The Christmas Season

John Snider over at “American Freethought“, source of a podcast I very much enjoy, posted a message asking how folks deal with the holidays. i.e. do we avoid all things “Christmas” or go with the flow…

Here is my response:

Hi John,

I enjoy the whole of the winter holiday season. There seems so little left of religiosity by the time both the religions and the merchandisers get through with it that there isn’t very much to take exception to.

The Christmas music is pleasant, I enjoy gift giving (and receiving), I love seeing my family and having an excuse to see my friends even more often than usual under festive circumstances.

My friends know me as an avowed atheist and we are all respectful of each other as there are some quite religious folks numbered among them. We have occasional spirited debates but they aren’t at all stressful for me and, I earnestly believe, they are informative for my sparring partner(s).

It’s hard to get upset over the quaint rituals of outdated 2000 year old bronze-age sky god ramblings or with their reinvention as marketing tools that, as a byproduct, give this time of year it’s uniqueness…

Marc

Quotes – 01

“It is easier to have a strong opinion when you lack information.”

– Michael Crichton

I was listening to a 2003 interview with Mr. Crichton on the “Tech Nation” podcast and he was describing a time shortly after he had written the book “Rising Sun”. There were several members on a board on which he served who were threatening to quit the board if he did not resign since Michael was obviously a racist. On being asked, none of the objecting board members had actually read the book, they had just heard that it was a racist tome.

It’s pretty obvious that, far from making decisions and issues simpler, more knowledge, more information can tease out even more issues that take you from an apparently black and white situation of an idealised fantasy world to the omnipresent gray that represents the real world.

So beware of people who tell you with confidence that their pat, simple answer is the only right way to go. They either do not know what they are talking about, they are ignoring large aspects of the situation or they are lying to you.

It is OK to have an informed opinion, but there is no opinion that is valid out of context. Be sure you understand that context.

Winmail.dat file issue in Lotus Notes workaround (finally)

Lotus Notes LogoFrom the timestamps I see that this gem has been available since June of 2006 but I certainly had not heard about it.

Microsoft (M$), always there with useful products, also always manages to make things *just* different enough from standard that you can’t really seem to call them on it but they make it impossible to cleanly interface with their products as a competitor.

Case in point is Outlook and Exchange. If you create a message using M$’s email client and send it out the door using their Rich Text Format which seems to be of a proprietary nature, the message that arrives at the other end will be wrapped up in a file called “Winmail.Dat”.

For Lotus Notes this has always been a problem since the Domino server does not have the ability to unravel this proprietary formatting and so the recipient ends up with a useless (winmail.dat )attachment.

I know that there have been some fairly sophisticated attempts at providing solutions but the recipients of these messages are often business users with better things to do than try to master the arcane world of command line utilities with multistep processes.

Until now all we could really tell our users was to contact the sender and have them re-send the message but ensuring that they send with “Plain Text” instead of “RTF”. This is understandably awkward for a business user trying to look professional and it wasn’t doing my ego any wonders either.

The only really practical solution, besides Lotus actually dealing with the issue and including it in their SMTP router is this one presented to me by a co-worker (thanks Anton!). Created by Julian Robichaux (as far as I can tell as his name is all over the database) it is a simple mail-in database that you set up in your Domino environment. Your internal (and external if you wish to help out the rest of the world) Users then forward these nuisance messages to it and it replies back with the “unraveled” files.

So again the link is to Project WinmailExtractor. I had it set up and running in about 15 minutes including inspecting the code for any weirdness.

TCP APN for Verizon Blackberry 8830’s

It took me a while to figure this out so I’m documenting this mostly for myself but if it helps anybody else then that’s icing on the cake!

In a few words, don’t touch, save, change or in any way alter the contents of these fields!  Ever.

The following applies if you have a Blackberry communicating with a BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server). I cannot say if this will work for folks outside the corporate sphere but I see no reason why not.

Verizon support is clueless about TCP APN settings. Basically, if someone is using an application that doesn’t work and the solution is to update the APN, what you *really* need to do is:

  • Use desktop manager to backup the device
  • Wipe the device (you should be able to retain 3rd party apps if it asks)
  • Restore the device and turn on the radio <– it should automatically Activate itself – no need for Enterprise Activation.

Excerpt from the Crackberry forums posted by CrackBerry Genius:

!!!WARNING!!!

