Auto Assault MMO

This weekend, readers of Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com], of which I am a fan, were invited [penny-arcade.com] to a Beta-test weekend of Auto Assault [autoassault.com].



Holy shit. That looks incredible. There are so many Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games these days. And all of them pretty much suck. I say this not out of experience, but out of hearing the premise behind these games, and from hearing people describe them. Why anyone would want to spend 40 hours a week beating rats* over and over again to move up in levels. I just hate the idea of a game turning into a job that I have to do, or I'll fall behind. I already have enough work as it is, without my leisure time turning into a job.

But holy shit, Auto Assault makes me long for the days of my early 20s when I had tons of free time to play computer games, and I used to spend all of my disposable income on computer equipment and games. If I were still in that period of my life, I would totally be playing this game.

Part of me actually wants to get back into computer gaming and buy into this particular one. When there is an industry (like computer gaming or movies) where there is one lone diamond in the middle of a field of complete crap, I like to vote with my dollars so that innovative companies will be rewarded for their creativity.

*I say this as an expression to describe repetitive tasks need to gain XPs, or the equivalent.

Fastr

fastr - a game to see who can guess the Flickr tags associated with the pictures that are shown first. It is really addicting, and I burned way too much time this weekend playing it.

via Powazek.

Myths About the Challenger Disaster

On Slashdot last week [slashdot.org], I caught a link to 7 myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster [msnbc.msn.com]. It is an interesting read, and it reminded me of something I haven't thought about in a long time.

There are very few events when I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news, but the Challenger disaster was one of them. I was 10 years old and in 4th grade. I was coming back to the classroom from lunch, and everyone was told to go back out for an assembly.

Of course, being snotty little 4th graders, we were excited at the prospects of not having to sit through more hours of learning whatever you learn in 4th grade. But at the same time, the teachers seemed unusually solemn, and so we took our seats in the hastily assembled assembly without participating in too much mischief.

Then they turned on the news. We still had no idea what was going on, but as we saw the space shuttle take off, something went horribly wrong, and there was this long, awkward silence as everyone struggled to make sense of what they were seeing.

I think that it was the next day when the off-color Challenger jokes started to roll in...

Email Encryption with Mozilla Thunderbird

Yesterday [fluggart.com], I talked about email encryption with GnuPG and GPGTray. It's not as straight-forward as I would like, but it works. And once it's set up, it is relatively easy.

The alternative is using Mozilla Thunderbird [mozilla.com] with the Enigmail extension [mozdev.org].



When you receive an encrypted email, the raw ciphertext is displayed in the message window. A dialogue box automatically pops up asking for the passphrase that protects your encryption key (see above image). When the correct passphrase is entered, the unencrypted message is displayed in the message window (see image below).



It is so much easier than the GPGTray alternative. In addition, as you can see from the first image, you can set it to remember your passphrase for 5 minutes. This allows you to look through many encrypted messages in a row, without having to enter your passphrase every 5 seconds.

I really wish that every email client could integrate encryption this easily for the user.

Email Encryption

Recently, I've switched to a new version of GnuPG for email encryption. I had previously been using PGP 6.5.8 in Windows to encrypt my email. I had been using that for years, and it was the last freeware version that I looked for.

Recently, I tried to find a newer freeware version of PGP, but failed. And it was for that reason that I switched over to using GnuPG in Windows. I am currently using GnuPG version 1.4.2. Integration with the Mozilla Thunderbird [mozilla.com] email client works very well (I use this in Linux). However, GnuPG can work with any email client (or any other application for that matter), because it works by copying the ciphertext to the Windows clipboard.

For example, I use Microsoft Outlook 2000 in Windows. If I received an encrypted email, I would see the following:



The above images is the raw ciphertext that is contained in the email. In order to decrypt the ciphertext, I would right-click the GnuPG system tray icon, and choose the decrypt option (as seen below):



I would then be prompted for the passphrase that protects my encryption key:



And after entering the correct passphrase, I would be shown the unencrypted text in a special clipboard window (as seen in the image below with the text of the email greyed out):



Also, another smaller window appears below the clipboard email which shows that the digital signature included in the email is good (as seen below).



Encrypting an email is a very similar process. I was very surprised at how easy it is to use. It kind of made me wonder why I spent all of those years using PGP.

Anti-Torture Bill and Signing Statements

I happen to be a news junkie. You would not believe the amount of time I spend reading the news on the internet, or reading it through my phone at any spare moment. Unfortunately, I have weeks where I am either out of town or just really busy, and miss a lot of the major stories.

