Monthly Archives: February 2004

Terrorist, The 21st Century Nazi

By | February 24, 2004

CNN.com – Education chief’s ‘terrorist’ remark ignites fury – Feb. 24, 2004 Education Secretary Rod Paige’s most newsworthy action so far (who knew this Administration even had an Education Secretary?) was to embarrass himself by declaring that the National Education Association, the union for 2.7 million school teachers, was a terrorist organization. While I’m glad… Read More »

Patents and Standards

By | February 19, 2004

W3C risks patent tussle in standard push | CNET News.com A software patent problem continues to hang over VoiceXML 2.0, which reached proposed recommendation status this month. The problem is that the Patent Advisory Group that was supposed to make sure that any relevant patents would be offered on royalty free terms never got Rutgers… Read More »

Links and Notes

By | February 17, 2004

ComfortStand – Music label producing interesting, free, downloadable music. I had wondered whatever happened to the brilliant R. Stevie Moore. SIPWiki – Dave Beckemeyer’s Wiki contains lots of good overview info (plus more) about SIP Vertigo Then and Now – Still photos from the movie Vertigo compared with recent still photos of the same locations… Read More »

Mozilla FireFox 0.8 Rules

By | February 12, 2004

Mozilla FireFox (note the new name) 0.8 is the best web browser ever. The new release has been massively blogged everywhere, but I have to mention it in case anyone reading my blog is still using that sad little tragic, archaic, full-of-security-holes web browser – Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, my website reports suggest that many people… Read More »

Treo 600 Camera Tips

By | February 12, 2004

The first thing you need to do to learn how to get good photos from your Treo 600’s camera is to read this article at wireless-doc.com. Lighting, lighting, lighting. And if you still don’t believe you can get decent photos from the camera, check out his portfolio of photos taken with it. I wouldn’t have… Read More »

Covad to Offer VoIP Service

By | February 9, 2004

Covad Announces Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Deployment Plans Just after commenting that I haven’t been motivated enough to try out a VoIP service provider as a wireline home phone option, I learn that my DSL provider, Covad, plans to roll out VoIP service for businesses and consumers later this year. Since this service probably… Read More »

VoIP Home Phone Line

By | February 9, 2004

Internet phone service blossoms / But it still may not be ready for the masses This article in the San Francisco Chronicle provides a nice overview of some of the trade-offs involved with using an IP telephony provider like Vonage or 8×8 instead of a traditional voice service provider, like SBC. Though I fit the… Read More »

Installing MoinMoin

By | February 8, 2004

I spent entirely too many hours this weekend installing and writing up installation notes for setting up a MoinMoin wiki on a DreamHost-hosted website. But, as in all these exercises (Movable Type, Gallery), I learned a lot. I still have a couple tweaks I would like to make to my install, but at least everything… Read More »

New Meaning to Calling a Buick a Boat

By | February 5, 2004

CNN.com – Cubans try floating vintage car to Florida – Feb. 5, 2004
Buick Boat

The first time this group of Cubans tried to immigrate to the US, they set sail in a 1951 Chevy pickup. This time they upgraded to a 1959 Buick that they sealed up to make seaworthy. They were halfway to Key West when they got caught. They even hooked up some kind of propulsion system, presumably a propellor, to the V-8 engine. I wonder how many knots per gallon they got.

This story reminds me of an episode of Junkyard Wars. The two teams had to build boats out of scrap equipment and engines that they found in a prepared junkyard. I think the show would have been a lot more exciting if they had made the two teams pilot their car-boats through shark infested waters.