I’m a few weeks late on posting this. I really haven’t had the time to sit down and right a proper entry until now. The day that I never thought would come finally came, the dry wall is up in the master bath. There were times when I was demolishing the bathroom that I thought it would it would be a impossible task to finish it. It was such a mess and was going to cost so much money to put back together. This is a big milestone for me.

This was my first time installing drywall and I made a few mistakes. Apparently the top peice of drywall should go up first. I put the bottom peice up first which left me with a gap at the top. I also managed to to incorrectly measure every single protrusion through the wall and had to make all the holes in the drywall larger to adjust.

Next items to start working on are the flooring and the shower waterproofing. The Warmly Yours floor heating was very expenisve and cost me my budget for the next few months. The schluter kerdi product I plan to use for the shower stall will be pretty expensive so that purchase will have to wait. I will work with what I have but won’t be able to buy much therefore I don’t expect a lot of progress over the next month.

NetLinc - INSTEON Central Controller is an affordable and flexible central controller perfect for enhancing any INSTEON home automation network. NetLinc integrates INSTEON technology with any web-enabled mobile device through Wi-Fi and cellular communication, allowing you to control or create timers for INSTEON devices or scenes from inside your home, in the backyard, at work, in the car or on vacation halfway around the world! Whether you are a DIYer, an electrician, or a home automation integrator, you will enjoy the ease with which programming and discovering of INSTEON devices is accomplished. A simple plug-in installation sets up in minutes and will allow a web-enabled phone or PDA to control your INSTEON network from almost anywhere. NetLinc has been designed for optimal use with an iPhone or iPod Touch as a mobile touch screen; however, there are customizable user-downloadable server applications that provide a flexible interface for any web-enabled device. As and added feature, NetLinc includes IP camera support, giving you the versatility to incorporate watching and controlling your IP enabled surveillance cameras through you web-enabled interface. NetLinc puts the power of managing your entire INSTEON home automation network in the palm of your hands.

According to their website ”For a limited time, each kit will feature discounted INSTEON products and a free iPod Touch”. Wow, and the NetLinc is only $119 (Available 08/15/08).

Smarthome is also offering two starter kits.

The best Friday iPhone 3G launch story comes from very-simple.com

about 30 seconds after I walked out of the store, I decided to take the iphone out of the box because it was buzzing (most likely with ‘welcome’ texts from AT&T), and the phone slipped out of the box and landed face down on the cobblestone sidewalk of central park south and the screen cracked into about a gazillion pieces. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

That’s not the best part. Read the rest of the iPhone story at very-simple.com for the happy ending.

I don’t do a good job of proofreading my writings before I post them, but I’m a one man operation and I’m lazy. I would expect just a tad more from the Rio Rancho Observer. This accurately titled article called “It's the law” is a good example of what not to do. I will just tell the officer the paper told me not to do these things.

DO NOT:

-Buy from a reliable fireworks vendor.

-Ignite fireworks outdoors.

-Have water handy.

-Light one firework at a time.

-Store fireworks in a cool, dry place.

-Dispose of fireworks properly.

-Use fireworks in an area clear of dry vegetation

-Re-ignite malfunctioning fireworks.

-Give fireworks to small children.

-Experiment with or attempt to make your own fireworks.

Never throw fireworks at another person.

Never carry fireworks in your pockets.

And, never shoot fireworks in metal or glass containers.

The company I hate the most is the phone company. The second company I hate the most is the cable company. At least it used to be. When I lived in Albuquerque, I had Comcast cable internet because they were the monopoly there. Now that I’m in Rio Rancho I have Cableone. The first thing I liked about CableOne is they didn’t charge me a surcharge for just having Cable internet without TV. (In fact I did have their TV service for a short while, but their HD selection was poor and the Motorolla DVR was extremely poor).

In the 3 years I’ve had their service there’s been a few downtimes not related to them, but most of my issues have been at my house. For the last few months I’ve had to reset the cable modem a many times and last week no amount of reseting it was bring back my fix. I went down to my least favorite of stores and bought a new one. No luck, it worked just as good as the other one.

I broke down and called CableOne tech support. It involved me entering my account number into the automated system then being directed to a person within a few minutes. The guy on the phone tried to remotely access my modem and was unable to, so he proceeded to set up appointment for a technician to come out.

He asked when if I could be available the next day and I said I can and the sooner the better. So he tells me to hold on then comes back to the phone and asks if I am can have them come out right now. This is at about 4pm .

There were two cable one vans at my house within a hour. They came in and checked a few things. Then went outside to the side of the house. About a half hour later my internet was working.

