April 29, 2008

Spammer Developments:
Two recent developments in the never ending battle - Death to Spammers! - If you think that this motto is extreme, you're either a spammer, or you're not receiving your fair share. Here are a couple of the spam related problems that have been vexing me of late

Foreign language spam:
Recently (over the last several months) I've been experiencing (as have many others) an explosion in the amount of Russian, German, Chinese (and others) language spam that I receive. Overnight (on the 28/29th of April, 2008), fully 41% of the last 100 emails were foreign language spam. As laws, and information about compromised computers create an atmosphere where spammers find it more difficult to operate, they will move to servers, and countries where the laws and security enforcement is lax. The amount of spam will continue to increase, but its effectiveness as a channel for income will lessen (thank goodness for small things). Another reason for the increase in foreign language spam is the lack of effective bayesian filters for foreign language content, so it gets through many of the spam filters. In either case, the amount of foreign language spam in my inbox has increased considerably.

Haben Sie wieder Spass am Leben! / Коммуникационно-музыкальная установка! DMS! / Система DMS представляет собой коммуникационно-музыкальную установку/ Hotelausstattung / Ganz neu / 再度、宜しくお願いします。/ Man Lebt nur einmal - probiers aus ! / Noch keine Reklamation / Traummusik / Скорость и качество доставки

zip file spam:
Another new trend in spam tactics. Spammers are attaching a .zip file to an email, and sending their spam without any URL / hyperlinks in the body. By avoiding the inclusion of URLs/hyperlinks in the message, they completely avoid many content filters. Due to the way some people have their computers configured, any .zip attachments may be automatically uncompressed. Hopefully, your computer doesn't do this. The .zip attachments contain an html page. This html page contains the URL / hyperlinks and remainder of the spammers message. Please keep in mind that following a hyperlink in a spam message exposes your computer to port scans, security compromise, and infection with a number of trojans. Thankfully, most people have already learned (some learned the hard way) not to open .zip files from untrusted sources.

This new trend won't last long. Since .zip is an open standard, ISPs will soon write routines which scan the content of the attachment. Spammers will soon find that they can't hide their spam inside a .zip attachment. Just another development in the never ending war. If you don't recognize the sender, it's safe to assume it's spam. Don't bother opening all those .zip attachments that you've been receiving.

If you ever need any help figuring out a problem involving unsolicited email, or help hunting down a spammer, don't hesitate to ask for my help. I'm willing and eager to help. Just drop me an email. I'd put the email address here, but this email message is also posted online, where spammers could scrape the email off the web page. Damn those spammers!
<https://www.robsworld.org/index2.html#fightingspam>

D&D updates:
We played a D&D session on the 19th of April, and I just completed some updates from that meeting. Our meeting on the 19th was primarily a combat session. The party made it's way through the bowels of Firestorm Peak. Navigating past many obstacles by magic, the party maneuvered themselves into a position where they could challenge or attack the deepspawn which caused them to retreat all the way out of the mountain. When they got there, they discovered the room was full of gibberling. After a battle with these canon fodder, they explored an underwater cavern, and fought a huge gibbering mouther. The party has once again returned to the twisted confines of Firestorm Peak. Returned to the heart of this rotting mountain, the party prepares itself for confrontation with the tainted evil forces of the Far Realm. Stay tuned for danger, stay tuned for mystery, stay tuned for adventure! Be sure to read the journal entry (which I'll post soon) for the gory details!

The Adventurers journal:
The tale of our adventurers. A series of journal entries from various party members. This document contains details of their encounters. Victory, defeat, desire and glory. Here is the tale of S.C.R.E.W.O.F.F.S., a group of adventurers who set forth from Whillip, seeking fame, fortune and the defeat of evil in these lands. This time the entries come from Lee and Sean. Journal entries from Dynnera, Belt and Thalidimar. No Solmar this time around. Be sure to read about the party's journey into Firestorm Peak.
<https://www.robsworld.org/ajournal07.html#apr19_2008>

Monsters encountered:
As a result of the meeting on the 19th of April, I added another new monster to this page. A swarm of piranha tried to eat Ysoac (the porpoise?!) - Thankfully these creatures aren't some strange form of twisted aberration, like those recently encountered by our brave party of adventurers. I also updated the steeder and brood gibberling entries. Brood gibberling are just one of the creatures being birthed by the deepspawn (that same one the party is currently hunting); a creature whish is clearly not of our realm. It hails from the Far Realm. Brought into this world through a vast gate; it's just another example of the tainted life forms leaching through that corrupt portal. If Madreus' plan is taken to fruition, we may find our realms swimming with creatures the likes of this abomination. The monsters page is a listing of monsters that the party has encountered, read about or heard of.
<https://www.robsworld.org/monsters.html>

Our next gaming date is 03, May 2008. It looks like Dino will be a bit late, and who knows, maybe we'll have a guest appearance by one of our previous players - You're always welcome to drop in Micheal. The party is currently attempting to locate the deepspawn (A vile and despicable horror. A powerful creature from the far realm - Read more about the deepspawn and other horrors at our Monsters page). The deepspawn holds one of the shards (a magical key) that the party needs in order to refocus the vast gate; a portal to the far realm. Without this shard the party will have little hope of ending the threat of taint in these realms. Stay tuned for more adventure; there will be lots of thrills and excitement in the months to come.

