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Welcome to EeeUser! [EeeUser Eee PC Wiki]

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:36:53 -0800

These guys are explaining how to add all the stuff I'm finding as missing on my eee pc. (e.g. subversion, etc.)

Jammit: Industrial Strength Asset Packaging for Rails

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:35:12 -0800

This looks pretty cool. I've had assets problems before, though, so we'll see.

Mike Scott's Analysis of the NCAA Divison 1 Women's Harrier Scene

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:35:19 -0800

Always the strongest background material for NCAA cross-country. Makes up for me essentially ignoring the rest of the season.

Filling the Boston Marathon

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:20:31 -0800

If you haven’t already noticed, the Boston Marathon has reached its entry limit and closed (late Friday or early Saturday, it hardly matters which). This is easily two months earlier than the Marathon has ever closed before. First, hold the panic. There are still “guaranteed” entries floating around out there which were already counted under the [...]

Not the router you're looking for

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:27:33 -0800

I have a small stack of retired technology next to my desk, waiting for me to develop the momentum to list it all on eBay. One of the boxes is a Belkin broadband router, not a wireless one, just a standard four-port ethernet router of the variety everyone had in the days before pervasive wireless.

I only just noticed that the design on the box includes a small photo of a similarly-shaped Belkin wireless router, with the heading, “Consider Wireless” and caption, “Extend your network to different floors and rooms—without cables.”

The thing I find remarkable about this is that to someone picking this box up in a store, the message is, “No, not this one, try that other router.” I’m sure the price for the wireless router was higher (and possibly the margin for Belkin as well) but the idea of putting text on product packaging which actively encourages potential customers to buy something different feels backward to me.

In print: December 2009 Running Times

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:44:47 -0800

I have two pieces in the December 2009 Running Times: a profile of masters middle-distance ace Scott Hartley (not the first time I’ve shined the spotlight his direction) and a discussion of the new progress being made by American distance runners against the East African dominance in the track distances, as highlighted by the 2009 [...]

Matt McCue’s “An Honorable Run”

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:35:34 -0800

Matt McCue turned his experiences as a high school state champion and walk-on at the University of Colorado into an interesting and worthwhile book.

Biblio-therapy

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:38:00 -0800

I used to scoff whenever I read someone referring to “retail therapy” after some semi-traumatic incident.

However, after today’s frustrating GPS experience (which essentially burned most of the daylight hours available for caching), the next item on my list was picking up a book I had ordered at Market Block Books. (For the record, that book would be William Kennedy’s O Albany!.) And I have to admit I left with what might be more accurately described as a stack of books.

I even forgot to use the Booksense gift card I have.

Magellan GPS not recommended

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:04:54 -0800

For years, I did my geocaching with a Magellan Meridian Gold. Its PC interface was a laughably obsolete serial cable, but I could write waypoints to an SD card which the GPS would then read. Eventually, it died an ugly death involving leaking batteries and corrosion, and I went to replace it. I picked up a Magellan Triton 400 from L.L. Bean, figuring that was the natural progression and that a newer model would be better. Hey, the Triton actually had a USB cable!

Turns out that development goes backwards at Magellan. My Mac would not recognize or talk to the Triton, but that’s more of a disappointment than a surprise; MacCaching, a cache manager for Macs, explicitly specifies that it doesn’t work with the Triton series (and so do a surprising number of 1-star reviews on Amazon). What’s more, it turns out the Triton won’t use the SD card for waypoints, only for “media”—photos and sound clips. (This model of Triton doesn’t even have a camera, making this limitation even more laughable.)

I figured I’d try my usual “doesn’t work with Macs” back door, a Parallels VM running Windows XP. Except that Magellan’s software then refused to connect with the GPS, even though Parallels was quite definite about taking charge of the USB device. The Triton just wouldn’t make a connection.

I had hoped today, with a day off and nice weather, that I could spend some time outside hunting tupperware in my new area. Instead I spent two hours plus fighting with the GPS just to load waypoints. I could’ve keyed them into the GPS in that time. Finally I gave up and put everything back in the package and drove it to the L.L. Bean retail store in Albany.

Point one for L.L.’s Albany outlet: they took back the Triton (which was in a box with one of their price tags, but which I bought maybe two or three summers ago despite my lack of time for caching) and gave me a store gift card for the full value on the price tag. (No credit for the Maine sales tax, but I suppose the state has long since spent it anyway.)

Point two: an enthusiastic young bike mechanic not only went through the specs on a stack of Garmins, but pulled a pair out from the back room and let me test loading waypoints on them. I had brought my MacBook with me, because I wasn’t paying a cent for a receiver until I had seen every step of the “load waypoints to GPS” use case working. We spread cables and receivers and laptop out on a counter in the bike shop as I first slurped the default waypoints off the Garmin, then loaded a dozen or so Watervliet and Troy waypoints.

