I am Sharon Agathon?

...from the SciFi Channel's Battlestar Galactica series. I took the 'Which character are you' quiz.

A good commute

On my way to work this morning on NY route 7 which is 2 lanes eastbound, 2 lanes westbound and a turning lane in the centre paved edge to edge. No median strip, no divider, just macadam. Noodling along on the ZRX when all traffic stops. In both directions. Craning my neck, I can see momma duck and six babies picking their way across the highway toward the Mohawk River.

Everyone stopped to let them cross. No beeping horns, no gesticulations. Just politely letting them across.

What a great way to start the day!

Eclipse Monkey

Want to learn about scripting Eclipse with Monkey so I downloaded Europa at home. Figured the source would be useful but couldn't figure out why Buckminster was throwing an error so I used CVS instead.

For editing the Javascript, I downloaded JSEclipse via the Eclipse updater using http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/jseclipse/autoinstall

More after I've played a bit.

Upgrade A7N8X Deluxe

Opened a can of worms. The PSU died, and after fixing that I decided to make the Mitsumi 'all in one' floppy/media card reader work. No dice. Gave up on that after fiddling with the connector & motherboard. Then I had the bright idea to reinstall that Seagate 120GB SATA drive. Grrr. Stupid, stupid. I should have left the thing alone after fixing the PSU because I reset the BIOS and wasn't completely sure of the settings and so...

I was getting the intermittent blue screen of death.

Frack. Well I fiddled and farted with it until I figured out how to upgrade the SATA BIOS. Grabbed BIOS 1008-D.bin from the ASUS web page, along with the AWDFLASH.ZIP utility and CBROM. I have the A7N8X Deluxe motherboard, Socket A, rev 2.0. Went to the Silicon Image web page and fetched the latest SATA BIOS image, BIO-003112-xxx-4284.zip

Go find a floppy and do a format a: from the command line just to make sure the thing is OK. Then use Windows Explorer to format it and make it bootable.

Now to make the BIOS. Created a directory sata_bios and unpacked the zipped files there. Then used cbrom215 1008-D.bin /pci 4284.bin from the command line to compile in the new SATA BIOS into the ASUS BIOS. Use cbrom215 1008-D.bin /D to verify that PCI ROM[A] now has the latest SATA version. Copy 1008-D.bin and awdflash.exe to the floppy. Close everything, insert the floppy and reboot.

Once the A: drive is booted up, flash the motherboard: awdflash 1008-d.bin /py/sn My BIOS flashed in a few minutes and I removed the floppy, pressed F1 and Windows XP Pro SP2 fired right up. Was able to read and write to the SATA drive. Am now running Prime95 and Motherboard Monitor 5. The Prime95 is running in torture test mode, seems fine. MBM reports the CPU is at 41C which seems fine to me.

Links o' the day, 22 Dec 2007

Spent the morning trying to catch up on my email. I have a lot of stuff hanging in the breeze. Gotta finish reading EMRFD and start building! :-) Whilst searching for the link to the book, I found a Yahoo! group which I promptly joined. A discussion on eHam, and of course, W7ZOI's web page. Distractions, distractions.

Interesting problem on a mailing ist I frequent. The list is crawled by Google, so emails sent there are available by searching. There was a humourous thread about strange and unusual user IDs -- the sort of thing that comes up from time to time. One poster shared a user ID composed of an initial and last name; the combination making a rude word, We all laughed and thought that was the end of it.

Not so. Apparently, said user learnt about Googling own name, and Googled for said rude word and was extremely upset to find self mentioned in a casual thread in a mailing list on the Internet. Apparently so upset that self is reporting poster to HR for disciplinary action. Now, one hopes that HR will tell self to stop searching for rude words on the Internet, but the poster is highly concerned about it.

There's a possibility that the list archive software will honour x-noarchive: yes; I'll have to check that out.

Some people are doing last minute Christmas shopping. Me too. Need vinegar powder for the sushi rice to go with Vietnamese pho :-) Better get some Thai basil, too. Xie xie, Rong for telling me about Lee's Market.

Links o' the day

Daily links

There are some links I try to read every day:

• US Navy photographs


• The Sub Report


• Navy Times


• COMSUBLANT


• COMSUBPAC


• The Tocqueville Connexion

What happened at today's sites:

Navy photos Has the story of a girl rescued from a cruise ship with a burst appendix. Operated on USS Reagan. Bravo Zulu!

Sub Report I didn't win the contest but I came in 2nd! The winner deserved it :-) The welding scandal seems to be calming down.

Navy Times Fmr Marine wants his marijuana plants back. He's an injured Iraq '91 vet, licensed to grow.