The party started this quest as a search for Tanar's father; but things have changed. Oh, how they have changed! Tanar was incinerated in battle with an unholy minion of the dark, and his father is likely some agent of evil. Why do these SCREWOFFS continue? It is the threat that propels them forward, the ever growing, spreading threat of taint. Of an evil which grows daily, an unstoppable evil that subjugates, corrupts and defiles all that it touches. Madreus, the alienst is attempting to bring forth an otherworldly presence into our world. Something that mortals dare not confront, something that will surely destroy all that is good.... If, if the party relents, if they fail, if they falter — This is the reason, this is why they continue. To surrender now would spell certain destruction and corruption for all that they hold dear. Their quest has taken them into the accursed Firestorm Peak during a period of celestial confluence, and now it takes them deeper still, into the twisted caverns beneath the mountain. Into the very heart of darkness. Many battles have been fought, many brave allies dispatched. The ground is wet with the blood of the innocent, but all that will seem as nothing should Madreus achieve his nefarious goals. With allies in a community of exiled Duergar, and refuge in the 'Monastery of the Hallowed Doctrine', our group of brave adventurers continues the fight. After resting at Grayven's Shrine, the party has once again returned to the twisted confines of Firestorm Peak. Returned to the heart of this rotting mountain, the party prepares itself for confrontation with the tainted evil forces of the Far Realm. Stay tuned for danger, stay tuned for mystery, stay tuned for adventure!
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ecampaign.html>

Neighborhood Watch:
My odd-ball schedule actually works in my favor for some things. One of those is a community support activity which I enjoy - I'm a volunteer with our local neighborhood watch. Like many of the people in my community. I own some nice things, and I want to keep it that way. Volunteering for the neighborhood watch doesn't require a lot of dedication, but it does require some attention to detail and a keen sense of your surroundings.

Recently (28 Apr, 2008) I sent out a crime prevention tip to the residents of my community (Tollgate Crossing), and I also updated the Neighborhood Watch web pages. I update the information page; adding some information about graffiti. I also updated some details regarding our next Neighborhood Watch meeting - 7 April, 7PM, Wednesday - at the clubhouse. Perhaps I'll see you there.

If you are a resident of 'Tollgate Crossing' in Aurora, Colorado, you might want to check out the new website. If you're a fan of "Rob's World!" you'll want to check out the web page, just to see what can be done with Apple's iWeb software. The web page turned out very nicely, and I hope it serves our community well. If you're a resident of Tollgate Crossing, and you're concerned about the safety and security of our community, you might want to join or mailing list to receive periodic alerts, updates and information. For additional information see the Neighborhood Watch web page.
<http://www.tollgatecrossing.org/welcome.html>
<http://www.tollgatecrossing.org/events.html>
<http://www.tollgatecrossing.org/info.html>

April 24, 2008

Movies:
I purchased three movies during the month of April (purchased from DeepDiscount.com). So what are the new movies? One foreign film and two American movies. Below is a short synopsis of the movies I bought. If you'd like a full review, see my movie reviews index page.

Foreign movie: The Lives of Others: Amazing movie takes place in East Berlin, before the fall of the wall. Under the watchful eye of the Stasi. 5 of 5. Best foreign film I saw in 2007. American movies: Incubus: On an isolated stretch of land, a pair of succubi engage in the torment of man. Luring the sinful to their deaths, and ultimate damnation. Oh what a gem! 5 of 5. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: A long, slow, and torturous journey into the souls of two desperate men. 5 out of 5.

With these new purchases, I updated the main movies page, my 'must buy' list, the listing of my movie collection, the reviews page, and an alphabetical index (see the ' angry critic' entry above) that I'm working on.
<https://www.robsworld.org/movies.html>

Software favorites:
There's been a couple of updates to my favorite applications in the last few days. In short order I downloaded the latest full release of GraphicConverter. One of the best graphic manipulation programs available for the Mac, and Panic released another update to Transmit, the best FTP client available for the Mac.

April 19, 2008

Software favorites:
There's been a few updates to my favorite applications in the last few days. I updated my version of X11, used to run native Unix applications. I also downloaded the latest update to GraphicConverter. One of the best graphic manipulation programs available for the Mac. Safari and Transmit were updated, and I even managed to install a new version of CUPS - the Common Unix Printing System. In order to achieve that feat, I had to un-install my copy of developer tools, download and install a new set of developer tools (it's been a while since I did that). After that I had to download the most recent set of binaries for CUPS. That was the easy part. Follow that with command line compiling of the application - which involves some fairly involved use of Unix commands, and you soon find yourself involved in a rather complex installation. No wonder I prefer the Mac. Compiling binaries, installing and linking libraries, this is the sort of stuff that most home users avoid. This small little project took me over a month to complete. After all is said and done, I've got the latest version of CUPS up and running on my Mac. Will I do it again? Not for CUPS. That's for sure. The exercise was useful, but I don't think it was really necessary.

