Tech Stuff Archives

20 December 2006'Tis the Season
To make your own digital snowflake. Whoever made this site is a genius....
19 December 2006Trip Down Amnesia Lane
I was recently asked about some of the work I did while at Electronic Arts so I started poking around the Internet Archive to see what was stored in there and I came across the site for NBA Street which...
04 December 2006'Round the Wicket
You know, we live in the digital age. We have so many options, so much media streaming into homes, digital cable, braodband internet, iPods, etc, so there's no reason ever to see something like this: Due to rights restrictions, the...
05 May 2006Wikipedia
Does anyone out there use Wikipedia? I think it's one of the most useful sites on the web and one of the most incredible. Not only is all this information available to you free and online, but it has been...
04 May 2006Keep the Internet Free - Net Neutrality
Congress must keep the Internet free and open by voting for meaningful and enforceable Network Neutrality--the Internet's First Amendment.If you haven't been following this story, there's a movement afoot in Congress to end Net Neutrality in the United States which...
22 February 2006It Lasts Forever
Beware the dangers of email, a cautionary tale. The next time you're angry and want to flame someone, keep in mind, it lasts forever....
30 January 2006It's About Time
I've been in this indusutry as a web producer, content manager and web designer for most of the last ten years and today I'm finally going to my first industy confernece, Web Design World at the Moscone Center in San...
06 July 2005This Old Hard Drive
I've had my notebook up and running for a while now. HP/Compaq was actually really good for a change about getting me a replacement hard drive (still under warranty) and I went through the tedious process of installing the OS,...
23 June 2005Walking Back the Cat
Sorry about the lack of updates. My hard drive crashed, hard to believe with my sweet Compaq notebook, I know, but it happened. Details to follow....
02 June 2005Bored in the City
I'm sitting here in a computer classroom in the city (SF) in the middle of the second day of my training for Adobe InDesign. I really have no idea what I'm doing here. My boss sent me to this class,...
20 April 2005Pro Flickr in The Mutherfucking House, Yo!
Thanks to the incredible generosity of my online buddy Kelly in Virginia, I now have a Pro Flickr account which means I'm no longer limited to 100 pictures or three sets, at least for the next year. So I've got...
24 March 2005Sam Bisbee and Our Media
Through the always interesting site of web designer Mike Davidson, I came across a new site called Our Media, which looks really promising. Here's a blurb from their mission statement: Create. Share. Get noticed. That's what Our Media is about....
14 March 2005Complete Recovery
Good News. My new Lacie 250 GB Hard Drive arrived on Friday and I was able to completely recover all the files from the total meltdown that I had last week. I used a program called EasyRecovery Professional which has...
04 March 2005Hard Drive Update
Thanks to everyone who's written in with suggestion about how to recover the data from my personal hard drive Chernobyl. I tried some that didn't work. And I tired this program called GetDataBack and it was mildly successful, restoring something...
02 March 2005Major Virtual Meltdown
I'm having technological breakdown here. My external hard drive, my 250 gig external fucking hard has just stopped working. Yesterday it was exhibiting signs of an imminent crash. The drive was registering as "full", but some files weren't showing up....
10 February 2005New Toys
I haven't been taking nearly enough pictures lately, mostly because my Canon 10D is too heavy and unwieldy to take everywhere. So I broke down and bought the ultra compact Canon S410. I got a sweet deal. I only paid...
31 January 2005Pills, Porn & Casinos
If you have a blog, you've probably been hammered by spomments at one point or another. Even if you don't you'll love to read this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/31/link_spamer_interview/" target="_blank">interview, anonymous of course, with one of the spammers. Don't be a victim of...
31 January 2005Blogging From the Shitter
Ok, so I'm not really blogging from the shithouse, but I could thanks to my shinny new wireless router and a little help from Bill at D-Link customer support (I was frankly shocked not to be speaking to someone from...
29 January 2005Wireless Up & Running
The wireless network at the Tahoe house is up and running, so I now I can blog on the weekends. It's cool to have, but it's really strange sitting around the dining table with 6 or 7 other notebooks in...
