News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

If you’re running AVG Virus Scanner, it’s probably been bugging you lately about upgrading to the newer version 8.0.

But if you clicked on the link, it tried to sell you the upgraded version.

There is still a free version available here. You have to confirm a couple of times that you really, really just want the free version, but it’s not hard to find from there.

There are reasons to upgrade, and reasons to wait. The new version has built-in spyware and rootkit scanning (two threats related to viruses). It’s good to have all your scanning integrated into one package, so that multiple scanners aren’t fighting over who gets to check a file first.

However, there have been a few bugs noted. In particular, I haven’t been able to get it working right on Mom’s computer yet.

So I recommend that you wait a week or 3 before you upgrade. And when you do, it’s probably a good idea to completely uninstall the old version first.

My old Kyocera PDA/phone is on it’s last legs. I can’t dial numbers from the keypad anymore, only from Contacts, so I bought a Samsung i760 smartphone this weekend.

Mostly I like it, and will probably keep it. The slide-out hardware keyboard is pretty nice. I liked Palm just fine, but I guess Windows Mobile has its advantages.

I think the iPhone is a little nicer in some ways. I thought about switching cell providers so I could get it, but considering that the whole family (including Mom) is on my Verizon account, it just didn’t make sense. I don’t think this phone lags much behind it, and in some ways is better.

Today is the spring equinox, when the night is just as long as the day. Normally the equinox falls on March 21, but because this year was a leap year it has shifted back a day. It will slowly shift forward to the 21st over the next three years.

In the winter the earth’s axis is tilted away from the sun. In the summer, it’s tilted towards the sun. Today, the earth’s axis is tilted exactly sideways relative to the sun; neither towards it nor away.

If you were at either pole today, you would see the sun skimming the horizon, all the way around without moving up or down at all.

If you were at the equator you would see the sun rise directly in the east, rise straight over head, then set directly in the west.

Happy Equinox!

Today is “Pi Day”, the day we celebrate the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle. Can you guess why? Some people on this day mark the time of 1:59:26 as Pi second. I’m afraid that time has already passed as I write this, unless you live well west of Arizona.

Pi is an irrational number, meaning it cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers. For most practical purposes, however, it can be approximated by 22/7. In fact, in England they sometimes celebrate Pi Day as July 22.

Pi is used in advanced applications far beyond this simple diameter-circumference relationship. It turns up in physics, electronics, geometry, trigonometry, number theory, astronomy, biology almost all branches of science, engineering and art.

Pi has been calculated to over a trillion digits by computer, but this is only an interesting mathematical exercise. With only about 39 digits, given the exact diameter of the universe you could calculate it’s circumference to the width of a hydrogen atom. For most household purposes 3.14 is sufficient, accurate to better than 1/10 of a percent.

Here’s more info on Pi, and on Pi Day

Here’s Pi to a few significant digits (I haven’t memorized it quite this far yet):

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209 7494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651 3282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102 7019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461 2847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432 6648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920 9628292540917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841 4695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179 3105118548074462379962749567351885752724891227938183011 9491298336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798 6094370277053921717629317675238467481846766940513200056 8127145263560827785771342757789609173637178721468440901 2249534301465495853710507922796892589235420199561121290 2196086403441815981362977477130996051870721134999999837 2978049951059731732816096318595024459455346908302642522 3082533446850352619311881710100031378387528865875332083 8142061717766914730359825349042875546873115956286388235 3787593751957781857780532171226806613001927876611195909 2164201989380952572010654858632788659361533818279682303 0195203530185296899577362259941389124972177528347913151 5574857242454150695950829533116861727855889075098381754 6374649393192550604009277016711390098488240128583616035 6370766010471018194295559619894676783744944825537977472 6847104047534646208046684259069491293313677028989152104 7521620569660240580381501935112533824300355876402474964 7326391419927260426992279678235478163600934172164121992 4586315030286182974555706749838505494588586926995690927
210797509302955321165344987202755960236480665499119

This video they played at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is pretty funny.

I got the Ultra Mini PC (UMPC) for Christmas that I was hoping for.

It is even smaller and lighter than I expected — about the size of a thin hardback book (Not a Clancy book!). It’s a full PC — in fact it would have been state-of-the-art 5 years ago or so, with a 900 MHz Intel Celeron Mobile chip, 512 MB of RAM and 4GB of (solid state) hard drive. It comes loaded with a version of Linux, though you can install Windows XP if you want. I don’t think I want to; there’s no need.

The keyboard is a little small, and I have been making frequent typos as I write this, but the more I type the better I get. I think with a little practice it will be quite comfortable to type on. The screen is also a little small, but quite usable.

The big advantage is the small size and weight. I can throw this in my suitcase or backpack (almost in my pocket) and hardly know it’s there.

It’s marketed as an easy-to-use computer for kids or new users, but it has found a much broader appeal.

If you need a very small, light, cheap computer for travel or whatever, you should consider this baby.

I finally decided to give Linux a try. I took an old computer and installed Linux on it (Ubuntu 7.04 if you’re curious), then added a “KVM Switch” so I could share my single monitor, keyboard and mouse between that computer and my existing Windows 2000 computer.

Without going into a lot of detail, I can say that it is a qualified success. I find myself using it for most of my daily web browsing and email, word processing, etc. Most of the things I usually use Windows for I can do just as easily in Linux.

The success is qualified because there are still a couple of programs I can’t find good replacements for. One of them is my PHP coding program that has a built-in FTP client. I haven’t found anything as good in Linux yet, though it probably exists. It’s probably not fair to Linux that I haven’t immediately found suitable replacements for programs that I have accumulated over years.

The other major thing is that I occasionally write programs for Windows users, and those have to be compiled on a Windows machine.

Otherwise, I think most people could switch to Linux as easily as they could to an Apple. In fact, I’m sure there is lots more software available for Linux than for Apples. Apples may be slightly more user friendly, but the Ubuntu version of Linux is pretty darn good. I don’t think it’s less friendly than Windows, just different.

And I don’t have to worry about picking up a virus by going to the wrong website. Viruses (Viri?) are rare in the Linux world.

Anyway, I’m going to keep using Linux, for now, but I will also have to keep my other computer available, for now.

I have had my HP Deskjet 890 for almost 10 years. I’m not exactly sure when I bought it, but the date of manufacture is 08/1997. Local stores no longer sell cartridges for it and refilling only works about half the time. It’s been a workhorse for me, but I decided it was finally time to get with the civilized world.

I bought an HP 2605dn from Costco, for less money than my old inkjet cost 10 years ago.

The color is astonishingly good. The usual consensus is that color laser printers don’t print color graphics, especially photos, as well as inkjet printers do. I think this one is an exception. Even on plain paper, photos have saturated colors, and a glossy finish. It’s definitely better than my old (10 years old!) inkjet. I’m sure modern inkjets are better, but it’s still very good.

This modern, capitalistic world! We thrive on new toys.