Brian A. Thomas .com
Random Musings of Brian A. Thomas. Love for Ari and Sidd.
Electoral Vote Update & I missed the debate
Sep 8th
The liberal electoral vote site has the electoral vote at 264 to 222 in favor of Kerry, while the conservative electoral vote site has it at 288 to 250 in favor of Bush. What is interesting is that the liberal site shows the strong (10% or more, well outside any margin of error) to be 162 to 99 in favor of Bush, and the weak (5% to 9%) as 112 to 31 in favor of Kerry, so if we toss out the barely (which is less then 5% so inside the margin of error and a statistical tie) we have Bush at 193 and Kerry at 211, which is probably closer to the actual current results.
The nice feature of the conservative ran site is that it includes the popular vote, but the site tends to be few days behind, which would explain most of the difference, and a different way of weighing the poll data.
While the webmasters of the two sites may be liberal or conservative, as is evidence by their commentary and links, I have little reason to suspect either of presenting the data in anything but a fair way. That is to say that I don’t think the liberal is misrepresenting the data in Kerry’s favor, nor is the conservative guy misrepresenting the data in Bush’s favor.
It turns out the debate that was to take place on the 31st, did take place. The only people to show up was Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate and Cobb, the Green party candidate and apparently aired on C-Span on the 6th. Seems I missed it.
Sara’s School Update – from Brian’s side
Sep 8th
Sara seems to be enjoying school. The math is a challenge, but one that she’ll overcome with no real problems. I probably would have gone off on her English teacher if I had him as he seems excessively liberal, but then Sara herself is fairly liberal. (Before anyone says anything, recall Mary Matalin is fairly conservative and happily married for some time to James Carville who is extremely liberal.)
It’s too early to get a grade idea as she’s going to a real school, unlike mine. There is none of this one class a month crap. Anyhow, based on what she says and knowing her, I know she’s doing well.
Radio Userland Woes
Sep 8th
Have I said how much I hate Radio Userland lately? This is the program I use to post to this blog…. I can’t wait to start using WordPress. Meyerweb.com also uses WordPress. Those are just two of the many WordPress blogs out there.
Present day problems with Radio:
- After editing my post in Dreamweaver for spell checking, and then importing it into Radio, Radio jumbles everything up and I have to manually re-edit the page at the source code level to get rid of extra spaces, extra <br /> tags (though it changes them from <br /> to <br> which is another large problem), etc.
- Every time I start Radio I have to tell it where Firefox is, although it is pointing right at it each time.
- It doesn’t produce pages that comply with Web Standards… not even close.
- It resides on my computer, not the server, so when I want to make or edit a post, I have to be at home to do it.
- It costs money. There is an annual subscription fee.
- More, but it’s nearly 5 am and I can’t think straight.
Brian's School Update
Sep 8th
I got an A in my last programming class. This isn’t to say that I would feel too comfortable programming a real Windows application yet. I may play around with a few DOS applications, make them object oriented, then when I feel comfortable, move on and re-read the Windows
stuff.
I am currently in Database Applications, which seems like it will focus initially on Excel as a database and then move onto Access. I see little chance of it covering MySQL or any other SQL database which would be of more value to us. I understand that is part of their Office products, but MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle would be more valuable to us then Access. If we have to stick to a Microsoft product, why not Microsoft SQL?
Water Softener update – the reason I started posting today
Sep 2nd
Oh… the water softener seems to be okay at the moment. I turned the dials and it seems to have reset itself, we’ll see when the next scheduled regeneration comes up.
Electoral Vote switches to Bush’s favor
Sep 2nd
At the moment, the electoral vote is 242 to 280 in favor of Bush at one site, and another says 284 to 254 in favor of Bush. A big change from the Kerry lead of 300 to 240 or so on the 10th of August. I’ll refrain from comments…
Jewel Quest – A winning Bejeweled clone
Sep 2nd
Proving my theory that there is little, to nothing new under the sun, just new ways of doing things comes yet another Bejeweled clone. Bejeweled is playable at that link and on zone.msn.com, and the demo is down loadable from a million and one websites, including both of those. Anyhow, the newest clone to hit the market is Jewel Quest, which is actually a fairly cool and innovative twist on the game, and I may like it better then the original (and I am sure Bejeweled isn’t the original, but it is the one people are undoubtedly trying to
duplicate). The game was developed by iWin.com and it looks like the primary distributor is GameHouse, the people who distributed Inspector Parker, which was developed by Oberon Media.
