Jimmy Buffett Backstage Pass

Ever wonder what's required backstage in Margaritaville? The Smoking Gun has excerpts from Jimmy Buffett's concert rider. It all looks quite reasonable to me, especially compared to some of the newer artists pompous requirements.
Posted by Chris on 8/31/2004 10:49:00 AM :: Permalink   

Photo of the Day

Snapped outside a garden shop in downtown Wake Forest:

"Is this a flower bed or a bed of flowers?" Posted by Chris on 8/30/2004 09:06:00 PM :: Permalink   

TiVo Top Ten Olympic Moments

The Olympics are over and now the (anonymous) TiVo data rolls in. What did users want to see over and over and in slow motion?

I doubt any of these moments will rival the most TiVo'ed moment of all time, but here they are anyway: Top TiVo 2004 Olympic Moments from Athens.

I would have expected the marathon attacker to make this list. I know we watched it several times.

Labels: tivo

Posted by Chris on 8/30/2004 02:18:00 PM :: Permalink   

Google Search: Chopped tire for play area

For some reason I find this quite amusing. Apparently someone hit our page by googling the phrase "chopped tire for play area".

I suppose if you cover a weird enough range of topics on your blog people will hit it googling just about anything.

Google Search: Chopped tire for play area Posted by Melissa on 8/28/2004 09:39:00 PM :: Permalink   

Wow - just wow.

News-Leader.com | True Ozarks | Candy recalled over tasteless toys

It's hard to believe that there are people out there who target children for this type of hatefulness. Posted by Melissa on 8/28/2004 09:03:00 PM :: Permalink   

The day I found out that I'm all hard and cold.

So Delaney and I were watching her latest tv show obsession, Kim Possible, yesterday before her naptime (after Tori was already taking her nap). At the end of the show (we usually just watch one then off to bed) she asked me could she watch another. The conversation went something like this:

D - "Oooohh, it's going off. Could I pleeeeaaase watch another Kim Possible before naptime, Mommy?"

M - "Hmmmm, let's see what time it is and then decide."

D - "I promise that I'll go straight to bed right after Mommy!"

M - "Well, it looks like we have time to watch another if you do go to bed as soon as it goes off."

(she usually likes to collect animals to sleep with and talk about the show after, so this was an important point that was apparently beyond her, since she completely balked at the idea of going straight to bed after it was actually over and had, well, pretty much a fit. BUT this is not the point of this overdrawn retelling of this conversation...so...meanwhile back at the ranch...)

D - "Mommy thank you - You are a ROCK!" she says with a huge grin.

M - "I'm a what?"

D - "You are a rock Mommy!"

M - "Uh, ok thanks."

D - "Now you say that I'm a rock Mommy - just like on Kim Possible."

Me having a lightbulb moment - "Oh, you mean like when Kim told her mom that she 'rocked' and then her mom said, 'You rock too Kimmie.'?"

(That's a lot of punctuation at the end of that, but it feels right, so I'm leaving it.)

D - "Yeah Mommy like that."


So apparently I'm a rock. Not sure how I feel about that. I guess I just need to find out what kind of rock I am to know whether I like it or not. I'll get back to you.

Labels: family

Posted by Melissa on 8/28/2004 08:46:00 PM :: Permalink   

How to Detect (and Avoid) a 1.6 Xbox

I'm about to help three friends mod their Xbox's, much like I did mine. One of them, did not yet have an Xbox so they went to purchase one at the best deal they could find. However, we found out that most current mod chips and BIOSes do not support version 1.6 of the Xbox. Microsoft periodically makes incremental changes and releases a new version from the production line. These new versions don't really have any new features for the end-user, but may make mod chips inoperable.

So he wanted to be sure to buy a 1.5 or earlier Xbox. Surely, there will be plenty of support for 1.6 Xbox's and they are moddable, but who wants to wait when you could be playing? Here's the best guide we found to make sure you get what you're after. Much of this you can use right in the store before you ever open the box. None of it is conclusive, but we were able to find a 1.4 Xbox using these techniques! Posted by Chris on 8/26/2004 01:32:00 PM :: Permalink   

Free Gmail Invites!

