8-30-2005: Scrapings off the Floor

Yes, I haven't posted anything here in the last few days. Classes have of course started, and seem to be going well. Nothing much to write about here, unless of course I wanted to post summaries of the lectures and seminars I have attended. Which is obviously not something I'd want to do!

On other aspects of the university and student life: There are a variety of prepaid meal plan-utilizing dining options available. Of the various cafeterias or dining halls located throughout the campus, I'd say that in terms of food quality Towers (a.k.a. "Café Evansdale") and the Stalnaker dining room are tops, with the Boreman Bistro a bit below. Nevertheless, I eat at the Boreman Bistro quite a lot, in part because it is literally right next to my dorm room. I have never eaten at Arnold Hall, so I cannot comment on that location.

Interestingly, there are two restaurants located in the Mountainlair (the WVU student union) called "Hatfields" and "McCoys." (No comment on the long-standing feuds between those two namesakes.) I usually eat breakfast at Hatfields (which is also applicable to my meal plan), which offers provisions similar to that of any other university dining option, although they use styrofoam plates and only have 2% milk.

In other, rather unrelated news, I bought a used flatbed scanner last weekend. It is a Visioneer PaperPort 6000 model that plugs into my computer's parallel port. It's not perfect (unless I unplug it the power switch seems to be permanently on, for instance), but it scans, and it only cost five bucks!

[Add a comment . . .]

8-22-2005: Back at WVU, Day 4: FallFest

Today was the first day of classes, and also the day of FallFest, an entertainment extravaganza free to students.

I have made a point of attending these concerts since coming to the university two years ago. In 2003, a variety of artists performed, and I wandered in around 10:00 pm to see Default and 3 Doors Down play on stage. While I'm lukewarm about both bands, there was enough excitement, theatrics such as a light show, and even some decent songs to make me forget that I usually hate listening to "Wasting My Time" or "When I'm Gone."

Last year, the bill contained a number of different bands and musicians. Since the Mountainlair Plaza, where these concerts usually took place, was being torn apart for renovation at the time, the event was moved to the valley between the Life Sciences and Economics buildings, where the acoustics were absolutely horrible. I walked in shortly after a band called Particle, specializing in progressive instrumental jams, had begun to play; I was so impressed at the time that I bought their record on the spot. Unfortunately, they were more exciting on stage than on CD. The next band to go on stage was Trapt, and I thought they were awful. The following artist was a rap musician whose name I cannot even remember, and I spent most of my time during these performances sulking around, waiting for Fuel, the only band I was previously familiar with and looking forward to seeing, to come on at the end. Unfortunately, I found Fuel to be a big disappointment: I found their songs and performance both undistinguished, and further compromised by the dreadful acoustics and the fact that my ears had nearly gone numb by this time. By the time they had wrapped up it was well after midnight, and I walked the long distance home.

This year's concert lineup consists of O.A.R., Cypress Hill, Anna Nalick, and Filomath. I came there a few minutes early (this time remembering to bring the protective ear plugs I had forgotten both years before), when the crowd was thinner, and watched Filomath come on. Filomath (pronounced with a long "i") were surprisingly good; their material was very melodic and the band stayed afterwards to personally man the merchandise stand and sign autographs for everyone. The next artist to perform was Anna Nalick and her band. Her performance was quite listenable as well; it reminded me of an early Pat Benatar at times, although the music didn't seemed reminiscent of any one particular influence. I enjoyed both performances and had a good time.

The next entity to perform were the rap collective Cypress Hill. Since they weren't my cup of tea, it was getting dark, I already had my entertainment fix for the night, and I wasn't quite interested in O.A.R. even though they were the only band I had heard about beforehand (although I remained unfamiliar with their music), I wandered the short distance home. Since I live in Boreman South, less than a block away from the concert, I'm not missing anything; I can hear the performance within my room as clear as day. It's a good thing I don't have any big tests or early classes tomorrow.

[Add a comment . . .]

8-21-2005: Back at WVU, Day 3

Today was comparably uneventful, since I had done most of the things I had intended to do the two days before.

I finally got around to finishing unpacking and arranging my possessions, and went for a walk downtown.

