Radified News for July, 2001
31jul2001 - Bandwidth usage at Radified continues to grow at (an average of) 20% per month. Bandwidth usage for the month of July was 2.74GB. This is small potatoes for mega-sites, but encouraging for me - especially since the site serves primarily text-based web pages.
A screen shot of my server's control panel, containing bandwidth usage statistics, is posted here.
Doc's FDISK guide has been included in the syllabus of a class at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks (UAF): CIOS 210 - Hardware and Software Configuration. See here (scroll to the bottom, listed under 'Stuff').
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30jul2001 - Broke up the (single-page) article on Partitioning Strategies into 4 smaller pages. Also updated and added more info to the ASPI guide, since it's becoming more popular. Tried to make it more comprehensive without becoming overwhelming.
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29jul2001 - Roy Jones took a 12-round decision. There were 3 knockdowns. One each in round #1, 5 & 12. Not the greatest fight. I'm looking for a Trinidad-Jones match. That would be the ultimate.
Popularity of the ASPI guide is soaring. Try searching for ASPI guide or force aspi in Google and see what you get. Updated the Rip/encode guide. The first page is pretty tight. See what you think.
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28jul2001 - Fans of pugilism should be aware of a scheduled event today. With a record of 44-1 (36 KO's) Roy Jones Jr defends his Light Heavyweight (is that an oxymoron?) title against undefeated Mexican Julio Gonzalez. They'll be fighting at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, along with two other title fights.
RJ make it look easy. He hardly breaks a sweat. Many claim he's currently the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Watch him fight and you'll see why.
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27jul2001 - Jahmar built his first computer yesterday. He assembled it from a bunch of old, spare parts laying around the house. It's not the fastest thing around, but he's proud of himself. His system includes a dusty Celeron 300a (overclocked to @464MHz), an Abit BX6r2 mobo, Mushkin PC100 RAM, a Voodoo3 3000 gfx card, and an ancient 14-inch monitor (800x600).
He installed both WinME & Win2K, dual-booting. Still has a lot of apps to install, but all the main work is done. The first programs he installed were: HalfLife, Counterstrike, Quake III Arena & Unreal Tournament, Black & White, and Napster, in that order. Can you guess what his favorite PC things are? =) His site/page is here.
Posted HD Tach and Atto benchmarks of a 36GB Seagate X15-36LP, currently the reigning fastest drive on the planet. See here and here. Thx to skypx for the benches. I can only dream about having such a drive.
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26jul2001 - Popularity of the ASPI guide has been growing. Not sure where people are finding it, cuz I searched for aspi radified in Google, and it didn't show up. Anyway, I tweaked it today. Made mostly cosmetic changes to improve readability & organization. Also polished the Rip & encode guide.
The Yosemite and Half Dome pages have also been getting increased hits lately. Guess it's the vacation time of year. Received great reader mail how the pics have inspired people to vacation there. Wendy says, "I just hope they don't stay at out campsite." =)
Speaking of Wendy, she edited her first few scenes today with Final Cut Pro. She's already proficient with both Adobe Premiere, and the Avid Media Composer. She's currently done with the first 6 of 27 scenes for Tania's thesis project, titled Seahorses. She's cut the first 2 minutes of a 12-min project.
This is her first time using FCP. She wants to come out of school familiar with all the major editing programs. She loves editing. It's where the creative juices flow most freely.
The boys have been gaming fanatics the last few days, playing marathon sessions of Counterstrike & Quake III Arena. Can't get 'em off the PCs with a crowbar. They quit at 5AM.
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25jul2001 - Received another email from the Dog, who quit his job & moved to Ireland - something he's wanted to do for as long as I've known him. Posted his latest here. Interesting stuff.
A Russian programmer (Dmitry Sklyarov) was arrested in Vegas as the first person to be charged under the controversial 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a free-speech and privacy organization, rallied to his support.
Adobe has asked the US government to drop the charges after meeting with the EFF. More info on these groundbreaking developments here (CNN).
Be on the look out for CDs with a new copy-protection scheme called SafeAudio, which inserts pops & clicks when being ripped. I've not yet run across any. People I've talked to plan to boycott these CDs. CDs are far from a necessary staple. When sales dwindle, they'll get the message.