Safari:
Apple's default web browser for OS X (also available for Windows!), is way ahead of the pack. Apple's browser contains a plethora of incredibly powerful features. I wonder why Microsoft stopped developing IE for Mac? I'm currently using Version 3.1.1 (5525.18). This latest update patches four security vulnerabilities.

Battle of the browsers. Internet Explorer vs FireFox. Those are your choices right? Wrong! Think different! Think Mac! Choose Safari, the new kid on the block. A fast (The fastest available for Mac) but full featured browser, which performs like a pro. Tabbed browsing, URL snap-back, a powerful but elegant bookmark implementation (with built-in import capability), Google search integration, built-in pop-up blocker, multiple standards (HTML 4.01 and some HTML 5, XML, XPath, XSLT, XHTML, DOM, CSS, RSS, ECMA Script, Proxy Support, SSL, TLS, JavaScript, Java, plus QuickTime, Flash and Shockwave plug-ins), and a host of other features. Just one more reason to Switch! It's won a place as my default browser, give it a chance and it'll soon be yours.

D&D updates:
We played a D&D session on the 5th of April, and I just completed some updates from that meeting. Our meeting on the 5th was primarily a travel session. The party made it's way through the bowels of Firestorm Peak. Navigating past many obstacles by magic, the party spent some time fighting gibberlings, and in the end they maneuvered themselves into a position where they could challenge or attack the deepspawn which caused them to retreat all the way out of the mountain. When they finally got themselves into position they discovered... The party has once again returned to the twisted confines of Firestorm Peak. Returned to the heart of this rotting mountain, the party prepares itself for confrontation with the tainted evil forces of the Far Realm. Stay tuned for danger, stay tuned for mystery, stay tuned for adventure! Be sure to read the journal entry for the gory details!

The Adventurers journal:
The tale of our adventurers. A series of journal entries from various party members. This document contains details of their encounters. Victory, defeat, desire and glory. Here is the tale of S.C.R.E.W.O.F.F.S., a group of adventurers who set forth from Whillip, seeking fame, fortune and the defeat of evil in these lands. Another round of entries from Lee and Mark. This time we even hear from Belt. Be sure to read about the party's journey into Firestorm Peak.
<https://www.robsworld.org/ajournal07.html#apr05_2008>

As the clock ticks forward:
Recently, Lee decided to create a timeline of our party's adventure. As this adventure is timed, the party needs to pay particular attention to the amount of time they've expended, the time remaining, and how far they progressed in achieving their goal. The crystal gates of Firestorm Peak will only stay open for 28 days, and they've already used 10 days. The gates wait for no one, and the party still has to find two more crystal rods. Who or what, holds the remaining shards? Will the party have enough time to find and vanquish the source of evil within this mountain? What of Nigel, Tanar's father? Recently however, the party has learned of a second, and even a third entrance into Firestorm Peak. Does this mean that the concerns regarding timeliness are moot? As the taint continues to spread, corruption and depravity threaten all in our realm. The party has located the second entrance, but an entrance through the Underdark isn't an easy way to get into the mountain, this third entrance hasn't been located, and one unasked question remains...
<https://www.robsworld.org/timeline.png>

3rd Edition Campaign:
I updated the next game date (19 Apr 2008) on the campaign page and changed some of the illustration annotation information (under the photo in the upper left hand corner). This is the first stop for information on the campaign that I'm currently running. Here you'll find information regarding our next meeting, some notes, and an index of web pages and documents that are important to our campaign.
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ecampaign.html>

Our next gaming date is 19 April, 2008. That's tonight! Unfortunately, it looks like Dino won't be able to make it. The theme for tonight's session? Hunting the deepspawn, or - Where or where is the deepspawn? The party is currently attempting to locate the deepspawn (A vile and despicable horror. A powerful creature from the far realm - Read more about the deepspawn and other horrors at our Monsters page). The deepspawn holds one of the shards (a magical key) that the party needs in order to refocus the vast gate; a portal to the far realm. Without this shard the party will have little hope of ending the threat of taint in these realms. Stay tuned for more adventure; there will be lots of thrills and excitement in the months to come.