Two years ago, the Mountainlair Plaza, a platform forming the top layer of a parking garage connected to the student union, was a slightly crumbling affair of red-painted concrete, concrete tile, and deteriorating astroturf. For all of last year, however, the plaza was subjected to quite a bit of renovation, during which it was essentially torn up and extensively rebuilt. The "new" plaza, which is now open (although there are still a few orange barriers around the grounds), has brick and faux stone tiles, fancy-looking iron drainage grates, new staircases connecting it with the surrounding terrain and landscaping, and brand new astroturf. Overall, it looks quite nice, although I think it won't be after a few additional years of decay, and concrete steps and walls being eroded away by the underside of skateboards.

Another place on campus that has caught my eye is Oglebay Hall, a prominently visible building that has been around for nearly ninety years. AFAIK, the building hasn't been used for anything since the new Life Sciences building opened three or so years ago, and now there's a chain-link fense encircling the building. Finally, I've noticed that some chunks of masonry from the building's façade seem to have recently disappeared; in fact, the building now reads "OGLEBAY ALL." What on earth is going on here? Renovation, I hope.

And, as usual, there was another "floor" meeting. I guess some people have gotten in trouble for drug possession in my residence hall already. Oh well.

[Add a comment . . .]

8-20-2005: Back at WVU, Day 2

Whenever I move to the dorms, I usually end of forgetting an item or two. This time, I forgot to bring a fan, my tool set, my shower basket and the plastic cup I keep toothpaste and toothbrushes in, and all but a single towel. My room was hot, so I seized an inexpensive used fan at a local thrift store.

This year, my academic schedule consists of several specialized classes:

• RELG 219, The History of Christianity; Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
• GER 203, Intermediate German 1; Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
• ART 494E, The Body in Art; Tuesday, Thursday.
• ART 250, Art History: Ninteenth Century; Tuesday, Thursday.
• ART 493W, Arts Administration; Wednesday.

I was able to buy textbooks for most of my classes without problems. In fact, I accidentally bought one of my books twice when hitting the bookstores; fortuntely, the refund procedure was painless.

My dorm room is directly connected to a bathroom shared with another room. I was pleasently surprised how nice the bathroom was: There were individual sinks for the occupants of each room, and the tile and fixtures looked fairly new. This was much better than the accomodations of the ironically newer Towers I lived in previously; the bathrooms there hadn't been upgraded or remodeled since the '60s and the water pressure in the showers was sometimes too low.

There was another "floor" meeting this evening. I found it surprising that nearly half of the students living along my stairwell were freshmen...living in what was supposedly an "upperclass" dorm. I wonder how many of them will drop out or be expelled in the coming year (no offense).

Finally, with this semester, everyone at WVU has been given new Mountaineer Cards. The Mountaineer Card serves a variety of purposes: It is equally applicable as a student ID, a library card, a Personal Rapid Transit system pass, a meal pass, a debit card for funds redeemable on some vending machines and in the laundry room, and a number of other purposes as well. My new card (which I had actually picked up several months ago at the end of the last semester) has a different design from the old one; the barcode that was on the old card has been removed, and the student mug shot has been moved to the side with the plastic overlay: A good thing, since my face on the old card was completely obliterated after being slid in and out of my pocket a few hundred times over two years. I did find it interesting, though, that my new card has the exact same photo as my old card; the one taken in 2003 with my head skewed to the side and with a nasty tuft of uncombed hair sticking out.

I took a break throughout most of the afternoon, and after the meeting and dinner, I rode a bus over to K Mart to buy a few items of immediate importance. I came back later and got inside a couple minutes before a thunderstorm hit.

[Add a comment . . .]

8-19-2005: Back at WVU, Day 1

This is it: I'm back again at West Virginia University for my third year there.

My parents and I arrived in Morgantown this afternoon. When we got to Boreman Hall, we unloaded all of the belongings I had insisted on bringing outside the building before my parents relocated to a more permanent parking spot. The first thing I needed to do was go into the lobby (where a number of tables were set up distributing information and room keys) and register, where I filled out or was handed a couple of forms and several of my keys. I have four keys: One to the exterior door of the dormatory, one to the door of my room, one to the door of the laundry room, and one to my post office box. Three of the keys look identical to each other, differentiated only by the cryptic letters and numbers stamped into each one. Nevertheless, these keys were the passes to my new home away from home.

Sure enough, there were Hotshots in yellow shirts presumably helping people out, although I will mention that not one of them helped out myself or my family. Instead, we took turns carrying or pulling my things the short distance from the "drop-off zone" to the dorm room itself. Boreman South is presumably WVU's oldest residence hall, and certainly one of the most quaint and interesting. There was even a booklet detailing the history of the dorm available for five dollars. Due to its unique architecture, there are courtyards and quite a few lettered entrances scattered throughout the exterior. Many rooms open up to a stairwell rather than a hallway, mine included; fortunately I didn't have many stairs to climb.