I was totally in support of McCain's anti-torture bill, just on ethical grounds. In addition, I don't think that torture works (in terms of interrogation). And if we are claiming that we are doing anything in the name of justice or righteousness, we shouldn't be going around doing what we have criticized everyone else for doing. And I haven't even touched on the subject of whether the people who are being interrogated are even guilty.

Over the weekend, I was talking with some friends about various subjects, and the anti-torture bill came up. One of my friends commented that she was appalled that none of the news agencies were condemning the signing statement that President Bush issued when he signed the bill.

Ok, first of all, I have never heard of a signing statement before. When trying to find out more information about it, the first article I found was this Opinion article [sltrib.com] in the Salt Lake Tribune about the anti-torture bill which stated that:

Bush was getting more than he was giving up. The protections against abuse that Congress gave with one hand it took back with the other. And Bush declared in an accompanying signing statement that he was planning to ignore it all anyway.

Ok, now it had my attention.

Then I found an article entitled "The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration" [findlaw.com] which states:

Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush is using his signing statements to effectively nullify them as they relate to the executive branch. These statements, for him, function as directives to executive branch departments and agencies as to how they are to implement the relevant law.

President Bush and the attorneys advising him may also anticipate that the signing statements will help him if and when the relevant laws are construed in court - for federal courts, depending on their views of executive power, may deem such statements relevant to their interpretation of a given law. After all, the law would not have passed had the President decided to veto it, so arguably, his view on what the law meant ought to (within reason) carry some weight for the court interpreting it. This is the argument, anyway.

Ugh. I don't know whether to be pissed off or depressed right now.

Walmart's Cheap Crap

On Kottke.org [kottke.org], I saw a link to an article called The Man Who Said No to Wal-mart [fastcompany.com]. It is an interesting article about how the Snappy lawnmower company decided against continuing to sell their lawnmowers through Walmart because they "saw a whirlpool of lower prices, collapsing profitability, offshore manufacturing, and the gradual but irresistible corrosion of the very qualities for which Snapper was known."

I have pretty much always hated Walmart, and make sure that they don't get any of my money. They don't seem to have any redeeming qualities. I mean, at least when I shop at Target, I receive good service. Years ago, before I saw how evil Walmart was, I used to occasionally buy stuff there and would have to wait an inordinately long period of time in line to pay.

There have been a bunch of articles (like this one [businessweek.com]) in recent years about how Costco takes the opposite approach to Walmart/Sam's Club in taking care of it's employees instead of giving them "poverty-level wages." I would imagine that those wages are likely the root of the service problems that customers have to deal with at Walmart.

What surprises me about the entire situation is how people are ok with receiving poor service and crappy merchandise if it is cheaper. It seems like everyone just wants to go out and buy the cheapest crap on the market, and people generally don't care about buying something that has higher quality these days. That boggles my mind. And I'm not sure if it's that people genuinely don't care about being treated like crap, or whether they are ignorant of the alternatives, or just think that there is nothing that they can do (vis a vis buying from a competitor).

And it's not just with Walmart. Whenever I see people buying Dell computers, I can't help but think that they are inviting in a higher chance of having a hardware problem with their computer because they were enticed by lower prices. But people don't seem to care.

This goes for off-shoring computer tech support also. Sometimes, it is completely impossible to get a tech support person to understand your problem. And people are beginning to have the attitude that all companies are like this, that there is nothing they can do, and that to avoid tech support calls at any cost.

I guess that the most frustrating part is that I don't know what the solution is. I can only sit back and watch all of the companies producing high-quality products eventually be pushed into bankruptcy.

TimeTrax Recast, again

Ok, I know that I've already written entries about the TimeTrax Recast software [timetraxtech.com] on January 20 [fluggart.com] and on January 6 [fluggart.com], but I have yet more comments about it.

After upgrading to version 1.5 of the software from version 1.4, I am extremely unhappy. The new version HAS fixed one major problem. With version 1.4, sometimes if you told the radio to switch channels, the software display would change to reflect the new channel, but the audio coming out of the radio would make it obvious that the channel had not actually changed. This does not occur with version 1.5. With version 1.5 of the software, every time I chose to change the channel, it changed the channel.

My beef with version 1.5 is with a new problem that they have introduced. Because they want to make sure that you have paid for the software that you are using, they require a connection to the internet while the software is being used. I don't necessarily have a problem with this. That makes perfect sense to me, and I don't have a problem providing a connection for it (although it would be annoying to not be able to listen to the radio if the network goes down).

I have scheduled the software to record certain channels at certain times of the day. And since upgrading to the new software version, those programs have frequently been interrupted by network outages that last less than a minute. In other words, let's say that I have the TimeTrax Recast software to record a talk radio program from 6AM to 7AM. If the network goes down for 1 minute at 6:30AM, then the recording will stop at that instant. And it sometimes will start recording again when the network connectivity is restored, but not always.

