Wow! Talk about a pain in the butt!
Hopefully this helps you get your Wouxun WXUSB cable working with your Mac OSX Machine.
Go to http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?id=31 and you'll see the Mac OSX drivers for the USB cable. Installed those then I was able to use various Mac utilities for programming my Wouxun KG-UV3D.
Have to come back and edit further later...
I was talking to my mom this weekend and she was telling me how my step-dad was planting just a few tomato plants this year for their garden. That lead to the discussion of what you "have to have" in your garden. I realized growing up planting a garden every year was something I was very happy to have done as a kid. We were poor, so it was actually important, more important than I knew then, but looking back on it, it wasn't just a luxury having all of those fresh vegetables, it was a necessity.
So, when I finally find the time (more importantly gumption) to plant a garden as adult what do I want in it? I think we can do most of this in raised beds, so space doesn't seem to be an issue.
Vegetable Garden:
(2) Heirloom Tomato
(2) Cherry Tomato
(2) Cucumber
(2) Yellow Squash
(2) Zucchini
(2) Green Bell Pepper
(2) Okra
(2) Green Beans
(2) Lima Beans
(2) Green Peas
(2) Black Eyed Peas
(2) Watermelon
(2) Cantaloupe
(2) Honey Dew Melon
(6) Celery
(12) Carrots
(12) Romaine Lettuce
(12) Scallions
(12) White Onions
(12) Red Onions
(6) Yukon Gold Potatoes
(6) Red Potatoes
(24) Corn Stalks
Herb Garden:
(2) Basil
(2) Oregano
(2) Thyme
(2) Mint
(6) Garlic
A friend turned me on to The Omnivore's Hundred which is a blog post about the 100 foods that every omnivore should try. The instructions were as follows:
Here's a chance for a little interactivity for all the bloggers out there. Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don't worry if you haven't, mind you; neither have I, though I'll be sure to work on it. Don't worry if you don't recognize everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.Here's what I want you to do:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you've eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
I also numbered the entries I hadn't tried yet. Those are the numbers to the right in parenthesis on some items. One item I couldn't find on the first page of Google results and the entry on Wikipedia seemed to indicate it was NOT something edible. I also added my own addition to the end which I think should have made the list.
UPDATE: See this webpage: http://scie.nti.st/2007/8/14/dos-ansi-fonts-in-xterm
Every time I get a new Mac, I always end up losing the line drawing font in X11 for some of the older ANSI apps that I still use. Fortunately I Google search and find the same post that tells me how to do it on Slashdot.
So, I'm tired of having to search for that every time, plus the answer is buried deep in standard Slashdot "First Posts" and other drivel, so hopefully this entry gets picked up by Google for a good simple place to answer the question of: How do I get ANSI line drawing characters in Mac OSX or at least Mac OSX X11?
And the very simple answer, by an anonymous coward who I can never thank enough:
http://www.oppodigital.com/opdv971h.html
So, your first question should be WHY do I want to spend $200 on an old school DVD player when the HD DVD players are already out?!?
Good question... because you already have a DVD collection, you might as well get the most out of it that you can if you have an HD set. I've only watched one movie so far, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and I must say I was impressed.
I've had the Samsung HD931 DVD player since I got my Samsung DLP 50" HD set and I've never been overly fond of the unit, but it had DVI out and upscanning to some extent (though I now know it sucked). Movies would often lose audio sync with the 931 and lips would be moving well behind of the words. The 931 would also "catch up" video every so often which was also annoying as hell... the catch-up might have actually
been trying to get the audio re-synced now that I think about it. Also remote commands were not very responsive (not the remote control, the unit responding to the remote, I use a Harmony 880 to control my gear).
So enough about the old (which is available cheap if anyone would like to purchase it... say $50 and I'll pay shipping or best offer and you pay shipping) ... er... oh yeah, the new awesome Oppo OPDV97IH... what a frickin' model number for a company that only seems to have one DVD player on the market... it's awesome. :)
The Oppo has none of the issues my 931 had. Now that I've learned a bit more about what causes audio de-sync I can really appreciate the control that the Oppo gives you for audio control such as the ability to delay audio by a default of 50ms up to 100ms. Crouching Tiger had perfect sync throughout all of the high speed fight scenes and the like using 50ms of delay. Most excellent.
I also up converted from 480i to 720p which I could do on the Samsung, but it only made a little difference. On the Oppo though, the upscan was actually noticable which was nice. A lot less moire effect on parallel lines as well and of course less jaggies! :) The unit has some very capable hardware inside for the its MPEG decoder as well the Faroudja DCDi chip.
