Bored? Play a few rounds of Penguin Baseball.
posted by MikeM at 3:57 PM    

 
... and if you are still bored, try Frozen Bubble. Click 'PLAY' to get the game going, use the up arrow to fire, right and left to aim.
posted by MikeM at 3:55 PM    

 
Another funny website focusing on the SCO vs IBM/Linux issues : Cannot find Stolen SCO Code in Linux
posted by MikeM at 8:00 AM    

 
If you are a fan of the Princess Bride, and are somewhat concerned with what SCO is doing to Linux, then you will enjoy this - SCO: The Princess Bride Summary.
posted by MikeM at 4:04 PM    

 
Made it to work today, even though all of the secondary roads are still covered in partly frozen snow and slush. The main roads are wet, but they too will freeze if the temp drops much below 20.

The new viruses are all too often getting labeled with 'worm'. Personally, I don't consider anything to be a worm unless it spreads without user intervention. That is, anything that requires you to click on it, open it, run it, or otherwise interact with it is NOT a worm, that is a trojan or a virus.

A worm is the SQL Slammer - it spread throughout thousands if not millions of computers using a vulnerability that made the computers open to infection across the internet, no user intervention required. Thus, it spread like wildfire.

I wish the 'professionals' would at least try to get the terminology right. I suppose 'worm' sounds worse than 'trojan' and now 'virus' is a catch-all term that includes all of the above. *sigh*
posted by MikeM at 12:04 PM    

 
I took yet another day off today due to bad weather. What did I get accomplished? A bit more shoveling, cleared some more of the backyard for the dogs, slid down the driveway - literally - to retrieve the trashcan and recycle bin from the curb. Decided that walking back up the driveway was a no-go and walked through the 7" of crunchy iced-over snow in the yard to get back to the house - dragging the trashcan behind me.

It drizzled/misted all day, with it freezing as soon as it hit, creating some rather impressive icicles around the guttering in various places. Now I get to go out and break them off before they tear the gutters off the house. You know, stand UNDER a huge clump of sharp daggers 25' up a wall and whack it with an extension pole?

About 4 or just before, it started raining a mix of snow and sleet with a vengeance, getting about 1/4" accumulation before it went back to a snowy/misty/ice thing. Nasty. Even though it hit 33deg today for a few hours, it was back in the high 20's by 4pm, and it is now 26. Hopefully the road crews will have the roads cleared and just wet tomorrow - I really can't take another day off!
posted by MikeM at 6:31 PM    

 
This is starting to look bad. I shoveled still more from the driveway, finally got it clear at the bottom where the scraper left me a pile to block it. (Cleared just over half of it yesterday - so I could get my car out). I walked out onto the slush in the road - didn't even crack it. From listening to the news and seeing the camera views, I think home would be the safest place to be today, especially with freezing rain all day and snow tonight.
posted by MikeM at 7:42 AM    

 
Wow. Roads are BAD. I got to the car and found a 2' berm of snow blocking the driveway where the plows had thoughtfully given me something else to move, thus ensuring my workout would be complete. After moving this out of the way, I hit the roads!

Made it to the second major road on the way to work, maybe a mile total, and found that not only didn't the roads get better, they actually got worse. The straight plow job on my neighborhood streets made them passable, packed snow. The plowed, salted and sanded roads as I got to the major roads were a thick layer of freezing slush over a nice firm ice base. Good for snowmobiles. Not good for Saturns. After a few unscheduled lane changes and a very interesting 180, I decided to take the hint and continue in that direction - going home. Made it home OK, parked the car, now I'm home.

I really don't like taking vacation time when I have but a little left, but ya gots ta do what ya gots ta do. Looks like tomorrow could be even worse - freezing rain and sleet today into tomorrow morning. That's two days burnt. *sigh*
posted by MikeM at 9:01 AM    

 
Finished the driveway - another 3" or so. Took 45 minutes, and now I feel like I have been beaten with an iron rod. I still can't get out of the driveway, however, until the plows come by - and then another bout of shoveling the pile of snow out of the mouth of the driveway.