I've got a few Gmail invites which I'll give out for free. Post a comment if you're interested. I'd really appreciate it if you'd help me out in return. Posted by Chris on 8/26/2004 11:52:00 AM :: Permalink   

Site News: Email Blog Posts to Friends

The fine folks at Blogger have now made it simple for you to share the Sharpes-R-Us posts that are most near and dear to your heart with your beloved friends. I've added this 'Email Post' feature to recent entries. Just click the envelope icon on the 'Posted by' byline and your email will be on its way! Posted by Chris on 8/26/2004 11:32:00 AM :: Permalink   

Are You a Web Search Voyeur?

Ever wonder what other people are searching for? I'll sometimes look at the hits this web site gets from search engines, and people are searching for some really strange stuff - and coming here for it. It's interesting to see the word combinations that lead them here. Perhaps one day I'll compile a list of the best (worst?) ones and post it.

If you're curious what others are searching the Net for, look no farther than SearchSpy. You get to choose from a filtered and unfiltered version. Be warned that the unfiltered version really is _unfiltered_ and there are a lot of weird people on the Net. Posted by Chris on 8/26/2004 10:40:00 AM :: Permalink   

Registered to Vote?

Just a reminder that if you've changed your name or your address since you last voted, you need to update it by October 8th to vote in the November elections. You can check your current voter registration online at NC State Board of Elections and also see a map to your polling place.

If you need to register for the first time or change information, you can use one of these forms (includes forms for non-NC residents). Posted by Chris on 8/26/2004 10:32:00 AM :: Permalink   

ScreenHunter

Sometimes doing the simplest things can be difficult. Sometimes I need a screen capture to paste in a document or something. Windows has very limited built-in support for this using the 'Print Screen' key. But try ScreenHunter. There's a free version that lets you pick your own hotkey and capture the entire screen, active window, or user-selected rectangular area. You can then save to a file or copy to the clipboard. Simple. Posted by Chris on 8/25/2004 01:13:00 PM :: Permalink   

Photo of the Day

Today Delaney decided she was going to pick out her clothes.
I wonder if Melissa let her leave the house like this.

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 8/25/2004 11:39:00 AM :: Permalink   

JibJab Knocks Out Lawsuit

CNET reports JibJab beats copyright rap. Apparently, someone wasn't happy with them using Woodie Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" lyrics for this parody, but the copyright had long since expired.

Surely you've all seen JibJab's hilarious parody of President Bush and Senator John Kerry, right? I think Melissa said it was one of the funniest things she had ever seen and I couldn't get her to stop watching it over and over and over and over.

Even if you've already seen it, it may be time to watch This Land again, just for a laugh! Posted by Chris on 8/25/2004 11:26:00 AM :: Permalink   

Silly girl

A couple of days ago, I walked up behind Tori and said "Tori!" in kind of a-whispery-BOO-being-silly-kinda way.

She jumped and turned around and looked at me grinning and said, "Mama tardle!"

I said, "Mama what?"

Tori, "Mama taaaarDle!" followed by hysterical giggling.

Me, smiling as I finally realize what she's saying, "Mama startled you?"

Tori nodding, "Yeah, Mama tardle."

I smiled about that forever. She is so silly and cracked me up using that Delaney kinda word. I was telling Chris when he came home and she started laughing, over with her toys, to herself as I told it and was nodding and mumbling, "yeah, Mama tardle" like it was this old joke that she remembered fondly. She is such a character.

(btw - she is so **not** holding an open can of soda in the previous blog post!)

Labels: family

Posted by Melissa on 8/24/2004 10:25:00 PM :: Permalink   

Photo of the Day

Victoria likes to chug a Diet Cherry Coke every now and then. It's got a little more kick than whole milk.

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 8/24/2004 01:16:00 PM :: Permalink   

8 Gallons, 15 Hours, and 4 Pounds Later...

...my garage is now white. Ultra Pure Satin White. This, oddly enough, is pleasing to me.

This weekend I moved everything out of the garage and painted the interior. After doing the electrical work, insulating, hanging drywall, and doing a horrible, horrible mudding job, it was nice to finally paint it. I was smart enough to know that if I didn't get it painted before I started hanging things up and putting them in their place, it would never get done. Well, it's done now.