Alaware, Big Fish Games, Gamextazy, Small Rockets, are other distributors and developers of smaller games like these, with lots of overlap between them offering the same games (Small Rockets being an exception to the rule here, it seems they develop and sell their own games only). I am sure I am leaving out lots of other small developers and distributors, but these are the ones I have tried demos of.
CNN.com ranks us number one and two in search for Schwarzenegger “Speach”
Sep 2nd
Wow, we are the number one and number two site on CNN.com for people looking for Schwarzenegger’s Speech at the GOP Convention, depending on the exact wording of the search. I hope we served the people (person?) who was searching for the speech well in that regard.
You want to know the reason we got so high? Speech was misspelled “speach” in the title of the post and the title property the link tag to the speech itself. It has been fixed now, which will make my page ranking drop I am sure. 
Inspector Parker
Sep 1st
Inspector Parker is cool game, that I originally played online at Zone.msn.com.
It is a game of elimination. Remove stuff that doesn’t fit the clues they give you, and you should be left with the solution to each puzzle. The game randomly generates each level, so it is never the same game twice. Check it out.
Ari Update
Sep 1st
I forgot… the reason I started the blogging program last night was not to talk about Arnold’s speech (admittedly the only speech of the two conventions that I’ll probably see or care to see… heck, had I not ran across it, I probably wouldn’t have watched it at all) or the water softener, though I was going to mention the hopeful move to WordPress. The reason I started the blogger was to give an Ari update.
Ari is cutting teeth. We can make two in his lower jaw at the moment, and I thought I felt one in the upper as well. Ari does not seem as happy with this as we are, I wonder why?
He doesn’t sleep much during the day anymore, which is a bad timing development, but we can deal with it. His naps seem to be 15 minutes and then he’s up again. He is wanting attention more, perhaps due to his teeth coming in, again, bad a bad timing development.
He’ll hold a bottle himself and finish off 8 oz with us needed to catch the bottle, or put it back in his mouth a time or two. Generally he’ll do it all on his own.
The only spot of small concern we have so far with him is that he hasn’t really started with any consonants. I don’t expect him to say Yggdrasil (heck, I don’t know how to pronounce it properly, but it’s a fun read and I got lost for over half an hour just reading different links further and further), but how about a dada. Today however he seems to be tossing out stuff that isn’t a vowel, but not a consonant either… just odd sounds, so he may be getting there.
Last time he was weighed, I believe he was 16 lbs, 10 oz. So he’s probably over 17 lbs now.
Remember, friends and family, if you want photos, just let me know. I know I need to get the photo updates online for those who have the original version of the CD… Someday…
Our water softener is going or IS kaput
Sep 1st
My dumb water softener has been running now for 10 hours… A replacement water softener will run at the very least $399 (for some reason the link won’t come up, so I won’t link to it at the moment) on up to $979 or more, and that is from a budget source (I’ve priced them out before). At the $979 level or even $799 and up level, the system goes with me short of there being a better one at the next house, I would just put the old one to the side and reinstall it when I move… oh to dream. The $979 unit on their page of complete water treatment systems, would be my ideal one, then down the line to their $399 unit, the $1299 and $1799 units on that page are more then this house would need. I wonder how much one saves dropping the drinking filter?
Anyhow, perhaps there is a fix for my current system… and we’ve been using unfiltered water for a couple months now as I ran out of salt in the brine tank, so if I have to bypass it, no big deal.
Moving to WordPress…. someday…
Sep 1st
I have decided to start making a move to WordPress as my blogging system. For one, it is better then Radio Userland, which I currently use, and most important, it’s free and open source.
Without working on any of the defaults yet, I have an experimental page running WordPress.
The trick will be moving to a host that can host the page full time, which means PHP and MySQL support. Everyone has PHP support, but MySQL support isn’t so common, at least not at affordable rates.
If I could host it at home I would..
[I didn't bother copying the links or the other stuff over with this import, some of them don't apply anyhow such as the experimental page.]
