ben rehberg dot com

Needs Improvement

2009-07-05T18:03:00.002-04:00

This was me near the finish line yesterday. I clearly need some training before the next one. Look at me - my stride is so short - stamina needs improvement. My cool Army PT shirt is getting soaked; I don't think it does what I was led to believe. Clothing needs improvement. I have two weeks until the Barnes Health Care 5K on the 18th, and I intend to finish a lot sooner. At least by a minute.

Off to RunnersWorld.com to get some training tips.

Post-Valdosta 5K - 34:18

2009-07-04T13:05:00.003-04:00

The run was fun, as it should have been. Last night I decided that I wasn't going to go because I hadn't taken enough time to prepare. If you look back two posts, I ran 5K in 35:22 six days ago. Having not trained any since then, I still ran a faster time this morning: 34:18.

Now that I'm finished with college for a while, I actually have time to make this a hobby. I tried to do it in 2007, but as soon as I started back to school all the physical activity ceased. I don't have any more excuses to run more often. If I'm still going in to Federal service I had better get going.

Valdosta 5K

2009-07-03T21:43:00.002-04:00

I haven't run any more but I guess I'll go anyway tomorrow. In all consideration, I don't need to be the fastest guy running (even though it would never happen anyway). I really just need to go and be there. As long as I have fun and get the t-shirt, all will be well. What else did I pay $20 for anyway? I will try to remember to report the results.

35:22

2009-06-28T19:45:00.003-04:00

I wasn't dragging the dog on this one and I actually changed the units on the GPS to metric. 5K in 35:22, which isn't bad since I ran 31:24 in 2007 after running for two months. We'll see what it is tomorrow, if I even make it out. I didn't even run the whole way. I walked more than I wanted to.

44:20

2009-06-27T19:40:00.001-04:00

This post is back-dated. I am trying to chronicle this week as I take seven days to train for a 5K on July 4. Tonight I was dragging the dog, so I don't think I'll do that again.

Redesign #13 or so...

2009-06-11T01:42:00.002-04:00

As the world constantly changes, so does my mind. I wanted a simple layout for this blog, but still couldn't fit all the details in to this slight redesign. Still, it was a welcome change. Not much change, mind you, but settling on a largely black-and-white theme pleased me. Things might get simpler still. If you don't bother noting the post time here, I'll tell you anyway: I'm off to bed as I have nothing more to say at this hour.

Via @aplusk on Twitter

2009-06-06T18:29:00.001-04:00

I found this pretty funny and no one follows @rtech on Twitter, so I post here:

2009-06-06T18:08:00.001-04:00

are my subscribers bombarded with these messages?

2009-06-06T18:04:00.001-04:00

this is to test SMS to my blog and make me look smart. My very own twitter!

Another Break

2009-06-06T02:15:00.005-04:00

Wow. It's been a long time since April 14. It's June 6 already. Let me catch you up:

I graduated college on May 12. We had a little party on the 16th. As of today I have not received my diploma.

My son was born five days ago, on June 1st. I kept those in-the-know updated via Twitter from my iPod over WiFi at the hospital. Say what you want.

Braden Michael Rehberg was born at 07:53 EST on June 1, 2009. 8lb, 9oz and 21" long.

Having written that, I now realize that this blog is five years old. I know this because I started writing here way before my daughter was born. I announced her birth somewhere back there in the archives, too. Is this turning into a career?

In between graduating and Braden's arrival, my business blew up and I was busier than I had ever been. It's still going and I am glad I took this entire month off from work. Maybe I can catch up. I'm loving it so far.

As much as I hated doing all that schoolwork and having sworn it off, I caught myself at school with Beth today thumbing through the 2008-2009 Graduate catalog. They still don't have any interesting Masters programs. I have changed my direction a bit away from IT, but it's still a close relation: Project Management. The PM courses I had in my undergrad were interesting, and there's quite a bit of science to the art that is Project Management. A lot of projects today are technical ones anyway, so it won't hurt to have a background in computers and networks. Having decided that, I have not come to a conclusion as to whether a graduate degree would help me any more after I become a PMP.

More on that later. I hope to have some kind of theme to write about here, but my brain is certainly too full and prone to wander. Don't believe me? Check the archives.