When I went into and surveyed my new room, it appeared to be in satisfactory condition, but surprisingly the phone appeared to be missing. I filled out my room condition report form and headed back to the lobby. There, however, I was shocked to find an empty room where there had been a bustling crowd hovering over tables minutes earlier. I was directed by an employee walking by to an air-conditioned office up a flight of stairs, out of one door, and into another. When I finally reached this destination, I was informed that the university had actually removed all of the telephones from the dorm rooms, since so few students were using them anymore! Fortunately they gave me a conventional phone I could use for no extra charge...a good thing, since I have never desired to own, nor seen any need whatsoever to own, a cell phone. I still think it was quite silly of the university to remove the existing wall phones, though.

When I plugged the phone in, however, I couldn't get it to work properly or produce a dial tone. I went back and asked if the phone lines were disabled, and, as the phone jack itself was old and partially painted over, if they could plug the phone into a phone jack in the office to test and see if the problem rested with the phone or the line. Fortunately, they gave me another phone to try out along with a phone number to call if I had problems with that one. I was thankful, although it seemed odd to expect someone having problems getting his or her telephone to work to call a telephone number for help.

I had better luck with phone number two than the first one, but depending on whether or not I stared at it cross-eyed, it would produce a dial tone, a load of snaps and crackles, or nothing at all. I may still need to call the number for help.

By this time, it was a bit later in the day, and we had our first dormatory floor meeting (although in this case the "floor" consisted of a scattering of rooms linked by a vertical stairwell), and I rejoined with my parents for a quick dinner at Subway downtown. We parted after that, and I spent the rest of my time (mostly) unpacking and getting situated in my new room.

[Add a comment . . .]

8-17-2005: End of Summer Break

Well, it's finally come: The time when my summer break ends and I go back to West Virginia University again for classes in the fall.

Last year, my schedule around this time of year was extremely packed. I was taking summer classes at Concord College (which became Concord University that very summer) throughout most of the season. I only had a couple of weeks left after the second summer semester at Concord ended (which I spent taking a ceramics class) and before the fall semester at WVU began; nevertheless we jammed a visit to my Wisconsin relatives and a number of other events into that small window of time.

By contrast, this summer's schedule has been much more leisurely for me, with no summer classes. Last year, I participated in WVU's "Hotshots" program, in which in return for the privilege of moving in early upperclass students help other students and families unload and move their possessions into the dorms. I accepted an invitation to be a Hotshot again this year, but got no notice back in the mail...AFAIK, they may not even be having the Hotshots program this year. Or maybe I should have known better than to turn the form in to the person behind the Bennett Tower lobby desk...

Bennett Tower was the name of the dormitory I lived in during my first two years at the university, and was where I had some pretty unpleasant experiences, primarily with problematic roommates. Not so next year. This time, I'm living in Boreman Hall, a different dormitory located downtown. The new residence hall will undoubtedly be more convenient in location, and I will have a single room. For once, I'm beginning to look forward to living at the university instead of dreading the moment.

[Add a comment . . .]

8-13-2005: Webcam Fun

I recently bought a slightly used (complete, in box) Creative Labs Video Blaster WebCam II.

I had been curious about webcams before, and I was a bit eager to try one out myself. The peripheral attached to the parallel port of my computer. Needless to say, the lone parallel port built into my PC was already occupied by my printer, and I wanted a solution better than one of the manual's suggestions to "unplug a currently connected device."

It is at times like this that I appreciate the interoperability of PCs. I pulled out an old serial/parallel port card that had been plugged into my IBM PC AT at one time. I plugged it into a computer fifteen years newer, and after disabling one of the computer's built-in serial ports to remedy an address conflict and having Windows detect it, it worked perfectly. I moved my printer to the second parallel port on the card, and used the first parallel port for the webcam since it was ECP-compatible.

Installation of drivers and software was almost a nonissue. Curiously, there was a little panel on the front of the box that said, "Includes Microsoft Internet Explorer," accompanied by the IE logo and four orange dots. Fortunately, IE 4.01 could be deselected and was not necessary to install the drivers or other software included with the peripheral.

Enough talk. It's time to try this webcam out!

Well...that's me.

