New blog location

I have moved my blog to a new location. Please update your records. http://duanehubbard.homelinux.com
I will be working on transferring the posts from here to there.

Feeling geeky

I've been wanting to setup a server at home, that I could access from anywhere; too bad I have been too cheap to pay for a static IP, or a Dynamic IP service and I haven't had a domain name in a while.
Since work has been a bit slow as of late, and I've been working on learning shell scripting, I thought I would try my hand at creating a few scripts to help me out. One script to fetch the servers outside IP address and upload that to an FTP server (yes, I know security concerns), and another to pull that IP address from the FTP server and apply the updated IP address to my laptop's hosts file. I have it working on my server at work, and should have it working on my home server after I set the box up this weekend.

The only thing I'm not happy about is using an outside FTP server, bit I'll look for a better solution to that a bit later.

Anyone familiar with DynDNS.com? I happened to spot it while looking for a Dynamic IP service, good, bad, or ugly?

While I'm feeling geeky, I think I'll try writing the AI for Data (from TNG), should be done in a week or two.

Changes, we all go through them

During my last years of high school I became a vegetarian, that lasted for about five or six years*. Then for reasons that I still don't completely understand, I started to eat meat again, that was about five or six years ago*. Looking back, I don't feel that either of those changes were completely driven by me, but were also driven by external forces.

Why did I just bore you with that? I'm not really sure, but I think it was important for me to write out, or maybe I just like to bore people (I'm leaning towards option two).

Now I look at things and I think it is time for a change, one that is solely driven by me, and my conscience. In the not too distant future (not cosmically speaking), I will be changing to a vegetarian diet again, and I think I will be the better for it. Now I just need to tell Jana.

** The exact dates are a bit fuzzy to me.

One sad thing, and one funny thing

First the sad thing. Jana's father passed away tonight. Yeah, can't get much more sad than that.

Now for your laugh:

Diet and Exercise

Okay, I admit it - I'm fat. Nothing too shocking there, but it's still good to say it. I've known this for a while now. I've said that I was going to do something about it before, but never with too much conviction. Well guess what, I'm doing to do something about it (feel free to imagine the conviction in my voice). Before, when I would try to do something about it, I would setup complicated workout routines, and diet solutions - this time I'm using a different approach, nice and simple (K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid). Simple seems to work, when I started exercising I weighed 223lb, as of today I weigh 215lb (217lb after a shower), I've lost about eight pounds in two weeks.

Exercise

First thing is first, I decided to exercise. Rather than a complicated list of what exercises to do on what day, I decided to do all of my exercises everyday. Simple. I have a set of eight exercises (not counting walking) that I do every work day when I get up. The total workout time is about 35 minutes. I started this on the last day of April, I'm still going and getting stronger everyday. I push myself when I exercise, but not to the point of exhaustion, I think that is the key for me.

Diet

I started exercising first, and I started a diet second. The reason for this is because I needed to make sure that I would stick with what I was doing, rather than letting it fall away.
Many diets focus on what you can and can't eat, or how many calories you take in. I'm sure each has it's advantages, and it's disadvantages - but one thing each have in common, they are not truly simple. So I decided to go with the most simple diet plan I could find, the No-S Diet. It has three rules, and one exception, can't get any more simple than that. I started the diet on 10-May, so I'm still young on it, but it so far has been rather easy to follow. It would be easier if I didn't have someone trying to shove half of a Hostess Cup Cake in my mouth.

I'm trying out ScribeFire to post this.

Man Paperwork sucks

Last week I looked around the house, and noticed all of the important papers that were just lying around the house, on the couch, on the floor, between the cushions of the couch, in the cat's play area, on the computer table, and none of it in the filing cabinet that we had bought. I won't say that I'm a neat freak, never have been, but the amount of paperwork that was just lying around really bothered me. There have been times when we needed a certain piece of paperwork, but to find it we had to turn the house upside-down.

Okay, the house needs cleaned, and organized, that much is obvious. Now how would any good computer geek proceed in doing that? I had no idea, till I finished my tax paperwork and wanted to make a copy - I used my scanner to make a copy. Eureka! I would scan all of the paperwork into the computer, and save it that way - easy to organize, file, and search. The best part is that once I get everything scanned, most of it can then be shredded - saving me space.

I don't exactly have the most amazing equipment to be scanning. I have a Lexmark printer/flat bed scanner, a desktop running WinXP (30Gig HDD, and 128 memory), and the only software that I have is what came bundled with the Lexmark and Windows.