THEN perhaps I can get out and on the way to work. It's 19 degrees this morning, so even with the salt and chemicals, the roads will likely be frozen. Lovely. Makes you want to move somewhere that never gets below 60 or above 90. Hawaii sounds good.
posted by MikeM at 7:46 AM    

 
Wow - some people take things a wee bit too far. SuperCharged Saturn. 190hp? Wow.
posted by MikeM at 12:08 AM    

 
I just finished shoveling a good 4" off the driveway - and I did it all at one go! While I was very tired and in a full sweat, I wasn't completely exhausted as last time, and didn't take 6-7 'tries' to get the whole driveway done. Took about an hour or so total. Had to do most of it without my glasses as they kept fogging up.

If the weatherguys are right, and we don't get much more than another 1-3" or so, I should be able to clear the driveway tomorrow morning and make it in to work - if the roads are at all passable.

My car isn't that great in snow - '95 Saturn SC (2-door coupe), front-wheel drive, but a manual transmission and a bit too light (2284 lbs) with a bit too much power (124hp) to be very stable in snow. Not a muscle car, of course, but it has a 1.9L DOHC 16 valve w/ 124 hp @5600 RPM & 122 lbs. torque @4800 RPM.

Hopefully the roads will be clear enough to prevent me from messing up my car. I'll need it for a trade-in if I ever want to get an AWD volvo or something. ;)
posted by MikeM at 11:58 PM    

 
Today after 5pm the snow starts for real - 5-7" of it by morning, then turning to sleet and freezing rain and more snow through Tuesday! Not good. This time I will make a supreme effort to keep up with the snowshoveling, and not get stuck with a 36" mass to move before I can get the car out. If I hit it every few inches, perhaps I won't injure myself. Plus, I've been working out three times a week, so maybe I'll be better suited to the task.
posted by MikeM at 11:00 AM    

 
It's snowing... Just drove home in a light icy snow - the roads are already covered and the wash from the cars are making wide paths down the road. In some places where the salt trucks have been there are only wet roads, but everywhere else is getting bad quick. The last leg of our trip home was on our neighborhood streets - completely covered with 1/2" of powdery snow, VERY slick, as I played in it a bit in front of the house (To Patty's sincere lack of joy).

Home now, saw a play this evening - "The Snow Ball". Fitting title!
posted by MikeM at 11:27 PM    

 
In case you still care, there is a pretty good recap and update of the SCO debacle in the Salt Lake City Weekly - Linux Code Red.
posted by MikeM at 4:20 PM    

 
I have a Zaurus 5500, and I appreciate that it is very adaptable, and indeed has several core images that it can run (I'm using the main Sharp one right now - it was just better, in my humble opinion, than the others.). Some enterprising folks have modified the Gentoo linux distribution to be installed on a Zaurus! Gentoo For Zaurus
posted by MikeM at 7:34 AM    

 
If you have a lot of older AD&D books and modules, and want to know about what they are worth, check out The Acaeum. I just discovered that I gave several books away this Xmas that were worth in the range of $50-$75 each. *sigh*
posted by MikeM at 2:07 PM    

 
Badgers

Insanely addictive for no particular reason, and hilarious to a small portion of the populace. This link is the original one, the one below is a special edition just for Tolkein fans.
posted by MikeM at 10:35 AM    

 
Two Towers Badgers
posted by MikeM at 10:30 AM    

 
Yesterday we finally got the Christmas tree taken down and stored away. Got our living room back! Now I have to figure out a good furniture arrangement - I kinda like the existing one, but it leaves a huge chunk of the room unused (where the Xmas tree was). Hmmm.

