ancientLORE

Open Sourcing Hermit and more

2012-01-26T09:02:00.000-05:00

I have open sourced my free software projects - find HERMIT, Wing, EasyDynamicDNS, plist, and others on github.com/ancientlore. Source code and binaries available. Enjoy!

20111111_111111_MDL_NEX5_3176 [Flickr]

2011-11-12T06:25:00-08:00

lore posted a photo:

20111111_111111_MDL_NEX5_3175 [Flickr]

2011-11-12T06:24:15-08:00

lore posted a photo:

20111031_Halloween_MDL_NEX5_3149 [Flickr]

2011-10-31T20:25:56-07:00

lore posted a photo:

20111031_Halloween_MDL_NEX5_3148 [Flickr]

2011-10-31T20:25:40-07:00

lore posted a photo:

20111031_Halloween_MDL_NEX5_3145 [Flickr]

2011-10-31T20:24:54-07:00

lore posted a photo:

Kicking the iPad Habit

2011-06-16T07:38:00.000-04:00

You gotta love the iPad, and tablets in general. The touch interface is so intuitive, and they are a great way to play simple games, read blogs, keep up with news, track your weight, figure out where to go to dinner, and more.

So what's the problem?

I find that I never read books on it. There are so many other cool things to distract you. I'll find myself doing email or flipping through Flipboard, perhaps for an hour, and never getting into my books. I realize that's my fault, but I don't have that issue on a Kindle.
You can't do recreational programming on it. So I find myself sitting at a desk to do that, which is what I do all day at work. That's just wrong.
My phone does everything the tablet will do - only on a smaller screen. And the phone goes everywhere I go, but the tablet sits in front of the TV.
When I travel for work, I won't bring the tablet, because I am already lugging a laptop around. So once again my phone wins.

In the few days since I put down the pad, I find myself reading more, doing more recreational programming and learning, and using my phone to scan email again. It feels like I'm wasting less time. Is it just me?

Make your own Claptrap robot from Borderlands

2011-03-05T19:06:00.001-05:00

My son and I made these neat Claptrap robots from Borderlands using aluminum flashing and other assorted parts. Metal isn't the easiest thing to work with, but using my template we churned out four different claptraps. And, if you mess one up, you can just smash it up some more and use it as a casualty in the robolution!

Tools:

Tin snips
Drill
1" hole drill bit; smaller bits for holes for rivets
Vise grips for sheetmetal beding
Rivet tool
Jigsaw
Screwdriver
Soldering iron and wet sponge
Pliers and wire cutters

Supplies:

Aluminum flashing
Spray paint (three varieties)
Rivets
Wood to make 1.5" square pieces
Solder
Wire coat hangers
Alligator clips
Screw-on caps for electrical boxes
Wheels for furniture, etc. in a suitable size
Sandpaper

Basic Procedure:

Create stencils from my template. (Be sure to download the full-size image.)
Spray paint the aluminum flashing using the stencils (it helps to sand it first so the paint sticks better).
Snip out the shape of the claptrap (be sure to leave tabs on the sides to rivet it together!).
Drill the hole for the "eye".
Drill as many holes for rivets as possible while it's flat.
Drill holes for the arms.
Bend the metal into shape using the metal-bending vice grips.
Rivet the sides (but not the top).
Insert and screw on the eye.
Cut a small block of wood to attach to the bottom.
Bend the metal on the bottom to hold in the wood. Drill holes in the layout of the wheel's mount, through the metal and into the wood block. This will keep the wheel and bottom structure secure when attached. Be careful when doing this; it's tricky.
Attach the wheel to the wood block, with the screws passing through holes in the bottom of the metal.
Bend the coat hanger wire such that it goes through both holes and has a bend to keep the arms from flapping down.
Rivet the top down.
Solder alligator clips onto the wire (it helps to sand the coat hanger wire first because most of them having a coating).

Adding the AI required for it to stand on one wheel is an exercise left for the reader.

See my photo set for more pictures of the process!

