Useless Nexus

Items I’ve Read and Liked - November 21, 2008

Michael Johnson — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:00:04 +0000

Blackwater Gunboats and Private Navy will now Protect Ships from Pirates

Lufthansa opens Auburn hangar

Military has date for first execution since 1961
(AP)

Items I’ve Read and Liked - November 20, 2008

Michael Johnson — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:00:07 +0000

Yet Another Study Shows That Social Networks Are Good For Kids

Comic for November 20, 2008

Dead teen’s mom testifies in cyberbullying trial
(AP)

Shipyard Pumpkinhead a Star in Europe

Mammoth task: Scientists map DNA of ancient beast
(AP)

“The Last Trail” by Zane Grey

Michael Johnson — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:17:29 +0000

I’m currently listening to “The Last Trail” by Zane Grey in audio format from Librivox.org.

I’ve always meant to read some of Zane Grey’s many works but have never seemed to get around to it. I’m about one-third of the way into “The Last Trail”, one of Mr. Grey’s earliest novels. So far it’s a great tale of the old west and the narrator, Mike Vendetti, has a beautiful deep voice that sounds as I would imagine a frontiersman’s voice to be.

May have to add some more Zane Grey to my listening list. Now if only Librivox had a feature by which I could search by narrator. I’d grab some more of Mike Vendetti’s work as well.

Items I’ve Read and Liked - November 19, 2008

Michael Johnson — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:00:03 +0000

Serve lobster, not turkey, Mainer urges

Bail-out talk makes me mad

Michael Johnson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:54:54 +0000

If you believe all the gloom and doom in the news these days then The United States of America is on the verge of economic collapse. The only way we will survive is for the government to give kajillions of dollars to some of the worlds largest financial institutions.

I’m burning mad. No one ever bailed me out when I’ve made mistakes with money. In fact the bank charges me extra fees if I bounce a check. They want more money that I don’t have? How does that make sense?

So now the United States government intends to “invest” in these poorly-managed financial institutions to save us all. To the tune of over $2000.00 per person in this country. How about letting the banks go under and give my family $6000.00. That’s what I want. My money in my pocket while capitalism corrects the mistakes of these idiot financial wizards. I don’t want to see the friends of the power brokers in this country revcieve millions of dollars in salary and bounsus for a mess they made that will require us and our children to clean up.

If we are going to flush good money after bad then how about just giving directly to the famlies who are in trouble with their mortgages. Force the mortgage companies to work out a plan with these families so that they can dig themselves out.

Or how about rewarding the families who did not make mistakes. Let the people who did not accept ridiculous financial terms have some extra money to continue to make good financial decisions with.

Everyone involved with this should be ashamed and embarassed. I’m by no means perfect but I’m leaning on the side of capitalism at the moment and don’t think this bail-out is a good idea. Clean out the bad and let something new rise up.

Password Security

Michael Johnson — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:31:03 +0000

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin had her email hacked. I frankly find the event unsurprising. It only confirms just how little most people understand security and technology and where it’s going. It reminds me that the people I follow and enjoy online and the geeks around me are a small segment of today’s society. That a large part of the people in the world today don’t fully understand the potential, the danger, or the ease by which information can be found and shared.

A website I am a regular reader of is Heal Your Church WebSite. Dean Peters actually wrote an article about password before the news broke of Gov. Palin’s misfortune. And wrote a follow-up after the news was out.

So if you are wondering how to avoid Gov. Palin’s embarassment then read the following two links. Good, sound advice:

Quote: “illusion of progress”

Michael Johnson — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:39:19 +0000

I stumbled upon this qute tonight and it really struck me as indicitive of the way my life has felt this year. I can’t even explain exactly how I stumbled upon it. So I’ll simply offer it up and see how it strikes you.

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.

The quote is by Charlton Ogburn from “Merrill’s Marauders: The truth about an incredible adventure” in the January 1957 issue of Harper’s Magazine.

Clone Wars was good

Michael Johnson — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:59:30 +0000

I saw Clone Wars on Saturday night. The short review is that I liked it and had a good time.

It’s fun and lively. The movie assumes you are a Star Wars fan and knows what is going on. Plenty of Clone on Droid action and battle scenes. Of course it’s all animated and still enjoyable but a bit too cartoon like at times. On a few occassions the combat is close quarters and becomes unbelievable, even for Star Wars.

I won’t get into critiqueing the plot. There is plenty of spoilers on the ‘net if that is what you are looking for. But I thought I’d post to say that I enjoyed it. If you are a Star Wars fan then you might as well.