Watched Resident Evil again - great movie. ;)

Played FireWarrior a bit - its a shooter, like half-life and the like. Decent graphics, and I like the Warhammer 40,000 world. I wish it had save games though. The checkpoints (where you start over at when you die) are a bit too far apart for my taste. Ah well. Decent game overall, but if you didn't like Unreal or Quake single-player, you might not like this one.
posted by MikeM at 6:34 AM    

 
I want these Windows in MY house!
posted by MikeM at 11:12 PM    

 
How's that for short-sighted beaurocracy?Hubble telescope to be scrapped.
posted by MikeM at 11:10 PM    

 
Everyone out there knows better than to fall for something like this new MiMail.p virus, right?
posted by MikeM at 11:07 PM    

 
A real Dream Machine? Maybe. But I'll not be buying one until it is proven. ;)
posted by MikeM at 11:03 PM    

 
Snowing now - just started, and it stuck to the road far better then to, for instance, our deck or patio table. It's about 33 F now, but last night got into the low teens, so everything is frosty cold. This is supposed to turn to rain and then freezing rain overnight, so tomorrow morning should be interesting. I hope it melts off by 10am or so, I'm supposed to game tomorrow!

I finished Black Mirror last night - good game. If you like Syberia or Phantasmagoria, you like this type of game. The ending was somewhat predictable, but I could see the more callous player being surprised by it. ;)

Just installed Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior. It was not an easy install - I fail to see why the developers leaned on the MS .net managed system for a GAME, for crying out loud. I had to install the DirectX 9.0 .NET extensions (provided on the CD, and part of the install). I only hope it didn't do anything untoward to my other game installations, like Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, etc.

The first day of a long weekend, and so far we have painted the bathroom off the kitchen, touched up the kitchen itself, retrieved all of the xmas boxes from the garage to begin packing up all the decorations and take the tree down at long last. I'll also take the opportunity to stash the yard decorations in the attic - if they fit.

We really need to go grocery shopping, but we will just wait until Monday now that it is snowing.

Last night we watched Underworld - I love that movie...
The night before was Pirates of the Carribean - also a great flick!

Today we might end up watching one of the Indiana Jones movies - depends on our mood.

I also want to break free a little time to re-task Patty's old computer, perhaps install one of my old DVD-RAM units in it and see if the archive DVD-RW sets from work can be read on it.

I might end up using Knoppix (installed to HD) on that box as well, after archiving it's entire contents onto a DVD-RAM for safety.
posted by MikeM at 5:09 PM    

 
No real snow to speak of - just a dusting. Of course, a dusting at 19F makes for slick roads if you aren't careful. I hope this is all we will get this year, but I'm still going to have to go to sears and get an electric snowblower. They have one for just under $150. Not extremely powerful, and not a gas-powered engine, but the big ones run from $500-$800, and I'm not going to sink that kind of money into an item to be used so seldom!
posted by MikeM at 2:45 PM    

 
After a lot of frustration and two failed attempts to get Debian installed, I reformatted the partition and reinstalled Knoppix to the hard drive. Worked like a champ. It results in a Debian system that uses the Knoppix methods for networking and such.

So I now have a functional copy of Knoppix installed on a separate partition from Windows 2000 on a Panasonic CF28 ToughBook.

For those people having trouble booting knoppix CDs on one of these, here is what got me into the system (type at the Boot: prompt) :

knoppix vga=normal screen=640x480 noapm

I tried many many other variations, and these three options worked reliably to get me into the GUI. From there you can change the screen selections to specify the video card, in my unit an SM710 Lynx EM card. Then you can go with 800x600 (maybe).

posted by MikeM at 2:34 PM    

 
The weather service is calling for 1-3 inches of snow, beginning around 4pm. Lovely. Hopefully they are wrong and it won't start until 5pm, letting me get home before it begins!

I have been trying to generate a custom version of Knoppix, using the instructions provided on the knoppix.net website. I ran into a few 'issues' along the way...

Used Partition Magic 8.0 to move partitions on an existing windows 2000 system to make room for the linux ext3 and swap partitions. Works great! Shrunk the windows partition, created a 4gb ext3 and 1gb swap partition, then installed linux on it. LILO went in correctly, and it booted up fine.