Before I started, I did a search for others who had done this same thing, going paperless, I found articles and blog posts. Two things seemed to be common, almost each person complained of what a huge task it was going to be, it would take all day or longer, and almost each person had a document feed scanner, not a flat bed scanner. I can't help what scanner or software I have right now, but I think I could do better than scanning a huge amount of paperwork at once, and making myself sick of the project right from the beginning - so I set up a process in how I was going to scan the paperwork, in hopes that I would not get sick of the project so quickly.

The process
The process that I setup is rather simple, and is designed to be used over a long period of time.
First thing is first, scan the paperwork that managed to make it into the filing cabinet, get that out of the way first. I moved all of the paperwork in the filing cabinet to the front, then as it was scanned, it was refiled. Next, I will gather all of the loose paperwork in the house into one spot, and will sort it into three piles (Recycle, Shred, Scan).
Recycle:
Anything that is not of a sensitive nature, and doesn't need to be kept will be placed into the recycling bin right away, there goes a quarter of the stack.
Shred:
Anything that is of a sensitive nature, but doesn't need to be kept, will be put in a box of stuff that needs to be shredded. I will explain what I do with that stuff later. There goes about half of the remaining pile.
Scan:
This is everything else, the stuff that needs to be kept, if it is of a sensitive nature or not. This gets placed into a pile near the scanner.

I have no incentive to complete this project quickly, but I do want to see some progress as I go. So I decided to make sure that I scanned at least five pages each work day, along with anything new that comes in.
As each page is scanned I decide if I should put it in the shred box, filing cabinet, or directly into the recycle bin. I spend about 10 - 15 minutes scanning pages (depending on if the pages are front and back, or just front, black and white, or color) each day. I know that seems like a long time for only a few pages a day, but I have to set and reset each page, and the software is not exactly automated. As each page is scanned, I will take a collection of pages from the shred box, and shred them - I get as many done as I can while I'm scanning.
Each scanned document is saved as a PDF file.

The largest problem that I'm having is deciding where to backup the files once I'm done. I'm thinking that Amazon's S3 service could be good for this, but I don't have internet access at home. I have a portable drive, but that has the difficulty of not being stored off site. Right now I'm thinking that I will have to do a combination of the two, keep a copy on the portable drive, and upload a copy to the internet when I'm at work.

I still haven't perfected my process yet, so if anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share.

Happy New Year

I'm wishing everyone a happy New Year. I hope that 2007 was good to you, but I hope that 2008 will be great to you.
Now if you will excuse me, I have to go watch the annoying New Years party in New York.

Has Netscape finally passed?

I can't say that I'm surprised by this news, I have been waiting for it to happen; the only thing that surprises me is that it took so long.

Happy Winter Solstice

I want to wish everyone a happy Winter Solstice, and a great New Year.

NaNoWriMo - Wish me luck

Okay, it's official, I have signed up to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). In signing up for this, I have decided to write a 50,000 word (~175 page) novel by the end of November. This means that I will have to write an average 1,667 words per day.
I think the most difficult thing will be trying to leave all of the editing till I have written everything.
During the month I will try and give updates - but please feel free to send me an email to ask how things are going.

Here is the link to the site:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/
Here is the link to my profile (word count):
http://www.nanowrimo.org/user/240190

Personal Tests Results - October 2007

Here are the results of my October 2007 personal tests:
03 - 09: 47.6% average
10 - 16: 40.6% average
17 - 23: 50.14% average

Microsoft wants your health information

Microsoft recently launched a new beta, called Health Vault. It is a place to conveniently store your health records. Now I'm not sure about you, but I don't think that I will be trusting MS with my medical information. What are your thoughts?

Personal Tests

I just had an "Oh duh!" moment. I was going to create a web page for this, then I remembered that I have a blog. I must be tired.

I recently ran into an interesting idea. It is called Personal unit tests. Follow the link for more info. I'm not sure why, but I loved the idea, and decided to shamelessly copy it for my own ends. I was keeping a daily todo list, but never provided the feedback about how I was really doing over a length of time. Following this I can make a spreadsheet and track how I'm doing over a length of time. Plus with the todo list I would be tempted to fudge things so that they would match what I wanted, rather than what I truly did; with this it is either pass-fail, yes-no. And this seems that much more geeky ^_^.
I decide that I would attempt to post the results of this daily to my Jaiku account (it's just easier). Yesterday I did a measly 39%.