Especially for all of you Intellectual Property Thieves out in the audience, the unit plays damn near every format that I've seen: Plays DivX 5, DivX 4, DivX 3, and DivX VOD, XviD and .SRT, .SMI, .IDX and .SUB formats, VCD, SVCD, CD, HDCD, WMA, DVDR/RW, CD-R/RW, Kodak Picture.
I got mine from Amazon, came with both DVI and DVI-HDMI cables for $199. So far I love the unit, this morning, I'm fixing to watch me some Firefly on it. :)
Being an Intel and ATI kinda guy, I'm sure the following system would create holy wars in some circles. Personally though... it is right up my alley. I'd love to build it... but is really crazy for someone who hasn't played a computer game in MONTHS and MONTHS... so instead I'll just DREAM about it. :)
* Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 CPU
* Asus P5WD2-E Premium Motherboard
* Asus Extreme X1900XT CrossFire Edition SLI Main Video
* Asus Extreme X1900XT Radeon SLI Slave Video
* Kingston HyperX 4GB (4x1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2-6400) RAM
* 4x150GB (450GB usable) WD Raptor 10,000rpm Drives in RAID5
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Sound Card
* Creative GigaWorks S750 7.1 Speakers
* Enermax Liberty 620W Power Supply
* Plextor Slot Load 16x DVD+/-R Burner, Black
* Sony Floppy Drive, Black
* Lian Li V COOL PC-V1200B plus Black ATX Mid Tower Case
* ThermalRight XP-120 CPU Heatsink
* EverCool AL12025 Ball Bearing Aluminum Fan for XP-120
* Vantec Clear/Silver Cables for Floppy/DVD
* Samsung 244t Silver 24" 6ms (G to G) LCD Monitor (1920x1200)
All of that from New Egg, $7089.12 (shipped overnight)
Okay, I've gotten Yahoo's Domain Keys setup and working for tp.org. We're still set to testing mode (which I think everyone using Domain Keys is currently set for) so nothing much should be happening right this second with them.
Here is what you get when you do: "dig txt _domainkey.tp.org"
;; ANSWER SECTION:
_domainkey.tp.org. 3600 IN TXT "t=y\; o=~"
And when you do: "dig txt main._domainkey.tp.org"
;; ANSWER SECTION:
main._domainkey.tp.org. 3600 IN TXT "g=\; k=rsa\; t=y\; p=MHwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADawAwaAJhAM6AuODOWOpoF8kNo\
YXAWGn5Ku7IFzomQ7O+X0HkMbZhlak3VEA7uei1Znlsr6peYQ+i55uqUXpWQ\
jcshFXvKt050OEwhVqGE8wkqyA1r7/ra8nE1huCOycBP4lidTJ+EwIDAQAB"
We also have SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records published as well. Both of these two things mean that if you want to send email from user@tp.org, then you have to do so from the tp.org machine or other folks will HOPEFULLY not trust your message.
Here is what you get when you do: "dig txt tp.org"
;; ANSWER SECTION:
tp.org. 3600 IN TXT "v=spf1 a -all"
I can roll this out to other domains hosted here on tp.org if folks would like me to. Both methods require that you add TXT records to your domain... I know we've had challenges with that in the past, but hopefully anyone interested in SPF or Domain Keys can read up on it and get it going if you want it.
I haven't read up on DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) yet, so I won't be implementing it anytime soon. I think Yahoo's method is probably just fine for most things anyway.
I will try and setup Webmail and IMAP real soon now too (I know I've been sayin that for about 4 years now... really this time... I hope). If I do setup IMAP, then I'll setup authenticated SNMP on port 587 so folks will be able to send through the machine after authentication and have their mail be valid for SPF and Domain Keys.
Oh yeah, the "WHY IS JAY INTERESTED IN ANTI-SPAM ALL THE SUDDEN"...
So, on Saturday 3/11/06 the top spammers in the world decided to make a concerted effort to send as much spam as possible. Most likely it is an attempt to clog the spam filters throughout the world and hope that things fail/pass (instead of fail/reject) to get their spam through to the unsuspecting inboxes of the world.
Those spammers are forging email from as many domains as they possibly can. One of the MANY domains they've chosen was @tp.org. Sooooooooo, while we're not getting much spam ourselves (if you are using Spam Assassin on the machine that is) ... I (postmaster and catch all email addresses on tp.org) am getting around 1000 reject messages a day right now from folks who spam filters are catching what they think is spam from @tp.org... or bounces because the mailboxes are full or are out of the office or no longer existent. Anyway... after pressing delete a few thousand times now (and trying not to accidently delete stuff I need to read) I got interested DomainKeys.
tp.org (and my other domains) have had SPF TXT records published for a while. Evidently folks don't pay attention to those anymore than they pay attention to DomainKeys. If they'd paid attention to either of them, they would NOT be sending me bounces and instead silently discard all these emails from FAKE @tp.org users not sending through the tp.org machine.
