I use MSN Premium with my Verizon DSL pretty much only for it's content filtering and parental controls for the kids. However, being a geek I've always tried to keep my eye out for a more centralized system I could use with the 4 computers in my house. I tinkered with Linux a little because some of those services were free. But I didn't get anywhere with Linux and I didn't really like the thought of yet another computer in the house to act as the gateway - one more computer to support you know.
As the market matures there are more products available and the price is coming down. One such product I recently ran across is the ZyXEL HS-100W Parental Control Gateway Router with 802.11g Wireless. This product is small, simple and very cheap ($20 at Tiger Direct). It gets a good review at Toms Networking, which I think says a lot.
I'm not sure that I'm going to get this device even though a little voice in my head is saying it's only $20 so give it a shot - it will be cool to play with. I thought I'd share this info with anyone who was interested in getting a similar setup. I like the idea of a centralized system where I don't have to install and configure software on every system. But MSN Premium is working pretty good and it is totally free with my Verizon DSL package. Combine that with the fact that MSN Premium is already here and setup + the fact that I can be pretty lazy sometimes and you get a pretty good idea of what I'm going to do here.
I usually don't drink a lot of soda. I don't drink a lot of coffee or hot tea; Maybe one cup in the morning but not every day. But in the summer I drink a lot of iced tea. I usually brew Lipton Decaffeinated Tea. I was wondering if there really was a major difference in the caffeine level between regular and decaffeinated tea.
Well, looking at this chart it looks like 8oz of normal iced tea has about 47mg per serving, at least half the caffeine as coffee and about the same as Diet Coke. That's good news for tea drinkers, but when you consider that decaffeinated tea has 5mg per 8oz serving you can see that switching to decaffeinated tea really does make a big difference.
The US Government decided yesterday that they would stop charging the federal excise tax on long distance service. As noted in this New York Times article, "The Treasury Department said taxpayers can claim a refund on their 2006 returns for the long-distance tax, which was established in 1898 as a luxury tax on wealthy Americans who owned telephones." Here's a link to a press release on the Treasury Department's website. According to this USA Today article "The general excise tax has so far cost consumers about $300 billion, says the Congressional Research Service. The entire Spanish-American War cost only about $6 billion, adjusted for inflation." Wow!
The Spanish American War?! You've got to be kidding me. How does a tax like this stay on the books for so long? How about refunding us the $294 billion you took from us?
I have MSN Premium from my Verizon DSL service. Today I decided to log into MSN Premium (I hardly ever use it) and I started getting this strange error when I tried to access my email account.
It keeps wanting to download a file: "you are downloading mail.mailhost (1.50kb)" each time I try to go to my inbox. I found a news group thread with the answer to my problem...
Apparently one of the MSN DLL files got unregistered. To fix this problem simply go to Start -> Run and enter: "regsvr32 c:\progra~1\msn\msncorefiles\mailui.dll" (without the quotes). This will register this DLL again and you'll immediately be back in business. No need to reboot or anything.
Hope this helps anyone else with a similar problem.
I finally got around to listening to the ColdFusion Weekly Podcast from on version control (Version 1.6 beta - May 1, 2006). Boy do they hate Microsoft Visual SourceSafe. I've used VSS a lot and tend to agree that it has it's problems, but I don't think it's as bad as they lead you to believe.
Enter Subversion - they love this product and I must say they have my attention on this since I would love to find an alternative to VSS that provides better remote performance. Subversion looks very interesting and I'll have to find some time to play with this product. I'm also very interested in these two add-ons for Subversion: Trac Integrated SCM and Project Management and Subclipse. These look like they really add some great functionality to Subversion.
Two public interest lawyers filed a lawsuit against Verizon claiming that Verizon violated privacy laws by turning over phone records to the NSA.
My guess is that in the end if they are right, the people who were violated will get free CALLERID for 3 months as compensation, while at the same time these lawyers will get rich beyond most people's wildest dreams.
I understand both sides of this story and agree that the government and big companies need to be kept in check. But lets not forget that this is a time of war and the NSA asked Verizon (and other companies) to hand over the records. There are times when special circumstances take precedence. You're in a war and the government asks for information - some might consider that a special circumstance.
Regardless of how this case comes down, these lawyers will get rich. Where is the justice in that?
Sex offenders are everywhere. There are more around you than you would believe. This website (http://www.familywatchdog.us/) will show you the nearby risks on a map. It is startling. Go to the site and enter your address to see what I mean. This is a legitimate website. Read about it on this NBC website.
Zillow.com is really cool! It allows you to view a satellite photo of your property (much like Google Earth) as well as information about the property like it's value, type of house, size of lot, etc.