Here's a silly picture where the webcam, precariously perched on top of the monitor, is pointed down toward the keyboard.

Ooh, I'm capturing an image on TV! What fun!

More to come (or not).

[Add a comment . . .]

8-8-2005: Not a Happy Mac User

(Previously posted under "Technology Talk," and last revised on 10-5-2006:)

In late 2004 I found myself in the market for a computer that 1) was a laptop and 2) was a Macintosh. As a longtime PC user, I had sometimes been minorly frustrated with Windows before, and it occured to me that biting the bullet and becoming a Mac owner would allow me to appreciate some of the newest computer technology without having to use Windows 98 or subsequent versions, which for various reasons I cannot stand. I had communicated a lot with someone who was a Mac user, and did a large amount of research on my own as to what sort of computer would be most suitable for myself. I was happy to find that most of the software I used on the PC had similar equivalents on the Mac, or at least so I thought. On October 1, 2004, I finalized my decision and ordered a new Apple iBook G4; a model with a 12" screen, 1.07 GHz processor, and 512MB of RAM. I chose the iBook over a PowerBook of similar specifications due to its lower price and more durable case.

Some consideration should be made to the other aspects of my decision. My parents had suggested that I should get a laptop computer earlier. I was going through a lot of stress at the time...difficult classes, living with a roommate who walked all over me, and the (justified) worries of an election year, and part of the reason I bought this computer was simply because I wanted something to enjoy and provide a diversion during a hard time. I also bought it with the intention of taking it to the library and doing my work there to get away from my roommate, and being able to conduct tasks such as checking e-mail when I was downtown and away from my dorm room and, thus, desktop PC on WVU's Evansdale campus.

When it arrived a few days later along with a copy of Microsoft Office 2003 I had ordered, it was an interesting event. Mac OS X was certainly different from older versions of the Macintosh operating system and the various versions of Windows I had used in the past. Most of the cross-platform software I installed was conveniently similar to the Windows versions I was familiar with, and I was pleased with the stability of the system and (of all things) the good selection of fonts installed by default.

However, not all about the Mac was perfect. I found it an unprecedented challenge simply to copy my files over from my Windows 95 PC to the Mac: Floppy disks were out of the question since the Mac lacked a floppy drive, as were copying to CD-R (the PC lacked a recordable CD-ROM drive), or a direct cable connection via serial connection, ethernet, or USB. I ended up having to compress, upload, and download everything over the Internet, a process inconvenient and tedious, to say the least. Afterwards, it was absolutely impossible to try to synchronize data on the PC and Mac. And additional frustrations arose from the fact that a lot of my files were saved in file formats (Works 3 or Windows Write, anyone?) that could not be opened with software I had available on the Mac.

While I did have direct equivalents for a lot of the software I had used on Windows 95, holes remained unfilled. There is a dearth of good freeware accessories available for the Mac. While I could do all sorts of unprecedented graphics work with Paintbrush (an accessory I had saved from Windows 3.1 of 1992), AppleWorks Draw was an absolute joke and didn't even allow the canvas to be resized. Surprisingly, there was no ordinary CD-player application preinstalled (only the over-integrated, advertising-inundated mess known as iTunes), although ironically a fairly decent DVD-player application was included. The third-party text editor, graphics viewer, and SFTP client software I had used on Windows were not available on the Mac, and I was relegated to using default accessories that were more limited and harder to use. In the end, I found the tasks I could get done limited to only word processing, working with spreadsheets, and browsing the web.

I also began to be annoyed by the Mac OS itself. While I had initially found it an interesting change from what I was used to using, my patience for some details wore thin. I disabled dock and icon animations early on, but it was impossible to disable all animations (such as those during minimization) and frivolous eye candy as I could with Windows 95. I got quite frustrated at how uncustomizable OS X was: I couldn't change color schemes or even move the trash can to the desktop, at least not by default. I also found myself disliking of some long-standing aspects of the Macintosh user interface itself, such as the lack of multi-document interfaces and the fact that closing a window of a program does not necessarily close the program.

It was even difficult for me to tell whether the iBook was off or on and "asleep," since there was no power LED and the machine was whisper quiet, except when I put a CD or CD-ROM in, when the whole thing made a racket and vibrated to an intolerable degree...unfortunate, since I often like listening to CDs as I work on a computer.