Late-

Automated Web Albums

2009-04-14T06:26:00.003-04:00

A friend showed me yesterday that Photoshop has the ability to create a photo album for the web. I decided to play with it this morning. I discovered that it does pretty much the same thing that Picasa does when you export to an HTML page, but with a few more options and the ability to create a Flash-based album too. I won't provide any instructions here (that would be for the other blog), but only links. The Flash site is so far the prettiest, but I don't think there are enough options. The HTML site from Photoshop is pretty good, but there could always be better templates. The Picasa web album leaves too much to be desired - UX being the biggest piece. Not very pretty or dynamic.

Anyway, it's time to do some real work.

It Was Over a Long Time Ago

2009-04-13T07:23:00.004-04:00

I forgot to tell you that my Windows 7 Beta box crashed over a month ago. It wasn't Windows 7, though - the hard drive was one that I'd bought back in '01. Maybe before that. The old Seagate 40GB EIDE just couldn't hang any longer.

I have tried to restore the machine to a new drive via a backup from the Windows Home Server, but the backups weren't available for some reason. I have not had the time or inclination to try again, and I simply don't want a computer in my bedroom any longer. I enjoyed the time I spent with Windows 7, and it looks to be a good change for Microsoft.

In contrast, I thought of something the other day: I have been scouting computers for years, even though I have so many. Since I got this MacBook a year ago, I can't remember the last time I tried to plan out buying another computer. It just doesn't happen anymore. I believe that deep down inside, I am content with my current computer. The only things I research anymore are servers. I want to build a distributed system for cluster computing. I haven't shopped for a Windows Laptop (or any laptop, for that matter) for a long time, and I believe my next trip to get another computer will be a short one. The MacBook Pro will do.

SLAM Fun-Fly

2009-04-09T23:33:00.002-04:00

If you've ever wanted to see someone knock a plastic bottle off of a traffic cone with the tail of a radio-controlled airplane, here's a video of it. Warning: >29MB. Please right-click and download as you'll likely encounter problems trying to stream it.

We had a great time at the first-ever SLAM Fun-Fly on April 4. Visit South Land Aero Modelers at slamrc.com.

Practitioner

2009-03-02T23:14:00.002-05:00

That's my word. It's the only word I continually misspell (that I know of). I used to misspell ridiculous, but since Beth pointed that out sometime in 2006 I have corrected my memory. I just can't get practicioner in the noggin correctly formed.

Anyway, I had an exciting day on furlough in which I got dressed expecting to go round up new clients. I didn't talk to a single person for the same reason as last time: If I get new customers, how do I guarantee I can help them when they call? How do I know they won't dismiss me if I don't show up immediately?

That said, I can't really afford to put my reputation on the line. This day job really gets in the way, but I like the steady (yet reduced) income because I enjoy owning a home and having fewer risks of not making the payment on it. I will take customers as they come, so they understand that I am generally unavailable during the day and my specialization is after-hours response.

I should spend the next furlough re-writing the website to suit my style and communicate my intentions a little better.

My Switch to Digital TV

2009-02-12T21:08:00.003-05:00

Instead of making a note about it, I'll just post the inspiring video so I can remember how this is done. Or I can just go here.

In Support of the Mobile SDK

2009-01-21T08:48:00.003-05:00

There may be a few "iPhone Killers" coming out, but I believe that the only one with a shot at triggering the demise of Apple's cute little two-hundred-dollar-bill is the "Google Phone." I don't call it a Google Phone, but I'm trying to use it in a general sense. By "Google Phone" I mean any phone running the Android operating system. There are many touch-screen phones coming out, and they all look great, don't they? None will kill Apple's iPhone or the Android platform.

The Nokia 5800 is a fantastic device from what I have read. It has all the features the iPhone does, and Nokia is even launching an audio store. The Blackberry Storm is the world's first touchscreen from RIM, and it seems to be getting rave reviews for its functionality. You can watch videos, listen to music, check e-mail, update Facebook, and all those cool things you always wanted to do with what the mobile phone has become.

I have one reason that the iPhone and the Android platform will survive: the SDK. That Nokia 5800 is great, but what if there's just one more thing you want to do with it, and Nokia never provided that function? What if you decided your Blackberry Storm couldn't do enough?

