Besides splicing a shackle to a halyard on a sailboat, I’ve used the mighty bowline tied directly to a sail grommet or to a shackle. Here’s a knot I haven’t tried — the Halyard Knot — and considering that it is most likely a permanent knot, perhaps whipping the end to the standing line would […]
I picked up a book, The Rape Of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II, published in 1997 and written by the late Iris Chang. I decided to read it after a bit of Twitter sparring with CBJapan1 and his/her “allegation of lying” about the book and movie Unbroken, as well as how America […]
In keeping with tradition this time of year, Lake Superior State University (LSSU) has released their “banished words” for the 40th year. The nominees totals “tens of thousands” but were narrowed down to 800 of the most annoying words and phrases in 2014 before giving them to the committee. Yes a few were appropriate for […]
The last week or so has been busier than usual with my dad needing to make a surprise visit to the hospital after a fall. He lives alone since my mom past away (2 years ago – wow time flies) and has not been doing the best job with fixing meals for himself or monitoring […]
Finished the best book I’ve read all year, “41” by George W. Bush last weekend and started a new Kindle ebook on my tablet, “America in Retreat” by the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens. Both are well written and very enlightening … although I’ve just started the second. The GW Bush book about his father, […]
For those of us driving older cars already having their share of bumps and bruises … we face a dilemma when a new door dent appears AND we see the person who did the “dinging.” That’s what happened to my wife the other day and she confronted the lady who’s door blew into Brenda’s Toyota […]
Here’s a tip for using carabiners to organize boxed end wrenches that was posted on Lifehacker. Since I keep most of my wrenches in my drawered tool box, this is unnecessary and would slow access … but I do keep a few wrenches in soft tool bags in the trunk of my car and on […]
Summer has passed without giving much of a thought to turning on my HF rig or making any amateur radio contacts. The recent Last Man Standing amateur radio event had me firing my ICOM IC-718 and connecting my upgraded SCS PTC-IIe Pactor modem. Obviously using it for “slow” Winlink email is not a priority when […]
The year 2014 is turning up to be the year of the data-breach. It seems every month another high profile company reports that their clients and customer data has been compromised. JP Morgan Chase is the most recent and perhaps the largest loss of data – a information from a “mere” 76 million households and […]
The stock market roars to new highs as the summer comes to an end, but investors continue pouring money into higher risk equities as if they have forgot what can happen. This is in part due to the low yield in fixed income assets and the new indice highs have more than a few economy […]
The convenient way to replace running rigging on sailboats are to purchase lines pre-made for a particular boat at places like SailboatOwners.com. Of course that would be the “easy” way, but it does discourage upgrading shackles and thimbles or whipping and splicing your own lines. Since our Encore is strictly a cruising sailboat, the premium […]
A couple of days ago I whined about my failed or failing charging/sync cables used on phones, tablets and electronic devices. I then started searching for the replacements but was discouraged with the delayed shipping for non-branded cables from China. Then after reading about the cheap quality, I revisited Amazon decide to find out if […]
First … my son Taylor took a few days away from work in Williston, North Dakota to going backpacking with a few guys in Glacier National Park – Montana. His weather was picture perfect and besides being out of shape for the long an challenging hikes, he had a fantastic time. I’m so glad he […]
My old Mercedes Benz will never be a show car, but it never fails to attract looks or comments whether I’m traveling the interstates, filling up at the diesel pump or just running errands around town. It still has a couple scratches, a few bubbling rust spots and several minor leftover hail dimples on the […]
Although I have a libertarian slant to my political philosophy, the wars and struggles in the Middle East demonstrate why our country need to maintain the appropriate balance between freedom and over reaching government. An article in the WSJ on Friday is a reminder that the threat from terrorists, cartels, gangs and other countries is […]
With data breaches in the news recently (Obamacare website, Target, Neiman Marcus) it was just a matter of time before someone archived the list of sites and collected a list of email addresses so that users could check their own. Check your email address with haveibeenpwned.com and see if your information has potentially been compromised. […]
My apologies to Peyton Manning … probably the most complete football quarterback to ever play in the NFL … but you and your team stunk. The fine performance by the Seattle Seahawks aside, Super Bowl XLVIII was a dud of a game to watch. The festivities that now are part of the entire Super Bowl […]
