I got a weird question the other day. Is it OK to paint an AC adapter? Or: Can you paint an AC adapter?
I wouldn’t. For a couple of reasons. Read more
I have a job.
I have a job. That’s a good thing, because for about three hours today, that was in doubt.
It was nothing personal. My whole office was out of work for that three hours. It turned out to be an administrative error. I’m not quite sure how an administrative error leads to an entire office being let go for three hours, but maybe I’ll understand when I’m older. And Mike Judge, if you’re out there anywhere, I can tell you some stories that make Office Space seem positively tame.
I’ve had worse days than this. Definitely.
Firefox 4 is out
And although Firefox 4 isn’t officially released until tomorrow, copies have leaked out via FTP staging servers. I grabbed a copy from betanews to do my upgrade early.
I’ve played with pre-release versions, so no real surprises. It’s quick. The look changed quite a bit, but you can easily configure it to look like older versions if you want. I did on my desktop; on a netbook I might not.
If you’ve liked Firefox all along, you’ll like Firefox 4. If you’ve preferred IE or Chrome up to this point, I don’t think Firefox 4 changes enough to change your mind on that. It has a faster Javascript engine and makes better use of graphics hardware on Windows Vista or 7, but aside from that, it’s still the same basic browser. IE9 has all that too, and Chrome has fast Javascript and isn’t far behind with graphics acceleration of its own. Of course Firefox and Chrome have the advantage that they’ll still run under XP. I think Firefox 4 will even run under Windows 2000, if you’re still using that for some reason.
I like it, but I was using it when it was still a side project called Phoenix. Then it was Firebird. Then it became Firefox.
AT&T buying T-Mobile isn’t good for anyone but AT&T
I suspect AT&T is going to be allowed to swallow up T-Mobile, but there’s nothing good about this.
T-Mobile survived solely on customer service and low prices. Let me tell you a story about T-Mobile.
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Upgrade and repair diary: IBM Thinkpad T30
I picked up an IBM Thinkpad T30 this week. People ask me occasionally to keep an eye out for an inexpensive used laptop, and Thinkpads from 2005 or earlier are a good choice because they’re generally well built, easy to find, and most importantly, parts and information for them are plentiful if anything goes wrong.
In the case of this particular model, that’s a good thing.
How to make a virtual DOS machine with networking
If you want a virtual DOS machine running inside a modern PC operating system, with old-school networking and everything, everything you need to do it is at http://lazybrowndog.net/freedos/virtualbox/.
Thank you and farewell, Dr. Grams
About 8 years ago, I set my mind to repair two Lionel trains that had belonged to my dad. I took to the Internet, and about the only repair advice I could find was to track down The Beginner’s Guide to Repairing Lionel Trains by Ray L. Plummer.
Ray L. Plummer was a pen name for Dr. John A. Grams, a journalism professor at Marquette University and a prolific author. Using either name, he wrote a total of 9 books and 129 magazine articles about Lionel and similar vintage trains.
Dr. Grams died this week, aged 77.
How to open multiple Explorer windows from a batch file
Sometimes you need to open multiple Explorer windows from a batch file. Perhaps because two directories need to be compared by a human, rather than by a computer.
I’ve had to do it multiple times for projects in the past, and so does a longtime reader, who wasn’t able to find how in a Google search.
You might kick yourself after you see how.
Why you don’t want to be the first to install a Microsoft service pack
And, like most Service Pack 1 releases, it seems Windows 7 SP1 isn’t flawless. Under some circumstances, SP1 machines hang during the boot process with a C00000034 fatal error. Or sometimes it goes into a reboot loop with Error C000009A applying update operation 120782 of 367890.
Microsoft doesn’t yet know what’s causing the problems.
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Usage caps for solving problems that don’t exist
If you haven’t read, Southwestern Bell AT&T is solving a bogeyman problem of network congestion by imposing usage caps of 150 GB per month for standard DSL, and 250 GB per month for U-Verse (fiber). Use of AT&T’s own IPTV, VOIP, etc. are exempted from the usage limits, of course.
They cite network congestion, but really, this is more about making certain that non-AT&T services like Netflix, Skype, Vonage, etc. have a competitive disadvantage over AT&T’s costlier services.
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