Fri Apr 4 10:45:37 PST 2003

I picked up a linksys 802.11b WiFi card for my work laptop, so it’s time to sell off all those little Proxim cards that I’ve now got lying around on ebay. I’m going to try one of those "multiple" auctions as opposed to listing the buggers 4 times each. Hopefully nobody will get confused…

This auction is for a Proxim RangeLan-DS PCMCIA card. I have 4, but will be selling them separately. Feel free to bid for multiple of them. These cards have seen light home use in a number of machines including IBM laptops running Windows 2000 and some Futijsu WebPads running Win98 where they performed acceptably well. The only real problems I’ve had is getting 128-bit WEP working (need to enable the right mode in the driver in the windows control panel, not their little app) and the cards also seem to have some WEP issues under Win-XP, but Proxim recently introduced drivers for XP. Basically, if you don’t intend to use WEP, these cards will work fine, WEP might cause some configuration headaches. &gt;p<

I’ll be shipping these without drivers or docs. The drivers I have are way too old anyway. You should download new ones from &gt;a href="http://proxim.com"<http://proxim.com/

Thu Mar 27 20:12:04 PST 2003

Serious setbacks today.

I tried giving my Intel Create and Share camera another try with the drivers over at http://sourceforge.net/projects/spca50x/ and gqcam http://cse.unl.edu/~cluening/gqcam/ in the hopes that I could clearly identify the functionality to write up exactly what wasn’t working and send it into the mailing list. Unfortunately after it ran for a bit and poked at a few options and then suddenly the machine crashed… Oops!

So after it rebooted I decided that maybe I shouldn’t be playing around with highly experimental drivers.

Next up, wireless drivers under Windows XP. I found the Proxim RangeLAN-DS drivers for XP on their web site. Unfortunately while they installed smoothly and the drivers seemed to work OK, but I couldn’t get it to DHCP off the WAP. I tried all the settings suggested in the README. The "open mode" found the AP, but couldn’t DHCP. When running in "shared key" mode it couldn’t find the AP. And the weird thing was that the "eject devices" stuff didn’t ever show the card.

So, then it was time to retry the Lucent Orinoco card again. I stuck it in to and tried to uninstall the default driver that came with XP in the hopes that replacing it with the Lucent driver to try and prevent the card from blue screening XP (Yes, I managed to BSOD XP using only the code provided on the hard drive). It BSODed when I tried to uninstall the driver, but it must of worked since I reinstalled the Lucent stuff it appeared as the driver when I plugged in the card. Unfortunately, less than a minute in, it BSODed again. I even tried using my other Lucent card with more reboots.

Seems like it’s time to by a D-Link or a Linksys. I know people have used them sucessfully with the IBM WinXP laptops.

I’m almost afraid to try getting my Zaurus to work with the Linux box. Too many things going wrong tonight…

Wed Mar 26 22:31:35 2003

More fun with the Oracle. My response to this one isn’t too bad.

&lt; Oracle Most Wise; &lt; &lt; What affect, if any, will The End of The World have on The &lt; Stock Market?

Now you might think that The End of The World ™ would have a negative affect on the stock market, considering that most economists believe that the price of stocks are related to companies future earnings potential, and that the destruction of the world, and thereby presumably all money stored on said world would significantly reduce earnings potential for basically all companies.

But this isn’t actually the case. The value of stocks are determined by an old man living on a shack on the moon. He selects values for the stocks based on the number of steps he has to take from his shack to the nearest selection of his favorite cheese (yes, the moon is made of cheese, but not all of it is really edible). So small changes in the market are generally attributable to him having to travel further as he eats nearby selections of cheese. Larger changes are usually caused by him switching from cheddar to gouda.

Now you probablby have doubts about the veracity of this, but consider this: why else do governments build huge telescopes? It’s to spy on him and track the availability of various types of cheese around his small shack. The Wealth Of Nations is not found in gold, but on the moon.

You owe the oracle a large telescope and a map of the moon.

Wed Mar 19 22:43:38 PST 2003

Quite possibly one of the coolest projects I’ve ever seen implemented. This guy put together a remote controlled blimp along with color quickcam and a chunk of software to create an automated blimp-courier. Way cool stuff for cubeland.

http://www.hpl.hp.com/shl/projects/blimp/

It’s got some limitations, but the concept is brilliant, outside the box thinking, and the implementation is fairly well thought out. Although the implementation is more of a prototype than a working model. I’m really impressed :-)

Tue Mar 18 21:55:10 PST 2003

So news broke yesterday that Sharp is introducing the SL-5600 Linux-based PDA, and slashed SL-5500 prices and are dumping them on HSN of all places for less than $200. The idea of a built-in thumbboard and linux installed on it had always been appealing, so I broke down and ordered one.

