How I helped Bob in a contest with a cron job…
/usr/bin/wget -q http://allstateagencies.com/BobEttensohn/Welcome
Did you win Bob?
Running wget on Bob’s home page
Reply
Category Archives: Tech
iGroove for the iPod Touch
After much research, I decided to get the iGroove SXT by Klipsch. Someone described it as “Bose at half the price.”
The iPod Touch has become a well used device in our household. It basically acts as a small wireless tablet that floats around the house but mainly lives in the family room. I’ve been watching a growing collection of games that the kids download. Other apps used frequently:
- Mail – quick way to check Gmail
- Facebook – ditto
- Time – why subscribe?
- USA Today – I read in the morning
- Music : Podcasts – NPR Market Place and News from Lake Wobegon
- Pandora – streaming music based on channels you build
The challenge was keeping the Touch charged. It has long battery life, but it is awkward to hook up to one of the other computers in the house to charge, in part because each Mac wants to sync the iPod.
I went looking for a docking station, perhaps one that could sit next to our stereo and plug into it. I had a hard time finding a solution. There were mixed reviews on whether various docks would work with the newest “Gen 2” iPod Touch. So when I read about the iGroove on Apple’s website, I decided that was the one.
I was able to pick an iGroove up at Best Buy for the same price as the Apple Store. Now we have a great sounding, compact speaker system that can play streaming music from Pandora. Listening to my “Banjo channel” right now. (Bluegrass.)
Order yours today on Amazon!
Note: Also works fine with the several Nano’s in the house as a charging / play station.
.ch
I often run into websites that end in .ch (instead of .com.) I’ve always thought that meant a Chinese registration, but did not think much more about it. (Except why China?)
Then I just read in Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s annual Founder’s Letter that the first web server was at the address http://info.cern.ch/. I knew CERN was based in Europe, and I couldn’t imagine China had anything to do with the beginnings of the internet. I did learn the first server was developed on a NeXT computer (started by Steve Jobs after Apple and eventually folded back into Apple with his return.)
Turns out CH is short for Confoederatio Helvetica which is the Latin name for Switzerland. And if you read it again, yep, there is a familiar font name in there. Turns out the Helvetians were a Celtic tribe that lived in the area long ago.
Since I follow a lot of tech content, it is no wonder I run into so many .ch URLs. It is a “cool” top-level domain.
The Singularity Is Near
[Warning! For mad scientists only.]
Just read a summary of this book in Wikipedia…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_is_Near
The summary does not say when we will stop needing checks, bridges, houses, or insurance, but surely that’s in the book somewhere.
Feedburner Test
I embed RSS feeds from other sources on Mac5. Examples include my del.icio.us bookmarks or Ed or Betty Claire’s websites.
I’m looking into an alternative to feed.informer.com, who was acquired by somebody and has since suffered performance issues, at times delaying the redraw of Mac5 home page. Feedburner.com was acquired by Google. Hoping for better performance. The styling options are not as friendly as feed.informers, so I’ll have to hand tweak some CSS to fix the way the date and text don’t line up the way I would want.
Subscribe to RSS headline updates from:
Powered by FeedBurner
DSL Speedtest, Farewell IBM
For many years, we have had “free” ISDN then DSL access thanks to IBM. Alas, that relationship is coming to an end, so we’re having to pay for internet access for the first time. Taking this speed test of our DSCGA service so I can benchmark the new AT&T/Bellsouth service, which is supposed to be 2 to 3 times faster. (So we can all watch YouTube’s at the same time.)
File size transferred : 10.0 MB (10485760 bytes)
Total time taken : 69.79 seconds (69794 milliseconds)
Throughput : 150.0 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]
= 0.15 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
= 1200.0 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
= 1.2 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
Update 9/2:
AT&T FastAccess DSL self install kit arrived. Higher speed over the same wires…
File size transferred : 10.0 MB (10485760 bytes)
Total time taken : 29.15 seconds (29145 milliseconds)
Throughput : 359.0 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]
= 0.36 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
= 2872.0 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
= 2.87 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
MintyBoost x 2
Inspired by Ted’s experience, I ordered two MintyBoost kits. The girls will often bring their iPods on trips, running out of power because they had not planned ahead. Now they don’t have to plan ahead, because we can slip some of our rechargeable batteries into our MintyBoost kits and they are set. (We always keep 4 double-A batteries charged for use with our digital cameras.)
This project was just as fun as Ted describes, and thanks to Ted’s post, there were no frustrating moments. And of course it helped that Ted loaned me the tools. His “robot” third hand is shown in the attached photo displaying the two finished MintyBoosts.
Claire enjoyed helping. She put the tiny capacitors, resistors, etc. into the circuit board. Better eyes and smaller fingers than mine. The only “improvement” I can suggest is the step I took putting a rounded-corner piece of duct tape in the bottom to help the circuit board from touching metal. The padded tape would likely suffice, but the duct tape felt like a good precaution.
Thanks Ted!
Gmail Up to 5 Gigabytes
I just noticed that my Gmail mailbox now has 5 gigabytes up from 2.5 (and the original 1 gig.) Gmail also now allows 20 mb attachments, which is good for a collection of large photos or a small video. I am currently using 10% of this space with over 5,000 e-mails. I went looking for my oldest e-mail which was an exchange 7/1/2004 with Ted about whether or not it was his finger in a photo of a dik-dik.
Ted: “Actually it isn’t. I noticed that that picture made the rotation and
since I did take the picture and post it on a blog I figure it’s okay.
There was a woman standing at the fence and the dik-dik walked up and
jumped up on the fence to say hi. I would rather have just had a picture
of the dik-dik but it shows how friendly and small the dik-dik is by
having the hand. Susan said that woman’s hand was yucky looking, but you
can’t really tell from the picture.”
Voyagers Still Chatting
The farthest manmade objects from the sun are Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, both launched in 1977. This article is about the equipment that has to be maintained to keep talking to them.
They are supposed to call home until 2020. One calls once per month and the other calls every day. Not sure why the difference. I thought one of these 2 were the basis for V’ger in the first Star Trek movie, but I just read it was a fictional Voyager 6. (We only made two.)
If we can have “pong” emulators, why can’t our laptops have Voyager emulators? (Ted?)
Website Looks A Little Sparse
Our new pastor, Msgr David, sent me an e-mail saying the website “looked a little sparse.” I suspected it was an older browser issue, so I went looking for a website that would take snapshots of www.sjnlilburn.com in different browser versions. I had done this in the past, but I’m amazed at how the tools have evolved. I used two sites. Browsershots.org (free) and one is BrowserCam.com (free 24 hours trial.) The latter is really good and worth the trouble to sign up for a free trial. I used a bloglines disposable e-mail address to register, in case I want to sign up again.
It turns out Internet Explorer versions 4, 5, 5.5, and 6 were all suffering from a stylesheet box problem that, through some trial and error, I was able to repair.
These are some of the many snapshots BrowserCam generated for me. (I could zoom into each one.) The second shows the sparse problem.
The code fix was associated with a technique to trick IE 5.0 / 5.5 / 6.
#left_menu {
width: 155px;
voice-family: "\"}\"";
voice-family:inherit;
width: 155px;
}
/* CSS1 UAs should see and use 2nd width */
html>body #left_menu { width: 160px }
Well-behaved browsers end up picking up the 160px width. IE 5 and 6 pick up the first 155. 5.5 picks up the second 155.
The numbers are backwards, though, because the 160 should be a smaller number than 155 not larger, so there is probably something else going on. I’m just happy the site is no longer sparse.