Ada Lovelace Day

2010-03-24T06:54:00.000-04:00

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day of blogging to draw attention to the achievements of women in science and technology. I'm not sure exactly how long Ada Lovelace Day has been around, but I do remember my brief yet fascinating study in 1989 of the machines she programmed - the Analytical Engine of Charles Babbage. As a student of electrical/computer engineering, I also studied the history of technology and its impact on western culture. This excellent course, instructed by Dr. John Lienhard at the University of Houston, gave me some perspective on the social consequences of technology. It also required me to write some papers, and for one I chose Babbage's Analytical Engine.

Today computers are all around us - in our cars, phones, hospital equipment, weather monitoring, flight control, music and video systems, and of course web servers. Many people, like me, program them for a living. As a student, I was amazed to discover that over a century before all our electronic advances produced what we thought was the first computer, Ada Lovelace was programming a mechanical device not unlike a modern computer.

In honor of that achievement I'm putting my paper, The Philosophy of Babbage's Analytical Engine, online. The paper shows how the philosophy of operation of the Analytical Engine is similar to that of a modern computer, and also contains a nice quote from Ada Lovelace - who like Babbage was way ahead of her time. I hope the paper conveys the depth of understanding that would be required to program such a device.

AVL Tree for Google's New Go Language

2010-03-12T07:09:00.000-05:00

Anyone interested in Google's new Go language should check out my open-source AVL Tree. It was originally crerated as a C++ class and a template, used in my HERMIT program. Porting it to Go was an interesting exercise. First, I didn't need my heap allocator because Go's garbage-collected memory manager already does block allocations. Perhaps the most interesting part of the port, however, was moving from a class hierarchy way of thinking to Go's interface-based programming, which is more akin to "duck typing." I was able to add some interesting iterators similar to those in other Go containers, but until Go has generics I can't add that. Overall, it was an interesting study in simplifying the code. Assuming that Go grows and scales, it is shaping up to be a powerful programming tool with much of the simplicity of script languages.

PS3 Surgery!

2010-01-10T13:11:00.001-05:00

PS3 Surgery!, originally uploaded by lore.

My out of warranty PS3 won't start up...so time for surgery! Not sure I can make it work, but it's fun to see what's inside. It seems like most of it is a heat sink. I am hoping the fiddling and cleaning will loosen things up enough. Supposedly you can heat the mainboard to fix any loose solder caused by overheating. We'll see how it goes.

I also took apart the Bluray drive enough to get the Little Big Planet disk out, but I neglected to get pictures of that. Some of the connectors are so small you need tweezers to take them off. Delicate work for sure.

Overall it's pretty well built - unfortunately these older models get really, really hot and it causes problems when the dust builds up, which is inevitable.

Links for 2009-09-16 [del.icio.us]

2009-09-17T00:00:00-07:00

Introducing Elevate - //TODO - Chris Marinos' Blog

Links for 2009-09-13 [del.icio.us]

2009-09-14T00:00:00-07:00

Online Meeting, Web Conferencing, Desktop Sharing and Remote Support with Mikogo

Links for 2009-08-04 [del.icio.us]

2009-08-05T00:00:00-07:00

AppDomain Shadow Copy explained - B# .NET Blog

Kindle DX Thoughts

2009-06-16T21:54:00.002-04:00

I finally broke down and got myself a Kindle DX from Amazon. I just couldn't avoid it when I saw that it supported PDF natively. And it had a larger screen for my programming books. I couldn't stop myself. Or maybe it was the 500 pounds of books that I've been moving around my house so the floors could be refinished. I kept thinking how all those books wouldn't make a Kindle weigh any more than it already did. My back thanks me. Too bad I can't put all my old books in there too.

The Kindle DX arrived nicely packaged with simple instructions to get started. The Amazon Kindle DX Leather Cover, which I highly recommend, is great for protecting the Kindle and it also makes it seem like it really is a book. The front cover folds around the back easily. Initially it took some time to get the wireless to sign in. I haven't experienced any issues since, so I am chalking it up to lack of cell towers in my area, an overcast day, and possibly problems with my cellular signal booster.

After signing in the DX quickly downloaded a book I had already purchased online and I was already reading. The screen is much easier to look at than an LCD monitor. I expected it to be slightly less gray on the background, but the subtle contrast works well for reading. A neat feature is that you can rotate the screen to change the orientation of the page. Like others have reported, it's a bit touchy so it's nice that you can lock it if you need to.

