Category: Geek Alert!

I’ve often thought that maybe I should start using the “category” functionality of movable type where you can specify certain categories for each entry. I’ve never really thought that I would use or need it that much, but then I find my entries generally falling into a few categories. This would fall into the “Geek Stuff” category.
For those who may not know, the all-powerful Google have introduced their own web based email (like hotmail, yahoo mail, etc.), called Gmail. It’s currently in beta testing and the only way to get an account is to be invited by someone already in it, or get randomly chosen. For example, they randomly choose people with Blogger accounts (since Blogger is part of Google now). I was interested in checking it out so I checked my seldom used Blogger account to see if I had an invite. Negative. On a whim I checked my wife’s Blogger account. Bingo! Knowing that she would probably never notice it, and even more likely would have no interest in it, I took the invite and made my own Gmail account.
Since I have my own domain, I don’t really need an online email account, but I did occasionally use Hotmail when there were problems with my account, or when certain ISPs had my server blocked because they think my shared server sends spam (though this is a false claim, getting unblocked from an ISP is next to impossible). Goodbye Hotmail. Gmail will be my new alternate mail. Not only because I like Google far more than Microsoft, but because it is innovative, slick, and very cool. They give you a gigabyte of space, and encourage “archiving” as opposed to outright deleting. Then you can do a search through your old mail at any time. No more need for separating things into folders, since you can just do a search for “llamas” if you’re searching for that old email about what to do if your Llama has a stomach ache from eating your A-team action figures.
Keyboard shortcuts and other cool features make me actually want to use Gmail, but I doubt I could ever give up using my main heathallyn.com address and the ability to check it with Outlook or other POP3 mail programs. However, if they add POP3 access in the future, it will become even more tempting. If there’s anyone who needs a cool web based email, and wants to try Gmail, I have 3 invites left to give out.

I’ve previously discussed how my wife and I are currently addicted to City of Heroes. This has been taking up all our free time lately. Our Netflix movies sit unwatched (the $20 a month fee isn’t so economical when you let 3 movies sit for months), yet I refuse to cancel, because Netflix rocks, and I am determined that we will again get our use out of it.
Our Gamecube sits unused. Metroid Prime, Rogue Squadron 2, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Mariokart, and others sit unplayed and unfinished. Of course, my consoles always end up neglected in favor of my computer, so I don’t know why I keep venturing there. Once I bought a stand alone DVD player, I sold my PS2 and games as a bundle on Ebay. I haven’t had a case of “Nintendo thumb” in a long while (though I have developed some bad City of Heroes hand).
On the computer front alone, there are many games out that I want to play (I’ve still never finished Jedi Academy, which is installed on my computer”. There are many more coming out in the future that I am eagerly anticipating. Tabula Rasa, and World of Warcraft may give City of Heroes some competition. Middle-Earth Online appeals in concept, but somehow it just hasn’t grabbed me.
One game, I am determined to make time for, however, is Evil Genius. I will play this game.

I’ve been quite lax with the updating lately. Partially because I’m a lazy bastard and partially because we’ve been firmly entrenched playing “City of Heroes” a new super hero online game. Very much fun.
There are so many hero ideas I’ve had that I want to try. Currently I’m playing this hero. It all started when I was trying to figure out how I could possibly use my online pseudonym, Nos402. It seemed like a strange “name” for a hero. Mostly because of the numbers. I joked that I’d be some kind of vampire robot, and Jess loved the idea. I then concocted a back-story, which actually made that feasible. I was quite happy with it and my character rocks. Much, much fun. If any of you join up, seek us out on the Virtue server! Jess is playing The Grr.
It’s consuming much of our time. Several other of our friends are playing and we joined a “supergroup” with some cool people.
Other than that, jobs suck, life is alright, and everone should eat more queso.

If anyone is playing the new MMORPG, City Of Heroes, Jess and I (plus some friends) are on the Virtue server. Get in touch with me!