Here are the tests:

01 Brush Teeth (Health)
If I brushed my teeth twice yesterday
02 Deodorant (Health)
If I put on deodorant yesterday
03 Lies (Mind)
If I told five or fewer lies yesterday
04 Meditate (Mind)
If I meditated twice during the day
05 Shower (Health)
If I showered in the morning
06 Sleep (Health)
If I got a full eight hours of sleep the night before
07 Stretch (Health)
If I stretched twice the day before
08 Check Feeds (Computer)
If I checked my feeds the day before
09 Check all notes (Other)
If I checked all my notes the day before
10 Check eMail (Computer)
If I checked my eMail the day before
11 Clean (Home)
If I worked on cleaning the house the day before
12 Journal (Mind)
If I wrote on my journal the day before
13 Budget (Home)
If we stayed on budget the month before
14 Family (Family)
If *I* contacted family members anytime the previous week
15 Trash (Home)
If I took out trash on Monday
16 Blog (Mind)
If I posted to my blog in the last seven days
17 Track weight (Health)
If I tracked my weight on Monday
18 Replace razor (Health)
If I replaced replaced my razor head on Thursday

Hotel key cards and internet information

This morning I ran into a guest who insisted that she needed to keep her key card (I work in a hotel), due to the *fact* that we have her name, address, and credit card number on there. Apparently she read a rather long article about it, of all places, on the internet. I would like to make a couple points here:

1. Hotels do not encode personal information onto key cards, doing so would be just plain foolish.
1. It is a major liability issue for the hotel, and the lock manufacturers.
2. Hotels have no reason to encode that information.
3. In about half the hotels that use key cards the encoder is not even attached to the computer.
2. People are not using common sense when they receive information from the internet. The internet makes in extremely easy for people to give information, and to receive information; this does not make every bit of information on the internet true, in fact in makes the information on the internet less reliable than information that you would receive in person.
1. Repeating false information, that you received on the internet, in real life only makes you seem more foolish than the original article.
2. When you receive information from the internet that claims to be absolutely true, do some research. You will be surprised at just how often the information is false.
3. If you receive an email, that contains false information, from someone be sure to send back an email explaining what was inaccurate.
   

it’s how he treats his inferiors

As I was driving to work this afternoon I passed a semi full of pigs. This semi was shoved full, to the point that you could see that the pigs had to stand on each other. I find this more than disturbing.

I can not help but find it amusing that most humans (in my experience) seem to feel that they are superior to ever other living thing on Earth; yet we treat these living creatures as if they don't matter. It makes me wonder how we must look to any alien species out there.

“You can’t get the gauge of a man by how he treats his peers, it’s how he treats his inferiors that shows his true character." -Dumbledore

Yes, the quote is from Harry Potter, but I think it is very true.

Nebraska Senator sues God

It's about time! It's not for the reasons that I would really prefer, but it will be interesting to see where this goes. I love the last sentence of the article, take a read.

Nebraska state Senator Ernie Chambers, who represents legislative District 11 in North Omaha, has filed an unusual lawsuit on Friday. According to court documents obtained by Wikinews, Chambers has decided to sue God, looking for a judge to issue a "permanent injunction" against the highest power.

Chambers says in his suit that god has spread fear across the globe causing "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants. [God also caused] fearsome floods, horrendous hurricanes, earthquakes, plagues, famine, genocidal wars, birth defects, terrifying tornadoes and the like" and he wants the courts to order God "to cease certain harmful activities and the making ofterroristic threats."

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Nebraska_Senator_sues_God

Micro-Blogs

Today I took the plunge into "micro-blogging" (I had some extra time). First I played with Twitter, the service that you hear so much about, next I played with Pownce, then I played with Jaiku. For my hour of use (about 1/3 of an hour each), I have found that I prefer Jaiku. Below I will rate each site on the things I was looking for.

Love at first sight
This is my ranking on first impressions of the site, and ease of signing up.
1 - Jaiku -- The site did not appear cluttered, and signing up was extremely easy (you can even sign up through IM).
2 - Twitter -- This site had the most cluttered feeling of all three, but signing up was still fairly easy.
3 - Pownce -- The site was not overly cluttered, but signing up is a pain in the @$ (invite only).

IM going to be using this
The only way that I could use a micro-blogging site consistently, is if it easy to post - I feel that IM (instant messenger) would be the best way for me to do so.
1 - Jaiku -- Jaiku makes good use of IM. It is not as easy to setup as Twitter, but once you have it set up, you can do many things with it. Jaiku only uses Jabber (GTalk) naively, but you can use AIM, Yahoo, and MSN through another service. In addition to the normal set of commands, you can also use IM to loggin, logout, create an account, delete an account, and a bit more. The largest problem is that the IM account they use always shows as off line, so it doesn't show on my list.
2 - Twitter -- They make it easy to setup the IM features. You can use AIM, Jabber (GTalk), LiveJournal, and .Mac.
3 - Pownce -- You can download their software (run by AIR) and use that, no other options.
Twitter and Jaiku really are tied in this section, Twitter is easier, but Jaiku has more features.


