All I want is three things:

• Domain registration for cheap
• Privacy or proxy domain registration
• Variable DNS

Seems simple, right? GoDaddy offers all three things I mention above, but the domain registration cost has been rising recently and the Domains By Proxy service they own is expensive and buried in controversy. At least their DNS works as expected.

When it became time to renew one of my domains, I decided it was time to give GoDaddy the boot.

I did all the things expected of one when one wants to find a new registrar. I scoured the web for forum posts, blog entries, and reviews of registrars. After many hours of searching, I narrowed my search down to two companies: Name.com and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. Ultimately, after reviewing both services further, I went with NearlyFreeSpeech.NET (NFSN).

I like simple. NFSN is has a painfully simple dashboard, free account creation, and very easy pricing. They work slightly different than most hosting companies (for a lot of reasons). Yes, they are a hosting company, but that doesn’t mean I have to pay to have them host anything at all. Domain registrations are about average in terms of cost ($8.59 as of this writing), but I love their policy statement. Their private domain registration service proudly announces that it privatizes domains! Though this may seem a given, DomainsByProxy fails at what it is suppose to do for $19.95 a year! For only $0.01 a day, they provide a mailing address, email, fax, and mail inbox for my domain. They assert that, short of a court order, my identity will not be revealed. In short, they say they do their job. A quick Google search shows no complains.

Ideally, I wanted free private registration, but $0.01 * 365 = $3.65. Add that to the cost of the domain, and I’m only paying $12.24 a year for domain registration and domain privacy. That’s about $15 less than GoDaddy for the same services! Darn GoDaddy and their useless upsells.

I’m now one day in to my service (it took about 2 hours for the full transfer to complete–I have another tirade about that), but it’s doing what I expect!

[ Josh Gabriel presents Winter Kills - Deep Down ]

They say, they say
We should have known better than to
fall so deep down, deep down
into this rabbit hole we found

and i was thinking
on the long way down here
no life, no light, no sight. no sound down here
hold my hand now
eyes closed don’t stop down deep
into this pool of regrettable situations
pitch black
think back to the last time
that we were happy

losing my senses
lost in my head
i am nothing, and no one
and nowhere at all
i am thoughtless and i fought this on my own

this is the wrong way
this is the long way down
this is the wrong way
this is the long way down
this is the wrong way
this is the long way down
this is the wrong way
this is the long way down

from these midnight walls
sinister faces rest a gaze on me
and in this darkness
foolishly i run
this is the wrong way
losing my senses
lost in my head
i am nothing, and no one
and nowhere at all
i am thoughtless and i’ve fought this on my own (and i’m sinking….)
on the long way down here
no life, no light, no sound, no sight down here
hold my hand now
eyes closed don’t stop, down deep
into this pool of regrettable situations
pitch black
think back to the last time
that we were happy

from these midnight walls
sinister faces rest a gaze on me
and in this darkness
foolishly i run
this is the wrong way
losing my senses
lost in my head

Michael Jackson: Trending

After TMZ reported his death, Twitter immediately became abuzz. I (of course) tweeted after becoming aware. Apparently millions of others did too as his name (and the Micheal spelling as well) appeared on Trending Topics. I clicked on his name and five seconds later there were 8000+ tweets waiting for me to read.

Soon after Twitter complete failed. See my post Twitter Stumbles for more thoughts on the happy Twitter whale.

It’s a sign of our time that when celebrity news happens, Twitter fails. When major earthquakes or political elections occur, Twitter can handle the load just fine. Go figure.

Either that means we (as a society) need to worry less about celebrity gossip and more about politics, or Twitter needs to update their systems to handle celebrity gossip.

Of course the irony of both a celebrity and Twitter dying (even if one only for a few moments) at the same time does not escape me. Farrah Fawcett also died today. It’s a bad day to be a celebrity–or Twitter. Does the parallel mean Twitter, too, is destined to die the death of a celebrity? It has its ups and downs, is constantly in the public eye, and in major need of some good PR.

Ah parallels. Fun for all, indeed.

Yes, it’s true. I am a die-hard emacs fan. When an editor does not have emacs emulation (or faulty emulation like Komodo), I’ll do what I can to return to my great love: the terminal.

After installing Visual Studio 2008, I was pleasantly surprised. There is an Emacs emulation mode in Visual Studio 2008!

Tools > Options… > Environment > Keyboard

Under “Apply the following additional keyboard mapping scheme,” select “Emacs.” Hit OK and done!

I tried the kill ring (C-k and C-y), and it worked as I would expect in Emacs. Very cool. They were pretty ingenious with the mark region too (C-<space>). It begins highlighting of text in the editor.

Almost immediately, though, I found a problem. The tab key no longer works on new lines. The proper functionality would be new lines indenting to the appropriate place based on previous context. But no, it only works on lines with current text. Pressing <return> does not indent automatically! What were they thinking?

Deal breaker for me.

I’m very excited! I’ll even get business cards!

What about the green argument? Holding information in RAM requires power to keep it there, or else the computer forgets it. RAM that has nothing in it has no power cost to the system, therefore you are being more power-wise by keeping system memory clear?