Much thanks to Melissa, Dave, Tim, Delaney and Victoria who all helped out immensely.

It took eight gallons of paint for a coat of primer and then a top coat. It took 15 hours. Well, not really. We started moving things out and cleaning the walls about 8:30am on Saturday. Most of the time there were three of us working and besides a short lunch, we didn't take much of a break until about 2:30. Then after stopping for supper, getting the girls to bed, and buying the eighth gallon of paint, I finished painting the last wall about 11:30pm. Fifteen hours. Hey, it took Michelangelo 4 years to paint a ceiling, and he was always lying down on the job.

It was also said that we could have finished with only seven gallons if Dave wasn't wearing a gallon himself. But for a guy who painted the 12 foot high ceiling twice I guess that's not bad. I was soooo tempted to get a picture but he forbid it. Just now, I was even tempted to Photoshop one, but I haven't the time. Lucky Dave.

I lost four pounds this weekend. Since I haven't been on the elliptical trainer in several days, I assume I simply sweated it off. Don't forget that the garage door was closed for much of this time while painting above it. It was quite a workout -- after getting Victoria to bed, I ran downstairs and checked the Doppler. It looked like I had maybe 30-45 minutes before the rain came. It started getting darker and windy and the driveway was still covered in stuff that I really didn't want to get wet. So in a mad rush I loaded the garage myself, racing against the coming storm (thankfully Tim had helped me with the workbenches before he left in the afternoon). FYI, a 4 by 8 foot sheet of 3/4" plywood is heavy. It's even heavier in a stiff wind.

Minutes after I got everything inside it started pouring down.

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 8/23/2004 02:18:00 PM :: Permalink   

We're Huge in Sweden!

Yesterday Sharpes-R-Us had the most hits yet -- 319 unique visitors! That's about 75 more hits than our previous high. Who are all these people? Who are you? Leave a comment.

The site averages maybe 40 unique visitors each day. I can't even figure out who these forty people are, or even what they find so interesting to keep coming back. But I'm glad they do! If you like it, spread it around. My advertising budget is exactly $0 but it's slowly grown to a Google PageRank of 3, not too bad for a young blog, I guess.

Today so far we've had 43 visitors from Sweden. We're huge in Sweden! Belgium is next. It's interesting to see the site being hit from all over the world.

The biggest spikes in viewership are when I reference a story on another more popular site and send a trackback (the two biggest referrers were from the Bill Gates dinner and mansion entry and yesterday's Halo entry). Then people that visit the more popular site can see a link to this site where I talk about the same story. It's amazing how many people actually follow the link to see what Sharpes-R-Us has to say about it.

The best way to increase your PageRank is to get lots of other sites to link to you. This will push you up in Google's ranking, thereby increasing your traffic. If you Google "Chris Sharpe", I'm currently number 3! Posted by Chris on 8/20/2004 10:19:00 AM :: Permalink   

A Lego Tradition

Dave's recent post about seeing the Lego Liberty Bell, reminded me of how much I liked Legos growing up as a kid and how much I still like them now.

Here's a pic from last month when Delaney and I made some animals together. There's a frog on her shoulder, a parrot in her hand, and an elephant, tractor (minus the wheels), and parakeet in her lap. She really enjoyed it. Victoria likes to build as well, but when she's not around Delaney and I get to play with the really small Legos that Victoria can't use (yet).

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 8/19/2004 09:56:00 AM :: Permalink   

TiVo Meets Dr. Strangeberry

TiVo's continued financial struggles have led many to expect its demise. That would be a tragedy. And that was an understatement.

But earlier this year they quietly acquired a company called Strangeberry that was led by programming extraordinaire Arthur van Hoff, one of the creators of Java. Some say this may be just the Holy Grail TiVo needs to turn things around. This article explains what Strangeberry is and why it matters (skip to page 4 if that's all you're interested in).

It also tells you that van Hoff owns five TiVos and the chairman of the FCC refers to TiVo as "God's machine". That's strong praise.

Hmmm, I only have two. Maybe it's time to place an order...