Cable one doesn’t isn’t as cheap as Quest but I’m not complaining.

Tesla issued a press release in February of 2007 stating that they will build their WhiteStar sedan in New Mexico.

Governor Richardson announced today that Tesla Motors will build a new automobile assembly facility in Albuquerque, bringing 400 high wage jobs and a total capital investment of $35 million. Construction on the 150,000 square foot plant will begin in April 2007, at the latest.

It’s the end of June 2008 and no electric car plants have been built. The state of California screwed New Mexico out of that opportunity.

Ze’ev Drori, CEO of Tesla Motors, and Governor Schwarzenegger announced today at a press conference at Tesla Motors headquarters that Tesla’s next product, a 4-door, 5-passenger sedan, will be manufactured at a facility in the state of California.

Previously it had been announced that the sedan manufacturing facility was planned for Albuquerque, New Mexico. After a thorough review of the program, Tesla decided that it would be highly advantageous to build manufacturing facilities in close proximity to the engineering and research and development functions in Tesla’s San Carlos headquarters. Tesla’s battery pack, a critical component of the Tesla Roadster, is currently manufactured in California. Final assembly of the Tesla Roadster is also currently in California.

That really sucks.

It’s been almost two months since my last post on the master bathroom remodel progress. I had to wait for a special order shower head to arrive which took over a month. I also had to pay for the previous months remodel.

Today a plumber friend came over and help me install the new shower and vanity plumbing. OK, really he did all the work. I have never done any copper soldering before so I wasn’t able to do this myself. Now that I see how it’s done it’s really not that hard and i think i could do it myself next time.

I decided to move the vanity from the north wall to the east wall. I think i can better utilize this small space and install an extra cabinet next to the sink by having the cabinet on the east wall. The connections points however were too far over to be hidden under the sink. The cold water outlet and the drain pipe both needed to be moved over several inches.

Mountain Lions are pretty common in New Mexico and most occur near the uh... mountains. Last week a Mountain Lions apparently killed an ate a man in Pinos Altos, NM. Pinos Altos is located way south of Albuquerque. They caught a cat that may have been the cat that did it, so they killed it anyways. The American way i guess.

In May

Officers from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish investigators said they are now 90 percent sure that a Mountain Lion’ pounced on Jose Salazar Jr., 5, and was trying to drag him away as the boy's father gave chase.

Mostly Mountain Lion’s try to avoid humans and are probably pretty desperate if they attack a human. If you live near their habitat, I would keep your small dogs and cats inside.

Updated 7/1/08: A second lion has been killed near Pions Altos. This one may have also been responsible. Lets just kill them all to be sure.

I’ve known for a while that Intel won’t be deploying Microsoft Vista internally. Now that the New York Times is reporting on it, you can know too.

Intel, the giant chip maker and longtime partner of Microsoft, has decided against upgrading the computers of its own 80,000 employees to Microsoft’s Vista operating system, a person with direct knowledge of the company’s plans said.

The person, who has been briefed on the situation but requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of Intel’s relationship with Microsoft, said the company made its decision after a lengthy analysis by its internal technology staff of the costs and potential benefits of moving to Windows Vista, which has drawn fire from many customers as a buggy, bloated program that requires costly hardware upgrades to run smoothly.

“This isn’t a matter of dissing Microsoft, but Intel information technology staff just found no compelling case for adopting Vista,” the person said.

An Intel spokesman said the company was testing and deploying Vista in certain departments, but not across the company.

In the end, the PowerBook G5 turned out to be the biggest vapor non-story in Apple laptop history

The PowerBook G5: Long Rumored, Never Produced

What sounds like good news for my home town of Rio Rancho is bad new for Colorado Springs, CO. To open the new support center in Rio Rancho they are apparently closing one in Colorado Springs. 800 people have to move to Rio Rancho or lose their jobs.

HP told local workers that the Colorado Springs center is scheduled to close in the second half of next year, when the company plans to open a new center in the Albuquerque suburb that eventually will employ 1,200, said the sources, who said they were told not to disclose the information outside Hewlett-Packard.

I really feel for the people of Colorado Springs. In 2007 Intel announced they are closing their plant in Colorado Springs in which many of those people came to Rio Rancho. I checked out the Colorado Springs plant when they opened in 2000. It’s a beautiful town and I can imagine it will be tough for people to leave there.

Barack Obama was in Albuquerque today. Of course I wasn’t invited but nmfbihop.com has a nice write up with lots of pictures.

www.nmfbihop.com - Obama Event in Albuquerque

I have to say that this is a sad start to my day.

