More Stupid Software

Buenos Noches, Mofo's, and Word to your mothers!

No, really, give your mothers a call. They like hearing from you.

Tough week at the Ion Farm, but the weekend is here and you're here, and that's kinda special. I think I'll crack open a couple of Michelob's for us and get started then.

First off I found a site that humbled me in simple ways. I came across this site that has small, very small, software utilities available (Read USB ready). My favorite utility is the mouse volume control that lets you control your computer volume buy left clicking and turning the wheel. Super nice when that mp3's subtle nuance you just turned up to groove on erupts into a drug fueled, megalomaniac, atomic, cococphony. In addition there is an endless list of password "recovery" tools that completely showed me that I should just have a piece of paper with all my password written on it yellow stickied to my monitor. There's also some cool network monitor stuff and other informational things that you should look at if you ever get into a Matthew Broderick/"War Games" mode, but don't want to sacrifice your social status, a lifetime of reading 3l33t hacker scripts, developing cred on an IRC channel, and washing your hair, and non-resident status at Guantonomo Bay. Of course, your e-mail life will flourish, my friend!

In addition if you are using a BitTorrent client an it's not uTorrent you probably should at lease try uTorrent. I have tried BitTorrent and Azareus and found them to be way cumbersome to use and quite unreliable for my set up. uTorrent is way lightweight, configures itself and has overall provided me with a great experience in ease of application. Toe to toe is matches it's speed to Azareus, but the feature I like best is the scheduler that allows you to set the time of the day in 1 hour blocks when uTorrent will run unlimited, when it will be off and when it will be limited by your specifications. Very cool, indeed!

Lastly, I have discovered Yahoo! Widgets And although there are some cornball, sophmoric, tripe to wade through, you can actually find something useful. There's like 2500 widgets on the gallery and I'm using 7 so for me, the chance that any given widget's actually something I'll use is like .28% but I do like the ones I'm using. They're transparent, don't take up a lot of space, and I don't notice them running.

Pandora FM

Word Up,G!

I know that you liked the whole Pandora thing and I don't know if you have tried LastFM yet, but you can sign up for a free account there and they will monitor what you play on you computer's music software and hook you up with recommendations, but what is really cool abut these 2 things is that they have hooked up with each other through PandoraFM Which will monitor what you're listening to on Pandora and add it to a playlist on Last FM so you can go back and listen to the things you like. How cool is that? I dunno, I just started trying it out, but if it does in fact turn out to be cool, you're welcome! And if not, well,

. . . Awkward. . .

Hey this was a useful email, I think I'll post it on my blog.

--
Jam On, Kiddo,

The Migrant Ion Farmer

Migrant Ion Farmer VS The Ion Farm

I knew it was going to happen, but I really didn't want it to. When I came into the Ion Farm on Wednesday, things were different. Yes, they had placed a proxy on their internet services that barred you from going to various sites. The list of sites blocked were apparently chosen at random. But no matter, although I was outraged, not at the idea of throttling back some bandwidth, or sheltering my more delicate and sensitive co-workers from the possibility of having their sensibilities offended by that ever-so-wiley internet, or even from the possibility that someone might even be screwing off a little instead of being productive. I guess it's the way, although my sense of freedom was encroached. I had a sense that my ability to choose what was appropriate and what was not appropriate was being supplanted by someone else. This entity had an power that I hadn't come across before, the ability to supplant my resourceful nature, finding information on that old superhighway in the sky. there is no standard, just a knee jerk reaction, conservatively banning all sites by keywords and not by content. I wanted to rebel, to open a forum of discussion about this, about how it could actually be a bad thing. But in this case it was actually easier to do something about it, than to talk about it.

The route I took involved James Marshall & his cgi proxy script which allowed me to put a proxy server on my website to counter the inhuman judgement of keyword filters. You can try it out here:

http://freedomalleystudios.com/cgiproxy/nph-proxy.pl

There's an installer I stumbled across and I had the whole deal up and running in about 5 minutes. It's a good deal and even if you didn't want to go through the whole deal of installing something on some webspace, you could probably do a google search for cgiproxy or nph-proxy.pl and have at it.

ROCK!

My mother has always had an eye for unusual rocks. I don't know why or how, but she can always come up with something strange that is fossilized, and just damn odd. This one is her latest find, and she says that it could be a frog. Now this is the unretouched photo that she has sent to me for an professional opinion, and I have to say that me and the rest of the boys down here at the lab are puzzled. We've got tech's dragging equipment out of the mathom lab and experts working around the clock looking for new ways to explain this. The pressure is on and the clock is running. Do you mind if I am frank with you? If we don;t come up with an answer pretty soon, we're going to lose our government funding. Did you hear that? WE'RE GOING TO LOSE OUR GOVERNMENT FUNDING! Are you picking that up visually as well? Here, allow me to demonstrate:

So I need you guys to get me some answers right away, our this whole Ion Farmer ride is over. It was fun while it lasted, but without government funding, we will go the way of feathered hair and back pocket combs. Damn, I enjoyed it while it lasted.

