My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on November 14, 2008

I do enjoy seeing biodiesel and aviation come together and last week the BioJet flew 1776 miles of a 2496 mile flight from Reno, Nevada to Leesburg, Florida on a blend of soy and animal fat biodiesel.  According to Scientific American, “the Aero L-29 jet kept the biodiesel from congealing at high altitude by continuously heating it—and landing every 300 miles or so to refuel. The flight is a proof of principle, according to Green Flight International CEO Doug Rodante, and is aimed at addressing the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from burning jet fuel — roughly 3 percent of total worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but released in a very bad spot—high in the atmosphere.” Publicity like this is a good for renewable fuels and good for the environment.

Green Flight International Record-Setting Biofuel-Powered Jet Flight

Orlando, FL – November 1, 2008 – Green Flight International President and CEO Douglas Rodante and Chief Pilot Carol Sugars became the first flight crew to successfully cross the U.S. in a jet powered predominantly on environmentally-friendly Biofuel.

The record-setting flight originated in Reno, NV and concluded in Leesburg, FL on Nov 1, after a total flight time of 11 hours, 13 minutes, flown at altitudes ranging from 13,000 to 17,000 feet.

“This transcontinental flight was distinctive in that 1,776 miles of the 2,486 total miles flown were powered on 100% Biofuel,” said Rodante. Only 710 miles of the flight were powered by a mixture of 50% Biofuel and 50% standard jet fuel.  The 50/50 fuel mix was used to compare performance data and demonstrate the capability of blending Biofuel with existing jet fuel supplies.

Rodante and Sugars made aviation history in October 2007 when they became the first crew to pilot a jet aircraft powered entirely on Biofuel.  The pair has once again demonstrated the viability of renewable fuels in aviation by completing their more recent Biofuel-powered coast-to-coast flight.  “These flights prove that we have the capability of supplementing our energy requirements with safe, environmentally-friendly alternatives to petroleum,” said Rodante.  “And the Biofuel is produced in the U.S., which essentially negates our dependency on foreign fuel supplies.”

The Federal Aviation Administration has expressed an interest in using the Orlando-based Green Flight’s Biofuel test program as a template to assess future generations of aviation fuels. “There is absolutely no room for error in a single engine jet aircraft operating on ¹⁰⁰% Biofuel,” said Chief  Pilot Sugars. “The extended cross-country experimental flight operated to stringent specifications required by the FAA in order to ensure public safety.”

Green Flight International’s flight was sponsored in part by Erie, PA-based companies, Lake Erie Biofuels, LLC., and Logistics Plus, for assuming fuel supply and transport responsibilities; and Lockheed Martin Corporation’s [NYSE: LMT] Missiles and Fire Control business unit of Orlando, Fla., provided laboratory testing and support.

The Green Flight team is dedicated to continue their work in promoting the use of eco-friendly renewable fuels in aviation, and is currently developing another record-breaking flight.

Category: Aviation, Biodiesel | 4 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on November 13, 2008

Copyright infringement … its a big problem for content creators as the Internet continues to expand by email, blogs and forums — but how big is the problems?

Attributor, a company that monitors the re-publication of content, indicates that unauthorized online copies of a content creators’ articles are nearly 1.5 times larger than the readership from the original web site. The study was conducted from September 12 through October 12, 2008 reviewed 30 billion web pages in order to market their monitoring services. They looked at more than 100 major web site and included only licensed content discarding any page that copied less than 50 percent or fewer than 125 words of a copyrighted story. They concluded that if publishers were to be able to monetized their stories with online advertising, that a major web pubisher could add $150,000 in additional revenue. (based on an assumption that advertisers would pay $1 for every 1,000 pages of unauthorized material)