In my opinion, if the network connection is present when a recording begins, the recording should not stop until scheduled to do so (even if the network connectivity is interrupted). If the purpose of internet connectivity is to verify that I have purchased the software, that makes perfect sense to me.

Since installing version 1.5, several of my recordings have been interrupted by this problem, and the number that have been interrupted is completely unacceptable to me. I never had this problem with version 1.4. For that reason, I have reverted to version 1.4 of the software. And I am definitely going to be much more hesitant about upgrading to newer versions of their software in the future.

Update: Further comments on February 1.

Review: TimeTrax Recast

Two weeks ago [fluggart.com], I wrote a review of the TimeTrax Recast software [timetraxtech.com]. At that time, I had owned the hardware and software for about 3 weeks, and had primarily been using the software to rip songs to mp3's.

I now have a lot more experience with the software, and have been trying to time-shift a lot of talk radio. I envisioned the software allowing me to rip talk radio to mp3, downloading those mp3s to my mp3 player, and listening to talk radio on my train ride to work or whatever.

My criticisms of the software still stand. However, they just came out with a new version of the software earlier this week, and the release notes specifically mention "Fixed Sirius channel change tuner response problems". Remember, I was having a problem where I would tell the radio to change channels, the software would change the display to reflect the channel change, but the audio coming out of the radio would make it obvious that the radio hadn't actually changed channels. That is an incredibly annoying problem.

To make things worse, this behavior occurs when the software is set to record a channel at a certain time. For instance, let's say that I left the radio tuned to Channel 61 Prime Country. And then the software was set to record a particular talk radio channel starting at 6AM. Well, most of the time, the recording would go as expected. However, about 10% of the time, the software would not successfully change what channel the radio was tuned to, and it would record the wrong channel for that hour. That kind of problem is almost completely unacceptable.

I have downloaded and installed the new version, and I have not yet been able to determine if it still suffers from the same problem.

Now that I have used the software for a longer period of time, I also feel that I can safely complain about the frequency of the software crashing. The Timetrax Recast software crashes about once a week. And of course, after it crashes, it fails to record whatever it was programmed to. I wiped my hard disk and did a fresh install of Windows XP Professional SP2 right before I installed the Timetrax software in December, so there should be no problems with Windows cruft or spyware.

So, I am really kind of frustrated right now.

Update: More comments on January 23 and February 1.

Battlestar Galactica

I was out of town for the weekend, so I'm a lot behind on everything. Including TV watching. I finally got around to watching last week's Battlestar Galactica, and I have to say that I thought it was really lame. I think that it felt even more lame than usual, because the previous episode (which built up to last week's one) was especially good.



Spoiler alert!

The primary issue was that it was really, really lame that both commanders backed off of their original plan to take out the other commander after the big battle. I mean, what was that? On the one hand, you have Admiral Cain, who they had spent all of that time trying to build up into a ruthless type character. And then on the other hand, you had Commander Adama, who was facing a possible court-martial, execution of some officers under his command, and all kinds of other things.

I guess that I can see why Adama would have second thoughts. I mean, if he had ordered the Admiral's assassination, there is no guarantee that people would be willing to follow his command afterward. In trying to unite the fleet, he might cause civil war. In addition, his character seemed more even-handed. You would never see Adama ordering the execution of people's families if they did not follow orders. So, his backing down wasn't out of character.

And I do have to say that I never expected to see that (both backing down), so that was a significant surprise.

Another issue that made the episode really lame was the entire battle, which seemed more like a non-battle. I guess that it was intended to really be a backdrop for the real plotline and the special effects are really expensive. But as a fan, I love seeing those special effects, and live to see those incredible looking battles.

Seeing Gaeta in CIC on Galactica reminded me how we almost never see his character anymore. That is really a shame, because I really liked his character and thought he was doing a great job acting out that role.

One question that I did have about the episode was: why was Dualla listening in on the conversation between Apollo and Starbuck? That really didn't make any sense. I mean, it could be that they all share quarters, but why was she standing there listening in? It seems to me that the normal behavior for a roommate type would be to either come in and be part of the conversation, or leave to give them their privacy. Eavesdropping just seems odd. Maybe Dualla overhearing their conversation is part of a larger plot arc that hasn't been revealed yet.

Apple Macbook Pro

Ok, I know that I'm way late talking about stuff that occurred at the 2006 MacWorld Expo last week.

First off, I'm one of the masses that hates the new "Macbook" name. I think that in general, the names that Apple has used for its products since the introduction of OS X have been fantastic. iPod, iMac, iCal, you name it. There have been very few names that I have really considered to even be mediocre. But "Macbook" just sounds awful. It makes the product seem chintzy (like the "Winbook").