The party started this quest as a search for Tanar's father; but things have changed. Oh, how they have changed! Tanar was incinerated in battle with an unholy minion of the dark, and his father is likely some agent of evil. Why do these SCREWOFFS continue? It is the threat that propels them forward, the ever growing, spreading threat of taint. Of an evil which grows daily, an unstoppable evil that subjugates, corrupts and defiles all that it touches. Madreus, the alienst is attempting to bring forth an otherworldly presence into our world. Something that mortals dare not confront, something that will surely destroy all that is good.... If, if the party relents, if they fail, if they falter — This is the reason, this is why they continue. To surrender now would spell certain destruction and corruption for all that they hold dear. Their quest has taken them into the accursed Firestorm Peak during a period of celestial confluence, and now it takes them deeper still, into the twisted caverns beneath the mountain. Into the very heart of darkness. Many battles have been fought, many brave allies dispatched. The ground is wet with the blood of the innocent, but all that will seem as nothing should Madreus achieve his nefarious goals. With allies in a community of exiled Duergar, and refuge in the 'Monastery of the Hallowed Doctrine', our group of brave adventurers continues the fight. After resting at Grayven's Shrine, the party has once again returned to the twisted confines of Firestorm Peak. Returned to the heart of this rotting mountain, the party prepares itself for confrontation with the tainted evil forces of the Far Realm. Stay tuned for danger, stay tuned for mystery, stay tuned for adventure!
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ecampaign.html>

Neighborhood Watch:
Civic duty? Recently (Oct of 2007), I decided that I wanted to do more to help my community. With shift work, finding something that I can do to help has been a bit difficult. When I started wondering what I could do that wouldn't necessarily require a specific 9-5 schedule, I realized that my odd-ball schedule would actually work in my favor if I were up at odd hours of the day. I decided to volunteer with our local neighborhood watch. Like many of the people in my community. I own some nice things, and I want to keep it that way. Volunteering for the neighborhood watch doesn't require a lot of dedication, but it does require some attention to detail and a keen sense of your surroundings.

Recently (15 Apr, 2008) I updated the Neighborhood Watch web pages. As you may be aware, on the 15th of April, 2008, our HOA (Tollgate Crossing, Aurora, CO) switched management companies. After considerable examination of the many operational and management needs of our HOA, the board of directors investigated alternate management firms. After their investigation, the board decided to change management companies. They selected Westwind Management as a replacement for MSI/Management Specialists.

Beginning on the 15th, the new company assumes management responsibilities for our HOA/Community. Hopefully they will do a better job/be more responsive than the previous management company. Their main mailing address is 15150 E. Illiff Ave, Aurora, CO 80014. Their main phone number. is 303-369-1800. The website: <http://www.westwindmanagement.com>.

Our new community manager is Tim Larson. His phone number is 303-369-1800 x119. His email address is tim (at) westwindmanagement (dot) com.

If you are a resident of 'Tollgate Crossing' in Aurora, Colorado, you might want to check out the new website. If you're a fan of "Rob's World!" you'll want to check out the web page, just to see what can be done with Apple's iWeb software. The web page turned out very nicely, and I hope it serves our community well. If you're a resident of Tollgate Crossing, and you're concerned about the safety and security of our community, you might want to join or mailing list to receive periodic alerts, updates and information. For additional information see the Neighborhood Watch web page.
<http://www.westwindmanagement.com>
<http://www.tollgatecrossing.org/welcome.html>
<http://www.tollgatecrossing.org/events.html>
<http://www.tollgatecrossing.org/info.html>

Our House:
Kim and I bought a new house on the 30th of March, 2005. Our first home. With spring's arrival, we've started doing some annual maintenance and cleaning. First on the list was a check of the air conditioner and a flush for the hot water heater. We chose the contractors (Ben Franklin plumbing - One Hour heating and air) from a referral list maintained by our favorite consumer advocate (Troubleshooter - Tom Martino).

<rant> The air conditioning check didn't go as well as expected. Previous checks were conducted by the company that installed the air conditioner - Barrett and Barnes heating and air. This company went bankrupt in 2006, and they're shady practices are evident in the installation of my air conditioner. While my air conditioner seemed to function fine, I recently learned that the installer used the wrong capacitor (a dual run/start capacitor rated 30 mfd vs the 60 mfd that was called for) on my air conditioner. The capacitor was not properly rated for my air conditioner. An underpowered capacitor can cause damage to the a/c unit. This improper installation can cause a motor to fail and burn up especially when heavy load conditions exist. So, Barrett and Barnes installed an underrated capacitor - presumably to cut costs, while putting me at risk of a costly repair further down the road. The One Hour heating and air technician replaced the underrated unit with the proper capacitor, and the a/c is running fine. There's no way to tell (at this point) whether there's been any damage to the motor, but this incident just goes to show you how a shady contractor put home owners at risk of costly repairs for the sake of profits. The 30 mfd capacitor cost about $30.00, while a 60 mfd unit costs around $60.00.