I worked up the habit of going to one of the WVU libraries, connecting the iBook into an ethernet connection there, and getting Internet-related tasks done. But one day, I found that for no obvious reason whatsoever, the computer stopped detecting the ethernet connection at the library, even though other people with laptop computers had no problems doing so.

And then it broke. A mere three weeks after I had started using it, I turned it on one day and nothing came on the screen. It would just sit there, making a noise like a helicopter. Running the computer off the AC adapter and recharging the battery to maximum capacity made no difference.

I contacted support, and after a lengthy call it was arranged to send the computer away for service. During this time, I reverted to using my Windows 95 PC out of necessity, and found that it wasn't so bad after all. After all of my frustrations, I all but stopped channeling my time, money, and energy into finding devious and sometimes difficult ways of getting the Mac to work right for me, and was content in productively using my PC in the same way I had done so before. Furthermore, some of my justifications for buying a laptop in the first place had ceased to exist: My then-roommate (Adam, it was) abruptly moved out at this time, so I had less incentive to choose to be out of the room rather than in it. Also, in December I started using the White Hall computer labs downtown, which I found were even more convenient than carrying around my own laptop computer for similar tasks. The PC remained my primary computer even after my Mac was shipped back to me, with a defective part called "630-6289 PCBA, MLB, 1.0GHZ" replaced.

I ultimately put the iBook (or the "$1000 mistake," as I more often thought of it by this point) up for sale, and the excruciating experience I had trying to sell it in the months thereafter was the final burst of patience the machine succeeded in upsetting. For better or for worse, the fact remains that I prefer desktop computers to laptop computers, and Windows 95 PCs to Macs.

[Add a comment . . .]

8-6-2005: You Find Something Interesting To Write About No Matter Where You Look...

Here's an interesting blurb I found printed in small letters on the back cover of my recently-purchased King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King CD:

Who said popular music wasn't thought-provoking?

[Add a comment . . .]

8-5-2005: Disappearing Comments

I recently noticed that the comments submitted on various entries here prior to early April were no longer visible. Well, as it turns out, HaloScan automatically "archives" comments after four months in a database not visible to anyone unless I donate $12 for a premium account. Oh well, you get what you pay for, and even so this is better than no commenting at all.

Just to let everyone know...

[Add a comment . . .]

8-2-2005: Birthday

I celebrated my birthday yesterday. Goodness, I've been walking this earth for over two decades now... ;-)

[Add a comment . . .]

7-30-2005: Thoughts on TV...

Aside from isolated times where I'd go to the library and watch old videos and filmreels of things like Nova, I almost didn't watch any TV at all when I was living in Morgantown and attending classes at WVU for much of the last two years. I've rather considered television to be something of a "treat" to enjoy primarily on breaks and during summer vacation.

The issue of TV was often a source of tension between me and my various roommates (or at least three out of five of them) my first two years of college. They all brought TV sets; often ridiculously big ones that barely fit on top of the dresser. And they kept the TV on more often than off; one of my roommates usually kept the TV on after he walked out of the room, and two of them actually liked to fall asleep with the TV on!

Most of the TV I've been watching lately has been limited to reruns of MacGyver, Home Improvement, and occasionally Knight Rider and Hunter. It's been a number of years since I last watched any newly-broadcast TV show in earnest.

The repertoire of my roommates, by contrast, solely consisted of SportsCenter and other ESPN sports programming (which I find nauseatingly dull); Reno 911 and Crank Yankers (which I don't find funny); The Simpsons, and Family Guy.

I actually don't mind The Simpsons in moderation, but to be honest Family Guy may be my least favorite television show. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why I hate it...it may be Peter Griffin's obnoxious voice, the fact that male characters' chins look like scrotums, the lack of any memorable plot, or a variety of these and other factors. Yet almost all of my roommates adored this show (one of them even bought and regularly played the seasonal DVD sets of the program). In fact, it sometimes seems as if everyone else likes Family Guy: On The Facebook, a popular college social networking website, there are some 2,196 WVU students in a "group" devoted to the program, which for comparisons' sake is twice the population of my hometown.

I may decide to bring a small, black and white TV set with me when I return to college in a few weeks, but you can bet that it won't be on very much!

[Add a comment . . .]

7-28-2005: Arial...

Here's a question for the books:

Is there any evidence of "Arial" being used as a typeface ANYWHERE prior to it being included as a TrueType font with Windows 3.1 in 1992?

