I made the deadline for the Version 2: Project Gutenberg redesign contest. I am pleased with the result. It was a good exercise for me to learn more about CSS.

My design places the focus on the content, and brings more of it to the front page. I did my best to keep the page up to date as I was working in order to see if the design was flexible and robust enough to handle the changes. This included adding the "Notice of planned outage" at the last minute. The page looks the same in Mozilla, Opera and IE except for the "More Information" icons that IE doesn't support.

I am glad I was able to do this as it will help get my name out, but I won't quit my day job.

Note to Self: Buy new shoes.

Sorry about the mess. I left in a hurry. Earlier this evening a head popped up over the window. A friend of mine was having car problems. I grabbed my coat and keys and we drove to his car. He had gotten it stuck on a Level-B maintenance road (see below). 2 1/2 hours later I arrived back home, covered in mud from head to toe. I now know what it is like when the mob gives someone a pair of cement shoes.

Level-B Maintenance Road: A grave with the ends knocked out. A dirt road that caries it's ruts like old war wounds, they never heal, just fade over time. Motorists use the road at their own risk.

Consider a company who is encrypting some of their most sensitive sales and marketing data. Ten company officers might each possess a secret which together can be used to decrypt all the data. However, this introduces a clear reliability problem, as the departure of any officer could leave all sales and marketing data unreadable. (Likewise, just restricting this data access to one specific secret, such as that of the VP of Sales, introduces this single-point-of-failure condition.) Instead we could offer a high reliability, but secure situation where any five (of ten) secrets together could decrypt the data. Therefore, if an individual officer disappears, leaves for a rival company, or otherwise makes his secret unavailable, not only can he himself not access the data alone, but even if he leaves with the secret the remainder of the company's access is unaffected. And, if a company didn't think that "5 of 10" executive was the right number, they could instead only require "3 of 10" to decrypt the data ... or "7" or "9".

Security & Cryptography - Christopher Allen

Why not form a corporation on the fly with digital stock certificates, allow it to engage in its creative work, then pay out its investors and workers and dissolve? With new security paradigms, this is all possible.

Security & Cryptography - Christopher Allen

Murphy's law. We finished making the video this morning and my dad left to get it duplicated. The nearest place to do this quantity is an hour and a half away. He gets there and realized he forgot the tapes. So I leave to meet him half way, but stopped to pick up my sister's cell phone. She works at a school daycare, and I show up right after someone had pulled the fire alarm, so I had to wait. I met my dad and gave him the tapes, but the exit where we met had no way for me to get back on the highway without going all the way through town.

There goes the morning.

The stray dog that has been around our house recently is terrified of me. This evening when I walked outside he slowly backed away, turned to run and slammed his head into a parked car. And I thought that only happened in jokes.

As seen on slashdot for building a DVD on demand system:

Step 2: Acquire and train a monkey. This step may take some time.

You now have a voice-activated, on-demand DVD swapper.

Suggestion: omit Planet of the Apes from the collection.

My dad took the presentation to get it duplicated yesterday, and the VCR ate the tape. Spent two hours down there already this morning and we haven't even started on the new tape. Life... more abundant.

Dave Winer is asking for opinions on what the next blogging tools will look like. My suggestions:

Find ways to improve loosely coupled conversations. If blogger-A writes about my post, I hear about it, but if blogger-B writes about blogger-A's response to mine, I want to know.

Portability between locations and tools. Life happens and people need to move their sites. Allow for the ability to grab everything and move it.

Ability to request archived posts in a standard syndication format (RSS, ATOM, ect.)

Support for individual stories or articles. The big name tools already implement this, but I would like to see it become a standard feature for all the tools out there.

It is interesting to witness the loosely coupled, distributed conversation taking place about reading efficiently. I guess I had to be involved in one to really understand the power of it.

According to Nick, my email to Jon Udell is getting some attention for FeedDemon. I look at it another way. Between Nick, Jon and Tim Bray, my name is getting seen. I just need to capitalize on this to get more work.

As if I didn't have an ego before, Jon Udell goes and quotes me and links to this site. My name even shows up in the post twice! This should help to get my name out there :-)

Revival services started today. The visiting pastor read a chapter from the Screwtape Letters. C.S. Lewis had a way with words. It is a refreshing (and disturbing) change to have my beliefs challenged from the point of view of a devil.

It's a good thing I have been slow in donating those old computers. It turns out that Jerry was fixing one and not canibalizing it. The customer called and asked if it was ready. Whoops.