Category: News | No Comments »
Tags: copyright, internet, media, News

Posted By RichC on November 12, 2008

Ok, so this post is sort of a tease to North American Volkswagen enthusiasts, but it is still interesting to see what “might” eventually make its way to our shores. In the following short video clip, the “self-park” or “park-assist” feature which was only available in the Lexis is also available in the VW Tiguan — overseas. The Australian based reviewer, from AnyAutoTV, demonstrates right-hand drive Tiguan TDI self parking ability earlier this year in his YouTube video review. It is a pretty advanced feature that might eventually make its way to the U.S. … perhaps along with the ‘new’ clean diesel engine? The last word I’ve heard on the new Tiguan TDI was it didn’t meet the EPA requirements without exhaust gas after treatment — AdBlue or perhaps the new Honda system. (note that the TDI engine in the video has the traditional diesel clatter, unlike the the newer 2009 VW Jetta TDI Sedans and Sportwagens)

 

Category: Misc | 1 Comment »
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Posted By RichC on November 11, 2008

While stuck on the phone for part of the weekend trying to revive an email server for a client, a friend who was helping me asked if I still subscribed to EFAX or JFAX in order to receive and send faxes from my computer. My answer was ‘no’ since it was hard to justify another monthly subscription (now $16.95 (USD) a month) considering I have a fax machine at the office and one at home … AND because there are a other free options that can fill in the gaps. “Tell me how you do it,” he inquired. So here’s what I do, although if a reader has a better solution let me know.

I parted ways with my $72/yr “pay for” EFAX number a few years back, which offered a dedicated number for both receiving and sending faxes with an Internet connected computer. I struggled to find a quick and free way to send faxes after give up this “plus service,” but I continued to keep both my free EFAX account and JFAX/J2 numbers accounts (for receiving faxes to a computer only — no sending.) I currently use a private 800 number on one of the JFAX accounts that permits both Internet based voicemail and receiving faxes on the same line, a nice feature that delivers both VM and Faxes to my email box. The advantage is to have a single number that I can publish and control which is easily switched if my EFAX/JFAX number is changed — but suffers from a per minute charge to my company’s 800 services. (also I’ve heard MyFax is less expensive but still not free — I haven’t used it)

So this works for receiving, but I can no longer use my account for sending a fax or document while away from my office.

Enter Scanr.com … a useful service by itself for things besides ‘free’ faxing — I posted back in June of 2007 on this company. Nevertheless, Scanr.com offers a way to turn images into a fax than can be sent free, although its a couple step procedure — but its free. (limited to about 100 faxes although I don’t send all that many)

Here’s a quick rundown on how to work with Scanr.com.com for faxing.

1. Sign up for free scanr.com account and confirm your email addresses that you intend to use.
2. Use a digital camera or high quality cellphone to take photo of item to be faxed (magnifier or glasses on cellphone helps with this). Email the “in focus” photo to doc@scanr.com from the address you are registered with OR log onto the website and upload the photo. Scanr processes the image and converts it into a file that can be faxed from their site. I have found that cellphone docs are many times rejected as “poor” images, so you may have to work out the ‘macro’ lens trick. Another option that I use when needing to fax documents already on the computer is to “print to PDF” then “Save as” a JPG image. The multiple page PDF document will then be “imaged” one page per JPG file. Go to the Scanr.com website and use the upload tool to send the multiple page document which will be processed into “fax-able” pages. (1100 x 800 pixel or larger size)
3. After the images are processed (about a minute) an thumbnail of your first page will show up under the “my scans” link and when selected a larger version will be displayed. If it looks fine, select the “fax” tab and enter the fax number where you want to send the document. There is also an option to type in a short note.

If all goes well, the fax should arrive within seconds of sending. In several tests with my own fax machine, there has never been more than a 30 second lag and a confirmation email is also sent to the email address on file.

This option has also worked well if I need a hard copy of something while traveling … just send to the local fax machine in a clients office or hotel. Give it a try next time you need to send a fax.

SHORT-CUT TIP: To send a fax using e-mail after you have registered,  just send photos of your document to doc@scanR.com and include the fax number in the subject or body of the message (+1 XXX XX-XXXX format works).

Category: Computer, Photography | 7 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on November 11, 2008

Category: Misc | No Comments »
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Posted By RichC on November 10, 2008

The New Oxford American Dictionary has a new official Word of the Year: hypermiling.  “Hypermiling” or “to hypermile” is to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques. Rather than aiming for good mileage or even great mileage, hypermilers seek to push their gas tanks to the limit and achieve hypermileage, exceeding EPA ratings for miles per gallon.