Personally, I've never been fond of Arial--it's a cheap knock-off of the long-popular typeface Helvetica with identical proportions but uglier details (especially on the "1," "G," and "R."). I cringe whenever I see it in print, or anywhere else other than the low resolution of the computer screen. The signs designating buildings on the WVU campus are a mix of Helvetica (older signs) and Arial (newer signs). I'll stop ranting there, but if you want more I would suggest reading this interesting essay: "The Scourge of Arial."

[Add a comment . . .]

7-26-2005: University Housing Contemplations.

Lately, I've been thinking about where I'm going to live when I go back to West Virginia University for the fall.

Unlike last year and the year before, I will be living downtown, and I will be living alone...with no disagreeable, noisy, and/or insane roommates to put up with! I just realized that my room number happens to be the same as the Elektra catalog number of the Cars' 1978 album...something that probably only I would appreciate, but also something that should make it easy to remember.

Dimensions of various rooms in various dormatories at the university are available as part of the WVU Division of Student Affairs website. I found the 11'1''x14'7'' dimensions stated for my own room to be interesting: For a "single" room, this seems relatively spacious; in fact, it's only slightly smaller than my bedroom at home as well as last year's double-occupancy dorm rooms in Towers. And since it's downtown instead of on the Evansdale campus, I'll be able to take part in evening and night activities without needing to catch the PRT before closing or walk the distance home, as well as be downtown on Sundays, when the PRT does not run.

For once, I look forward to moving into university housing rather than dreading the moment.

[Add a comment . . .]

7-21-2005: A Trip to the Dentist.

Yesterday, I had a dentist's appointment and had my teeth cleaned. That might strike as an odd thing to write about, but there were enough complications to give me a few things to comment and/or rant on.

I still remember a Muppet Babies cartoon I saw when I was about six: Fozzie Bear needed to go to the dentist's office, and dreaded doing so. At one point, he had a fantasy sequence in which he was in a dentist's chair and was told some jokes: "Why did the chicken cross the road?" To get to the other side, perhaps? WRONG! The answer was, "To get away from the dentist!" I thought that was the most hilarious thing at the time.

Aren't dentists' offices supposed to play special "dentist office" music? No such luck. My dentist's office had a radio on, tuned to this awful "country" music station. I'm reluctant to criticize entire genres of music, but I have little tolerance for cookie-cutter recreations of '70s pop music "manufactured" often in an assembly-line fashion with fiddles and an annoying "twang" added along with occasional right-wing political lyrics. If dentist's office music is supposed to be relaxing, I found nothing relaxing about hoping that that "I'll Put a Boot in Your Ass" song, the latest Shania Twain lookalike, or anything by Kid Rock (Since when is HE a country artist???!) wouldn't come on. My cousin once referred to this dreck as "fake country music." I say, if you're going to play country music, make it REAL country: Classics by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams (Sr., NOT Jr.), and so forth. Or preferably, another genre entirely!

At least I didn't have any cavities.

[Add a comment . . .]

7-7-2005: A Sad Day in London.

I've learned about and join many others around the globe in condemning the bombings today in London.

I extend my condolences to everyone whose lives have been effected by these events, and wish that Londoners and, indeed, people the world over come through these events strong.

[Add a comment . . .]

6-29-2005: Rain and Associated Problems

Two days ago, we had a huge thunderstorm. Rain fell in heavy sheets for the better portion of an hour. In fact, this was the most rain I've seen at once in ten years. We had a small pond in our front yard and a raging river through our back yard.

The power went out for several hours, and the phone service seemed to go out as well. The day after the storm, the phones still wouldn't work right: There would be a high-pitched tone, or nothing at all, heard instead of a dial tone.

I had remembered to unplug most electronics equipment and appliances, but forgot to unplug the phone line from the internal modem on my computer. This particular modem I had acquired just a few weeks earlier for free. After the storm, I realized that the phones worked correctly if the phone line was unplugged from the modem. Likewise, the phones would not work and no dial tone would be heard if a phone line was so much as plugged into the modem, even if the computer was turned off.

After a little bit of investigation, I unfortunately concluded that the modem had been "zapped" during the storm. Pulling it out and replacing it with my old modem solved the problem...but my old modem is limited to 28.8 kbps and sometimes disconnects and refuses to reconnect. Oh well...I only use dial-up four months out of the year.

[Add a comment . . .]

6-24-2005: When In Doubt, Write About the Site

It's been a little while since I wrote about anything else here, so I might as well discuss some things about my website.

