|
For future reference: To delete a bunch of empty folders using notpad++, these are the steps: a.) use command prompt 1.) Go to Directory 2.) code:dir /ad/b/s | sort /r >filename.bat 3.)open batch in notpad++ 4.)Ctrl-H something at start of line and replace with code:+ stuff to be replacedrd " 5.)Ctrl-H and Regular Expression on 6.) Search for $, replace with " 7.) run bat file. More help here: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,805015,00.asp |
|
I have been contacted by the U.S. Census Bureau, to be part of the "National Crime Victimization Survey." Whoopee. I had just got back from eating with my parents and they were ready to go. I just needed to burn a cd for them, but my Mom says the apartment manager was coming up. I thought that was weird, but then this tired looking woman, I would guess to be about 50, comes up and starts telling me about the survey and why it's important. She addresses me as the previous tenant. I try to tell her I'm busy and need to get going, but she won't stop. She shows her badge as if that would make me stay and talk, then hands me the brochures, which I glance over and quickly see the statement that the survey is completely voluntary. So I say since this is voluntary I am not going to do it and I have stuff I need to do now. She replies by telling me how it so important and will only take up to 25 minutes. Then she starts to read her first long complicated question. Finally I get her to see I am busy and don't want to do this now but she wouldn't go away until I gave her another time to come back. I can see why people don't open the door for them. They are very annoying. It is interesting, the supplied letter. They try to make it sound as if you are a very important person for doing the survey and how important your privacy is. They even throw in big words like 'passwords, firewalls, and encryption." Wow, I am impressed. It points out that it is a felony to disclose information collected and use it outside of it's intended purpose. Hmm, that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone nowadays. 56,000 households are chosen. The census website lists the January 2006 population as 297,821,175. Does that make me lucky? Did I win the lottery? At first glance maybe. I'm one in 5318. But really it's households. That's a lot of people to survey. Government is wasting money to find out that most crimes are not reported. It is fascinating that statistically we, the USA, are almost at 300 million. I hadn't noticed that. I thought we were still around 270 million. Neat. I am all for counting people but that is where my participation in the census stops. I will only do what is required by the Constitution. That means that when I get the census form, I ignore all questions except the one about how many people are living at your household, fill in '1,' fold up the form, put it in the envelope, and send it away. I will not do this survey. On a lighter note, I saw the movie Munich. It was excellent. One of the best movies I have seen this year. |
|
0 Comments
boogidaboogida: preview still doesn't work |
|
I have made the jump to VOIP. I haven't had a landline phone for about 4 years. I still have a cell, but it is prepaid and I don't use it much. I went with sunrocket after reading lots of reviews that said it was a pretty good deal and reliable. It was either them or Lingo, and sunrocket won out since they have no setup fee, no discontinue fee, and I got 2 free phones. I did the $199 for 1 year plan. So far I am liking it. The audio quality is as good as a regular phone. I cannot tell a difference. That's not really hard though since phone voice quality is pretty low on the order. Account management is pretty good. Voicemail was a little difficult to setup, but only because it didn't specify to call my number to setup. I was trying to use the '00' which is only for checking I guess. When I was maxing out my upload and download speed, I checked out my phone and I had no dial tone, so there is that. Call forwarding is easy. Their website does not remember me and auto logs me out after a certain amount of time. I guess that might be a nice security feature, but i am the only one here and would like it to remember me. The free phones are ok. They are a little bit too small for my hands. They are the Uniden DCT646-2. 2 phones are mostly useless for me, but I don't mind. There are lots of features which I will sometime get around to using. I like them, but I am not sure if I get to keep them. My main complaint is that my number is showing up as unknown as of now. That's a problem for many people, because most people I know don't answer unknowns. I know I don't. Hopefully, within the 10 day setup time, this will be changed. First 5 days of sunrocket = good. I hope it stays that way. Now that I have sunrocket, I am noticing their adds everywhere. I wonder if I am just noticing, or if they are rapidly expanding. |
|
0 Comments
boogidaboogida: herky-jerky writing |
|
I made the switch back to Nvidia today. It wasn't arbitrary. I know I could have gotten a better deal with better performance by going ATI, but I really do plan to make the switch to linux. As it stands now, I believe Nvidia provides the best linux drives. I upgraded my card because I got sick of the wavies on the screen, and having experienced DVI with my resurrected dead-again video card, I needed to go back. So I got another new non-gaming card, the MSI NX6200AX, simply because it is cheap, Nvidia, and has DVI. I think it's probably more of a side-grade than a upgrade, but it is quiet. It has no fan. I like that. I'm not a fanboy of either ATI or Nvidia, but strangely, I almost feel a sense of relief going back to Nvidia. It's funny because I have probably had more problems with them by having a card die. I kind of blame Albatron for that though. I never plan to buy another Albatron especially since they wouldn't accept a return. I guess I have found ATI''s drivers to be slightly somewhat of a pain. They require that .NET stuff and all, and it's not always clear what to download. With Nvidia, drivers are the simple. I like that too. My video card history: S3 Virge GX PCI Real3d Starfighter AGP (Intel i740) MSI Geforce2 MX400 Albatron Geforce4 ti4200 (dead now) Asus Radeon 9200SE MSI Geforce 6200 I don't upgrade my video card very often. I don't really need to since I don't game much. Maybe, though, I'll get a new card for Neverwinter Nights 2. But that's what I said about Quake4. Using DVI, makes the screen look so nice. I like it. Should have done this sooner. |
|
1 Comments
boogidaboogida: Quiet PC = Good PC |
|
I went with Ubuntu over gentoo right now because it should be quicker. I am doing the dual boot just in case. Although this is the 3rd time trying ubuntu, I still like it. My first install went bad when choosing to automatically set up the partitions. My second install went away when I took out the hard drive and put it in my other computer. The video card was dead anyway. Ubuntu has a very pretty look to it. It's very soft. One thing that is bothering me though is when setting up, it didn't ask me for a superuser password. It could have happened while my eyes were closed but hopefully not. I set up my partitions as follow: hda1 windows 2000 15GB hda2 / 12GB hda3 /boot 50MB hda4 swap 500 MB hda5 /tmp 5GB hda6 /var 3GB hdb1 windows swap 1GB hdb2 swap2 1GB hdb3 /home 80GB I left about 80GB unpartitioned for future growth or change. Things to do: install the source, install the nvidia drivers, mount the NTFS media partition, set up xvid and dvd, find out how superuser works in Ubuntu. I'm using gnome right now but I plan to use one of those minimal windows managers |
|
1 Comments
boogidaboogida: tired |