28 January 2005Looking Down on the World
I came across the Terra Server this morning and it's like a new toy that I can't put down. I don't know why I'm so fascinated by this, but I can't help myself. I've been looking at old addresses like...
27 January 2005Posting From Bloggar
Just testing out w.bloggar, a desktop application that lets you easily post to your blog. I actually used it when I was in Samoa, but I've had to reinstall it and configure it for the new host. Here goes the...
04 January 2005Read Lots O' Blogs? Get Bloglines
If you have lots of free time on your hands and like to keep up with the blogs, you might want to consider checking out Bloglines. It's a free web-based service that's allows to manage all the blogs you frequent...
02 January 2005Cleaning House
It's a new year. Time to start fresh with a clean slate. So I spent a good chunk of time yesterday restoring my laptop. Mostly I needed to fix this nagging problem with the DVD+RW/CD-R drive which wouldn't recognize discs...
22 December 2004Out of Control
This morning when I came into the office there were 50 emails in my inbox, which is about 38 more than normal. What caused the increase? Comment spam on my blog. It's getting worse. It's out of control and there's...
20 December 2004Broadband Cometh
Alameda actually has it's own Electric company, Alameda Power & Telecom, so I don't have to deal with Pacific Gas & Electric. They offer cable broadband service to most of the island, but not my part of the island yet....
07 December 2004All Steamed Up
-->Until this weekend, I hadn't bought a new computer game in years. When I worked for Electronic Arts, I had every game every made at my fingertips. I think the only game I bought when I was working there was...
26 October 2004Look Ma, No Tables
I'm towards the end of the process of removing tables (except where intended such as tabular data) from my site converting American Idle over to a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) Design. My site is a very complicated mosaic of multiple...
13 October 2004Get Chipped Up
Applied Digital Solutions got medical clearance from the FDA for their VeriChip and the stocked has jumped almost 40% in a few hours. I'm not just mentioning this since I own stock in the company. I think VeriChip and Digital...
20 September 2004The Politics of Pixar
Just down the street from where I'm sitting at Chiron in Emeryville is the corporate offices of Pixar. Yes, that Pixar. Monsters, Inc. Finding Nemo. Infinity and Beyond. and Steve Jobs. There's a interesting article in one of the local...
18 September 2004OpenCourseWare
a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation,...
14 September 2004Another eBay Scam?
I just got this email from someone claiming to be from eBay: Dear eBay Customer, You have received this email, because we have indicate that someone had used your eBay account more than fifteen times today from different hostnames: ool-43500aa7.dyn.optonline.net...
13 September 2004Get Your Free iPod
Ok. So it's not really free, but it's not a scam either. You have to jump through some hoops, give up some personal information and sign up for some free trial (which you can then cancel at no charge), but...
17 August 2004How Cool is Google?
Ok, so they are having some trouble getting their IPO aprroved, but they are big into the spirit of the games. You have to love it....
03 July 2004Saturn is Cool
I don't care who you are or what you do, but you can't help be impressed by the images that are coming back from Cassini. They are awesome. They are beautiful. They are also very expensive. If you think your...
02 July 2004It's Not Like Stealing Cable, Is it?
My new computer from Compaq came this week, way ahead of schedule. It's a far greater machine than my previous notebook, 80GB hard drive, 2.2 GHz Athlon 3400+ processor, DVD+RW built in, 15.4" widescreen, just to name a few feature...
25 June 2004Victory is Mine or Dude, You're Getting a Dell
After months of struggle with HP/Compaq "customer service", they have finally given in and are going to send a new notebook computer to replace the lemon that I purchased. It's coming in 8-10 business days and it's coming direct from...
16 June 2004Yahoooey
Yahoo has jacked up their email service with a new look and mailbox sizes of 100 megabytes. For years I've been finesing my mailbox, trying to keep the size down below the 6 meg threshold. It was a constant struggle....
