Wednesday, August 30, 2006

DVR software

I've recently written a couple of entries on Minimum Linux about my experiences with MythTV. You'll have to head over there to read about the troubles I ran into, and as I mention there, I've settled on GB-PVR under Windows XP for now. It seems to do most of what I wanted out of Myth, without too much hassle getting things going, so it'll do for now. One thing I do look forward to is getting some of the PC games set up on the home theater system. It could be lots of fun :)

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Sorry so quiet...

I realize that I've been a bit quiet on here lately. I've been suffering from a pretty severe cold, which I'm finally recovering from, and have two(!) exams in psychology class this week, the second of which is tonight. After that, summer session is out and I have a week before fall quarter starts, so hopefully I can get some serious blogging done (or at least, some of my projects worked on).

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

SAVE MALAK

I received the following email in my inbox overnight, and have posted it in as timely manner as I could.
As a Persian-American human rights lawyer and activist, I am writing to seek your support in the international campaign to save the life of Malak Ghorbany, a 34 year old mother of two, who has been sentenced to death by public stoning in Iran for committing "adultery." As you are aware, it is extremely important to generate as much publicity and awareness about Ms. Ghorbany's case, as well as those of other women who have been recently sentenced to death by stoning in Iran, including Ashraf Kahori.

Last Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors introduced a resolution to urge the U.S. State Dept. to officially condemn sentences of "sangsar" (death by stoning) in Iran. The resolution includes references to cases of Malak Ghorbany and Ashraf Kalhori, and the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on it on Tuesday, August 15, 2006. I am extremely optimistic about the adoption of this resolution, as it opens the path for other governmental bodies to take similar steps in condemning the barbaric and violent sentences of public stoning in Iran. You can read the full text of the proposed resolution at: http://www.stophonourkillings.com/index.php?name=News&file=print&sid=345

I would be enormously grateful if you would publish the information about Malak Ghorbany's case and death sentence, as well as about the pending resolution denouncing the inhumane and barbaric sentence to which Malak and other Iranian women have been condemned.

You can find relevant information, along with the link to the petition that has been set up to protest Malak's stoning sentence at the link below.

SAVE MALAK: http://savemalak.googlepages.com/home


Should you have any questions or require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me via email at LMazahery@gmail.com


Sincerely,

Lily Mazahery, Esq.
President
Legal Rights Institute
Washington, DC

Monday, August 14, 2006

Great quote

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.

-Ben Franklin

Saturday, August 12, 2006

What happened to the week?!?!

I'd like to apologize to everyone. Last time I looked at the calender, it was Monday. Now it's Saturday. Wow. I didn't mean to go all week without posting any updates, but time just got away from me and I didn't realize I hadn't posted anything here. On a positive note, I've finally been getting into a pretty good ryhtm over on Linux Security and Minimum Linux. I was also planning on submitting a segment for Security Monkey's podcast, but time got away from me and I missed his deadline. Maybe I'll prepare something anyhow so that I have it ready for next time.

Oh, since I've already mentioned my blogs over on Linux World Net, I thought I'd mention a couple of more things. First, Naked Linux, a Kubuntu blog, still needs a writer. Also, Ohio LinuxFest 2006 will be held on Saturday, September 30, and I plan on covering it for Linux News as well as my other blogs. If any readers (from any of the blogs) has plans to attend, let me know! It'd be great to meet some of you.

Monday, August 7, 2006

Upcoming projects

Just a quick note to let everyone know about some projects I'm working on.

First, I'm working on a page dedicated to my 1999 Jeep Wrangler. The page will be mostly static, so once it's complete it won't take a lot of time to keep up to date. Most updates will be projects and/or pictures as they come up.

Next, I plan on putting together a page about the Tandy CoCo. I've been meaning to do this for quite some time, and it's about time I got around to it. Again, it'll be mostly static, but not completely.

Finally, there's the BBS page. I've been wanting to set my board back up for quite some time, and I still plan on it. When I do, I'll work on a matching website for it. I'll probably write a program to take the last post in the "From the SysOp" sub and post it to the site, and maybe put some usage stats on the site as well.

Well, there you have it: the projects that I'll work on when I'm not at work or at school, or busy with "real life" or my other blogs.

Saturday, August 5, 2006

Sorry 'bout the downtime

Sorry 'bout the downtime late last night/early this morning. We had a series of power outages that was just enough to make my cable modem decide to malfunction until I reset it. To make up for it, here's a random picture I found on the net that's absolutely hilarious:

Thursday, August 3, 2006

Usage Statistics for July 2006

Up until a few months ago, I used to post interesting information that I've seen in my log files on pretty much a monthly basis. Even though it's a couple of days late, I thought it might be kinda nice to formally make that a monthly feature. So, here's a quick rundown of from July 2006:

Outside of US .com and .net domains, Israel was the number one country represented in my logs for July. France surrenders (they were second. Go read Fark if you don't get it). Overall, thirty different domains are represented. Some other interesting tidbits:

My Arpanet visitor is back. I'm curious as to who is surfing the web from an old Arpanet address.

My .mil visitor is back as well. Yes, I bitch about Bush and the "war on terror." But if you're not fighting for my right to bitch, then you're in the wrong profession.

Hello NSA spooks! I know AT&T could just route my packets to you guys, so I appreciate that one of you took the time to visit my site legitimately ;) (No, I don't really know who visited, or from what branch. Just that it originated from a .gov address.)

I also had a visit or two from Saudi Arabia this month. Could it be one of my .mil friends visiting from off-base?

Other visits, aside from .net, .org, and .edu users, originated from the Netherlands, China, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Sweden, South Africa, Australia, Canada (one of my fellow Linux World Net bloggers?), Austria, Germany, the UK, Norway, New Zealand, Finland, Spain, Seychelles, Turkey, Belgium (can I get an award for the most gratuitous use of the word 'Belgium' in a blog post? UK DNA fans won't get it, but US ones should), and Brazil.

Hello to everyone from around the world who took the time to visit in July. I see ya lurking there ;)

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

Productivity tip

I was surfing around a few weeks ago and discovered a productivity tip that I thought I'd try. Unfortunately, I've lost the source blog, so I can't credit where I found it. But it works great so I thought I'd share my modifications to it.

The tip itself it to simple drag your taskbar to the left side of your desktop and turn auto-hide on. By itself, this tip will drive you absolutely nuts. So what I did on my office machine was change my "theme" to classic Windows instead of Windows XP because the Start button is smaller. From there, I drug the taskbar to the left side of my desktop. However, I did not turn auto-hide on just yet. I spent a week or two getting used to the new location of the Start button (in the upper left) and taskbar. Once I was used to it being there instead of along the bottom, I turned auto-hide on. It works great, and gives me more desktop space. The only thing I miss is having an always-visible clock, but I could get a third-party utility for that :)