Now I follow the directions (sorta) and copy the contents of the CD into the folders indicated. When it comes time to chroot into the folders I just copied, it simply would not work. It seems that the instructions say to BOOT to KNOPPIX CD, and I didn't, figuring that booting to linux would do the same thing. So when I copied the folder over, I copied the compressed contents, not the expanded contents that would have been present had I booted to the CD. Ahhh... Boot to CD, NOW copy the contents of the folder, and then chrooting works just fine.

Follow the instructions some more, removed openoffice from the package system, then add the folders and files I needed for this recovery cd (compressed dd image of a vital system's HD). Now to generate the compressed file system image (the one I hadn't expanded before...).

Ran out of room. *sigh*

Used Partition Magic again - shrank the W2K partition even more, adding 2gb to the ext3 partition (for linux) and 1gb to the swap partition. Rebooted into windows fine. Rebooted into linux... oops.

Errors - something about something too big, overlapping sectors, etc. Not good.

Boot to Knoppix CD, run lilo a few times, it claimed to have fixed things in lilo, so reboot to linux again, this time it worked.

Boot to knoppix to continue the custom cd building, it doesn't report the extra room - still reports the old partition sizes. Ouch. Fdisk shows the new ones, but df -k shows the old sizes. I am at a loss as to why, as when I boot to linux it works fine. Oh well, keep going.

The build worked fine this time, so I now rebuild the md5sums file and then construct the iso image from the resulting master file structure. Ran out of room creating the ISO file. *sigh* Time to get draconic. I delete /opt /usr /var /bin and a few more folders from the HD - destroying my installed linux, but creating some room. NOW try to create the ISO again.


posted by MikeM at 7:47 AM    

 
When Patty and Eddie painted the family room, they had to clean out the computer cabinet we have down there in order to move it, and the computer has been relegated to my tender mercies. Patty hasn't used it in years, since she started using mine in the office, so her computer cabinet will now be a crafts and creations storage for her business "Creations by Patricia". I'm not sure what her computer specs are, or what I will be doing with this unit, but I have long wanted to install a full version of LFS (Linux From Scratch), a version of Linux where you literally compile the entire operating system, kernel and all applications from source code. Takes a while, but it should definitely increase my understanding of Linux and such. I'll keep you posted.
posted by MikeM at 10:43 AM    

 
Last night we went to the Holiday Party for work - at the Green Field's Churrascaria in Rockville - all you can eat salad bar and barbecue meat on skewers. You visit the huge salad bar and get many hot dishes as well as cold salads and such, and they bring skewers of up to 16 kinds of bbq meat to your table, and you pick and choose what you want from each. There were many many kinds of beef, chicken, turkey, pork, salmon, lamb, and sausage to be had - all fantastic! Now this was not BBQ like Famous Dave's or Red Hot and Blue, this was Brazilian style BBQ - rotiserrie spit-cooked and herbed with special sauces, etc. Very nice. I even managed to get a slice of Black Forest German Chocolate cake in as a finishing touch.
posted by MikeM at 10:38 AM    

 
For example, here are some of my favorite paintings - Dutch, of course... NGA - Dutch Landscapes and Seascapes of the 1600s.

I like #2 and #5, and have small 11x14 paper copies of them above my desk. You really cannot make out the details of #5 without visiting the museum, as it is so dark that it doesn't reproduce well. Take my word for it, it is fantastic. You can click on the image here and then select 'Full Screen Image' and see a larger version. From there, click on 'Detail Images' to see a series of small sections of the picture, blown up for detail.
posted by MikeM at 10:37 AM    

 
Recap some more of last week:


Thursday evening, we went out to Dave & Busters - a great restaurant and arcade on the top floor of White Flint Mall. We had a great meal and then played in the arcade for over three hours. Wow! Patty collected enough tickets to get Eddie a nice mug and one for herself, and still has points remaining on her card for the next trip. My favorite game is the Hydro Blasters boat racing game - incredibly fun!