18 May 2004The Silent Treatment or My War with Compaq
Well it's not really a war. It's not even a battle. It more like a fight you have with your sister. You know the one. You piss her off and she gets back at you by not talking to you....
24 February 2004New Computer, Finally
After weeks of struggling with my old Dell notebook, I finally succumbed and picked up a new pc. It's really nothing special. It's a Compaq Presario 2500, not state of the art or anything. It doesn’t have a few things...
11 February 2004Knocking on Death's Door
My computer is on and off again working. It's driving me nuts. There are so many things that I need to use it for, not the least of which is adding images to this website. At least I have the...
05 February 2004More Laptop Problems
So I thought I had everything working with the Dell, more or less. I had XP on there which is a memory hog and runs slow on my notebook, but at least it runs. I could access my external hard...
31 January 2004Plagued by Blue Screen of Death
My computer problems have continued ceaselessly and I fear that my 5 year old intrepid Dell Inspiron 5000 notebook that made the trek all the way across to the South Pacific Top Samoa and back is about to be relegated...
25 January 2004Online Above 10,000 feet
Sprint runs a communications center at the top of the Eagle Bahn gondola where I am now trying to thaw out my little toes. Internet connection is super fast and, best of all, it's free. So you can expect daily...
07 January 2004Notes From a Broad
I've done my good deed for the year and migrated my friend Rachel from the dark side of Blogger and into the bright, shinning light of Movable Type. I installed the files for her and built her templates. She's either...
03 December 2003End of a (short) Era
This is the message on the Blogshares home page: BlogShares - Closed Down Dear BlogShares players, I am sorry to announce that BlogShares will not be reopening after the current technical difficulties are resolved. Currently, the database server is dead...
02 December 2003Small Victories
I finally got my mom's wireless network running. The last hurdle was being able to print from the laptop to the HP printer that's hooked up to the desktop. It was a monumental pain in the ass. At first I...
05 October 2003Pile-up on the Digital Divide
Discord at digital divide talks Looks the folks who are meeting in Geneva to discuss the ever widening "Digital Divide". The main problem, as always is "over who should pay for technology projects in the developing world. " The answer...
27 September 2003Everything You Ever Wanted Know About eBay Scams...
If you've been scammed on eBay, as I have, you'll find this story on MSNBC really interesting. I had my indentity stolen a few months back and it was a really unpleasant experience. You can read about it here. Also,...
25 August 2003I've Got Worms!
I don't really have worms. I've got one worm. Something called the W32.Welchia.Worm has infected my computer and I don't know what to do about it. The worm starts uploading information as soon as I get online. This wouldn't...
09 August 2003International Cooperation
I recently helped another PCV (Jim in Pokhara , Nepal) put a COS (Close of Service) countdown on his site. I don't know why, but its fun to help out other volunteers with their sites. Just being in contact with...
30 July 200324 Hours on Craigslist
This is so cool I hardly know where to begin. (Hey folks, these guys are for real, with some significant film credits to their name (see at bottom for details) and they're working on a documentary film about the craigslist...
12 July 2003Laptop Hosed
I came home this morning, turned on my computer and all I got was a little flashing cursor in the top left corner. No BIOS, no operating system, no nothing. There a very few things as disturbing as a non-working...
12 July 2003Blogs Go Mainstream
Blogging is about to get a mainline of adrenalin when AOL launches its "AOL Journals", a blogging too for the masses. If it doesn't already seem as if everyone who has an (in)coherent thought and access to the Internet is...
02 July 2003Upstream, downstream or bitstream
Rowing UpstreamSnapshots of Pioneers of the Information Age in Africa I came across a link to this book about ICT in Africa when surfing other blogs. The entire book seems to be online. It's got some really amazing pictures and...
02 July 2003Virgin Coconut Oil Kills Candida
When people take antibiotics, good bacteria are often killed along with the disease-causing ones. This leaves yeast, such as Candida which is not affected by antibiotics, to grow unrestrained, proliferating and overrunning the intestinal tract. The consequence is a yeast...
