Mosaek.COM -- est. 1997

	[Mosaek Words of the Day for Wednesday, August 27th, 2008]
	[ [ [ [	English and Tech Words of the Day provided each morning after 7AM, Central Time. Courtesy of Merriam-Webster and Internet.com's Webopedia pejorative and Wi-Fi detector	] ] ] ]

	Jason says: It's a hardware problem.
	[Open Source Stuph] <12-06-2006> Open Document Format published as ISO standard submitted by jason Score one for Open Source. SOURCE: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061204-8349.html [Cable TV] <09-19-2006> TiVo having trouble keeping up with Time Warner Cable changes submitted by jason My Time Warner Cable lineup changed radically yesterday. All of the digital channels (everything above 99) have changed so that they're grouped by subject matter as well as parent provider. My TiVo is completely useless for the digital channels now. I've had my TiVo perform multiple 'Daily Calls' since the lineup change hit my cable boxes at about 8:00 last night. Earlier, I even re-ran the Guided Setup with no success. When I called TiVo Customer Service, they told me that TiVo had apparently not received the lineup change "on time" and the issue would take five to six days to resolve once my ticket was escalated. Since I feel completely powerless otherwise, I'm publishing this information for the benefit of TiVo so that it might help them accelerate the process of providing better service for their customers in the Greater Dallas area. According the material that Time Warner Cable I received in the mail the other day, these cities will have this lineup: Arlington, Dalworthington Gardens, Pantego, Bedford, Euless, Colleyville, Addison, Carrollton, Hebron, Farmers Branch, Cockrell Hill, Grand Prairie, Cedar Hill, DeSoto, Hutchins, Lancaster, Double Oak, Flower Mound, Highland Village, Coppell, Grapevine, Lewisville, Irving, Valley Ranch, Las Colinas, Allen, Frisco, McKinney, The Colony, Murphy, Parker, Princeton, Sachse, St. Paul, and Wylie. Here are the new lineups: http://www.timewarnercable.com/dallas/programming/lineups.html http://www.timewarnercable.com/dallas/programming/lineups/lineup_northtexas.html Sidenote and open letter to TiVo: Hey, TiVo.. If you want to sell more Series 3 units, you'd better keep your customers happy. Even if ReplayTV isn't a competitor anymore, there are TONS of Windows Media Center options available that are really easy to buy and use--for middle class America and the wealthy alike. There are more media centers joining the ranks every day. Time Warner Cable sent this out on PRNewswire last week, where it was picked up by Forbes Magazine on the 13th. They even published the transition date. TiVo, I'm sure they sent you the information directly as well.. What else could Time Warner Cable have done? TiVo, could you use help from me converting that lineup information into XML format or something? update... The TiVo lineup finally adjusted tonight at about 7:00PM on Friday, 9/22. Also.. I'm not the only one that noticed. This is definitely a tough topic to search on.. Google Blog Search helped. [PHP Code] <08-10-2005> Authorize.net (by default) doesn't work with GoDaddy Hosting submitted by jason I helped someone move his website to GoDaddy hosting recently. When I did so, it turned out that his credit card processing didn't work anymore. The reason for the incompatibility of Authorize.net's code is because it 'requires' mhash to work. This is apparently not the case.. After trying to mess with PHP5's hash_hmac function for a while, I noticed an extremely helpful comment on its manual page. The result is a modification in the original Authorize.net code that worked beautifully. Authorize.net supplied this PHP code with no warranty or "fitness for a particular purpose." Wow. That's a heck of a disclaimer. I'll see if I can top it, but geez if you're obviously supplying code for an obvious purpose, how can you flat out deny it? Just because you supply something but don't want someone whining when they have problems with it, you don't deny having given it to them for "a particular purpose." It strikes me as similar to my saying, "You may be reading this document's contained text ("Text"), but neither we nor anyone in our employ typed, pasted, or otherwise supplied Text with the intent to be read--whether by person, machine, or software." <grin> /* The following hmac function is based on code originally submitted to PHP.net on 2006-05-10 by "eddi" and is presumably supplied under license of Public Domain with no implication of warranty or liability. Jason Brewer supplies this code with modifications as belonging to the Public Domain with no warranty--explicit or implied. Jason Brewer is not liable or responsible for the effects of anyone's use of this code. Just because this code worked for Jason Brewer to make Authorize.net's simlib.php work with GoDaddy's Economy Hosting doesn't mean it will work for anyone else--at GoDaddy or elsewhere. SOURCE: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.hash-hmac.php#65968 / function hmac($passwd, $data) { $algo = "md5"; / md5 and sha1 only */ $algo=strtolower($algo); $p=array('md5'=>'H32','sha1'=>'H40'); if(strlen($passwd)>64) $passwd=pack($p[$algo],$algo($passwd)); if(strlen($passwd)<64) $passwd=str_pad($passwd,64,chr(0)); $ipad=substr($passwd,0,64) ^ str_repeat(chr(0x36),64); $opad=substr($passwd,0,64) ^ str_repeat(chr(0x5C),64); return($algo($opad.pack($p[$algo],$algo($ipad.