South Ossetia War thoughts

Michael Johnson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:25:47 +0000

Unless you have been under a rock this week, you are probably aware that the countries of Russia and Georgia went to war over a plot of land in The Republic of Georgia called South Ossetia. You can read up on the details at Wikipedia or Mahalo is you want the quick edition. There is certainly plenty of news if you want more.

But there are a couple of comparisons of scale that have struck me that I thought I would share.

The Republic of Georgia is smaller than the State of Georgia. In fact it’s smaller than 40 of our 50 states.

The Republic of South Ossetia is smaller than the State of Rhode Island. For a more granual comparison for my fellow citizens of Maine, South Ossetia would fit inside Hancock County. Or for those in southern Maine who aren’t sure how big Hancock County is, it’s about the same as Cumberland, Androscoggin, and Sagadahoc counties combined.

In other words, it’s small! The United States of America is a big country and often we forget that fact when we hear the news from overseas. That historically much blood has been shed on very small patches of land should also not be forgotten.

I don’t mean to make little of a war. Only to put some perspective on the area being discussed. Something I have not seen the mainstream media do. I also have some other thoughts but am still mulling them over so I will save them for another day.

Test by email

Michael Johnson — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:50:56 +0000

Sorting out how to get email to Wordpress to not post a new email as
pending but actually publish. This is test 3. Cron is working fine.
Wordpress is getting the email fine. But it is not publishing.

Wordpress iPhone App

Michael Johnson — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:39:56 +0000

I just added the Wordpress app to my iPod Touch. This is a quick test post. So far so good.

Identi.ca review

Michael Johnson — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:47:28 +0000

A week ago, a new micro-blogging service sprang onto the scene. Identi.ca is like Twitter but with a very different theology behind it. Identi.ca is built upon the open source project Laconica. It hopes to allow for a distributed network of Laconica installed websites to share posting under an idea called federation. It hopes to allow for installation on most typical shared hosting plans. During registration you are even required to agree that all your posts be released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. It doesn’t get much more open than that!

I don’t claim to understand what all this means yet. I haven’t spent any time looking at the underpinnings yet. But I like the goal.

What I do want to reveal is some pretty cool tools if you decide to try Identi.ca or if you decide to install your own version of Laconica.

If you know and love RSS then you will really like Identi.ca.

You can visit and subscibe to my posts at:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/
If you want a RSS feed of everything I am writing:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/rss
If you want to see just people who reply to me:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/replies/
If you want an RSS feed of just people who reply to me:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/replies/rss
If you want to see me and everyone I subscribe to:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/all/
If you want an RSS feed of me and everyone I subscribe to:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/all/rss
You can even pull an RSS feed of search terms:
http://identi.ca/search/notice/rss?q=Maine
http://identi.ca/search/notice/rss?q=football

It supports Jabber so you can get notifications to and you can post from your GMail or other Jabber account. Evan, the developer, says SMS may be coming but has no timetable that I have seen.

So far I love Identi.ca! I still love Jaiku but since Google has closed it off with invite only registration I fear it will stagnant. The idea of an open platform feels much more comfortable. And Twitter is, well, not a reliable product and since it has turned off IM support is worthless to me.

If you are exploring micro-blogging or maintaining a presence online then check out Identi.ca.

Evernote for iPhone

Michael Johnson — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:31:31 +0000

As I’ve written before, Evernote is my new favorite app. And now I see that Evernote has released an iPhone app. I can’t wait to try Evernote for iPhone on my iPod Touch. But as of this moment, Apple has not released the update for the Touch to use the new apps.

I imagine Evernote being as easy on the Touch as on my MacBook. And with the syncing back to my MacBook, all the little things I want to note on my Touch will automagically be on my Mac. I can’t wait to see this!

Hopefully, It will be available in the morning. I’ll report my opinion once I’ve tried it. Stay tuned!

Time Machine Error Continued

Michael Johnson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:03:53 +0000

I experienced another Time Machine error exactly like the last one.

Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.

Console reveals the logs to show â€œError: (-36) copyingâ€ with a path to the file and closes with an â€œError: (-8062) copyingâ€ with a path to a file. The difference from my previous trouble is that this file is a JPEG file that I mported last weekend. I copied the file to a new version and deleted the original and the backup completed without error. But this problem still puzzles me.

I have run Disk Utility and find nothing wrong with either the internal hard drive or the external backup drive.

I’ll continue posting my experiences with this error in hopes that it helps someone else. Clearly, Time Machine still has some maturing to do. Hopefully Apple will fix this soon as it will frustrate the less technically inclined that it was designed for.

