Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:50 PM

Programs that default to creating folders in the root of My Documents and won't allow users to select a different destination.

Current culprits?

AOL Hi-Q Video and Romeo Burner (part of today's Giveaway of the Day freebie).

I've gone into the registry to change the program settings; I've even created appropriately-named shortcuts in the root of My Documents pointing to the new location...

No avail.

One of the nice things about a fresh install is the ability to clean up files and folders.

I've got a very nice organizational scheme worked out, and these programs are messing it up!

And, hey, since this seems to be the week for techie posts, a couple more Windows questions if anybody knows.

1. How do you prevent the default label of "Shortcut to" when creating shortcuts?
   I've seen online advice with Registry settings, and while I'm not averse to that, I thought I remembered a Control Panel or TweakUI setting that would change it programmatically.
    
2. Regarding the Customize Folder options,
   1. A droplist asks "What kind of folder do you want?"
      Is there any way of adding additional folder templates beyond the few media types that come pre-installed?
   2. Any way of universally changing the default columns for a particular folder-type not in this list?
      Specifically, I use Windows Briefcase. No matter how many ways I "Apply to all folders" my "Folder Options", Briefcase folders always show Name, Sync-Copy-In, Status, and Size.
      Dammit, I want Date Modified to show as well, and I'm tired of making that change on a folder-by-folder basis!

Any suggestions?

[And yes, this is what I'm doing on a Saturday night. I know I'm lame.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:28 PM

Well, thank Bob for the existence of Windows System Restore.

After much research and consideration, I decided to upgrade Windows Media Player 9 (which came preinstalled on my machine) to Windows Media Player 10.

But I adamantly didn't want Windows Media Player 11, given its DRM limitations.

So, at the end of WiMP 10 install, it asks whether I want to check for updates. Having heard about some of the security holes in WiMP10, I say yes... And before I know what's happening, Microsoft proceeds to install WiMP 11.

I cancel the update, but too late. It shows v11 is already installed.

But, thanks to trusty System Restore, I was able to bump my computer back the 20 minutes or so and restore my original WiMP 9.

I've probably lost all my Media Player settings (since launching the icon now brings me to WiMP setup), but that's fine. Better that than WiMP11.

I'm now going to try installing version 10 again. Wish me luck...

PS: Must remember to avoid this patch, which seems to be more about DRM than security...

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:23 PM

Announcement courtesy of Arisia, but useful info for anyone who might visit our fair city:

The rather useful book Not For Tourists Guide to Boston is also available free online from the publisher as a series of PDFs.

Actually, it looks like all their books are viewable online in this manner.

Keen!

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:58 AM

Why do I read so much nonfiction? It's for fascinating nuggets like these, in Ross King's books.

Brunelleschi's dome describes the nightlife of Renaissance Florence:

For years, clergymen such as the Franciscan firebrand Bernardino of Siena had been raging from the pulpit that the crime of sodomy was destroying the city. So famous was Florence for homosexual activity that during the fourteenth century the German slang for "sodomite" was Florenzer. In 1432 the government took steps to curtail this perceived root of its troubles on the battlefield by establishing an agency to identify and prosecute homosexuals, the Ufficiali di Notte, "Office of the Night" (a name made even more colorful by the fact that notte was slang for "bugger"). This vice squad worked in tandem with the Orwellian Ufficiali dell'Onesta, "Office of Decency," which was charged with licensing and administering the municipal brothels that had been created in the area around the Mercato Vecchio. The specific aim of these public brothels was to wean Florentine men from the "greater evil" of sodomy. Prostitutes became a common sight in Florence, not the least because the law required them to wear distinctive garb: gloves, high-heeled shoes, and a bell on the head.

Footnote to this paragraph: A less official method of detecting homosexuals was for mothers to rattle their sons' coin bags: if the coins exclaimed, "fire, fire, fire," the money was said to be the gift of a sodomite.

How many things are wrong in that passage? I mean, I've hung around with a lot of gays and have never heard their money talk in this manner. [Anybody who's witnessed such -- or the contradictory silence -- feel free to share.]

A later book (and my current read), Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling goes further:

[Giovanni Antonio] Bazzi's oddball antics had flabbergasted the monks of Monte Oliveto, [where he spent five years painting a fresco,] who took to calling him Il Mattaccio (the Maniac). To the rest of the world he was known as Sodoma (Sodom). This nickname was given to him, Vasari claimed, because "he had about him boys and beardless youths, whom he loved more than was decent." Why Bazzi alone should have earned this sobriquet is a bit of a mystery considering the sexual peferences of the average Renaissance painter. [Meow!] In Rome the punishment for sodomy was burning at the stake, so it is unclear how Sodoma could have survived, let alone flourished, had he indeed been the flagrant sodomite his name suggests. Whatever the case, far from objecting to this nickname, he reveled in it, "writing about it songs and verses in terza rima, and singing them to the lute with no little facility."

