Posted By RichC on November 16, 2008
I’ve noticed the Christmas ads are starting to make their way into the Sunday afternoon football games, and one of them by Kay Jewelers caught my attention. The ad features a deaf girl (or actress playing a deaf girl) and her boyfriend using American Sign Language while sitting under the Christmas tree. It caught my attention, because my son’s language classes in both high school and college have been in ASL or Ameslan.
Posted By RichC on November 15, 2008
I was tinkering with my aging Palm Treo 700p smartphone and the cellphone quality camera lens and sensor (1.2meg) while killing time trying to directly post a message to my blog. (the steaks and asparagus were great, but the phone-to-blog post didn’t work correctly)
Posted By RichC on November 15, 2008
I’m not sure why I continue to keep several different browsers updated on my notebook computer since am pretty loyal to Mozilla Firefox, but its interesting to compare the latest version of Firefox — which I updated to 3.04 this past week — with Google’s Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Apple’s Safari and Opera 9.6.
Posted By RichC on November 14, 2008
The space shuttle Endeavor is schedule for an evening liftoff at 7:55 PM on Friday night if all goes on schedule. The STS-126 mission is to do some “Extreme Home Improvements” to the International Space Station. The seven member crew of commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Eric Boe, Mission Specialists Donald Pettit, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Steve Bowen, Shane Kimbrough and Sandra Magnus will take up about 14,500 pounds of supply making it “one of the heaviest modules in shuttle history.”
The 15-day mission will deliver an additional sleeping quarters, a second toilet and and exercise device. The four scheduled spacewalks will focus on the two Solar Alpha Joints which are used to track the sun to provide electrical power to the space station. Godspeed Endeavor. ( I always wanted to say that before a NASA launch!)
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.
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)
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)
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.
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).
Posted By RichC on November 11, 2008
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.