Labels: tivo

Posted by Chris on 8/19/2004 09:52:00 AM :: Permalink   

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood?

Last night Melissa and I began another project. We're putting in a plant bed around the mailbox. It's another step in the master landscape plan we had designed last December. She gets some flowers and other plantings and I get less weed-eating.

This is always, always, always more difficult than you ever imagine it to be. But we just bought several plants on clearance and got several more free from a friend. So it had to be done.

We took Delaney and Victoria outside after supper and began laying it out and started digging. In 2 minutes, there were 2 other kids over to "help" and play. In 10 minutes there were 4 kids playing and then I think there were 8 kids in total. How did this happen? With helping them learn to ride bikes, all the chasing back and forth going on, and trying to minimize the running across the street, who has time to dig? But after putting Delaney in her stroller and hoping for the best with Delaney playing with neighbors, Melissa and I made a little progress. But not enough.

So after the girls were in bed I went back out to finish the job. Mind you, some people plant a few flowers around the mailbox, but that's not in our plan. Come on, this is landscape, not a flower here and there. It's 9pm. It's dark. So I get my cool Princeton Tec Aurora Headlamp (a very good one that Delaney loves to wear as well; BrightGuy.com is highly recommended) and go to work with the shovel and mattock, ripping the sod away to make room for plants. A couple hours later we have what is pictured above.

Now a couple of people walked by (and why they're out walking in the night is an unsolved mystery as well) and gave some funny looks. One guy was talking on his cell phone while walking throughout the neighborhood. But this one particularly witty couple with four dogs thought to ask "You're not burying your wife, are you?"

Of course not. She'll be doing the planting.

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 8/18/2004 01:31:00 PM :: Permalink   

Halo on the BIG screen

Now I thought I had played Xbox Halo on the big screen. But these guys are playing Halo on the BIG SCREEN. A movie theater screen! Teams are charged $60 to play and they even charge spectators $3 just to watch the match. I wonder if they sell motion sickness bags as well. Posted by Chris on 8/18/2004 01:03:00 PM :: Permalink   

AOL, AOL, AOL, Why Won't You Let Me Sleep?

Wow. Where do I start?

Today, my friend Dave brings in another AOL free trial CD to put in our CD shredder. That is an oh so satisfing sound! This thing eats CDs like they're Krispy Kremes.

But there are (at least) three things wrong here. Let's examine more closely, shall we?

First, why does AOL keep sending these things? Notice how I refuse to link to AOL? OK, so while Dave might be the last person on the planet not to have his own ISP, that certainly makes him a target, but they've sent me dozens and dozens of these over the years as well. Years when I already had broadband. And some of these CDs are quite creative. AOL doesn't skimp on marketing budget. They're not in a cheap little white CD sleeve. No sir. Not good enough for the mighty AOL. They send them out in metal embossed jewel case tins and, like this one, a nifty thick pressboard case with mitered corners and beveled edges. And the artwork, oh! the artwork. Yes, people do collect these.

AOL, if you're listening (yeah right), Dave would like you to send him the money you invest in these CDs instead of the actual CDs themselves. The money will not meet its fate at the shredder -- but may be wasted in other ways...

Second, AOL either needs a math lesson or they've got stock in NoDoz. This offer was for 1099 hours free for 50 days. Wow, 1099 hours of a horrible product that dumbs down the Internet just so that...Oh wait, that's not my point here. Do you know many hours are in 50 days? 1200. That leaves just 101 hours without AOL. So in order to maximize your free trial and use those 1099 hours, you would get just 2 hours of sleep each night for 50 nights. Of course, this all assumes you stayed online for almost 22 hours each day. Perhaps you could finish surfing the Internet (except for that huge part that AOL hides from you, of course, but again, that's not my point here). Couldn't they just say "unlimited"?

Third, don't they realize that people are so annoyed with these things and have so many of them that they've become very creative? Surely they must have seen this AOL CD potato cooker that really baked a potato in three hours and they must know that people use them to cut pizza. Right? Maybe they've seen the suit of armor or the prom dress?

There is even a NoMoreAOLCDs site that aims to send AOL a message and offers tips on recycling them. In April they dumped 60,000 AOL CDs on the Capitol steps. And their picture gallery of creativity is impressive.