I was also highly skeptical when I saw the reports about how the new Macbook Pro was purported to be 4-5x faster than the previous generation. Apple even claims this on their Macbook Pro website [apple.com]. When have you ever heard of a new computer line that has come out that has been 4-5x faster than its predecessor? And if it really is going to be that much faster, why can't they come out with one that is 2x faster for a whole lot less money?

To my surprise, the 4-5x faster claim appears to be plausible. Anandtech [anandtech.com] recently wrote an article [anandtech.com] where they compared two essentially identical Asus laptops - one with Centrino and the other with the Centrino Duo setup (the same one that will be powering the new Macbook Pro). It's an interesting read.

I should point out that I am not a current Mac user. I did own an eMac a few years ago, but my machines are primarily Linux running on x86 hardware. However, my primary machine at home is aging, and I will probably be soon looking to buy a replacement. One of the things that I am seriously considering is buying one of the new IntelMacs so that I can triple-boot OS X, Windows and Linux on it.

The Great Rose Bowl Hoax

I've been into reading about great hacks and pranks lately, because I received Nightwork : A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT [amazon.com] for Christmas.

Recently, there was a thread about Great Hacks and Pranks of Our Time on Slashdot [slashdot.org]. And in it, someone posted [slashdot.org] about The Great Rose Bowl Hoax [museumofhoaxes.com], which I had never heard of before.



Apparently, in 1961, there was a Rose Bowl game between the Minnesota Golden Gophers and the Washington Huskies. The Huskies cheerleaders had arranged for cards to be distributed to the stands so that during half-time, there could be a flip-card show. After receiving the signal from the cheerleaders, the cards would be held up in the air to show a huge "HUSKIES" for the television cameras, for example.

Well, some Caltech students figured out a way to have the cards distributed in a different order so that CALTECH would be displayed in the middle of the flipcard show. And it was broadcast on TV.

I pretty much laughed my ass off throughout the entire read.

Rotating Log Files in Linux

I just added a new page to the Linux notebook [fluggart.com] section of my website. The new page [fluggart.com] describes how to write a shell script that will automatically rotate log files in Linux.

The primary reason I decided to post that script was so that if I ever needed to write something like that again in the future, it would be right at my fingertips. It actually took me a while to learn enough about shell scripts to write that particular script, even though it is very basic.

Rotating log files can be important, because it prevents the volume containing /var from becoming full (which will cause bad things to happen). I pretty much only use Debian, and the installation automatically sets up cron jobs to rotate the log files. However, I have seen installations which, for various reasons, did not end up having a built-in mechanism for rotating these files. In addition, a user might want to write their own shell script to rotate the log files so that they will get rotated on a different schedule than the default.

On the page, I posted the contents of the shell script, as well as instructions for uploading the script to the crontab spool.

New pages to my Linux Notebook are a lot less common right now. I have not had as much time to write new pages. Also, I am more hesitant to convert the rest of my notes into a format I can post onto the web. Some of my notes contain information that could allow someone to break into my machine. And some of my solutions to various problems that I have had in Linux are hacks, and I would be embarassed for people to see those solutions (even though they work).

Anyway, hopefully, someone needing to write a similar script may be able to benefit from the new page I created.

Credit Ratings

Later this year, there is the possibility that we will be buying a house. I've never been a home-owner, so this whole process looks very daunting to me.

We haven't even applied for a loan before, so that is where we are starting. This is the first time in my life I have ever been seriously concerned with my credit rating before. We will be requesting a copy of our credit rating soon, to figure out if we can even get a loan. I have no idea what to expect, or whether my credit rating will be a problem.

Heimlich was reading some books about the homebuying process, and they suggested some ways of improving a credit score. I know that improving a credit score takes time, but one of the things they suggested was overpaying credit card payments by $20 each month. In other words, if I had charged $600 last month, when I get the bill, I should write them a check for $620.

The book this tip was located in is called "How to Buy Your First Home" by Diana Brodman Summers, Attorney at Law (ISBN 1-57248-328-8). It says it on Page 11 (Chapter 2), although it doesn't explain how this might improve your credit rating.

I have never heard of this before. It kind of bothers me, because if this turns out to be true, I could have been overpaying my credit card bills all of these years. And as a result, my credit rating might have ended up being better than it is now.

The thing is, that I can't figure out whether this is a myth or not. I have done a bunch of google searches, and have come up with nothing that corroborates that tip. And actually, I've read a lot of things that indicate the amount of balance carried between months on a credit card isn't reported to credit bureaus.

The reason I'm inclined to believe this tip is because Heimlich claims that she does this every month, and they keep steadily increasing her credit limit (and indeed, despite that my salary is higher, she has the higher credit limit).

