March 2003 Archives

Peter Jackson will direct a remake of "King Kong" when he's finished work on "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King."

Acording to the United Press International: Hollywood Digest. Coolness, so who will be cast as Kong's love intrest and what will the CGI Kong look like?

Decided to through a Creative Commons Liscnse on my part of the content on fozbaca.org.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. - Bill Moyers on Patriotism and the Flag

[via Scritping News]

Claiming fozbaca.org on BlogShares. Now what is my valuation...

arcterex mentioned his, or the client's, woes with trying to find a Lotus Notes calendar replacement.

I have recently been given a similar task, the desire to share calendars/schedules between the Kentucky office, Australia and the world travelers. At first I put it to the back burner, thinking it would take more development time that allowed but some random link mentioned Mozilla Calendar Standards Based Calendar Client Project.

All by it's lonesome, not a big deal, but checking out iCalShare lead to,

PHP iCalendar is a php-based iCal file parser. Its based on v2.0 of the IETF spec. It displays iCal files in a nice logical, clean manner with day, week, month, and year navigation, printer view, RSS-enabled, and searchable. It supports 12 languages, is fully theme-able, and has complete timezone support.

Which combined with, How can I share my calendars?

To share your calendars, you need access to a webDAV server. If you run your own web server, you can install mod_dav, a free Apache module that will turn your web server into a webDAV server. Instructions on how to set it up are on their website. Once you set up your webDAV server, you can publish your calendar to the site, then subscribe to it from any other Mozilla Calendar. Automatically updating the calendar will give you a poor man's calendar server.

And maybe a very nice solution. I still have to play around with WebDAV on IIS, but this might be a workable combination. Oh, the delicious side effect might be to get everyong off of Internet Explorer, Outlook and Outlook Express.

One for those cartographers out there TroopTracker is a map if Iraq with rough locations of forces and what is going on. Kinda makes me wish for the days when I was planningon being a Geographic Infomation System geek.
[via Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog ]

According to TVShowsOnDVD.com Firefly is comming to DVD. Hopefully they will include the 2-3 unaired episodes and the original pilot. Also the site has lots fo good info on what is comming from TV to DVD.

Okay, I just got off the phone with someone at Fox that said a "Firefly" DVD was talked about in a meeting they had today. There is no other information regarding this title available, but it IS coming. We'll keep you informed when we receive more information, but nothing more is expected for some time.

[via WHEDONesque]

URL Rewriting with ASP.NET

RTH Calendar ASP.NET Calendar Control and Live Demo

URL Replacer Library

In case you were unaware I am an info junkie. Normally I run blagg emailing me items from tons of feeds all to furfil my info junkie need. Since the war begin my need has taken me to TV, even with my non cable status, to furfil my need to know. My info junkie need is based in a desire for understanding.

First off not a President Bush fan here. I used to joke that I "fled" to Canada in protest ot Georgr Bush winning the election. At various times in my life I have been both prowd and disgusted by my country and the actions the government and citizens.

Now you know part of where I am comming from.

Just yesterday one of the bits on ABC, I think, was interviewing an engineer who studied in New England for 4 years and was fron and currently lived in Saudi Arabia if membor serves me correctly. He had an english speakin wife and 2 kids, his daughter liked playing games on the computer and chatting online.

Now enter the confusion.

The above mentioned engineer expressed a desire to become a mytar in fighting the United States.

Why?

He has definately recieved a benefit from the country he was educated and lived in, yet wishes to help in destorying the benefits.

What wrong?

Somewhere along the way we, the United States, went from an idea that was idolized a place for higher learning desired by many of the world, to a place deserving anomosity and a place many desire to bring destruction and ruin apon.

It has to be something more than the actions of President Bush and his adminstration, remember the WTO riots in Seattle and Italy?

So what went so wrong? Why are many on the world siding along with Sadam Husean against George Bush?

Maybe I am niave but please I wish understanding.

Since mithrandir is gone to the great land of Scottland I felt a need to keep the movie quotes going.

Does this violate the patient doctor relationship?
Only if you grab my ass.

Build an XML/XSLT driven Website with .NET

bookmarklets

Show and label divs with ids
When designing a web page, you will often use ids in <div> tags to enable precise positioning using Cascading Style Sheets. This favelet highlights ALL <div> tags with a red border and labels each one with an id.
Show and label divs with classes
Exactly as above, but this time only <div>s that have a class are labelled.

[via Sanjay's Coding Tips]

President Bush has confirmed it, the War in Iraq has started.

Sounds, there are air raid sirens heard in Baghdad, like the war has begun. President Bush is to make an announcement at 10:15 PM Eastern. Sorry but I really feel sick, physically sick, did not expect to feel this way when it all started.

There is a new blog client Zepmt currently for Windows but the intention seems to be Linux and OS X. Kinda nice so far, still testing.

VLC (VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Making it easier to asway the MediaPlayer.

A little something those in the Lexington area might find useful, Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice Rally. A non-violent protest to be held after we invade Iraq. It is amazing how the feelings are so vastly different that from 12 years ago.

New project RSS feeds available for SourceForge projects. Very cool though I don't find myself adding any project to my feedroll, seems significant but not sure why.