So if you, or a friend you know, uses AOL please, if you don't get help here, get help somewhere. Posted by Chris on 8/18/2004 12:32:00 PM :: Permalink   

U.S. Military Clears A-Team Of Charges

A recent news story notes that finally the U.S. Military Clears A-Team Of Charges. At last! I always knew they were wrongly accused. I mean, the article even notes that they were aware that "stacks of cardboard boxes might break the falls of the military personnel thrown into the air by the A-Team's explosives." Safety first!

OK, so I grew up in the 80's watching The A-Team, MacGyver, and even The Dukes of Hazzard. So sue me. There are worse things on TV today.

If you're not familiar with "The Onion" (the source of the link above), see the short explanation here. Posted by Chris on 8/17/2004 11:31:00 AM :: Permalink   

Olympic Surveillance, Security, and Bad Dreams

Here's an article with some info about the type of security in use at the Olympics in Athens. Over 1000 cameras. Blimps. Fighter planes. Warships. Face-recognition systems. Audio translators and transcription devices. Giant kryptonite death rays. Olympic medals with embedded microprocessors that provide GPS telemetry, high fidelity audio surveillance, Babel-like translation capability, and endow the bearer with protective shielding and limited powers of telekinesis.

OK, I made up those last two. I think.

Regardless, all the security in the world couldn't help the USA men's basketball team secure a basket in a devastating 92-73 loss to Puerto Rico. Their first Olympic loss since 1988. NBA athletes were first allowed to compete in 1992 (The Dream Team) and the US had not lost a single game since then. I think this 2004 team might be referred to as "The Bad Dream Team". While the gold is not yet lost, it certainly has been a nightmare thus far. Posted by Chris on 8/17/2004 10:59:00 AM :: Permalink   

WEBoggle!

Remember Boggle? That little game where random letters appear in a grid and you scramble to quickly write down all the words you can find before time runs out. I stumbled across this web version called WEBoggle that's great! You can play online (no accounts, software, or sign-in needed -- just provide a name and wait a few seconds for the next game) to kill a few minutes of otherwise useful time. And it's FREE. After you get to the gaming page, there's a "How To Play" link at the bottom. The only thing I didn't recall was that you could use letters that were diagonally adjacent to each other, in addition to ones that are horizontally and vertically adjacent. Posted by Chris on 8/16/2004 08:36:00 PM :: Permalink   

Blogging Charley

Hurricane Charley came thru this weekend and left lots and lots and lots and lots of rain behind. It was a wet weekend, but luckily no damage to report here. Of course, Florida residents weren't as fortunate. You've probably seen news stories, but here's someone's personal account of following Hurricane Charley and blogging it. You may want to scroll to the bottom and read up to relive the events in chronological order. There's also a photo album with some damage photos. I particularly like this one, though I'm glad that's not my car or my shop.

You can really get interesting, unfiltered perspectives of what actually happened from a local by reading blogs. It may be biased and it may only be one person's perspective, but it's one person who was there. What you often won't get, in cases like these, is up-to-the-minute reports. Since power and Internet access was scarce during the storm, it was difficult to find real-time eyewitness reports online.

With the recent press about bloggers at the Democratic National Convention, it's nice to see some press about bloggers covering other events as well.
Posted by Chris on 8/16/2004 01:30:00 PM :: Permalink   

TiVo Rewards

I lost count of how many people I've referred to TiVo over the past several years. I did this mainly to improve their quality of life and because I often feel sorry for people without TiVo. You know (or maybe you don't remember if you've had TiVo for a while), the days of rewinding video tapes, fumbling through unlabelled tapes looking for something particular, missing shows due to schedule changes, waiting for a show to finish recording so you could watch it, commercials (remember commercials?), being tied to a TV schedule, etc. I felt bad for people still living under those poor conditions and I wanted to help them. It also helped TiVo the company by increasing their subscriber base. I got nothing except another TiVo evangelist.

Well, finally, TiVo now has a Rewards Program for referrals. So if you're thinking about getting TiVo, be sure to use my email address (see sidebar) for the referral. I'll get a little bit of credit and you'll get a life changing device.

