Blogger comes out of Beta

When I first started blogging I was using Blogger, MySpace and WordPress. I quickly dropped MySpace. It had way too busy an interface, and was too limiting in the display choices. I maintain Blogger and WordPress side by side for about a week or so. In the end WordPress won because of superior categorizing and better options for some other things.

Blogger came out of beta. When I was using it it was still in beta, and I was not in the mood for a beta product at that time. If you converted you blog to the beta you could not go back. I just logged into Blogger and started a quick blog to see how it was.

I like it, but I don’t have time enough to see if it is truly better than WordPress to make a switch. Plus there is the issue of how long it would take to get all my post from this blog over to another blog.

Gas Mileage Experiment – Step #1 Priliminary Results

As you know, I am conducting gas mileage experiments for an upcoming article in the Car Corner column of my web site. In the last entry I told you that I was going to leave my Mini Cooper’s on-board computer set to display my continuous gas mileage, just to see how being conscience of mileage will effect my driving. It is only Friday morning (the final result really comes in tonight), but I wanted to get something out before I forget (which is another reason I have this blog, to keep some notes for future reference).

My mileage this week has averaged 29.0 mpg so far. I don’t see that changing on my way home tonight. However, I would just like to mention that this number is artificially high… if ever so slightly. Why? Glad you asked. You see this is the week before Christmas. Monday and Tuesday were normal. I took my youngest to his school and returned home then I took the oldest to his bus stop and headed off to work. Both times I go through the same traffic to get out of my neighborhood.

However, on Wednesday my sons were off school. I left for work just slightly earlier than I would normally take my youngest. However there was little traffic… because traffic at that hour is mostly due to the number of people trying to beat the worst traffic combined with school traffic. Neither of these were present on this day.

On Thursday and Friday my wife was off work (she is a teacher, but teaches in a different school district than we live which is why she had school the extra day) so I just got up when the alarm clock went off, got ready and left for work… about an hour before I normally take the youngest to school (around 6:00 AM). There was no traffic.

I checked my average mileage Tuesday night and it was at 28.3 mpg. I believe this is pretty accurate and probably would have been the week’s average had the traffic patterns not changed.

Just thought you should know.

Notice that we are only talking 7/10′s of a difference. That’s because San Antonio traffic is pretty light compared to other places… especially when I head out to New Braunfels and travel opposite the direction of traffic for about 80 percent of my drive.

Christmas vs. Holiday Party – A Gripe

This year I was volunteered (with -ed at the end) to be on the company Holiday Party Committee. It was a great party… IMHO. We just received the results of the anonymous survey the company sent out after the party.

The first question on the survey asks if you attended the party or not, and if not why? Simple enough. One of the “why” answers was “I will not attend a religious celebration party.”

Did you notice that I said this was a “holiday” party. In fact, the entire team (with backing by the company) was very clear that this was not a Christmas, or any other religious, party.

I immediately asked, “Since the person we are all trying not to offend isn’t coming anyway can we have a Christmas Party next year.” It isn’t enough that we bent over backwards for this person, they have the nerve to insult everyone who worked very hard on the party by saying we waisted our time even trying to please them.

Look… my best friend in the entire world is Jewish, and he celebrates Christmas. My ex-Step Father and my two step-brothers are Jewish. Again, they celebrate Christmas. I am offended when someone insults me about a religious party that was not a religious party. When are we going to bend over for me… by ignoring these people. Better yet… make these people work on Christmas.

I have one thing to say to the person that will not attend a generic holiday party because self righteous, inconsiderate, bigoted, close minded attitudes…

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Network Printing with Vista Works

I previously mentioned that I could not print from Windows Vista over a network. I figured out the problem. It was a lack of drivers for my HP Photosmart P1000 printer. I tried bringing a laptop running Windows XP into the closet (server room) where my Win2K Server resides. I installed the HP P1000 on the laptop directly and then shared the printer.

I tried mapping the printer from my Vista desktop but got the same results. Everything looks like it works (you even see the job flow through the XP laptop’s printer console), but the printer just sits there. No error, no nothing.