Carlin, who had a history of heart and drug-dependency problems, died at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters.

HP is bringing 1300 jobs in the way of a support center to Rio Rancho. HP is receiving tax breaks and the 1300 jobs could be realized by 2012.

According to the Albuquerque Journal, it’s likely to be build near the new downtown in the same are where the Santa Anna Star Center is. Yet another building that can be added to the list of building to be built in the new downtown which actually are not.

In another example of crack reporting (or reporters on crack) at the Albuquerque Journal:

Jobs at Hewlett-Packard mostly would be in customer support and sales. They could help offset layoffs at Intel, which remains the state's largest private-sector employer despite cutting about 1,000 jobs during the last year.

I’m not sure how that works. The Intel layoffs were last year and new HP jobs are not likely to come for a while. A year or two at least. Maybe they will come in time for the next round of layoffs.

In any case based on what I read on the Consumerists, HP needs all the support center help it can get.

Note: I don’t actually know of a new round of layoffs at Intel. I’m mostly being sarcastic but I wouldn’t bet on anything in these times.

Cleaning up the swamp cooler duct work continues. At this rate I might have it done by summer.

This is my first experience mixing and using cement and I’m pretty happy with the result. Here’s the problem, a large swath of concrete is missing and the original metal duct just rested up against dirt, further degrading the metal. I cleaned up the mess and prepared it to be filled with cement.

First thing I did was to put some metal lath that is used for stuccoing walls. I folded it in on itself and shoved it into the gap using a few nails (nailed into dirt) to hold it back where it needed help. The metal lath not only will give the cement some strength but will give it something to stick to.

I used 30 lbs of Quikrete quick setting cement. The cement sets in 10-15 minutes and, according to the container, is recommend for vertical applications. Since I had never mixed cement before it seems like a good first step was to read and follow the instructions. The container says to mix 5.5 parts of Quikrete into 1 part water and only mix as much as you can work with in 10 -15 minutes. Mixing that much water resulted in a wet powered that was pretty much useless. After some experimentation and wasting about 10% of the Quikrete I found I needed about 3x water than was called for.

Another 10% waste of Quikrete occurred trying to figure out how to actually apply the material into the hole. I finally figured out that using a wide putty knife and pushing it up, working my way left to right and top to bottom was the easiest way to apply it. Sometimes it would fall after I put in on and I tried to scoop up as much as I could and put it back.

It was hot and sweat and blood literally went into the making of this. There is a satisfaction to doing it myself..

There’s a few next steps before I can permanently attach the duct work. The floor of the this concrete pit should also be solid concrete, but is degraded and it’s hard to tell where the concrete ends and the dirt starts. I will have to put about a .5 inch layer of cement down. I will probably use something like the Quikcrete Fast-Setting Self-Leveling product. Since it doesn’t require any trawling, it should be easy!

The other thing I have to do is to clean out the dirt that made it’s way down the main duct that runs from the cooler to the main air distribution point. I could hire a duct cleaning service, but why start hiring people now when I’ve done everything else myself?

I’m not necessarily a fan of Al Gore, I respect what he has accomplished and think we would have all been better off if he had won the election in 2000. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research is claiming that since Al Gore has upgraded his house with energy saving technology that he it’s using more energy than before.

After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use, the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

I look at this from the perspective of a home owner who is had done and plans to do some of the same upgrades and I have to say “what the fuck? I would be absolutely pissed if I was using more energy after putting that much money into those upgrades.

There’s has to be something else going on here. The TCPR isn’t going into a lot of details on the numbers. I have to wonder if they aren’t presenting the numbers in a way to make their argument favorable. Searching on Google for “Tennessee Center for Policy Research” brings up quite a bit of information on them indicating that they are not only “right-wing” but have influence from the anti-global warming industry.

You can’t believe everything you read on the internet. I think a much more plausible explanation is that Al Gore is building a time machine in his basement and that would explain the net increase in energy usage.

OK, technically it’s a Trojan but I think the term “virus” is better to get attention. The Unofficial Apple Weblog states:

In the wake of the ARDAgent vulnerability discovered yesterday, we all have something new to look out for: OSX.Trojan.PokerStealer is the official name of a trojan horse masquerading as a poker game. The trojan is distributed in a 65K .zip archive.

According to security company Intego, running the trojan activates SSH, and transmits the username, password hash, and IP address of the computer to a server. It asks for an administrator's password after displaying a message about a corrupt preference file that needs to be repaired.

The "PokerGame" application is 159,843 bytes, and includes the text "Copyright 2008 Andrew" in the version information (visible in Get Info).