COMSUBLANT is still under construction.

COMSUBPAC has nothing new.

Tocqueville reports a TGV derailment!

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Some links I hit today:
Loaded CoolIris Previews at work on Firefox. I like it.

Also loaded GBookmarks. I had it before but don't know what I did.

I didn't load SaveURI. I was looking for a way to simply and easily track all the places I visit in a day. This doesn;t look like it.

Foxmarks not working? Servers super slow.

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How to bury a mainframe, from an email sent by Todd.

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Searched for a 360 blog add-on but couldn't find one. I want to post to 360 like I can Blogger.

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From my RSS blog ticker:
Beautiful canoe, political message about Polynesian life disappearing.

From StumbleUpon:
Clever adverts

A test of what gender your brain is. I'm female, but the tests are mainly visual, and I am not.

Some cool early music (ancient) from Jon Sayles and John Willbye. Downloadable MP3s. Very nice stuff.

Open Flash Chart looks great. I haven't downloaded it, but I think I will.

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From researching problems:
System i WDSC custom compile command

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Went prowling for noise figure info because of the ongoing discussion of receiving Selene (the lunar orbiter) with amateur equipment on the Microwave mailing list

Kerry QualComm noise source

Didier Home brew noise source

Maxim Tutorial on how to calculate noise figure.

Linux on old laptops

So they tossed out an IBM ThinkPad 600E at work and I scarfed it on the way to the dumpster. It was stripped: no floppy, no hard drive, the CMOS battery was dead and the main battery was missing. This model doesn't have any USB ports, but it does have a pair of PCMCIA slots. It did have a CD-ROM drive...

I wonder if this thing will run Linux? So I hie me over to the Puppy Linux web page and start downloading Live-CD images. Using Nero on my Windows XP Pro machine, I burn several CD-ROMs to try them out. In particular, I look at 2.14 and 2.15CE.

I boot the thing up using a power supply I use with my ThinkPad 380ED and it boots but man is it ugly. The resolution that Puppy chose is clearly wrong. It also takes forever and I soon see why: the thing has been stripped of it's RAM, leaving only 32MB installed! I do a quick re-think and decide to try Puppy on the 380ED first - it has 80+MB of RAM!

The 380ED is a Pentium MMX 166. It has an integrated floppy and CD-ROM drive as well as PCMCIA. No USB. I use this particular machine as a logging computer for my amateur radio contesting. It runs a legal version of Windows 98 and I'm quite happy with it for this use. The 9 pin serial port is very valuable for hooking up to a GPS receiver.

So through various trial and errors, I figure out that the resolution is 800 x 600 x 16. 35.1562KHz with a 56.25Hz refresh. It takes quite a few probes to work out the one I can read, but it's not so bad. Once Puppy 2.14 loads, I see that there's 35M of RAM free. That doesn't bode well for a machine that only has 32MB of RAM! The next step was to try to get the PCMCIA Ethernet card working. It turns out that I loaded 2 modules: pcsnet_cs and axnet_cs and that was the combination that finally did the trick. Since that machine has a hard drive, I let Puppy store its configuration file there for future use.

Then, back to the 600E. The 800 x 600 x 16 worked and so did the drivers, but man is it ever slow. The monitor window shows 11.6M free, but the CD drive just keeps trundling and it takes a long, long time to load the browser (Seamonkey.) It's a 2645-4AU, dated 09/1999. Pentium II 366MHz. It's taking so long to load Seamonkey that I'm going to post this and see if it comes up by tomorrow...

There's an excellent ThinkPad specifications web page here. IBM has a PDF describing the details of their discontinued 'numbered' models here.

FireGPG

I use Firefox and I have used PGP in the past. A recent mailing list discussion (no, really!) made me reconsider integrating Gmail and PGP. I started looking around and found FireGPG. It has a few quirks, but it's integrated into Gmail (a bit.)

As a prerequisite, you'll need some form of OpenPGP. At home I use Windows XP Pro, so I chose to try GnuPG. In particular, it loads in the Windows Privacy Tray (WinPT) which is a quick way to generate keys, import them from friends, etc.

Once you have OpenPGP of your choice installed, generate your keys. Be very aware that your private key is critical and you ought not lose it!. Back it up. Publish your public key on a key server if you like. I used Veridis. Uning WinPT, choose Keyserver from the menu. Right click in the window that has the existing keyservers and choose Add. Then in the key manager window, right click your key and choose 'Send to keyserver.'

