RoboForm

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I like software that just works, is set up once (or not at all) and forever goes about its tasks, quiet and unassuming. Right up there with the Google Toolbar, some of my favorite browser software is RoboForm. What does it do? It makes the tedious process of filling out the hundreds of forms web users are presented every day a breeze. I’ve tried form fillers before, but I was always turned off by them not , being flexible enough, not recognizing a form element if it didn’t have the exact same name as one you’ve filled out before. The Internet Explorer Autocomplete feature is the same way. RoboForm fills out whatever personal details you want to put in the form, remembers your logins and passwords, generates good passwords, and best of all has no adware or spyware like some of the other products in this category. I’ve set up multiple profiles that I use depending on what information I want to give where ever I’m signing up, for instance I have a “Spam” profile that gives the form my throwaway email address and no personal information.

RoboForm is free for personal use, and the free version is more than good enough for pretty much everything you do. I plan to buy the full version soon not so much because I need the features it offers, but simply because I want to support the authors of this software. My main warning with this software is that it can have the same effect on your online buying habits as the Amazon one-click system can. In the past filling out those forms gave me a little time to consider my purchase, but now you can having something being Fedexed to you before you know what happened :). This is another one of those products that goes in my “Indispensable Web Software” category, so check it out.

Google Toolbar

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The Google Toolbar is always one of the first things I install when I work on a new computer because it is simply one of those tools that is so elegant, well done, and useful that you can’t imagine how you functioned without it. Unfortunately it is only available from Google for Windows users running Internet Explorer version 5 or over. You can use it straight “out of the box” and be quite happy, but I tweak it a little to make it fit my experience best. If you click on the Google graphic it will bring up a menu where you can select “toolbar options.” This is where they hide the good stuff.

Once you’re in there it actually loads a page that lets you customize your toolbar experience. The first thing I do is change the search box size to wide, because I’m running at 1600×1200 and have plenty of screen real estate, I also uncheck the box that keeps a search history because I don’t like the dropdown box, and I also seldom search for the same thing twice. Next I kill the descriptive text for all the buttons; they’re pretty well designed and even if you haven’t used the toolbar before you can figure out what they mean in a few minutes. The text also takes up too much space. Then I add the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, because that’s just fun :). I add the voting buttons, which adds two buttons that let you vote up or down for whatever page you’re browsing. I don’t know if that actually makes any difference to anything, but I’m all about spreading Google karma to good pages so I use them anyway when I find something nice. Finally if you go into “experimental features” you’ll see an option to suppress the onUnload javascript event, which I think is annoying and also kills a few popup ads. Isn’t that cool?

One of the more useful features of the toolbar is that it lets you type things into the search box and then search for those terms within the current page, even if it hasn’t been indexed by Google. This can be a huge help on big pages that I know have the information I need, but it could be buried anywhere. I can just jump right to the spot on the page that has the information I need. It’s functionally identical to the “Find (on this page)” function under the Edit menu, but much easier to use. Optionally using the highly button you can also highlight your chosen terms on the page, which works just like if you look at something in Google’s cache and it highlights the terms you searched for. If you ever look for stuff on the web and you meet the system requirements, you should get this. It’s going to be an invaluable tool in helping me rebuild my computer.

How It Was Fixed

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Well, now that I’ve gotten the Windows XP Service Pack 1 installed and running successfully. I think the main problem with my original installation was that I had Lilo loading the operating system rather than a Windows bootloader. When I tried to reboot after the SP1 installatiion I would just get an endless string of “40” on my screen, which is really hard to explain so I put up screenshots (taken with a camera) and a video here. I tried repairing the installation using my Windows XP installation disk, but that didn’t touch the bootloader. What I ended up doing was installing a fresh version of Windows on my second partition, which did recreate bootloader and redetect my installation on the C partition. I thought that would be all I need, but when I tried to boot to the installation on the C partition, it would go into an infinite reboot sequence, which, needless to say, was quite frustrating.

It became obvious that the installation on C was beyond repair, literally, and so I made the always tough decision to scrap it and start fresh. This was a very big deal for me, because I abhor having to reinstall programs and losing settings and such. On my last desktop it was actually upgraded incrementally from DR-DOS through early versions of Windows, all the way to ’98 when I was forced by a hard drive failure to start from scratch again. I used Windows before they messed it up with a graphical interface :). I’m hoping that like a phoenix this new installation will rise from the ashes of the last and turn my laptop into an ultra-efficency machine that is easy, intuative, and functional.

