion, it should.</p>
<p>Don't have the modem connected. Hey, I'm on broadband. And if the modem's not connected, I don't have to worry about something getting onto my system and dialing Botswana or Kazakhstan. Hmmm. Will the modem work if the winsock is busted? And what's the password I set up for Mom's dialup account? Hmmm.</p>
<p>Brought the laptop home. Turn it on. Go in search of LSP. Ah-ha, got a solution. "Repairs Winsock 2 settings, caused by buggy or improperly-removed Internet software, that result in loss of Internet access" OK, that's what I want. Trudge up to the third floor to get the floppy drive for the laptop, which has the CD-ROM/DVD installed. Copy to floppy. Put in floppy. Run LSP-Fix. Reboot.
Sigh of relief. I can see the internet again.</p>
<p>Today's lesson? Download <a href="https://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm">LSP-Fix</a> right now. Click on the link and download it. So if something nasty or just badly written snags your LSP chain (whatever the heck it is), you're back on the net in a few minutes. </p>
<p>Thanks to the folks at <a href="https://www.cexx.org/">CounterExploitation</a> for making it easy to find and download a fix.</p>Microsoft adds anti-spyware2005-01-17T01:01:01-07:002005-01-17T01:01:01-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2005-01-17:/microsoft-adds-anti-spyware/<p>Well, Microsoft had decided to do something about the bad publicity that they're getting over peoples' computers being hijacked by various things that IE downloads. So they've released their own <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx">anti-spyware program</a>.</p>
<p>As usual, it's got a gotcha: it not only requires you to let it look around by running …</p><p>Well, Microsoft had decided to do something about the bad publicity that they're getting over peoples' computers being hijacked by various things that IE downloads. So they've released their own <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx">anti-spyware program</a>.</p>
<p>As usual, it's got a gotcha: it not only requires you to let it look around by running an ActiveX control but you also have to type in your 25 digit validation key. In the picture they show, the sticker is neatly attached to the side of a tower case. In my world, the sticker is attached to the back of my Sony mini-tower. Or on the bottom of my Dell laptop. So I got to practice building up my short-term memory by remembering 5 digits at a time. </p>
<p>I was surprised and impressed that it found a couple of things that AdAware and Spybot-S&D didn't. I like that it does a check every day. I like that it downloads the updated files automatically, unlike AdAware or Spybot. </p>
<p>I'll keep running AdAware and SpyBot but I feel much more solid about having something running every day. </p>
<p>One thing that I did find interesting, though, was Microsoft's insistence on the sticker. Guess I had thought that activation of the OS had made it much more difficult to pirate XP than it is. If it wasn't easy, they wouldn't be such sticklers for the sticker ....</p>Preventing Malware and Spyware2005-01-16T22:11:33-07:002005-01-16T22:11:33-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2005-01-16:/preventing-malware-and-spyware/<p>Two programs that every Windows user needs on their machine:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lavasoft's <a href="https://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/">AdAware</a>
Free for personal use and I've found it a little more updated on bad
things people are trying to put on my computer.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html">Spybot - Search and Destroy</a> Totally free and very good. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I like to run AdAware once …</p><p>Two programs that every Windows user needs on their machine:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lavasoft's <a href="https://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/">AdAware</a>
Free for personal use and I've found it a little more updated on bad
things people are trying to put on my computer.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html">Spybot - Search and Destroy</a> Totally free and very good. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I like to run AdAware once every two weeks and Spybot once a month. They take a while to work, since they go through every file on your computer and all the entries in the registry. You can set them to work faster but I feel like thorough is better. Maybe if you ran them every day it'd be good to run them in smart mode.</p>Interesting Week for a Community-Based Website2005-01-16T11:33:34-07:002005-01-16T11:33:34-07:00Jim Deibeletag:www.siriusventures.com,2005-01-16:/interesting-week-for-a-community-based-website/<p>The week outside <a href="https://www.mypages.com">MyPages</a> started with an article in the paper about <a href="https://www.livejournal.com">LiveJournal</a>, based here in Portland, being sold to Six Degrees. Because we consider user involvement so important for <a href="https://www.mypages.com">MyPages</a>, I'm very interested in hearing what happens with any community-based website. Whether the community is online, as with LiveJournal …</p><p>The week outside <a href="https://www.mypages.com">MyPages</a> started with an article in the paper about <a href="https://www.livejournal.com">LiveJournal</a>, based here in Portland, being sold to Six Degrees. Because we consider user involvement so important for <a href="https://www.mypages.com">MyPages</a>, I'm very interested in hearing what happens with any community-based website. Whether the community is online, as with LiveJournal, or more local like <a href="https://www.craigslist.org">Craigslist</a>.</p>