There's
no reason people shouldn't be able to make a compilation CD from songs they've
legally purchased. From
what I've read, there's no such thing as a secure copy-protection. Better copy
protection schemes merely get the attention of better crackers.
More info here
(CNET) and
here
(Stereophile).
See how to bypass this protection at the bottom of
this
page (item
#8).
Lawmakers that have a problem with Microsoft's Windows XP are seeking the delay the scheduled October shipment. They have a problem with the Product Activation Code, which they claim violates four InterTrust patents. More info here.
MS bashing is in vogue. I currently use WinXP RC1. It's elegant & professional.
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24jul2001 - A mystery person sent me a virus today. It was attached to an email with the sender's name blank. Message contents listed as: chlorenf.zip.zlg. Norton AntiVirus picked it up immediately and took over, quarantining the nasty critter. Virus name: w32.sircam.worm@mm.
I rarely get virii. Maybe one every 18 months. So this was an event of sorts. I don't know anyone who doesn't use virus protection. Symantec has a file here that will find and remove the virus. More info here (Wired). Good info page here.
If you have Norton AntiVirus, make sure there is a green check mark next to the words Real-time scanning (Auto-Protect). You should see not see any red X's. I had to manually enable Real-time scanning. It was not enabled by default.
Of course, this is another good reason to keep a back-up image handy. So no matter how badly your system gets trashed, you can always restore in minutes.
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23jul2001 - Caught Diana Krall in concert last night at Humphrey's-by-the-Bay. Was an okay show. Nothing spectacular. She had a sore throat. Played the piano more than she sang. I'd rather hear her sing. The opening act, Jesse Cook, rocked. Never heard of him before. Wendy danced in the aisles. He reminded us of Ottmar Liebert.
Humphrey's is located on Shelter Island in San Diego. Great place for concerts. Outdoor venue. Right next to the marina. Tall palm trees frame the stage. Sun sets behind the stage. Sky turns red & purple. It looks something like this. Not a bad seat in the place. We try to get down there 2 or 3 times each summer.
The drive (directions) from Laguna to San Diego is great. We left extra early, so we had plenty of time to take the coastal, scenic route. Took the top off the car & took our sweet time.
Worked on the Rip & encode guide. Tried to smooth out the rough spots. I had Wendy take a look at it. She said it's interesting, and read more than I asked her to read.
Wendy starts editing Tania's thesis project (Seahorses) tomorrow. She has an asst editor for the project who's doing all the capturing for her. So all she'll have to do is the actual editing. She hates capturing. This is her first time working on a thesis project.
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22jul2001 - Updated the Rip & encode guide. Tried to improve readability. Broke it into 3 pages. Slowly it grows. Won't be long before it's as big as the Ghost guide, and I make a pdf file that readers can print out or download. It the guide that's growing fastest in popularity.
Caught the Sade concert last night at the Verizon Amphitheater in Irvine - the place that used to be Irvine Meadows, which used to be Lion Country Safari (until they could no longer afford to feed the lions). Wendy is a big Sade fan.
Traffic sucked. Took 45 minutes to go a half mile. Everybody trying to cut in front of everyone else. Made me wanna get out of the car and crack some skulls before I ever got to the show.
The place was packed. The crowd loved her. They went wild at every little gesture. She could've farted, and they would've cheered. People danced in the aisles, some at their seats.
We went with Maria, who brought her 11-year old daughter, Mikaela - her first concert ever. Mikaela loved it and wants to go to more concerts. Our next concert is Diana Krall.
Received an email from the Dog today. He quit his lucrative job in San Jose and moved to Ireland - something he's wanted to do for as long as I've known him. (The Dog is Irish). He's never been there before. It says:
Dogger,
How are you, brother? I'm in Ireland, living in a little town 14 miles south of
Dublin. I've been getting into the politics of the north. Shit has been hitting
the fan again. Was involved in a minor riot two weeks ago. My father saw me on
CNN and then I saw it, too.