If you messed with your APN settings on a VZW8830 by putting something in, even if you clear it out and save it’s still messed up. If you’ve done this programs like BBWeather and Opera Mini WILL NOT WORK.

You must do an OS reload or possibly just a Wipe on the handheld to get this fixed. I personally did an OS reload to fix it, but never tried to do just a Wipe from the Security/General menu to see if that was sufficient.

I performed the above operation and got BBWeather to work just fine. I was having a similar problem with Jott for Blackberry but since then they’ve made that app a paid-only service and the price is much steeper than the value that I feel I’d get from it (but I’d love to try it again to see if it works at all).

Graivier Karaoke Party Pictures

DSC_0897 (1024x685)Michelle’s office party is usually a Halloween themed affair. This year they opted to make it a little different and instead set up shop at the Red Door Playhouse in Roswell for a Karaoke theme.

There were a bunch of good performances, Michelle’s was Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. She used “Thrill the World” as the source of her dance moves and had the “Thriller” video playing behind her and 4 co-workers as they danced their horrific way through the song…

Demolition Montage

VERY nice! While there is some slow motion in here (which I, of course, love), these edifices are so big that they often only appear as if they’re collapsing in slow motion. This is a glorious testament to the explosives experts out there who are competent in their trade. Well executed, a demolition can be almost a thing of beauty.

Many of these I haven’t seen before. All that planning and only seconds to implement. Then, of course, weeks to clean up afterward.

Blaupunkt Melbourne SD27 Installed at Fry’s Electronics

I’ve owned my venerable Honda Odyssey for just under 12 years now. It’s exactly what I wanted in a vehicle size-wise and performance-wise. The original stereo that came with it sports a cassette player that’s worked very well all these years.

I’ve been using a headset-jack-to-cassette adapter to listen to my podcasts for the past three or four years. A couple of weeks ago the adapter started acting up, causing the tape player to simply turn off. Also, the lights on the radio had failed and I was growing tired of the half-a$$ed adapter solution anyway since nearly 100% of my listening is of the iPod.

So I did some research looking for a replacement radio that catered to my iPod needs. There are some pretty slick devices out there, even some where the faceplate folds forward and allows you to slide the iPod into it.
But such a design definitely limits you to certain iPod models and I’d hate to have to change out my car stereo every time I update my iPod. Also, I really like the well thought-out menu system on my iPod and take advantage of how it functions to listen to my podcasts in a way that works well for me already. Many of the car stereo systems offered their own menu system and controlled the iPod directly and, according to reviews on Amazon and other places, poorly.

So I settled on the Blaupunkt Melbourne SD27. It’s VERY basic, it has AM/FM (I conceded that I may someday actually need to listen to the radio), no CD player, no tape player. It *does* have an SD/MMC slot that I’ll fill with a chip containing pleasant driving music someday when I can woot a huge capacity SD chip cheaply. I also opted for the optional iPod cable so I could listen to / charge the iPod while still using its menu system. I actually have a holster already mounted on my between-seat console that allows me to safely park the iPod when I’m not handling it.

I headed over to Fry’s Electronics on Highway 9 at Webb Road. I *love* Fry’s, I could wander around inside there all day browsing the cool electronics that they offer. And that’s saying something because I’m not really known as a retail shopper…

The interior staff were very helpful, when they didn’t know something they got someone who did. Shortly I was outfitted with my new radio, mounting bracket, cables and my optional iPod cable. I elected to have them do the installation as well recalling from my youth the joys of hanging out under the dashboard fiddling with wires and connections while maintaining some yogic “Z” pose between the seat, the doorjamb and the fusebox. The radio itself cost only $50. By the time I was finished the tab was $150. $40 of that was for installation.

So I had a guy working on my car, let’s call him “Nick”, I hand him all the pieces and walk away. About 40 minutes later I catch him walking rapidly away from the install bays (he has a lunch date with a comely lass from inside the store) and he lets me know all is ready to go.

I head back to the install bays, stopping at my car before going in and checking out the new stereo. The iPod side works great, but I can’t get any radio stations. So I head inside and meet the other guy who works there, let’s call him “Johnny” and he comes out and pulls out the radio to find that the antenna is not connected. “Problem solved” I think. I check and all the stations that I normally would care about are coming in loud and clear.