Bible study went well this evening, but found out that James is out next week so I get to do the rest of Acts 4. It’s going to be a little tricky…

Mon Mar 17 15:28:22 PST 2003

So James and I are playing ‘Trading Spaces’ at Bible study this week, so I get to do the study part on Acts 4:13-22.

Background: Peter and James were going to the temple to pray, but they met a lame man at the gate and Peter healed him in Jesus name. Many people were amazed by this, and so Peter and James started preaching Jesus to the people. Priests and Sadducees saw this and arrested Peter and James and the next day brought them out and asked them ‘in what name have you done this’. Peter is filled by the Holy Spirit and starts preaching again, and has just finished up in verse 12, which is where we pick up the story…

Read Acts 4:13-22

13-14:

Peter and James were seen as:

1. Confident 2. Uneducated (not religiously trained) – Mark 1:16-19, Luke 5:1-11, John 1:40 3. Had been with Jesus 4. Had clearly performed an undeniable miracle – the ex-lame man was there,

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and everybody knew him, and had walked by him for nearly 40 years.

Peter and James were just ordinary people until they got connected with Jesus and had a personal relationship with him. Now, the top dogs of the day are starting to realize that these guys have religious knowledge, demonstrated spiritual power and leadership. And this is potentially a threat to their position as the spiritual leaders.

15-18:

The debate and response of the religious leaders:

They get to just their group to confer (see also Matthew 21:25)

1. They acknowledge that a miracle has occured 2. But they don’t ask what it means for them personally, or even

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‘professionally’ 3. They aren’t interested in giving God credit or even Peter and James
credit for being the instruments of God for the miracle. Why? Because
they were more interested in their position than in seeing God glorified. 4. So they plan to try and keep Peter and John from preaching since they
can’t deny the miracle.

Things haven’t changed a bit since Jesus was walking the earth. Look at John 11:45-54. They treat his disciples the same way. There will be people who will treat Christians today in the same way.

19-20:

Obey God or Men:

They pose it as a question to limit their ability to answer directly. As the religious leadership, the Sanhedrin can’t say that Peter and John should obey men instead of God. This passage is important in that Peter makes it clear that authority, civil or spiritual comes from God, and that he and James will follow God’s authority as given to them, instead of the authority of the civil/spiritual leaders of the Sanhedrin.

This is not an abandonment of civil government. Jesus taught his deciples to pay taxes (‘render unto Ceaser what is Ceaser’s’) and Paul writes in length in Romans 13:1-7 about the importance of obeying the local government.

21:

The religious officials threaten Peter and John again, but then release them because they can’t charge them with anything — Galations 5:22-23. And also the people were watching the proceedings, so the Sanhedren can’t punish them for no good reason without appearing to be unjust, and thus degrading their public opinion.

Here’s the sad point. Once again, the religious leaders of the day have missed seeing the glory of God, but many people around them saw the miracle and were praising God for it. How often do we overlook miracles or other ‘simple’ acts of God instead of praising him for his works and his majesty.

22:

Even more information that Doctor Luke provides about the lame man, possibly to further clairify that this miracle was a truly supernatural event, since it could not be attributed to a boy growing out of his weakness, and it might also be to better identify the person in question to Theophilus, who might have even walked by the lame man at one point.

Tue Mar 11 21:31:00 PST 2003

In terms of computing I think I’ve learned a few things recently:

First, always make recent backups — hard drives aren’t as reliable as you may have been lead to believe. I lost my primary drive in my Linux box back in December. The one with all my digital photos, plan files, html files, CVS repositories, server config files, all that good stuff. Fortunately, some of the really important stuff I had copies sitting on my laptop, but there was a pretty darn good chunk of data that only existed on that drive, and possibly cached across the net.

If I had really had my wits about me, I would have dived into google’s cache right away. Fortunately I found the internet wayback machine http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html and was able to retrieve about 80% of my plan files from before the middle of last year.

I also took the hard drive and after detaching the existing disk and burning a linux "SuperRescue" CD got the drive to the point where it is mountable, but there are a ton of errors on it still. So I’m using scp to try and copy off what data will come off the drive and save what I can back onto pooh over the network. I’m thinking that the drive is probably just plain toast, but I’m managing to get some good data off of it from the old /public area. I tried accessing the home directories, but they appear to be a lost cause, which is really sad, since that is where a lot of the really useful data was stored. I’ve also got some older CD backups that I’ll need to mesh together with what I can recover from the drive and other sources.

On the plus side, upgrading to RH8.0 has been a fairly positive experience except for some PHP incompatibilities with both Gallery and Bookmarker. And thanks to grip and mserve (utilities to serve .mp3 files to my Rio Reciever) I’ve got my Rio sitting on top of my TV and playing lots of fun audio files over my home stereo system. I do think that I understand better why the Rio didn’t sell so well. The user interface on the box is really, really bad. So over the past week or two I’ve been putting CDs in my box and grip rips and encodes them using lame and then spits them back out. I’ve managed to get probably over 60 disks done so far without a lot of hassles. I do have a couple that may be a bit of a problem getting info on them through the freedb servers, but currently I’m almost suspecting a problem on their end.