The PDF support on the DX works very well. The rendering and font support is excellent. I found only two issues. First, it doesn't support a password-protected PDF (which I didn't find surprising). Second, for some landscape-oriented documents, when you rotate the Kindle to fit the actual page size, going to the next page doesn't advance all the way, leaving you viewing the middle of two pages. I hope to see this fixed in a future software update.

Overall I am very pleased. This is a great device for people who like to read.

Pros:

Very readable screen, and good grayscale rendering of images and diagrams

Well built

Large amount of storage

Good PDF support

Long battery life

Amazon store works very well

"Experimental" features like a basic web browser and music player

Cons:

Slightly heavier than I thought it would be, but still comfortable

Screen orientation changing is a little too sensitive

Minor issues with some PDF files

Links for 2009-06-08 [del.icio.us]

2009-06-09T00:00:00-07:00

Ural | Russian Motorcycles

Links for 2009-05-15 [del.icio.us]

2009-05-16T00:00:00-07:00

Illusion Sciences: why are we surprised by only some of the things that we see?

Links for 2009-05-14 [del.icio.us]

2009-05-15T00:00:00-07:00

oauth-dot-net - Google Code

Links for 2009-05-12 [del.icio.us]

2009-05-13T00:00:00-07:00

Best Practices: Data Contract Versioning

Cox providing free Tuning Adapter to Tivo HD users

2009-01-06T07:15:00.003-05:00

A while back I posted a nasty rant about Cox Communications and their "2-way" service. Were I more knowledgeable about the cable industry, I might have known that they are utilizing something called Switched Digital Video (SDV) - where your cable box actually "turns on" the channels it needs, allowing their network bandwidth to be better utilized. The channels I cannot receive on my Tivo Series 3 today are the SDV channels.

Now it turns out Cox is also offering a SDV Tuning Adapter to Cox customers with HD Tivo units - and it's free. This is, in my opinion, a great thing.

Also see the Tivo FAQ on SDV for more information.

Heather's Book Available

2008-09-01T18:56:00.007-04:00

After months of work and many delays that were generally my fault, Heather's first self-published book The Guardians of Skylark is available on Amazon.com!

When Wynna Stewart heard that her in-school nemesis, Dominic, had run away from home, she wasn't sorry that he had gone. A chance encounter with him in one of the most unlikely places would challenge everything that she knew about him. An adventure awaited them that was neither convenient nor expected.

One thing I've always enjoyed about Heather's work is her ability to develop characters you care about and put them in compelling situations. Set in a modern community that could be a model for progressive neighborhoods everywhere, Wynna's story is touching and full of discovery.

International Wolf Center

2008-07-15T23:52:00.002-04:00

CIMG4243, originally uploaded by lore.

We took a great vacation to see the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota. We also stopped by the North American Bear Center. We had the privilege of staying at the Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge during our trip. See the full set of pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lore/sets/72157606176973103/.

Flickr does video!

2008-04-08T23:55:00.005-04:00

Flowing Stream
Originally uploaded by lore

Ok, it was news to me anyway...

The Federation Needs Coffee

2008-03-09T23:27:00.001-04:00

Here's our latest creation, a short film about the relentless pursuit of coffee by the Trade Federation Battle Droids.

Cox declaring war on HD Tivo?

2007-10-11T21:26:00.000-04:00

Recently I received this letter from my local Cox Cable operator. Somehow...deep down...I knew this was coming. Cox will not offer new HD channels to subscribers using a CableCard device - which is used by the HD Tivo unit. Instead, to receive new HD channels you are required to use a Cox set-top DVR or receiver.

The funny this is that they try to pass this off as a technology issue - as if they need a 2-way device to add channels to the lineup. In reality, they want you on systems where they can sell you programs on demand, and they are willing to force you to obsolete your (very) expensive equipment to make that happen.

Clearly I will be willing to live without it - yet another reason to use NetFlix, Amazon Unbox, or just dive into Blue-Ray or HD DVD. But it's a darn shame that Cox has taken this attitude and is so willing to screw their customers.

