Owner: Version Zero Zero : The Musings of a Systems Administrator : v00.org URL:http://www.v00.org/ Join Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:30:47 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Version Zero Zero is an informative blog that covers a wide variety of subject matter ranging from helpful how-to's, hacks and tricks to reviews and general thoughts on many of today's issues. Site statistics:Click here
Famed animal expert gets trapped in airport with flamingo friend 2007-09-18 04:43:57 Jack Hanna of Animal Adventures and ZooLife with Jack Hanna is a well known and renown expert in all things related to the animal kingdom. However, he appears to lack some basic geometric skills in successfully navigating airport
security with a live flamingo. It's amazing how you can't bring a bottle of water along for the flight, but you can bring along a four foot gregarious wading bird.
Hanna was passing through the security turnstile at the Ohio State University Airport with three other people in his entourage. The group was transporting a mongoose, a leopard, and the now popular flamingo when the flamingo's square compartment become lodged in the round 10-foot tall turnstile along with Hanna. This incident also blocked anyone on the tarmac from entering the terminal.
I was stuck like a worm. My eyes were as big as grapefruits, Hanna said. I can't describe the feeling in my stomach. I can't move up or down. The bars are on your face.
He was able to wiggle himself Read more:friend
, trapped
How to save yourself $1,594 in software for your Mac 2007-09-18 04:14:54 So you have your new Macbook, iMac or PowerMac now. The smell of an
athletic shoe store hits your olfactory as you open the box. Ah, the
great adventures that await you! You've already decided you want the
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection, and that's going to take up
about $2,500 of your hard earned budget. Depending on how you planned
it, you may not have much more left over for essential software. That's
where this list comes in. The following software is 100% free and I
have personally tried and proven most of this software in an design
industry based company with amazing results. Besides, if it doesn't
work for you, it didn't cost you anything to start with!
You only live twice: Man declared dead awakes during autopsy 2007-09-17 08:52:58 Deep in the back of everyone's mind there's a fear of being buried alive. Even my insanely optimistic and general fearless life is sometimes shaken up by the thought of being trapped in a coffin as they shovel dirt over my miserable existence. What I've never really thought about before that is...will I survive the autopsy
?
Apparently at least one person has. Carlos Camejo was declared dead following an car accident in Caracas, Venezuela. Shortly after being officially dead he was taken to the morgue where medical examiners began the procedure. As they proceeded they noticed that he began to bleed, and subsequently attempted to stitch him up to stop the bleeding.
According to Carlos he woke up because the pain was unbearable . I'm not sure if he was referring to the pain of receiving stitches, or the pain of having someone start to cut you up like a pickled frog.
The story does end on a happy note as his grieving wife arrived to identify the body, only to find him in the cor
$100 laptop for One Laptop Per Child up to $188 2007-09-14 12:30:59 There's no such thing as a free lunch, and apparently there's no such thing as a $100 laptop...currently. It appears that the laptop created by MIT with plans of being distributed by One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has announced that the current cost of mass production for this little green wonders is now $188. Previously these $100 laptops were being manufactured for $176.
As a systems administrator part of my additional duty is to aquire new technology for the company. I've noticed that the cost of any computer, be it Mac or PC, is coming down in price. It's been this way since the late 90's. So how does something start cheap, but costs more over time as the rest of technology becomes cheaper? There's got to be government involvement in order for the prices to
keep jumping...today we just found out the US Justice Department spend
$4 per meatball at one of their conferences! $4??? For a ball of
unidentifiable meat-like substance? Ok, back to the issue at hand!
It still isn't a
Mobile USB AAA Battery Charger 2007-09-14 10:42:54 Interestingly enough I've been looking for one of these and I may very well just have to buy it. It's a nifty device that allows you to charge a AAA battery via your USB port on your computer. To borrow from their marketing:
Since no one wants to buy tons of batteries, Xtatix introduces the
convenient and portable Xtatix USB PortaCharge to recharge AAA
batteries using your computer's USB port. Plugging in your PortaCharge
while at the office, airport, library, classroom, or out to lunch will
ensure your digital electronics rock out as long as you do. The
PortaCharge is really simple to use and a handy tool for anyone looking
to get a charge on the run!