When you've got it, flaunt it baby!

And these remind me that the next time I visit the BPL (which should be soon, before the John Adams exhibit closes), I ought to pick up Forbidden friendships: homosexuality and male culture in Renaissance Florence by Michael Rocke...

Dome also describes an impressively elaborate practical joke, which is too long to describe here.

And for a book about the most famous ceiling in the world, by page 136 of Michelangelo, I've already read about two deaths caused by crainial impact with low ceilings -- Charles VIII of France, and this hapless creature:

[I]n 1487 Lorenzo de' Medici's garden was home to an African giraffe until, unused to the cramped spaces of Florence, it banged its head on a beam and died.

I know I shouldn't laugh, but I can't help it.

By the way, although a fascinating book, Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling is rather sparse on illustrations. Accompany it with a good art book on Michelangelo or the Sistine Chapel ceiling for reference. [Any reasonable public library should have several you can borrow for free.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:06 AM

This is your spider on drugs.

Any questions?

Via PZ Myers

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:35 PM

Nearly one month ago, I learned about Shakespeare in Washington (DC) and blogged my desperation to attend -- particularly the productions of the less common plays.

Today, while trying to find some studies on information behavior, I stumbled onto an announcement for the Computers in Libraries conference, taking place in Arlington Virginia within the two week span when Coriolanus and Edward III are playing. In other words, at precisely the time I was hoping to get to DC anyway.

I will have to be levelheaded about this and objectively evaluate whether or not the conference will actually teach me things in line with my work goals.

But it's hard not to squee at the opportunity. Spend some extra time in DC before or after the conference, and I could catch those two plays and Titus Andronicus, maybe check out the current exhibit at Folger...

If I don't go to the conference, how insane would it be to spend $150-ish on round-trip airfare to DC (plus hotel) in order to see three Shakespeare plays in one weekend? Timewise, I think it's doable (particularly given the Patriots' Day holiday) but is it at all a rational idea?

PS: I've been wavering over whether or not to post this publically. I'm well aware that coworkers read my blog (though I don't know precisely who). This entry could comprise reasonable cause for management to refuse me this conference, although I hope it doesn't come to that. Just acknowledging the risk, for those who look to me for advice on navigating the boundaries between blog and employer.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:30 PM

At a recent project meeting, most of the time was spent discussing scheduling, observing how any slightest delay ripples across different groups (if A can get this file to B by then, then C can install it by that date, which means D's N days to develop it will be done at this time, and so on and so forth).

So after we got everything straightened out and on track so our February release will ship on-time, somebody asked "When will customers get the April relase?"

Under my breath, I muttered "Yes."

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:50 AM

Nothing major here, but sometimes I amuse myself*:

Wouldn't it be neat if there were a computer repair radio show along the lines of Car Talk: "Okay, can you describe the sounds your computer is making?"

And, when talking about iPods:

"Four gig shuffle? Doesn't that sound like a dance step?"

^* And sometimes, it's even in ways I can blog about publically. ;}

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:14 PM

^*All Knowledge Is Contained In the Blogosphere (I hope!)

Since my hard drive recovery and reinstall, I've been pondering a number of tech questions, and before I spend oodles of hours researching them, I thought I'd check if anyone hear has any insight.

• First and most importantly, is Windows Standby or Hibernate associated in any way with file degradation or other system problems? In the past, I made it a regular practice to Hibernate my drive overnight, or while I was at work... But both times my computer failed to boot, it happened when coming out of hibernation. Does the stored image cause problems? Which is preferable, Standby or Hibernate, and under what circumstances?
   
• System Restore seems like a useful utility. But is there any way to get a running list of my restore points? Is it drawn from a Registry key somewhere? I don't need the litany of all the technical changes made at each point, but a logfile of all product installations and other major changes would be useful.
  • Hang on, while writing this post, I came across two articles in Microsoft TechNet: Script Center: List All Existing Restore Points and How To Use the System Restore Utility with Windows Management Instrumentation.
     
• Is there any way to use Briefcase to synchronize two folders, but exclude particular subfolders or files from the transfer?
  • BTW, don't even talk to me about Microsoft's much-heralded XP PowerToys SyncToy. Hard to believe they managed to make Briefcase worse, but they did!
    See, when syncing Briefcase files, if both copies of the file have changed since last sync, Briefcase won't overwrite either. It keeps both copies intact until you manually choose which one to keep.
    SyncToy automatically defers to the most-recently-saved file, which isn't necessarily the correct answer.
     