Don’t be a fool. Don’t download stuff from non-reputable sites and don’t open attachments you don’t know what they are.

It’s been hot here. Unusually hot. This last week has been in the mid to high 90’s which seems about 10 degrees more than usual. This poses a problem for me. Last fall I removed the swamp cooler due to the duct work rusting out and making a mess and I haven’t yet resolved it. I realize it’s June and I should be prepared for the heat already, but I wasn’t expecting this much heat at once.

The Lowes and Home Depot don’t carry duct work larger than 8”. Luckily I was able to find a local hardware store called Samons that carries pre-made duct work. Not being ready to permanently install the duct work... let me just say that if your a fan of duck tape, you will be a fan of my work.

I have a managed to duct tape the whole mess together and sit it on the cement hole. If there’s a strong wind it will probably blow the duct work away, If it rains It will probably fill the hole with water. For now I’m cool.

John Fleck posts today about a New York Times story on how the Saudis are afraid that by squeezing demand for oil they are going to put themselfs out of buisness.

While they are reaping record profits, the Saudis are concerned that today’s record prices might eventually damp economic growth and lead to lower oil demand, as is already happening in the United States and other developed countries. The current prices are also making alternative fuels more viable, threatening the long-term prospects of the oil-based economy.

It’s not your imagination, gas prices are higher than they were in 1918 when adjusted for inflation. Unless Saudis significantly reduce the price of gas and keep it down, the path is set to lessen our need and maybe one day eliminate our need for oil as a means of transportation.

My truck gets 15 MPG (when I’m lucky) and the last time I filled it up it cost me $68. When gas was about $2.50 a gallon, I looked at getting a Honda scooter that gets about 80MPG. Considering my truck is already paid off, the break even costs didn’t work out for the scooter nor is it likely to still work out to purchase a more efficient vehicle (I need to redo the math for current gas prices and I will publish it later). I still want to reduce my expenditures on gas so I’m going to burn fat instead of oil.

Assuming the weather cooperates, i will start riding my bike to work next week. I’m also working on resurrecting Project Maverick (my long languishing project car) and it will be electric. Both of these things I wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for the high price of gas. Apparently I’m not the only one reducing my use of oil, Exxon is selling off it’s retail gas business because it can’t make enough money off it.

Finally my point is that once people get into these habits they are not going to fall out. The movement against oil has already started and will counter the oil producers greed.

I was detained by the police today and accused of stealing. I was also illegally detained against my will by several Wal*Mart employees preceding the detention by police. My crime? Leaving Wal*Mart with four bags of sugar (that I had just purchased) without showing a receipt. I was threatened with being taken to jail, threatened with physical violence as I attempted to leave, and had to defend myself and my property while Wal*Mart security attempted to rip it from my hands. After I was released (having been completely innocent all along), I was lectured by the police officer and Wal*Mart manager about how next time I could make it easier on myself by just agreeing to give up my rights to their goons to begin with. While the initial employee who detained me apologized, the others, including the Wal*Mart Manager, did not.

Did I ever mention that I hate Wal Mart?

From Rio Rancho Observers’s Police Blotter.

Mark T. Marshall was arrested on three charges of child abuse after allowing his 11-year-old son to drive his large truck while he rode along side it on a bicycle. Marshall’s son was involved in a collision with a semi-truck, because he failed to yield to westbound traffic. Marshall’s 9-year-old son and his 6-year-old daughter were also in the vehicle at the time.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Guantanamo Bay prisoners can go before U.S. federal judges to challenge their years-long detention, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a landmark decision that delivered another setback for President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.

By a 5-4 vote, the nation's highest court struck down the law Bush pushed through the Republican-led Congress in 2006 that took away the habeas corpus rights of the terrorism suspects to seek full judicial review of their detention.

"We'll abide by the court's decision. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it," Bush told a news conference in Rome, where he was on a weeklong European visit. "We'll study this opinion and we'll do so ... to determine whether or not additional legislation might be appropriate."

Supreme Court rules for Guantanamo prisoners. Also read a related story at Salon in which I quote the most important part.

the court upholds the fundamental right to habeas corpus

Yes, I have it set to only sync “Selected podcasts” yet it continues to sync ones that I don’t have checked. Even If I play them on the AppleTV they won’t auto delete.

One of the best features of the space program has always been astronaut photography, and I will take this opportunity to share some of the best photographs of Earth's skies, taken from above - way above (over 200 miles to be more exact).

The Sky, From Above

The next transformers movie has a name and guess where it’s filming?