I do find the pregnancy test packaging rather amusing.
However, for only $5.99 with a $4 rebate who's to complain? My next question is, how do you justify processing a $4 rebate? Maybe they had an overstock and can sell each one for a mere $1.99 and still break even or at best turn a few cents profit. But then you h Read more:Mobile
, Charger
Buy a BBQ smoker, get a human leg for free 2007-09-26 04:00:56 A Maiden North Carolina man purchased a smoker, a covered grill like device that allows you to smoke food such as turkey, at an auction. Upon being the the winning bidder he proceeded to open his new cooking device to inspect it. Inside he discovered what appeared to be a piece of wood wrapped in paper, however, upon unwrapping he instead discovered a human
leg that had been cut off about 3 inches above the knee.
The smoker was acquired at a storage facility auction where they auction off anything left in unpaid garages. Police we able to track down the original renters of the space Peg Steele and her son John Wood. Steele explained that her son had his leg amputated following a plane crash and kept the leg for religious reasons. I'm not 100% sure what preserving your soul for the afterlife and a leg hidden in a smoker have to do with each other, but we've all heard stranger things...I think. His reasoning behind it was he wanted to be buried with his leg, as a whole man.
His m Read more:BBQ
Want a free iPhone, iPod Classic, Nano, or Shuffle? 2007-09-26 03:14:05 Well, it's not exactly free, however, it could be a great deal for audiophiles everywhere. FeedYourPlayer.com offers to take your used CD's and turn them into a brand new Apple device. Basically the exchange rate turns out to be $2 per CD and $3 per DVD. Sure you could sell them yourself and perhaps get better prices on some of your CD's but selling all those CD's on Amazon or similar music store you might not get as much by the time they take out all the fees.
FeedYourPlayer.com will also let you pay the difference if you don't have the proper amount of CD's for the item you wish to receive. So if you want the new 8GB Nano and you only have 25 CD's to trade you can pay $100 along with the CD's. Now if you would have thought all those years ago about paying $10-$20 for a CD, think of how much money you would have now?
Here's the required amount of CDs/DVDs required to get each of the following items:
CDs
DVDs
1GB Shuffle
40
30
4GB Nano
75
50
8GB Nano
100
70
80GB C Read more:iPhone
, iPod
, Classic
The amazing fatty pen safe 2007-09-25 16:53:43 So you happen to have some crisp folding money. You also happen to have a wife who likes to take money from you. You also have one of those big fat pens that are so ugly and cheap looking no one wants to steal it. (No offense intended to those liking said pen) With that said, we have the perfect hack for you!
It's the amazing fatty pen safe, in a nutshell, this hack requires only one of those cheap pens that's usually given out by sales people or perhaps your local government agency trying to get you to trust them. Simply open said pen, remove the ink tube, place money inside, and put the pen back together. Who'da thunk? Just be sure whoever you're trying to hide money from isn't also a writing instrument kleptomaniac. For those of you who aren't quite so mechanically inclined, check out this instructable (http://www.instructables.com/id/Pen-Safe/).
1 TeraByte iPhone coming soon? 2007-09-24 05:21:03 Now that I have you all excited, which this is very exciting, here's the scoop. Ok, so the catch in all this is that the 1TB would reside externally from your iPhone
and would actually be streamed over the web. But that's still great, right?
We recently posted a short link to the fake 'skim' project and now from the same programmer we give you iPhone streaming music. While it will involve slightly more than installing a program, it does include easy to follow instructions.
In a nutshell this places your iTunes library on a website hosted by your home computer or wherever your music resides and allows you to stream remotely wherever you have a signal or wi-fi. This even includes a nicely themed iPhone-like interface for when you're browsing your remote library through Safari.
