All website data, MySQL dumps, photos, personal documents, and music on the iMac are backed up nightly to the Dell server. I use a Samba volume on the Dell for better file name because Samba seems to have better file name compatibility than a Win2K Apple File Sharing volume.

The problem is, OS X will automount an AFS volume, but not a Samba volume. I found an AppleScript called MountVolume that will mount many different kinds of volumes. By saving it as an “Applet”, I can have the script auto-load and boot up and mount the backup volume.

You only need to use three buttons and all can be used with your right thumb.

1. Power/light – Lower button on right.

2. Page button – Upper button on right.

3. Click-stick – front left.

1. Turn on. Hold power button for 2 seconds.

2. Allow 3 satellites to be found.

3. Use Page button to go to main menu. (Look for Find flag.)

4. Use click-stick to move to the Find flag.

5. Click the Find flag (pressing in on click-stick.)

6. Choose “Favorites” to find subset of Waypoints.

7. Scroll to the destination Waypoint and click.

8. The “Goto” button will be highlighted. Click it.

You should now be on the compass. You can turn off the navigator by pressing the power button for 2 seconds. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to turn back on and just page directly to the compass with the page button since the GPS is already looking for the last waypoint. Use the page button to go to the main menu if you want to change destinations.

What drives these Newton owners? (I have one plugged in my office I can’t bear to throw away that the kids will occasionally play with.)

These guys are trying to create an iPod Newton with the goal of synching iTunes music onto two 5 Gig (Total 10) ATA PCMCIA cards. Newton treats storage like “soup” so chip memory and PCMCIA memory are all added together as one virtual memory space.

With no spinning drives, you will supposedly get a lot longer battery life. The RISC processor in the my Newton always seemed to chew up battery power… perhaps it is all just a joke.

This little php script will display an iTunes play list on the fly. For example, this is our most Recently Played playlist.

Registered our home and my cell phone number with the National Do Not Call Registry. It is good for five years. How am I supposed to remember that? Someone call me on 6/30/2008 and remind me to reregister.

Wallstreet caught wind of my exchange with Kodak’s CEO. He should have fixed my camera.

Now listening to… Ain’t No Sunshine – Unplugged by Sting

Ted’s observation of two human beings reminds me of the caste system described in an article in National Geographic. In one photo, a man is climbing out of a sewer system, covered with human waste, wearing only a loin cloth and no protective gear. It was his job to crawl through the sewer line and manually unclog pipes. He was of the “Untouchables” caste.

I think we have a caste system in America, and while we are free to cross lines, in practice it is difficult to do.

Graph interest rate trends

Long URLs can be a problem because they can be broken up in e-mail messages and quit working.

I wanted to send a MapQuest URL showing how close the Morton’s live to Chastain park. (They get to listen for free!)

Using TinyURL.com, I can e-mail this:

http://tinyurl.com/cres

Instead of this:

http://www.mapquest.com/directions/main.adp?go=1&do=nw&ct=NA&1y=US&1a=4250+Beverly+Lane&1p=&1c=Atlanta&1s=GA&1z=&1ah=&2y=US&2a=Powers+Ferry+and+Stella+Drive&2p=&2c=Atlanta&2s=GA&2z=&2ah=&lr=2&x=80&y=16

Not sure how long it will really last, but good enough for short-lived URL needs. Thanks to Bill Crane for this tip!

From a story about the making of the music behind a Charlie Brown Christmas:

In 1962, Guaraldi and his trio–which then included Bailey and Budwig, who was about to quit the band and move to Los Angeles–recorded their own album titled Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, which spawned the Grammy-winning jazz-pop hit “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” The tune is recognizably Guaraldi’s–the sound of a self-proclaimed “reformed boogie-woogie” pianist fusing his cool-jazz leanings with his Afro-Cuban fetishes.