I sent Jon Udell an email in response to his recent post "Heads, decks, and leads: revisited":

You might want to check out FeedDemon by Nick Bradbury. While it comes with default style sheets, users are able to create their own XSL for efficiently processing the information. So, if you wanted to view just the first paragraph, you could create your own style or ask someone in the community to create one.

Radek, an active community member, has created styles that hint at what can be achieved with this combination, from rating your feeds in a database, to creating powerful MindMaps.

Just imagine the style you use to consume information providing links to your XPath search tool: "Other quotes by this person". Of course, I leave it up to you to blow us away with your styles.

Have fun, and thanks for all the fish!
Peter E.

I am trying out TorrentStorm. It is an app that lets me manage multiple torrents in a single window. One of the downsides to the normal torrent package is that it creates individual dialog windows for each file. When the download completes a user's reaction is to close that window. This prevents the torrent from sharing and uploading which negates the point of having a peer-to-peer system.

I do like the fact that I have more detailed control over what files I share, unlike when I am on a network like KaZaA. It lets me know that I am making a difference. For example, right now I am providing seeds for Desert Combat 0.7 and the UT2004 Beta Demo. Apparently I am the only one seeding (providing a complete copy) at the moment. This only goes to show that one of the downsides of the torrent system is that there can be multiple copies of the exact same file that do not know about the other torrents because they were started by different people.

Perhaps if there was a way to tell the torrent that there are other torrents sharing the same file with the same hash, the networks would work better. A single user would need to be able to tell the software: torrent-A and torrent-B are the same thing, and every other peer on *both* networks would pick up the new info. In order to get this feature to the top of the list I will need to donate money to the author. I don't know if I am prepared to do that.

I called it. Doc Frasier got killed. All the ads leading up to the episode showed Col. O'Neil getting shot, but when Frasier was sent off-world in part 1, I knew it had to be her. After all, you don't want to kill off the producer's character.

My dad has been charged with preparing a presentation that educates people on the reorganization our denomination is going through. The others on the board are getting impatient. They seem to think this is something simple. We have been working in PowerPoint and using Audacity to record the speech, but we were having difficulty figuring out how to distribute it. We decided we would stick the presentation and the free player on a cd, but the timing for the transitions was different for every computer.

On a whim I pulled out the s-video cable I got with my ATI 9700 and hooked it up as a second monitor. Using the RF-Modulator from the DVD player in the living room, I was able to get the signal into a VCR directly from the computer. VHS is, after all, a proven distribution medium and it is more likely that the churches will have a TV than a computer.

Computers are a true general purpose tool. With interchangeable hardware and custom software it is possible to duplicate and simplify the processes that would have taken a room full of machines just a few years ago.

I just realized. It might be difficult to get the rebate and without opening the box. That kind of keeps me from giving it away as a tournament prize.

Electronics Boutique is selling the DVD edition of Unreal Tournament 2004 for $39.99, $20.00 less than Amazon. Combine that with the $10 mail in rebate for 2003 owners and it comes out to $29.99.

I was sent on a tech support call to a church in Packwood today. Supposedly all their membership data disappeared along with the program to access it. When I got there I was informed that someone had already tried to get it back and had reinstalled the software, but could not find the data. I found the data still on the hard drive but when I went to access it I was told I needed to convert it as the program was a newer version. The conversion wouldn't work. It kept crashing in the process. Luckily the older version of the program was still installed so I opened it and the data was easily accessed.

Users shouldn't have to be concerned with where their data is stored or how it is accessed. Their skills lie in the field of making use of that data. If the software isn't helping that process it's hindering it and should be removed.

I am really embarrassed. I just got a call from Ron Stanley asking if I had pulled together the Starband info yet. I had promised to get it to him over the weekend. When David said he was coming home I figured I could take it over then. David didn't come home. My mental note had been attached to an event and that event didn't happen. I really need to get my brain rewired.

Social software systems are created by programmers who -- let's face it -- are not renowned for their social skills.

Jon Udell - InfoWorld

I finished watching all the episodes of Firefly and I can see why there is such a movement behind it. There are few shows that make me laugh out loud at least once during every episode. The honesty of the characters, the qualities that make them human are lost in most shows, but not this one. There is plenty of material that they didn't touch, enough for a movie and a few seasons after that. I really like the full-page ad the fans took out to support the show. If only more of us had realized the need for action we might have been able to do something.

The government is a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned.

- Firefly

I have really been overplaying the demo. My hands are cramping up in pain because of it. So I took the night off and watched the Pilot episode of Firefly. I only wish SeaQuest was out...

I now have proof. I got through assault in 2:23.

Assault rocks! I just won in 3-min flat (7-min remaining), with the bots on Masterful. Now if only I could do it again and get a screenshot...

