Waikiki Sunset

Jul 3rd, 2008 by jeffmcneill

Waikiki sunset., originally uploaded by skyseeker.

I will miss this place very much. The irony is that my lifestyle has me missing this when I live only a few miles from it.

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Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision

Jul 3rd, 2008 by jeffmcneill

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links for 2008-07-03

Jul 2nd, 2008 by jeffmcneill

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Coffee!!!

Jul 2nd, 2008 by jeffmcneill

Giant Starbucks Cup, originally uploaded by jeffmcneill.

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What the ICANN TLD decision means (not much)

Jul 1st, 2008 by jeffmcneill

The ICANN board recently (June 26) decided to allow for new top-level domains, such as .nyc and .perfume. This is I believe a welcome (and long overdue) decision. When people have to deal with the country of Tuvalu or their outsourced agents to secure .tv domains, you know a system is broken.

What will this mean? For most people, nothing. The six-figure cost suggested by ICANN means this is a rich persons’ game. Essentially this allows for smaller “countries” to be set up, each will have their own fees. For larger organizations, this is yet another piece of intellectual property they will have to acquire. I can imagine seeing .mac and .windows in the future (who knows, a .linux ?).

Interestingly this will be most useful for short (ideally three-letter) brands with a “branded house” model of branding, and some fairly deep pockets. Two letter .tlds that already were assigned as a country code, sorry, out of luck chaps. Proctor & Gamble loses out to Papua New Guinea (but they have a “house of brands” strategy, so no worries).

The real effect for consumers typing in the browser will be the removal of the .com for some brands, e.g., “http://cocacola” could be an address, instead of “http://cocacola.com” (which gets rerouted to http://www.coca-cola.com/glp/d/index.html anyway, what a waste).

Most of us will keep using .com and .org, and the .edu for universities in the US. The .tv domains and the odd .us as in del.icio.us will still be around. Recently the url-shortening service is.gd sprung up, showing that even in this constrained domain naming environment, creativity still happens… perhaps because of the constraints.

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How to make a Mirrored Backup with Robocopy on Windows

Jun 30th, 2008 by jeffmcneill

XCOPY was always my friend, it has some great memory management features. However it required scripting to get anything like a mirror of a directory structure, and it didn’t have shortcut features of copying only the changed part of a file.

Enter Robocopy (Wikipedia), yay! This is a Microsoft command-line utility (free) that comes in the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit that also has a GUI available.

The Wikipedia article has great information, as does the 35 page doc file that comes with the GUI. But it is super simple to set up a mirror script:

robocopy.exe c:/directory e:/backup MIR Z

There is a full list of robocopy switches at atlex.nl

Bye bye XCOPY, hello ROBOCOPY!

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links for 2008-07-01

Jun 30th, 2008 by jeffmcneill

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Minimum Computing Environment - Windows Edition

Jun 30th, 2008 by jeffmcneill

For someone who wantes a minimum (low-cost) computing environment with Windows, here are the recommendations.Total about $1,600 with shipping and tax. Have to shop at Amazon, Dell, and Ebay to get the best prices (but it is worth it for the savings, cannot get what you want at one place and cannot get best prices at one place).

Dell Laptop Model XPS M1330
Processor: Core 2 Duo
Hard Drive: 320gb or more
Memory: 2gb or more
Optical Drive: DVD/RW
Video Card: 128MB or more (NVidia or ATI, NOT Intel)

Go to Dell Outlet
http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/topics/global.aspx/arb/online/en/InventorySearch?c=us&cs=22&l=en&lob=INSP&MODEL_DESC=XPS%20M1330&s=dfh
* Min Hard Drive = 320; Optical Drive = DVD/RW; Video Card = 128; Minimum Memory = 2000
* Click FILTER RESULTS
* Sort on PRICE - Should be able to get <$1,000

Dell Laserjet 1110 (not the 1100) - ~$69 on Dell Outlet
*Note this is a “cheap” laser but with USB 2.0 (no ethernet), should be fine. I believe the next best price point is a $350 color laser, or double-sided, networked, faster B&W for around $250, but that is so not worth it unless you are in a multi-user office
Monitor: E228WFP 22-inch Widescreen (1680×1050) - These are going for $229 at Dell Outlet, only $30 more than the 20″, so this is the new best value for monitors these days (same resolution as 20″ but bigger screen = easier on the eyes, and don’t have to set the fonts to 120% to see at native resolution)

Optical Mouse/Keyboard - Search in Ebay - $25-30 w/shipping
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?satitle=dell+optical+mouse+keyboard+new
Note: don’t mess around with wireless, its a big pain

External Hard Drive (Backup) @ Amazon.com - $100
http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Desktop-301285U-External-Drive/dp/B000WA009Y/

DVD+RW Media (25) @ Amazon.com - $25
http://www.amazon.com/Memorex-4x-DVD%2BRW-25-Pack-Spindle/dp/B0000A98AC/

Speakers @ Amazon.com - $25
http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-970264-0403-X-140-2-0-Speakers/dp/B000IF4788/

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links for 2008-06-30

Jun 29th, 2008 by jeffmcneill

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links for 2008-06-28

Jun 27th, 2008 by jeffmcneill

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