I spent all day in an…

Michael Johnson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:26:15 +0000

I spent all day in an air conditioned office and it’s been very nice. Just stepped out into the world and it’s hot. I love it. Can’t wait to see what the rest of the afternoon is gonna be like, but I’m enjoying the heat. listen

“War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells

Michael Johnson — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:40:24 +0000

I finished listening to “War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells from Librivox. This is the version done in collaboration and read by many different narrators. There is also a version red by a solo narrator. I have never read H. G. Wells original version. Only listened to recreations of the Orson Welles 1938 radio version or the 1953 and 2005 versions of the movie. Which brings me to a bit of a rant.

First, the audio book I listened to was very good. I did not mind the different voice at each chapter and found the quality of the audio very good. The story itself is of course legendary and in my mind far better than the other versions I have seen.

Now the rant. Why does hollywood alter such great stories and weaken them with their own ideas when frankly the original story is far more thrilling exciting? Perhaps it’s the lack of imagination. I’m ashamed to think that it is a need to “American-ize” everything. Another story I think was ruined by the Hollywood crowd is the story of Operation Primrose and the capture of U-110. You will probably recognize the Hollywood movie name of “U-571″. U-110 was captured before the United States entered the war and was captured by quick thinking British and the Royal Navy and is a grand tale on it’s own.

If you have never read of listened to H.G. Wells original story then please get it. It’s a great story!

Time Machine Error solved

Michael Johnson — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:38:11 +0000

For the last five or six days I have had an error pop up from Time Machine. It turned out to be a file I downloaded last week that Apple didn’t like. Interestingly, Jungle Disk and Carbon Copy Cloner had no problem performing their backup. So with 2 good backups out there I was not overly concerned. Today I took time out to look at the error.

As you can see from the screen capture that the error message that popped up was not informative. Always check Console for better detail on error messages. Console reveals log files very easily. The logs showed two “Error: (-36) copying” with a path to the file. And closes with an “Error: (-8062) copying” with a path to a file. These were MP3 files I had downloaded last week. They played fine and other than a problem with Time Machine appeared to be good files in everyway.

I deleted the files and ran Time Machine again and it completed fine.

I searched for the meaning of the error number but could not find an explanation. I could find others report similar porblems and one person who came to the same solution I did. But no details about why. Is it just an Apple Time Machine thing? I don’t know but I’m functional again.

Librivox - free audio books

Michael Johnson — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:11:25 +0000

As I mentioned a few days ago, I downloaded some free audio books from Librivox. I finished listening to
“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” yesterday. I’ve read the book myself and love the tales of Sherlock Holmes so was looking forward to listening to these great tales again. As it turns out, my choice perfectly illustrated something I commented about previously. And that is that when choosing audio books recorded by volunteers the quality may vary. Each chapter of this selection is read by a different person and some are a pleasure to listen to. While one or two others were a bit painful. But all in all it was fun to move around the empty quiet school building I am working in with the well known Sherlock Holmes.

In any case, I get what I pay for.

I’m now listening to “The Invisible Man” by H.G. Wells.

Exploring free Audio Books

Michael Johnson — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:23:51 +0000

Finally, it’s summer time! Since I work in a public school system, that means eight or nine weeks working with few people around. Lots of time working alone. So I’ve been loading up my iPod with lots of free audio books.

The sources of free audio books on the World Wide Web is pretty wide. I’ve written about a few authors who podcast in the past. There are many others out there. Here are some sources I found for books I wanted to read:

For classic stories and older tales that are now in the public domain then check out LibriVox. I downloaded ten days of audio for my summer listening pleasure. Between my regular podcast listening and these stories then my summer alone time should be full.

A few things I might suggest about exploring free audio books is that you should be prepared for wide degrees of quality recordings. Some are very good and professional. Most are very fine amature recordings. But some are downright bad and the quality distracts from the story itself.

Then there is the telling of the tale itself. Like a good joke, some people can repeat a good joke and get everyone laughing. While others, like me, can ruin a great joke with poor delivery. This is true of narrators as well. So I advise picking a chapter and having a test listen before spending lots of time and bandwidth downloading hundreds of megabytes of audio files. I just can’t hear the story through some narrators tone and inflection. But some narrators are true actors and can really add to a story with their voices.

I’ll report back in a week or so with a report some of the first stories I’ve listened to.

Foreboding comes as Google Sync goes

Michael Johnson — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:05:30 +0000

Google Browser Sync has been a favorite tool for me since it’s public release. But with the release of Firefox 3 the question of when Google Browser Sync would be updated has been answered with it’s death knell. Apparently it was nothing more than a personal project for someone and will not be supported further.