However, when poking around in Win XP’s printer sharing I came across an item that allowed the machine to provide alternate drivers to clients. Of course, being a XP machine it could not provide Vista drivers to a client. And that is the problem. No Vista drivers for the HP P1000. Oops!

All worked fine when I manually setup a DeskJet 500 (B&W, and still the best way I know to get strickly b&w output from a color printer) and pointed it to the same port the P1000 was on. All I had to so was manually select the DJ500 in the Windows printer selection of Vista. The P1000 is pretty old, but not nearly as old as the DeskJet line. Why aren’t P1000 drivers listed in Vista. Oops again!

More on Expression Web Not Being a Development Tool

Just because I want to be a pest… I will add to the issue of Microsoft not offering Expression Web on MSDN. This item was in my MSDN Flash newsletter today:

Free 60-day Trial of Expression Web
Design dynamic, interactive pages that harness the power of the Web to deliver superior quality.

Why bother pushing a design tool in a developer newsletter when you already made a policy that developers are not designers.

Windows Vista on a Laptop

Due to unforeseen events (I will do a full write up on my web site), my brother-in-law gave his old laptop to my youngest son. It is a Compaq Presario V2000. It has about 512 MB of memory, and this memory is shared with the video. It has a 12.1″ screen, a AMD Turion processor running at 1.83 GHz and a 60 GB hard drive.  Because I know he has a lot of stuff on the laptop, and some of it inappropriate for my kids, I decided to scrub it down to bare metal (reformat the hard drive).

The power cord was not working (chewed by one of my family’s pets) and the Enter key was broken. I managed to pull the cord apart and put it together well enough for now. I tried to get the Enter key working, but it was hopeless. However, pressing the center spot on the exposed circuit board works reasonably well.

I downloaded all the drivers for the laptop from Compaq’s web site and burned them to a CD. This was for installing Windows XP. Compaq doesn’t list driver’s for Windows Vista yet. But I asked my 8 year old son if he wanted Vista like the desktop has. He did and I loaded Vista Home Premium.

After two reboots it was up and running and everything worked except the sound. However, Vista did install 4 updates and one of them must have been for sound because the sound came on just before a reboot.

I had to manually turn on the Aero interface. The Performance Index for this little laptop was 2.0, limited by two components, memory and one other I can’t think of off the top of my head. I install AVG Anti-virus, Office 2000 and Paint Shop Pro 8 (hey, they are the newest I have). We also installed iTunes.

So far everything is working perfectly. I turned on Parental Controls and set it to play games up to a Teen rating. There were some issues with Google search that I had to allow with my administrator password.

Overall I am pleased… and my older son wants Vista too. He has a Dell E1505 he got at the beginning of summer. I may try the upgrade path for him because he has more stuff that I am not in the mood to backup and restore… but will probably backup anyway. We’ll see.

Gas Mileage Experiment – Basline Results & Step #1

I drove my Mini Cooper S with no regard for gas mileage for 5 days (Monday through Friday). This is the baseline for my gas mileage experiment. I changed the baseline because it was actually not correct for my driving habits. I also took the test out to 5 days. So, for the baseline I just drove like normal (now that I have broken myself of good mileage habits).

The results… 26.1 mpg as reported by the average consumption readout from the on-board computer.

For Step #1 of my experiment I am going to watch the continuous consumption readout from the on-board computer. The idea being that making yourself aware of how much you are pushing on the gas pedal will create a self consiousness that will improve your mileage. I reset the computer this morning and will drive 5 more days. I am not going to use weekend driving because that is not consistent for me. The only basis for consistency is using commuting to and from work.

Windows Vista – Not Printing Over Network

I don’t understand it. I can’t print at all from Windows Vista. My printers are connected to a computer running Windows 2000 Server. I have added the printers to my Vista workstation, but nothing happens. And I mean nothing. I don’t get any messages what so ever. In fact, there are entries in the Event Viewer that says the server successfully printed the job. But nothing happens.

Any Ideas?

Music Service Comparison – URGE Free Trial

I put the finishing touches on a spreadsheet comparing the music services for artist/album/song availability and price. URGE did quite well, so I decided to take it to the next level and signed up for a 14 day free trial membership.