So, Barrett and Barnes filed for bankruptcy, went out of business, and all their equipment was auctioned off to settle debts. Unfortunately (in some cases), their failure to pay home builders was passed on to the homeowners by D.R. Horton. In a less than favorable move, D.R. Horton placed liens on the property of home owners. This move was met with shock and surprise by the homeowners (thankfully, I wasn't one of the affected parties), and there was some news coverage of the issue. </rant>

<rave>The flush of our hot water heater went much better. While the procedure went as expected. No big problems noted. No need for repairs or replacement. Hooray! One thing of note puts the ' Candlelight Service companies' in the winners column. One Hour heating and air has a "Always On Time... Or You Don't Pay A Dime!" policy. It's simple. If they're late, they pay you! $5.00 a minute get's you credit on their service call. So, a $40.00 service call turned into a $35.00 credit when the technician showed up 15 minutes late. Hey, I'd have preferred that they showed up on time, but you've got give them credit for this policy. My time is worth money - and this policy makes them winners in my opinion.</rave>

Getting things ready for the spring/summer season. Sometimes it's costly, sometimes it's easy; for now we're lucky. No big expenses. Hopefully, turning on the sprinklers will be just as simple... The costly part is going to be replacing the dead trees and shrubs in our front yard, but that's another story...

If you'd like to see some photos of our house, you're in luck. I've posted a rather large gallery of our house. You can see all the rooms, and parts of the yard. The photos are a mix of old and new, so you can get some idea of what it looked like before we started furnishing it. With these new purchases, I updated some of the photos. Luckily for me, I took multiple photos of each room/feature. I hope you enjoy the photos, we're certainly enjoying our new home!
<http://www.candlelightelectric.com/>
<https://www.robsworld.org/ourhouse.html>
<http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/13534350/detail.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/iphoto/ourhouse/index.html>

Hot and Cold - April's surprises:
Colorado's weather during April is always a topsy-turvy affair. Full of surprises - Sunshine, snowstorm, hail and rain. This year's April is no surprise. On the 14th and 15th (April, 2008) we enjoyed a warming trend. The temps were up there in the 60's and 70's (Fahrenheit). As a matter of fact, we actually reached 80 degrees on the 15th. Follow that up with a little bit of Winter's last gasp on the 16th. With an overcast sky, and low temps - down in the 30's and low 40's. My joints were telling me that a low pressure front was moving through the area. Accompanying this drop in pressure was moisture. As the low front settled in, the white stuff started falling. On the 16th of April, we accumulated 3 inches worth of snow. By the 17th of April, the temps were back in the 50's, and all the snow had melted away. Weather comes in several different flavors, when you live next to the Rockies. It looks like we're in for a wild ride this month.
<https://www.robsworld.org/barometer.html>

April 11, 2008

April's Surprise Snowstorm:
What's the deal? Here we are, nearly half way through April, and Colorado decides to dump another surprise on us. Beginning on the 9th of April, the rain started coming down. My joints were aching, and the rain was fairly steady. By the morning of the 10th it had become snow, and the snow accumulated. It snowed most of the day; from midnight until noon. We accumulated approximately 3 inches of wet sloppy snow. By 6pm, much of the snow had melted. As I write this (on the morning of 11 April, 2008), we still have some snow on the ground, and the temps are down in the freezing range. Hopefully it'll warm up enough during the day to melt the last of that snow. When will winter end!

Rob's World! was down:
The company I use to host my web pages, uses a company called CIHost for all of it's internet hosting. Well, CIHost had an unscheduled (and unreported) outage on the 10th of April, 2008. The unscheduled outage affected their hosting facility in Dallas/Ft. Worth/Bedford, Texas (wherever it is). Although I never learned the real reasons for the outage. The presence of some severe storms and flooding in the area (Dallas/Ft. Worth) leads me to suspect a power outage as the cause. Yeah, something as simple as a power outage caused all 50,000+ customers to lose data, connectivity, commerce, money! That's odd, according to their service level agreement , they have UPS and generators available at their hosting locations. Maybe the power outage caused their UPS to fail? Maybe the flooding shorted out their generators? Maybe they just don't give a damn about their customers.

The outage lasted (approximately) from 0300-1930 MST on the 10th of April, 2008. That's right Rob's World!, my Neighborhood Watch website, and most of my email services were unavailable for approximately 15 hours. It's a good thing I'm not selling anything. That's enough downtime to drive some companies into bankruptcy. As far as I can tell, this outage affected all the customers hosted at their Dallas facility (in excess of 50,000 customers), and CIHost still hasn't bothered to explain why their failover/failsafe measures didn't work (just like last time!). Good luck trying to get any credit/discount on your hosting fees. A liberal interpretation - which I'm sure they'll employ - gives them an out for just about every circumstance. Good luck, if you should want to cancel your account/service with CIHost. As of this posting (11 April, 2008: 0206MST), the website where you go to cancel your account is unavailable - How convenient!