$data)))); } `It looks like someone else got the same idea: http://forums.oscommerce.com/lofiversion/index.php/t199381.html SOURCE: http://www.google.com/search?q=mhash+godaddy` [Map Fun] <11-26-2005> From Coordinates to Google Map submitted by jason When my six year-old son and I watch Survivorman on the Discovery Channel, I find myself wanting to make teachable moments out of the episodes. When Les Stroud is dropped into each new location, they display the coordinates on the screen in analog/non-decimal format (I'm a GPS guru, can't you tell). Let's take the ones from the Canyonlands episode (38°55'N by 109°52'W) and run them through a conversion tool here: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/calculators.html Now, take those decimal coordinates (38.91666666,-109.866666) and plug them into a Google Maps link: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll= + 38.91666666,-109.866666 + &t=h = hybrid Google Maps link When the map turns out to be a detailed one, my son and I have the opportunity to follow Les around on another week-long survival adventure. The photos for the Canyonlands episode were disappointing, but the ones for Mountain episode well make up for that. You can see the logged areas very clearly and you can almost pick out which bend in the river tributary that Les ends up setting up camp. The official Survivorman website doesn't have a lot of detail like the map coordinates, so I'll have to wait until the episode airs again on the 28th to share that link. update on 11-28-2005... Here's the Survivorman map link for the Mountain episode. [Mystery Bug?] <11-18-2005> Firefox memory leak? submitted by jason I really love Firefox and its extension glory. I really hate how it seems to be a memory hog. Here's the usual scenario... <scenario style="type: usual"> I boot up (doesn't happen often since my laptop goes everywhere with me and sleep/hibernate seem to work well), start Sunbird, Thunderbird, and Firefox. In Firefox (on my Bookmarks Toolbar), I choose "current1" (my first group of "current" bookmarks), and then "Open in Tabs." My fifteen tabs open. Throughout my day, I check various tabs at various times to see if there have been any updates. Some of these are hackaday, Engadget, SpiderDawn, Google Tech News, Slashdot (in "search mode"), and Mini-ITX.com.. I open a few stories in new tabs, read over them, and close them. Sometimes I have spontaneous Google Maps, IMDB, or Wikipedia searches to do. Slashdot and Engadget can easily take up five to ten new tabs. </scenario> So, here's what I observe.. I close all those extra pages and get back down to my original fifteen tabs. My system starts running a bit sluggish. I take a look at my memory usage and I'm up to 700MB or so (I have 512MB installed). Firefox.exe is easily using 150MB of RAM and 240MB of virtual memory. I can close those remaining fifteen tabs so that Firefox is doing nothing and the memory usage doesn't go down! What's the deal, Firefox!? Why can't you recover memory after closing a tab or a window!? I may add more to this rant later, but it seems rather complete. update on 11-26-2005... Apparently some other folks have noticed similar issues. The Slashdot jumped the gun in pointing out how cheap RAM upgrades are these days. Sorry, that kind of solution isn't a help to laptop users with upgrade limitations or anyone that likes to leave Firefox running while using standby/suspend/hibernation. [Webmastery] <11-06-2005> Adding RSS to Your Website submitted by jason As long as your web server has PHP support and allow_url_fopen turned on, MagpieRSS makes adding RSS feeds to your website really easy. This code adds an RSS feed, but limits the number of entries: <?php $url = "http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories"; require_once ("magpierss-0.72/rss_fetch.inc"); $rss = fetch_rss ($url); $i = 1; foreach ($rss->items as $item ) { $title = $item[title]; $url = $item[link]; ?> <a href=\"<?php print ($url); ?>\"><?php print ($title); ?></a><br> <?php if ($i == 5) break; $i++; } ?> MagpieRSS home page: http://magpierss.sourceforge.net MagpieRSS project page: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/magpierss Here are some RSS feed collections you can choose from: Various business feeds http://www.allbusiness.com/blog/rss_directory.asp Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/business/printout/0,8816,1111467,00.html National Review Online's main feed http://www.nationalreview.com/index.xml National Public Radio (NPR) http://www.npr.org/rss/ Lots of Blogs (I'm on Engadget every day) http://www.weblogsinc.com/ U.S. Government's feeds http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/Libraries/RSS_Library.shtml Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/rss Lots and lots of various feeds http://www.bnet.com/allRSS.html [Computer Tweak] <09-10-2005> Shortcut to Eject Hardware submitted by jason There's no way in Windows XP to directly eject a removable device with one command line without a third-party utility, but this command-line can bring up the "Safely Remove Hardware" screen to get one step closer: %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll This should work in most versions of Windows. Here's a prepared shortcut file that uses the "Safely Remove Hardware" eject icon ('0' icon from hotplug.dll). I expect that this icon can be a great helper to anyone whose eyesight or manual dexterity might not permit them to easily use the icon in the systray. [Computer Tweak] <08-16-2005> Shortcut to Hibernate in Windows XP submitted by jason I've been using the Suspend feature of my notebook for a long time and found no need for Hibernate until now. My notebook is not charging properly, so my battery life is precious.. I enabled Hibernation, but I needed a way to access it (I want to keep my power button set for Standby and no setting for closing the lid). It took me several searches to finally find this command line: %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState [Tech Politics--Microsoft] <06-01-2005> Microsoft may not have invented Clippy submitted by jason "Most people take it on faith that a high technology company as wildly successful as Microsoft must have invented something of consequence. After all, this industry is built on invention, isn't it? Certainly, Microsoft holds scores of patents and copyrights -- but we'd like to know which products or basic technologies we use can be credited to the big brains in Redmond. This is a prime opportunity for Microsoft defenders to provide some evidence for the company's original contributions to the industry, because frankly, we're at a loss to think of any." And now... The Microsoft "Hall of Innovation"!			