• Why does NoteTab Light always take two positions on the Task Switcher? Likewise, why does it act like two windows when I Tile or Cascade? [If I Tile have NoteTab and one other app, they should split the screen 50-50; instead, each only occupies one-third.] Any way of correcting this? Does this problem also exist in the licensed versions?
   
• Is there any way to make file:// addresses refer to relative (rather than absolute) locations? I recently discovered Opera@USB, a version specially designed to run on thumb-drives. But how do I point it to my home page, when the drive may recognize itself as E: or F: or something else entirely?
   
• Finally, are there keyboard shortcuts for navigating Regedit and other MMC windows that don't require a number pad? I can't expand or collapse folders except with the mouse.
   

If you have any information on any of these topics, I'd be most appreciative.

Meanwhile, I finally figured out why Opera kept omitting so many addresses from my history and typeahead.

For other Opera users dealing with this issue, the key is a setting in opera:config called Track Password Cookie Usage.

Now, if I could only figure out why Opera consistently messes up the sidebars on our company's TWiki-based Intranet....

[The only suggestion IT has had was to clean out my personalized WikiPage and customized LeftBar. No luck. Opera isn't one of the company's officially supported browsers (we're a Firefox shop), so I'm not pushing too hard, but it is annoying...]

Late addition:

One other question occurred to me after making the original post:

• I've got an external HD, and I'll confess to some concern about how noisy it can be. I remember the old days when one had to park hard drives. Any advice about how not to damage the contents when turning it off? [It's by Fantom Drives, if that makes any difference.]
   

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:40 PM

First female Speaker of the House.

First black governor of Massachusetts.

What else is going on?

Late update: As a commenter reminded me, also making a debut today was
First Muslim in Congress.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:09 PM

Well (she says, looking at the multiple entries posted so far today), I guess I'm getting my groove back.

Without my computer, I fell a bit behind on current events. What news I was following was too depressing to write about.

And I really have nothing pithy or inspirational to say about the annual odometer recycle. No grand overviews of the previous year nor resolutions for the one ahead.

When it's all said and done, the year didn't really start out on the most auspicious note.

Quick tip for y'all: don't mix Sudafed, Benadryl and a sleeping pill before bedtime -- at least, not if you have someplace to be in the morning, and particularly not if you've been drinking earlier in the evening.

No harm done (and the meds seem to have beaten those weekend sniffles into submission) but yesterday morning I didn't wake up until the time I was supposed to leave the house.

Ian already mocked me, but I did have some interesting dreams...

One of the side-effects of the trazodone is a dry mouth. And I discovered that no matter how much water you drink while dreaming (I bought and gulped down two bottles of FIJI), it really doesn't help with genuine thirst.

And don't get me started on dreams in which the noise from WBZ radio was driving me to distraction and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off! [That's the station my alarm is tuned to.]

At any rate, with Ian driving me, I only arrived a half-hour late on the first workday of the new year.

And then, somewhere between the car and my desk, my new USB thumbdrive disappeared.

See, while we were buying all the tech stuff I needed for data recovery, I saw a great deal on the Lexar 1GB Firefly -- only $9 after rebate! So, I snapped one up (sorry, the offer ended December 31st) along with a lanyard, and filled it with my files.

Ian and I both remember I had it in the car; I put it and my old Cruzer Mini (nicknamed Fob-io) in the outside pocket of my purse.

Ian parked the car near the entrance and (after a goodbye kiss) I hopped out and badged myself into the building.

As I was putting my badge away (near the bottom of the stairs) I realized that the lanyard for Fabio must've gotten caught on something because it was dangling between my purse and pocket.

And a quick check showed my new fob wasn't where I thought it was.

I retraced my steps to where the car was parked and didn't see it.

Once I got to my desk, I dug through my pockets and bags, but to no avail.

I hoped (assumed) that it must've fallen out inside the car, but Ian's checked and doublechecked... no sign of it.

The passenger door was never opened between my departure and return, so it's not like it could've fallen out somewhere during the day when Ian was running errands.

I've already posted a "Missing" sign near the kitchenette and one on the company's internal classified page, but I'm not holding out much hope.

In the meantime, I remain both befuddled and annoyed.

The only upside is that I'm only out the $9 after rebate rather than the full purchase price...

So those were yesterday morning's travails.

Hopefully they're not too predictive of what I'll be facing the rest of the year...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:17 PM

As part of the gubernatorial transfer of power, outgoing governor Mitt Romney gave several ceremonial items to incoming governor Deval Patrick, including an original copy of the 1860 General Laws of Massachusetts, which has been inscribed by each Governor with a note to his or her successor.

And tomorrow, Congressman-elect Keith Ellison will take his oath of office on a Koran that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson.

Neat, huh?