How very utilitarian of you
1 - Twitter -- Wins hands down in this department. The number of utilities that have been developed for Twitter is staggering. The default utilities are the best that I have seen so far. A running "badge" that you can easily put into a blog, or site. The API means that anyone can make a utility, so things will only get better.
2 - Jaiku -- A few utilities, not much to talk about (that I could find anyway). They do make "badges", and they do look nice, but don't work as well in my blog as the ones from Twitter. Jaiku released their API as well, so things will get better as well.
3 - Pownce -- A distant third again. No API, no utilities that I could find - only their desktop software (see above).

Let me send that to you
1 - Pownce -- Their big advantage is that you can send files to people.
2 - Jaiku -- No file transfer.
3 - Twitter -- No file transfer.

Keep Talking
The only reason I can see to keep using *any* micro-blogs, is so that I can talk to people, I have a real blog to express my thoughts.
1 - Jaiku -- They have the most community minded service out there. People can comment on your posts, and it is easy to follow. They also have channels, which are communities. They make doing all of that dead easy.
2 - Twitter -- You can reply to posts, but it feels more like a quick add on, rather than something they intended from the start.
3 - Pownce -- You can reply, not much else.


I will be using Jaiku mostly, but will play around with Twitter as well. If I'm lucky, Twitter will adapt some of the things that Jaiku already has.

What the **** is an intrasitive verb?

Come on, I dare anyone to give me a good explanation. While you are at it, maybe you can explain to me why it wasn't covered in school; I would have thought it would have been in there with nouns - of course the education system is pathetic.

Oh, for those of you who don't know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intransitive_verb

V...Vac...Vacation?!

I had an entry started, and was doing some research on the topic, when I found a press release. The press release, included below, explains why vacation time is important, and has some good stats included. I also attached a rather telling image (the US is the smudge on the bottom).



Something I want to bring to peoples attention, is the concept of a working vacation. I'm sorry to say that those are not vacations, they are just a new work environment. When I took vacations, when I was working, I would be required to take my phone with me, and check my work email (that includes replying to the calls and emails); I quickly found that you could not enjoy yourself, and recuperate, when you were having to keep your mind on work. A vacation is a time away from work, but in the current environment (connected 24/7), it is easy for work to follow you almost anywhere, and expect you to answer. I propose that when taking a vacation, make work an out of bounds area, no calls to or from work, no email, nothing to do with work period, that is the only way that anyone is going to get some rest.

Some of you out there are worried that you will appear not to care about your job and that you will be replaced, but if you are a truly valued employee, then that will not be the case - and if it is the case, isn't it better to find out now so that you can get a job where you are valued, and can take some time away? Others will be thinking about the amount of money that will be lost if you take time off ... I'm sorry to say, but money is not as important as your health (mental and physical).

The definition of vacation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacation

Here is an interesting report on vacation time (PDF): http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/working_time_2007_05.pdf

From: http://www.timeday.org/press-release-050107.asp

'TAKE BACK YOUR TIME' LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN FOR VACATION LAW -- LEADERS HOPE TO MAKE THE ISSUE PART OF THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Seattle, Washington, May 1, 2007:

The Take Back Your Time campaign called today for members of Congress to enact national legislation guaranteeing at least three weeks of paid vacation for all American workers. They pointed to statistics showing that vacation time is of proven benefit to employers and employees, but is being reduced or eliminated by many American companies. The United States is the only industrial nation that fails to legally protect its citizens' vacations.

American workers receive the least vacation time among wealthy industrial nations. Take Back Your Time (www.timeday.org), a national organization with about 10,000 members that also supports paid childbirth and sick leave legislation, has decided to make the campaign for a national vacation law its top priority for 2007-2008.

"What we're asking for is quite modest when you consider that residents of most industrial countries get five or six weeks off and that the absolute minimum in Europe is twenty days of paid vacation after the first year on the job," said Take Back Your Time's Executive Director Lisa Stuebing."

"Take Back Your Time calls on every member of Congress to stand up for Americans' health, family life and happiness, by making sure that all Americans are given the benefits of paid time off from work," declared Take Back Your Time's national coordinator, John de Graaf.

"Together, we can put together a movement that makes this issue part of the discussion in the 2008 presidential campaigns," added Jerome Segal of the University of Maryland. "I think any presidential candidate who gets out front on this will find a huge reservoir of public support."