Other & Older Stuph [Hardware Hype--AMD] <03-01-2000> AMD to Finally do SMP? submitted by jason I've been in love w/ AMD as an underdog and innovative company since long before I was ever able to build my own system.. From their partial RISC (and, therefore, somehow like the incredibly awesome DEC Alpha) CPU cores to their mind-blowing benchmarks that overturned Intel's left and right, they've always seemed on top and cutting edge in many ways.. One drawback to my looking to AMD as a source for processing power--and a speedbump to my growing respect for them--has been their not making SMP-enabled CPUs.. More in the Zoomed View. [University Research] <03-01-2000> Scanning Probe Microscopy.. Neat-O submitted by jason Cambridge University has some really intense images of photography of molecules and the like.. In this picture, you can see the spherical shapes and the atoms bonded together.. Another image on their site actually shows what appear to be 'clumps' of photons escaping from atoms.. More in the Zoomed View. [Mobile Hype--University Research] <02-29-2000> Self-Powered Microchips? submitted by jason I don't know whether to be excited or just confused.. On one hand, they claim that this magnetic technique could produce something like millions of tiny batteries on a microprocessor, but they also claim that this technique could be a new way to write data.. This sounds very similar to the way a hard disk drive writes data to a platter, but--correct if I'm wrong--they seem to be incinuating that this magnetic etching can be used to create transistors.. What the heck!? More in the Zoomed View. [Exciting Advanced Physics News] <02-28-2000> Not to harp on Crack and Cocaine, but check out these White Lines! submitted by jason Harvard's never really been known for science feats to my knowledge, but they should be now.. They've applied a Bose-Einstein theory and slowed light down. We all know that light slows down in any medium outside a vacuum.. This means that, yeah, maybe they slowed it down a couple 100,000 miles an hour.. Well, get this.. They've slowed it down to 38 miles per hour! This is apparently old news, but the BBC just posted an article on it, so I just became aware.. More in the Zoomed View. [Mobile Hype--Linux/BSD/non-CE] <02-25-2000> To CE or not to CE! submitted by jason The Linux and FreeBSD groups have gotten it together and are providing some detailed HOWTOs for putting your favorite free OS onto your highly-proprietary mobile computing device.. More in the Zoomed View. [Tech Politics/Hype--Microsoft/Linux] <02-22-2000> Maybe Windows and Linux Can be Friends submitted by jason Bill Gates has supposedly consented that he would be OK w/ an Open Source Windows. Wow. And a Linux company said it would pick up the tab. Double Wow. The '2000 Windows-Linux Challenge,' a.k.a., the '32-bit OS Telethon' is on! [LinuxCare Press Release] [BetaNews Article] [No Slashdot Discussion Found] --/\/--[Zoomed View] [--/\/--Mosaek Editorial] <02-15-2000> Windows + Linux = Friends? submitted by jason This editorial is a focus on virtual machines and the various other software solutions. These are credited to not only allow Windows and Linux to work together, but also to simply allow a lot more functionality and usefulness for that sinking hole in your pocket known as a PC. More in the full Editorial [Tech Politics/Hype --Apple/Mac] <02-15-2000 (Rejuventated from 12-06-1999)> Apple takes lessons from Microsoft submitted by jason Apple is accused of 'Monopolistic Practices' in Japan. More in the The Zoomed View. [--/\/--Mosaek Editorial] <02-10-2000> Robotech and other 80s Kid Toys Recalled submitted by jason This editorial is an expounded refleciton on the last posting on the Robotech RPG site. [Quick, Linked Humor] <01-13-2000> New World Region Discovered submitted by cristol This report offers little evidence to support the actual existence of SmileyLand, but helps to perpetuate the folklore. Folklore is more important to Western Culture than most people realize, but those people are usually Western and more anally retentive than they ought as well. So, if you pucker your nose or draw your eyebrows at this site, consider yourself an Official, Mosaek-Certified SourPuss.

Please email jason [Jason Brewer] at likeabeerbrewer �T yahoo.com for any submissions, comments, questions, and -heaven forbid- site problems.. Also, check out our Forum for the same purposes.. Then all the world can see your shining correspondence. Thanks for your support.

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Notes on the web page's Format:
In the past, I designed this site from my knowledge of standardized HTML and tested it on MS IE.. I now test it on Mozilla and the strangest thing happens--it works!
Netscape never appeared to like my formatting and other browsers like Opera probably still have issues with it.
Of late, I've been experimenting with CSS and Konqueror compatibility.. Compliance with Opera and Safari are probably not far off.