Neighborhood Watch:
Civic duty? Recently (Oct of 2007), I decided that I wanted to do more to help my community. With shift work, finding something that I can do to help has been a bit difficult. When I started wondering what I could do that wouldn't necessarily require a specific 9-5 schedule, I realized that my odd-ball schedule would actually work in my favor if I were up at odd hours of the day. I decided to volunteer with our local neighborhood watch. Like many of the people in my community. I own some nice things, and I want to keep it that way. Volunteering for the neighborhood watch doesn't require a lot of dedication, but it does require some attention to detail and a keen sense of your surroundings.

Recently (11 Apr, 2008) I updated the Neighborhood Watch web pages. The following changes were uploaded:

* I updated the 'Welcome' or main page. I changed the look a bit. Changing some object frames, the positions of some information, color schemes, font details, and some other minor web page structures. I changed one of the banners to indicate our new PAR (Police Area Representative)
* I updated the PAR information on our 'Events' page. Our old PAR got promoted, and some of his duties were reassigned to other officers. The neighborhood watch maintains a close relationship with the PAR for our area.
* I added some more information regarding our next meeting (7 May 2008). The Neighborhood Watch Commander for district 3 will attend our next meeting. We hope to see you there as well.

If you are a resident of 'Tollgate Crossing' in Aurora, Colorado, you might want to check out the new website. If you're a fan of "Rob's World!" you'll want to check out the web page, just to see what can be done with Apple's iWeb software. The web page turned out very nicely, and I hope it serves our community well. After the meeting, I updated the Neighborhood Watch page. I made some format changes, updated the events and welcome pages, and created two new pages: Community Information and the Alert Me List.

If you're a resident of Tollgate Crossing, and you're concerned about the safety and security of our community, you might want to join or mailing list to receive periodic alerts, updates and information. For additional information see the Neighborhood Watch web page.
<http://www.tollgatecrossing.org/welcome.html>
<http://www.tollgatecrossing.org/events.html>
<http://www.tollgatecrossing.org/info.html>

April 8, 2008

April's Audio Acquisitions:
Here's a list of some of the music I recently acquired. Where do I get all this stuff? I find a lot of free (actually free) music by visiting several of the new music web sites out there. Artists want you to hear their music - If you like it, you'll buy it. The major labels want you to pay for their product - letting you hear it for free is contrary to their business model. Well, guess what? I won't buy it unless I can listen to it first. The major labels are killing themselves with their restrictive distribution and dissemination policies. If you like new music, you can do a google search to find your favorite artists web site, a new music web site, or an archive of free music. Free music is available - Legally! Don't believe the major labels propaganda - Not all free music is illegal. You can legally download music for free. I download music from websites, newsgroups (when I already own rights to the music), and a couple of commercial sources. Here's a listing of some of the music I legally downloaded.

eMusic monthly downloads:
Every month I download 90 tracks from eMusic.com. I bought in when the price was right - $19.99 for 90 DRM free songs a month. At less than $.25 a track, that's a awesome value. iTunes eat your heart out. You can't get that deal anymore, but eMusic still offers more music for your money, and the variable bit rate recordings make for exceptionally high quality.
* Human League - Secrets: (16 songs) A blast from the past. One of my favorite bands from the 80's. This is the first album from this British synth pop band in over six years. I'm groovin' to the romantic, synth, stylings of this smashing band from Sheffield England.
* Skalpel - Konfusion: (10 songs) My second download from this Polish, experimental, electronic, Jazz, blues, fusion, duo. Great instrumental arrangements - Punctuated at occasion, by ephemeral, moody, vocal stylings that emote a mood of sidewalk cafes after midnight. An excellent endeavor, more ephemeral and sedate than the self titled debut, but equally ambitious.
* We Are Standard - 3,000v-40,000w: (12 songs) A 3hive.com discovery. Funkadelic, enthusiastic, and rip-roarin' rock-tastic. This band is jammin'. Raw energy and unequivocal emotion rips through the current of their charged set. I look forward to more from this band.
* Mason Jennings - Century Spring: (10 songs) Contemporary folk never sounded so good. Here's an artist that I've been following for over a year. Romantic, evocative, vocals and outstanding acoustic instrumentals. Discovered through emusic recommendations.
* Jonathon Coulton - Smoking Monkey: (12 songs) I first heard this man's music back in 2006 (from a MacAddict disc). I've been downloading an occasional track (from his very generous website). This time around, I'm downloading an entire album from eMusic. Contemporary pop-folk. Brilliant, quirky, funny, lyrics. Creating modern-day fairy tales.
* Andrew Bird - Soldiers: (8 songs) Dreamy, complex, layered music. Combines carefully arranged instrumentals, with witty folk lyrics. Vocals are outstanding as well. I first discovered this artist through eMusic more than a year ago. This is my second album download.
* 808 State - Ninety: (8 songs) A recommendation from a co-worker. Excellent! An amalgam of modern dance. Mixes the insistent energy of industrial with the positive vibe of house. Wash it down with a soothing side of new age nuance. Great stuff. I'll have to download another.
* The Dream Syndicate - The Dream Syndicate: (4 songs) I first listened to the Dream Syndicate back in in the early 80's. My copy of the Medicine Show was played so many times that I wore out the tape (had to buy a second copy). Dark, moody, psychedelic rock with a bitter alternative edge. Great guitar work marks this 1985 U.K. reissue of their debut album.
* Stephen Malkmus (and Jiks) - Real Emotional Trash: (10 songs) The former frontman for Pavement. Indie rock attitude lets loose and grooves out with the guitar. I've been following him since 2005. This album isn't my favorite (too much with the guitar solos) but it's got plenty of excellent tracks.

