My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on January 28, 2009

A winter storm has moved through the Ohio Valley Tuesday January 27th and left several inches of snow followed by ice and sleeting rain. By evening there was a substantial glaze on top of the snow making for a bright and reflective photo (click for larger).

While out driving during the afternoon the roadways were pretty slippery. More than one driver found that there was a reason I-75 speeds topped out at about 40 mph.

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Category: Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: driving, ice, roads, snow, Travel, weather

Posted By RichC on January 27, 2009

I’m following up my post about Scanr.com yesterday, both because I received an email from their customer service (posted it as a comment to yesterday’s post) and because I received a Twitter message suggesting that I check out Jotnot.com. I appreciated the email explaining that Scanr made changes on January 7th to their services and that the fact they granted me a few extra scans — not that I use them that often.

On the second point of trying Jotnot,  a similar service in that they convert “scans” or “photo” images to a more enhanced Word or PDF file, I’ve found it lacking in some of the ways that I appreciated Scanr. The primary purpose of sending a free fax is sorely missed. There have been several times where I need to screen-grab a document or fax a camera image and fax it rather than email it. Scanr was particularly helpful when all I had was my Palm Treo and wanted to instantly deliver the image to someone with only a fax machine. (it is hard to believe, but I still have a couple offices yet to use computers … at least computers connected to the Internet. Also my Mom and Dad, but they have a fax machine.)

For my test, I used my small dry-erase white board and my Palm Treo 700p. After penning a quick note (image above), I emailed the image from my Treo to Jotnot per instructions:

Just take a picture, email it to bw@jotnot.net for a black and white document, or to color@jotnot.net for a color document.  In a few seconds we’ll email you back with new version of your picture that prints well and is more legible.  It really is that easy—you don’t even have to sign up for an account to use JotNot!

Well the “few seconds” didn’t seem to work out all that well Monday evening, but noticed they were having “Hiccups” according to Jotnot.com’s blog.

The image didn’t process in my email test, but after uploading manually (above) I was able to see the enhanced image.  The black and white image was enhanced and straighten automatically then converted into either a 2.09 MB Word document (screenshot below – since it is a large file) or a  99.7 KB PDF (much smaller size). I’m sure the email version ‘does’ work and receiving a Word and PDF version to my email box would be very nice.

Although the processing of the cellphone image went well, Jotnot doesn’t offer OCR or the ability to archive the images for later downloading or more importantly faxing. I will miss that feature … but we’ve all become accustom to to getting ‘something for nothing’ … and since Jotnot is FREE, who am I to complain.

Word JotNot conversion screenshot

Category: Computer, Photos, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: application, Computer, internet, jotnot.com, scanr.com, Software, web

Posted By RichC on January 26, 2009

Although I didn’t receive a notice (could have been sifted by gmail as spam) from Scanr.com about any changes to their ‘free’ services, the Pro accounts $4.99/mo ($30 annual) is a bit steep for the occasional user. I have recommend their services in the past as a way to send an emergency fax or post a scan/photo document when traveling and away from an office containing fax machines and scanners. It is still a good service, but a bit over priced if you’re not a power user or spend a significant amount of time on the road and away from an office set up.

Category: Cellphone, Computer | 3 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on January 25, 2009

I’m starting to think about taking my son back to college late this afternoon/evening and figured I might be a good idea to check the Ohio weather (1 PM image out the front window above). Thoughts like this rarely occurred to me in years past, but the older I get the more attention I pay to the weather, especially as it relates to driving — this must be an age thing since I regularly hear  my parents or in-laws thinking like this.
😉

Some snow has started to fall here in the Cincinnati area about 1 PM and thought, “a little here can mean a lot more in the northern part of the state.” A quick look at the radar image (below) didn’t look all that promising, but notice that at least heavy snow isn’t in the forecast . Hopefully we won’t see more than a couple inches or my 8 hour drive could turn into a long slow miserable trip.

Click map for larger live Ohio annimated radar map from Accuweather

Category: Misc, Personal | 4 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on January 25, 2009

I enjoyed spending the day with my dad and celebrated his 80th birthday along with my brother and his family.  The milestone was merely a number for my dad since he is doing great and has no complaints. We took him out to dinner and probably enjoyed a little too much cake and ice cream when we returned home — thanks mom.

