Geeky Ramblings

Hehehe … found a humorous take on the Terror Alert Level system, implemented by the Department of Homeland Security, on Mike Wills blog.

Currently, it’s

Here’s a useful registry key to hang on too …

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Using regedit, you can navigate to the registry location and delete the appropriate sub-keys to get rid of uninstall entries that don’t actually exist or are duplicates.

Well maybe I am going to get the video capture card that I ordered a few days ago.

Turns out the vendor “lost” the items … and recently found them (sounds like a song).

I got a call a few days ago from the vendor telling me that they did have the cards and I could get one if I still wanted it.

Considering their lack of communication and general bad business practices, I said no and hung up.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided to get it. So I sent them an email asking them to re-activate my order. They informed me that the original order was canceled and I would have to call to give them my credit card, or order another one on Pricegrabber.

I ordered another one on Pricegrabber this morning … and I got an email this afternoon indicating that it had shipped via UPS. I should have it on Tuesday (oops, sorry Ginny, TARsday).

Not really enough time to properly record The Amazing Race … but maybe for the following weeks episode.

Hmmm … I’ll probably have to get a bigger hard drive for mordor.

Hey, check out the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators website.

You can check this site to see if you are owed any money … I found two entries for myself, one for Ginny , and a bunch of entries for Steve and his family.

Not sure how much it will amount to … but who am I to say NO to free money?

Earplugs … where are the earplugs? It’s tuesday and “The Amazing Race” is on.

Gotta find the earplugs!

When using the Lotus Domino Java API Database.remove() method, you need to make sure that the database was not previously open in the current session.

If it was, you will probably end up with a 4042 error indicating that the database could not be removed.

The best way to do the remove is create a database object and just hang on to it. When you are ready to remove the database, invoke the remove() method on the original database object instead of trying to create a new one.

Although the Database class has open() and isOpen() methods, it does not have a close() method.

Ok, this is getting silly … Secunia is reporting that four more vulnerabilities have been found in IE.

Will it never end?

Darn it!

My brother Mitch gave me a heads up on a good video capture card for $80 … I had this idea that I could setup MythTV so I could record shows and then burn them to CD or DVD.

I placed the order through Pricegrabber’s storefronts … and the vendor is supposed to ship the item within 2 days … but they didn’t. I contacted the vendor and, after waiting a whole day, they responded that it would be shipped today.

I had hoped to be able to record The Amazing Race for Ginny and burn her CD’s … but it looks like the first episode will be missed.

Note: I tried to post this on Friday, but IE crashed while I was in the middle of posting it … I’ve switched to Firefox at both work and home.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is running a very interesting article on Free vs. Pay WiFi in Seattle’s coffee shops.

Personally, I refuse to pay for WiFi at commercial establishments … it’s just far too cheap for the vendor … and the price that gets charged is far beyond what I would consider even marginally reasonable.

In Boulder, while we were on our road trip we found a cute little coffee house that advertised WiFi internet access. Both Ginny and I were kind of starved for a ‘net fix, so we wandered down there. I asked how much it cost to connect, and the owner said it was free as long as we were customers. So, we got a couple of iced teas, some turkey wraps, and some yummy cookies, stat down at a table and started munching and surfing.