I have heard stories about dying power supplies in PCs, and the weirdness that comes when one is ready to go. This morning the power supply in the PC on my desk died, and it tried to give me some indication, but only when it finally quit did I understand.

I powered on the system and waited for it to come up. It turned itself off again. I tried to power it on again and it did it again. Thinking perhaps the power cord was loose, I adjusted it and turned it back on. This time it came on and stayed up when I logged in. However, about 15 minutes after I logged in, there was an enormous POP like a gunshot, and the screen went black. There was the smell of burning chemicals as well, and I immediately unplugged the PC.

I removed the old power supply and dropped in a spare. It came up immediately. I decided to take apart the old power supply, and what I found was that a capacitor inside had exploded.

This was a new one on me.

When I plug my iPod into the computer, sometimes it shows up as an external hard drive to which I can write and retrieve files. At other times, it is on there as a device that interats with iTunes only and does not appear as a storage device.

This does not bother me, but it puzzles me. Why is it sometimes appearing in the drive list, and other times not?

Last Christmas I managed to find a 60GB Video iPod in time for the Christmas rush, and I have been enjoying it ever since.

One of the things I decided to do was to put some movies on there and see how it does with playing movies. After all, it is a VIDEO iPod, so it should handle a music video or two. This was not as simple as I had hoped, but it did not take too much effort once I knew what to do.

First off, the iPod does not recognize mpg, mov, wmv, or avi files. So, putting in a stock video does not work. What is needed is software that can make the conversion. I picked Xilisoft's iPod DVD Converter and Video Converter applications (there are several applications to do this stuff, and they all are roughly equivalent so it comes down to what application is most intuitive). These do the deed for almost everything, although I managed to find a music video that would not convert, using ANY application, so that one didn't go.

Ripping from DVD was more or less a mindless task. Set the tracks I want, tell application to rip, and come back later. To pull one DVD of episodes of 24, it takes approximately an hour. There is no hurrying the process.

When done, add the directory containing the episodes to the iTunes library, then tell iTunes to update the iPod. That's all there is to it.

How does it work? Nice. With the earbuds in, it is very much like watching TV on a 2"x1.5" screen, which is not nearly as bad as it sounds - no commercials, and you can watch in bed without waking the spouse. The catch is that watching video on the iPod drains the battery very quickly.

A while back (probably before I scrubbed this blog and started over, I'm too lazy to go look right now), I wrote an entry about ad blockers. I settled on the Proxomitron as my ad blocker of choice, and it has served me well. I have since discovered that the Proxomitron (and its evil kid sister, Proximodo) almost work, but they have a minor flaw that is difficult to identify.

I noticed that in FireFox and Opera, Yahoo! Mail is broken. The buttons do not work. This is not so in MSIE, so I assumed that FireFox and Opera have issues. However, I eventually came to the realization that I have all but MSIE pointed to the Proxomitron. When I quit using Proxomitron as a proxy server for FireFox, suddenly Yahoo! Mail started to work as expected. Opera did the same.

So, when using an ad blocker, even one that seemingly works well, expect some things to get broken. Ad blockers rewrite the page for you, and sometimes there are obscure consequences.

I am always looking for useful tooks to do various stuff on the computer, and one area for which I've been seeking tools is writing. Good tools can make a project a lot easier, and this is true for writing. I found a few really good tools for writing, tools that are highly useful and will not break the bank.

Writer's Cafe

Writer's Cafe is an especially interesting writing tool, primarily for it's StoryLines component. StoryLines is set up much like a virtual cork board, where you create index cards and arrange them on the board by story thread. It is easy to work with, intuitive, and actually fun. The idea is to plot out a story visually before writing out the final version so that everything is organized and clear, without sacrificing actual index cards. The paradigm works well.

Writer's Cafe itself includes a rudimentary journal and notebook as well as a timer, "cookie" prompt, a card game and a few other goodies. Good stuff!

As of this writing, Writer's Cafe goes for $45 US for the download version. All updates are free.

The Journal

I needed to find a system by which I could store bread recipes and pictures, and I also wanted something that would serve as a catch-all for basic personal writing. Translation - I wanted an electronic scrapbook with a little more versatility that Writer's Cafe offers for that purpose. I decided to look for a journaling program, and The Journal was the best of the best. It is small, fast, very powerful, and easy to use. I have set up a series of volumes within, one of which has roughly 30 bread recipes I make on a regular basis.

The Journal also has some good security features, that make it attractive for people who need privacy. I elected to go with the Enhanced Security version even though I really do not need it, and so far it has served me well. No one gets in without my being there to tap in the password, and no one knows the password but me.

As of this writing, The Journal goes for $39.95 US for the base download version. Updates are free within major version, after which there is upgrade pricing.

Liquid Story Binder

I found Liquid Story Binder when I was trying to find a tool to help me organize a large body of work I have done already. StoryLines in Writer's Cafe is a great tool for NEW projects, but to backfit an old project that is over 2,400 pages is extremely tough. LSB is a much better fit - it divides everything up by volume and chapter, and each chapter can have notes associated with it, outlines, pictures and more. It has an awesome storyboard editor, and it saves most of it's stuff in RTF format so you can get to it with other writing tools. Finally, I can get my stuff organized.

On average it seems the author updates this package about every two weeks. What is interesting is that it seems most updates contain a major new feature of some kind.

As of this writing, Liquid Story Binder goes for $45.95 US. All updates are free.

I have been using Bayesian filters for my email for a while now. I have tried several different ones, and I have had varied experiences with them. Due to a change in client usage, I had to abandon some in favor of others, but in the end I have benefitted from more knowledge and, ultimately, better solutions.

I used to use The Bat! for my email here in the office. It does a wonderful job of sorting mail and even has a Bayesian filter plugin included, called BayesIT! that supposedly does a good job of chopping down spam. That was not my experience at all. In fact, BayesIT! never once successfully filtered anything, even after training. I switched to Winkler's Bayes Filter Plugin and got significantly better results, with a success ratio around 95%. That's not so bad, but it still means about 50 spams in the inbox per thousand messages.

I have since been converted over to Outlook here in the office (required, due to the calendar and coordination tools) and again I found myself looking for a good filter. I have SpamEaterPro which is a heuristic filter, but it's accuracy has a lot to do with the diligence of maintaining the whitelists and blacklists and it has gotten squirrely in its stability. Outlook's built-in spam filter is ok, but it still is not as effective as what I had before. So, I turned it off and looked for a better way. After trying several filters, I found a freebie on SourceForge called SpamBayes, which is an actual Outlook plugin (it can be set up as a proxy-style of filter too, although I have not tried this yet) and set about training it.

SpamBayes record is 2 spams in the inbox in 750+ messages, or about 99.7%. I like it.

I know there are more filters out there, and I am sure there are some that are even more effective. However, it comes down to whether my time is better spent worrying about 0.3% of messages or just dealing with it. I think I'm done looking for now.

I have held a subscription to Dr. Dobb's Journal since the summer of 1994. When I first took out the subscription, it was a very technical magazine with lots and lots of good articles relating to very specific programming topics. I have seen a steady decline in the content quality, to the point that I just don't bother reading that magazine anymore. I decided that I would terminate my subscription when the renewal notices came, and so I did.

Another magazine I get is C/C++ User's Journal. It is more along the lines of what I appreciate in a technical magazine for coding. This weekend I got my issue of CUJ with a letter attached. It said that CUJ is being discontinued and that my subscription will be converted over to....Dr. Dobb's Journal.