Don Thorp Meandering Out Loud

I was searching around on Microsoft’s website looking for security patches
when I happened across this handy article "

Where to Find Microsoft Security Patches". The most interesting part
was learning about the existence of the

Windows Update Corporate Site. It allows you to download the patches for
installation on multiple machines. This could be a huge
time saver.

Father’s Day Goodies

USB Radio

Well I was surprised on Father’s day on a couple of fronts. The USB Radio
that I mentioned earlier was wrapped and presented as one of my gifts. I
brought it to the office on Monday to give it a whirl. Believe it or not,
it actually works well. The building I’m in is not really conducive to
good radio reception, but I do get several stations. There is a little bit
of background hiss, but I’m hoping to get better reception when we move to a
new location. I may take it home over the weekend and try it there.

The only real gripe I have is with the software. It is your typical GUI
utility from a hardware company. Some cool features are there, it has
terrible art, but the really useful stuff is several revisions away.

I did notice in their README, that they do have an SDK. I’m going to try and
find it and see if I can generate those additional features I want.

Harry Potter

It started innocently enough — I wanted a fun book to read during a
soccer tournament in Austin. Not wanting to purchase a new book, I thought
I’d just dip into my son’s Harry Potter collection and see what it was all
about. Not expecting much from the book or that I would have much reading
time, I only took book one.

Book one lasted less than a day. Desperate for more, I took a late night
trip to Target and found the one remaining paperback copy of book two. It was
finished before we got home.

For those of you who don’t know, I get up early,
5:30 am, to get to work. I have about a 30 mile commute each way and the only
way to not spend my entire life on the road is to leave the house by 6:00 am
and leave the office between 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm.

If you haven’t guessed already, following Mr. Potter on his adventures and
going to work early, really don’t mix very well. I didn’t sleep much the
next week having been compelled to finish books three and four. It really
was much more important than sleep.

This long winded explanation, brings me to the gifts. My son presented me
with several of the collectible trinkets (they look like hard gummies) and
a wand that he carved himself. I think he really enjoyed making it and I
know I enjoyed receiving it.

I ran across a very interesting article this morning on
XML.com –

"Transforming XML: Using the W3C XSLT Specification".
Written by Bob DuCharme, it explains
several key terms in the XSLT Specification and helps give you a fighting chance
when trying to plow through the spec.

Gadgets

While trying to find a way to record radio programming at scheduled times,
I ran across a USB Radio on AllUSB. Let’s hope it gets off backorder and arrives at
my door sometime soon.

It has been a long time since I’ve been able to post anything. It is amazing
where your time goes once summer gets here. Over the weekend I spent WAY to
much time helping fix my youngest brother’s computer. Not only did I have
to reinstall Win98 on it, the motherboard’s keyboard port freaked out
requiring me to replace the motherboard. As
with most hardware based problems, this one ended up costing me 8+ hours on
Saturday.

Agenda VR3

Ever since becoming addicted to using my Palm III, I’ve developed a stronger
interest in new handheld computing devices. I was an early
adopter of the Franklin eBookMan (I’m still waiting for the MS Reader
software if anyone from Franklin is listening) and still use it for
reading. It appears that one of the Linux contenders
Agenda is finally
getting a product out the door. A great review
The Agenda VR3: Real Linux in a PDA,
written by Chris Halsall, is available on the Linux Devcenter of the
O’Reilly Network. Not having played with one yet, this device sounds like it
might have longterm viability if the software quality can approach that of
the Palm platform.

Python

I’ve been slowly adding to my Python skills everytime I get the need to
write a new script. It is still slow going, but I do feel like I’m getting
better. As with most languages, the difficulty is in learning the libraries
not the language. While putting a script together I ran across a great
tool provided by ActiveState,
“
The Python Cookbook“. I was able to quickly find a couple of helpful routines
to accelerate writing the script. It also looks like a place to pick up
hints on using classes and cross-platform Python.