Personal

This will be Juliana's first Jones Soda label, which is good because Sabrina has already been on over half a dozen. All of the Top 20 pictures will be on a Jones Soda label available in stores but only one, based on votes, will be chosen as the 10k Jones Soda label.

Normally I don't ask for people to vote for contests from this site, but I will make an exception this time.

Please go and vote here for the girl looking into the train window and casting a reflection. The last name should give away which photo my wife took (Cassandra N. Tiensivu - Photo #: 554644).

Story behind the photo: Juliana was watching the trees go by on the Coopersville/Marne train, which is somewhat near our house. She was in an exceptionally crabby mood that day, so it doesn't surprise me that she was sticking her tongue out like that.

I am also a bit of a fan of Jones Soda because they are one of the only companies that uses actual cane sugar in their products, instead of corn syrup. It is the same reason Coke from Mexico tastes better in a glass bottle than anything you can buy in the stores in the USA. Ditto for Dr. Pepper from the Dublin bottling plant.

Some people are into collecting wines - I'm into truly 'classic' sodas. It is a cheaper hobby too.

This is a bit of a blast from the past but in the 90s, I liked to hack on the Linux kernel code and keep an eye on the development versions as they were released. Due to being a college student, my systems were rather cobbled together and not necessarily the fastest, so I was always looking for ways to make them run faster.

Based on a Slashdot article that mentioned an open-source code search engine, I decided to check to see how many of my 'code hacks' were still out there.

A few patches dealt with the Linux kernel TGA framebuffer, specifically on the DEC Alpha Multia, which at one point was my primary workstation. It was 64-bit before all the cool kids were doing it! I think I still have one in storage that runs the Digital Alpha version of Windows NT 4.0, and an early beta of Windows 2000 before the Alpha support was canned. Hopefully the hard drive still spins up but I suspect the power regulator on the motherboard is probably shot, which happened quite a bit on those systems.

The one patch I am most proud of made it officially into the TTY console layer of the Linux kernel in the 1.3 or 2.0 kernel era. I mention it from time to time to people, and due to how much Microsoft and other non-Linux 'stuff' I do these days, they tend to react as if I am making it up.

Thankfully, this is the proof that it really happened.

At one point I had a very temperamental Sound Blaster CD-ROM which had a custom interface card that plugged into the ISA port of my system. Due to some of the "interesting" code changes I made to the Sound Blaster CD driver, I was able to make the kernel driver about half the size and also make my CD-ROM spin up correctly 100% of the time. The standard kernel driver used to fall over when it received some of the error codes my hardware was throwing at it. Almost all of those original Sound Blaster CD-ROM drives had a defect that would eventually make them fail completely and no longer read any CD inserted into the caddy.

So, basically, I'm taking a little trip down code memory lane with this search engine.

According to this site here, the local ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX channels are already uplinked and it is only a matter of time before they 'go live'.

From what I can tell, it is supposed to happen late April or early May 2008. The only channel I can receive OTA without use of a massive UHF Yagi antenna is WZZM 13, which broadcasts not too far away from here. Unfortunately if I use signal boosters to amp the other channels, TV 13 becomes too overpowered for my TV. Honestly, I haven't spent much time on the problem overall.

Ideally, for the best picture quality, I'd love to be able to pull all the stations in OTA but it just isn't going to happen where we live. Maybe when everything switches over to UHF in early 2009, we will receive better OTA signals.

I've been writing up a blog entry for this all week but haven't quite completed it yet. I've wanted to post it earlier but this week has been one big Murphy's Law in one way or another. I do this site in my free time and my free time has been non existent for the most part since flying back to Michigan.

I fly out Sunday afternoon, as long as the FAA doesn't decide to do more airplane inspections. I'll be in Seattle/Redmond until Thursday night. I'm hoping to see some familiar faces and meet many new ones.

In other, rather strange news, I have obstructive sleep apnea and it is pretty bad. I had a sleep study a few weeks ago and I stopped breathing at least 65 times overnight, which worked out to be about every 4 minutes.