So now, I'm on a quest to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Howard Stern

A lot of people don't know this about me (including a lot of people who know me very well), but I am a huge fan of Howard Stern [howardstern.com]. It's not that I really think anything he does is that shocking at all. It's because I think the show is hilarious.

That was definitely the primary motivation for me to buy a Sirius satellite radio. Yesterday was Howard's first official day on satellite, and I am so glad that I bought the radio so that I could hear it.

One of the most incredible bits he did yesterday was a thing about revelations. All of the on-air cast had to reveal something about themselves, but which revelations belonged to which of the cast would not be revealed until next week. The revelations were:

1. I cheated on my wife and she caught me...
2. I once hid in a bathroom closet and pleasured myself when my family members went to the bathroom...
3. In the last year, I got a girl pregnant and had to pay for her abortion...
4. I think I'm addicted to porn - I jerk off twice a day and prefer to masturbate than have real sex...
5. I have spent well over $10,000 on internet porn...
6. My buddy and I once ordered massage girls to our hotel room, but they ripped us off and we were left staring at each other in our underwear...
7. I have pleasured myself with meat and vegetables...
8. I have a half-sister I've never met and don't want to...
9. I've had cosmetic surgery...
10. A guy once blew his load on my chest...
11. I once had my stomach pumped for alcohol poisoning and when I woke up in the hospital, an acquaintance of the same sex was fondling my genitals...

I should point out at this point that most of the on-air cast are either married or in very serious relationships. Can you believe that? I can't imagine what it must be like to be one of the spouses of an on-air cast member right now. That's insane.

Just for humor's sake, here are my guesses as to who those revelations match up to:

1. Scott Salem
2. Gary Dell'Abate
3. Jason Kaplan
4. J.D. Harmeyer
5. Sal the Stockbroker
6. Howard Stern
7. Benjy Bronk
8. Fred Norris
9. Artie Lange
10. Richard Christy
11. Robin Quivers

I guess we'll find out just how wrong I was in a few days.

Battlestar Galactica

I have been making a very active attempt to reduce the number of TV shows that I watch. As a result, there are only a few shows that I allow to hold my interest. By far, my favorite show on TV right now is the new Battlestar Galactica [scifi.com].



It's got a compelling plot. It has incredible special effects. It has real people, instead of caricatures of people. It has realistic physics. And it's not encumbered by endless amounts of technobabble. I just love watching it, and I often find myself watching an episodes again a few days after I first saw it - because I enjoy it that much, and to make sure that I didn't miss anything the first time. And of course, I was not going to miss the season premiere on last Friday.

It didn't disappoint. There are lots of relatively complicated plot arcs that are continually evolving, which kind of makes it difficult for viewers to get into it if they haven't seen it from the beginning. However, it never fails to surprise. The writers always manage to come up with a plot twist that I never would have seen coming, but which makes perfect sense.

Of course, it's not completely perfect. I would have to say that the actor who plays Apollo is pretty weak.

*Spoiler Alert!*

The plot twist that I never would have expected was for the President to suggest to Commander Adama that he take Admiral Cain out. I can honestly say that I was shocked.

I haven't seen the previews for the next episode yet, but I assume that the majority of the next one will contain the assault on the Resurrection Ship, and the plotting of Adama and Cain against each other.

I have to say, though, that the problem I forsee is that both Adama's and Cain's plans for taking each other out rely on the success of the assault on the Resurrection Ship. Both of them intend to have their own agents terminate the command of their opponent in the euphoria immediately following the battle. That raises a flag with me.

For one thing, the battle will not be a cake walk. There will be two battlestars going up against two Cylon basestars. I would expect there to be heavy casualties and massive amounts of damage done to the battlestars, even assuming that they win that particular battle (which is defintely not a given). It is entirely possible that in the aftermath of the battle, the personnel on the bridges of the battlestars will be too busy firefighting to be celebrating any perceived success.

The other problem is that both Adama's and Cain's plans are dependent upon their ability to relay the kill orders to their agents on the opposing battlestars. This assumes that the communications systems on both the battlestars will be operational. It also assumes that the command elements will be still functional to give the kill orders. If I were going to be implanting a team to terminate a command element on another ship after an upcoming battle, I would want that team to be capable of operating autonomously.

So, there are no shortage of ways for Adama's and Cain's plans to fail. And this is what I expect to happen next week.

Review: TimeTrax Sirius Connect

Despite all of the nice features of Yahoo's Launchcast internet radio service which I described yesterday [fluggart.com], I have actually cancelled my subscription and moved to Sirius Satellite radio [sirius.com]. I bought a TimeTrax Sirius Connect package [timetraxtech.com] from TimeTrax Tech and have been listening to that ever since. The package allows you to connect a Sirius radio to a Windows computer. One major feature that attracted me to the service was that the software provided allows you to rip the songs to MP3.

