The move to Teksavvy has finally goaded me into moving my old Sympatico pages to scruss.com. Considering they’re still using 2003-style markup, I think they look quite smooth.
Category: computers suck
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pocket mail
Gmail works flawlessly on the BlackBerry. Wish I could find a general POP3 client for my other mail…
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dumb joke
Q: What is the little script-kiddy’s favourite movie?
A: 37 -
convert an angle to a bearing in excel
I can’t believe I had difficulty with this one for so long:
 =MOD(450-angle,360)
This assumes you’re measuring the angle in the usual Cartesian way; anticlockwise from the x-axis. -
it’s *safe* harbour, you spammy morons
Just received a phishing e-mail that purports to come from eBay Pearl Harbour Security Departament. That’s pretty dumb.
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new connection
Switched ISPs from Sympatico to Teksavvy today. Couldn’t keep paying Bell $46 a month for something I could get for less elsewhere. I’m not (yet?) getting faster service, but the Speedtouch modem has all the admin stuff I’d need.
Must remember to copy over my old Sympatico web pages … -
Well, that was quick …
I started installing OpenBSD 90 minutes ago on the old Thinkpad, and that’s it done. When I get my static IP, I have plans …
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zeiss it ain’t
For no good reason, I bought a very cheap ($20) mini digital camera at the airport. Its limitations make it quite fun to use:
- has the astonishingly high resolution of 352 x 288
- fixed-focus lens chock-full of chromatic and spherical aberration
- no display, except for a cryptic 2-digit LCD
- takes 20 images, then it has to be downloaded
- grossly inaccurate viewfinder, which shifts when you press the shutter button
- images have pronounced scan lines
- refuses to take images in low light
- weird non-standard USB connector
It is very small, and can also work as a webcam. It also works as well as it could under OS X (use macam to download the pictures, or enable the webcam). Using the webcam does seem to delete the pictures, so make sure you download ’em first.
I’ve made a minicam gallery, which I’ll add to until the novelty wears off.
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the commitments
When I was testing BlackBerry typed-alike words (dactonyms?) I found that sqlite was averaging about 1 insert per second. This is by no means good.
It turns out that, under Perl, sqlite auto-commits after every write. This slows things down terribly. Here’s how to fix this:
When opening the database handle, turn AutoCommit off:
my $dbh =
DBI->connect( “dbi:SQLite:bberry2.sqlite”, “”, “”, { AutoCommit => 0 } )
or die “$!”;Then, only commit occasionally — say every thousand writes:
while ( … ) {
…$id++;
$dbh->commit unless ( $id % 1000 );
…}
$dbh->commit;It works out about 1000 times quicker this way.
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best beat neat nest
Beware, nerdiness follows: I generally like my BlackBerry 7130e, but its multiple letters per key can sometimes give the wrong result. Using word frequency lists from the British National Corpus, sqlite, and way too much programming time, I determined that the key sequence with the most possible word results (81?2) produces best, beat, neat or nest. The device itself suggests also brat and bray, so I should try a longer word list — in my copious free time, of course.
The longest (common words in the corpus) that have the same key sequence are employers and employees, which might briefly cause hilarity in an HR or legal context. -
… with raspberry vinaigrette!
Paul and I often talked of doing this, but I see someone’s done it for real: they hacked the GO Train scrolly LED signs to read Stephen Harper Eats Babies.
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geo mashup
I should probably introduce my Geo Mashup page. It shows where I’ve been blogging from, using Google Maps. It’s quite a fun WordPress plugin,and you can get it here.
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Free the Laserjet 4!
I love the HP LaserJet 4+. Built like a tank, good print quality, and now available used/refurb for pennies. Sure, they weight about as much as a Sherman, and suck power like there was no tomorrow, but one of my 4+s has nearly a million on the page count, yet prints crisp and clean.
Last weekend I scored a 4+ with built in duplexer from eBay for very little. It didn’t want to print at first (giving a cryptic 13 PAPER JAM error), but removing the rather beat-up full-ream paper tray fixed that. It may need a new cartridge (at almost twice what I paid for the printer), but I’m happy.
Wonder if I can direct-connect one of them to the ethernet port on Catherine’s eMac? I know my router won’t talk AppleTalk, so we can’t network just one printer.
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mailbox fool
Can you believe the Outlook mailbox limit at work? 60MB. Yup. I’ve been forced to tidy up every week.
I can’y believe a program as widely used as Outlook has so many critical limitations. Storing mail in binary archive files of limited size? Please; so 1989. -
no use UPS
I inherited a big UPS for my NSLU2 backup system. It’s all hooked up, and should be providing protection. I don’t think the power went out today, but I find this evening that the NSLU2 is off — what’s that all about?
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upgrade
Upgraded to WordPress 2.0.2, and did the same for Catherine’s blog. It must’ve been one of the very few 1.2 to 2.0 upgrades still out there.
