Category: Technology

Very observant readers will notice a new link under navigation called tutorials. This is where I’m planning to put a lot of the things I’ve written about programming and system administration. There will be another new section added soon for my projects.

Right now, the only available tutorials deal with the Lua scripting language. If you’re a programmer interested in integrating Lua into your C or C++ programs, this will be wonderful news for you. If you aren’t, this will probably just give you a headache…

Well, here it is – my 100th entry on this web site.

I started keeping an online journal all the way back on September 9, 1999. Back then I was still adding entries by hand editing the HTML. We’ve certainly come a long way since then.

Now seems like a good time to reflect on why I started doing this and why I’m still doing it. A web log is a great way to keep in touch with friends and family who are far away. People anywhere in the world can look at our site and see what we’re doing.

A site like this is also a way of recording our lives so our children can see what it was like “back in our day”. Note to self – I need to post something about walking six miles to school everyday, up hill, both ways… You know, just for future reference.

Another good reason for keeping a site like this is just to have a way to express your feelings about things in a public way. Everyone has opinions about things that they would like to share (for proof of this see my post about SUVs and terrorism). I think many people spend the majority of their lives feeling like they can’t really be themselves and show their true colors. It’s almost like therapy for me to share my ideas and opinions with the world.

As I’m nearing the end of my degree in Computer Science, I hope to evolve this site into a demonstration of my programming and design skills. To this end I’ll be adding a section with programs and tutorials that I have written on various topics.

It’s taken me almost four years to come up with my first 100 entries, and I think that’s way too long. Back around the beginning of the year I said I would like to update the site several times a week, and I still feel that way. No one visits a site that isn’t updated regularly (except maybe Geoff). And if no one is visiting the site, I might as well shout my ideas from the rooftop. In an effort to keep the neighbors happy, I’ll do my best to post interesting things here a lot more often.

So check back soon, you never know what you’ll find.

If you haven’t read my previous entry about GeoURL then go read it and come back here.

As is often the case with new websites, they’re now down for maintenance. If you want to try it out and see websites for people near us, check back tomorrow. Oh well, it was fun for a few minutes this morning, hopefully they’ll make it even better.

I just read about an interesting new website called GeoURL. They can give you a list of websites for people that are near you geographically. You sign up for their service by giving them your web address (URL) and location (longitude and latitude). Once you’re in their database you can get a list of sites near you.

Anyway, I signed us up for it and added a button (at the bottom of the right column) to the site so you can see websites for people near us.

I’ve been working hard lately on my Fill in the Site program. I’ve uploaded a new version, and added a lot of information to the web site. If you’re a network admin at a school district, and you’re interested in setting up web pages for all of your teachers, you might want to check it out.

This is all being done in anticipation of the upcoming article about me in The Paris News.

I just saw a funny link over on Slashdot.org, LinuxWorld.com has a page with several classic Christmas songs rewritten with a “tech spin”.

Here’s a few of my favorite lines. This one’s to the tune of Silver Bells.

Dim the hall lights, use the street lights,
Gotta save all our green
We’ve run out of all our unemployment.

It’s the big crunch, we’ve a good hunch
That our 401K
Will be empty by early next year.

And how could you not love Microsoft is Coming to Town?

You better watch out
You better not cry,
“I don’t know where all my licenses lie!”
Microsoft is coming to town

You paid for it list,
You paid for it twice;
You paid even more for legal advice.
Microsoft is coming to town

They know when you run Windows
They know when you use Word
They treat a loyal customer
Like a lying, thieving turd.

If this doesn’t get everyone in the Christmas spirit, I don’t know what will.

Here’s some information that might be useful to you if you’re trying to upgrade your motherboard or move a hard drive from one computer to another. I spent most of Sunday night doing this, so maybe by posting it here I can save someone out there some grief.

Back in the “good old days” of Windows 9x, all you had to do was pull the hard drive from one machine and plug it in to the other. Of course you then had to spend a few hours installing drivers for all the new hardware, but that’s another story.

Now with Windows 2000 and XP, this procedure is a little more complicated. If you pull a Windows 2000 hard drive out of one machine and plug it into another you’ll get a nasty blue screen of death that says something like “INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE”. To my knowledge, there’s no way around this message. Windows 2000’s repair process won’t fix it, and I couldn’t find a way to fix it at the recover console.

So here’s what you do. Before you remove the hard drive from the first computer or take out the old motherboard, change your IDE controller driver to Standard IDE. Here’s how to do that on Windows 2000:

Go to Start, Settings, Control Panel
Double-click System
Click the Hardware tab
Click Device Manager
Double-click IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
Double-click the IDE controller
Click the Driver tab
Click Update Driver
Click Next
Choose Display a list…
Click Next
Choose Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
Click Next
Click Next
Click Finish

Now instead of restarting your computer, shut down and move the hard drive to your new computer or swap out your motherboard. Your computer should now boot all the way to the desktop so you can start loading all the drivers for your new hardware.

I can’t wait to see how Microsoft improves their OS next…

I just read a little article over at ArsTechnica about was has to be the coolest invention I’ve seen in a while. They’re calling it a virtual keyboard. There’s a picture of it in action at Yahoo.

Basically it will connect to a Palm or other small computer, and project an image of a keyboard on any flat surface. You can then type into the Palm by touching the projected keys. The company that made it has a website, but it’s pretty bare right now. Maybe they’ll put some ordering information up soon, I’m anxious to see how much something like this will cost…

Everything seems to be working great so far. Now if I can just get all of the DNS servers updated I should be back in business…

Here’s my first post into the MovableType blog on my new site at Modwest.com.