When you are away from the computer that the satellite radio is attached to, Sirius allows you to listen to the music stations (but not the talk stations, which are almost half of the channels) over the web through an interface that is similar to Yahoo's Launchcast [yahoo.com]. The Sirius web interface does work in Mozilla Firefox, however you may not be able to see the artist and song title. For that reason, I end up only using it through Internet Explorer. I haven't tried it on Mac, but I couldn't get it to work in Linux. A screenshot of the Sirius web interface is in the image below:



Overall, I am pretty happy with the Sirius service. They seem to offer less music stations than Yahoo's Launchcast, but there are still plenty to choose from. I am primarily interested in Classic Rock and Country music, and there are several stations in those genres for me to listen to. Sirius also offers a ton of talk radio stations, including ones that broadcast sports games live. The variety of talk stations is pretty amazing, and I find myself listening to the news stations frequently.

Unfortunately, the TimeTrax software (TimeTrax Recast) is a little buggy. It also requires a lot more resources than I expected. I initially had the software installed on a computer that had a 1GHz Athlon (Thunderbird core) with 768MB RAM, running Windows XP Pro SP2. However, the software does a lot of writing to the disk, and the amount of activity caused the computer to be unusable for other things at the same time. When I installed it to a computer that had an Athlon XP 1700+ and 1GB RAM running Windows XP Pro SP2, the computer was usable for other tasks while the TimeTrax software was running. Therefore, I think that the minimum requirements (which are not listed on their website), are somewhere in between those two computers.



Above is a screenshot from TimeTrax Recast. There is the Now Playing box, showing the artist and song title of the current song. There is the recording box, which allows you to rip the audio to an MP3. The Presets box contains 12 buttons that you can set to jump to your favorite stations. At the bottom, there are meters showing the signal strength. Finally, at the right, there is the Quick Choice Menu, which allows you to bring up different windows or enable/disable common options without having to go through the other menus.

I mentioned in the previous paragraph that I thought the software was buggy. Frequently, when you hit a button, the display changes as though the button-press was registered. However, later it is apparent that the button press was NOT registered. For instance, if you hit one of the preset buttons to change to another radio station, the display will change and show you the artist and song title playing on the new station. However, the audio won't.

The interface is also kind of slow. For instance, when changing radio stations, there will often be a 1-2 second delay in between when you hit the preset button and when the audio actually changes to the new channel. As a result, it's not quickly apparent if the button-press actually registered or not. And cycling through a few channels to hear what they are playing takes too long to be practical. Fortunately, there is a window you can pull up which shows all of the stations and what they are currently playing.

There are many settings you can configure in order to rip audio content to MP3. For instance, you can configure the software to save the MP3s in a format like "artist - song title.mp3". However, almost all of the recording settings are global (instead of being able to set certain settings for one scheduled recording, and different settings for another scheduled recording. I bought the package specifically because I wanted to time shift talk radio, and also music. However, this is very difficult to do with the TimeTrax software.

For instance, there is a setting that prevents TimeTrax Recast from saving an MP3 if the song has already been recorded. This is good for music, but not good when you are recording talk radio (on talk radio, all of the "song titles" are going to be the same). So, you have to disable that setting if you want to regularly record the same talk radio program. Unfortunately, this means that when you have the software record music, it is going to save all of the songs to MP3, regardless of whether they have already been previously ripped or not. This behavior is annoying.

Also, you can configure the software to save the date that the MP3 was recorded in the filename. This is useful if you are going to regularly record the same talk radio program. However, this is also a global setting, meaning that when you have it record music, it is going to put the date in the filename for those MP3s too.

Update: More comments on January 20, January 23, and February 1.

Review: Yahoo Launchcast

I debated about writing an entire entry about why terrestrial radio is broken, and why I no longer listen to it when I don't have to. But in the end, I decided that it wasn't worth it. The short version is that they play too many commercials, the commercials seem louder than the music, and ClearChannel stations seem to take all of their commercial breaks at the same time. Another problem is that there isn't a whole lot of variety where I live (Cleveland), and we typically only have 1 radio station in each major genre.

A lot of my friends feel the same way. However, most of my friends have moved to listening to iPods.

I do have a hard drive-based MP3 player. However, no matter how many MP3's I have, it seems like I always get sick of listening to the same ones. For that reason, I moved to listening to Yahoo's Launchcast Plus [yahoo.com] internet radio service a while ago. Since I don't really drive that much, I was mostly concerned with listening at home and at work - places where computers are available.