AMERICA NEEDS A BREAK

"America needs a break," said Joe Robinson, author of Work to Live and founder of the Work to Live Vacation Campaign, "Job stress and burnout are epidemic. People are caught in this vise grip of spiraling workweeks and shrinking vacations. The average vacation in the U.S. is now only a long weekend. President Bush knows the value of vacation time. He enjoys his trips to his ranch. He ought to be the first to step up and say, 'Send me this bill and I'll sign it.'"

Robinson pointed out that vacations in the U.S. are vanishing. Last year, 25 percent of American workers got no paid vacation at all, while 43% didn't even take a solid week off. "Many employees in a climate of job insecurity are afraid to take their vacations for fear they'll be seen as slackers, something the lack of statutory validation for vacations fosters" adds Robinson. "Because there's no legal validation or protection for vacations, vacations are seen as not legitimate, somehow illicit."

Back in 2002, Robinson brought 50,000 signatures from Americans supporting a paid vacation bill to Congress. "This is not about slacking, not about being lazy," Robinson added. "Vacations are as important to your health as checking your cholesterol or getting exercise. They're the antidote to runaway stress. Research shows that an annual vacation can cut the risk of death from heart disease in women by 50% and in men by 32%. Vacations can also cure burnout, the last stage of chronic stress -- but it takes two weeks for the process of re-gathering crashed emotional resources to occur."

BUSINESS WILL BENEFIT FROM A VACATION LAW

Business also gets a big dividend from vacations. "Three week vacations have proven to be a boost to productivity and profits at enlightened American firms with that policy. Performance goes up when people come back from a vacation," said Robinson. "In the knowledge economy, the source of true productivity is a refreshed and energized mind."

Companies that have implemented three-week vacation policies have found it a win-win for employees and sales. At the H Group, a financial services firm in Salem, Oregon, profits have doubled since it adopted a three-week policy. At Jancoa, a cleaning services company in Cincinnati, sales increased 15 percent, a staff turnover problem was eliminated, and performance improved so much that the company was able to get rid of overtime.

"Unfortunately, most employers have been reducing time off in the interest of short-run profits," Robinson says. "That's why we need a law, like the 127 other countries in the world that have one."

LOSING VACATION TIME

Compared to 1970, a third fewer American families take vacations together. Professor William Doherty, a family studies expert at the University of Minnesota, says many adults remember childhood family vacations as the happiest times in their lives, a time when their families really bonded together. "But the family vacation, a couple of leisurely weeks spent camping, for example, is really disappearing," Doherty said, "and our families are suffering from the loss."

Two other organizations, Work to Live and the Adventure Travel Trade Association have joined the campaign. "We're a dedicated group, but we're small," added Cecile Andrews, the author of Slow is Beautiful. "We can't do this on our own, so we're looking for partners on this campaign, groups like the AMA, the Sierra Club, travel companies, health providers, labor unions, enlightened businesses -- there's really something in this for everyone."

"We really need this" argued Shauna South, who has signed on as Take Back Your Time's vacation campaign volunteer coordinator in Utah. "There's so much stress out there."

"We need to ask a simple question: What's the Economy for, anyway?" said John de Graaf. "Is it just about the Gross Domestic Product or is it to help us lead happy, healthy and sustainable lives? If it's the latter, then vacations are essential. There's no present like the time."

TO SPEAK WITH ANY OF THE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS PRESS RELEASE, PLEASE CONTACT LISA STUEBING AT: 206-524-6788 (Seattle) / lisa@timeday.org

Apple Crumble recipe

This is the recipe that I used to make some apple crumble last night, thought I would share it. The crumble topping came out nice and crisp (it was still crisp the next morning), I took the attached image the next morning.

---

Apple Crumble

Categories: Crumble/Crisp
Yields: 8
Preparation Time: 00:30

1.5 cups White Sugar
1 cup White Flower
7.25 tbs butter
0.5 tsp cinnamon
0.25 tsp nutmeg
7 apples

Preparing the Apples:
1. Peel and core the apples. Dice them into chunks.
2. Add the apples, 1 cup of sugar, the cinnamon, and nutmeg into a pot and stew over low/medium heat, stir with a wooden spoon often, till the apples start to soften. Do not let the apples get mushy.
3. Put the apples into the serving dish and allow to start cooling.

Making the Crumble:
1. Mix the flour, remaining sugar, and butter with your fingers till it becomes a breadcrumb consistency.
2. Preheat the oven to 300F (150C).
3. Cover the apples with the crumble topping, making sure not to press down.
4. Bake the crumble in the oven for about 30 minutes.
5. If the crumble is not golden brown after the 30 minutes, set the oven to broil till golden brown.