The day after Uru officially closed its online doors it was chosen by PC Gamer as Best Adventure Game of 2003.

Looks like I won't be going to Gnomedex this year. Not only is it in Nevada, but they will have a 3-day open bar. Just what I want: to be surrounded by drunk geeks.

I need to remember to reboot my proxy server once ever 3 months or so. After all, it is still running windows!

Bug posted to forums.

After playing the UT2004 demo for a few hours, there are a few things to note:

The HUD and Menu visual styles seem less polished than the existing 2003 version. I hope this will improve

I *really* like the Assault mode. Good team based, goal oriented gameplay.

There is a slight bug on the Onslaught map. The manned turret guns seem to move off their pedestals.

I am drooling here. Reading reviews of UT2004. Taking the best parts of Halo and BF1942 and wrapping them up in unreal's impressive graphics. I am downloading the demo now to play test it before I pre-order the game on Amazon. I am really tempted to get the DVD version for the simplified install and the VTM's. I have watched some of the training videos for 2003 and would really like them pre-downloaded.

Jeff updated Click's site again with a new Amazon.com module. I am updating the games list in kind to provide links to this new content. I took the XHTML code and ran it through a stylesheet to create sql statements which I used to populate the database. Then using PHPMyAdmin, I entered corresponding ASIN codes (manually). I then formatted the output back into XHTML using PHP linking to the products where appropriate and sending them to google if not found.

I called the wireless company today. They don't have anything less than a 3-year contract. Supposedly the equipment costs too much.

Aparently some sensitive people are seeing the one-finger salute in the background of the Firefox download manager. It wasn't intentional, and it didn't look that way to me. Perhaps a resolution could be found by having the complainers submit their own backgrounds for a vote?

It seems a friend of ours has been talking to the local wireless internet company. When I checked their prices before they were prohibitively high. Because I am unable to commit to a 3-year contract they wanted a $1400 setup and equipment fee. Granted they only charge $65/month, but the setup fee was unreal.

They have apparently caved to market forces. Though I cannot confirm this online they have supposedly dropped the initial price to $90, without raising the monthly fee. I would really like to know if this applies to the 1-year contract. If it does I will sign up tomorrow.

When I told David about this he warned me of some bad news his father found recently while reading the starband contracts (he is a dealer). He understood it to say that even with a one year contract there would be a cancellation fee if I didn't stick with it for 3 years. After further research online, I am confident that the cancellation fees only apply if you cancel before the end of the contract, which in my case comes in march. I think I can put up with paying the bill for another month.

I met with Josh Goudy of Affinity Business Solutions today in Osky. It turns out that they do very little web design work. In fact, the websites with their name on them have been outsourced to a college student in Missouri. The good news is that our areas of business don't overlap much and that leaves the possibility of working together on projects in the future.

For now, Josh and I agreed that I should produce pre-packaged systems to sell. This would take an initial investment, but would be financially beneficial in the long run.

Good point. I like the idea of limiting my functions to two arguments. If more data needs to be passed, create objects that group and define it.

I tried a software version of an old idea for speed reading. This shows you one word at a time, allowing you to control the speed. It blew me away how quickly the mind can comprehend information. And that I can remember what I read!

Mozilla Firebird has been rebranded to be Mozilla Firefox. I can understand why they had to do it, and am glad they did it now instead of waiting until 1.0. In normal daily use I have not been able to see much of a difference, but that doesn't matter. It is still the best browser out there.

There is so much I want to write about, but my head is spinning, so I will list the items (hopefully to write about later).

I wrote some things I may regret on forums and newsgroups this weekend.

Why doesn't Microsoft use existing standards such as vCard instead of re-inventing the wheel with WinFS?

I want to make some updates to StreamingSoundtracks.com, or at least build a client side app for them

Locally updating playlist
- would lessen the need for site bandwidth
- refreshes list twice an hour (more only if needed)

Personal Playlist
- a local queue that submits based on request limit
- reorder along with add/edit/delete requests

Non Intrusive Update
- View the playing song without visiting the site
- Fakes media player providing song data to blog tools

Desert Combat 0.7 was released yesterday. I really need to buy Battlefield 1942 so I can play this mod more often. They don't play the original at Click's much, but they play DC like there is no tommorrow. The graphics don't have the wow factor that UT2K3 has, but when you get 30+ guys playing it doesn't matter.