I'll most likely end up getting a CPAP machine, so I will end up sounding like Darth Vader at night, but most likely sleep much better.

I spent part of last night and part of tonight watching a guy wearing a horse mask play guitar and drums, while rocking out to various songs. He did this for four hours straight last night. I still don't understand why it was so entertaining, but I'm not going to question it.

If you want to see Mr. Hands Returns doing Michael Jackson's "Can't stop until you get enough", check out this YouTube video here.

And of course, he also performed Rick Ashley, saved on video here.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, check out Y! Live.

It might be one of those "You had to be there" situations to understand why it was so funny at the time. Definitely an unintentional use of technology if I have ever seen one.

I always forget how to do this and I need to do this from time to time, and end up searching the internet for the instructions again.

Taken from here, here is a great way of getting all of your TV2 remotes on the same IR/UHF channel, which is important for non-Dish devices trying to talk to Dish hardware:

1. Push System Info button on the Dish PVR.
2. Using the remote you want to adjust, press and release SAT once.
3. Press RECORD 3 times.
4. Press and hold SAT until all lights light up.
5. Release SAT and SAT should be blinking.
6. Using the number pad on the remote, enter the desired number (between 1 and 15)
7. Press # once.
8. Press RECORD once.
9. Exit System Info.

Up to this point, you've just programmed the receiver to listen for signals from a specific remote on a specific channel. To complete the process, you now need to program the remote to send its signals on the correct channel. To do so:

10. Repeat steps 4-7.
11. Test the remote's functions on the TV to which it is associated.

Apparently, this started on March 2nd, 2008. Anytime you go over 5GB in a month, you get slapped with $0.49 per MB charges.

I signed up a few years ago when they were first rolling out EVDO nationwide. My account still shows "Unlimited", although based on the fact that they were sued in the past on their definition of "Unlimited", I will be watching my bill closely the next few months.

I predict a mass exodus away from Verizon's EVDO plans if they continue to do this. Why? 5GB a month is extremely easy to go over in a month's time.

Mind you, we're not playing World of Warcraft or downloading BitTorrent content. This is strictly web content, e-mail, and an occasional RDP session which I must do for work from time to time. Even so, when I do "work stuff", I typically try to use my work phone for the data usage.

Sprint has been aggressively rolling out EVDO in Ottawa county due to the broadband agreement they reached with the county and AllTel is all around us otherwise. Even though I enjoy EVDO Rev. A speeds, I will drop Verizon like a bad habit if they try to retroactively apply these new charges to our account. It isn't what we signed up for, and it is not in our contract.

Sprint and AllTel have good roaming agreements for EVDO and they don't have these excessive charges.

If Verizon Wireless was the only provider in the area, we'd be "stuck with them", much like our cable situation. We have Charter cable available in our neighborhood but it is analog only. I am curious if the 2009 digital TV cut over will affect the "analog only" situation, but I suspect they are not going to upgrade us anytime soon. There is plenty of interest in our neighborhood for cable modems but that never seems to change their plans.

I'm not necessarily excited that Verizon won most the VHF spectrum if they are going to do business like this.

I would love to have FIOS, but I suspect that will not happen anytime soon either, due to the fact that we don't have DSL available out here.

Ultimately, Verizon is punishing customers that have no other choice in Internet broadband. Hopefully, the free market will show them that "The Network" is easily replaceable, and other providers will move into Verizon dominated territories. It seems to be happening, little by little.

Despite what the show seems to infer, there was actually a lot of legit business going on at CyberNet and there were a lot of good people doing honest work. As far as I know, the shady stuff was all going on 'up stairs'.

If you want to see the story of Barton Watson and the unfortunate tale of Cybernet, check out the CNBC American Green, episode #1.

If anyone reading this has information on CyberNet that wasn't included on the program, please let me know!

Our family went to their show last year at the Gardens, and our 3 year old daughter, Juliana, was an unstoppable dancing machine until the end of the show. If you saw a screaming brown haired kid not wanting to leave after the last song, that was probably her. She spent nearly the whole show up near the stage dancing with the adults.