So we head inside where he realizes that the post-install checklist hasn’t been done. He asks if I’ve checked the power outlet (old / retarded people will call this the cigarette lighter – what a bizzarre concept..). I’m kind of in a hurry now, but I figure this is a good idea and go back out and… no… it’s not working. Johnny’s not real happy that Nick’s libido has left him with this extra work. So he comes out and dismantles the lower part of my dashboard again and hooks up the power outlet.

We head back in and he say’s, “Oh yeah, is the air conditioner working?”, again I’m tempted to say “I’m sure it is, let’s just call it a day.” but I head back out and the air conditioner is working fine. However, the hot-to-cold lever is stuck. Looks like the cable is binding. So Johnny, looking even less happy now comes back out, dismantles the lower dash again and corrects this little ‘nit.

When he’s done he goes back inside and I decide to check out the radio again. As before, the iPod still works great but my radio stations are gone. I head back in to let Johnny know and he, obviously tired of the whole affair, tells me that the radio reception in this area is really poor. I tell him that it was fine the last time he hooked up the antenna but he is insistent. About this time Nick comes back, looking rather happy so I suppose his lunch went well, and he joins in with Johnny about how terrible radio reception is in Alpharetta generally and that the building is probably blocking the reception. So they move my car in the parking lot to a spot where the reception should be better and play with the radio settings. Sometime during this Johnny has disappeared, apparently it’s his turn to head out to lunch.

So, after further discussion Nick again removes the radio and, sure enough the anenna is no longer attached. Apparently there is a weakness in the adapter between North American antenna connectors and those used by the Germans. So he adjust things and plugs everything back together.

I check ALL my systems and finally everything appears to be working. So, nearly 3 hours later (and being the only install being performed during that time), I finally get to return to work from my “Lunch”.

So far things are working, although in all honesty I haven’t used my radio since then (about a week and a half ago). But, worryingly, I went through Wendy’s drive-thru and when I went to my little coin holder in the dash I found, along with correct change for a hamburger, a lone screw that presumably came from my dashboard. Spare part I suppose?

I also note that the radio doesn’t dim when I turn on my lights even though I know it’s supposed to. Fortunately, since I’m one of those oddballs who actually turn on my lights during the day, this works out for me as I find the lights inside my car too dim during the day anyway and the display is not an issue for me at night so I’m leaving well enough alone. The car is old enough that I want folks monkeying around with it as little as possible.

Overall, I’m very happy to have a direct iPod connection with no more worries about the iPod battery becoming exhausted. The radio looks very attractive, to their credit the Fry’s installers managed to not damage the dash or the radio mounts in any obvious ways so I’m very pleased with that. But I post this as a warning. Make sure you check EVERYTHING you can think of in your dash before you leave…

Odd that nobody pays attention to those that are supposedly losing out

In this article about a mailman in North Carolina who simply stopped delivering junk mail, I find it both amusing and odd that the fact that nobody complained or was even remotely bothered that their junk mail did not make its way to them was noted by either the direct marketing association spokesperson or by the mail service that enables them.

Admittedly, there is money being made and that’s the driver. But any drug pusher or criminal has that motivation too.

We receive *thousands* of pieces of this crap every year. I do what I can to minimize it. I’ve even contacted some of the more egregious catalog senders to have them limit their mailings to a few times per year (Victoria’s Secret graciously responded and now I get something maybe quarterly rather than weekly. Can you imagine how many catalogs I had to receive before even *I* didn’t want to look at them anymore???).

This year again, the AOPA Air Safety foundation sent me a half dozen thick envelopes filled with sample cards in spite of my contacting them to ask them to reduce such. I received no response at all from a recent email to them. I declined to purchase this year as a result.

There are a lot of necessary excesses that we learn to tolerate as a price for our way of life. We see things like driving 1-2 tons of metal a mile to get a $2 quart of milk as reasonable and (somehow) proper. But some things simply have no value-add in my life, and I believe in most other folks’ lives. In my opinion, anything that is unsolicited and provides no benefit, even as a side-effect (TV ads, for instance, at least provide the entertainment value of the accompanying programming), can be stamped out without hesitation.

Porn buddies

There are not a lot of sitcoms that I rave about, but “Coupling” is definitely on the short list. The writing, the characters and the situations are all brilliant.

Here Jeff describes to Susan the concept of the “porn buddy”. It’s brilliant. And probably practical advice… you know who you are. 🙂