Well, I have always understood that you get what you pay for. And Google owes me nothing for this great free Firefox addon. But I fear what this means for the many other free services I use from Google. What happens if they decide that Google Apps for Your Domain is no longer profitable?

I’m moving on and am now using Foxmarks to syncronize bookmarks between the several computers I use. It works very well and settles my need. Another free service. Yes, I get what I pay for.

Never Cross the Streams

Michael Johnson — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:26:36 +0000

I have long wanted a way to synchronize my address book across GMail, Yahoo, and my Mac. I was a Plaxo user for while until they were gobbled up by Comcast. Even Plaxo didn’t give me all I wanted. It would not push contact info to Google.

A few weeks ago I tried out a new web service called Soocial. It solved the Gmail Contacts problem syncing with my Mac Address Book. I used it for a week and was happy.

Then my birthday came and my wife gave me an iPod Touch. As of OS X 10.5.3, if you have an iPod Touch or iPhone then the added feature of a Google Contacts Sync appears in Address Book preferences. I couldn’t wait to try it! I completely forgot that I was set up to sync to Soocial. When I synchronized next the streams crossed and my address book blew up. Everything tripled! It was not pretty.

Fortunately, I have good backups and it didn’t take long to clean up the mess. I turned off Soocial for now. I’m currently just syncing with Apple’s tools and it’s working pretty well.

So if like me, you are exploring the success and failure of syncing then be careful, “Don’t cross the streams”.

Thank you for the birthday wishes

Michael Johnson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:13:36 +0000

I turned 39 years old today. Happy birthday to me!

Well, through the wonders of online social networking and the sharing of my personal information to those I have friended through the many social networks I belong to, many people poured out well wishes today. It’s pretty amazing that so many people around the world would enjoy typing happy birthday to me! And quite frankly it is very flattering.

So thank you one and all for the prayers and best wishes on my birthday! I’ve tried to respond throughout the
day and thank everyone. But I’m not sure I saw all the messages and fear I will miss someone if I try to list everyone here.

I am humbled and blessed that I have been able to enjoy the association with so many interesting, caring and sharing friends. Thank you all!

This American Life “The Giant Pool of Money”

Michael Johnson — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:37:14 +0000

I listen to a lot of podcasts in the course of a week. One of the regular shows I listen to is This American Life. This week’s show is entitled “The Giant Pool of Money” and spends the hour talking about housing crisis in the United States of America. It does a great job of explaining how screwed up this whole problem is. It’s worth the listen.

My father-in-law is in the real estate business and certainly benefited on the rise in the early 2000’s. But nothing is moving now. The effect on the rest of the world is not fully known yet but the credit crunch and unstable housing market in the USA is bound to have ramifications that we have not fully realized yet.

Understanding how we got here is pretty interesting!

Open DNS

Michael Johnson — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:18:12 +0000

I’ve been using OpenDNS on my router at home for just about three months now. OpenDNS is a free service that claims to be smarter, faster, and offer more protection from evil on the internet than your ISP’s typical DNS service. If you don’t know what DNS (short for Domain Name Service) then do some reading before you try OpenDNS. Be sure you know what you are doing.

Anyway, the OpenDNS features I was interested in playing with were the phishing protection and the content filtering. I have a four year old at home who is learning more and more about the many things on the internet. There are some things that I’m not ready to explain and I didn’t want her to discover an adult site or a dangerous site accidentally. OpenDNS has many categories to filter by. OpenDNS makes me feel better knowing that it is far less likely my daughter will stumble upon some of the evil and ugliness of the internet.

Filters go beyond the adult only sort of thing I am trying to protect my daughter from if you need to block other sites. Also allows for blacklists and whitelists if you need to block or allow a specific site. It all depends on how draconian and involved you wish to be.

I can’t say I noticed it being faster than other local DNS’s I’ve hit. But it was reliable. I only had one issue and I was able to explain that as not an OpenDNS issue. I had my laptop setup for a while to use the OpenDNS servers but I ran into some problems with an intranet at work. Since my laptop was only looking at OpenDNS and OpenDNS not aware of the local network then some in-house servers required additional changes for me to get to. There are ways to work around this. It was just easier to run OpenDNS only on my home router and not on my laptop

OpenDNS is not hard to setup but you do need to be comfortable editing your computers network settings or your router.

So it is a small piece of comfort for me. If you are considering filtering in your house then you should check out OpenDNS.

“How Many Victims?”

Michael Johnson — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:48:37 +0000

In case you didn’t know, Dilbert is now available in all kinds of uses and forms.
I chuckled when I read this one today and decided I would embed it. Scott Adams is an evil genius.