As a (budding) developer, I feel that the openness of the platforms (the ability to create your own software for any purpose to make a device even more useful) is the driving force behind the iPhone, and what will eventually be Android's success (even moreso now that it's free to develop for Android and fantastically cheap to submit to the Android market).

Tell me: Could you do this with your 5800 or Storm? I didn't think so.

Coming Right Up...

2009-01-20T21:26:00.003-05:00

They came around today. I had the same problem today as yesterday installing Java, and finally a message popped up with a solution.

I followed these instructions (please don't ask me to explain the registry key we deleted, because I can't), and Java installed perfectly. Office 2007 went smoothly just now as well. Enterprise Architect is on its way to my system, and I think I might have a fully-functional machine now. Isn't that weird? I wonder if Microsoft reads this blog (they don't) because it seems to be an eerie coincidence that I write about something and they fix it. Also, they don't allow me to write anything to go along with the crash reports like Apple does.

Let's try NetBeans now.

Uh-Oh. Installer Problems in Windows 7

2009-01-19T10:14:00.003-05:00

I'm having problems installing software on Windows 7. I'm not going to freak out and blast Microsoft for this; it's a beta system, and the same error has occurred with two different software packages: Sun's JDK 6 and Microsoft Office 2007. I have found some search results that lead me to believe that someone has succeeded in installing Office '07 on Windows 7, but I can't find out a whole lot about it.

One thought is that this is the 64-bit edition of Windows, and not much has been tested on it. XP x64 brought some pain to the compatibility area, and I don't think I've ever installed Vista x64. So I can't say that I have a lot of experience, and I don't know what to do to find the culprit. I do know that I get the same two dialog boxes when installing either the JDK or Office 2007.

Another thought is that Microsoft might have changed something in their installer (or did they even have it before Win7?), or it's a combination of the two. Whatever the case, today the computer is simply a radio.
I guess I'll have to use my laptop for the rest of the day; I need to do a White Box Test Plan for my Software Testing class, and draw several UML diagrams for my capstone. I can't install NetBeans because I can't install the JDK, and I can't install Office 2007 to do the report. I'm not mad, but I really wanted the desktop to do all this design work instead of cramming it all on the laptop.

Gloomy Times

2009-01-15T20:21:00.003-05:00

Just when I'm about to finish college again, the economy and all the job markets take a shit. It was the same way in 2004 (we were just coming out of the dot-com bust and Enron), and in 2009 I'll be stuck with an undergraduate degree without the new job that is supposed to come along with it.

And no one can escape this one, it seems. Not even Google.

On another note, I am still pursuing Army/Air Force Officer candidacy.

Video Driver Update Without Restart in Windows 7

2009-01-14T08:11:00.005-05:00

Does anyone remember not having to restart after the simplest Windows Update? I think there was one last year...

Something happened today that blew my mind. I started Windows Update on my Vista laptop and saw there were 4 important updates. "What updates are necessary today for Windows 7?," I asked myself. I opened Windows Update (herein referred to as WU because I am tired of typing it) and there were no critical updates, but two optional ones.

One was for the monitor I'm using, an Acer V193W (who knows why?) and for my video card, a GeForce 6600. I told WU to go ahead with both updates and went about whatever it was I wanted to do. I was reading e-mail when it happened, and swore I'd experienced the first hiccup with the beta OS.

The screen went black and I saw a blinking cursor at top left, as if the machine had restarted as a result of a hard crash. "WTF just happened?," I said. Then the desktop came back and the browser window resituated itself in the maximized position where I had it previously. A little pop-up at bottom right told me that my video driver had been installed successfully.

This tells me something wonderful - that things in Windows 7 are so modular that restarting the GUI with a new graphics driver doesn't even bother any other part of the system. Isn't that great? Vista promised fewer restarts and I believed them. They lied. Windows 7 just surprised the crap out of me with the <blink> "Okay, done" -style of updating this morning.

Just for reference, I've been running Windows 7 since Friday, January 10, 2009 and I have not been forced to restart yet.

