Monthly Archives: August 2006

Windows Install Complete

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Well, the window installation is complete.

In general, I’m quite pleased. The windows are exactly what we wanted … very sold, very secure, and they look pretty good too.

It took a little longer than originally promised, but that was because the installers were using power tools and it started to rain on Friday. They came on Tuesday and completed the job.

I only have two real gripes …

  1. They put a half inch quarter round trim piece on on the inside of the windows … which makes it almost impossible to reinstall the old blinds the way they were. I kind of knew this was going to happen, but I think there should have been a way to put a trim piece up without making re-installation of the blinds difficult.
  2. I was a little annoyed when the installation coordinator didn’t return my call when I needed to change the credit card, but she was able to void the original charge and resubmit on the correct card.

The installers were absolutely the best … a father & son team. Both from Poland. The father didn’t speak a lot of english, but his son was easy to interact with. They installed the windows neatly and securely. They even helped out when I was trying to figure out a way to remount the window blinds. When they were done with the interior, they cleaned up better than our cleaning service.
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FISA and Bush

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I guess justice isn’t blind after all …

A federal judge ruled today that the government’s warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

– Judge orders end to NSA wiretapping — Baltimore Sun

In her ruling, Judge Diggs states:

“In this case, the President has acted, undisputedly, as FISA forbids. FISA is the expressed statutory policy of our Congress. The presidential power, therefore, was exercised at its lowest ebb and cannot be sustained.”

[tags]FISA, spying, easedropping, bush, national security[/tags]

Brookfield Zoo

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Well, as you can probably guess, Ginny and I went to the Brookfield Zoo today. It was a really nice day … not too hot, a bit cloudy (but not too bad).

Of course, one of the major reasons I wanted to go was to work with my new camera some more. It’s fairly different than the old one and I still need to get used to it.

One of the things I really wanted to check out is the frame rate (number of frames you can shoot in a second). Now it’s not entirely normal to refer to a frame rate for a SLR cameras, but in this case it’s applies. Actually, the proper term is probably ‘Drive mode’. As I have mentioned before, the frame rate on my old camera was quite low … 3 frames per second with a 4 frame buffer. The frame rate on the new camera is quite nice … as illustrated with this picture of a dolphin jumping out of the water. I was able to set the film on it’s fastest drive mode with the auto-focus in “AI Servo” mode (which means the auto-focus is constantly adjusting itself instead of trying to determine if the subject is moving), and I was able to catch a LOT of action.

I had to increase the light levels on the dolphin pictures, as I was using a pretty fast shutter speed, and the light in the “Seven Seas” exhibit was kind of low, but I’m pretty pleased with the result.

[tags]Zoo, Brookfield, dolphin, Canon 30D[/tags]

Phishing Response

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Today … like most days … I received phishing spam … nothing new about that.

Just out of idle curiosity, I clicked on the link they indicated (a bogus E*Trade site) to see what it looked like … this is a screen shot of what I saw …

afraid-org-banned-user.jpg

I have to tip my hat to Joshua Anderson, who runs afraid.org … his response to the phishing attempt was absolutely the best thing that could be done.

I wish other service providers responded in similar fashion.

[tags]phishing, spam, security, isp, tos[/tags]