Labels: tivo

Posted by Chris on 8/13/2004 10:15:00 AM :: Permalink   

Run Lola Run

See Lola.
See Lola Run.
"Run Lola Run!"

Or in the film's original language of German, "Lola rennt".

I finally saw the subtitled version of this 1998 independent film which I had saved on TiVo for over a year. Ebert and Roeper had given it Two Thumbs Up and the idea behind this film had intrigued me. It's basically 90 minutes of non-stop action as Lola races against the clock in an attempt to save her boyfriend. The twist is that you see the same situation played out three different times. Each time there are slight variations that have different effects and lead to different endings.

It blends animation, edgy music, photo-montage, and a definite sense of urgency to make a very likable film. If you're not a fan of subtitled films, don't worry. There's really not much dialog to follow. Most of it plays out visually.

My only complaint was with Bravo's airing of it. You would think that a channel that airs independent movies without commercial interruption would realize that displaying a large Bravo logo in the lower right corner would conflict with the subtitles for the entire movie!

If you get the chance, check out Run Lola Run, but maybe not on Bravo. Posted by Chris on 8/12/2004 09:39:00 PM :: Permalink   

A Second Set of Twins on The Amazing Race?

Is it just me or do Christie and Nicole look more like twins than the twins (Kami and Karli) do? I mean, come on, in last night's episode of The Amazing Race they were even wearing the same shirt. They also look similar in the team photos. Melissa pointed this out to me and the more I watched, the more they looked alike.

At one point, they both appeared on camera together, but that must have been camera tricks - an overlay or something. They're the same person. She's got two chances to win!
Posted by Chris on 8/11/2004 11:08:00 AM :: Permalink   

Get Out Of Jail Free with TiVo

TiVo helped a man convince airport security that he was not trying to bomb the plane with a microphone.

Labels: tivo

Posted by Chris on 8/10/2004 01:36:00 PM :: Permalink   

Hip-Hop Hallelujah

Around last Thanksgiving a King of the Hill episode aired that really had me laughing. It was called "Reborn to be Wild" and Bobby had made some new friends in the church youth group that were also Christian Hip-Hop skate punks.

I had searched and searched for this prayer but finally Melissa found the quote for me this morning. Here's how Bobby learned to talk the talk:

BOBBY: Anybody mind if I say Grace tonight?

HANK: Sure, Bobby.

BOBBY: I wanna give a shout-out to the man who makes it all happen. Props be to you for this most bountiful meal that sits before us. Okay, check it, God, you've got skillz. You represent in these vegetables and in this napkin and in the dirt that grows the grain that makes the garlic breadsticks that are on this table today, yes-shizz.

HANK: Okay, Bobby, God appreciates the support, but I'm sure He wouldn't want the pot roast to get cold. Now let's wrap it up.

BOBBY: Sure thing. Thanks, J-Man. Peace.

I wonder if I could teach Delaney that prayer so she could say it at the next family reunion? Posted by Chris on 8/10/2004 10:56:00 AM :: Permalink   

Free TV! Free LCD! FREE! Interested Yet?

I realize this sounds like spam or some infomercial, so if you're not interested just skip this post entirely.

There's a web site giving away free flat screen TVs. What's the catch? You have to sign up for one offer from one of their affiliates and get 8 friends to sign up as well. The company behind this gets paid for referrals and apparently gets paid enough to send you a TV and still make a profit while letting you do all the work of spreading the word (as I'm doing here). You can cancel the offer during the trial period and pay nothing.

The company checks out and the affiliates are not your local late-night as-seen-on-tv fare. They're companies like GM, eBay, AOL.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Use Internet Explorer (other browsers not supported) and follow this link and sign up. This link is specific to me, so I get credit for the referral.
   
2. Sign in with an email address and mailing address. There are reports that HotMail and MSN accounts cannot receive the verification email and might not be counted.
   
3. Skip the marketing surveys (or take them if you like - they're optional).
   
4. Sign up with one of the partners and complete the offer agreement. Most of these will require a credit card. There are some reports of success without one, but no guarantees. The card won't be charged if you cancel during the free period. I chose the top AOL offer with music.
   
