Category: All Posts

DELLicious?

My home computer is five years old, and mastering videos is painfully slow. So it’s time to give it to The Kiddo and buy something new. Here’s the link to what I ordered. A DELL Inspiron 530, Intel quad-core, for $500.

The only upgrade I took was for 3 GB of 800 MHz memory, instead of 667 MHz. This seems to be a rock-bottom price on a pre-made quad-core system. Take note that I ordered it with Windows XP. I first bought XP literally the day it came out, but I have yet to want Vista; which has been out for over a year, and still has driver problems, as well as placing a significant drag on system speed compared to XP.

If this machine has everything I think it’s supposed to have — DVI (rare for integrated video) and two open PCI slots — I’ll be very pleased. If it has only a VGA connector I can live with that, but I won’t be as pleased. Estimated arrival is in about two weeks. I’ll let you know how it looks and works.

Oh. One more thing. XP works with multi-core processors. For licensing, Microsoft counts the number of processor sockets, not the cores. XP Home supports one processor, and XP Pro supports two processors, regardless of the number of processor cores.

Tecch Support

A little ways back I posted a clip from the first Superman movie, with Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. In that scene his henchman, Otis, played by Ned Beatty, has a black eye. Lex gave it to him earlier in the movie after Otis screwed up a slightly challenging technical assignment.

[flv:/Video/2008/APR/LexLuthor.flv 448 252]

Those numbers may as well be an IP address! I love this scene, and I’m fond of quoting it at work, because it perfectly dramatizes the reality of life in high tech, where support people who are earnestly working hard, and trying to do their job right, nevertheless totally screw it up.

The Dilbert Widget

I’m a so-so Dilbert fan, partly because there’s no real drawing involved. Occasionally Scott Adams has a sight gag that’s funny, but overall the effect of the strip’s gags and themes leave me feeling chilly, not warm.

A while back, Scott Adams recovered from an affliction that prevented him from speaking. One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is his facial resemblance to Charles Schulz.

Scott Adams and Dilbert

Anyway, there’s a Dilbert plug-in that is yet another impressive application of Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash animation. I thought I’d embed it and see how it works.

Human Voice Recorded in Dirt — 1860

The earliest known recording of the human voice is from 1860, and it was recorded in dirt! Scratches made along paper with a layer of soot, to be precise. The phonautograph was invented by Frenchman Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, and it was the inspiration for Edison’s phonograph. Recently, engineers recovered this amazing recording of a singing woman.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/MAR/phonautogram.mp3]

Rough, but recognizable and thoroughly amazing! Compare this to the nanotube FM radio I featured at this link. Neither recording is high fidelity, but both represent the absolute state-of-the-art in technology for their time.

21

No, not 21 the movie. I mean 21 miles. Today I covered the distance from the starting line of the Boston Marathon to the top of the infamous Heartbreak Hill. It took longer than the last time I did it, two years ago, before my ankle injury, but I set a goal and met it exactly, so I’m pleased.

When I got back home I was expecting to see the new control panel for my Web server account, but instead there’s this message.

Your account has not yet passed our comprehensive QA process. We are still working on moving your account and hope to have it on the new platform in the near future.

Don’t know if this means there’s a problem or not, but for now I’m still on the old platform.

This afternoon D.F. Rogers came over to the house for a visit. As always, lots of fun doing the fanboy bit, and as always there wasn’t nearly enough time. My friend Morris asked me a while ago if I knew what he was going to do when he retires in a couple of years. “Read old comic books, listen to music, and watch movies?” I asked. “YES! How did you guess?”