I am a geek – Page 6 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

The geek who saved Christmas

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Over 120 comments thanking me for the solution I provided in my Helpline blog item “My screen is sideways”. The closest runner up is “Double-click opens search instead of folder” with 60+ comments.

This comment received from a reader in the UK tickled me to death:

Daughter aged 11 hit unknown key combination turning screen sideways. Thought had virus, after an hour and much upset, decided to google. You saved our xmas as pressies depend on the computer working.

Hello, Hola, Bonjour, Willkommen!

Awhile back I was utilizing a nifty plugin that would translate my blog into German, Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Chinese and Portuguese. Sadly, the plugin stopped working when the creater of the code released his fully functional and quite commercial version called Angsuman’s Translator Plugin Pro.

This meant that if I wanted to use the plugin I would have to buy it.

After much hemming and hawing I finally broke down and bought the plugin and have now re-installed it.

If you look in the right hand sidebar of baldheretic.com you will see a series of flags. Just click on the flag to see this site in the corresponding language.

The plugin utilizes Google Translate to reformat the blog and it’s pretty slick.

I’m now watching as the search engine spiders re-crawl my web site in order to index it in the various languages.

You can already find references in some search engines to “El Heretic Calvo”….

Geek Gathering

Last Friday’s Geek Gathering was a near miss for me. I completely spaced and almost forgot to attend the very event I organized. It’s not the heat, it’s the senility.

I arrived fashionably late to Tropioca to find a few gathered geeks. Groovehouse, KD5, Barrett and a few others scattered about. Glad to see it going on without me.

After a bit phliKtid showed followed shortly by Jamie who was on her cell phone and apparently being asked a technical question. Groovehouse and phliKtid came to her rescue with an Internet connected laptop.

There was much keyboard clacking and tongues clucking as information was relayed via the phone to Jamie to Groovehouse and phliKtid and then input into the computer. Answers were found and relayed back via the computer to human to phone to human interface.

Success!

I’m glad I managed to show up as we had a special guest come and hang out with us.

Long time friend, Fish fan and award winning Houston blogger Charles Kuffner of Off The Kuff fame.

It appears that technology and politics mix quite nicely over dessert and bubble tea.

New camera

I have finally taken the plunge and purchased a digital SLR. I decided on the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100. It was a toss up between this and the Nikon D80 which is slated to be released later this month.

It shoots at an impressive 10 mega-pixels and is extremely feature rich and so far, has proven very easy to use. I purchased the kit that includes a 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. For the extra $100 it’s a great backup lens and is rather versatile.

Wanting a faster zoom lens I added a Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 XR Di. This adds even greater flexibility when shooting the style of pics I tend to go after.

The main reasons I went with the Sony are the built in image stabilization and the anti-dust technology. To get image stabilization in the Nikon cameras you have to purchase lenses with that capability and that alone doubles the cost of any decent piece of glass.

For the price point this camera is pretty unbelievable and I think it will suite my needs for some time to come.

I took it for a test spin last night and was pleased with the results.

Patch Tuesday

So Dwight Silverman spotted this shirt on Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog, specifically in this post.

It’s very funny on many levels, but mostly in that mega-dorky geeky way that not everyone gets so I find myself chuckling quietly to myself.

Through a bit a finagling he was able to acquire two, one for himself and one for me. How very thoughtful, Dwight! And THANKS!

To better understand why this is funny you have to know what Patch Tuesday is.

If you don’t get it, don’t fret. It just means that you are probably much more socially well adjusted than I am and that’s a good thing.

Who you gonna call?

In this town I am one of the “go to” geeks. On occasion, when one of the network affiliates needs an “expert”, they turn to Houston’s Best Tech Geek for a sound bite or two.

This time it’s Phil Archer from NBC’s Channel 2 doing a story about the proposed changes with Time Warner Cable. Apparently they’re moving to Dallas and Comcast is coming here.

Phil wanted to discuss what Houston’s Internet users might expect during this transition.

It airs tonight at 5:00 pm. It should be good for a laugh.

As I always say, I have a face for radio.

Macintosh commercial parodies

3 new Mac commercial spoofs.

Networking

Gaming

Performance

A nerd’s life

This weekend while hanging out downtown at the 3700 Main St. Entertainment Megaplex (aka The Continental Club, Sig’s Lagoon, Taco A-Go-Go and The Big Top) I found myself sitting behind the counter at Sig’s Lagoon working on Tomas Escalante’s laptop.

Tomas Escalante is a stand up guy. Not only does he run Sig’s Lagoon, he is also the front man for Clouseaux who, as it just so happens, have a very nice new CD that just came out.

Poor Tomas, his laptop was crawling with some nasty trojan horses and other malware that was quite tenacious.

Friday night, out on the town and getting my geek on. This is the life.

There was a blues show next door at the Continental Club that did not interest me all that much so I was content to work on the PC and chat with the steady stream of customers coming into the shop.

On this Friday night none other than Allen Hill of the Allen Oldies Band was on site stumping for votes in the upcoming 2006 Houston Press Music Awards.

Dressed to kill in his trademark tux and tennies he was spinning oldies on vinyl and encouraging patrons to fill out a ballot and cast their vote. The Allen Oldies are nominated in the Best Cover Band category this year. It was hoot to watch.

I spent most of that evening just enjoying the groove at Sig’s and watching Allen’s antics as I repaired the laptop and got it back up and running.

If you are in the Houston area and have not checked out Sig’s Lagoon I strongly suggest you find the time and go have a look. It’s a record store/gift shop that is quite unique.