5. Refer 8 of your friends and have them complete offers to get your free TV.
   

Check back by logging into your freeflatscreens.com account to see if you have credit for your offer. It may take a day or two, depending on which offer you chose. Then you should call and cancel your offer and never be charged. You can only sign up once per address and if you try to cheat you may get all your entries invalidated.

There's a similar free iPod offer by the same company if you're interested in that. That was the original offer. For the TV offer, you can pick from LCD monitors, LCD TV/monitor, Sony Wega 27" flatscreen, 24" TV with DVD and VCR. All of these sell for $350-400.

Before signing up (especially if you're still skeptical) you might want to read more info at freeipodguide.com. This site speaks about the iPod offer, but the same tips apply. Just be sure to use my link when signing up! And let me know if you do.

If you sign up using my link, you can come over and watch Tivo or play Xbox on the new Sony Wega 27" flatscreen!
Posted by Chris on 8/09/2004 12:37:00 PM :: Permalink   

Peer-to-Peer Without Peer

Peer-to-peer networks (like the infamous KaZaa) are here to stay. Ignoring legality aspects, it's technologically a very efficient way to store and transfer files among lots of users. I've long since abandoned KaZaa for many reasons, but I've recently starting using BitTorrent. This new peer-to-peer protocol is quickly growing in popularity and has worked extremely well in my testing.

BitTorrent is unique in that it requires all users downloading a particular file to also upload portions of that file. Large files are broken into several chunks and uploads are shared amongst a "swarm". There is a "tracker" that manages connections among clients who are uploading and downloading the same file. The tracker only knows about connecting hosts and sockets, it has no knowledge of the filename, size, or type of data being transferred. In this way, as more people start downloading a particular file, everyone's download speed increases. The Wikipedia has an excellent entry on BitTorrent that explains this better and in more detail.

"OK. So how do I get started?"

First, you'll need to teach your browser how to handle .torrent files by downloading the correct installer from here. Then when you click on a .torrent file link, the browser will know how to handle it.

Second, you'll probably want a graphical client to help you manage all the stuff you'll be downloading. I've been using ABC (Another BitTorrent Client) on SourceForge mainly because it's free and seems to do the job well. But there are lots of others to choose from.

Third, if you're behind a firewall, you'll need to open up (via port forwarding or port triggering) TCP ports 6881-6999. If you don't, your transfer speeds will be abysmal.

Finally, you need to know where to find .torrent files that interest you. There's a huge variety out there. You will probably be amazed at what you can find. I once missed an episode of Amazing Race and was able to get it via BitTorrent, burn it to VideoCD and watch it in my DVD player. You just have to know where to look. I won't list the sites here, but the WikiPedia entry above has a great start.

Once you get the file downloaded to your system, you may still have to figure out what to do with it and what utilities are required to decompress, extract, reassemble, and burn it. But that's not as difficult as it might seem and is left as an exercise for the reader. After all, we've got Google for questions like these.

Happy downloading this weekend! I hope you have ample space on your harddrive. Posted by Chris on 8/06/2004 01:39:00 PM :: Permalink   

Taxes? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Taxes!

The third annual sales tax holiday begins tomorrow and runs until Monday. That's right, no sales tax (of course exclusions and restrictions apply as always). All the details you need are available at the NCRMA site, the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association.

If you're looking to buy a computer, join the crowd and save 7%. It is my understanding that you can even place an order through Dell or some other online vendor this weekend and not be required to pay taxes. I'm not sure how smoothly this works, but you're talking about saving $105 on a $1500 computer.

PDA's qualify as well. Time to get a new Palm? Of course, you can often buy these cheaper online anyway from an out-of-state merchant that doesn't collect sales tax, so there's no big win here.

If you're not interested in buying clothes or school supplies and the like, you might want to stay away from the malls and superstores this weekend. Posted by Chris on 8/05/2004 03:32:00 PM :: Permalink   

TiVo on the Big Ten Sidelines

The Big Ten Conference will be using TiVo units for instant replay on the sidelines at NCAA conference games this season. I knew you'd want to know.

Labels: tivo

Posted by Chris on 8/05/2004 02:45:00 PM :: Permalink   

NFL Sacked! TiVo Scores Touchdown!