Hotmail Beta Live Instant Access

If you have a Hotmail account, you can try their new interface which I actually find a lot easier to use compared to their old and busted 1994 "look at me, I'm on the internet" style.

Steps:
1. You need to have a @hotmail.com account (it currently does not work with an @msn.com account). If you have one, simply login and click on Options, which is located towards the top right hand corner of the webpage.

2. Go to Options --> Personal Settings --> My Profile

3. Change the country name to United States and state to Florida --> (I've been using 33309 for the zip code) click Save but don't quit the webpage

4. Next, copy-and-paste the following string into your browser:

http://url.fm/3zy

That's my shortened URL, here's the original in case that doesn't work out for you
(Make sure you edit this into one continuous line):

http://by101fd.bay101.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/
BetaOptIn?page=option&curmbox=00000000%2d0000%2d0000%2d0000%d000000000001
&a=b9a426ebd4880ad9d14db4b4c55a69f8bb8
dea2282102422220030b2b6bb98c8

I doesn't have the required style for me to rock in, but like I said, It's better and easier.

Gallery of rogues, Continued. . .

Ah, yes. . . Safari Charlie. The ideology of Safari Charlie, or what has become known in some Appalachian Regions as the "Safari Charlie Principle" has enabled me to do whatever I choose. It boils down to a simple phrase: "You put me with any other dumbass who want to do it, and you can consider it done." This is not to be confused with the Big Stash Proposition known as "When you start wondering about where you should and shouldn't be, that's when you've messed up."

The true origin of our friendship can be traced to the Greenbrier River, somewhere just south of Marlinton, WV, although there are precursors that can be found at Mayor's Place in Summersville, WV. How we happened to be on the Greenbrier in April is really of no concern other than the fact that we both saw it as really the only choice one has to fully be enjoying life. Yes, I admit hedonism was a driving factor, a gluttony for the outdoors and the freedoms it provides. Know you, dear reader, that this marks the seven year anniversary of this 4 day event.

Some glimpses into the original (and some will say never to be equaled) trip begins with a 45 minute trip to Marlinton where we will be putting in with a brand new, direct from the manufacturer, canoe and enough equipment to send a bathroom scale from 0 to 200 in a flew seconds flat. The vehicle of conveyance, which would become a major character in the unfolding plot is a Red, 1991 Dodge Ram 150, with a well worn cowboy interior (bench seats, no heat, no wipers, no radio, and none of the other amenities you fancy-pants might prefer). Located inside that vehicle one would find myself riding shot-gun, Safari Charlie as the transmission-wrangler, and Big Stash as Senior-In-Command of the operation. Sunshine is streaming through the evergreens as we wind our way, down the other side of the mountain, past the Monongahela Visitor Center and onward towards Marlinton. Later Big Stash was smiling right at us, our canoe caught on a shoal. As we navigated over this obstacle, he watched, and later commented on how he wish he had accepted our offer to take him along. I wish he had too.

It was an unseasonably warm day that stood in stark contrast to the icy winter runoff that was making the Greenbrier run so well. Neither us us had navigated the Greenbrier before, but we had a plan that was ideal. We had acquired 2 topographic maps of the state of West Virginia; one was in our possession, the other in the inventory of Big Stash. The exit strategy, should we need one would be to contact Big Stash with our page number and coordinates, should we require evacuation. The itinerary was to travel the Greenbrier south, to it's tributary point on the New River, and from there proceed North along the New River, arriving at Fayetteville, WV where we could take out, only 45 minutes from the opposite side of where the trip began. Along this trip Safari Charlie and I picked up certain indelible truths:

polypropylene underwear is king.
Jagermeister chases the scaries away.
Aggressive geese should be confronted at every turn.
Beware rednecks with rocks.
Rennick is the place to restock your larder. There's a gas station just up the hill.
The mayor of Rennick is also the Fire Chief and will let you fill you water jugs.
There is such a thing a SPAM gravy.
Always bring a fishing pole, in the more isolated spots Greenbrier fish are not shy.
In a canoe, it is possible to boil corn in transit.
Dead Man's Falls is nothing to snigger at.
Don't blow your cover: Pose as Canadian Fur Trappers.
There is a section of this river, some times veiled in an early morning fog, we came to call Lost World.
The river's bedrock at points looks like green tiled marble through the deep, clear water.
You can treat hypothermia immediately with a candy bar.
When illuminating your canoe with Tiki Torches ablaze, bats will feast on attracted insects, and you can present quite a diabolic spectacle that Blackbeard himself would be proud of.
When illuminating your canoe with Tiki Torches ablaze in Dead man's Falls, there is a certain fire safety concern.