ALAMOGORDO, New Mexico -DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Pictures and director Michael Bay will return to New Mexico to film major sequences for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Governor Richardson announced Monday. The next installment of the box office hit Transformers is expected to hit theaters next summer.

Some details of the next film are apparently known, check out slashfilm for spoilers.

There’s a number of problems with the plastic connectors for which I don’t recommend them. If you leave them outdoors all year round they get brittle and they don’t take a lot of abuse like when your dragging your hose across the cement. Instead I recommend the brass connectors such as the ones made by Camco.

Another issue with these things is they tend to get dirt in them and expand and contract with the weather. Sometimes you have to bang on them to get them to move again, try doing that with a plastic part.

I said I would blog more. My wonderfull employer is sucking the life out of me. I really, REALLY want to write about that subject but I’m afraid it will get me in trouble.

Stargate The Ark Of Truth is the direct to DVD movie follow up of the Stargate SG1 series. It’s on iTunes for purchase or rent and can be rented on the AppleTV in HD. I plan to marry HD and Stargate.

Albuquerque only seems to get national attention when something bad happens. This time the local NBC affiliate KOB channel 4 had a cameraman who was arrested by a police. The “raw video” shows the cop gets into a scuffle with the cameraman while the cop tries to arrest the cameraman.

There’s something missing from this video, like what lead up to this indicent. KOB’s story only says:

The photographer says he was asked to leave the scene and go to a media staging area. However, he says officers did not tell him where that area was located.

I bet there’s more to it than that. The cops probably told the cameraman mutiple times what to do any he probably continued to mouth off to them and ignore their instruction. I’ve never heard of this sort of thing happening in Albuquerque before and I doubt the police officer just walked up to him decided to arrest him becasue he asked for his badge number.

My opinion of KOB is they like to sensationalize the news and this seems to be leading in this direction.

Update 6/12/08: Guess the cops did make a mistake.

The Chief of Police Ray Schultz has viewed a videotape of the confrontation and concluded that several mistakes were made during the confrontation.

Update 7/2/08: The charges against the photographer has been dropped.

A judge has thrown out the charges against an Eyewitness News 4 photographer accused of disobeying a police officer at a crime scene.
The officer is now on paid leave, and is scheduled to have a disciplinary hearing next week.

RapidWeaver 4.0 was released last week. I got in on the private betas right at the end and was a little concerned but it looks like Realmac has fixed the publishing code. Often times when I would publish with the old version, rapidweaver would fail somewhere in the middle. I had to export the site and manually copy the entire site via the finder.

The two times I have published the site so far it has published sucessfully. This means more blogging (hopefully).

Here’s what else is new:

Version 4.0 - May 29th 2008

• Application Updates
• Brand New User Interface.
• New open file format (RWSW).
• Pretty URL's (i.e. Cruftless links).
• Easy theme management:
• Folder support.
• New Hi-Resolution Theme Previews.
• Theme Searching.
• WebClip icon support.
• One-click Publishing.
• Google Analytics Support.
• RapidWeaver News Centre.
• Picture Taker Support.
• Styled Text Editing Toolbar.
• 4 Completely new themes.
• Custom Link Attributes in the Add Page Sheet.
• Improved and expanded Plugin Architecture.
• Site logo now has width and height attributes set in the source.
• Publishing can now be cancelled.
• Numerous other fixes and enhancements.

A few weeks ago I was watching my Sony 60 inch rear projection TV (model KDF-E60A20) when the screen turned blank and the normally green power-on indicator started blinking red. I thought, this has to be a bad thing. My first assumption was the bulb died.

The bulb did not die, there is a whole other indicator light for a dead bulb. What was actually happening is the power-on indicator light was blinking 6 times. Some googling on this subject indicated that the thermal fuse had blown and it needed to be replaced.

Sony apparently has a service bulletin (E29102171) that covers the replacement. In order to access this information you have to be some sort of authorized service personnel. I did find a website where you could obtain the service bulletin but they wanted $12 to join the site first. Let me go on for a moment and say why I think this is a total scam. It seems the damaged thermal fuse situation is a design flaw and Sony’s replacement part is totally different from the original. This website is profiting off the situation by providing information was created by Sony. I won’t link to the site here, but if you search google for this issue you will surely find the site in question.

This is something that Sony should be fixing for free. I’m reading people are paying around $400 to get this issue repaired. I repaired mine for $17.91. The part itself was only $4.80. I ordered part 191002393 from Sony’s service site. Here’s how I replaced mine.