Unfortunately my wife and daughter were not able to make it since they have been planning to be in Cleveland for the U.S. Figure Skating  Championships since last year, but they were having a great time reconnecting with friends and skaters. I watched the last hour on NBC after returning home Saturday night as Alissa Czisny rebounded to win the women’s title. I’ll look forward to getting the ‘scoop’ from my daughter.

As a family we spent many years either at the rink or at competitions with my daughter while she was a member of the Queen City Figure Skating Club. I spent many mornings taking her to practice at 5AM for practice and getting her to school before classes started. My son  remembers sitting at the Bob Evan’s restaurant reviewing his spelling words every Friday morning — I’d like to say it helped? Nevertheless it was a great time of bonding over breakfast even if our eyes were half shut.

Although we watch our daughter competed at the regional and junior levels, we never made it to the national championships. Thankfully for my wife and daughter, they were able to do it without the stress of competing this year. Figure skating was a great sport, particularly for my daughter; it not only developed her into a  physically toned and confident athlete, but taught her poise, grace and discipline, which she exhibits everyday.

As for Saturday’s winner, Alissa Czisny at 21 years old beat the reigning world junior champion Rachael Flatt.  Her skate was elegant even though she wasn’t able to land her jumps perfectly. The Associated Press called Alissa’s win, “a rebound for the ages,” … and although I wouldn’t go that far, it was great to see someone closer to my daughters age win at nationals.

Category: Personal, Sports | 8 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on January 24, 2009

This post is serving double duty: First a friend mentioned that my RSS feed looked a little different to him, and second, this video from Rex the Dog was just plain impressive.

VIDEO REMOVED

Category: Video | 10 Comments »
Tags: Feed, RSS, vimeo

Posted By RichC on January 24, 2009

Here are a few photos (Treo photos posted to Twitpic) while adding another 700 miles to my Honda Pilot. I would have preferred driving an efficient and long lasting diesel, but feel fortunate to be able to fill with unleaded regular for $1.78/gallon today.

Category: Automotive | 10 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on January 23, 2009

The Transition is another one of those flying car “dream” ideas (or as Terrafugia calls it, “a roadable aircraft”) which seems to be really moving closer in bringing driving and flying together.  According to a the company’s website, this concept car/plane was founded in 2006 by a group of MIT students. They have work diligently on the protype and are seriously planning on delivering these vehicles. The sell price is currently noted as $194,000 and the company as already taken deposits for 40 Transitions for a first delivery in 2010.

What is unique about this “Sport Aircraft” is that it falls in to the Sport Pilot category and looks to be able to make driving to the airport and taking off in the same vehicle a reality (nice to be able to save that $200+/mo. on on hanger space). What makes this new aircraft possible are the advances in materials and propulsion technology not afford before composites and lightweight, but high performance engines.

Performance

Convenience
Front wheel drive on the ground
Automotive-style entry and exit
Automated electromechanical folding wing
No trailer or hangar needed
Cargo area holds skis, fishing poles or golf clubs

Safety
Drive in case of inclement weather
Proven 100 hp Rotax 912S engine
Full vehicle parachute available
Modern glass avionics
Automotive crash safety features

Dimensions

First delivery anticipated in 2010.

Category: Automotive, Aviation | 5 Comments »
Tags: aircraft, car, eaa, mit, sport pilot

Posted By RichC on January 22, 2009

The Wall Street Journal‘s Personal Technology columnist Walt Mossberg has given his preliminary review of Microsoft’s recently released beta Windows 7.  According to Mossberg, the most important improvement from the much maligned Vista OS is speed. In his initial tests, “even the beta version of Windows 7 was dramatically faster than Vista at such tasks as starting up the computer, waking it from sleep and launching programs.”

Walt Mossberg goes on to say that the “speed boost wasn’t only apparent in the preconfigured machine from Microsoft, but on [his] own Sony, which had been a dog using Vista.”

As a grumpy Vista OS user myself,  I’m looking forward to giving it a go … but am unsure what computer to test it on? I also use a couple Macs so no snide comments are necessary.

Category: Computer, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: Computer, microsoft, mossberg, windows 7

Posted By RichC on January 21, 2009

The long running weekly PBS automotive program Motorweek reviewed the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI on last weekend’s show. As expected, they gave it a pretty decent review mentioning that it is now 50 state legal and clarified the emission control features that differentiates it from the “AdBlue” diesels.

Category: Automotive, Biodiesel, Volkswagen | 2 Comments »
Tags: diesel, jetta, motorweek, review, tdi, volkswagen, vw