The basic appearance of the site...with black Trebuchet text on an off-white background with a yellow fade at top...was established last August. I haven't seen any reason to change it since...it looks nice.

In terms of content, I gave Lost A Whole Year, my Third Eye Blind site, some modest updates yesterday. I am still debating whether or not to promote the site more than I have been doing.

A far different section of my website, the Mozilla Network, leaves me far more questions I want to answer. Right now it provides download links only to U.S. English versions of Windows, Mac, and Linux software. I feel guilty of not providing software download links for more languages/localizations and (contributed) platforms, but at the same time there is limited space, for some versions (particularly old releases and new testing releases) only one language and few platforms are available, and I cannot provide everything to everyone in a resource I only intended as a concise guide to Mozilla software releases to begin with. That said, I heartily recommend visiting Mozilla's own site for Firefox, Thunderbird, and suite releases contributed for other platforms such as Solaris and OS/2, and (especially) their exhaustive, convenient list of recent Firefox/Thunderbird 1.0.x software releases for other languages and localizations from Afrikaans and Albanian to Turkish and Welsh.

Another part of that site I am not entirely happy with is the "Why should I use Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox?" section. I had originally written most of that a year ago to only cover the old suite. I later added Firefox and (to a very limited degree) Thunderbird references, and its attempts to cover multiple and sometimes dissimilar products seem awkward. I may rewrite it to cover Firefox and Thunderbird exclusively, to reflect the products being popularized now, and perhaps change the tone a bit to make it seem less "infomercial" like.

[Add a comment . . .]

6-16-2005: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

I finally got around to seeing "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" today.

The original "Star Wars" films were released in theaters before my time and I am hardly a Star Wars fanatic in the extreme sense of the term, but I have made a point of seeing the recent "Episode" prequel films within a few weeks of their theatrical release. I found "Episode I - The Phantom Menace" disappointing, and "Episode II - Attack of the Clones" was only slightly better. I can conclude that of these three particular films, "Episode III" is undoubtedly the best: It has more consistent action, and its storyline was more interesting to follow along. In addition, I found it satisfactory to see the storyline of the earlier prequels finally (if roughly) bridge with that of the original "Star Wars" film of 1977.

[Add a comment . . .]

6-12-2005: An Odd Firefox/Thunderbird Installer Problem

In the last several weeks, I've experienced an odd problem with the installer of Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird on my own Windows 95 OSR2 system:

When I run it, ten blank tabs appear at the top of the window. These tabs, when selected, display the respective "pages" of the installer window that would normally appear one at a time throughout the installation process. The third tab from the left displays a dialogue that is almost totally blank. Additionally, "OK" and "Apply" buttons appear at bottom instead of the correct "Back" and "Next" designations. I can still run the installer properly, albeit by having to select each tab in the proper order myself.

I first noticed this when installing Firefox 1.0.4, but then I noticed that the installers of other recent (1.0.x) Firefox and Thunderbird releases I still had saved on my computer did this as well, even though they had behaved normally at the time I had installed them to begin with! Evidently, this problem is on my end and is due to a change on my system within the last couple months.

What could be the cause of this odd problem (which, as far as I know, has never been experienced by anyone else)? Or is this what I get for using an operating system that's not "officially supported?"

[Add a comment . . .]

6-9-2005: Can't They Leave the TV Screen Well Enough Alone?

When watching TV recently, it occurred to me how much of the screen is defaced by things other than the program you're watching.

First of all, there's the TV network or station logo, inevitibly stuck in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. I'm willing to tolerate this if it isn't large, opaque, and/or animated, but that doesn't make me like it any more. I first noticed these in the early '90s during the evening news, although they had likely surfaced on some U.S. cable channels a few years before and in other countries for decades. At first, they only appeared on a few programs and channels, then they appeared on all programs for limited lengths of time (after commercial breaks, for instance). Now, they appear on virtually all channels all the time. Frustrating, isn't it?

And that's only the beginning. The "CC" designation for a closed-captioned program will likely take its place in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, and an "In stereo" banner might also appear if you're lucky, although both appear only for a few seconds at the beginning of some programs.