An alternate mechanism is to post your public key on your web page. Using WinPT, click your key, then click the icon on the top right 'Copy key to keyboard.' Here's mine:

pub 1024D/47BA6B91 10/21/2007 Buck Calabro
Primary key fingerprint: DA31 A4AD 9BCE 420E C400 9C41 DECA 71C9 47BA 6B91

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)
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=7hcK
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

All that is well and good, but it doesn't do much as far as actual encryption goes. There are two sorts of things one can do with encryption. Encryption will actually convert your text into something only the recipient can understand, while signing will append a digital signature to your text. That digital signature will prove that the message was sent by you and not tinkered wit, between the sender and recipient. You might be asking what the heck is the purpose of signing text. What if the recipient is a mailing list? You might want to send cleartext, but still prove who you are. Listers can verify who you are by looking you up on a keyserver.

Another consideration is that you might not have the recipient's public key. Again, a mailing list is one of those instances. A public key is mated with a single private key, so unless everyone on a mailing list shares a private key, it would be impossible for all of them to read a message.

OK, so to use FireGPG to sign a message, type your message, edit the spelling :-) and when ready to send it, select all the text in the message and then click the 'Sign & send' button. Encrypting the message works exactly the same way, only after choosing to encrypt, you are asked for the public key of the recipient.

One additional thing that FireGPG gives you is a right click context menu that will let you encrypt/decrypt text on any web page. Highlight/select that right click.

You can do all that work using only WinPT, but you have to bring up the clipboard editor and work with it that way, then you copy/paste to your application - which might be an OS application like vi :-)

Venture blower switch replacement

NAPA part number HC138 AC HEATER SWITCH $22.49

Replaced it in the dark. 2 screws to pull off the console cover (under the ash tray and power socket covers. 2 screws to remove the panel the switch is mounted on and 2 more to remove the switch itself.

15 minutes, tops. All 5 positions work again, Yeah!

98 Chevy Venture HVAC blower adventure

My wife's car. The blower stopped blowing on setting 5 last year. Then it lost 3 a few months ago. Then 1. Then 2. Then 4 finally died. No blower. No front defrost. This is the Northeast. Autumn in the Northeast. Not recommended.

So I dove into it today. Without a manual... As Chris would say, I nuked it out. The blower is located at the front passenger's feet. It's easy to get to; there's a carpeted cardboard cover with several of those plastic 'pop' fasteners. A quick tug at the front ad it comes off. The courtesy light comes out after a quarter turn.

The normal cause of failure for these things is the resistor block. So I started looking for the resistor block. Of course, it's behind the motor, next to the firewall. Lovely. It turns out to be pretty easy to remove the blower. There's a two-wire connector. Push the top (it's one of thos prong types) and pull it out. Remove the 2 screws and the blower motor and squirrel cage comes out. It took a bit of twisting.

Now I can clearly see the resistor block. It has 3 screws, one of which is almost impossible to get out. Loosen the two nearest the firewall about 1-2 turns, then remove the one closest to the passenger's feet. Pull it down, toward the floor and then it should tip enough to pull it off the two screws toward you. Pull the black connector off and you're good to go.

So now I have in my hand one 12v squirrel cage and one resistor block. It occurs to me that I have a cellar full of 12v power supplies, so I go down to the lab to check it out. I hook up a 12v current limited supply and turn it on. It works! Very nice... the fan turn and churns. Well at least that's one thing that I don't have to buy.

I spent about a half hour trying to figure the pinout for the resistor block, but it remains a mystery. I couldn't tell if it was bad or good. So I turned my attention to the connector in the car. I tested every combination of voltage and continuity vs switch position and got nothing.

Nothing?

Is the switch bad? Feh. Time to burrow into the dash.

This turned out to be simple! Pull the ash tray out and you'll see a screw on the right side. There's a mate on the left under the power socket cover. Remove them and the console frame pulls out from the bottom. It becomes obvious what to remove next. All the switches are mounted to a single carrier. Two more screws and it comes out, revealing the blower switch.

Pulled the connector off of that and I see a burnt socket, with a burnt pin matching it in the switch. Hm. Turn on the key so the system is energised. I test the socket and find 12v in the middle of the 3 side. Short that to the socket opposite it on the 4 side and probe the other end - voltage! Crap, the switch is looking bad.

Lay the blower on the floor, hook up the resistor block (on the floor) and connect it. Short out the two sockets and the fan spins. Yep. Bad switch. So I put the resistor block back, put the blower back, put the courtesy light back, put the cardboard back. Short together the 12v side of the connector with the pin for speed 3, turn on the key and voila! Always on, but it won't leave the wife stranded without a blower. Electrical tape for safety and put the console back together sans switch.

Tomorrow I'll get a new switch. It should take less than 15 minutes to install.