Well, that’s half true. I wrote a quick reply, but thought it was an interesting enough question to go a bit more in-depth here. I guess another title for this post could be: How does memory work?

Thankfully, writing about the latter would require a lot more typing than I’m willing to do, so I’ll just discuss the original topic in a long-winded way.

Memory, A Quick Background

First, a bit of background. Memory is one of the three building blocks of a computer (with the other parts being some variation of a processor or input/output). For the sake of simplicity, we’ll pretend the only memory in a computer is something called Random Access Memory (or RAM), or the “quick storage” of a computer.  What does it do? It stores “stuff.”

Every time you run a program, do a calculation, and even more your mouse, things are happening in memory. Most books depict memory as a filing cabinet storing ‘1’s and ‘0’s, which is only partially right. A more accurate approximation of memory would be a tank of water with holes in it. Neat!

Wait. I didn’t lose anyone, did I? Let’s start again.

• Memory stores information in billions and billions of bits (’1’s and ‘0’s) or “cells.” You can also think of it as billions and billions of water tanks.
• If the tank is full, you have a ‘1.’ If the tank is not-full, you have a ‘0.’

Simple! Now it gets a bit more complicated.

How Does Memory Stores Information, or
How Is Memory Like A Water Tank?

Memory stores information very similar to water tanks as I mentioned above. Electricity sits in cells (or tanks), waiting to be of some use. Like water tanks, memory cells can spring leaks. There are different kinds of memory like there are different kinds of water tanks. Water tanks made of cement, for example, will hold water better than tanks made of uncured wood. Like wooden tanks, DRAM (the most common type of memory–the kind people think of as “memory”) leaks electricity. It’s made using capacitors. Why use capacitors if they leak? Manufacturer’s use capacitors for the exact same reason people build leaky wooden water towers: they’re cheap!

As with leaky water towers, memory cells needs to be re-filled when they deplete to a certain level. In a water tower, this may happen once every few months. Capacitors need to be re-filled thousands of times a second! This can be quite costly when it comes to electricity.

Now, imagine the example water tower we’ve been using is several hundred feel tall with no stairs and no water level indicator. How do you check whether it’s full? Simple. You empty the water tower. Memory is no different. DRAM cannot be examined directly without destroying the data already in it. HowStuffWorks explains this process with a pretty animated picture, if you’re interested.

Individually, neither the leaky cell nor destoyed data issues are huge problems. Together (and in the case of DRAM), it’s a big enough problem that memory uses constant electricity. Several thousand times a second, the memory has to be examined. If it isn’t examined fast enough, the computer cannot be tell if it’s holding a ‘1′ (full) or a ‘0′ (not-full). When it is examined, the information is destroyed, so the cell must be re-filled with electricity.

What does all this have to do with saving power?

Back to my original topic. Imagine you have 20 programs open and want to close 10 to save memory. Does it also save power consumption? No.

Memory that is not-full needs to be examined the same as memory that is full. That takes power. Also notice that I say “not-full” instead of “empty.” That’s because a value of ‘0′ does not always mean empty/no power. Values of ‘0′ do often require some power. It has to do with electron stability (and stuff like that).

Furthermore, just because memory isn’t in use does not mean it is non-full!

Huh? If something isn’t in use, shouldn’t it be empty?

Just because you close a program does not mean the memory it once used is empty. Let’s return to the water tower example (yes, I know it’s getting old, but I’m almost done writing). Let’s say you don’t need the water tower anymore. Maybe you’ve decided to grow cactus instead of corn. You don’t have to empty the tower just because you don’t use it. In fact, emptying the tower would cost resources! You’d need some place to put the water; you’d need somebody to empty the tank. Heck, you’d probably need somebody to spray for mosquitoes afterward! Memory is the same way. Why change it when it takes resources (time) to do? (As an aside, it ultimately costs less to continuously re-fill memory cells than to empty them, but that’s another post entirely).

I get it! I think..?

Well, I certainly hope I’ve shed some light on the whole “saving power from memory” thing. It can get much more complicated, but for the sake of a blog post, I hope I’ve given a comprehensive explanation.

I do recommend closing programs that you’re not using. I open and close Firefox hundreds of times a day (simply because it takes up screen realestate). It can helps prevent memory leaks and lots of other scary-sounding things. But if you’re like me and close programs a lot, it don’t help save power.

AT&T Logo

I’m an AT&T wireless customer. After heart-ache after heart-ache, I’m still a PacBell Pacbell Wireless Cingular AT&T wireless customer. Not only am I an AT&T customer, but all of my family is too. Conveniently enough, we have a FamilyTalk plan. It works, I suppose. Why is it that multi-billion dollar communication companies don’t care about my business?

Earlier today, I was minding my own business while happily deleting SPAM from my inbox when I noticed an e-mail from the friendly people at AT&T wireless billing. My bill was ready for online viewing! “Splended,” I said to myself! I clicked through to investigate.

After spending a few quality moments with my bill, I noticed something odd about my media plan. Currently, I have an HTC Tilt. It’s a pretty phone with quirks, but (like the FamilyTalk plan) it works. I also have MediaNET.