2013 introduced us to the pain of what sold to America as the Affordable Health Care for America Act by the 2008 Democrats during President Obama’s first term. Instead of “affordable,” Obamacare launched with high premiums, high deductibles and far more frustrations for those who were already insured by their employers or paying for health […]
I appreciated a video from America’s Test Kitchen on Lifehacker and thought it was worth archiving and sharing … not that I fix lobster everyday. Twist off the tail, split the shell on the back, pull legs apart, push meat out with small tools, use a rolling pin to squeeze meat from legs. […]
The topic of computer and Internet security came up this past holiday weekend as several family members wanted access to our home Wi-Fi. My son, having an “open attitude” when in rental houses on his college campus, complained about my “passphrase” security method when trying to help each of his cousins connect their computers and […]
Internet security was again in the news last week with Gizmodo’s Twitter account getting hacked and although we are all vulnerable, many of us figure it will happen to someone else. I use to be concerned that “one” of my accounts or logins would be hacked, but after realizing just how interconnected things have become, […]
Don’t know how serious … but changing your password might not be a bad idea. Nearly 6.5 million passwords belonging to users of the professional social networking site LinkedIn have been leaked online, according to reports. Users are being urged to change their login details over fears that, if confirmed, the leak would compromise vast […]
Genius … why didn’t I think of this? If you’ve ever tried using a straw with a can of soda, you now what happens: the straw comes flying out and falls onto your desk. Reddit user triggerhoppe solves this annoyance by threading the straw through the tab on the top of the can. It’s as […]
The weekend was a good one weather-wise for yard chores and closing up the pool. Beside meeting our son Taylor for lunch on Saturday, Brenda and I took advantage of the nice warm autumn weather and enjoyed both Saturday and Sunday outside. I also was able to retrieve the heads from the MGB that Jack […]
I was disappointed to hear that HP lost its way as a productive technology company in this economic downturn and was caught off-guard in their decision to say “so long” to webOS. (business story LINK) As a longtime webOS Palm Pre user (a “longtime” is a relative term for smartphones), I’ve been wondering just what […]
After spending the weekend cleaning and “rebending” our Brenda’s bumped and bruised Toyota Rav4 into to some semblance of its former self … it now has a new piece of glass (opted for the $191.25 “real thing” rather than tacky Plexiglas). I can highly recommend Rich at Kiss Auto Glass for his quick service and […]
It was a hot Saturday to be working on the Toyota Rav4, but I figured it was best to use the extra day just in case there was a complication. Instead of having the insurance company fix our car, we have opted to go the salvage title route and accepted the insurance company’s check after […]
Since my wife Brenda rarely reads my blog, I think I’m safe talking about her birthday and gifts that are gadgets. I will probably get chastised by both men and women alike in repeating the similar mistake year after year by giving her something technology oriented for her birthday, I’m doing it one more time. […]
Having one company divulge my personal information is bad … but having three (to date) divulging my name and email information is ridiculous. One would thing that that companies like Chase, Walgreens and Tivo would fear a class action suit enough to be a bit more protective with their clients privacy? In other words, don’t […]
If the new 2012 Volkswagen Passat isn’t up to your family hauling duty, then perhaps a new “van” will be up to the task. VW Big Profits, Microbus A Go The Volkswagen Group is thriving in the post-recession global market and announced the largest profit and revenue in the company’s history, while a European publication […]
While helping my wife work on her Christmas letter today, she asked about the context for the famous Thomas Jefferson “Question with boldness” quote taken from his letter to his nephew Peter Carr on August 10, 1787. I’m archiving the text of the letter below Jeremiah’s letter to the Exiled Jews. “For I know the […]
List of World Trade Center Victims (not including plane crews or passengers) Gordon M. Aamoth, Jr. Edelmiro Abad Maria Rose Abad Andrew Anthony Abate Vincent Abate Laurence Christopher Abel William F. Abrahamson Richard Anthony Aceto Jesus Acevedo Rescand Heinrich Bernhard Ackermann Paul Acquaviva Donald LaRoy Adams Patrick Adams Shannon Lewis Adams Stephen George Adams Ignatius […]
We took my son Taylor out to celebrated his 21st birthday at Joe’s Crab Shack on the river in Cincinnati on Saturday, a couple days after his actual birthday (June 10th) – remembering my daughter’s with her friends 3 years ago. 🙂 His friends celebrated with him on “the day” going to Oxford Ohio (Miami […]
Wayne Meretsky shares the “Loss of Moonduster“ We arrived in Savusavu, Fiji, on Monday, November 23, after a fairly uneventful 3-day passage from Tonga. Our goal was to spend a month cruising the western Yasawa Islands before leaving from Lautoka around Christmas to arrive in New Zealand early in the New Year. After a week […]
Here’s an interesting three letter “pwn” technique that provides for a very easy way to download a YouTube clip that you might want to save. The trick is to use the pwnyoutube.com site in a shortcut way by navigating to a YouTube video then putting the letters “pwn” in front of the “youtube” part of […]
