Monthly Archives: July 2002

The ultimate sound library

Bruce Campbell quotes galore! Groovy!

http://www.tvwavs.com/bcwavs/

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Quote of the Day

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.
The last is to say thank you.”
      — Max DePree

(thanks to Steve Wright)

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I said that?

I love being quoted in press releases – my quotes are much better than anything I could (and would) ever say in reality. I wish I had my own PR person for daily life.

“That was a fine sandwich”, stated a satisfied Mr. Jarnot. “I find Wendy’s Grilled Chicken Sandwiches ™ to be of a quality quite unlike that of any competitor”.

:-)

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-29-2002/0001773316&EDATE=

BTW, I had signed off on the quote – Rackspace is a fantastic hosting provider.

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My earliest Usenet post

Thanks to Google:

From: Kevin Jarnot (jarnot@canisius.UUCP)
Subject: Re: Hard disks
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
View: Complete Thread (3 articles) | Original Format
Date: 1989-05-08 01:09:36 PST

In article , grinberg@bimacs.BITNET (Dennis Grinberg) writes:
> I have a clone (Taiwanese)_ that a bought a couple of years ago from a store
> that has since seen red. (I told you so…) My hard disk (Microscience
> 100341-001) has recently been giving problems. I can’t even test it with
> Nortons DT because when trying to read one of the clusters (marked as bad)
> it gives a “Disk C: not ready” and quits.
>
> I’d like to do a low level format (I do not have spinrite), the gc800:0005
> doesn’t do anything and the INT 13 interrupts documented in the _old_
> IBM XT technical reference don’t seem to work for me. My controller
> is an Adaptec, the only other identification on it is the BIOS which says
> 405702-00A 1986 and another chip with 405701-00 1986.
>
> Anybody have any ideas?

Dennis, I recommend a great program called Disk Manager. It will allow you
to install many different non-compatible drives on a PC/XT/AT. Works very
well, but be fore-warned, it uses device drivers for partitioning, and they
MAY get lossed (therefore, losing your data). Probably won’t happen, though (knock on wood).

> Last question: Can anyone list the different types of AT drives?

By the way, a VERY complete listing of drives comes with Disk Manager (with
many specs on said drives, also).

Kevin

UUCP …!(decvax|watmath|allegra|rocksvax)!sunybcs!canisius!jarnot
BITNET JARNOT@CANISIUS WWIVnet 3@7650
“Damn, these chancres hurt!” | All ideas expressed are mine..
-Friedrich Nietzsche | GOD, what great ideas they are!

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Porcupine Tree at the Middle East

My brother Jamie and I went to see Porcupine Tree play last night at the Middle East in Cambridge. Wow, what an excellent show. The opening band, Event was technically strong (Berklee grads), but IMNSHO pretty awful in the song writing department. To (mis)quote Jamie, “that was the worst act I’ve ever seen”. Every song started off with the bass going THUD THUD….THUD THUD….THUD THUD….followed by 5 minutes of guitar shredding (d00d! he shr3ds!). I guess I’ll never appreciate prog-metal. Oh well.

Jamie also pointed out the large number of pudgy, pony-tailed, middle-aged balding men. These guys were obviously the “keepers of the prog flame”. Guys who grew up in the 70’s who still wear their Nektar, Gentle Giant, and King Crimson t-shirts. Myself in 10 years? Definately no pony tail, hopefully not as pudgy.

Porcupine Tree came on around 10:30 (past the usual bedtime of this suburban dad). Every song was dead on perfect. The sound was great (after I put in my earplugs, that is), the light show was good, and best of all the band pulled off every song perfectly. Steven Wilson, the band’s leader, apologized that this was their first show in quite some time and that things were going wrong, but I couldn’t tell. They played 3-4 new songs from their upcoming album “In Absentia”, and each was better than the next.

Half way through the set, Wilson brought up the subject of P.T.’s reputation of being a “drug band” (news to me), mostly due to their psychedelic roots and songs like “Pure Narcotic“:

“I’ve written songs about serial killers, committing suicide, and the Earth being destroyed by nuclear blasts…it IS possible to write lyrics from an objective perspective”.

Amen.

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How to configure Windows Installer logging

Just saw this on Lockergnome.

If you want to configure Windows Installer logging:

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Policies \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Installer. Add a new String value, double-click it, and enter the following Value data: “voicewarmup” (sans quotes). These letters can be entered in any order:

  • v = Verbose output
  • o = Out- of-disk-space messages
  • i = Status messages
  • c = Initial UI parameters
  • e = All error messages
  • w = Non-fatal warnings
  • a = Start up of actions
  • r = Action-specific records
  • m = Out-of- memory or fatal exit information
  • u = User requests
  • p = Terminal properties.

If you add a plus, the existing file will be appended. If you add an exclamation mark, each line is flushed. Now, when something fails, I just have to check in the “Temp” directory and look for my log files. They’ll vary in name, but will always start with “Msi” and end with the .LOG extension. As always, make sure to backup your registry before making any modifications.

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Kevin Speaks (part trois)

A recap: a few months ago, I was a guest on an investor conference call hosted by Prudential Financial analyst John McPeake. The subject for the hour long call was Open Source software in the enterprise.

I just received a transcript of the call the other day, and it’s available for your enjoyment (PDF).

OK, so I say “sure” a lot. Big deal. :-)

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