So I backed up everything important from the drive and did a “clean” install of XP over the current one, deleting all the past files in the process. Then I downloaded the 134 MB network install of SP1 just to be safe, and installed it on a almost perfectly fresh Windows. It worked fine, and I’m appreciating some of the new features already such as the Bluetooth, and the “anti-trust” addons.

Now all I need to do is delete the installation of Windows from the D partition, because it’s just taking up valuable space that could be better used for some movies or music. Also in hindsight I probably should have just formatted the C partition because now I have a Program Files directory chock-full of stuff that isn’t actually ‘installed,’ though maybe when I reinstall programs they may pick up their old prefs. Cross your fingers.

Whew!

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Well SP1 installed just fine, and a number of other updates did as well. Now the tricky part is going to be getting all the Sony laptop goodies back into everything, then the long and arduous process of reinstalling my software. My email is groovy though, because IMAP works like a charm, so I actually had no email downtime. I also discovered that Outlook Express works better with IMAP than Outlook XP does, so that might become my primary email client. There was also another one someone recommended to me that I’ll try, but I have to dig its name out of the archives. Outlook XP has a number of quirks when working with IMAP, and installing the second service pack for Office didn’t seem to make anything better, in fact it got a little worse. When sending and receiving the program doesn’t respond to any input, and it seemed to randomly disconnect from the server, and the only way to get it back on was to restart the program. Also it even have a button for purging deleted messages, I had to make my own. Outlook Express seems to do everything that doesn’t work with Outlook XP pretty well, and it just feels cleaner since it just does email. I keep all my organization things in Palm Desktop, which I would recommend people trying out even if they don’t own a PalmOS device.

It’s too late now to do anything else meaningful on the computer. Hopefully I can get everything taken care of tomorrow and get back to actual work, plus I won’t have to post from the ‘music’ computer anymore. (Yes, I do have a computer whose sole purpose is to play music. I still haven’t figured out why it needs a multi-gigahertz processor and a 3D accelerator card to do this. I keep telling myself I’ll play games on it sometime. Where’s the time?!)

There’s More

Music

Yep, I went back out. I had talked to David previously about checking his gig out, it was late so I knew they wouldn’t charge cover, and (on David’s request) I had told Kenny Garrett about the gig at Cezanne’s and he said he might check it out. He didn’t, but I can’t really blame him though because he was staying on the other side of town and was probably dog-tired from the gig. David was burning though, and there were a couple of musicians who went there right after the Roy Haynes concert who said that the music was just as good, which is a pretty amazing compliment considering how good the Wortham concert was. I just realized I have to reinstall Photoshop to fix up all the photos before I upload them, so I better get to that. First though I think I’m going to install Service Pack I again, so wish me luck . . .

Good News

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The good news is that I got my laptop working again, and I found a Sony Support page that has all of the drivers I need. I’m going to give SP1 another try. (I want the Bluetooth stuff.)

The better news is I saw an amazing concert at the Wortham with Roy Haynes, Kenny Garrett, Nick Payton, David Kokoski, and a bass player. It was really, really good. More on that later, with pictures!

Last Straw

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I have many wonderful things to post, exciting things to talk about, places to be, but unfortunately my life has grinded to a halt due to Service Pack 1 for Windows XP wiping my bootloader and corrupting everything. It actually gives a screen that’s very scary when I try to boot, which I took a picture and video of and will post as soon as I get my MemoryStick reader (laptop) back. So once everything is back up I’ll post what I think caused this, and how I (if I can) fix it. It looks like I’m going to have to reinstall all my software too, so maybe I talk about that to, try and turn this into something positive. Macs are looking mighty nice right now.

Productive Day

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I feel like I’ve had a very productive day, espescially compared to yesterday when it felt like I did nothing. Here’s a summary of the day thus far, with the boring parts (and classes) taken out:

  • Good breakfast
  • Human Situation Discussion class
  • Re-printed some business cards for a client, had to tweak design
  • Took David his graphics card
  • Checked if David’s processor was just underclocked or if they actually sent him the wrong one (wrong one)
  • Filled tank
  • Deposited some checks
  • Made some important phone calls, did email
  • Installed my $7 copy of Windows XP Professional bought using UH’s new site liscene (more on this later)
  • Had long lunch with Kel at a nice deli whose name escapes me, oogled at his iPod
  • Picked up Kel’s grandmother’s ten-year-old computer, which she’d like me to fix. We’ll see; I’m not a miracle worker 🙂
  • Took client her new business cards, decided on another change, talked about website
  • Spent too long in traffic, but it’s okay because I made a new mix disc
  • Finally arrived home at around 4:15 PM

Whew! I think now I could crash for the next week or so, but I’m waiting for a call from someone . . .