Reading and writing, a bit of traveling. All my shit's in storage and I drove
back to NJ. How's bayou?
T
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21jul2001 - The Ghost guide continues to be the site's single most popular destination. Between 250 and 400 readers a check it out daily. The new printable & downloadable pdf files have also become popular.
More people (by far) find the Ghost guide thru links from other people (word of mouth). For example, I got a bunch of hits from this page yesterday.
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20jul2001 - Spent a few days roasting in the desert at a resort called Two Bunch Palms, where people walk around in robes, soak in natural hot springs, and eat healthy food. Wendy got a massage from the daughter of a native American medicine man, who had the healing mojo going on. Afterwards, she couldn't stop laughing. I asked, "What was in that oil she rubbed on you?"
Heat is so intense that it creates an altered state. Can only lay in the sun for ~10 minutes before you start to feel like you're being roasted on a spit. Jumping in the pool cools you off, but 10 minutes after getting out, you're bone dry. Dry desert air.
Roadrunners motor up and down the paths everywhere. Parts of the movie The Player were filmed here. Natalie stopped out for a visit yesterday. Got some pictures. I'll post when they get developed. Everybody has nice tans.
Stopped at a roadside stand on the way back where we bought some peaches. Best dang peaches I ever had. Sugary sweet. White on the inside. I think they're called Babock or Bacock. Wish I would've got more. They're all gone. Sade concert tonight at Verizon Amphitheater in Irvine.
Been getting a bunch of hits from this page (bjorn3d).
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17jul2001 - Been working on an entirely new rewrite of the Build an NLE workstation guide. We've leaned a lot since the original guide was published. These things always take more time than I bargain for. Should have it done in a few days.
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16jul2001 - Updated the Links page. Added a short description for each link. Updated the CUSL2 guide, specifically the page addressing Intel ATA drivers.
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15jul2001 - Updated the rip/encode guide. Hard to believe it's been three months since it was first posted. Also changed the color scheme. I try to select colors that are easy to read, without frying your eyes.
Whenever I spend any length of time reading web pages with white backgrounds, it feels as if I'm staring at a 100-watt light bulb, and my eyes start to burn. I try to select colors that are easy on your eyes.
If you have trouble printing pages with non-white backgrounds, you can copy-n-paste the the text into a word-processing document, & print from there.
Here's a link to an article about CSS descramblers (DeCSS), code used to break the copy protection used in DVDs. Many people feel this is a huge issue, bound to make legal history on its way to the Supreme Court.
It pits the Motion Picture Industry (MPAA) against the hacker magazine 2600 over the issue: Is computer code protected under free speech? Has all the making of a Hollywood movie.
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14jul2001 - Updated the ASPI guide. Nothing major. I try to make improvements to one guide each day, even if it's only something minor, like improving readability.
I think this is one of the reasons why people like my Ghost guide so much - cuz I've gone thru it so many times, that it now reads very smoothly. I don't think many professional sites are designed to let their writers go back and polish their articles.
That was my first ever Radified guide, and I've had more time to work it than the others. No matter how good a job I do on the first revision, I can always come back in two weeks and see areas where improvements can be made.
While listening to Shoutcast streams yesterday, I noticed they broke 20,000 listeners (20,001). Also noticed from the article on Internet music I posted back in January that they had ~10,000 listeners then. That represents a 100% increase in six months, or 200% annually! See here for a screenshot.
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13jul2001 - Friday the 13th. Removed all links to other sites from the main page, and transferred them to a page of their own. Back when I first launched the site, it seemed bare with only one or two things to post. Now that I have more than a few articles of my own, I want to clean up the home page.
The entire home page, graphics included, is less than 60kb.
I've started reading about PHP Nuke, a free web portal system, to take the next step in giving the site a more professional look. I wanted to revamp the site for its 1-year anniversary last month, but never got around to it. Up 'til now, I've focused almost entirely on content, letting design slip.
Speaking of PHP Nuke, my buddy Joshua posted a review of the DV500, a real-time video-editing card from Pinnacle. His site, HardwareWhore, uses PHP Nuke. See here. The DV500 was our second choice after the RT2000 (now RT2500).