If you have no idea who this band is, check out these YouTube videos:
Here they are playing "Ain't nothing with that" on Letterman, which was also used in some NBC commercials last year. Typically if David Letterman says that the next band is going to "blow the roof off the dump", it is going to be good.

Here they are playing "I need more love" on Letterman.

I wish their cover of "Purple Haze" from the Conan O'Brien show was on YouTube.

From the GR Press:
The series continues June 16 with the return of Robert Randolph, who delivered, in my opinion, the best Gardens concert of 2007, buoyed by some stunning pedal-steel guitar work and an infectious, soul-rock sound.

This time around, he's fronting the Robert Randolph Revival, coming straight to Grand Rapids from Tennessee's Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. The group will play only a limited number of dates with a host of gifted pedal-steel guitar players and singers.

"We're probably one of the luckiest venues around to be able to snag it," said Chris Mautz, who books the Gardens' concert series. "I'm stoked about that. The buzz (about Randolph) coming out of last year will spread and get people excited about it.

You can see the complete summer line up for the Gardens here.

Ever take desktop snapshots and then find them years later?
I have dug up old snapshots of my OS/2 installs from way back when, in the past.

In the spirit of that same adventure, here is what my desktop looks like as of tonight.
Who knows what it will look like in a year, but if you can't tell, I have one theme for computer usage - "drive it like you stole it". If you have 3GB of memory, you might as well put it to good use.

I have a history of being hard on systems and thankfully I have some solid ones lately. I've had some die a horrible death in smoke and flames.

Click the thumbnail for the full screen image:

I'm not the only Tiensivu with a presence on the web. Check out the Northwest Advance article on my wife and daughter here.

A snippet:

Chester Township's Cassandra Tiensivu spends most of her time as a full-time mother. When she isn't tending to her two young children, the award-winning artist can be found taking photos, sculpting, designing Web pages, or writing.

Tiensivu, 28, is a member of RAGS, the Regional Art Guild of Sparta, an organization focused on sharing and promoting local artists. Tiensivu has been a member since August 2007.

Sidenote: We've already let them know about the typos near the end of the article.

"American Man" off Velvet Revolver's Libertad album reminds me a lot of Back-in-the-USA-era MC5.

Strangely enough, MC5's last album is my favorite of theirs.

Not too long ago, our house was "stuck" with, at best, 1xRTT speeds on our cell phones for data connectivity. Verizon finally upgraded the tower near our house last fall and we've been living in EVDO Rev A heaven ever since. Now, it looks like Sprint is going to be upgrading their towers in our area too, and blanketing the county with more EVDO goodness.

You can read more about it here.

They are not kidding when they say that a majority of the county previously had NO broadband options. No cable modems. No DSL. No wireless vendors (WiMax / etc).

I'm always nervous using the Verizon EVDO service because of their vague terms-of-service that can kill your connection/subscription if they decide you are using too much bandwidth. Thankfully, Sprint doesn't really care how much bandwidth you use as long as you are paying them.

I am hoping they roll out EVDO Rev A like Verizon has. The upload speeds are much better than standard EVDO Rev 0. On most days, I get nearly 150KiB/sec on our EVDO Rev A connection. It also helps that I have a crazy external antenna connected to my EVDO modem and router (the Thinkpad 240 that refuses to die).

If you go to the Server 2008, SQL 2008, and Visual Studio 2008 launch event in your area, it looks like you will be getting some Not-For-Resale goodies.

1. Windows Server 2008 Enterprise RTM (64 and 32 bit) with a product key
2. Visual Studio 2008 Standard RTM
3. SQL Server 2008 CTP 5.0 with a voucher for a RTM copy when available

If you happen to go to the Grand Rapids, Michigan or Detroit, Michigan event, I should be in the "Ask the Experts" section with Microsoft, if everything goes as planned.

I have heard rumors of discounted TechNet Plus subscriptions too, so those are always nice too!

Details originally spotted here.