Windows 7 First Impression

2009-01-11T20:20:00.004-05:00

I have been testing Windows 7 for two days now on the only computer I could spare. It's an aging AMD Athlon 64 3200+ running at 2.01GHz (that's a single-core CPU for the young folks here) with 2GB RAM. Internet Explorer 8 is all I've used, and things seem to be much better than Vista's first days. It hasn't broken yet, and I like some of the new visual features - one of which I've been waiting on since Windows 2000.

The system is not slow. At idle, it's only using about 43% of the RAM. Things really do work. I'm blogging this from the beta system now.

The biggest UI change that Windows 7 brings is the behavior of the taskbar. The quick launch is gone, folks. For the three people on Earth who have studied my desktop, the quick launch toolbar is a staple for me.

I think that's one reason I got to liking my MacBook so much - I put every program I use in the Dock.

So when I gained the experience of the Windows 7 taskbar, I couldn't help but feel that I was between the two.

By default, programs aren't there if they're not open, with the exception of the left three (IE8, Explorer, and Windows Media Player). One can, however, leave a program icon in the taskbar by right-clicking it and choosing "Pin this program to taskbar" from the context menu. This is not at all unlike the same dialog in OS X that says "Keep in Dock."

But that's not what I was waiting on. I knew they could fix my one pet peeve, and they finally did. I use a lot of USB-interface storage devices, and I tend to use them simultaneously. I also use good computing practices when I want to disconnect the drive. However, the only piece of information provided to me when I want to release a drive is the drive letter. To figure out which one it is, I have to go to Computer and look. Only then will I know for sure which drive to release. Windows 7 actually puts the drive label in the release menu, so I don't have to change my train of thought or spend two extra clicks. For that I am proud of Microsoft's development team for listening and making sense of something.

So far, I am pleased with Windows 7, but haven't had the opportunity to really put it to use. I have had Windows Media Player playing a solo piano channel from Lucky 7 Radio for nearly the entire uptime of the system and have crunched some movies, but I haven't done any programming, YouTube watching, schoolwork, or much else on it. I will try to use it as if it were my only computer for as long as I can and will tell you all about it if something goes wrong. If I don't write, just assume that everything is okay with Windows 7 and go ahead and dive in when they release it. The only thing that people won't like is the once-again drastic UX change. Maybe more on that later.

AC/DC

2009-01-11T09:45:00.002-05:00

I went to the gym this morning - something I should do every morning but don't. Anyway, my gym has XM radio, and they change the channel every day to cycle through maybe five channels to break the monotony. Since I don't go every day, I must go every time they have the damn AC/DC channel on. Why is there an AC/DC channel anyway? It's 24 hours with the same damn nine songs, one of which always stays in my head the rest of the day.

I have vowed now to find the model of XM radio they have and get a remote from eBay for it. They can put it behind a glass door, but they can't keep me from having my way.

On Caller ID

2009-01-09T14:22:00.003-05:00

I got a call today from a number in the 789 area code. I ignored it because unknown numbers are usually cold calls or recordings, and I wasn't interested in learning anything new. But I was curious.

So I looked up the 789 area code to see where the caller might be dialing from - that's usually interesting and I can sometimes guess what comany it might have been. Not this time. See - the 789 area code isn't used. Anyone with some skillz and access to a PRI can change what is shown on the caller ID display. My question now is why they were calling me and what the scam was. There is no way I can tell who it was or call them back. The only thing I'll do now is post the number:

789-999-6966

On Dedication

2009-01-07T21:40:00.002-05:00

Some kid missed the bus, so he took his mom's car to school. It wouldn't be that bad if the kid wasn't six years old. He almost made it, then crashed about a quarter-mile from school. The cops checked him out, and then he started walking to campus. "Where are you going?," the cops asked. "To school. I'm late," he replied.

If only I was that dedicated in 1984.

On Bach

2009-01-05T22:05:00.002-05:00

We went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Saturday night, and there I saw a preview of The Soloist. It looks really good. The thing that got me was the music in the trailer, and I had to search a bit for it. Luckily, the IMDB site had an FAQ and the only question on it was "What's that music playing in the trailer?" Someone answered it to be J.S. Bach's Suite for Cello No. 1 in G Major. I have confirmed this by buying Yo-Yo Ma's Bach: The Cello Suites from iTunes.

I'm writing about it just in case someone else is wondering. Also because I can't quit listening to it.