I wrote Cox customer service about this issue - and received a response that is essentially identical to the paper letter. Once again they are quick to advertise how I can throw away my Tivo and use their devices.

Dear Valued Cox Customer:
Thank you for contacting our Cox Northern Virginia Online Customer CareTeam. We understand your concern and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please be assured that we are not phasing our CableCARDs or forcing our customers to subscribe to our DVR service.
We will be implementing future products and services which will require two-communication and unfortunately, at this time, currently deployed CableCARDs are one-way.
We hope to offer standalone two-way CableCARDs in the future for devices that are two-way compatible.
For customers that would like to take full advantage of their Cox experience, we are offering the option to obtain a Cox Digital set-top receiver at no additional cost for 12 months. We have an offer for those who would like a Cox DVR free for three months.
Again, we are not phasing out CableCARD technology.
If you need additional information on other Cox products or services, please visit our web site at http://www.cox.com/fairfax We hope that we have been able to provide you with the information you requested. If we have not, or if we can be of any additional service to you, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
My name is Clifton. Thank you for choosing Cox Communications, Your Friend in the DigitalAge!

My friend indeed.

Snowhenge

2007-02-15T12:16:00.002-05:00

Snowhenge 4
Originally uploaded by lore.
When the snow and ice are just right, you can build a interesting structures besides just snowmen! In fact, a snowman would be very hard to make with the kind of freeze we had yesterday. So instead we made Snowhenge. Hopefully it will raise some eyebrows as people pass by!

Free and Cool

2007-02-02T19:29:00.001-05:00

There are lots of free and cool software products out there. Here are my favorites.

General
These tools are useful for just about anyone.

FileZilla is a great free FTP and Secure FTP transfer tool.
Cropper is a screenshot tool that is readily accessed from your icon tray.
Google Pack has a bunch of great free tools like Picasa for photo management, Google Talk, Ad-Aware SE Personal, and a nice photo-show screen saver.
Firefox is a clean-cut and secure web browser.
Password Safe is a must-have utility to keep those zillions of passwords you have safe and secure.
SequoiaView is a really nifty tool for viewing your disk usage. It shows the files and directories as appropriately sized blocks.
Trillian is a great multi-protocol instant messenger client.
WASTE is a nice and secure ad-hock IM and file transfer client. It doesn't rely on any central server.

Programming
If you're a coder these are great to have and free.

PSPad is the best free programmer's editor I've found.
Subversion is an excellent version control system.
TortoiseSVN is a very good front-end user interface for Subversion.
WinMerge is a first-class file difference and merge tool.
NSIS is an easy to use tool to build software installers.
Ruby is an excellent scripting language with lots of available extensions.
Ruby on Rails is a popular and well-designed web application framework.
Visual Studio Express editions of Microsoft's development tools are free and a great way to get started with Windows and Web programming.

Not So Free
Okay, not everything is free but honestly I wouldn't buy it if the price were unreasonable.

Memeo AutoBackup is an automatic backup program that backs up your files as you save them. It works great with network storage like a Buffalo Linkstation.
openCanvas is a great graphics editor made in Japan. It supports layers and many tools and is popular with manga artists.
SftpDrive is a wonderful way to access your remote systems over Secure FTP. Your remote system is mapped as a drive on your local system
PerfectDisk is the perfect way to defragment your disk. No fluff, just an excellent tool.

My Own Software
Of course I have to plug the stuff I wrote, and it's free! HERMIT is a nice tool for automating tasks you need to perform in a Windows command shell (i.e., a DOS box). The tool is fully 32-bit, shows the "real" view of your file system, and has command mapping so you can automate commonly used tasks. Wing is a pretty tool to monitor ping times to your favorite sites. Check them both out at my software site.
Sites
There are some web sites worth mentioning too, because they are just so useful.

Flickr the original photo sharing site is where I have over 2,000 photos. It has great community tools and has always been a leader in cool web integration.
GMail is just the best webmail provider, period.
Google Calendar is a nice web 2.0 calendar.
Backpack is a great way to organize your life with todo-lists and notes.
StrongSpace is a great remote disk - works perfect with SftpDrive.
TextDrive is a great place to host your Ruby on Rails applications (or anything else).

