Don't Back Down

  • What Do You Consider Offensive?

    Obviously, there is a segment of our world that is offended right now, in particular by the words of Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory. This isn't an unusual happening – nearly four years ago (wow, that was a long time ago!), I wrote about Rush Limbaugh, and while he…

  • Scams Can Come in Snail Mail Too

    Every few minutes, I receive an email telling me how I'm about to miss out on the latest stock market darling if I don't act fast enough. I think that many of us do. But I also get something really similar in the mail every couple of weeks….

  • FastStone Capture and Photo Resizer

    It's not often that I use new software. Of course, new releases mean that I have to do so from time to time, but it's fairly rare that I will actually use entirely new software – it's just that I'm fairly set in what I use, and I…

  • How to Create a Real Media Server with Tivo and pyTivo

    Though I've used TiVo for some time, and though I'm really quite fond of it (we actually have two), it's done little more than whet my appetite for the day that I can create an actual media server. Up until recently, the problem has been that the TiVo…

  • Using SpamLookup and Akismet to Control Spam

    A subject came up today about writing a regular expression to block a particular text string in comments received by a Movable Type blog. If you aren't familiar, the Spam Lookup plugin gives you great power over the processing of comments (and trackbacks, if you happen to receive…

  • EVGA nForce 680i SLI 775 A1 Motherboard

    It's been a good while since I've built a PC, so when I decided that it was time, I figured that I should start with a solid motherboard. The problem, of course, is to decide how to choose. I mean it's not like there is only one motherboard…

  • The Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum

    After Wonderworks, we really didn't think that there was much that we could do to match the activities of the prior day (in actuality, we didn't really think about it). Especially since we were finally on our way home. But relatively early on a Sunday morning, we just…

  • How I Overclock My Intel Core 2 Duo E6300

    For the first time in quite a while (we're quite likely talking a measurement of years here, rather than months), I decided that I wanted to build a new system. Inspired by two things – posts such as Building and Overclocking a Core 2 Duo System and the…

  • What the Hell is the Deal With Onlooker Delay?

    First off, don't answer that. I know what it is. It's a bunch of morons who have suddenly decided that they can't drive because of something that is happening on the road. That's isn't what I'm after here. What I really want to know is why can't they…

  • My First Days with Windows Vista

    Over the last four days, I've spent plenty of time getting up to speed on the latest offering from the boys in Redmond, and so far I'm reasonably pleased with it. It looks plenty pretty. With a few exceptions (the "setting up" dialog as you log in for…

  • Infrant ReadyNAS NV+

    In recent years, USB drives have gained popularity as storage needs have grown. I had a 230 gigabyte drive until perhaps a year or so ago, at which point I outgrew it. Yes, I really do store more than 230 gigabytes, but that's not what this is about….

  • Why I Won't Shop CompUSA

    I have recently decided that I won't be shopping at CompUSA any more. I may return to view some items prior to purchasing elsewhere, but it's just too much hassle for me to actually give them any of my money and there are so many other places that…