"TiVo To Go" got the FCC approval required for their upcoming service which allows users to share shows digitally with a limited number of others. This was despite the NFL and MPAA's protests, as reported here earlier.

The NFL's main complaint was ridiculous. They claimed that fans in blackout cities (where the home team did not sell out the stadium) would be able to watch the game via a share from a TiVo user in another area that was not blacked out. But even if they started to share the game at kickoff, the transfer to the other unit would not complete until hours after the game had already ended!

Labels: tivo

Posted by Chris on 8/05/2004 01:41:00 PM :: Permalink   

The Ants Go Marching One by One

Yikes! We've got fire ants!

We were all outside doing some weeding and playing in the yard. We found an anthill and called Delaney over to show her the ants busily working away in several lines to and from their home. After a minute, she starts freaking out saying, "Get them off! Get the ants off me!" There were some ants crawling on her foot and leg (she was in sandals). "They're biting me!", she cried.

Delaney's not normally scared of bugs and we tried to calm her saying, "It's just a few ants. Ants don't bite." Little did we know they were fire ants and she got into them good. They will swarm up your leg in an instant and then when they're disturbed (for example, when you start to brush them off) they all strike at once. She had lots of bites that itched horribly for days. Since then, we've found two more fire ant hills in our yard and at least one of our neighbors has them as well.

Despite fire ants being a quarantined and tracked insect, they are spreading rapidly. Wake County was just added to the quarantine area in 2003. This means that shipments of plants, soil, sod, and other things that travel across this boundary must obtain special permits and inspections in an attempt to slow their migration.

Do you have fire ants? You might only see their mound of dirt above the ground. The mounds can be quite large. Take a look at your lawn today.

The North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service at NCSU has some excellent info on the Red Imported Fire Ant in NC.

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 8/05/2004 01:18:00 PM :: Permalink   

Monitoring Build Status in Unique Ways

At work (yes, I do have a job) I'm in a group that handles source configuration management, builds, and tools for all kinds of engineers (development, test, documentation, management, etc) across several global sites. One of the tasks is monitoring nightly builds.

Briefly, a nightly build is an automated task that gathers the latest versions of source code and tries to compile it. It may also run a small set of tests to verify basic functionality ("Is this build sane?"). The idea is to catch build failures and significant bugs as quickly as possible. We currently do 45 build variations every night for different products. Keeping track of the status of these builds has become a daunting task.

We're in the process of implementing a simple mySQL backend that logs the status of all builds (nightly builds and more official release builds) and a simple web page to display them. This is much improved over the old system of getting dozens of emails every morning, each having its own style and format. The web page displays everything that worked in green, everything that failed in bold red, and anything still running as yellow.

I recently stumbled across a couple of other interesting ideas for tracking build status. These ideas aren't restricted to just build status, though. They could really be applied to any other metric (bug counts, for example). This team uses an ambient orb that glows different colors to indicate build status. This article notes several different approaches, including a lava lamp.

I wonder if we could come up with something a little more tangible to automatically display current build status for our engineers?

All automated. All the time. Posted by Chris on 8/03/2004 12:15:00 PM :: Permalink   

Who you gonna call? MythBusters!

Here's another public service announcement - MythBusters is one of the coolest shows on TV right now. These guys are crafty, skilled, scientific, and a little crazy. They've got a background in special effects and fabrication and pretty good science knowledge. So they build contraptions and simulations to try to figure out if the urban legends and outrageous stories you hear are really factual or merely myths.

Here are some of the questions they've already answered:

• Can a penny dropped from a skyscraper really kill someone below?
  
• Can assassins use bullets made of ice to leave no evidence?
  
• Can Cola remove bloodstains, clean rust, polish chrome?
  
• Can someone really be buried alive?
  
• Can bacteria from the toilet get into your toothbrush?
  

Mythbusters airs on the Discovery Channel. Season 1 is in repeats and they've just aired a teaser for Season 2, but I don't think Season 2 starts until September.
Posted by Chris on 8/03/2004 11:34:00 AM :: Permalink   
Want more? Visit the Archives or jump to current entries.