While I personally haven't tested it with non-iPhone devices, I would imagine that this would also work with steaming music to other wireless devices such as PDAs and smart phones.
Check it out here
PHP QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) for the rest of us 2007-09-24 05:04:00 We've all seen the really cool QuickTime
Virtual Reality elements out there. They allow you to 'grab' an image and rotate it as if it were actually spinning. Normally this could only be done through various QuickTime or Flash programs, however there's a new PHP/JavaScript version with this same concept that you can get for free. All you need to do is drop the images you want to use into a folder along with this file and you're set.
The end result is much like the new skim feature in iPhoto.
See the example here (http://pixelcity.com/mustang/).
For more information and downloads, visit here (http://www.pixelcity.com/skim/).
Make your screen saver your OS X desktop 2007-09-24 04:21:06 While working in a design based environment there's always tons of really cool backgrounds on your coworkers desktops. So why not jazz yours up a little by making a dynamic background using your current screen
saver?
1. Open 'System Preferences' and select the screen saver you wish to use.
2. Open Terminal (Located in /Applications/Utilities/)
3. Enter in this command and press return: /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background
4. Enjoy! Remember, the more intense your screen saver, the more memory and CPU it will utilize.
The downside is you'll have to leave the Terminal window up, but you can always minimize that. When you're tired of seeing your background move, simply open the minimized Terminal window and press the Apple key and . at the same time. Enjoy!
Seniors protest free donut ban 2007-09-24 02:48:09 Like any morning at the elderly were playing games, creating crafts and demonstrating out front. Their protest? Could it be lack of affordable health care? Perhaps mishandling of their retirement funds? No, the quagmire of the day is the lack of free donuts.
The center receives on average around 16 cases of donated baked goods, however as of late they have been discarding these sweet treats as they are not healthy for the seniors. Putnam County decided that they were setting a bad example by providing these unhealthy treats. The seniors, in turn, decided to protest with sandwich board signs stating Give Us Our Just Desserts and They're Carbs, Not Contraband .
The center does provide lunch everyday for a suggested donation of $1.50, and there's nothing stopping the seniors from going to the doughnut shop or anywhere else they desire. Free is free, but the seniors don't like the idea that the center implied that they were gorging themselves on jelly donuts and were too senile to Read more:Seniors
Hidden Mac games 2007-09-23 13:39:19 Did you know that your OS X based Mac came with several 'hidden' games? They're actually Unix based games, however, I'm sure they'll keep you entertained just the same.
To play:
1. Open Terminal (Located in Applications/Utilities/)
2. Type 'ls /usr/share/emacs/21.2/lisp/play' this will show you what games are installed
3. Type 'emacs' and press return
4. Press Esc and and the 'x' key
5. Type in the game you want to play
Among my favorites are pong, snake, tetris, and doctor (a shrink that will help answers all the questions you ask yourself). There's also dunnet, an old text based adventure game.
Give it whirl, and let me know you like it by sending my an email at Andrew@v00.org. Read more:Hidden
Slowmo Mac Windows 2007-09-23 02:52:34 Not the most exciting tip we've ever published but, if you hold down the 'shift' key while opening a minimized window or using any of the Exposé commands the window will open in slow motion.
This also works for many applications. Perfect for when you want to slow your computer down to catch an error message or for a dramatic email opening! Read more:Windows
iPhone/AT&T to offer IM & photo messaging? 2007-09-21 10:32:01 One of the biggest aggravations from Apple iPhone
users is the absence of IM and picture messaging from their $400+ phones. Some reports have it that AT T sent text messages to their iPhone customers with this message:
AT T FREE Msg: Good News, your messaging package now includes text, picture instant messages all for the same price of $19.99 per month. No action required
It also appears that some users claim they've been getting these messages for the past year now, long before the iPhone came to be. My thoughts is it may require more of a firmware upgrade on the iPhone vs. a push of a button by the people with the Death Star logo.