Sat Mar 8 21:16:50 2003

A somewhat amusing response for the Oracle this time.

&lt; Oh wise Oracle most effulgent and sheltering, &lt; &lt; Have you heard anything about a new hog flavored book?

Sounds like hogwash to me.

But seriously, there’s been a resurgence in alternatives to making books out of paper. Let’s take a look at a few of the possibilities including your idea of using animals:

Pork – Bacon specifically, since that’s usually the flattest form of hogs.

Binding bacon into a book could prove to be a little tricky, and printing
onto bacon, cooked or uncooked is pretty tricky. On the plus side, you
can even eat it for breakfast.

Plastic – It’s much easier to print on than pork, and has some nice

qualities like being waterproof so you can read it in the bath. But
plastic is just processed petrochemicals, so technically you are
reading an oil-slick. That’s got to be a little weird…

Metal – While metal has been used for a few books (Ancient Egypt’s

book of the dead). It tends to be a bit heavy and certainly not the
kind of book that you can take with you into the bath. And anything
over a couple of dozen pages is a tome with too much weight to
carry anywhere without a camel.

Cloth – Cloth has been used from time to time as book material. It can

be a little floppy and hard to use without a table of other flat
surface. On the plus side, you can make trendy clothes from various
books. Think of a shirt by Ann Rand, pants by Marvel Comics.

People – Making books out of people is generally frowned upon in most

civilized societies. But there are a few books, most notable the
infamous Necronomicon. Of course such books are carefully guarded,
just don’t pick up the wrong book.

You owe the Oracle a book on how to make Solyent Green

Sun Mar 2 22:20:37 2003

Another Oracle answer. This one isn’t all that good though.

&lt; I owe you a left-handed toothbrush. Where can I &lt; find one? The folks at Wal-Mart laughed at me, &lt; and told me I’d find it in the paint department &lt; right next to the striped paint. They were wrong.

Listen more carefully, I said leaf-handled, not left-handed. And looking for anything in Wal-Mart is never a good idea. That little yellow smiley face is just a facad for one for one of the most dangerous creatures besides the clown in Stephen King’s "It". So for starters, stay away from Wal-Mart, especially after dark.

Anyway, back to the leaf-handled toothbrush. If you had paid attention to your teacher Mrs. Grainsworthy in your 9th grade geography class you might have remembered that in the South American rainforests the natives of that land don’t exactly have the latest in consumer items, so they live off the land and so for keeping proper dental hygine they brush their teeth using branches and leaves. The really good toothbrushes are made by a shamen name is Gri’es Zoram. While you are there would you pick up a jar of bubble-free bubble bath? Thanks.

You owe the Oracle a leaf-handled toothbrush and a jar of bubble-free bubble bath.

Sun Feb 23 14:58:58 PST 2003

So I was thinking of purchasing a new scanner to scan in photos that we gotten from various people of the wedding and stuff like that. I figured it would be nice to get a scanner that was supported under Linux. In general I’ve found that linux-supported stuff tends to be slightly higher quality, and usually there are more of them so it’s less likely that I’m buying some hunk-o’-junk without realizing it. I had picked out a Epson 1260 scanner, which was on sale at CompUSA for a rather nice price with a $30 rebate as well. But when visiting with my parents on Saturday for Mom’s birthday, they told me that they weren’t using the scanner I’d loaned to Mom for use at the Church.

So I got that scanner back (after a year or so of it being over at their place unused), and then went online to the sane home page to see if it was supported under linux. Sure enough, it was there, an Agfa SnapScan1212u. Unfortunately, what wasn’t obvious is that I needed to get the firmware binary into a known place so that the software could load the necessary firmware into the scanner before it would work correctly. Fortunately, a couple of websites later I had it mostly figured out (thanks largely to http://hem.fyristorg.com/henrikj/snapscan/) and copied the correct file, SnapScan1212U_2.bin file from the driver CD into the /etc/sane.d directory and then edited /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf to point to the .bin file (also removed the space in the filename). After that, xsane worked, but only appears to be able to save raw RGB files, so I switched to gimp, and then use the ‘acquire’ menu to invoke sane. That works out pretty well.

The scanner quality is reasonably good. I only does 600×600, but for scanning in photos it appears to be plenty good enough, and the files that it generates off a 4×5 photograph are pretty huge, around 800K a pop in .jpg format. It’s probably overkill, but I’m not sure how worried I should be about it. As long as general sections still fit on CD, it’s all good.

Next I need to figure out a good way of ripping and encoding CDs :-)