26 June 2003The War on Spam
The War on Spam has officially begun. I'm not talking about the pink meaty stuff, though someone probably should do battle with the people at Hormel. I' talking about the tons of asinine emails that fill up your email box...
24 June 2003Get Yourself a Segway
I know you've always wanted one, now you can buy a Segway direct from Amazon (not that Amazon needs a plug from me or anyone else). It's the perfect transportation solution for the geek on the move. Last month...
22 June 2003Sonification
I've been screwing around with Beatnik all day. It's kinda of fun. Downloading the plugin is a bit of a pain in the ass, but the end result is more than worth it. Beatnik are the only people delivering high...
02 June 2003This is Not an Exit
I'm back. I have not been abducted by aliens. I wasn't locked in a Samoan prison camp. I didn't fall into a coma. Nor did I suffer from temporary amnesia. Temporary insanity, yes. Amnesia, not quite. So what happened? Since...
19 May 2003Welcome to the Evolution in Mobility
Remember "Ginger"? Do ya? Let me refresh your memory. "Ginger" was the over-hyped invetion by the wacky genius Dean Kamen. Ginger has been marketed as "the Segway", the evolution in mobility. Why am I bringing this up to you now,...
07 May 2003Trouble in Paradise
Yesterday I got a frantic call from Father McGuire, the principal of Chanel College. He's got the computer room ready, all wired for 20 PCs, but half of them aren't working. I said, tell me what the problem is. He...
02 May 2003Yahoo Sucks
After 5 days of trying, I still am unable to get into my Yahoo! Mail account. I've been writing them every day, multiple times. I have appealed to their heart by mentioning, multiple times, that I am a Peace Corps...
29 April 2003
I don't know what is going on, but ever since yesterday, I can't access my Yahoo! email account. This wouldn't be such a tragedy except all my email addresses are stored in there. Yahoo is being very uncooperative because of...
19 April 2003Pigeon Power
This is an old story, but I came across it today, and it's just too funny not to pass along. File it under Scandavians With Too Much Time on Their Hands. Pigeon-powered Internet Takes Flight By Stephen Shankland Staff Writer,...
18 April 2003Development and the Internet
I just signed up for an online course, Development and the Internet, that is being run by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. It should be extremely interesting and I'm really looking forward to the...
13 April 2003Saved by Sio
My little notebook computer finally hit the skids over the weekend. The breaking point came with the attempted installation of a PCMCI card to read my memory stick. The OS found the new hardware and installed it, but on the...
10 April 2003Mission to Lefaga
Today I got to ride down the Lefaga Junior Secondary School in the far Southwest corner of Upolu. The mission: Meet with the pule (principal) to discuss their computers. The problem: I arrived at the school and no one was...
08 April 2003Compatibility Mode?
It seems as though the problem with my notebook computer is that it's running in something called "MS-DOS compatibility mode", whatever the heck that means. I ran the Dell Diagnostic on the system and the BIOS is reading the DVD-ROM....
08 April 2003Introduction to HTML
Tonight I'm starting my first secondary project, teaching an Introduction to HTML course at one of the local universities, Samoa Polytechnic. The course manual just arrived here at the Peace Corps office. It's something I hashed together out of resources...
06 April 2003Defrag
The Defrag of my hard drive is finally complete at 10:49AM after more than 14 hours. I didn't realize how fragmented my drive had become. Hopefully this will improve performance which has really bogged down lately. I'm having a number...
02 April 2003Digital Freedom Initiave
One third of the world could be left behind if more is not done to provide developing countries with the skills, knowledge, and access to markets necessary to compete. In globalizing developing countries, per capita income increased 5 percent a...
15 February 2003But Seriously Folks
Here's the story from the Samoa Observer about the computers donated to the DOE by ANZ. I love the part about the computers being in "very good condition". That's sort of like saying someone who's dying of cancer is in...
12 October 2002Movable Type is Up Running
After multiple aborbive attempts, I've got Movable Type up and running with the help of fellow volunteer Kris Rush. It's been a pain in the ass, but I suppose it's worth the effort because, well, look around. This is some...