It is too early to tell for sure, but I like it. I downloaded a bunch of songs at work, including a VH1 Top 100 Songs for the Past 25 Years. At home I wanted to see if I could re-download those same songs. Sure enough there is an option to “restore” my library. It worked and it told me I could do this 4 times.

The interface was real nice when searching, but I am finding it a bit busy for more casual browsing. We’ll see.

Also, it wants Tag information in MP3 files when you add them to its library. I added a couple of songs without ID3 info and it listed them as Unknown Artist. Same as iTunes. This is one reason why I am considering re-ripping my entire collection of CDs. I ripped them in the old days when the ID3 info was not added automagically. To make matters worse, I removed it from songs for consistent appearance in applications. For instance, in the early days WinAmp would display the filename perfectly if there was no tag information. With tag information it would sometimes display the artist and the song title, sometimes just the song title. I never did spend any time figuring it out. I just removed the ID3 (v1 & v2) tag info from those songs that had them.

Hey, it worked back then. That was a long time ago. I have to decide how much time I want to spend fixing the old files, or just re-rip them.

After the holidays I will subscribe to another service and see how it goes.

Expression Web NOT for Developers

I just received a link to Apparently Web Developers Don’t Do Web Design. Microsoft is not going to provide Expression Web to MSDN Subscribers. For those of you that don’t know an MSDN (Microsoft Developer’s Network) Subscription is an expensive annual subscription that provides developer tools and operating systems to developers (hence the name).

A license to Office, including FrontPage, was included with that subscription. I have been using this for some time to maintain my own web site.

According to the link above Microsoft is not going to put Expression Web on MSDN. They claim it is for designers, not developers. Yea, right!

Then why did I learn about the Expression product line from my MSDN and TechNet newsletters? Why did the Fall MSDN Events devote a session to Expression Web? Microsoft is playing a dangerous game with developers.

As a developer that will be moving to .Net web development next year, I was very interested in Expression because of the integration it looked like it was trying to make with Visual Studio. I don’t like leaving the design to another department. And certainly for prototyping a decent looking site, Visual Studio is not it.

I was going to redesign my own web site with Expression Web. In fact, I worked out the kinks to use their dynamic web templates. This works like master pages. You create a DWT and leave content placeholders in them. Then attach the DWT to a page and just modify the content specific to that page. If I can’t use this feature of Expression Web… because I don’t have a copy, I will just pull up and old copy of Dreamweaver instead.

Oops, Microsoft.

Expression Web – Mouse Rollover How To

I was working on the redesign of my main web site. I am building it in Expression Web. I just hope I can get a copy of the program through my MSDN subscription (it isn’t listed yet). I decided I want to do a rollover effect for the main navigation. I did a quick search on the Internet for instructions on doing a rollover in Expression Web, but all I found was links to people that wanted me to buy tutorials.

Well, who-ha to that. Here is how you do it.

• Create your two images (you know the drill… same size, text in same place, etc)
• Insert the “off” version of the rollover image on your web page (or dynamic web template).
• Click the image to highlight it.
• Now… on the Manage Styles toolbox (in the lower right by default) select the Behaviors tab.
• There is an Insert button with a down arrow. Click this button and select Swap Image from the list.
• Make sure your “off” image is highlighted in the dialog box. Click the browse button and select the “on” image.
• Click OK and you are done. You have to preview the page in a browser, and the browser may ask for permission to run scripts.

That’s it. Pretty simple, but just not completely intuitive.

More Spell Checking with Firefox

I found a note to a spell check tweak on Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog. This tweak turns the the spell checker on by default for single line entry. I thought this might be what was confusing Firefox while editing my WordPress blog.

Nope. But the spell checker does work on the title line for the individual blogs, but it didn’t help the main text area.

I did notice that there is a pop-up menu option called “Spell check this field.” I right click on the text area and select that option and Firefox is happy as a pig in slop. But why can’t I get this working by default when editing my own WordPress blog entries?

Any ideas?