If you are a Firefox user and enjoyed the speed improvements “once upon a time” that was evident, you might be experiencing a “fattening up” and slowing down of this excellent browser. In fact for me, I’ve found myself popping open Chrome for a quicker web look or even to check email or Google Docs. […]
Trying to “half” listen to the Macworld Expo through Chirs Pirillo’s live ustream.tv feed. Noticed MacRumorLive.com was hacked. 🙂
Now that Apple’s excellent Safari 3.1 Browser for the PC is out of beta, I figured it was time to give it a try … and its fast — faster than IE and Firefox in my quick look at surfing through sites. Apple’s promotional graphics seem to show the same thing too. (below) I’m not […]
A friend of mine asked me for some help in repairing a piece of furniture with a couple of damaged fasteners (Phillips headed wood screws). In talking with him about using a ‘screw/bolt extractor,’ or ‘cutting’ a new slot in the screws (above), I realized this might not be something everyone knows about? Hmm … […]
A Leftlanenews brief mentioned that Volkswagen will offer all future models with a hybrid option. VW head of development Ulrich Hackenberg also told Automobilwoche that VW will offer a BlueMotion — the name of VW’s environmentally friendly diesel line — version of Tiguan SUV and that there is a “good chance” the Eos retractable hardtop […]
As Wi-Fi becomes a way of life for many Internet connected notebook computer, PDAs and Smartphones users, there is a tendency to become too comfortable in ‘making the connection.’ I find it almost a necessity in my travel, but nevertheless, I do rethink the places I connect. Coffee shops, restaurants and hotels are pretty regular […]
I’m not sure how many reading this use the communication tool called Skype, but after an outage last week there has been question as to “just how secure” Skype services are from hackers, traffic problems or malicious attacks. (see Dark Reading PDF) At any rate, Skype has issued a weeks extension to existing customers and […]
Friday’s Tech Tip is an old one and is for TiVo newbies from TiVo gurus. Its a favorite Tivo branded DVR feature that drives advertiser supported television networks crazy. It is the hackable features available on the TiVo that allows for programming of a couple buttons on the ‘dogbone’ remote to do simple things well. […]
Posting of images on personal pages such as Myspace or Facebook or placement of images to forums is a regular practice for those using the internet. Instead of creating personal images or at minimum ‘serving’ them from ones own file serving space, people often leech images from web servers owned by others. This practice is […]
After 4 years of pretty much rock solid performance from my well (ab)used Gateway computer, my favorite notebook is starting to show signs of wear. Today its USB ports, two weeks ago it was the DC power connector. I was ready to replace it when the connections would no longer work, but being my favorite […]
A local Trenton Ohio school and weather related story made national news this weekend; Trenton is a small town only a few miles away, so it caught my attention. FoxNews reported that two teenage girls posted a fake weather closing last Monday on the Edgewood City Schools website, something Matthew Brodericks’ characters could be seen […]
With the election looming, I suspect many will be using the new electronic voting machines for the first time. I’ve heard stories about fraud (nothing solid), tech articles on hacking and references to the weak expertise of poll workers in handing this new equipment. HBO produced a special called “Hacking Democracy” that targets Diebold, a […]
Windows Users be warned: think twice before running bootleg copies of new Microsoft software … as not only will the software giant refuse updates, but according to an Associated Press article they will begin to “curtail functionality.” The software piracy intervention is just another step toward fending off the multi-billion dollar illegal software business … […]
Here’s a “what I did over my summer vacation” summer camp type story … only it wasn’t me. (my life is a bit dull in comparison to my teenage son) 🙂 My high school son was privileged to go on a military oriented leadership camp this summer up in the Green Mountains of Vermont. This […]
Heavy subject today as information about a terrorist plot continues to seeps out from Canada’s recent arrest of seventeen suspects in a terrorist plot. Allegedly, these were Muslim extremist, possibly el-Qaeta, and were planning bombings, the taking of hostages and even the beheading of Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper. (Canada has 2500 troops still in […]
Oh Boy … I wish I was home today to download the brand new “Boot Camp” patch for my Apple duo-core Intel-Based Macintosh computer. This patch is offered by Apple and will allow their new Macs to run the Windows XP operating system as well as most Windows software. This has been something that many […]
The information below is from Deb Shinder, MCSE, MVP (Security). She is a technology consultant that we have used to secure our servers and email. I found her information worthy of inclusion on my blog and hope it will help others. Does spam threaten your network’s security? Certainly if dozens of salespeople came to your […]