News and Views

From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

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Entries from January 2006

Vondeku

January 31st, 2006 · 5 Comments

Last week Mom sent me an email. She has started doing the daily “Sudoku” puzzles in the local Tribune newspaper , but she asked me if I could create a computer program to make it easier for her to play them. She complained that she was erasing holes in the paper! So I threw something […]

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Tags: Computers, Tech & Science

Bug in Firefox 1.5

January 27th, 2006 · 1 Comment

If you installed the new 1.5 version of Firefox, you may have noticed a bug. If you print a selection, or a selected set of pages, images don’t print correctly. They come out all black, or black and grey stripes. The developers are aware of the problem and there’s a Release Candidate version available that […]

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Tags: Computers, Tech & Science

Emergency repair trip

January 25th, 2006 · 18 Comments

I’m flying out to California tomorrow (Thursday) morning to see if I can fix Devon’s computer. My return is scheduled for Friday evening, but if things go very well I may try to come back earlier. We’ll see!

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Tags: Family Updates

Back to California

January 14th, 2006 · 6 Comments

We’re driving Devon and Keri back to California and college tomorrow (Sunday, 1/15). Over and back in one day again, as usual. Our thoughts are with our “other” Carrie, Brian’s wife, as she goes through eye surgery.

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Tags: Family Updates

New Thunderbird

January 12th, 2006 · 3 Comments

The Mozilla Foundation has released a new version of their Thunderbird Email client, Version 1.5. The release notes are sparse and vague. Looks like mostly security and stability improvements, with a few new features. One improvement is that it will recognize headers set by Spam Assassin on your mail server, and automatically classify the message […]

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Tags: Computers, Tech & Science

We The People

January 7th, 2006 · 3 Comments

Derek has been participating in a class at school that competed in the “We The People” competition. The students represent their schools, and are judged on their understanding of the constitution and US government. A few weeks ago Derek’s school (Marcos De Niza) won their district, and yesterday they went to the state competition. The […]

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Tags: Family Updates

Coffee Cups and Space Shuttles

January 4th, 2006 · 2 Comments

I have a nice insulated coffee cup that has a screw-on cap with a rubber O-ring seal. Putting the cap on has been very frustrating for me over the two years I have owned it. Sometimes I gently screw the cap on, and the seal is good, no coffee leaks. Other times no matter how […]

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Tags: Computers, Tech & Science

Dual Processors

January 3rd, 2006 · 3 Comments

Gisele got a new computer for Christmas, with a “Dual Processor” CPU. The technical details: It’s an Intel 820, which runs at 2.8 GHz. She has 1Gig of Dual DDR2 RAM, and a fast SATA hard drive. I did some playing around with it to see if I could tell any difference between her computer […]

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Tags: Computers, Tech & Science