First, the thermal fuse is simply a small electronics part on the end of two wires that connects to the harness in the TV. The wire comes wrapped up in a small package about the size of two dimes. Shipping costs $11.95 to ship it in a giant box full of bubble wrap. Thanks Sony for wasting resources getting this to me.

The thermal fuse is located under the lamp housing in my TV. It’s a dime sized device mounted to the bottom of the TV with two wires coming out of it. It took me a while to figure out that this monstrosity is the thermal fuse considering how tiny the replacement is.

In order to get to the wiring harness I had to remove the rear panel of the TV. There’s about 10 screws that hold that on. Then I removed the fan housing to gain access to the original thermal fuse. I followed the wires back up to where they connected to the wiring harness. I unplugged the original fuse and plugged in the new one and ran the wires to where the original fuse is.

I did not remove the original fuse. It’s somewhat difficult to get to and doesn’t hurt to keep it on. I wrapped the new fuse wiring around the old one. There may be a actual place to mount the new fuse but i didn not see the service bulliten so I cannot say for sure. Now my TV works.

Warning: This is meant to give a basic guide on how the thermal fuse is replaced. It doesn't cover everything thing and could vary on other TVs. If you decide to replace your own thermal fuse based on this information you do so at your OWN RISK.

I use in the back up strategy of having one local backup and one remote backup. If your house burns down, I still have a copy of your data thats not in my home. In Febuaray I signed up for a paid Mozy account, an internet back-up provider to take care of the offline backup. I had been trying the free version of their beta software for several months and was happy with the way the software performed. Also, they were the only ones to offer a Mac version.

My goal was to back up just my home folder. The total size of the folder is about 80 GB, with my itunes folder taking up about 30 gigs and my photos folder taking up about 40 gigs. Knowing that Mozy has bandwidth limitations I’ve let it back up in sections. I first let it back up my Documents folder then enabled the Music folder and now I’ve enabled the Photos folder.

It’s taken about 3 months to back up my itunes folder. Thats a long time and the biggest limitation is the upload speed and the amout of data that can be uploaded in a day. Both of which are imposed by Mozy (I will add the specifics when I can find them). I can uplodad an unlimited amout of data.

I have used the restore function a few times for small amounts of data, but if I need to restore the entire data set I can request they send me it via snail mail via physical media for small fee.

They charge $5 a month but I signed up for 2 years at $99. Seems like a good price compared to trying to set up my own server in a remote location.

Tonight the big guns started showing up. First one was a good sized, about silver dollar sized, wolf spider. This guy saw me coming but I was able to track him down with my vacuum. Right after I got that guy I went back down the hallway and saw this good sized black spider right where I was. Where the heck did this guy come from? What kind of spider is it? I have no idea but it got vacuumed up too.

I wouldn't say I'm afraid of spiders but as I've got little tolerance for them or bugs in general since I've moved into this house. I know they are harmless to people and they are good for the environment by eating other bugs but I don't like them scurrying around my house. With the scorpions and the spiders, I may just have to get out some insecticide.

The software I use for home automation set up has had a major update to 3.0. I've been beta testing it when it was known as 2.5 and there have been quite a few significant features added. There is now support for the Insteon thermostat adapter, which I've been using. There is also support for scenes and links, which allows the control of multiple Insteon devices at once with a single powerline command.

The Unoffical Apple Weblog has a quick write up on it as well as a CooconTech thread.

I still want to put in two electrical outlets, one for a heated towel rack and one to put in a cabinet (so I can put all my rechargeable stuff and hide it). I have to decide where I want to tie into the existing GFCI protected circuit.

I special ordered some bathroom fixtures from Lowes on Wednesday. I can't believe how much I spent on them, but I just didn't like the cheap in-stock stuff. Bathroom fixtures just simply are not cheap. They were supposed to call me on Thursday and let me know how long before they arrive and it's Saturday and I haven't heard anything back.

I've put together the base cabinets I bought from IKEA to figure out how to lay them out. I've drawn out several ideas but it's hard to tell without actually seeing it.

I'm not sure how much the Home Depot prebuilt kit is, but the Johnson Hardware kit was $60 through Ace Hardware's online site.

Next up, the electrical

He will need a 1000 preorders to make the first production order and I suspect a jailbroken phone.

Looks like I'm not the only one with gopher problems.

An irrigation ditch in the South Valley overflowed Friday morning flooding a residential neighborhood near Isleta and Rio Bravo. Officials are blaming the incident on damage caused by gophers. Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District crews worked in the predawn hours to repair the damage and staunch the flooding.

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Knockouts has a website and a MySpace page. I also think they give haircuts.