Spell Check with Firefox 2.0 and WordPress

This has been bothering me for a while. Firefox does not spell check when I edit my posts here in WordPress. I don’t know why. I assumed it was a Firefox issue, but then I added comments to someone else’s blog and the Firefox spellchecker was working fine. And it turned out that the person’s blag happened to be a WordPress blog.

What gives. I know this was working, but know it is not. I am not thrilled with WordPress’ spellchecker, and want Forefox to work again. Does anyone know why this is happening?

Music Service Comparison – Search List Complete

I finished the basics for my search list on all the main music services (at least the ones I am planning to compare). I created a spreadsheet to hold my notes.

I added Wal-Mart to the list, not because I plan to compare them, but because they showed up as a service that Media Player 11 would work with… and they offer tracks for 88 cents without a subscription. In my spreadsheet I have Wal-Mart with the most consistent prices across the board. However, it also had the least amount of music.

I will some up the information in the spreadsheet in a future Scott’s Column article. But for now let me say that most of the services seem to be an awful lot alike. They are all missing a lot of the same music. All were missing the same artists except iTunes which had a decent selection of Bob Seger songs where none of the others did. URGE seams to be in second place to Wal-Mart in the price department based on album prices. Zune Marketplace seems to be the same as URGE, but makes you buy points first and they use those points to buy music.

I don’t like the points system. For one, I don’t like that I have to buy points in advanced in blocks. This is like the rebates everyone hates. They are making money from the float of when they have your money and you don’t yet have the product.

There are the occasional spikes here and there, but overall most of the services are close. Music Match is probably second to Wal-Mart for selection.

I may add more artists to the list as I use the services. Next I will have to actually subscribe. I will try the ones that let me use their free trial without a credit card.

Stay tuned.

Color Scheme For Site Redesign

I have started the redesign on my web site. I would love to get some feedback on the new look, particularly the color scheme. I have setup a quick few pages with the basic look in place. Please have a look and let me know what you think.

NOTE: I removed the link to the sample pages after the final design was complete.

Too Much Going On

Wow! I just have far too much going on. I am doing the gas mileage experiment. I am trying to check out photo approval tools. I am looking at various music services. I am also working on a redesign of my web site. Not to mention I want to build a web site around my Mini Cooper. On top of this I need to get into learning to build eCommerce web sites with Visual Studio .Net 2005.

I am not sure I will actually do the Mini Cooper site. I am not actively modifying the car, or taking massive road trips, or going to car shows. Any site would be pretty static, so there may not be a point.

I have come up with an initial look for my web site. It uses my favorite color, blue. I have two versions… one where the main text is black on white with the rest of the page white on blue. The other version is all white on blue. I need to refine it a little, and then final a place to stick it on my web site so people can view it. I want to get some feedback on the colors and the overall look of the pages… font, font size, column width, etc. When I get it ready I will post links to the two versions and ask for votes and comments.

Gas Mileage Experiment – Baseline

I have been driving for about a month now without any regard for gas mileage. I need a baseline to show the difference between typical driving and the tips I am going to show. This morning I reset the average fuel consumption from the on board computer in my Mini Cooper. I will drive it for three days and record the mileage. To make sure I don’t drive in any unusual manner I am taking a basic highway route to and from work. When the highway is two lanes (each way) I will settle in the left lane and follow at a reasonable distance the car in front of me. When there are more than two lanes I will settle into the lane one to the right of the far left lane. Again, just following the cars in front of me. I will maintain a speed within 10 miles per hour of the speed limit (plus or minus) during all driving.

After the three days I will record the results and then spend three days driving with just my first mileage technique. I will add one technique at a time with three days of record driving for each. The tips will build on each other. It is going to take time to get all the tips down with three days of driving, so the final article will probably come out in the February edition of my column.

The Ulimate Christmas Tree

I am trying to get my Christmas tree set up. It is a 9 foot artificial tree. We have had it for about 10 years now. When we first bought it I wired it with lights. Now, this is the kind of tree that has the separate branches, so the only way to wire it was to wire each branch as a self contained unit.

Over the years we have spent a lot of time fixing branches that have gone out. Looking for bad bulb, replacing fuses and ever re-wiring branches.