Wendy started playing with Final Cut Pro today, a video-editing program from Apple, designed for Macs. She's already proficient with both Adobe Premiere and Avid Media Composer (for editing film). She'll be editing her next project with FCP. She wants to come away from school experienced with all major editing platforms. Media 100 is next in line.
My Ghost guide received almost 400 hits yesterday. A bunch from this site (pcnineoneone). Seems that they came to the same conclusion I did - that (as Casca puts it) "I have seen better documentation on the walls of bathroom stalls on Army posts regarding the securing of female companionship." =D
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12jul2001 - Updated the FDISK guide. Included a screen shot from Partition Magic, which represents partitions graphically. The biggest problem with FDISK is that it has no graphical interface. Seeing how partitions look graphically help you understand how partitions work. The image is near the bottom of the page.
The PDF files I posted two days ago have become very popular. Surprisingly, I served almost 1000 of the CUSL2 guides in PDF format yesterday, more than even the Ghost guide, which is usually the most popular. But there have been many more downloads of the (zipped) Ghost PDFs. Not sure how to interpret that.
Posted an Archives page, to eliminate some clutter on the main page.
Noticed a lot of hits to the Yosemite photos. Traced the source to this page, from the site aboutyosemite.com. If you click the link labeled Photos of Yosemite, Aug. 2000, that's my page. Wonder how they found it.
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11jul2001 - Updated the rip/encode guide (here). Broke it into two pages. Improved its organization. Never ceases to amaze me how these guides start out as a short 'how to's' for friends, then grow into detailed, multi-page guides. No doubt I'll read it next week and notice more areas that need work.
The rip/encode guide has become one of the most popular articles on the site. Only the Ghost guide and the CUSL2 guide are more popular. I tend to give the most attention to the articles with the most traffic.
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10jul2001 - After a bunch of requests, I finally posted both pdf and zipped pdf files of my three biggest & most popular guides: Ghost, SCSI, CUSL2. This will allow readers to either print out or download the entire guide, and store it locally, on their hard drives, for easy reference. Might save a little site bandwidth.
I included a little blurb, indicating this, with links, at the beginning of each guide: Ghost * SCSI * CUSL2. I've never used Acrobat Writer before. If anyone has some suggestions for how to make it look better, I'm all ears.
Kids rented the movie, The Cell, last night (DVD). Scary. Wendy had nightmares.
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09jul2001 - Wendy redesigned her site today. She used the eye of the lion to sample the color for the menu background. She thought that was cool, very proud of herself. They look a lot like USC colors.
I created subdomains today. Subdomains take the form subdomain.radified.com. My hosting plan comes with 25 subdomains. Before today, I'd used none. I created the following subdomains: ghost * scsi * cusl2 * mp3 * aspi * forums * benchmarks.
Before today, I hadn't used any. My provider says this on the page where subdomains are created: Subbdomains allow you to create sub-websites off of your domain name (radified.com). They serve many purposes, and are commonly used to professionally organize a website.
I configured the subdomains so that the old url's still work. So now there are two url's for the subdomained pages. For example, you can get to the ghost guide from both http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_1.htm and http://radified.com/Ghost/ghost_1.htm .
Communitech updates new subdomains daily at 10PM Central time. No capital letters can be used.
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8jul2001 - Posted an article on The Internet. I've been meaning to write something on this topic for some time. Posted it in the Coming Soon section, cuz it's not done yet. See here.
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07jul2001 - Posted the final two Film school updates #'s 12 & 13, titled 546 Answer Print Screening, and Grades. See here. Those are the last two updates of the semester. Time for a cigar.
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06jul2001 - Posted Film school update #11, titled Final Editing Crunch. Only two more updates remaining to be posted for the semester. Get an inside look at graduate Film school at the best Film school in the country. See here.
Updated a few of the pages, like the Binaries page, the rip/encode page, and the Programs page, all of which have become very popular.
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05jul2001 - Wendy got an A- on the portfolio of pictures she submitted for her Visual Expression class, some of which are posted here. Combined with the grade she gets for this movie, the two will determine her grade for the class.