iTunes purchase:
Sometimes I purchase music from iTunes. Things I can't find on eMusic. Some of the more 'popular' titles are unavailable on eMusic. iTunes has a larger selection. It's the King of the Hill when it comes to the bigger names, so sometimes I find that I have to pay the higher prices. Here's another helping from the iTunes store:
* B-52's - Funplex: (13 songs) I can hardly believe my ears. It sounds like they haven't changed. I originally began listening to this band in the late 70's, and now they've got a new release. Their first studio release since 1992. Retro-surf dance tracks, beefed up a bit with some new synthesized techno beats. Rock Lobsters rejoice - Dance out loud!

These are just some of the items I added to my music collection during the month of March. Since returning from Japan in 2001, I've been rediscovering my appreciation for music. I really picked it up again in September of 2005. Since then, I've been slowly adding, revising and updating my music collection. With these acquisitions, I've updated my online music listing. If you have a comment or a question regarding my music collection, please don't hesitate to send me an email.
<https://www.robsworld.org/mymusic/index.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/music.html>

Saw a Robin:
Must be spring. I've started spotting Robins in my back yard (first noted on the 5th of April, 2008). Looking for worms no doubt. The ground has thawed, and temperatures are heading up. I haven't seen any Robin's all winter long, now that they're back, I'm looking forward to warmer temperatures. They may have been here earlier (according to info found online), but I just started seeing them in my neighborhood.

Moving Music around:
Since returning from Japan in 2001, I've been rediscovering my appreciation for music. I really picked it up again in September of 2005. Since then, I've been continually adding, revising and updating my music collection. Since I started my eMusic subscription, I've been accumulating an ever increasing amount of digital music, and it's been eating away at my hard drive space. The situation was getting critical. I was starting to delete old applications, clean out some old X11 binaries, delete movies and photos. I needed more room to expand - So I bought a new hard drive. On the 4th of April, I bought another 500gb external hard drive. This time around I bought a Western Digital MyBook drive. Western Digital is one of the more reliable drive manufacturers, so I spent the extra money and purchased a brand I was more confident in. After connecting the new drive, I re-formatted it. The Windows FAT32 format sucks! So I erased the disk and formatted it (using Disk Utility) in MacOS Extended (Journaled) format.

Once I had it formatted, I was ready for the difficult part. Moving our music to a shared directory on this new external hard drive. From listening to the MacCast podcast, I knew what I wanted to do, and thanks to the Internet, I was able to find some instructions. I wanted to move all of my music (and Kim's music) to one consolidated library on a external drive. The combined library would allow both of us to access all the music without permission problems. The new library would have to be in a /Users/Shared/ directory in order to avoid permission problems, and I wanted it on the external drive so that I'd have room to store the ever expanding collection. The first thing I did was move the /Users/Shared/ directory (and all it's sub-directories) to the external drive. I then created a symbolic link (an alias) to take the place of the original directory structure. After I did that, I followed some instructions I found for consolidating the iTunes Music collection.

Before I moved any files, I created a bootable cloned back up of my entire boot drive - Just in case. The consolidation operation took more than four hours to complete, but everything went well. I had a slight problem formatting the hard drive, but that was solved simply by trying the format operation a second time. After moving and consolidating the music libraries into a single library. I tested the new set up under both of our accounts. Adding, removing, and playing tracks with no problems. I didn't move our iTunes database files, so all the ratings, notes, and play-counts remained the same. Relocating the music files themselves wasn't all that difficult. It required some pre-planning, some reading, and some familiarity with the command line. After I thoroughly tested everything, I configured TimeMachine to back up the contents of the external drive, and rebuilt the permissions on the boot drive.

With the acquisition of the new hard drive, I updated my Computer page.
<https://www.robsworld.org/mymusic/index.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/mycomputer.html>

Still getting snow in April:
Yes, we're still getting snow in April. When Kim woke up this morning (7 April 2008) she was surprised to find a coating of white covering the lawns of Tollgate Crossing. It got damn cold last night. So cold that I had to crank up the electric blanket. By the time I got up (10am) the snow had stopped falling, and most of it had melted. Later that day (around 12pm), it started snowing again. It didn't last long - about an hour, but it served as a brief reminder that old man winter doesn't give up without a fight.