I have been helping a friend to try and fix a computer problem the past few days. He has been unable to connect to the internet for a while and through other sources determined that he was missing some system files. He is running windows 98, so I could not list the needed steps to refresh the system off the top of my head. Luckily the computers I am working on for the pastor are running 98, so I was able to test and document my process. I walked him through the steps and the computer crashed before it finished. We began the process over again, but setup was not accepting his key. It had just worked for the previous try, but not now. I ended up having to *borrow* a key from that great database in the cloud and it worked.

After all that work the computer would not recognize the installed modem. We have all but eliminated software as the problem. I now believe his modem was fried this whole time and that he had been given an incorrect diagnosis which led to this wild goose chase.

The second video in the Longhorn Concept series is available. This one discusses an application geared toward healthcare professionals. I believe the benefits were more evident in the first video on Real Estate, though this one brought some questions to mind.

Trustworthy code - Who determines what is trustworthy? Microsoft? That would create a bottleneck and put them in the position of gatekeeper. Would the user determine trust? With one-click install viruses could now be given deep hooks into the system.

Secure Communication - Who controls the protocol? Let me guess.

Transactions - Who will implement the micro-payment system? These web services will have to charge something for their use. Without that in place the demos will never see the light of day.

Note to self:
Steps to reinstall windows 98 without removing files or programs (non-destructive)

Start > Settings > Control Pannel
Add/Remove Programs
[Startup Disk] Tab
[Create Disk] Button
Insert Disk into Floppy Drive
[Ok] Button
Wait
[Ok] Button
Start > Shutdown
X Shutdown
[Ok] Button
Power on Computer
1 Start computer with CD-ROM support [Enter]
Wait while cd drivers are installed from floppy
type "e:" at the prompt
type "dir" at the prompt
type "cd win98" at the prompt
type "dir setup*.*" at the prompt
type "setup"
press enter to run scandisk
type "x" to exit scandisk
[Continue] Button
x "I accept the agreement"
[Next] Button
Enter your product key
[Next] Button
x "C:\WINDOWS"
[Next] Button
Wait
[Next] Button
Remove Floppy from Drive
[Next] Button
[Cancel] Button (Don't create disk)
[Next] Button
Waitng and Watching
Computer will reboot a few times

A good discusson is going on over at Uru Obsession. My two cents:

I am still trying to understand this. Cyan worked on the game for six years and they call it a failure after being public for only a month? How is it possible to determine success or failure in a month? There has to be something bigger they aren't telling us about.

There once was a game known as Uru
An online adventure and play thru
But it lagged and it froze
In the end, it got hosed
Oh Cyan and Ubi, how could you?

As seen on http://www.uruobsession.com

Woa there. Cyan employee's knew about this shut down 4 weeks ago, but were silenced by Ubi?

LOL: the Second Fall of D'ni

Uru, the next chapter in the Myst series was originally conceived as a Broadband only, Massively Multiplayer world where the story would be molded by the users and new content continually added. After the community voiced its opinion concessions were made to provide a single player *offline* piece of the game that would compliment the Multiplayer version.

Like many online games the multiplayer aspect wasn't finished when Uru was released. Over the winter months players were slowly invited to join the beta testing of this virtual world. On New Year's Day the developers invited a substantial group, more than they intended. A clerical error caused invitations to be sent to everyone who had registered. This sudden influx caused many problems.

Even with the slew of invitations and the free trial period, they did not reach the critical mass they needed to be self-sustaining. Uru Live will not live on. The content will be packaged up and sold as expansion packs in an attempt to recoup some of the money.

It was an interesting idea, and I am sure they, or someone else, will try it again in the future. Serializing games into somthing where content can be delivered on a regular schedule, similar to television, is one way to keep customers comming back for more.

David Weinberger talks about becoming "location aware" in the abstract of his article "The Semantic Earth"

There is no more hope for a single, universal map than there is for a single, universal language, because the thing we are mapping - the earth - has no language, no culture and no projects of its own. It is too real for that. All its meanings are attributed.

He even makes a reference to Asimov's Foundation series:

a technology that could have transformative effects if only it didn't require high priests to build and maintain it.

Mark Evans got me thinking. What benefits does XML have on the content creation side of things? XML evangelists continually promote the benefits that well marked up data provides as a machine readable resource, but say very little about the struggles to create it. Yet even with software automating the building of RSS and Atom files, they still don't validate.

The quote in his post refers to an app that will provide "just-in-time" knowledge support. That would still put it on the consuming side of XML web services. They discuss what sounds like structured templates for formatting the data so the user can concentrate on the content. This is a good thing, but who will design the tools that allow ordinary users to create those templates? That's the difficult part.