What happened to the Presidential Debate?
Sep 1st
Wasn’t there supposed to be a Presidential Debate on August 31st? Perhaps they moved it since it is the same time as the convention. I was excited since Peroutka (Constitution), Badnarik (Libertarian), Cobb (Green) and Nader (Independent) were invited. A nice chance for the Libertarian message to get out there to the public eye. Oh well…
Arnold’s Speech at the GOP Convention
Sep 1st
Watching Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speak at the GOP Convention, I am convinced that if a Constitutional amendment was passed allowing him to be President, and if he wanted to be President, the GOP would give it to him.
There are those who say such an amendment would never pass, but I think it could if done under the right wording and limitations. Make it so they have to have been a
Politics
C++ class, Make it easy to know when we update, Sara goes to orientation.
Aug 24th
The diffaculty level of my programming class at school is going up a notch again. We are now moving into Windows programming in C++. Oy.
I have been trying to find either a blog or a wiki dedicated to teaching C++, but no luck yet. I figure they have to be out there somewhere. There are teaching blogs and teaching wikis for other stuff, why not C++?
Want an easy way of knowing when this site, CNN, and many others such as Google’s news page, are update? Many sites use a RSS
or Atom feed to let you know when they have updated. To subscribe to us, or other sites using these systems, you need a news aggregator. A good free aggregator is Feedreader. If you don’t mind paying $30 for a good one, FeedDemon
would be the way to go. Using an aggregator makes it so you don’t have to check those sites out each day. It goes to the web page, dowloads any updates to itself and lets you know when they have been updated and which ones. I highly recomend using Feedreader to see what it is all
about, and then if you decide you really like it, then upgrade to FeedDemon, or if Feedreader is doing the job for you, stick with it.
Sara is on her way to orientation at school.
Bush finally condemns negative outside ads, but what about from the campaingn?
Aug 24th
Bush the other day condemned negative ads by outside groups, stopping short of condemning that ad specifically. Before the ads from the Vets came out, and recently while condemning negative outside ads, Bush praised Kerry’s service in Vietnam. Should he have condemned the
ad specifically? Perhaps, but then he should have asked Kerry to condemn the ads by Moveon, the movie Fahrenheit 9/11, and other smear campaigns by outside groups from the other side. There is no difference between the ad by the Swift Boat Vets and Fahrenheit 9/11, outside who
it attacks and the length of the attack.
Of course, Bush wants negative outside ads to be condemned by both sides, but says nothing of
negative ads by the campaigns themselves. This is a little disappointing since he seems to run more on negative ads then Kerry. Kerry ads, that I have seen, seem to be more positive. Good for him, let’s hope Bush follows suit. Both sides should stop the negative ads from the campaign, and condemn negative ads, movies, books and websites from outside sources, whose sole purpose is to smear the other candidate.
While Kerry seems to have slipped a little in the Electoral Vote, I still predict, he’ll win by a wide margin. Oh well, I’ll still go out and vote for one of my two guys, and I probably won’t decide until I am behind the curtain as to whom that will be.
The accessible Brian A. Thomas .com update
Aug 21st
Okay, what about the accessible, validated, table free version of this site? I haven’t had the time to really work on the test page in a while. Apologies. I do want to get back to that as soon as possible. After that, the page should be equally accessible on PDAs, computers, screen readers, braille web browsers (I doubt anyone visiting this page is using a braille web browser, but should they do so, the page would finally be readable and navigable).
You may have noticed some changes on the main page here though that is a move to accessibility. On many web browsers, the links in posts like this should have a tool tip come up. The acronyms in the last couple of posts should also have a tool tip. So we are getting there, slowly.
Of course some of the stuff I am doing is being messed up by Radio… I need to change blogging software to something better, and free… but that would mean moving hosts, something I am not really ready to do yet. Perhaps when Radio expires, or the domain… we’ll see.