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:50 PM

Both Marketplace and The Christian Science Monitor are reporting on a new book, A Perfect Mess: the hidden benefits of disorder, subtitled “how crammed closets, cluttered offices, and on-the-fly planning make the world a better place.”

A few quotes from the Marketplace's interview with author David Freedman:

• “If you're really neat and it's working out for you, I wouldn't dream of asking you to change. However, if you have a messy desk, and people are gettin' on your back about being neater about it, there really is very, very little evidence that neatness really does much for you. And you can come up with some very interesting arguments that messiness will work better.”
   
• “If you keep a really messy desk, and what happens naturally is the stuff that you're really working on and that's more important tends to gravitate towards the front of the desk and the top of piles. Now you're gonna end up searching through some of these piles sometimes, but that's not a bad thing. Because when you search through piles you end up finding things that would have been buried away in a neat person's file cabinet and you can make connections. And in fact one Nobel prize directly owes its origin to a researcher who made a connection by searching through a stupendously messy desk.”
   
• “It's extremely expensive [in a corporate sense to be neat].”

Frankly, this sounds a lot like research I was doing back in 2001 or so, about filers vs. pilers, which I blogged here.

Oh, well, scooped again...

But hopefully, the existence of this research in a reputable and published book will provide additional ammunition for fellow pilers facing "Clean Desk" policies in their workplace...

PS: A few more stories on the book from LifeHacker and The New York Times

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:40 PM

This morning on Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor talked about Tolkien, saying:

It's the birthday of J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien, born in South Africa (1892).
He was a professor of philology, the study of the derivation of languages, at Oxford. He was fluent in classical Greek and Latin, Old Norse, Old English, medieval Welsh and Anglo-Saxon, and an ancient form of German called Gothic, among other ancient European languages.
He was so interested in the structure of language that he decided to invent an entire language of his own. He even invented a new alphabet to write in that language, and when he began writing Lord of the Rings, he gave that new language to the Elves, calling it "High Elvish." He later said, "I wrote Lord of the Rings to provide a world for the language. ... I should have preferred to write the entire book in Elvish."

So, has anybody translated Lord of the Rings into Elvish?

I'm familiar with the work of the Klingon Language Institute, with their translations of Gilgamesh and Shakespeare, but don't hear much about Tolkien's languages.

I'd think a project like this would be a natural, given the fact that Tolkien himself wanted to see it...

What am I missing?

It was just as the 1914 War burst on me that I made the discovery that 'legends' depend on the language to which they belong; but a living language depends equally on the 'legends' which it conveys by tradition. ... Volapuk, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends...

— J.R.R. Tolkien

BTW, Nancy actually sells a button:

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:05 AM

How tragic.

Not just the subject, but The Boston Herald's mispeeling in the headline.

Looks like they got it correct on the print edition front page, but oof!

This isn't the first time I've found flaws in the Herald's spelling. Of course, my last correction earned me a slam from the Herald's Cosmo Macero Jr. and a mention in the Boston Globe's word column (article link sadly expired). This summer, I found an error on Boston.com, which was quickly corrected and otherwise went unremarked.

Has copy editing been outsourced?

Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?

PS: Speaking of typos, CNN is apologizing for a much more egregious error, in which a story on bin Laden was captioned with "Where's Obama?" -- conflating one of the more popular Democratic senators with America's Public Enemy Number One. More @ Raw Story.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:05 PM

Since I haven't had a lot of time or capability to post much else recently, here's the year-in-review meme going around.

Here are the first sentences of the first posts for each month of 2006:

So, a few days ago, Mark Kleiman posted The Channukah Story: Ritual and Myth, which states: You know, I always scoffed at invitations which said "dress code strictly enforced" thinking the worst that might happen is that I wouldn't be admitted. A postscript to yesterday morning's post: Google Romance (Beta) ThinkProgress has been on a roll today regarding the English-only National Anthem nonsense. Via Magpie, an editorial cartoon (click to enlarge): Guess where we are! A long time ago, I threatened to compile a list of Elizabethan SF & Fantasy. Ian's off bartending at a Bar (or Bat) Mitzvah. Well, not the best fast I've ever had. Several years ago, I designed a business card for my blogging activities. So, this little cartoon has been making the rounds of my workplace, and I finally tracked it down.

A bit of politics, a smattering of religion, history and book recommendations, some meta-blogging, plus a dose of warped humor and a lot of credit to other sources. Yup, seems typical.

Links: Jan • Feb • Mar • Apr • May • Jun • Jul • Aug • Sep • Oct • Nov • Dec

And here's hoping for a 2007 that's better than 2006!

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:20 PM

I think I've done it.

I have a few more programs to install, and will probably spend a lot of time restoring configurations, but I'm up and running on the new hard drive!

Hooray!