I watched "Trekkies" today. I am now ashamed that I enjoy Star Trek, but glad I haven't flipped. Doing your civic duty as a juror in a Star Trek uniform? Sure military personnel wear their uniforms while serving, but the Federation doesn't exist! Do these people have no imagination? I can accept those who collect items as a hobby, but paying $1400 for a klingon head piece? $60 for a glass of water drunk by "Q" while he had the flu?

Going through my portfolio I find that the majority of my clients are world-class businesses in the luxury industry. This really should be stressed in my resume.

Well I went through the computers and pulled the specs. One of them still has the factory specs, so I will assume it was meant to be canibalized for parts. One won't even boot. The third seems to be custom built with its 512 RAM and DVD, but still outdated. In order to get a computer that is worth anything, I would need to merge the first and last.

FeedDemon 1.10 Beta 2 is now available for customer testing. The turn-around time for this beta is encouraging. The three items I submitted have been implemented:
# Changed: The search box now has a caption
# Fixed: Single key reading with spacebar doesn't work with search results
# Fixed: Items in search results don't show their source channel name in FeedDemon's newspaper

Cool. Now's the time to get my iPod. Apple is offering FREE custom engraving.

I picked up 3 custom built computers today. The husband of a local pastor died this past year and left behind the pieces (literally) of his hobby/business. He was a mac nut, and had a nice G4 running Jaguar 10.25. My dad and I spent most of our time sifting though boxes of parts: hard drives, disk drives, ram modules, cpu's, power supplies. Everything you need to build a computer. I plan to give the computers a once over and guestimate a value before returning them.

I do have the option to buy his G4. I have always wanted a mac, but until recently didn't have the money. As for the pc's, I may try to convince the pastor to donate them as I could find them good homes recording sermons and running digital projectors for churches/camps.

I'm confused. Nick Bradbury announced the finalists in the banner contest today, and neither of mine are there. Must not have been what he was looking for? My dad thinks that mine were so good Nick simply removed me from the running and gave me the software. I would like belive that.

Neowin interviewed Ben Goodger, the chief developer for Mozilla Firebird.

We are a compact browser but we're not a "lite" browser in the sense that we deliberately remove features that might be appealing to a large number of people.

This issue is currently being discussed on the MozillaZine Forums where I offered my two cents:

The lite - typical - full namings are deceptive as they imply (to me) that functionality is taken away. Perhaps another naming scheme would show that extensions are added for those who need them?

Personal Edition (default install)
Developer Edition (w/ JS Console, Live HTTP Headers, ect.)
Interactive Media Edtion (w/ Flash, Java)

In doing research for upgrading to a two tuner PVR, I have found DBSTalk to be a great resource.

I like the new interface for the 721 and that it runs on linux. It doesn't have a monthly fee, which is a plus, but it does cost $500+ up front. The biggest downside to getting the 721 is that Dish plans to discontinue the model and replace it with the 522.

The 522 is a good model, but the community believes the 721 is more stable. The 522 has a similar interface to the 508 that we currently have. This is a plus as my family is loathe to learning new things. The 522 has two remotes and two outputs for tv's which is unnecessary as we will be using it in "single mode" (which may not yet be implemented?).

I still have a little over a month to decide what to get, but there seems to be a wealth of information to help me.

The mydoom worm has been causing problems with Starband's email servers. They have been unreliable before, but today it was if they had been taken off the network.

Even if I don't find a job soon, I have found something to do. There is a contest to redesign the Project Gutenberg website. It will let me test my hand at web design and play around with my new copy of TopStyle!

I finally got the button working again. It turns out that Object Desktop was the culprit.

My "Show in External Browser" button in FeedDemon doesn't seem to be working. I am pretty sure I have used it since *upgrading* to 1.10 B1, so I will do some testing to find out what could be interfering before I yell "Bug".

My vote for the best 2004 superbowl ad goes to:
Shards-o-Glass by Truth

Runner-up is: AOL (Renaissance)

Honorable Mention: Mastercard (Homer)
Honorable Mention: IBM (Linux)

With the iTunes / Pepsi Superbowl giveaway starting today I decided to volunteer myself as a statistic. I purchased 9 songs, one of which I had never heard until tonight. "You Raise Me Up" by Josh Groban was played at the opening of the game. It caught my attention, and Kari said she liked his music, so I got it. The rest are songs that I enjoyed when the local POP station still played Rock and Alternative:

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by the Proclaimers
MMMBop by Hanson
I Want You by Savage Garden
Absolutely (Story of a Girl) by Nine Days
Crash and Burn by Savage Garden
Hero by Enrique Iglesias
It's the End of the World as We Know It by R.E.M
The Animal Song by Savage Garden

Hard to believe it has been a year since the shuttle burned up on re-entry.