One bonus feature about the service is that you can try it out for free. And they have tons of stations. Around the holidays, they usually have special holiday-themed channels. And they have a good assortment of different country music and classic rock type stations, which are the type I typically listen to.

One other nice feature is that the artist and song name are clearly listed in the Launchcast player (see image below). When I used to listen to terrestrial radio on a regular basis, I would recognize songs that I really liked, but could never figure out what band sang the song, or whatever.



In the lower left corner of the player, there is a skip button. This can be used if a song comes on that you don't like. It enables you to skip the song and start listening to the next one. That is one feature that you can't get with either terrestrial radio or satellite radio.

Unfortunately, one drawback about their player is that it only works in Internet Explorer in Windows. One reason that I list this as a drawback is that I hate Internet Explorer, and never use it unless I absolutely have to. Another reason is that the player crashes frequently, and I'm not entirely sure whether it is the fault of Internet Explorer or Yahoo's service. And finally, this is a drawback because not all of my computers are running Windows, and I would like to listen to internet radio wherever I happen to be, on whatever computer I am using.

That is really the only drawback, though. The service offers more music stations than you can shake a stick at, is relatively cheap, and commercial-free. I don't necessarily care about owning any of the content, since I would just get sick of it anyway. As long as they are constantly introducing new music and have a nice variety, I'm happy.

Review: Aiea Loop Trail

When we attempted to find information about things to do on Oahu, we found that some information was easy to find, while reviews of other things were more difficult to find or nonexistent. This entry is part of a larger series of reviews that I am posting so that other people may learn from our experiences.

One of the things I was really excited about doing in Oahu was hiking. We had read about tons of different trails all over the island. We had a few tour books and had read about some trails on-line. However, it was very difficult for us to get any detailed information about the trails. In particular, the difficulty level of the trails and what could be seen from the trails were details we were looking for that we often couldn't find. Most resources just listed how to get to the trailheads and how long the trails were. I wanted to post this information so that other people with the same questions we had might be able to find it with a google search.



Getting to the Aiea Loop Trail was fairly easy. The trail is located in Keaiwa Heiau State Recreation Area. Take Aiea Heights Drive all of the way to the top of a hill. , then follow signs into the Recreation Area. Keep driving until you get to a parking area near the top of the hill. The trailhead is marked and can be found off the right side of the road.



The trail is well-graded and shady. It is also fairly wide in most places. The trail is 4.5 miles long, and I would rate it as being a fairly easy hike. The only difficult parts are areas where you have to climb over logs that have fallen across the trail. However, all of the logs we encountered had cuts made into them that made it fairly easy to get a foothold when climbing over them. There were only a handful of really steep sections, and they were all very short. Nothing that I, myself, worried about. Actually, the vast majority of the trail could be ridden on a mountain bike, which should tell you about the difficulty level.



It took us about 2.5 hrs to hike the entire loop, which also testifies to the relative ease at which we hiked the trail. In that time, we both drank around 1 liter of water. As with the Lanipo Trail, I should have drank more water out on the trail, as I felt a little dehydrated afterward. When we exited the trail, we had over 2 liters of water in reserve, and felt that we were overequipped. We were not expecting that hike to be as easy as it was.



The trail was a disappointment from a difficulty standpoint because we were hoping it would be challenging. We were also disappointed that there were very few scenic views of the surrounding areas visible from the trail. There was one point at which we could see Pearl Harbor. However, we were looking between trees, so it was not possible to photograph panoramic views of the area (see above image). Most of the hike was through heavily wooded areas, and therefore did not offer many scenic views.

I was bitten by mosquitoes about 5-6 times. Heimlich was not bitten at all. Neither of us were wearing repellant. We started out the hike just after sunrise, and I would expect the mosquitoes to be far worse around sunset. Therefore, if mosquitoes bother you, definitely wear repellent.

Because of the relatively low difficulty level, this trail is probably ideally suited to families. I don't think I would be interested in hiking this trail again, because overall, it wasn't that interesting and didn't offer any scenic views of the surrounding areas.

Review: Lanipo Trail

When we attempted to find information about things to do on Oahu, we found that some information was easy to find, while reviews of other things were more difficult to find or nonexistent. This entry is part of a larger series of reviews that I am posting so that other people may learn from our experiences.

One of the things I was really excited about doing in Oahu was hiking. We had read about tons of different trails all over the island. We had a few tour books and had read about some trails on-line. However, it was very difficult for us to get any detailed information about the trails. In particular, the difficulty level of the trails and what could be seen from the trails were details we were looking for that we often couldn't find. Most resources just listed how to get to the trailheads and how long the trails were. I wanted to post this information so that other people with the same questions we had might be able to find it with a google search.