I guess we'll find out, it's not like AT T has ever promised something and then not delivered. The official Verison Zero Zero opinion? Skeptical at best. Personally I have a Verizon powered Samsung Windows Mobile enabled
phone and have always had IM and photo messaging support along with a media player, ssh/telnet capabilities, web browser,
Backups illegal as Germany bans all duplication of media 2007-09-21 10:19:31 Who knew that the world would enter into a police state through our movies and music. Germany
took that step today with a law that will be enacted in 2008. The upper house of parliament approved a new copyright law that makes it illegal
for copy music and videos even for individuals. Under the new law storing these backups without prior permission is illegal. Furthermore, making digital copies of IPTV and TV broadcasts are also illegal. I'm not sure how this would work with iPods filled with non-iTunes purchased music. God forbid you should copy your music, then backup your backup onto a firewire!
Some consumer groups and the German Green Party have fought against these new measures to no avail. German federal justice minister Brigitte Zypries stated that the newly passed legislation brought German law in line with European Union codes.
That all makes sense as it is the EU who is demanding over half a billion dollars from Microsoft because they've gotten rich off of capitalism. Read more:Backups
, media
Download Command & Conquer Gold legally for free 2007-09-19 10:39:28 Any real time strategy (RTS) player out there has got to be, at least in some small way, a Command Conquer fan. C C was one of the first groundbreaking games in this genre. I fondly remember playing it for the first time at my brother's house 12 years ago when it was first released.
Now, thanks to the great people over at Electronic Arts, you can enjoy this once more, absolutely free! To celebrate Command and Conquer's 12th Anniversary, Electronic Arts offers a free download of Command Conquer Gold. There are two ISO's, one for GDI and the other for NOD. Be sure to download both.
Visit the official site here (http://www.commandandconquer.com/intel/default.aspx?id=61#NewsMain) to download the ISO's.
Download
CD 1: GDI Disk (http://largedownloads.ea.com/pub/misc/c_c/GDI95.iso)
Download CD 2 : NOD Disk (http://largedownloads.ea.com/pub/misc/c_c/NOD95.iso)
Not 100% sure if this includes the Windows XP patch to make this run on a non-Windows 95 machine, but if not you can
Great-grandmother arrested for killing lawn 2007-09-19 08:18:56 In Orem, Utah 70-year-old great grandmother Betty Perry pleaded not guilty to all the charges stemming from July 6th arrest.
Her terrible crime against all humanity and all that is called good? Brown grass, the most heinous crime of all mankind. At the sound of which mothers gather their children and run into the bomb shelter below the house. Ok, so it's not as bad as harboring weapons of mass destruction, but violating a homeowners association is no laughing matter!
Only July 6th, 2007 a Police Officer James Flygare arrived to issue her an official warning about the dried up lawn. During the encounter Perry refused to give the officer her name. She turned to go into the house to call her son to help sort out the matter when the officer charged her with resisting arrest, and according to Perry, hit her with his handcuffs thus injuring her nose. The police account maintains that she slipped and fell.
She was arrested
and spent over an hour in a holding cell before being the police Read more:Great
Logitech X-540 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System [Review] 2007-09-14 10:11:13 Not too long ago I was greeted with the reminder that I am another year older, and I have one less year in which to live. So why not live a little, right? As usual my wife was stumped as to what would make me jump up and down for joy on this oh so special day. Of course, when she asked, I had the perfect answer... Read more:Logitech
, Surround
, Sound
, Speaker
, System
Look out MacGyver! New Non-stick Chewing Gum Discovered 2007-09-14 03:25:26 Apparently things are happening over in the UK as British have developed a new type of chewing gum. Normally gum will stick to the pavement, and then it gets stuck on your shoe. As you struggle to get the fiendish goo off you inadvertently get it all over your shirt and once you realize that this has been in someone's mouth you drop it back on the pavement for the next lucky winner. No more thanks to Clean Gum from Revolymer.
