I am a geek – Page 4 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Google Maps

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Google just announced a new feature of their map site that allows you to embed a Google Map right into a web page just like you would with a Youtube video.

KPFT

View Larger Map

The embedded map has all the functionality you find at the actual Google Maps site. You can scroll it, zoom it, get directions and that good stuff.

It’s way faster and easier than the in-line Google maps plug-in I was playing with before.

This will be a lot of fun to use during the upcoming trip to Spain….

Details are at the Google Lat Long Blog

TV Time

Got a call from Jeff Ehling over at the local ABC affiliate (Channel 13). He was putting together a story to tie in to the recent FBI press release regarding botnet cyber crime and needed a geek talking head.

Lord knows there’s no talking head geekier than yours truly and despite my fear of being in front of the camera, I agreed to do it. I try not to pass up any opportunity to promote the radio show. Plus I think I must secretly enjoy being scared out of my wits.

Much like the previous times, it went smoothly enough and I was not horrified with the results. Jeff did a great job on the story and used sound bites from me in the piece that worked well and I was very pleased to hear him use talking points that came from our more candid off camera conversation.

You can see the news story video here.

Technology makes for strange bedfellows

Exciting day yesterday!

Dwight Silverman arrived at the station with a copy of his new book, Microsoft Windows Vista: Peachpit Learning Series

There are several things that make this VERY cool to me, so forgive me being a bit of a techno-spazz.

1. Our friend Dwight published a book!
2. Technology Bytes now features an author who has published a book!
3. Technology Bytes is mentioned on the back cover of a nationally published book!

In other cool geek news, we had a special guest on the show last night. None other than James Kendrick of JK On The Run fame.

James is an expert on mobile computing and his blog is probably the single best source for anything related to that particular aspect of technology.

Thanks James! We appreciate you taking the time!

Tron

Gearing up for our 12th anniversary, Technology Bytes Radio is teaming up with The Petrol Station and St. Arnold Brewery to bring you Tron, the original geek movie, projected in all it’s gigantic glory outdoors and on the back wall.

The event will be Friday, July 1st. and admission is FREE!

The movie should fire up around 9 PM but feel free to come on out anytime after 7:30 and join the crew of Technology Bytes for some brews and a very geeky evening.

The Petrol Station is located at 985 Wakefield Dr. here in Houston, TX.
Click here for a map

Phone number is (713) 957-2875

One joke to bind them all

I can’t claim the idea as my own, but the original graphic I’ve seen was using a Windows command prompt.

BLEH!

Not nearly nerdy enough so I created this using my favorite SSH client.

I blog alone

I’ve installed the Podpress plugin for WordPress.
This means you can automatically pick up any audio content I post on this site as a podcast. Just add the RSS feed of this site to your iTunes and your iPod will do the rest.

The Podpress plugin also allows readers of this blog to play audio content I post to the site right inside the post, streaming in REAL TIME! No more waiting on a download.

If you are viewing this from the main URL (www.baldheretic.com) you should see a Podpress player at the top of this entry. Just click the play button and the song I have posted will start playing.

To test my new feature I have uploaded a song called I Blog Alone by M. Spaff Sumsion over at spaff.com

I’ve also included the lyrics below:

I BLOG ALONE
Parody of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”

PERFORMED BY ROBERT LUND
Download MP3 (3.4 MB)

I spill my guts online
At live dot home dot blog my name dot com
No one hits my site
But it’s home to me and I blog alone

I dish out brilliant quotes
On the blogger board of broken links
Guess who leaves me notes?
Yes, I’m the only one and I blog alone

I blog alone
I blog alone

I blog alone
I blog a-

I work all
Day to make the Web admire me
It’s not my
Job; if my boss knew, she’d fire me
That’s fine; the
New York Times would beg to hire me
Till then I
BLOG ALONE

Bla-ah, bla-ah, bla-ah, blah-og
Bla-ah, bla-ah, blah-og

I mock celebrities,
Politics and sports and TV shows
Then I Google me
And hope it links to where I blog alone

I can’t sleep at night
Even on vacation far from home
I pull up my site
To know I’m still online and I blog alone

I blog alone
I blog alone

I blog alone
I blog a-

My only
Friends are avatars and smileys
I humbly
Post my views then praise them highly
Some day I’ll
Sell my soul like Bill O’Reilly
Till then I
BLOG ALONE

Bla-ah, bla-ah, bla-ah, blah-og
Bla-ah, bla-ah

I blog alone
I blog alone

I unmask media lies
On the blogger board of broken links
Guess who leaves replies?
Yes, I’m the only one and I blog alone

Hey, look, they
Praised me in the News on Sunday
My site got
Thirteen million hits in one day
Okay, I
Lied, but that could happen some day
Till then I
BLOG ALONE

Good Morning Houston

So the interview on ABC 13 went well, I think. 2 minutes and 27 seconds was the total time. You can view it on Jeff Ehling’s blog by clicking here.

I enjoyed the experience. The staff that makes up the Sunday morning crew made me feel welcome and at ease. Elissa Rivas conducted the actual interview and she made it very pleasant.

When the interview was over Mark Garay (who, by the way, was wearing tennis shoes behind the anchor desk) asked me to stop by and speak with Carmin the producer on my way out. I figured they must want me to sign something or I don’t know what, but I stopped by. No paperwork, oh no. Carmin was having a computer problem and they wanted my assistance.

Turns out that Carmin’s workstation was having a problem with the time change. This was the computer she was using to manage the current on air program with all the various time blocks, story segments, commercial breaks and so forth and every couple of minutes it was reverting back to pre-DST time after she would manually set it to the correct time.

My ~~guess~~ expert opionon was that it must be synching to an NTP server and also not have the current software update to allow it to sort out the time change.

How ironic. Here we are making light of the Y2K7 problem and how it’s no big deal and the very show hosting the interview is in danger of collapsing in a Microsoft-induced DST wormhole.

There’s no way to patch the machine what with it being used to mange a live program. It would have to wait till after the show and wait for one of the ABC IT staff as I was on my way out the door.

It was a great fun and I hope to do more work with ABC in the future.

Y2K7 (The sky is falling)*

What with the upcoming time change for those of us who server under the yoke of Daylight Savings Time, this weekend is going to be interesting. As you are probably aware, we are getting to celebrate early this year thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

We’re having bit of a mini Y2K event. This time it’s called Y2K7. Much like Y2K I expect it to be a big hullabaloo about a whole lot of nuthin’, at least for most of us. I know plenty of system administrators and application developers who have been burning the midnight oil making sure all systems are fully patched and prepared for the early time change.

There are some things you might want to look at technology-wise to be prepared as a computer/technology user.

I wrote a primer for my show web site. It’s called Daylight Savings Time (DST) – Preparing for Y2K7.

I’ve included some useful links for upgrading anything from XP to Apple OS X as well as Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile devices. Pass the link along to anyone you think might need it.

——-

*again