I recently set out on a quest to find one remote to rule them all. I was sick of needing 6 remotes. The problem was I refused to bother unless I could truly replace them all. Not have “most” of the functionality, but never have to touch them again (of course there are many functions that I never ever use, but that’s beside the point). One big sticking point was my TiVo. Obviously it has some very specialized buttons, and I love my little TiVo remote.
After much research I narrowed it down to a few choices. I decided I definitely wanted buttons, and not a touch screen. I’ve heard many people say you never realize how much you navigate by tactile sensation until you don’t have it. There was a $100 the MX-500, remote that could “learn” any key from any other remote, and was mostly hard buttons with a small lcd that has some programmable buttons, but in the end I went with the One For All URC-6131, which is made to accommodate TiVos and TiVo like devices.
Of course the normal $18 one wasn’t good enough though. Since it’s not a learning remote, you have to rely on pre-programmed codes, which many times have most, but not all the functions you want. Therefore I got the hot rodded model with a special chip and a JP-1 interface, and included JP-1 cord to hook up to my computer. This required delving into the world of JP-1 which is very techie, and not for the weak hearted. There are entire sites, a Yahoo group, forums, and more dedicated to it. I scoured them learning about programming codes, EFC’s, Hex codes, OBC’s, and many other spoonfuls of alphabet soup. I got a few of my devices working with no problem, but a few were determined to be difficult. There was a steep learning curve, but just as I was about to give up on it all, I had a breakthrough, and from there, things started flowing.
After many posts on the forums, I determined that my best solution was to buy another remote, the One For All 8810w, available at Wal-mart, purely as a helping tool. The reason being, that it can “learn” 4 buttons, and is JP-1 ready, so I could learn buttons from my remotes with the 8810w, then use on of the programs to look at the learned codes, and use that information to help me program my own device upgrade with a few proprietary programs and spreadsheets, and upload them to my 6131,which really is the best of the bunch as far as form and function. The designers really put a lot of thought into, and I am impressed.
I am happy to say that I now have one remote that controls all 6 devices in my entertainment center, and does so marvelously. There are now 7 remotes put away in the entertainment center cabinet (6 devices, and the extra universal used just for learning buttons so as to steal their code).
In addition to that, we got Jess’s website going (aside from email which up to the web host to figure out what’s up), got her started on Movable Type, and got her Reblogger working (for Lisa’s sake), ran a bunch of errands today, and framed our authentic Egyptian papyrus scroll. All in all, it’s been a productively geeky weekend.

I have been using Popfile with Outlook Express for a long time now. Basically, Popfile allows you to set up “buckets” and then filter mail into them. For example you could have the buckets “mail”, “spam”, “work related”, and “family” to filter emails that fall into those categories. It’s totally customizable, and you can configure buckets for anything you want. It uses “Baysean filtering” to intelligently learn what mail goes into what bucket. If it gets something incorrect, you reclassify it, and it learns. I found it to keep a roughly 98% accuracy after it’s initial learning curve. Very cool.
Well in my recent email client experimenting I decided to give Outlook a closer look instead of Outlook express. One reason was that I could use Pocket Mirror to sync my Palm Vx PDA up with Outlook, thus keeping my addresses and calendar easily synced up between the two. I was thrilled to find Outclass. Which adds this functionality into Outlook. You still have to install Popfile, but that’s it. You don’t run or configure Popfile at all, just merely have it installed. Outclass then takes over and does everything natively within Outlook, including adding buttons to the tool bar to easily reclassify mail and access settings and such. I’ll still be keeping an eye on Mozilla Thunderbird, but for the moment, Outlook, along with Pocket Mirror, Popfile, and Outclass, has definitely taken over as my mail client.

Maybe you’re putting an entry in your blog, or writing an entry on a message board. If you’re like me you probably quite often think “Damn, I wish I could spell check this easily without cutting and pasting into Word.” Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just right click the text in the entry box and spell check it?
www.iespell.com I am filled with geeky joy.
I use Crazy Browser , and while I can’t use the tool bar button, or the “tools” menu option (since the program is meant for IE), the right click menu option does work! Wooo!