The advantage of our Clean Gum is that it has a great taste, it is easy to remove and has the potential to be environmentally degradable, said Terence Cosgrove, a professor of chemistry who helped found Revolymer.
In researching this I've discovered that most gum contains a form of latex. This new formula introduces a polymer that modifies it's normally properties, thus, no stick'em. The company preformed various tests and the regular gum will stick to the pavement 3 out of 4 times. Clean Gum was always able to be removed within 24 hours. It also appear Read more:Chewing
British couple lives in Travelodge for over 20 years 2007-09-12 04:49:12 The Davidson's have a rather interesting living arrangement, they have lived in a Travelodge motel for the past 22 years. The 79-year-old David and 70-year-old Jean apparently discovered this grand idea while they were visiting an ill relative in 1985.
Now in the 22 years they've lived there, which makes up most of my life by the way, I've stayed in a few of the US based Travelodge locations. Needless to say, I've never thought about homesteading and taking up residence at on our their locations. There's a few other chains with very nice suites however that may merit such a rash life style change however.
Speaking of suites, in honor of their 10 year anniversary at the Grantham location, they are renaming their room the Davidson Suite as well as placing a plaque in the lobby. They lived the previous 12 years at the Newark Travelodge. Whenever they travel, they also stay at a Travelodge. Kind of sad in a way...I thought that was the whole point of a vacation?
Here's a few qu Read more:British
, couple
Steve Fossett, record-breaking US adventurer MIA 2007-09-04 11:30:36 Some sad news from AFP has recently come in. Sixty three year old Steve
Fossett, the legendary aviator whom on his sixth try crossed the globe solo in a balloon, has gone missing. Currently a search is underway over Nevada for the small plane he was piloting.
Civil
Thirteen aircraft were searching for Fossett in addition to ground crews , said Maj. Cynthia S. Ryan of the Civil Air Patrol.
We are committing maximum resources to this effort, she said. As far as we know now, it is still a rescue mission.
Reportedly he was scouting our locations for an upcoming attempt to break the land speed record. Currently he holds over 62 current world records, having set a total of over 100. From ballooning to gliding to sailing to mountain climbing, he's done it all.
Update 9/12/07:
Survival experts are now expressing their doubts that he's still alive. It appears as though they're still considering this a rescue mission.
Check back here for updates as we get more information
Pug Bowling 2007-09-04 08:09:54 ***Warning***No pugs were actually harmed, in theory, while filming this, I don't think... I found this on YouTube and couldn't resist sharing this out. Aparently this guys girl made him made, so his revenege making her pug a bowling star, and furry little bowling ball. Check out the link here (http://youtube.com/watch?v=zcKOQrz19Yg). Read more:Bowling
BusySync: Share your iCal easily via Bonjour on a LAN 2007-09-28 08:50:27 How in the world do you share out your iCal to other people in your local network with full Read/Write privileges? For me this has been one of the biggest issues as a Mac-based Network/Systems Administrator. Up until today the workarounds have been spotty at best and haven't always delivered the desired result.
Now thanks to BusySync from BusyMac, all your problems have been solved...at least those related to iCal.
To sweeten the deal, not only will BusySync share your iCal calendars, it also features daily backup system that keeps the last 10 backups handy for easy restoration. Read more:Share
Dockulicious: Customize Your Dock in a Jiffy 2007-11-16 12:00:00 Im sure youre all tired of hearing about the new dock in Leopard, however if youre like me, maybe youll find this application interesting and useful. Personally I enjoy the ability to swap out my dock with a drag a drop.
Now you can customize your possibly-hard-to-see dock by just dragging and dropping a .zip file onto the free program from Dockulicious (http://www.dockulicious.com/) called DockSwitcher (http://www.dockulicious.com/download/).
