computing

a $70 cable for $7

Posted Sat, 11/08/2008 - 5:42pm by dave

Even after more than 25 years of personal computing, it is still filled with mysteries and snake oil. Case in point: the $70 cable. Since Jessica left for college, I rebuilt her old computer into a simple machine that could be used with our family room television. We hope to use the computer for surfing the Internet and playing back music.

To connect to the TV, I needed to purchase a "DVI" cable. <geek>The TV is a 65 DLP that supports 1920x1080 through a DVI connection.</geek> I visited several local stores, including the various Office * stores. In each case, I discovered that they only carried a $70 cable - but had advertised a much less expensive cable ($20) on their website. I was advised that the less expensive cable was an "Internet special only."

Realizing that the cable was hardly worth $20 to me, I elected to visit my most trusted on-line retailer - NewEgg.com. A quick search at NewEgg.com demonstrated the absurdity of the $70 cables - 54 different options, all but 4 under $40 (including some at 50 feet long), most less than $20. I found a name-brand, comparable cable for $7 at NewEgg.com. Shipping was $4. It will be at the house early next week with a total cost of $11.

If I could have found a cable for less than $20 locally, I would have purchased it. Instead, the local retailers get nothing. Beware the snake oil...

am i in the right place?

Posted Mon, 11/03/2008 - 3:14am by dave

In what has become an habitual activity, I've completely rebuilt the look of our website. Since the system I use separates the stories from their visual display, I can rearrange the "look" of the website, without losing any of the content. The previous style appeared in parchment-beige on nicer computer monitors, but drab-gray on most systems. In a fit of desperation, I've jumped to a completely different style. In each case, I started with a style that someone else had created, then made available for free. I then began the process of modifying the appearance to my own design - color tweaks, layout adjustments, font changes. The new style should appear nearly the same on all computers.

Hope you like it!

technology overload

Posted Sun, 09/28/2008 - 4:08am by dave

Am I quickly becoming a curmudgeon? I looked around today and realized that I've fallen behind the technology curve - not because it isn't interesting, it just isn't interesting enough. Have I become "normal"??? Have I lost my geek edge? It's true that I no longer run a computer that is stabilized with a wooden shim twisting the motherboard into place, but I think there must be some hope. Let's take stock of some of the ways people can spend time with technology:

Internet stuff

  • Web sites - I have my favorites, but don't stray too far from them. If I stumble across something interesting on google, I may add it to my list, but that's becoming more rare with time. Too many sites, not enough time.
  • Blogs - okay, you can see I do blogging... I even do some custom PHP and CSS work to make my blog unique
  • Social sites - this list includes Facebook, MySpace, and a jillion other "social network" solution. I have a lame Facebook site that exists primarily so I can find Jessica's cool Facebook site. She uses hers as a pseudo-blog.
  • Professional networking - the list here includes LinkedIn, and other job board (Dice, Monster) type boards. I have an account on LinkedIn, which I primarily use to promote my career. Otherwise I don't understand the fascination here.
  • Micro-blogging - best example: Twitter. These site allow people to update their life events from their cell phone - teenagers can coordinate burger rendezvous with groups easily. Doesn't work for me. I understand it, but not into it.
  • MMORPG - giant on-line games with lots of people. I do play one: Maple Story. It's a Korean side-scrolling game designed for teenagers. We all got hooked when Jessica was a teenager. Anne has achieved pretty high status with one of her characters; I'm just loafing along, but it's moderately interesting.

    And what about non-Internet technologies?

  • Game consoles - XBox, PSP, etc.; just not into them, never have been. This could be a major chink in my geek armor.
  • Smart phone - had one, got rid of it. The phone was cool for e-mail and calendaring, but was lousy for phone calls. I wanted a cell phone that made great phone calls - picked up a Chocolate3 - plays my music, makes clear phone calls, happy with it.
  • Computers - I haven't built a box from scratch since we lived in Florida... time to save up some money! Machines are growing obsolete - can't buy parts for some of them now.
  • Digital photography - decently geeky. I shoot with a 4 year old Nikon digital SLR. It's only six megapixels, but I like it.
  • Digital video - no video camera here. I used to have a nice Sony, but it's 12 years old and just doesn't work reliably any more.
  • Satellite radio - have XM in the Altima... don't drive the car enough to get my money's worth from the radio. It's great when I'm in the car, but I ride my motorcycle most of the time!
  • HD TV - have the 65 inch DLP, just need more content. We have FIOS TV being installed next week - more to come there. When HD is good, it can be very good (college football, for example) - but it's often standard definition quality on an HD channel... not so satisfying
  • HD radio - haven't even heard it... anyone else?
  • GPS - have one; use it about twice a year. I usually know where I'm going.

    Where does it end

    Well, that's the point, I guess. The list could go on forever. As soon as I think it is complete, something new will be added - robot dogs, USB coffee cup heaters, vibrating game chairs, etc. So, I think I'll stop for now and consider myself geeky-enough. Perhaps, "responsibly geeky" would be a good description. Jeez, I do sound like a curmudgeon.