Oh, the final thing... I wanted to tell folks about what I heard when I talked to our Chief Spam Fighter here at AOL about the rejects I'd been getting (the common thread is that they have a forged envelope stating that the email came from Google to AOL). We normally process like ONE BILLION spam messages a day here at AOL... on Saturday alone they processed SEVEN BILLION!!! Woooot. That is a LOT of spam. To their credit, I've gotten maybe three pieces of spam this week in my work @aol.com account. Not too shabby... though that is three pieces of spam I normally don't get here at AOL. Those guys do one helluvah job!
I've been off work since last Wednesday and don't go back until next Monday. I had planned to play City of Heroes the entire week, but so far, I've been sick instead! Oh well, so much for my plans of playing my Super Hero named Hots and defeating a bunch of criminals.
We did have a good time at the year end party thrown by Lisa's work. We both got dressed up in Tuxedos and had a blast! There is a picture of me in the gallery all dressed up. Back to vacating!
Folks who play MUDs (Multi User Domains) are interesting folks. I've played MUDs since 1990, and ran MUDs since 1994. Well, I must confess I've not been hands on with MUDs since about 1999, so there is a five year gap there. As can be seen in my previous blog entry, I owned and kept up the Turning Point MUD for many years. I was involved with TP MUD for 9 out of its 9 1/2 year life. Actually, I just realized in a couple more days (10/15) it will have been my 9 year anniversary since first logging into TP MUD. So, I feel I have a little experience with MUDs. I'm actually kind of sorry to see that part of my life go away now that I've shutdown TP MUD. But no problem, I'll get over it quickly. :)
So, The Way of the MUD. While answering one of the former player/immortal's good-bye emails I came to realize my view on MUD administrators and the players. I can't count how many times a player has posted on forums or in an email that, "it is the PLAYERS that make the MUD". I've always understood their point, and even agree with it to an extent. Yes, it is the players that are currently on a MUD roleplaying and interacting with one another that make a MUD fun. However, they do not CREATE the MUD. It is not the will of the players that should ever drive what a MUD is or will become. It is the will of the administrators that move a MUD in a direction of their DESIRES. There is a simple reason there are 1765 MUD listings at The MUD Connector; that reason is that there are at least that many different views on what makes a good MUD.
Each of the 1765 MUDs will have varying amounts of players. Some will have 0, others will have 500 players online players at any given time. The reason is simply that players will find the MUD that meets their desires. In some cases if the administrators are trying to make money off of the players, then they will cater to the player population. In most cases with a Hobby MUD though, the administrators have an idea as well as ideals that THEY will put forth on the MUD. Some, who are just interested in seeing what the largest number of players they can attract will cater to the player wants and desires, and that is fine too if that is what the admins want out of the MUD.
If the admins have a vision though, then they should build that vision. If you can get even two administrators together who share a common vision, chances are that there are also a group of players out there looking for a MUD that has that vision. THAT is the player base you want. In many cases though, it won't be the player base you currently have. Getting rid of your current player base is HARD WORK (to quote our president). You'll ask nicely, telling them that you just don't believe they fit with the current goals of the MUD; they'll pretend to accept it and go away for a little while. Then they'll show back up, yearning for the way things "used to be" and trying to make the MUD into something it isn't. Tension and crazyness is all that will come out of those players not moving on as you asked them to, but they'll never understand that it is the admin's MUD, not theirs.
Oh well, I just wanted to get that off my chest as I depart from the MUD community. If I can teach any MUDders anything it is that if you are an admin, don't cave into the players, make the MUD YOU want. If you're a player, just simply realize that MUDs change; if you're not having fun on one, then for EVERYONE'S SAKE go find another MUD where you will have fun.
To the MUD community I have to say as always: take care, and have fun!
So today I've shutdown Turning Point MUD. After 9 and 1/2 years the MUD had finally came to a point where folks just did not have the time or energy to devote to keeping it running any longer. I'm surprised we've been able to keep the MUD going as long as we had. It takes many hours of dedicated work on the part of the administrative staff to keep a mult-player game such as a MUD refreshing and fun for everyone. For TP MUD, it was simply more time than could be spared by the IMPs. I posted a bit of a history of the IMPlementors of the MUD as well as my farewells at: http://mud.tp.org/.
I'd still like to take a moment here in my personal blog to extend my thanks to all the players, player guides, immortals, and implementors of the past 9 and 1/2 years at TP MUD for all of your creative energies that you put forth to make TP MUD one of the best MUDs out there. We may not have ever had the largest player populations, but I always had fun myself and heard of the fun others were having at TP, and that to me is what made it a success. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to cross paths in the future with many of the friends I've made from TP MUD. Take care one and all, and of course, have fun, folks!