Here is the view from the 2009 Iowa State University vs North Dekota State University Game… as you can see we were a long ways up!
More photos can be found on my Flickr Stream.
View from the nose bleed section of Jack Trice
October 13th, 2009Windows XP SP3 setup flags
October 1st, 2009After making several reinstalls on various laptops for work all needing SP3 installed I remembered the /nobackup flag for starting the install. so in in the command line you drag and drop the sp3 installer and then type /passive /nobackup /forcerestart and then walk away for a bit (but less time then if you had to backup the data) Yes it may be more risky, but since it is a clean install why bother with worrying about that!
—————————
Service Pack 3 Setup
—————————
AVAILABLE SWITCHES:
[/help] [/quiet] [/passive] [/norestart] [/forcerestart] [/warnrestart] [/promptrestart] [/overwriteoem] [/nobackup] [/forceappsclose] [/integrate:] [/d:] [/log:]
/help Displays this message
SETUP MODES
/quiet Quiet mode (no user interaction or display)
/passive Unattended mode (progress bar only)
RESTART OPTIONS
/norestart Do not restart when installation is complete
/forcerestart Restart after installation
/warnrestart[:] Warn and restart automatically if required (default timeout 30 seconds)
/promptrestart Prompt if restart is required
SPECIAL OPTIONS
/overwriteoem Overwrite OEM files without prompting
/nobackup Do not backup files needed for uninstall
/forceappsclose Force other programs to close when the computer shuts down
/integrate: Integrate this software update into
/d: Back up files into
/log: Create log file at
****
Carl Sagan - ‘A Glorious Dawn’ ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed) AKA geeks and autotuners
October 1st, 2009What happens when you let a music geek loose with an autotuner and too much time on his hands? A great tribute to the late Carl Sagan, of course!
This is not the first tribute piece that John Boswell has made, his other work includes a tribute to Billy Mays. For more of his great work see Melody Sheep on youtube.
Cause it’s a thriller….
July 9th, 2009I know that everywhere is pushing the whole Michal Jackson’s dead thing but I saw this great post on facebook and just had to link to it…
Michael Jackson vs Super Mario Bros. Levels…
What ever you thought of the guy while he was alive, you have to admit this was a funny video!
Free Antivirus
June 10th, 2009If you are running a windows computer today with out antivirus, you are running with a set of scissors. Yes, I know that with a little bit of care you can keep yourself from being infected. For example using webmail with antivirus (i.e. gmail) and not downloading stray programs off of bit-torrent (especially the “hacked” versions of stuff).
However, accidents do happen. Are you sure that that flash drive that your friend just handed you is clean? Are you sure that that site you are visiting just didn’t get hacked and have a browser hack that will get you?
The best answer is to use great alternative software out there like Linux (my favorite is Ubuntu), however for those who refuse of can’t run linux (there are still some programs out there that are irreplaceable and wine just won’t do everything). It is only responsible to have some protection. This does not mean that you have to go out and spend $100 on the latest copy of Norton however, there are plenty of free solutions (some as in speech and others just as in beer only) out there. They work just as well or even better then the pay software.
The first and my personal favorite is AVG. It just plain works and gets the job done. Next is Avast I have also installed it on some computers that I have repaired for friends. Finally in the “free” corner (free as in speach and beer) is Clamwin. It is NOT a on access scanner so it does not provide the same level of protection as the other options, however for a slower computer nightly scans can at least keep your computer cleaner.
Nexenta OS
May 30th, 2009At work the other day, one of my coworkers pointed out a new os that had just came down the pipeline, Nexenta. It is a Open Solaris system with an Ubuntu user land.
What does this mean? Basically you get the best of both worlds, ZFS and Solaris Zones (basically a kick ass version of bsd jails) and all the great user programs that come with Ubuntu. So in other words it is unix with the GNU tools on top.
I tried to install it on a junker computer from the Iowa State University Surplus Sale, however, it apparently requires over 256 mb of ram 
so it failed on the install. I guess I will just have to use a virtual machine to play with it… but this just means that I wont be able to put it into production, oh well!
Mootools vs JQuery
May 30th, 2009Personally I am a Mootools and YUI sort of guy. I find that they each have benefits and can complement each other nicely (YUI works good for one thing while Moo works for another). One of the Mootools developers has posted a relatively impartial review of the differences and similarities between Mootools and Jquery. It is located at http://jqueryvsmootools.com/ (really creative URL I know). While I know that this is some what of a Vi vs Emacs sort of debate, the I am always on the hunt for good Java Script toolkits as they make my job of web development easier.
Happy Towel Day
May 25th, 2009Towel Day is an annual celebration on the 25th of May, as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams. If it doesn’t make any sense, that’s ok you can find out more at this site.
Just remember “DON’T PANIC”
On Slow internet… aka how to use SSH as a proxy
May 19th, 2009Today I am working from my folk’s house in Algona, and using my laptop to connect to the internet through their super slow internet from AMU (using Amberwave).
There is two problems with this: 1.) my folks are on the lowest package, a mind numbing 128k up 2.) Amberwave restricts connections based on MAC address (for those of you who don’t know it is the built in unique identifier to your network card)
Through the power of linux I found the solution to at least some of the problems…
1.) Changing your MAC address
I looked up the MAC address on the home computer via the command line (a windows 2000 computer) with the command ipconfig /all
Then entered the following command into my laptop (linux)
sudo ifdown eth0
sudo ifconfig eth0 hw ether [mac address goes here]
sudo ifup eth0
This made my laptop say that I was the same address as the desktop and all was good.
2.) For the slowness
There is not much I could do about that, however I was able to eek out just a little more speed by using SSH as a Socks proxy with the command:
ssh -CTnN -D 8080 upeke.net
H1N1 (”Swine Flu”) or the End of the world?
April 30th, 2009Watching the news (CNN Fox etc I am looking at you) you would think that the end of the world was here… so here is a bit of music to close it out with 
or if you don’t want to follow the main stream news, twitter is filled with the panic of swine flu. The best online comic xkcd.
Of course this is bad news for the hog farmers who are seeing pork prices plummet, however it is good news for us who are still willing to eat pork.
I will leave you with the wisdom of the “should I be worried about swine flu .com” which answers NO!