Well, we had enough of that and decide it was time to re-wire the entire tree. I put a single 35 light strand on every branch from the bottom row until I reach about 5 rows from the top where I took two strands and spread them over three branches. I will use 4 strand for the top piece.

I am so close. I have 12 branches and the top left. When it is done there will be 2,450 lights on the tree. I hope to finish it tomorrow night.

Scott’s Hybrid Idea is Finally Here

O.K. This is a selfish promotion of myself. I just came across this article in the Los Angeles Times reporting GM is to unveil electric car prototype. It’s about time. Take a look at my own article on hybrids I wrote six years ago.

When you read my article, please do me a favor and make note of the last line.

Music Service Comparison – Final Search List

I went through my music collection at home. I now have the final list of artists, albums and songs I am going to look for on all the music services. Here’s the list with comments on some of the choices at the bottom.

Artists:

Badfinger
Bob Seger
Jethro Tull
John Cafferty
Smithereens
Starship
The Beatles

Albums:

Billboard Top Rock & Roll Hits 1969
Billy Joel – Songs In The Attic
Bruce Springsteen – Greatest Hits
Cream – The Very Best of Cream
Electric Light Orchestra – All Over The World: The Very Best of ELO
Elvis Presley – Elvis #1 Singles
Harry Chapin – Greatest Stories Live
John Melloncamp – The Best That I Could Do: 1978-1988
REO Speedwagon – The Hits
Squeeze – Singles
Steve Winwood – Arc of a Diver
U2 – Best of 1980 – 1990

Songs:

A Flock of Seagulls – I Ran
Barret Strong – Money
Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays
Brian Setzer Orchestra – Jump Jive An’ Wail
Brownsville Station – Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room
B.J. Thomas – Hooked on a Feeling
Blue Swede – Hooked on a Feeling
C. W. McCall – Convoy
Glenn Frey – Smuggler’s Blues
Johnny Rivers – Secret Agent Man
Looking Glass – Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)
Marty Balin – Hearts
Nena – 99 Luftballoons (English)
Robbie Dupree – Steal Away
Then Dead Milkmen – Bitchin’ Camaro
The Box Tops – The Letter
Three Dog Night – Shambala

As you can see my tastes are not too out there… and this was as out there as I could get. Granted, some of these are here for comparison purposes. Billy Joel’s Songs in the Attic is one of my all time favorite albums. I want to see if they have it, but more importantly how much it costs.

Bob Seger is listed as an artist because I noticed Yahoo had only one or two songs from him… and none of his classic stuff. Sounds like a chance to check out something easy there. This may be like The Beatles who have never given permission for their songs to be sold on any service (I think this is still true, but I will check that out).

Badfinger is going to be a cool test. Does anyone remember them? Badfinger was a band created by The Beatles. They put the band together in their later days as another “boy band” to put on their Apple label. Paul McCartney wrote most of their early songs, and they sound a lot like him (or The Beatles). Will The Beatles lack of support for on-line music carry over. We will see. The Smithereens was about the least know album I own. Starship is on the list because they changed their name so many time I am curious how they will be listed.

The albums are nothing special, I was just getting a reasonable sample. However, I would like to take this time to mention that Steve Winwood‘s Arc of a Diver is arguably the first truly solo album. Why? Because he made the album in his basement studio… by himself. He played every instrument, wrote all the lyrics, and sung all the songs. A true solo effort.

As for the songs, this started as a list of singles I bought on 45s. I know, I am dating myself here. The rest just kind of evolved from songs I downloaded during the heyday of Napster. However, Boomtown Rats’ I Don’t Like Mondays is off the beaten path. This was there only hit… and it has a story. The song in about a teenage girl that shot up an elementary school across the street from her house. When the police captured her, her only explanation for why she did it was that she didn’t like Mondays. Now for the twist… the event happened in California, but the Boomtown Rats are from Ireland. The song was released about two months after the incident and they tried to ban it in this country (or in California, my memory is a little weak).

I will look for all of this stuff on each music service. If anyone has some unusual or mainstream stuff they think would trip up the music services, please send it my way and I will add it to my testing.

I am going to start looking at my first “free trial” this weekend. Hopefully I will have the time to make this effort worthwhile.

Until next time.