Now, a crafty netizen would see the strangeness in a PDA/MediaNET combination (though that’s not the strangeness I noticed on my bill). I have a PDA phone with MediaNET. Yes, it is possible. AT&T likes to have everyone think it’s impossible.–but it’s not. Why not? Because I have a PDA phone with MediaNET. I’ve had it for years! In fact, I got my first unlimited MediaNET plan was while I had an HTC 8525 (also a PDA phone). No problems, until today.

Oddly, I noticed that the current MediaNET unlimited plan is $30. That’s $5 less than I’m paying now for the exact same thing. So, being the prudent pain-in-the-rear that I am, I promptly dialed 611; that’s customer service for those who are unaware. A seemingly friendly young man named Robert answered the phone. He seemed like he wanted to be helpful. I explained how I desired to switch to the cheaper plan. He explained how I could not.

Me: “What? Why not? I’ve had MediaNET for years.”

Robert: “The system won’t let me add the new plan to PDA phones. If I remove the plan you have, I’ll have no way of getting it back.”

Me: “Huh? I did this exact same transition from $40 to $35. They were able to do it then.”

Robert: “I’m sorry, sir. I can check.”

[... pause for typing...]

Robert: “No, there is no way for me to add the media unlimited plan to your PDA phone.”

I thanked him for his attempts and disconnected.

Me: “Huh?!”

It’s officially time for a rant.

What would happen if I “myseriously lost” my HTC Tilt and “magically recovered” my ancient four-phones-ago LG CU320? It’s definitely not a PDA phone. Will I get my $5 a month back? I could see paying the extra monthly charge for PDA service if I paired my laptop with my phone–which I do. I can also see paying for a services I receive–which I don’t.

If I pay for PDA services, the services that offer the exact same content/data as MediaNET, shouldn’t it work at the same cost? I barely get signal with MediaNET for what I pay now! Why should I pay more for a “MediaNET for PDAs” service just because I enjoy having Google Maps and a calendar?

If there were proper competition in the United States (or in the cell phone market in general), I would drop AT&T in an instant. At this point it isn’t about $5 a month: it’s about a multi-billion dollar company taking my money and not providing me with reliable, cost effective services.

AT&T, you suck. I’m stuck and I don’t like it.

BOOTMGR is compressed.
Press ctrl+alt+del to restart.
At least this error occurs without data loss. Bootloader problems are pretty easy to fix, especially the Windows 2000+ bootloader.

Step 1: Finding my installation disk

Finding my installation disk was probably the hardest part of this recovery mission. It was somewhere in a pile of Windows installation disks, but I managed to find it and begin (lucky for me I had an iPod on hand to entertain me during the tedious loading process).

Press any key to boot from CD...

K. That was fun. Post Windows 98 installation, Microsoft has been rather driver inclusive. That’s a great policy for installing new systems, but its a pain in the arse when trying to recover an already working system. Driver loading takes a while. So I sat and waited for every driver known to the Windows Installer loaded until I was presented with an option to start a Windows Recovery.

Be sure to note that I didn’t want to recover anything, I just wanted the recovery console. I hit R to enter the Windows 2000 Repair Options screen. Hit c to enter the console, select the appropriate Windows installation (in my case 1 was the appropriate option), type in the administrator password and I’m presented with an old-style DOS prompt.

Step 2: Decompressing the Compressed

First steps first: I made sure I was at the root of my C: (boot) drive by typing cd \. The ntldr binary was in the correct place, so I simply removed compression:

attrib -c bootmgr

And for good measure:

attrib -c ntldr

Simple as that. I rebooted and everything worked fine.

Today I have a more realistic view. I’m finally migrating to WPA. But what about that server in my garage? It literally have one wire coming from it, and that’s the power cord. It uses a cheap wireless card I picked up from Best Buy for a song (yes, it is a WG311 compatible card, how did you know?). The antenna sticks out from the back and picks up whatever signal it can find.

Since there is no monitor attached, I shut it down (correctly, halt -p and all) to move it inside. I hooked it up to a monitor and keyboard, booted it up, watched the out-of-date kernel spit out information that still makes me cringe. Finally, I logged in and tried to figure out how to make this darn old machine use WPA.

I use ndiswrapper to use Windows drivers on my Linux box. Why? Excellent question. Because I have to. Well, I don’t have to, but I want a quick-and-dirty solution, and ndiswrapper provides just such an option!

On to WPA. In this case, Google is my friend.

I came across this article at Ubuntu Portal. Since I run Debian, it wasn’t a stretch to get things going. It was helpful enough for a post. So if you’re in the same situation, check it out.

More? Oh, alright.


$ wpa_passphrase SSID myPassword > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
$ wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -dd

If it connects, use control - c to exit.

Next, pull out your favorite editor (mine is emacs), and edit /etc/network/interfaces.

I like to use static IP address for my internal network (for the desktops, anyhow), so mine looks similar to this:
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.1.190
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1
pre-up wpa_supplicant -Bw -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant

Of course, it’s your network. Use whatever static IP you want. Well, so long as it’s behind your router.

Reboot!