Vector64 Blog
Here you'll find some stuff that interests me that's generally
unrelated to the Mozilla stuff. This is a low-budget blog in that it's
just a plain HTML file and isn't interactive. There is a one-click blog
program with this web server but I haven't had the time to look into
turning it on yet. Maybe someday in the future.
.
January 24, 2009
I've toyed with the idea of using my
MacBook Pro as my main system at home given that it has better computer
power than my desktop and has better power characteristics. The problem
has been slow disk performance and the effort to rearrange my desk.
I
picked up another MyBook, copied Mac OSX to it and now can boot off of
a drive with decent performance. I'm going to try to do a Mac OSX
Firefox build this weekend with this new setup. I still have the issue
on what to do with Windows builds. I could use the desktop or the XPS
M1330 laptop but I'd have to worry about operating system licenses with
the laptop.
I also bought $10 of Yahoo Voice services. This is a
PC callout service at a penny a minute. We used it for a 2 hour
conference call and it worked quite well in that mode.
January 23, 2009
Our daughter is off to a good start at community college taking three
courses in a dual-enrollment program. I think that the work, professors
and courses are good for her growth, development and self-esteem. Our
son has been working on scholarship stuff this week and hopefully will
have his application package together for next week.
I've started preparing my 2008 taxes and there are a few nice goodies.
I had investment losses this year which is never good but it will
reduce my taxes by a few bucks. It appears that we're getting some tax
benefits from college expenses and real estate taxes. There's a change
where you can deduct state taxes with the standard deduction which
helps us out. We don't have enough in the way of deductions to itemize.
There's a pretty low limit on the tax benefit but we can live with that.
I'm feeling much better these days as my back problems are hopefully
behind me. I have also been shoveling a lot of snow and ice off of the
roof and that has been a real pain.
We're really, really busy at work and I'm happy about that given that
layoffs are coming to high-tech land. I've never been laid off and I'd
like to be able to weather this recession at the same company. It would
make it easier to get the two kids through college.
My hardware in general is doing fine but I've taken to adding much more
antispyware on my Windows systems and in running malware scans more
often. It's a more dangerous Windows world out there. I feel far more
comfortable with Mac OSX.
January 10, 2009
I got our daughter's school stuff straightened out this week so she's
ready to take classes at Middlesex Community College under
dual-enrollment. A lot of courses look pretty close to full and I think
that the crush is on there for students priced out of four-year schools
or those that didn't do well at their four-year schools for the fall
semester. Her books have been ordered for Amazon and I expect them to
arrive before classes start.
I've had severe back pain for a week, perhaps due to using some
equipment in the weight room that have been known to cause problems.
I'm generally feeling better with stretching to elongate the spine but
I still have pain from time to time.
I bought a digital converter box with those Federal coupons and it
seems to work though I have intermittent problems sending signals down
to the basement. I also bought a huge antenna which does a very good
job at pulling in signals. It was a pain to put together and it uses a
lot of space in the loft but we really don't use our loft so it's not
really a problem except for when I have to clean it out. I plan to try
to combine signals from two antennas for more channels. One thing that
I learned is that the quality of cables and connectors is very
important for getting the signal to the television. One other thing is
that a laptop with a USB TV Tuner saves running up and down the stairs
with a heavy television. I have the HVR-850 which is a decent device.
Unfortunately the software is awful - quite a few crashes and there's
no Vista x64 support.
Computer Science
We convinced our daughter to sign up for Programming I. I'm going
through some materials from Indiana and Purdue Universities with her
right now and am going to take a look at Harvard's Computer Science 50:
Introduction to Computer Science I which is on iTunes. We're giving her
a few programming assignments to do and our son is providing her with
recitation. It's a home-grown Computing I course with our unique
perspectives.
Weather
It's been brutal in New England so far. Ice storms, snow storms, cold
weather, power outages and we have another major storm on the way that
should arrive tonight. I will probably have to clear off the roof for
this one as we're expecting about six inches.
January 3, 2009
The New Year has brought forth efforts to improve my desktop system
security. I'm adding Spybot S&D for system protection on both
operating systems and will do regular AdAware and Avast system scans. I
was also considering running AVG on Win32 but that may be overkill.
I've cleaned up a few installed programs that I haven't used in a long
time and Windows XP SP3 autoupdated on the Win32 side. I'm considering
doing the upgrade for the x64 side as well. I also finally allowed the
Windows Malicious Removal Tool to be installed.
I've had the thought for some time that Windows is ultimately doomed
because of the amount of MalWare targetting the operating system and
that it will die from the weight of having to protect itself. I know
that hardware is getting better and better (how about that Core i7) but
MalWare detection can require the undivided attention of your hard
disks for long periods of time slowing you down.
XP3 also came up on my MacBook Pro so I allowed it to install.
Unfortunately it hung partway through. I had a look around for articles
and it appears to be a common problem. So I hard shut my MacBook Pro on
the Windows partition and it gave me the "Setup was interrupted.
Restoring prior configuration." message at bootup and it's taking
forever to do that. The solution that I found was to kill the process:
shmgrate.exe with the Task Manager. I will try that on the next attempt
at SP3 installation and give up in the short-term if it doesn't work.
There are many recommendations to install SP3 from the CD or DVD that
you can make or buy and I don't care to try that right now. SP3
supposedly improves performance nicely and I'd like to have it running.
Might have better security too. I only use XP on the MacBook Pro at
home when I'm doing multimedia stuff. Mac OSX is so good for just about
everything.
Financial Markets
We're off to a good start this year with a very nice rally. My account
continues to drift up slowly. Well, at least the direction is good. I
want to see if the rally was real or just a bull trap. I'm ready to
exit at the drop of a hat. Maudlin talked about a rally for the first
two months followed by a drop due to earnings warnings in March. A
tradeable rally would be rather nice and I'm certainly game for it.
It's easier to watch things during the day while the kids are home from
school but that won't last. My friend at Investors Village sees things
as bullish but has set stops to protect his large gains from October
purchases when things were crashing. He's still closing positions at
the end of the day in his trading portfolio.
School Stuff
I have to pay the bills. One this weekend and one next weekend. The
schools want payment a little earlier this semester compared to
previous semesters. It's not surprising given the fiscal pressure that
they are under. Massachusetts is seeing some major, major revenue
shortfalls and I can see some big tuition hikes down the road. Five
Governors have requested a trillion in aid to the states to help solve
their budget problems and it will be interesting to see what happens.
It appears that we're trying to spend and go into debt to work our way
out of our budget problems. We'll see how this works out. At any rate
I'm expecting higher tuition bills down the road.
We need to get Elliott's intership applications done soon as deadllines are coming up.
Also need to get going on that scholarship application.
Mozilla Stuff
On hold pending family stuff and cleaning up and upgrading my hardware.
December 2008
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Updated August 29, 2009. For comments and questions, send email to
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