Friday I took the day off from work and Patty and I escorted Eddie around DC. We visited the dinosaurs in the National Museum of Natural History, then walked down to the National Gallery of Art (West Bldg) and spent another few hours in there, walking through the hushed labyrinth of rooms. Believe it or not, at the dinosaur museum we were treated to a full metal detector and bag search, with personal search if you couldn't get through the detector without it beeping, as one elderly gentleman found out. Likely a terrorist - 80 yr old caucasian. Stupid rules - can't be accused of profiling though! And all this to protect rocks and bones. And stuffed animals.

The real horror of the security in our nation's capitol was at the National Gallery of Art. Just a bag search. No metal detector, nothing else. If you have a purse or backpack, they look inside and make sure you aren't carrying anything nasty, then you just go in.

To my way of thinking, I would have the major security in front of the irreplaceable, unique art and culture in the Art museum, not in front of the bones and rocks. But that's just me.

By the way, the Dutch section is closed, so if you prefer the Dutch Masters, you are out of luck. ;(


posted by MikeM at 10:30 AM    

 
Well, Patty's brother Eddie just left for home - we will miss him!

I came home Wednesday to find half the kitchen and family room painted - and they finished it up Thursday - looks really great!
Eddie is very much the handyman do-it-yourselfer, and gave me a lot of good tips on other things around the house I need to do, such as stopping the ever-present water problems in the den. Eddie is a great guy and we hope to have him back again this summer, when the pool is open and the hot tub installed.

Oh, I forgot to mention that - we are getting a 7'x7' hot tub installed sometime in the next few weeks. ;)
posted by MikeM at 11:18 AM    

 
Here is a good link to know : Internet Storm Center - it leads to a security site which has important information about current threats.

Right now, it says :

Forgery FBI email around

A false email from FBI with the Subject: "Your IP was logged" is being around with a malware in attachment.
The email intends to intimidate the user saying that the machine was scanned by the FBI and that
Illegal contents were found. The email will try to induce the user to check the attachment to see what
illegal contents were found.

Reference:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/06/1073268005348.html

Among other things.

This is another virus going around - don't be fooled!

There are also viruses that pretend to be gifts from paypal, auction wins from ebay, and warnings about other trojans/viruses (with convenient attached fixit programs, of course).

Let's be careful out there!
posted by MikeM at 11:15 AM    

 
Ouch, my brain hurts...

Thick-Skinned Gravastars Vie to Replace Black Holes, in Theory


posted by MikeM at 1:18 PM    

 
The new Linux Gazette : January 2004 (#98) is out at linuxgazette.net! There are a lot of comments and editorials clearing up some of the issues regarding SSC attacking them - good reading.

Then, of course, there is quite a lot of content regarding linux and ways to use it, have fun with it, be productive, etc. Great issue!
posted by MikeM at 10:59 AM    

 
Here's a good Knoppix Review - gives the bootable linux cd a good going-over and explains in great detail how to use it and how to install it on your hard drive if you wish.
posted by MikeM at 9:28 AM    

 
I've been a bad blogger - no posts for a week!

Anyway - last week was mainly relaxing between workdays, then a trip to Jersey to visit Patty's family. On the trip back, her brother Eddie followed us, he will be spending a week or so with us!

Thursday night we noticed that one of our green rope trees had been stolen right off of the lawn. Unplugged, yanked up and taken, leaving the extension cord and the metal stakes it used to be spiked down with strewn around. Ah well, looked kinda funny all by itself over there anyway. The rest of the xmas stuff is fine, around the front door and main window - well-lit area. The lone tree in the side yard with no other lighting is the one that was taken. Sneaky little punks. Makes ya want to go all vigilante and hook 220 to the frame next time, eh?

Saw 'Return of the King' last week as well - great movie! Can't wait to get the extended version and see what they hacked out of it to make it shorter.
posted by MikeM at 8:06 AM