Monthly Archives: November 2007

Calendar syncing

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I hate it when I inconvenience someone by blowing a meeting. It just vanished from my calendar.

It probably doesn’t help that my calendar is on my iPhone, synced through iTunes to iCal, where items are picked up by Entourage and synced with Exchange, from which Outlook syncs with them, or the Blackberry Enterprise Server picks them up and syncs them with my Blackberry (which I am trying to retire in favor of the iPhone). With all the syncing and transcoding going on, I’m surprised all my meetings aren’t lost, or cloned 57 times (actually this does happen occasionally), shifted to an Asian timezone, and converted to swatch internet time. It is pretty much a miracle any of my schedule is right.

Upgrading to XP — patchorama

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Wow. Haven’t installed XP in quite a while. I installed the retail XP from a CD.

Then had to find my motherboard drivers on a different PC, burn them to a CD, since XP didn’t have the drivers on the retail disk. And the motherboard network chipset wouldn’t work until I got the new motherboard drivers.

Then I went to Windows Update. First I had to download and install a new Windows Update component. Then 16 security/critical patches. Then and only then was I allowed to download Service Pack 2, which takes a long time.

And after that reboot, another 85! patches waiting for me. And then I had to download sound card drivers, and nvidia drivers.

So … if you do this, be prepared for a lot of time spent babysitting downloads and installs.

Upgrading to XP

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Finally have had enough of Vista64 bluescreening on me. Probably due to crappy 64bit video drivers. Also tired of being unable to print.

So I wiped the hard disk of my machine today and started the install of XP 32bit. First challenge — the XP install disk doesn’t have drivers for a huge amount of my system, including the network card chipset on the asus motherboard. Downloading all the drivers now on a separate machine to burn onto a CD.

Make sure you have an exact and detailed list of all your hardware if you go this route so you can, like me, track down all the drivers. If I’d been smart I would have downloaded and burnt all the drivers before I did the reinstall.

Two Tivos in one room??

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OK I have a problem. I am trying to set up two Tivo boxes in one room. Unfortunately they both respond to either remote, this is bad. I don’t want them to both change channels, both record the current program, etc. AVSForum, TivoBlog don’t seem to have any suggestions. I can do stupid things to work around this but I am looking for the elegant solution.

You could ask why the hell I have 2 tivos in one room. And if you know me, you know the answer must be “Ohio State Buckeye Football” somehow. The BigTen network is only on DirecTV. But when the Buckeyes are on ABC, HD ABC is only available on comcast. Hence 2. If/when comcast resolves their BigTen network licensing issues, I can resolve this.

Green stuff

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* Breaking: US midwest to launch regional cap-and-trade scheme | Cap and trade, Jim Doyle | TerraPass: Fight global warming, promote alternative energy
* Terrapass opens a green store. Wonder how much they sell from here.
* Home Power magazine. Looks useful
* Walkscore.com. How walkable is your neighborhood. Ours sucks. (Nice job Mike).
* Second Rotation. Recycled used tech gear. Man am I the target for this.
* Life Saver water filtering bottle. Or, the Steri-Pen

The A to Z Guide to The Game

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Pretty overwhelmingly in favor of Ohio.

* A is for Astronauts. Sure Michigan has like 25 astronaut alums, but John Glenn and Neil Armstrong are Ohioans. The first American in orbit and the first man on the moon! No contest, advantage Ohio.
* B is for buildings shaped like baskets. Again, Ohio.
* C is for Cities starting with “C”. Ohio dominates.
* D is for Date of statehood. Ohio has a 34 year lead and the gap isn’t shrinking.
* E is for Etymology. Ohio means “beautiful river”, Michigan means “large lake”. Beauty trumps size.
* F is for Flag. The Ohio flag is unique and is rockin’. The Michigan flag is unoriginal and the moose and elk are vaguely disturbing.
* G is for Golfers. Ohio features Jack Nicklaus, the Golden Bear. Michigan passes.
* H is for Helmets. OK the Michigan helmet design gets points for uniqueness. but Stickers Stickers Stickers!
* I is for Industrialists. Henry Ford started an industry, revolutionized production, but lost leadership to GM. Rockefeller started an industry and wiped out all semblance of competition, finally motivating government action.
* J is for Japan and K is for Korea, who have led the way in beating the hell out of the US auto industry and helped to drive Michigan’s economy into the tank. Ohio’s more diversified industrial and service base has held up better.
* L is for Lakes. OK Michigan has an edge here, featuring its own Great Lake, and being surrounded by several others.
* M is for Mounds. Ohio features some great archeological sites from the mound builders. Michigan — any? Even 3000 years ago, people preferred to live in Ohio.
* N is for Neighboring states. Michigan touches 3, Ohio 5.
* O is for Oh My God You Lost To Appalachian State!
* P is for Presidents. 8 from Ohio, 1 from Michigan. Bam!
* R is for Roller coasters. Cedar Point is the greatest roller coaster park in the country, King’s Island also has some great rides. Michigan has some county carnivals and the defunct Auto World in Flint.
* S is for Shape. Ohio is most reminiscent of a shield — an essential and honorable part of a knight’s outfit. Michigan is shaped like a mitten.
* T is for Tressel. Kryptonite to the whole state of Michigan.
* U is for the Upper Peninsula. Advantage Michigan I guess, but what kind of state can’t even keep all its land together?
* V is for Vacancy rates. I don’t think there is much dispute that Detroit leads the way in office vacancy.
* W is for Winning streaks. OSU now owns the conference record.
* X is for Xacto Knives, headquartered in Columbus.
* Y is for Yakitty yak. Donahue and Jerry Springer started in Ohio. Michigan
residents are more famous as guests.
* Z is for Delis starting with z. OK Ann Arbor wins one here.