My scream of agony that you may have heard earlier
Aug 21st
That agonized scream you may have heard was the sound of me, suffering at the hands of my computer. I have software I want to use, but I can’t because I don’t have Windows XP. Sadly, I can’t afford Windows XP at the moment, especially WinXP Pro like I would prefer to have. Next
WinXP Home/Pro both prefer more then 128MB RAM, at least 256MB RAM, the more the better, and I only have 128 MB RAM. I hear what you are thinking, why not upgrade the amount of RAM I have since RAM is cheap. Well, it is, unless you have RDRAM, or Rambus RAM, which will run you several times regular memory prices. Upgrading to 512MB of RDRAM, which
I would consider the absolute minimum today, would cost over $200, and 1GB of RAM, the true minimum, would run over $400, not an affordable option either way. Then the video card… which could be upgraded to a minimum card for a tad over $150, though really I would be missing out on lots of stuff even with that until over $300 or so which doesn’t work on my system as I don’t have enough power from the power supply, so I am stuck with a $100 to $150+ type of upgrades. The CPU is unfortunately unreplaceable, as Intel went with another pinout configuration on the higher-speed chips. So how much to upgrade my current system? Let’s say 1 GB RDRAM ($400+), a new video card ($150+), Windows XP Pro($190 for the upgrade), so at minimum, I am looking at $740 or so. At that point, I still wouldn’t be able to run some of the games I would like to play, and if I were to compile a really big program (unlikely anyhow, I’ll admit) it would take much longer then I would care for… The above doesn’t even account for the software upgrades I really should get…
Options? New system from Dell at the same price range… doesn’t work, as the only way to do that is to get integrated video with no option for adding a video card. Cheapest I could come up with at Dell was $1355, and that is dropping the monitor from the system price, a much better system would be $2054 from them. Now in both cases that included a $260 upgrade to get Office small business edition, and at the moment I qualify for the Student edition which I could get cheaper elsewhere… Still tons of cash.
A homebuilt system would be the preferred option, since as I am building it, I can control the exact parts going in, and make sure they are good quality. This would run about $3100 or so without a monitor upgrade.
Which is kind of odd, as the notebook I want is about $3135 without changing anything… I know, I know, $3135 seems extreme, but this isn’t just a regular laptop, but a DTR, or Desktop Replacement.
All the above is without upgrading to the development software. I won’t even go into that cost, but development software is a tad expensive.
Of course there are other things we need more then a new computer, so I am stuck… grr…. and hence the scream of agony you may have heard earlier… oops, here it comes again…
Ari Update, Ari’s CD of photos, Sara’s surgery, My school update
Aug 20th
Ari has fairly well mastered the going from back to front roll. While we put him down on his back, we almost always find him on
his belly when we get him up. He has re-learned the front to back roll, so he goes back and forth, though he still finds it easier to go from back to front.
Sara fed him cabbage… eww…. He liked it well enough apparently. He seems to like solid foods.
Want photos of Ari? We have a CD full of them, free for the asking to family and friends. Okay, well, more like 200 MB or so of pictures, so not a full 700 MB, but still… Anyhow, let me know if you want it. Updates to the CD will be issued to broadband friends and family via Bit Torrent. I recommendAzureus for your Bit Torrent client. I’ll let you know when the update is available.
Sara had surgery on her toes the other day. All went well. I’ll leave her to go into all the graphic detail, the big… long… shots and all of that. She starts school here in a little over a week. KSU: Stark, she’s coming right at ya.
My last day of school will be December 23rd. Well, last day for the Associate of Applied Business, Computer Programming and Applications anyhow. After that I start on my Associate of Applied Business, Computer Networking and hopefully earn my MCSE or MCSA. Still left are Literature, Database Applications, Advanced Database Applications, and Graphical User Interface Programming. Technically there is an externship as well, but that can be done during the same time as classes, and most of us in the night classes are complaining that an externship isn’t reasonable for us since we all work during the day, and how many places will take us after 6 pm for externships? So we’ll see how the externship works out or not. Anyhow, figuring I finish with the Networking classes by May 26th or June 23rd, I may have my MCSE or MCSA by this time next year. I believe I currently have a 3.68 overall GPA.
I got to get off to let Sara have the computer… so until later… oh, and I’ll get back to work on the accessible version of this page again soon. More on that bit on the next update from me.
Spam over VoIP
Aug 10th
Just what the world needs, spam coming through our phones. Net phone customers brace for ‘VoIP spam,’ is a story over a C|Net about the rising threat of spam coming to VoIP networks. What the hackers of the world need to do is attack the sites that advertise through spam.
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