They just opened a shop in Albuquerque, conveniently really close to Hooters and next to Jason's Deli. It looks like they have some nick packages... I mean services... I mean haircuts and massages... oh never mind. I still can't figure out what their prices are. Probably more than I am willing to pay.

In January, the New Mexico state Environment Department offered a free Radon test kit to residents, coincidentally January was also National Radon Month. I emailed the person who is running the program and obtained a kit. Before I get to the results, what is Radon?

Radon is a odorless, colorless gas that comes from the decay of radium. Radon is present all over the earth. it's extremely common and it the second most common cause of lung cancer. Check out the EPA's website or Wikipedia's page on Radon for more information.

As I understand it, radon is a gas and decays pretty quickly once in the air. If in a contained area it can be real bad. Knowing parts of New Mexico are in a possible "hot zone", I decided to take the free kit. THey weren't that expensive to start with but free is free.

The kit is just a charcoal canister. I placed the kit 6 feet in the air away from major air flows and in a central part of my house. After some amount of time, I think 48 hours, I put the kit in a aluminum foil envelope and sent it off to a testing lab. They then email me the results.

Your radon test result is - 2.7 pCi/L

Radon Level (pCi/L)

• 0.4 Average outdoor radon concentration
• 1.3 Average indoor radon concentration
• 4.0 EPA RECOMMENDED ACTION GUIDELINE

My results are in between what's considered normal and before I need to take action. What am I going to do? Nothing at the moment except test some more.

About 5 years ago Intel was giving PC to employees. I got one of those PCs, a HP Vectra VL420 MT. As a Mac guy I did use it for a few things, games mostly. This thing has no built in video and I upgraded the video card to a ATI Radeon 9800 All In Wonder. With the video card I am driving a Apple 21" Monitor via DVI.

A side effect of this new video card is apparently the BIOS cannot display through it. While the HP logo and start up text is suppose to display I get a black screen with the Apple monitor flashing it's LED. I don't get a display until the Windows login screen shows up, which displays normally and in full resolution.

I haven't had this thing powered up for several years. It's still a very capable computer and I want to run an alternative OS on it (that's for another exciting blog post). I need to access the BIOS. Any of my dozen or so readers have any ideas?

Smarthome is having a $20 Off $100 Sale on April 3rd only. You can find the coupon code on Smarthome's website.

Due to the new copyright legislation that are going to take effect from today we had to move all of the system outside of Europe.

We decided to move to the desert of Sinai in Egypt since we feel that we'll be safe there. Tiamo has already got himself a permanent place to live and will reside in Sinai from now. Those of you who need to get in contact with him can use the contact page.

In Sinai we've set up the systems with three redundant fibre links. Besides local connectivity in Egypt we also have connectivity to Saudi-Arabia and Israel. Jordan is quite close and we hope to install a link there as well as soon as our budget will reach that level. This way we're actually hosted in Asia as well as Africa.

More updates on this will come later today, hopefully. Everything will be the same as before, we will have slightly higher latency for European and American visitors.

A special note to Ifpi: Moses walked in the desert of Sinai for 40 years. Our servers will be active for at least another 40 as well.

The PirateBay Blog

Last fall, I threatened that I would have the master bathroom completed by the end of the winter. Here it is spring and I did almost nothing to the bathroom. I have a variety of excuses that I wont go into now, however I did finally make some actual progress on it this weekend.

Before I can do anything I need to install the pocket door. Before I install the pocket door I need to relocate the wiring that exists on the wall where the door goes.

I need to decide how to wire up a exhaust fan, will it go near the light switch or near the toilet? I also need to figure out if I'm going to use a fancy digital shower control. If so It will use the power from the outlet then I can wire it up properly.

Finally I can install the pocket door. I have the studs marked to cut down, but I'm waiting for some friends to come by and verify my measurements before I screw it all up. I will save the pocket door install for another post.

A friend IM'ed me and asked if I heard about the bad gas. I said not really but I smelled and and had it all day long. That's not what they were talking about.

Inoue said the general managers at both Peerless Tyre and Costco told him that a Giant Industries tanker from a pipeline terminal in Moriarty on Tuesday delivered diesel to unleaded gasoline pumps at 10 stations in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and possibly points in between.

The screw up was actually by Western Refining Inc. The companies that gave out the bad gas are paying for repairs. I'm sure glad I didn't buy gas today.

Long ago, Motorola was the largest employer in Arizona. My grandfather worked there. My Father worked and retired from there. My Mom worked there. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, a lot of my family worked there. I wanted to make computer chips so when I was 18, I applied to work at Motorola. I went to their employment offices and took their tests. They used to give math and other tests because they wanted highly technical people working there.

