AtomicInternet Archived News

Archived News starting from 06-01-2007 and earlier

Riding to work today a cop stopped quickly to turn right and instead of running into him I went around him on a yellow light. He of course immediately turned on his lights and pulled me over. He asked why I ran the yellow light and I told him so I didn't end up in the back of his car. After going back and forth a few times he eventually started telling me about his motorcycle and the conversation switched to motorcycle models. He ended with "nice to meet you" and let me go without a ticket. Had I been in my Cougar he would have written up the ticket before even leaving his car and simply handed it to me. Needless to say my motorcycle is now my primary transportation option.

Lisas plan to take over my house got one step closer to completion today when she demanded I move her furniture into the bedroom. Since she has expensive taste, the furniture is naturally heavy italian wood that is impossible for one person to lift. Lisa was conveniently at work when she scheduled me to move the furniture, so who to turn to? The Morlock of course. I summoned him from below and he agreed to assist in exchange for a laser mouse. I'm assuming the mouse will control a bone-grinding machine or some other morlock device. My now patented wheelbarrow moving technique was a great success, although the Morlock refused to grant my request for a wheelbarrow ride.

After a planned trip to Florida with coworkers failed to happen, Lisa decided she'd take me and go anyway. Flattered that she thought of me after her coworkers, and that she remembered I love Florida, I agreed. Since Joseph moved back to Michigan, my resident welcoming committee was notably absent this year, and we had to brave the harsh Whorlando airport by ourselves. Once we arrived at our Cocoa Beach destination, a strict schedule of beach and sleep was implemented immediatly, interrupted only by trips to Kennedy Space Center and Medieval Times. Lisa was very excited about visiting NASA for the first time. She took me on the Up Close tour which was cancelled due to terrorists last time I visited so this was the first time I got to see the shuttle launch pads from 500 feet. Lisa was upset neither pad had a shuttle ready to launch due to a recent hailstorm, but rolled her eyes in excitement after I assured her we would come back again and again until she saw one on the pad. After a full day of calming Lisa down from the space center, we went to Medieval Times where Lisa enjoyed the soap opera which I had previously ignored. Apparently all the talking they do between the fighting and jousting actually creates a storyline. The absence of the Josephs from the greater Whorlando area definitely tuned down the fun factor, but being on a sunny beach with a hot woman helps make up for it.

I've been eyeing the Motorola Q ever since I got my free Treo 650 almost two years ago. The recent price break to $200 was enough incentive for me to make my move. The thinner profile and Mobile 5 OS were the two most attractive features to me and both have proven to be worth the upgrade. I find myself checking to make sure my phone is still on me it's so flush to my belt compared to the Treo. The Mobile 5 OS enables me to write my own software (easily) and once I installed the .NET 2.0 compact framework on my phone I quickly had a homemade crappy RSS reader written and installed on the phone. "Myrone Detector" is in the works, so if you've got a Mobile 5 phone you won't have to fear Myrone sneak attacks much longer. Despite Keith's recommendation of CodeWallet, I decided to go with Password Manager for my password keeper since I was able to find an older free version online, and CodeWallet is overkill for me. Owning a phone that can't play DiVX is embarrassing, so my next install was TCPMP which I also used on my Treo. It was thankfully ported to Windows Mobile. I recently got Lisa to move from a paper calendar to Google Calendar and since she decides what I do and when I do it, GMobileSync was my next install which flawlessly downloaded my life for the next 60 days. Google Maps Mobile looks and runs much better and faster on the Q compared to the Treo, despite the fact that the Q doesn't have a touch screen. A visit to FreewarePocketPc.net rounded out my installs with a few games and utilities. The EV-DO network is noticeably faster than the 1x my Treo had when connected to my laptop, but the latest Q firmware prevents Bluetooth DUN so I'm stuck with a USB connection for now. There are some downsides though; I miss the longer battery life and touch screen on my Treo, and it's noticeably slower and more complicated to do things compared to the PalmOS (both phones have a 312Mhz processor), but as Stavos pointed out it shares a name with a Star Trek character, and that alone compensates for the shortfalls.

My work took the entire company to see Spiderman 3 today. Getting paid to watch a movie is just the latest in a long line of perks for working at a media company. The trip was officially for "market research" into our new Spiderman Fatheads which are now hanging on the wall next to me at work. I'll rank this latest movie on par with #2, but below #1. It felt like the same level of effects and storyline as #2, but the dreaded singing scene turned out to be the funniest part of the movie. News of the free movie was the perk clencher for EternalOne who was hired in shortly before. Unfortunately that means getting vacation for Cougarfest is now that much more difficult.