<p>No outsider is going to know the terms of a deal between two private companies unless something goes very wrong or very right. Either somebody sues or they're written up in Fortune or Forbes. But it seems like a good time to be running a community site. </p>
<p>So it was surprising to see that LiveJournal was sold to Six Degrees. </p>
<p>At the end of the week, I got IM'd by J that LiveJournal had been down for hours because of a <a href="https://www.livejournal.com/powerloss/">power outage</a> at their colo provider, <a href="https://www.internap.com/">Internap</a>. The first thought was "wow, good time to sell". And the second thought was "wow, glad we didn't colo with Internap". Which we had thought about.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the feeling was one of "it could have been us" instead of <a href="https://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Schadenfreude">Schadenfreude</a>. Based on what I've seen from a glance every six months or so, the folks at LiveJournal seem to have done a lot of things right starting with no money. They came up with smart solutions for difficult problems, like memcached. </p>
<p>Picking the right people to work with is important. Which is a "duh" comment but I certainly wish I knew a magical way to tell that this was going to work or no, it absolutely wasn't. We've had some fits and starts with outside folks on advertising or public relations and programming and web design. We went with hosting rather than putting in our own servers to keep costs down. And having the hosting company short on bandwidth - though it took a while to figure that out - affected the way we felt about the web designers.</p>
<p>In a previous life, I started and ran an internet service provider. One of the reasons I sold was that there were things that I wanted to do, like putting in redundant this or a system to handle a failure of that. I'd been in a few bad situations, where I would have gladly written a big check to get us out of that particular bad situation. But there's some things that you can't easily fix. Converting this system into a cluster or buying a hot swap drive works for some things.</p>
<p>There are the situations you know about, vaguely know about and don't have enough experience to realize that there's a problem ... until it shows up. Then you know about it. Boy, do you know about it. Usually only a few customers are screaming. But all of them are interested in knowing when it's going to be fixed. And everybody gets pretty tired of saying "we're working hard on the problem and we'll have it fixed ... soon".</p>
<p>The people you'd want to hire to prevent those situations won't work for you long-term or at all because you don't have enough interesting work for them to do besides fixing that problem. And if you deal with a contractor, well, they may or may not be available when you need them. So the issue becomes dealing with a company. Which means trying to figure out whether they're going to be around and investing a lot of dollars. Which means that you need to do that very carefully, which means it takes lots and lots of time. </p>
<p>And that's another thing you don't have. Watching the pennies means that you don't have experienced management sitting around to find a business solution (hiring an outside company) to a technical problem. Not being big means you can't hire some people because you can't pay them and you can't hire others because you want them to take webhosting support calls as well as design the ultimate reliable email system.</p>
<p>Once in a while, you get lucky. You get somebody between jobs and his wife is wondering where the mortgage payment is going to come from and you get somebody for a while that you'd never get otherwise. Or you get somebody you've brought along internally who keeps improving. But that also assumes a big enough company that you can hire people as tech support and bring the good ones into technical areas.</p>
<p>So there's a fear issue that got to me after a while. Which is "I know there are icebergs. And I bet there are icebergs I don' t know about. And some of them could put me out of business. Everything I've got is at risk here, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And I've got a responsibility to the folks who work here to make sure that doesn't happen. And to our customers who trusted us. And I would like to keep my house and car, too." </p>
<p>I'm guessing that Brad Fitzpatrick decided it was time to let someone else worry about that for a while. Just ironic how good his timing was.</p>