I grew up listening to my parents talk about their work at the dinner table and even though they were as far away from the CEO as anyone could be, yet they still knew that the company was poorly run. Engadget received a letter from the adviser to Geoffrey Frost, Motorola's Chief Marketing Officer to Greg Brown the CEO of Motorola describing how screwed up the company is.

It really angers me to see that you're really no different from the rest of the incompetent senior executives at Motorola -- but instead of merely being incompetent, you killing the company. Your lack of understanding of the consumer business doesn't give you a valid reason for selling the business; moreover, publicly disclosing your explorations of such a move, in an attempt to keep Carl Icahn off your back, shows how much you value the safety of your incompetence. You have no interest in fighting the good fight and attempting to mould Motorola into the market leader it can and should be; taking control of the handset division, as you have recently done, will accomplish very little -- it will simply give you an ability to say "we tried our best" when you finally cart the business off to the highest bidder.

Motorola was once a great company that made great products. I remember a Motorola radio in my grandfathers workshop. Everyone wanted a StarTac when they came out (I eventually had one when they got cheap, it's around here somewhere). 68k and PowerPC chips were very competitive with x86 chips from Intel.

Now they are splitting into yet more companies because they can't seem to figure out what it is they do. Thanks to this greedy, stupid management thousands of people in Arizona lost their jobs. Some of the former Motorola factories are still there as Freescale factories, but many of them were simply tore down.

I thankfully never went to work for Motorola. Instead I went to work for another company that makes computer chips. I look at the failure that is Motorola and compare it to what is happening at my employer. I hope my managers all the way up to the CEO learn from these failures too.

To follow up on my last post where my friends were stranded in a Yurt a few extra days due to the storm, my friend Rick has posted photos from the trip on Flickr.

Now, what am I going to do about it (them)? I found a PDF from NMSU which describes various ways to kill them. This is a problem for me. I don't use pesticides on a regular basis, only in extreme circumstances. I don't use chemicals other than vinegar to kill weeds. I use chemical fertilizers to a minimum. I'm not against the nuclear option, but only if I absolutely have to.

The PDF from NMSU states that repellants don't work. I could try trapping them. Trapping or poising them requires me to find their tunnels and dig holes.

On the bright side, the PDF does indicate there are benefits of gophers.

Although, in many cases, the damage caused by pocket go-phers is the overriding factor, the benefits of pocket gophers should be recognized. Some of these are:

• increased soil fertility by adding organic matter such as buried vegetation and fecal wastes.
• increased soil aeration and decreased soil compaction.
• increased rate of soil formation by bringing sub-soil material to the surface of the ground, subjecting it to weatherization.
• increased water infiltration.

The Rio Rancho Observers "Letters to the Editors" section continues to entertain. I think this person was on drugs when they wrote it.

Drugs legalized?

Editor:

According to an article in the Albuquerque Journal, we should legalize and subsidize drugs in order to prevent drug addicts from being killed while in the felonious pursuit of stealing, or robbing, using weapons of minor destruction.

It’s about time someone came forward with a logical solution to this problem, gee golly gosh, all along we thought it insurmountable.

Well, it just goes to show if you think long enough about a problem a solution will present itself.

Well people, you can rest easy now, sell your handguns, get rid of that ball bat and start feeding your pit bull again. The world, well maybe New Mexico, is a safer place now thanks be to solid intelligence, not unmixed with a heavy dose of whatever it is in that pipe, has arrived.

Quis,quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo,quando?

(Who, what, where, with what, why, how, when?)

Bob Harpley

Rio Rancho

I've joined the crowd, I found value in Twitter and opened a account. I'm not posting much at the moment but I'm sure my traffic will increase.

You can find me here: http://twitter.com/gregjsmith

Since the bluetooth on iPhone is reserved for only wireless headset they actually used WiFi to transmit data between the GPS receiver and iPhone. To make this possible the GPS receiver integrates a processor, Wi-Fi antenna, and even a microSD card slot to store the maps. The navigation software itself will also be accesssed via the WiFi GPS receiver using a web interface. The navigation software used and customized for LocoGPS is iGO 8.

Impressive young Skywalker, Hopefully they will ditch the web interface now that the SDK is available. Hopefully Apple opens up the bluetooth interface so this sort of overdone interface isn't needed.

I was thinking about the 30% cut Apple gets from applications. It seems like a lot but is probably less or the same than what PalmGear charges for Palm apps. Besides the fact that there are no hosting or credit card charges, how will it help to keep piracy down?

If you buy the application from the itunes store and