I'm new to MySQL so I don't know a lot about it, but I wanted to share my recent experiences. I've worked with shared hosting accounts for a few years, and I have to say that working with MS SQL is something that I dread any time I have to do it. Using Enterprise Manager to access the database on the remote server is not only slow but it's difficult to do just about anything, even basic things like backing up your database. I had to move the MySQL database from my last host to my new host a couple days ago and I used a tool called SQLyog. This is a Windows MySQL data management app that installs locally on your computer. Using this tool I scripted my database structure and data and copied it to my C: drive in no time flat. I was simply amazed at how easy and fast this was, especially compared to my experiences with Enterprise Manager. I did something similar using the PHP MySQL Admin tool at the new web host and it worked equally as well and as fast. It is a breeze working with these tools and MySQL compared to MS SQL and Enterprise Manager.
Whether you agree with America's policy in the war on terror or you don't agree, we must all support the brave men and women fighting the battle. I found this great website that supports the troups and would like to encourage everyone to visit the site - America Supports You.
With the price of gas hovering at $3.00 a gallon in my area (Maryland) and close to $4.00/gal in other parts of the US its putting a hurt on everyone. Fuel affects everyone. It's not like milk. I don't have to buy milk. I have to buy fuel for my car and even if I didn't have a car the cost of everything is affected by the cost of fuel.
Exxon continues to post record profits each quarter and recently they paid their CEO a $400 million retirement package. This is a slap in the face of every American. I'm all for capitalism, but when it comes to fuel I think that maybe things need to be done differently. I know the rest of the world has paid more for gas than us Americans for a long time. Much of that is due to very high taxes imposed by their socialist government. The US has some hefty taxes too. But when I see the largest company in the world making the largest profit of any company in the history of the world at the expense of every single American I call that greed! If you are interested in reading more about Exxon and it's greed you may want to visit this site - http://www.exxposeexxon.com/
I'm more concerned about the greed of Exxon and the other large oil companies sticking it to the average American than I am about the fact that I have to pay $3.00 a gallon for gas. If there is anything good to come from these recent price hikes its the fact that people are finally looking seriously to save gas and looking at alternative fuel sources. We must move toward more self sufficient fuel alternatives. We cannot rely on other parts of the world for our fuel. The fact is that these other parts of the world are hostile places. The flow of oil out of the Middle East could be interrupted any day. Fossil fuels will also not last forever. There is no denying that. Our government must push for alternative fuels but the government has been bought off by big business. The oil companies are in the oil business. They don't give a rat's ass about alternative energy sources. If you see a commercial saying how one of these companies is working for alternative energy it's basically nothing more than a PR campaign. From what I understand, most alternative energy research is being done by small companies with venture capital money. The big oil companies have a huge interest in keeping oil usage alive.
Have they invested a lot of money into research and development? Yes. But they are also making a huge profit on the backs of the little guy. Again, this is not milk. No American can avoid the cost of fuel. Their profits are going up! This means although their cost may be going up, their prices are going up faster than their costs. This is shameful.
What should be done? Our government must push for alternative fuels and for more fuel efficient vehicles. They must be serious about this. Not some half hearted attempt to make people think they're doing it. The oil companies need to bite the bullet and "make a little less" money by lowering the price a little. They can still make billions of dollars each quarter - how about making $8 billion instead of $9 billion? And every American needs to do what they can to help conserve energy.
I'm old enough to remember the Christmas when Richard Nixon said nobody is allowed to have outside Christmas lights. About the same time they started putting stickers on light switches saying "turn off lights when not in the room." Remember the campaign to turn your thermostat down to 68 degrees in the winter? Auto makers started making smaller cars. I remember Gasohol (10% ethanol). What happened to those days? They're gone - replaced by huge SUVs and nobody caring how much gas they're using.
I'm guilty too. I have a mid-size SUV. I've had it for 10 years. I drive less than 12,000 miles a year. What am I doing now? I'm looking into a much more fuel efficient car. I've replaced every light in my house with florescent bulbs. I've replaced my heating system with a more efficient unit. I've replaced my air conditioner with a more efficient unit. I've replaced the windows in my house with a high efficient model. I'm researching a solar power system for my house (anyone have info on these please leave me a comment).
The cost of gas sucks. I agree. We're all in this mess together and we each need to do our small part.
So... my friend asked me what I was going to put in my blog. According to Wikipedia, a weblog is a "web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles." The full definition on the Wikipedia page discusses many different types of blogs. I envision mine to be a little of all of them - except for the Moblog and Diary. I'm not going to post entries from my phone and I'm not going to post personal information like in a diary. Blogs can be boring enough, but reading about my personal life is sure to drive readers away. Although I can't really define what it will be I can easily say with it won't be.
Seems everyone has a blog these days. Guess I'm no different. Blogging is a great way to share day-to-day information with the world. Put it in your blog and hopefully someone will come and read it.
I've had a website for a few years and have reviews and general content that is meant to help people (consumer information). I have ported my site from different web hosts and different platforms and have learned a lot of new web development stuff along the way. At this point my website is only the blog.
Anyway, welcome to the blog. I'm glad you're here. Hope to see you back here again soon!