Sun is plannon on enhancing Java to bring more Visual Basic-like features on board. Good show, most definately needed. Hope they introduce some relatively cheap brain dead easy GUI designer, unless there is one out there I have just missed.

The Code Project - Fun Stuff - The Scrapbook

An architect, an artist and an IT guy were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress.

The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there.

The IT guy said, "I like both."

"Both?"

The IT guy replied "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the office and get some work done."

[via stronglytyped]

Part of my move back to the world of Windows means having to deal with lots of users confused by the virus hoax.

Symantec Security Response encourages you to ignore any messages regarding this hoax. It is harmless and is intended only to cause unwarranted concern. - Symantec

To put things into prospective, they have to deal with being on the eve of a war with Iraq.

Believe it or not...this is the transcript of an actual radio conversation between a U.S. naval ship and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. The radio conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on October 10, 1995.

U.S. Ship: Please divert your course 0.5 degrees to the south to avoid collision.

CND Reply: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.

U.S. Ship: This is the Captain of a U.S. Navy ship. I say again, divert your course.

CND Reply: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course!

U.S. Ship: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS CORAL SEA,WE ARE A VERY LARGE WARSHIP OF THE U.S. NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!!!

CND Reply: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

Fact or fiction, you be the judge.

A little tax season humor I recieved from an I.R.S. employee.

A bright, young, fresh-out-of-school auditor just joined the IRS, excited to begin tracking down high-powered offenders-just as the Enron or WorldCom guys. Anxious for his first high-powered audit, he was a bit dismayed when his assignment was to audit a Rabbi. Looking over the books and taxes were pretty straight forward, and the Rabbi clearly very frugal, so he thought he'd make his day interesting by having a little fun with the Rabbi.

"Rabbi," he said, "I noticed that you buy a lot of candles."

"Yes," answered the Rabbi.

"Well, Rabbi, what do you do with the candle drippings?" he asked.

"A good question," noted the Rabbi. "We actually save them up and when we have enough, we send them back to the candle maker. And every now and then, they send us a free box of candles."

"Oh," replied the auditor somewhat disappointed that his unusual question actually had a practical answer. So he thought he'd go
on, in his obnoxious way..."Rabbi, what about all these matzo purchases? What do you do with the crumbs from the matzo?"

"Ah, yes," replied the Rabbi calmly, "we actually collect up all the crumbs from the matzo and when we have enough, we send them in a box back to the manufacturer and every now and then, they send a box of matzo balls."

"Oh," replied the auditor, thinking hard how to fluster the Rabbi. "Well, Rabbi," he went on, "what do you do with all the foreskins from the circumcisions?"

"Yes, here too, we do not waste," answered the Rabbi. "What we do is save up all the foreskins, and when we have enough we actually send them to the I.R.S."

"The I.R.S.?," questioned the auditor in disbelief.

"Ahh, yes," replied the Rabbi, " the I.R.S. " ...and about once a year, they send us a little prick like you."

1. Do you like talking on the phone? Why or why not? Don't like talking on the phone. There is something missing without seeig the person one is talking with. I have heard that 70% of communication is actually visual.
2. Who is the last person you talked to on the phone? Brian with Rise Consulting. A monitor go tie die and needed warrenty information.
3. About how many telephones do you have at home? 2
4. Have you encountered anyone who has really bad phone manners? What happened? Yes, every telemarketer. I hand up.
5. Would you rather pick up the phone and call someone or write them an e-mail or a letter? Why or why not? It all depends on the person.

the friday five

This one is for for engel, How Hydrogen Can Save America

Oil is an indulgence we can no longer afford, not just because it will run out or turn the planet into a sauna, but because it inexorably leads to global conflict.

Since some have been asking the ice storm pics are over here, here and here. Oh, and for those that have not seen it yet the Versailles Castle covered in ice and snow.

Also of note is that some pics from the great hair cut of 2002 were added.

... the idea that blogging (or even posting to fora) represents the democratization of the mediated persona. Literally anyone can have one, now, or several. - William Gibson

Now where is engel's persona?

It has been pretty busy since the ice storm, so not much time. Rants and raves may follow:

• NeoBook, HyperCardish windows app
• ASP.NET Starter Kits Beta, specifically the Community Starter Kit , Commerce Starter Kit and Portal Starter Kit

If there are any truely comparable Java alternatives to the previously mentioned let me know.

I can't count the number of times that the show DIV bookmarklet has been needed and I had to run down a working version. So to save myself in the future show divs.

Looks like Google is having some problems.

Go from http://fozbaca.org/blagg/blosxom.cgi/ to http://fozbaca.org/blagg/

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^$ blosxom.cgi
RewriteRule !^blosxom\.cgi - [C]
RewriteRule (.*) blosxom.cgi/$1

mod_rewrite magic on the blosxom list.

pop2blog checks an email account and posts messages to a blog, including pics.

Happiness levels tend to bottom out around 30. Eventually, after 5 or 10 years, you come to terms with yourself. You learn to control your aspirations. After you've done that, it's easier to get steadily happier again." How To Lead a Rich Life

Now add to that the Merilus tanking and being unemployeed when a man loses his job, it costs him $60,000 in happiness units beyond his missing salary. and my feeling of things really changing at 30 makes some being married contributes the same amount of happiness to your household as an extra $100,000 in annual income.

So the big question is does engel feel happier and richer after the wedding?