    • where did i come from?

    Posted Mon, 09/08/2008 - 9:44pm by dave

    One of the interesting aspects of running my own blog site is the smattering of meta-data, or associated data, the is created during its operation. For example, who sent you here?

    Most of the regular readers come to the blog directly (perhaps through a saved link, or "Bookmark"), and some read the blog using an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader. However, some people are directed to the website because of the results in a search engine, such as google or Yahoo!, or from an article on another website. I get "hits" for coffee, "Ball family pictures", and even David Ball - the country music singer.

    The most popular re-directions to Ballfamily.name might surprise you - here are the top five:

    #5 - Kitchen shutters - For some reason, the photo of our kitchen shutters shows up in Microsoft's Live Search page. Look for the nutmeg-stained cabinets (similar to dark cherry) with white shutters.

    #4 - Ball family - Not a huge leap to see this pop-up on the list. I thought it was interesting that our site is number two on Yahoo!s list, after the Ball Corporate, but before Lucille Ball.

    #3 - My friend Seujan - Seujan and I worked together at Starbucks under the most trying of conditions - systems failures. She proved to be a patient, positive force whenever any of our systems showed any type of instability. I really appreciated her sincere support. Her blog focuses on her triathlon training, which I read nearly every day... in utter disbelief. In December she's going to run 50 miles. I suspect the visits from her page are just her, which is just fine with me.

    #2 - The Big Ugly Box. If you've spent any time in our house, you're familiar with "the big ugly box," my home built subwoofer. I posted a short article about my satisfaction with the project on the designer's web forum pages - a bunch of fans followed that article to our web page.

    #1 - google searching for quiznos logo - At some point I wrote a blog article about the Quiznos store in Pioneer Square, and included a logo I found on the Internet. Since then, I've been getting hit after hit from google searching for that logo. Weird!

    turning it up to 11

    Posted Sat, 06/21/2008 - 9:35pm by dave

    The geek level at our house jumped by a couple notches this week with the arrival of Verizon’s fiber optic data service: FIOS. What does this mean for normal mortals? We can push and pull more junk through our Internet connection in less time. Our Comcast connection to the Internet was pretty good, but this new offering should allow more concurrent activities (games, video) without running out of room. In the end, many of the websites have their own “throttle” to keep pigs (like us) from sucking up all of their available bandwidth, so our connection to the individual web sites isn’t much different from before.

    alpha software running on the site

    Posted Thu, 05/15/2008 - 2:39am by dave

    Set the way-back machine to 1989. As a fledgling C programmer, I created a number of utilities for the old computer bulletin board community (precursor to today's Internet) and released those utilities into the wild. A couple of them did pretty well, garnishing the accolades of other system operators around the world. Fast forward to today. I have been working to submit my first Open Source update, which is live on this website now. I'm now working in PHP, trying to help other operators with updates to existing modules. Perhaps I'll even end up with a module of my own someday. For now, I'm very jazzed to have the opportunity to help out where I can.

    leaving your mark

    Posted Sun, 05/04/2008 - 11:47pm by dave

    DrupalDrupalI know that leaving a comment on the web site can be a challenge because of the "Captcha" spam-blocker. I put some extra code into the system today that I hope will help compensate for some of those challenges. If I've done things correctly, it should be a bit easier to leave a comment about a story! As always, if you find something broken, please drop me an e-mail. Sometimes my "super permissions" may mask functionality that is broken to the rest of the world.

    what happened to gracevideo?

    Posted Sun, 03/30/2008 - 5:57am by dave

    You may be thinking, "Oh! There goes Dave - he's lost his mind again." You'd be correct! I've purchased the domain name "ballfamily.name" as a potential replacement for gracevideo.com. For now, they both will point to the same site. Also, don't change any e-mail addresses! Continue to use the same gracevideo e-mail addresses you've been using for the past eleven years. Why the change? I am hoping to give the site a name that more accurately reflects its purpose.

    what has he done now?

    Posted Sat, 02/16/2008 - 3:53am by dave

    Okay, the site looks all weird again - it's just another sign that I'm in the process of updating the underlying system that supports my website. It should be all happy soon - even if it does look different. I'll be working on a new visual theme over the next few days, so you'll probably see little peeks of it from time to time.

    i'd tell you, but then i'd have to ... oh, that's cliché

    Posted Fri, 01/25/2008 - 5:07am by dave

    I spent two hours today at Microsoft playing with one of their top secret toys. As much as I'd like to tell you what it was, and what it did, I signed an agreement that precludes spilling the beans... besides, I'm hoping they'll ask me back to play again! I can tell you that the technology is pretty cool and the engineers who are working on it have a real passion for making a great experience for the customer. Yeah, I have a Microsoft bias, but I still think they're trying to build some cool toys.