Just a side note, at out TDIFest OH8 this past Labor Day we had Wayne Gerdes speak at our gathering about hypermiling and some of the techniques he has used over the years; he is known as the “father” of hypermiling.

Oxford University Press Blog

Category: Automotive | 2 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on November 10, 2008

There are times I feel sympathetic for the Palin family after seeing the treatment from the opposition, the media and by some of the McCain campaign operatives; much of it is  unfair. On the other hand, when “glancing out of her living room window” (above) that just plane [pun intended] has me envious — life ain’t so bad when you can come home to a view like this?

Greta Van Susteren, on her FoxNews 10PM program “On The Record,” will talk with Gov. Palin and her family back home in Alaska. She included a few short video snippets and photos on her blog on Monday. It sounds as it they are taking the campaign loss in stride … and is probably far more comfortable in Alaska that in Washington DC.

Category: Politics | 2 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on November 10, 2008

General Motors (GM) opens at $3.60/share on Monday, and Ford (F) flirts with holding on to the $2/share price as both beg for a government bailout. There have been strong hints of bankruptcy in the GM camp, while one of the big electronics retailers Circuit City (CC) has decided to seek Chapter 11. Still technology is showing signs of a plus move today as both the Nasdaq and DJIA have opened to the plus side. (image to right reflects indices at 9:50 AM on 11/11/2008)

The struggles continue in the business world on the heels of the financial fiasco brought on by excessive borrowing and poor banking practices. I’m not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and worry that some of President-Elect Obamas’ proposed tax ideas and social spending programs will not speed a ‘real’ economic recovery. Government spending and loaning can only pad the pain, but ‘real’ growth has to come from business growth, private sector jobs and employee productivity.

From a personal standpoint, no matter how I look at the financial picture for the companies I sell to, the outlook is glum. Many of my customers serve the automotive industry in a round about way and are going to be slowing and reducing their spending. Their employees jobs will be threatened and I expect a significant change in sales to them. Hmm … I best start considering my options?

Category: Financial | No Comments »
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Posted By RichC on November 9, 2008

Although I’ve installed IE7, Firefox and Safari browsers on my Vista OS Notebook, I was curious to see just how Google Chrome would compare. It surely is a simple install and quickly handled a variety of initial websurfing tasks. I enjoyed the out of the box minialist look and feel and loved getting back some of my screen real estate. Of course this is my own fault since I’ve fattened up my title bars on Firefox to include odds and ends that aren’t really necessary; I generally have the “bookmark toolbar” open as well as the “navigation toolbar” as well as the RSS feed in a sidebar. Recently I’ve been keeping the “Google toolbar” open and along with the header added together steals about an inch and a quarter off the top of my browser window. Out of the box, Chrome takes up just about 5/8 of an inch. From that point, the Google Chrome browser is refreshing.

As for usability, I’ve not used Chrome enough to run it through too many websites, but the ones I have it is just fine.

I love the “movable tabs” feature (demo above) which permits shuffling the order of open tabs and also found the automatic search feature built into the URL address bar convenient.  The one click bookmarking feature was a nice addition (also in Firefox 3) and one of my favorites is the multi-tab websurfers is the crash control feature. Unlike IE and Firefox, Google Chrome is a multi process browser meaning that each tab in Chrome runs a separate process. With a hang up on a page or crash, only that tab will get closed and rest of the tabs will keep working … now that’s nice if you run multiple tabs instead of multiple windows. Finally, Google Chrome might be the best browser for ‘shared computers’ in it will operate in an incognito mode  which allows more privacy and therefore security. Tabs can be opened in incognito mode and as soon as the tab is closed, Google Chrome cleans up the browse history and cookies data. 

All in all, I’m not planning to switch from Firefox 3, but just like Google’s start in smartphone operating systems, they will start to chip away at the installed base established by Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla.

(wrote and posted this using the Google Chrome browser)

Category: Computer | 1 Comment »
Tags: apple, browser, chrome, explorer, firefox, google, ie, internet, microsoft, safari

Posted By RichC on November 8, 2008

Motorweek had some interesting information about automotive tires on the Goss’ Garage sections.

Category: Automotive | No Comments »
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