T-Mobile

As part of the T-Mobile USA Partners with One Laptop per Child, each laptop came with a year’s subscription to T-Mobile. Jack wasn’t even aware of this until I pointed it out.  This morning, I activated my account. The first floor of the building I work in has a Starbucks, and the signal of the hotspot is as strong as the signal for our own router, so I took the little green machine in for testing.  It passed the test with flying colors, and the only reason I am posting this at home instead of at work is I worked through my lunch half hour.
I imagine I will use the OLPC mainly as a mobile web browser and e-book reader, so it is nice to have a year’s worth of T-Mobile.

Traffic Cams in Colorado Springs

I’ve known about the traffic cams in Colorado Springs for years, but only recently learned about the mashup which shows where the traffic cams are on a map: SpringsCam. Today, when I check the traffic cams at 3 pm the roads home were all drive, but they were snow covered and slick by the time I got on the road at 4 pm.  Fortunately, everyone was inclined to drive sedately, and I got in double the time it usually takes.

Surprise!

January 05, 2008 – Click on image for higher resolution version.

The hay wranglers stopped by for the hay forks they left last time they delivered hay, and I noticed a box on the porch.  I didn’t think much of it, and brought it in while I told the wrangler where to find their hooks.  When I got back into the house, Jack was opening the box and saying “It’s a present for you.  I thought at first it was probably a new lens for my camera, but when I saw the edge of green I started squealing.   I’ve been  following the saga of the One Laptop Per Child for a while, so I recognized what it was as soon as Jack started lifting it out of the box. As I write this, Jack is hitting buttons to see what happens.

DRM Removal from Itune files

I received an Itunes gift card for Christmas and was wondering how I would get the songs that I purchased into Ogg Vorbis for my Linux desktop system. From DRM Removal, I learned that I could burn the songs to an audio CD, and then rip them to whatever format that I wanted.
Since there is such a straightforward workaround to the DRM involved, what is the point of having it at all?  And where did those violent terms for putting audio onto a CD and taking it back off come from?

Warmth

Yesterday, it was 9F when I woke up. Today, it is 44F. And the Chinook, which tends to blow when the temperatures rise, isn’t even that strong this morning. It will be so nice to go out and feed the horses this morning.

Squid

I usually do one organizational project New Year’s day or the closest weekend thereof. Usually, this involved cleaning out closets or something similar. This past weekend, I recabled my PC and its many peripherals so that I could actually turn off the power to peripherals except when I use them. Since I have a ton of USB peripherals, I had to match up USB bridges with power strips as well. I even did a little cleaning while I was down there.

In my reorganization, I employed a new Power Sentry 5-Outlet PowerSquid Power Multiplier. I thought it was very cool when I saw it on a website a year or so ago, and it came in very handy extending power between the UPS and the tower and monitor.  My computer desk is rather massive, which makes it difficult to get to the connections on the PC.