Enjoy - there are obviously many more great sites and software programs that could be added to this list. These are the ones I use a lot.

The Sky Egg

2006-09-28T22:50:00.000-04:00

After a lot of hard work Heather has launched her site, Sky Egg, a "creative site for children of all ages." Be sure to check out the fun picture books and crafts!

Another version of the lego video

2006-07-11T01:00:00.000-04:00


Just for fun you can compare the encoding from Google with YouTube.

Lego Robot Fight

2006-07-11T00:43:00.001-04:00

Back in April we made this stop-action short of two Lego robots fighting. It took about 160 photos and some time to tweak the software to about 8fps, but the result is rather entertaining (at least for me). The real trick is using video editing software that will allow a very short duration between photos in a slideshow. I used Windows Movie Maker, which allows about 1/8th a second minimum. The rest is just adding the sound track.

3D Painted Rooms

2006-01-30T10:47:00.000-05:00

In college I took a graphics arts class for fun and applied my engineering skills to it. In two cut paper projects, I applied mathematics to design shapes that looked correct when viewed straight-on, but were actually fairly large three-dimensional structures.

This technique was a lot of fun; in fact the second project required a computer program to calculate the dimensions of all the paper items I had to cut out.

Recently a friend of mine sent me a link to a similar technique applied to a more massive scale: Messing with the Optical Mind. This looks like something really cool to do with a boring hallway in your house, although I think I would use less dramatic colors.

Skyegg Server

2005-09-20T10:18:00.000-04:00

A few 2850s in a cabinet
Originally uploaded by textdrive.

The server I use is in that rack somewhere. Now how many hosting companies will show you that? (Don't answer, I don't really want to know.)

Who cares about Microsoft search?

2005-09-20T09:42:00.000-04:00

It looks like Microsoft is gearing up for its next big battle. After soundly defeating Lotus, Novell, and Netscape (just to name a few), Microsoft is apparently ready to take a stab at Google. From Microsoft, Google Setting Course For Likely Major Online Collision (IBD, 9-20-2005):

"We are committed to being No. 1 in Internet services?search included?(and) No. 1 in Internet advertising."

Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

The thing is, I don't want Microsoft Search. I don't want MSN. I could care less about Hotmail. That's not what Microsoft is to me.

For me, Microsoft develops a popular and usable operating system and a pretty good development platform. (I'm not looking to start a Windows vs. Linux vs. whatever fight here.) Microsoft's software is everywhere, it's a platform lots of us use and rely on to our daily work.

But they simply are not an Internet platform. No single player can be. The Internet is as vast as it is because there are so many tools for the job coupled with workable standards. The openness provided by tools like Flickr, Google Maps, and the various blogging tools is where it's at.

There are sound reasons why car companies are not in the tire business, even though every car needs tires. Imagine if Microsoft concentrated those resources and securing and improving Windows instead?

Animations

2005-05-23T10:30:00.000-04:00

I just added a new top-level item "Animations" which contains a bunch of animated GIFs that I've created over the years. These use a simple Creative Commons license and can be used on commercial and non-commercial web sites.

Most of the images were created with Headline Studio, a fine product that I believe is no longer available. Rather than focusing on frame-by-frame animation, the product focused on algorithmic movement and effects, making it pretty natural to create interesting animations.

Black Eight

2005-05-12T11:07:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I'm amazed how people can tell when you're stressed and pulling your hair out -- and then do something about it. My friend and coworker Dan brought in this great "Black Eight" kit that we'll polish off tonight. Just what I needed! We've had two builds in a row and are scrambling to finish all the work. I have really been unable to relax, to the point where work is just flashing through my mind like some sort of warped multi-threaded video player. This definitely hits the spot.

Black Eight
Originally uploaded by lore.

Wing Graphing Completed

2005-02-20T17:12:00.001-05:00

Head on over to my FREE Software site and grab the latest beta of Wing, my network ping monitor. Wing now supports graphing and includes a how-to document on skinning. If you make a cool skin, please pass it along and I'll add it to the list.

2005

2005-01-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

Let's work for a successful, happy 2005, solutions to global crises, and peace.