So I walked out with an eTrex Venture HC, which actually cost (tax and all) about $15 less than the Magellan. It’s pretty basic, but it works so far and we’ll see how it plays in the long run.

But I will underline this point yet again: If you’re a Mac user, Magellan doesn’t care about you. Don’t waste your time.

Athlete of the Year Finalists

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:01:01 -0800

The IAAF has announced the finalists for Athlete of the Year. Here's who I nominated and how they did.

It's Chili by George!! - All Recipes

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:58:57 -0800

To try...

No wonder he's so active

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:00:13 -0800

The reasons have never been clear to me, but it’s not uncommon to have to herd Iz away from an open fridge door, and if we hold it open for a minute when removing multiple items he will often climb in. There’s nothing in reach that he would consider food, or at least that’s what I thought, so we just pull him out again when it’s time to close the door.

This morning I discovered punctures in the resealable bag of coffee grounds which were about the size and shape of feline teeth, so maybe he’s just been looking for a fix?

Turn in to the skid

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:25:34 -0800

Somewhere there is an old Bill Cosby routine—I think it involves driving while very sleepy—in which he highlights the counter-intuitive nature of recovering from a skid while driving. (Steer in the direction you’re sliding: yeah, that seems like a bad idea, but it’s not.)

So after running the Stockade-athon on Sunday, I’ve decided that it’s time to back off mileage and spend the winter concentrating on strength and general fitness, in the name of avoiding injury interruption in 2010. To this end, A suggested I come over and do the conditioning workout with her team yesterday morning.

Today feels like the day after the first day of swim practice, and among the list of activities which are items like “lifting my arms to the keyboard.” And yet every twinge is reminding me that I need to keep doing this—to turn in the direction of the skid.

Unifying the Conversations (Salmon Protocol)

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:20:21 -0800

Helping comments to swim upstream. (Can't see the utility here? Imagine if someone posted your blog post as a link on Facebook, and the link got comments...)

Mockingbird

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:09:54 -0800

This is pretty damn cool. As a prototyping tool, it's similar to Omnigraffle, but more specialized and therefore a bit more powerful. And online. And apparently free?

Forecasting a marathon on the fly

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:20:53 -0700

I made up a spreadsheet to analyze a marathon's splits while the race is still going on.

Modern CSS Layouts: The Essential Characteristics « Smashing Magazine

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:32:27 -0700

Where we're going. Where we should be now, actually.

55 Astonishing Online Generators for Web Designers | DominickGatto.com

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:07:34 -0700

Something tells me I'll be back. I spend unreasonable amounts of time, for example, trying to build favicons.

Jesse Owens Award: How I voted

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:57:36 -0700

Here's how I voted on the Jesse Owens award for 2009.

14 Simple Tips for Super Fast Web Browsing

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:40:10 -0700

Good stuff, mostly to do with turning off stuff you don't need (like energy efficiency in the house).

Closing the books on the Berlin women’s 10,000m

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:13:27 -0700

Official notice has been taken of the early break at the start of the women's 10,000m in Berlin.

Athlete of the Year

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:02:48 -0700

The IAAF is quietly changing their Athlete of the Year selection process.

UserAgentString.com - version 3.5.3

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:55:24 -0700

Another one of those utility sites that does just one thing, but very, very thoroughly and well. In this case, it's dissecting the user-agent strings browsers send to servers with their requests.

Security Fix - Avoid Windows Malware: Bank on a Live CD

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:45:39 -0700

I don't want to gloat, but...

Mastering CSS Coding: Getting Started « Smashing Magazine

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:07:32 -0700

Basics on HTML/CSS (particularly the CSS properties of various HTML structures).

Slice and Dice that PSD - Nettuts+

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:05:51 -0700

Going from layered PSD to HTML/CSS.

Clean CSS - A Resource for Web Designers - Optmize and Format your CSS

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:20:48 -0700

Of course, you still need to figure out how to make it produce the output you expect as "clean CSS".

nginx and varnish on Mac OS X — tomster.org

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:15:32 -0700

Another "nginx on mac" how-to, also with a caching engine.

iTunes serendipity

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:24:29 -0700

The advantage of pseudo-random ordering a few thousand songs is that occasionally you’ll find a pair, otherwise unrelated, which seem meant to be played next to each other.

Today’s example: the Spin Doctors’ “What Time Is It” (which starts with sampled voices lifted from a newscast, and includes similar voice-overs on occasion through the song) and R.E.M.’s version of The Clique’s “I Am Superman,” which starts with its own indecipherable sampled voices. It’s as though the producers wanted them to flow into each other.

Jesse Owens Award voting

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:46:14 -0700

USATF is encouraging fans to vote for the Jesse Owens Award on their website. I'll be voting there as well.