Archive | December, 2003

Snow finally stopped drifting down around 3 PM, and I even saw a bit of blue sky and sunshine just before the sun settled below the pines. Two feet of snow, plus or minus, was the final tally. Man, am I sore from shovelling!

The question of whether a computer can think
is no more interesting than the question
of whether a submarine can swim.

— Edsger W. Dijkstra

A recent article that the firmware in the LinkSys WRT54G wireless cable router was causing problems at DynDNS prompted me to update the firmware on mine, which was woefully out of date. Firmware flashing is not something to be done lightly, as it could corrupt the machine, the new firmware could have “unanticipated side-effects” – bugs to us users – or not be fully tested. However, this one seemed severe enough to update.

If you own one, I’d suggest you grab all of your existing settings before flashing the unit. A few screens in the web-based configuration allow you to save off files to disk. A neat way to save all of the others is to print out each page – I save all of mine to PDF for reference, but paper might be less volatile. While many settings seem to have been preserved, my WEP 128-bit encryption key is gone, as is the list of MAC addresses.

UPDATE: No, the settings were saved, but WEP and MAC filtering were disabled. RE-enabling the settings brought back the display of the WEP key and the MAC addresses. Nothing to type back in – whew!

Batten down the hatches! Looks like we’ll have [UPDATED] 7 inches 12 inches 18 inches 2 FEET of snow cover before the weekend is out…

WINTER STORM WATCH – Merrimack (New Hampshire). …THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH FOR SATURDAY THROUGH SUNDAY…
Issued At: 2003-12-05T08:56:00
Expired At: 2003-12-05T23:50:00
Issuing Weather Forecast Office Homepage: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/gyx/ [New Hampshire: Current Watches, Warnings and Advisories for New Hampshire Issued by the National Weather Service]

I didn’t know that Borders workers were trying to unionize. They are not having a good time of it. From their website:

“Workers at the Borders Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Mich., went on strike Saturday, November 8, to protest the companyâs unfair labor practices. Also at issue are low wages and poor health benefits for employees. The Ann Arbor bookstore is the original Borders, which has grown into one of the largest bookstore chains in the country with more than 400 shops.”

“In December 2002, the Ann Arbor workers voted 51 to 4 in favor of forming a union, which has been organized within the AFL-CIO-affiliated United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). Negotiations over the past 11 months between the union and management have failed to yield a contract. In early October, union members voted to reject a minimal offer by management, and later in the month authorized the union to strike.”

Steven Black responds to my earlier posting on “White Papers as PDF” with this pointer to Jakob Nielsen’s site: “Thumbs down, Ted. Here’s why: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html”

I agree with Neilsen’s thesis that PDF is not a legitimate format for web pages, and that they are awkward to manipulate. As an experienced PDF author and reader, I have become accustomed to some of the idiosyncracies and appreciate some of the features. For the general public, they are a frustration.

I was looking at a painless and quick way of getting white papers up on the web, suitable for download. They print prettier that way, but they are not web pages. Perhaps I should offer both choices for those who want to read online, and for the search engines to pick up.

Computerworld News reports that Yahoo Instant Messenger contains security flaw. “The buffer overrun vulnerability was found in a file named “yauto.dll,” an ActiveX component of Yahoo Messenger software in versions up to 5.6.0.1347.”

The article includes suggestions on what to do to avoid the problems, as well as advice on disabling ActiveX controls in your browser and Active Scripting, an IE only feature. Better yet, don’t use IE.