In essence this works exactly like all the other dock hacks out there
saturating message boards and blogs alike, minus the manual terminal
hacks. This way if you mess something up you can blame it on a program bug instead of a operator error. Ok, this program is very safe to operate and will not give you any cause for grief. Learn the scoop over at MacApper (http://macapper.com/2007/11/17/dockulicious-customize-your-dock-in-a-jiffy/).
RealPlayer 11: A Viable Media Player for Mac? 2007-11-16 12:00:00 Apparently for the last couple years, we were completely unaware
that the RealPlayer
format was still considered a viable streaming
solution, in the wake of Quicktime and Windows Media Players growing
popularity.
After trying out their previously adware/spyware ridden Windows
version a few years back I completely swore off the company altogether.
So, will this latest edition change our minds about how we view
RealPlayer? Read my entire article over at MacApper (http://macapper.com/2007/11/17/realplayer-11-media-player-mac/). Read more:Viable
Site of the week: woot! 2007-11-27 02:40:38 woot.com (http://www.woot.com/)
The main woot! website
sellout.woot.com (http://sellout.woot.com/)
This actually redirects to Yahoo Shopping but offers a different deal
than woot.com. Generally I've noticed they're a little higher priced
but still filled with plenty of great bargins
shirt.woot.com (http://shirt.woot.com/)
Same concept as the others, except for they deal only in shirts. My
wife loves visiting this everyday and seeing the usually humorous
printed t-shirts. They're normally $10 with free shipping or for an
additional $5 you can get it overnighted. Sometimes they're offer a
random shirt for $6.66.
wine.woot.com (http://wine.woot.com/)
For the discerning connoisseur of the finer things. Mostly wines with the occasional wheel-o-cheese.
Stop by all of them every morning and enjoy the loot! Woot!
Thanks to Tetris, I Understand Life 2008-02-18 12:00:00 I guess I could be referred to as a Tetris
addict. As soon as I get a new cell phone the first game, if not the only game, loaded is Tetris. It makes for a great time filler as well as offers a challenge if I have the spare time to play for more then 10 minutes. Boring meetings, waiting for the wife, or waiting for my ship to arrive in Ouray Base while playing Freelancer – Tetris is there for me.
My time has not been wasted in vain as I've learned some extremely valuable life lessons that indeed make me a better person today.
• Much as you would love your life to be neat and orderly, sometimes it's just not possible.
• Sometimes things go your way and all the pieces of your life come together. Other times you're left with gaping holes that you'll need to fill before moving on Read more:Thanks
, Understand
Woman sues Best Buy for $54,000,000 2008-02-18 01:50:10 Best Buy, the most customer friendly *coughs* retail chain in the world, has really done it this time. Raelyn Campbell is suing them for $54 million US dollars. Even if she won the big yellow price tag company would end up trying to pay her in worthless gift cards no doubt.
So, what could possibly be worth $54 million? Try a lost notebook computer. Campbell was suckered into the in-store extended warranty program and decided to use it's coverage to repair a broken power switch on her laptop.
Apparently Best Buy had no quarrels accepting the computer and telling her it would be ready within 6 weeks. After 6 weeks past there was still no laptop for Raelyn. Three months later they ended up offering her $900 in gift cards for her laptop she had purchased for $1,100 because they could not Read more:Best Buy
Logitech Vantage USB Headset for Playstation 2-3 & PC 2008-02-12 13:03:41 $19.99, free after rebate, at Tiger Direct.
Nominal shipping fees apply.
Experience superior comfort and audio clarity with the Logitech
USB
Headset
for PlayStation 2 3. The digital USB audio processor and
noise-canceling microphone produce crystal-clear sound and high-quality
voice input for command recognition and voice chat for games like
SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs. The adjustable headband and interchangeable
earpads provide exceptional comfort for long gaming sessions.
Get yours here! (-Details.asp?EdpNo=3428392 sku=L23-7842 AffiliateID=ITZn_6wkl8U-5he7YcyocErbRZufFBfBGg) Read more:Vantage
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