The Frontier Between Us

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Julie sent me an excellent article which I have to pull one quote from:

“In the next fifty years, computer science will give birth to a delightful new vernacular art form that combines the three great art forms of the twentieth century; cinema, jazz, and programming.”

Isn’t that great? I began investigating who wrote this and it turns out it’s the same guy who helped brainstorm the great movie Minority Report. His name is Jaron Lanier and I’m going to be on the watch for some more of his writing. If only he had a blog!

Pope Changes Rosary

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From Christine: I was a little shocked when I first read this but after reading the articles I feel better about it. The Yahoo article presented the information strangely, highlighting a string of statistics and records, and I got the impression it sounded like the Pope is trying to make a name for himself.

I think the NYTimes article portrays things more accurately, and more importantly it also said what the changes would be, which I didn’t get from the first article. For more information you can go straight to the source, or here are some quotes that detail the changes

CNN—Until now the Rosary’s five joyful mysteries were recited on Mondays and Thursdays, the five sorrowful mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the five glorious mysteries on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The five new mysteries will be used on Saturdays, according to reports quoted by The Associated Press.

ABC—The rosary beads, which Catholics use to keep track of the prayers, will not change. The rosary will still consist of a cross and about 60 beads since only one set of mysteries is contemplated at a time and usually on different days of the week.

Irish Times—The Rosary developed in the Middle Ages from the Psalter of Mary, which consisted of 150 Avés (Hail Marys) said by those who did not have time to recite the psalms in full. Avés took the place of psalms and became a symbol of roses which the faithful wished to offer to Mary. This later became the Rosary.

Sante Fe—Each set of mysteries is dedicated to five particular episodes in the life of Jesus. According to the rosary Web site, the five episodes in the luminous mysteries will be the baptism in the Jordan River, the temptation in the desert, the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, the transfiguration, and the triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

New Lines to Paragraphs PHP

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Don’t you hate it when you read a blog or web page where there aren’t proper paragraphs, just one huge one (or none at all) with a million <br /> tags, no semantic meaning at all. Also no opportunity to implement typographic styling using CSS concerning indents or paragraph spacing, much like is done on this site (but you won’t see it without Mozilla or a similarly standards compliant browser).

Well it’s not really the fault of the person, often it’s a symptom of the publishing system. Most don’t go beyond simply converting line breaks into a break tag. Just like curly quotes, the system should take care of it. So I wrote a little function which allows you to format your text into paragraphs using only the enter key. I’ve already put this on a couple for my client’s sites where I was using straight nl2br and I’m very happy with the result. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Color Me This

Meta, Photolog

I’m playing around with some new colors on the site. I think I’m partial to the blue/green that’s up here now; it just feels cleaner. I’m open to comments, suggestions, complaints, rants, and observations.

Put up some new pictures up, as well as some older videos that I hadn’t put online yet. Now that things aren’t as hectic I’m going to start the daily photos again.

Firefly

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Well as usual my sister has gotten me hooked on another TV show. Last time it was Farscape, which of course just got canned by the SciFi channel. On top of that, the only place I could watch it was at my sister’s house in Austin because I don’t have cable at home. Luckily she tapes all the episodes, so I was able to keep up, if with a giant lag. That’s also the reason I avoid like the plague any site that might give me spoilers about a Farscape episode I haven’t seen.

Anyway Charleen was in town for the weekend and we were hanging at her friend’s house when she asked me if I wanted to see this new series that just started airing a few weeks ago. The name of the show is Firefly, and though their website looks like something out of the nineties, the show is well done. If I was my sister I could tell you how the director is the same guy who did Buffy, or something like that. Regardless, it’s on free TV every Friday. Tivo or tape it if you have a social life! This is the show that’s going to get me to plug my television back in which, for the record, has been disconnected since January of last year.

Matt’s binary review, Firefly: 1

Pun-A-Day #9

Humor

These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close; they ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to “persuade” them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he’d be back if they didn’t close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.