So, not too long ago we discovered we have a groundhog living under the deck in the back yard. We haven't seen it in a while and thought it relocated to Florida for nicer weather. (Do groundhogs migrate?) But much to my surprise, while I was chasing the cat out of the bathroom window, I saw the groundhog again on the back patio making a clucking noise. I just happened to have the camera in my hand for something else and snapped a couple pictures. I tried to go outside and get closer so it could bite me, but it heard me unlock the patio door and ran away. The end. - Story by Poopy

The flatlanders stopped by for a visit yesterday since Melanie had to participate in the wedding planning task force. The task force quickly degraded into a drunken karaoke fest so Jaird and I hid in the basement and played my Wii (that the Morlock claims is his). The visit continued today with several choice photo ops as I gathered up the courage to climb onto my roof and free my troubled HDTV antenna from the attic. Lisa was initially concerned since I did not yet write out a will indicating her as the primary benefactor, but she decided she could forge one if necessary and promptly forgot about me. After the relocation, all signal strengths had a bright "green" meaning full signal, but on recording I still got occasional jumps. An exciting turn of events that requires me to climb onto the roof yet again to install a even larger antenna.

After the failed first attempt at neutering my Cougar, I decided to go with the stock exhaust option. Jrak, helpful to a fault, had a spare stock exhaust laying around that he not only gave me, but helped me install yesterday. This time the operation was a complete success. So much so that I now have to resort to the tachometer to know when to shift. I haven't noticed a significant drop in power, but I'm sure the 3/4 inch smaller diameter exhaust pipe is holding back some of it. I felt so bad for stockifying my car I roped Ron into installing his first generation sequential taillight flashers on my car today. Since he's almost completed his second generation (with unlimited flashing combinations) a windows media center extender was sufficient bribe to get my hands on his old circuit (innuendo intended). My 96 Mustang had the same circuit and I've missed it ever since I turned that car in. After the install, I spent at least 15 minutes mesmerized by the light display. I might have a quieter and slower car now, but at least I have a chance of waking up the 8am zombies behind me when I'm in a turn lane. Lisa was supposed to have contributed a photo of herself approving the quiet exhaust, but she decided to get sick instead.

I've been excited about Windows Home Server ever since the unveiling at ICES. I was recently accepted into the beta program and decided to install it on a stolen Morlock PC today. After entering the product key, I went to mow my yard and came back to the login screen with no other configuration required. A quick check of the control panel found everything you'd expect in a Windows 2003 Small Business server, including IIS. My ultimate goal is to make Home Server my primary webserver, file server and backup server, so I was glad to see IIS ready to go. The centralized backup is the biggest feature of WHS, so my next step was to setup all my computers with the WHS client. It was pretty clear I wouldn't be able to backup all my computers with the 40GB drive in the Morlock PC, so I added a spare 120GB and another stolen 20GB Morlock drive for kicks. WHS has a warning screen for silly people like me that prefer traditional RDP access to a server, so I decided to go along with it and used the RDP-ish "Home Server Console" to add the drives to the storage pool. After seeing the result, I checked the partitions and found nothing exciting. Some kind of redundant spanning takes place on the drives (supposedly if one drive fails home server alerts you and keeps on chugging). With my improved storage I backed up all my computers from the console interface. The advantage to this over the built-in microsoft backup (both use shadow copy) is I can now initiate and schedule backups from one place instead of making sure each computer has the proper access, setting up scheduled tasks, and making sure they are on (WHS wakes them out of standby for the 2am backup). A backup is only as good as it's restore options, so I decided to "fail" my laptop drive by wiping it clean. I then popped in the WHS restore CD and booted into a modified version of Vista. Instead of loading every driver that does (and will) exist in the world, each backup has a "Drivers" folder you copy to a USB drive for restores. After booting up, it scanned and found the drivers on the USB drive. I entered the WHS password, picked the machine, backup, and partition to restore and my laptop came back to life. You can also restore individual files from specific dates, but that's not as dramatic. File shares, users, and network status are also easily administered from the console, with enough detail to keep me satisfied that I'm not actually RDP'd into the box. If you've read this far, you're probably wondering why I'm so excited about a centralized backup system. You'll find your answer the next time the RIAA SWAT team swoops in with localized EMP pulse rifles and zaps all your PC's. While you cry about the cavity search I'll be booting up restores happy in the knowledge my WHS is safe underground in a lead bunker.

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