I saved a pile of Money:
<rave>...By switching away from GEICO! Kim and I have been GEICO customers ever since 1992. We originally selected GEICO because of it's name - GEICO stands for Government Employees Insurance Company. While GEICO's original business model was based on the (correct) assumption that government employees (and their family members) would constitute a more financially stable and less risky group of individuals, they've moved away from that original business model. Since the 1970's, GEICO has been insuring the public at large. Their service has been fantastic, but I always had the nagging feeling that their rates were kind of high. On a few occasions, I compared them to other insurers, and found that they actually had pretty competitive rates. Lower than the other insurers (with my military discount). Unfortunately, I had never compared them to USAA. The United Services Automobile Association (USAA) is a Fortune 200 financial services company focused on providing banking, investing, and insurance to people and families that serve, or served, in the military of the United States and other selected federal agencies. Membership is still restricted to that group of individuals, and as a result, they are able to offer lower rates than the standard insurance company; Including GEICO. On the 4th of April, I found out how much GEICO wanted to charge us for auto insurance. For six months of coverage on our two vehicles, they wanted $767.50. Once again, I though it was a bit high. So Kim wrote down the details, and I called USAA.

Time for a little head-to-head comparison. After spending an hour on the phone, I had a long list of details - and I had made my decision. I made sure to compare identical coverage plans (and deductibles). I didn't want to end up missing some piece of coverage, so I took my time comparing the plans. I got the same discounts (categories) that GEICO gave me, plus I was already purchasing home owners insurance from USAA, so that lowered my premiums a little more. In the end, USAA ended up saving me $359.13 - For six months coverage. That's well over $600.00 savings for the year! A 53% annual savings - Wow! What a huge pile of money! I wish I had known about USAA earlier. People have recommended it in the past, but they never gave me a good reason to switch. Now I know the secret. Huge savings. Savings you can't ignore! I'm gonna start recommending USAA to my friends and co-workers. Thank you USAA!</rave>
<https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_logon/Logon?action=INIT>

April 4, 2008

iTunes is number one!
Recently (on March 3rd, 2008) Apple announced that the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) surpassed Wal-Mart to become the number one music retailer in the US, based on the latest data from the NPD Group*. With over 50 million customers, iTunes has sold over four billion songs and features the world’s largest music catalog of over six million songs. Wow! So much for Wal-Mart's big marketing lever. They used to pummel the music industry with that big stick all the time. Hopefully this will result in more online music sales, an overall reduction in the price of music, and a greater variety of available tracks. I don't buy from iTunes all the time, but I do get a good number of tracks (usually spending more than $100.00 a year) from the iTunes store. I prefer eMusic. It's cheaper, doesn't have any DRM, has better quality (higher bit rates) tracks, and a decent selection of independent artists.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/04/03itunes.html>

Software favorites:
There's been one minor update to my favorite applications in the last few days. Apple released an update to Keynote recently. This update addresses performance and stability issues when working with large documents. I'm now running Keynote 4.0.3.

iWork '08:
iWork is Apple's productivity suite. Previous versions of iWork contained two applications, a bit anemic for a productivity suite. It was missing a crucial component. No spreadsheet application? This year (2007), things are different. They've added a spreadsheet application. Numbers is the newest addition to the productivity suite. With the addition of this new component. iWork becomes a feasible replacement for the venerable (and still useful) AppleWorks - which hasn't seen an update since 2004. iWork is also a home contender for Microsoft Office. Most home users don't need the power provided by Microsoft's productivity suite, the applications are Office compatible (No it's not 100% compatible, but it can open, edit and save as Office documents), and the pricing is far more affordable than the behemoth on the block. So, the addition of numbers, the fantastic price ($79.00 for three full feature productivity apps), the great reviews (that I've read), the compatibility (Office and AppleWorks) and the outstanding support that Apple provides, have enticed me to switch from AppleWorks to iWork. All of the iWork components contain web based output options, which is crucial for anyone creating web pages, or managing a web site.

iWork now consists of three productivity applications:

Pages - A word processor and page layout application. The application has been revised to include a simple 'word processing' mode. No need for frames, centering objects or selecting layout templates. This new mode lets you open the app, and start typing immediately. In addition to this new 'simple mode', Pages includes some very sophisticated page layout capabilities. With 140 page layout templates, you've got a huge arsenal of sophisticated, ready to use, professional looking documents waiting for your input.

Keynote - Apple's outstanding presentation software. This application features many capabilities that PowerPoint lacks, and the reviews have been glowing. Instant Alpha (remove backgrounds), 30 effects (works on any object), 25 transitions, voice-over recordings, and A to B animations make Keynote a heavy hitter in the presentation arena.

Numbers - The latest offering in the iWork round-up. It's Apple's entry into the spreadsheet ring. Apple has taken a simplified approach to a complicated subject. Create intelligent tables using drag-n-drop or natural language formulas. Numbers even works with Exel spreadsheets. No, it's not 100% compatible, but it covers most of the bases, and it tells you when it can't recreate some formula or function.