Lots of people came to Laguna to see the fireworks. Cars were filing out on PCH for two hours afterwards. This is our first 4th of July in Laguna in many years. We usually sail over to Catalina Island for the week, but Sidney's boat is in the yards for overhaul. A great video about Sidney's boat, a 45-foot, all-wood schooner, built in 1933, is posted here (titled Sailin).
We walked down to the beach and watched the fireworks while swimming in the ocean. Have never done this before. Water surprisingly warm. From our secluded cove in North Laguna, we could look south and see fireworks in both Laguna and Dana Point. A bright, full moon hung directly between the two displays. Body-surfing at night with big waves. Very cool.
Most dramatic tho was a phosphorescent tide that rolled in. Each stroke of our hands produced a glowing blue-green light. When someone swam, their whole body glowed brightly. Never experienced anything like it before. Two fireworks, full moon, body-surfing at night, big waves, warm water, phosphorescent tide, glowing bodies in the nighttime ocean. Downright magical.
Wendy & I had the entire ocean to ourselves. Very romantic.
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04jul2001 - Radified will be closed today in honor of Independence Day. We will celebrate with burgers on the bar-b, while singing the Star Spangled Banner, and probably go snorkeling down at the beach - if there aren't a million tourists there. Maybe catch a movie later in the evening. Somebody mentioned fireworks at Disneyland.
Wendy was messing around with some new features of her video-editing card, and thru together some footage from Easter at Mom & Sid's. Silly stuff, but everybody liked it so much that she decided to encode & post the 90-second piece.
The title (Hornitos Monday) came from the next day (Monday), when everyone (except me, designated driver) had a hangover from the margaritas, made with Hornitos tequila, saying, "I had a great time yesterday, but today is a Hornitos Monday." See here.
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03jul2001 - I'm amazed at how much bandwidth that one little Motherboard Monitor file can take. Yesterdays bandwidth doubled that of Sunday. People must be perusing the site while downloading the file, cuz hits of all articles have soared in the last couple of days.
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02jul2001 - I told Alex, who writes the code for Motherboard Monitor, that I'd provide him with a another download mirror. My way of supporting the cause. You can see where he added my Binaries page to his list of mirrors on his downloads page here (last United States link listed in top section).
I figured, at only 1.5MB, how much bandwidth could that little file take? Had no idea there would be that much traffic. Served several hundred files yesterday, the first day, a weekend no less. That's more daily bandwidth than the site has ever used. Good thing my account comes with unlimited bandwidth.
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01jul2001 - July already. Time flies when you're having fun. Downloaded & installed WinXP (Whistler) Release Candidate 1 yesterday (Pro version). RC1 was posted 28jun, and is referred to as 'build 2505'. (I get my copies direct from MS servers.)
Last time I installed WinXP, I had probs. Apparently, WinXP is incompatible with Norton Anti-Virus. Not sure if that was the source of my probs, but it got ugly. Ended up having to restore images, format /mbr and take other extreme measures. Maybe it's cuz I was trying to get cute and tweak too many things. But I learned that XP (somehow) affects other operating systems (Win2K & WinME).
No such probs with RC1. I installed another copy of Win2K (bare bones, with no NAV) for the sole purpose loading WinXP. XP is a very slick operating system. Has an elegant & sophisticated feel to it. (I'm running it from a SCSI beast.) But I know many who refuse to buy XP long as MS keeps the Product Activation Code. I don't like PAC, but it won't stop me from using the OS.
Wendy saw Spielberg's new movie AI last night. She said it was long. It wasn't disappointing, but didn't rock her world. Some parts were a little far fetched. Said it's worth seeing. She's crazy about Moulin Rouge, which she's seen two twice already. She's into that lovey-dovey, emotion stuff.
The boys, Jahmar & Evan, stayed up 'til 5AM playing Counterstike last night. They are true Counterstrike junkies. We have two cable-equipped PCs, so they can both play at the same time. They love playing in the wee morning hours, when the Net is blazing fast, and the the monitors are the only source of light in the room. They are still sleeping (2PM).
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Linkage to -> News for June, 2001
Linkage to -> News for August, 2001