Then there's the ubiquitous TV rating (the designation such as TV-G or TV-PG placed in a square) that since January 1, 1996 has defaced the upper left corner of nearly all programs on U.S. television for the first fifteen seconds. The initial novelty of these wore off on me a while back, and lately they've only gotten more obnoxious and invasive in appearance. Last week I caught myself watching a rerun of "Full House" on Nick at Nite, and noticed that a) the rating box was now twice as large as it had appeared previously, now almost dominating the screen and b) the rating (thankfully in a smaller size) now appeared after every break in the program in addition to the very beginning, even if the only thing after a commercial break were the end credits. And this did not prove to be a technical fluke; I began seeing bigger and more frequently appearing rating boxes on other channels after that as well.

Don't even get me started on in-show network promotions.

Although I yearn for the days when network television was free from invasive on-screen logos, designations, and promotions, I guess I should be thankful that things aren't worse than they already are. Suppose a channel begins putting its logo in all four corners of the screen instead of one? Or keep the TV rating visible all the time instead of just the first fifteen seconds from the beginning and breaks? Or perhaps let the logo take up the entire screen and place the program itself in a tiny box in the corner? Oh well.

[Add a comment . . .]

6-5-2005: A (Computer) Recipe for Disaster?

I've been away from this computer for some time. In the meantime, I visited Milwaukee and got to see a number of relatives of mine in Michigan and Wisconsin.

I like to think of these vacation trips as providing a break from routine activities such as computer work. Lately however, more often than not that has not proved to be the case. As such, one of my relatives had a computer I was compelled to work on.

The computer was an aging IBM Aptiva tower with an AMD K6 processor and 64MB of RAM. It was running the original (i.e., buggy) version of Windows 98, and was a mess. The computer took over two minutes to load on startup. All kinds of virus/scumware scanners, extraneous bell-and-whistle applications, and other TSR ilk were present. The desktop was completely covered in dozens of unnecessary icons, and the "Start" menu was similarly cluttered.

My work was primarily limited to doing something about browser and e-mail client software. He was curious about Mozilla Firefox, so I decided to install it for him. Unfortunately, the installer would not run on the computer, for unknown reasons that left me completely stumped: The "extracting" dialogue and a couple after that would appear, but it would terminate and the main window would never appear. Since this means was eliminated, I reluctantly installed Firefox from a zipped build, but I needed to resort to version 1.0.1 to do so (without tracking down nightlies, which I didn't have the time or inclination to do). Although not current, Firefox 1.0.1 was more up-to-date than the unupdated Mozilla suite 1.7 that I had installed on the computer the year before, and worlds better than Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 (!), which was the only other browser installed on the computer.

My problems were far from over, though. I wanted to update the Mozilla suite to 1.7.8 and also install Thunderbird as well. Everything from this point on was a disaster, however. The Mozilla suite and Thunderbird installers didn't want to run on his system either, so I needed to spend a long time downloading zipped versions over his dial-up connection. Futhermore, I needed to download Thunderbird twice since the download corrupted the first time around. After uninstalling Mozilla 1.7 and extracting version 1.7.8 in its place, I received an illegal-operation crash message every time I tried to run it. Did the software corrupt itself? Who knows; in any case the error prevented me from running the software the second and third times I tried as well. Thunderbird wouldn't run at all, even though the system appeared to have prerequisites such as an up-to-date OLEAUT32.DLL file installed. I was tempted to say that my problems were due to the lack of necessary library updates, though I really didn't know for sure and I had no problems running the Mozilla installer on the same system a year before (In any case, Windows Update did not work either).

And these were only part of my problems. The system's specifications were just barely under the wire of Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird's system requirements, and these programs were slow at loading if, indeed, they loaded at all. Furthermore, the Windows 98 shell was quite slow and sometimes frustrating to use in and of itself...there were sometimes delays of dozens of seconds on end in having Explorer windows appear after I had loaded or switched to them when I had multiple applications open, and every move, even those of displaying menus, seemed delayed. Windows 95's shell on a computer of these specifications, by contrast, would have been instantaneous in performance. Futhermore, the computer, running the unstable first edition of Windows 98, was weighed down with so much junk that it completely froze up on me several times and I saw dozens of error messages I had never seen before and will hopefully never see again. There were even illegal operations and other error messages appearing on startup.

It's no secret that I dislike Windows 98.

Unfortunately after two days of getting nowhere, I was not able to satisfactorily resolve my problems and do what I had set out to do on this computer. I find it ironic that I have had much fewer problems running Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird on my own Windows 95 OSR2 system than I did on this Windows 98 computer, despite the fact that the first edition of Windows 98 is specified in these applications' system "requirements" whereas 95 is not.

[Add a comment . . .]

Older Entries...