Getting to the Lanipo Trail is fairly easy. From Honolulu, take the Wilhelmina Rise all the way to the top of the hill. When you get to Maunalani Circle, look for a chain-link fence. At the eastern end of the chain-link fence, there will be a sign marking the trailhead (see below image). We missed it the first time we drove by it, so look carefully.



I would rate the trail as being fairly difficult. There are several sections that are very steep. It also requires you to climb over boulders that are on the top of a ridge. So, if you would slip and fall, you would not only have to worry about falling off a boulder, but you would also be falling off the side of a ridge, and you'd fall and slide for a long distance before being able to stop yourself (see below image). These details surprised us, but didn't really have us too worried. There is nothing that requires any special equipment. But you should be aware of these features before you start the hike. At the same time, I can't describe it as being that difficult, as I did the entire hike with my camera in one hand.



Another detail we did not expect was how thick the underbrush was. There are several locations where you have to push through vegetation. This is not a problem if you are wearing long pants. However, if you are wearing shorts, your legs will get cut and scratched up. I would definitely recommend wearing long pants (as I did).

We did not hike the entire trail. I would estimate we only got about 1.5 miles down the trail. We turned around when we reached an intermediate summit that had a pretty spectacular view. The 3 mile roundtrip took us almost 3 hours (the return leg was a lot faster). We weren't trying to push ourselves to go faster, but the time it took us to cover that amount of distance should give you an idea of the difficulty level.

We carried a total of 4 liters of water for the two of us. In that three hours, we consumed nearly 3 liters of it and were sweating profusely for most of the hike. In retrospect, because we felt dehydrated afterward, we should have drank more water out on the trail (and we have no excuse, because we had over a liter in reserve). Bring lots of water.

We encountered a lot of bees on our hike. This was not a problem for us, and neither of us got stung. However, if you are allergic to bee stings, this is probably not the hike for you. I did not have any problems with mosquito bites on this hike and did not use any repellent.



The hike did offer some incredible views of the mountain valleys around it, as well as views of Honolulu and Diamond Head (see above image). The effort it required was totally worth it for the views. Without hesitation, I would hike this trail again (although I would bring more water and make sure everyone in my group was wearing long pants).

OfficeMax Problems

Ok, now for the lone entry for the week that doesn't have to do with Hawaii.

I've never really frequented OfficeMax [officemax.com] very much. Despite the fact that there is one about a mile away from my house, I've never had much occasion to use it. I order most of my supplies and computer related equipment off the web.

Recently, I needed to print a rather large document. And many of the pages in the document had high-resolution pictures. This was not the type of job that I was going to be able accomplish myself. My options were either to use one of the OfficeMaxes, or drive downtown to a Kinko's (could not find an appropriate site to link to).

I decided to try OfficeMax. The OfficeMax that I went to (since it was closest to my house) was located at:

21950 Center Ridge Road
Rocky River, OH 44116

My document was 172 pages long, and was about 5 MB. Since the file size was relatively small, I decided to burn it to a mini-CD that I had lying around, instead of wasting a full-sized CD. I also posted the document to the web, in case they had a slot loading optical drive (that can't read off mini-CDs).

The first thing that happens when I get there is they tell me they can't read off a mini-CD because the only computer they can use for print jobs has a slot-loading drive (as opposed to a tray-loading optical drive). I told them that wasn't a problem, and I could tell them where to download the document off the web.

It was then that they told me that they were not allowed to download any documents off the web. That has to be the most stupid policy I've ever heard. Are they worried about copyright infringement? It seems like it would be obvious whether any copyrights are going to be violated or not when the document is downloaded (particularly if the beginning of the document has a copyright notification).

Are they worried about viruses? Then instruct your employees to stop using Internet Exploder? This is a terrible policy. They recommended that I email the document to them along with my phone number and address, wait until I get a call from them acknowledging that they had received the document and they could open it, and then come back to the store with the special paper I wanted the document printed on. They warned me, however, that their email servers are slow, and that sometimes it takes a few hours for large attachments to go through.

Instead, I went home and burned the file (a PDF) to a normal-sized CD, then took the CD to another computer and opened up the document to make sure the file burned correctly, and went back to the store so I could have it printed immediately.

When I got back to the store, they had trouble opening up the file, and said that the problem was probably that the file was corrupt. I insisted that I opened up the file without problems on another computer. They then told me that since the file was 5MB and was "relatively large", sometimes it takes a while for files like that to load. I'm sorry, but 5MB, isn't that large.

Finally, they got the file to open properly, and were able to print my document with no further problems. Needless to say, I was very annoyed at what should have been a very simple procedure. I guess that hiring competent people is just too expensive these days.