nasa.gov domain without the www

I noticed the other day that if you enter the domain NASA.GOV into your browser's URL bar, you will get a "404, page not found" error.

Shoudn't they fix that? Besides, it's not Rocket Science! <<Drum Fill>>

The Accidental Webmaster

LatPro just launched career advice site that departs from the usual recycled advice, and instead, it features interviews from actual seasoned professionals of many different areas.

Last Friday I gave an interview to them titled Interview with accidental multilingual webmaster.

Blue Screen on Vaio VGN240F !!!!

A friend of mine got the feared BSOD on a Vaio VGN NW240F and asked me to fix it.

The fault happened with iaStor.sys which has soemething to do w/  storage drivers. This issue was so bad that even safemode produced the BSOD.

I looked all over for clues, tried a few suggested procedures but the closest I got to a solution was a Sony Forum moderator suggesting a system restore from a restore disk. 

Problem is, these laptops no longer ship with Windows disk.  It is expected that they create their own Restore disks, which, most of the time, they don't.  But they sell them for a few bucks.  It really stinks, you buy a software license but they don't ship you the darn disks.

At any rate, I was able to restore w/ a Windows 7 disk and lucky for my friend, I was able to rescue the important files and pictures using an Ubuntu Live CD and a Pen drive.

I wonder if anybody out there fixed this w/out a sys restore.

More on the BSOD message:

SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTIOPN

stop: 0x0000003B (0x00000000C000001D,0xFFFFF80002E955BB,0xFFFFF88006505C70,0x0000000000000000)

STIOL 0x000000D1 (0x0000000000000000,0x0000000000000002,0x0000000000000001,0xFFFFF880010D0771)

My Senna Movie Review

I just got my BluRay DVD of the new Senna documentary, directed by the british team of director Asif Kapadia and writter by Manish Pandy

I've been wanting to see this movie in quite a while and the US release has been a  mistery.  I understand that documentaries and Formula 1 aren't top priority in for the studios.

After managing to get a hold of the Brazilian release through my sister, I went on to watch the extended version.  I found it to be a very nice compilation of mostly already available footage but nicely stitched for the audience consumption.

The documentary does a great job outlining the life of the arguably the greatest F1 driver ever.  I am not sure it's Oscar worthy but it is by far the best Senna documentary to date.

My only mistake was to start with the Extended Version, which was super long and loaded with talking head testimonials.  The Theater version was much better ... makes sense, I suppose.


I also don't see much point in acquiring this in BluRay format since most of the footage is very old, things from TV Globo video archive and not in very good shape.  The music was superb, but you can get surround from a regular format DVD, so if you are going to buy this, save the extra dough.

I've read many other reviews touting the movie as being suitable for non-motorsports enthusiasts but I am still wondering about it.

Finally, even for an F1 afficionado who is old enough to remember the trajectory and know the 'story', I highly recommend this documentary.  It did fill some gaps and rounded off the story nicely.  If you don't know anything about Senna, you will come out of it knowing him for sure.

Did you watch it? What's your opinion.

Homemade Kayak Rod Holder for Hobie Oasis

One advantage of Kayak fishing aboard a the Hobie Oasis is the ability to troll. Since your feet are doing the paddling, your hands are free to handle the fishing rod.  However, the Oasis is not, by birth, a fishing kayak, and is not equipped with rod holders. Instead of buying Hobie's fishing rod add-ons,  I went to the neighborhood hardware giant and bought 20 dollars worth of PVC fittings:

I didn't want to retrofit, cut or poke any holes onto my kayak so I decided to use the sail mast hole as the mount for my contraption:

I used 3/4" PVC which didn't quite fit the mast hole. The workaround (for noe) was to insert a paint roller to the core of the handle.  As you can see below, I used small screws to secure the wood handle to the pvc.

I don't think it was a great choice but it works for now.  I will be looking for a better alternative and update this post in the near future.

Here's the final product.  It's untested but I already anticipate 2 "fixable" bugs. For starters, I need to make it not rotate, by either making the mast hole fit tight or by tying the sides to the kayak handle (not so elegant). Secondly, I just realized that the pedals may hit the holder or the rod.  Either way, I can and will fix these issues.

Hope that this will help someone get inspired to do a similar project.  If it does, please share!

Took the MetroPCS plunge

After intense research, I've switched cellphone provider from Verizon to MetroPCS also known as MetroPCShit.  I was dead set on Sprint but I decided to take a chance with the no-strings attached Metro.

Well, I am just loving it!  In 15 minutes, I ported my Verizon number, I own my hardware and have no ball-and-chain contract.  For 50 bucks, month-to-month, I have unlimited everything! No B.S.

For the phone, I got a LG Optimus-M for $150 and it's mine all mine!  This Optimus is a "mid-end" Android and it's darn cool.

So far, so good.  No issues w/ voice nor text.  Internet can be spotty with some apps.  When using the Browser, I am able to connect almost 100% of the time.  At home, I just use the Wi-Fi.

If you want to save some dough and you live in an area served by MetroPCS, don't need to travel to Montana, then I think you'll be happy w/ Metro. Then again, if you are using the phone as a primary business tool, you may want to stick to the big boys since they are "supposed" to be more reliable.

Tethering the Droid on Verizon

My wife purchased a Motorola Droid from Verizon prior to our trip to the Zion National Park and Grand Canyon so I wanted to see if we could use the Android phone as a modem for our laptop on the road.  I do realize that much can be done in the Droid itself, but I use 4 monitors in work and a smartphone screen is a bit claustrophobic.

Turns how it was very easy. No rooting / jailbreaking required.

Here’s how to do it:

1. On your Droid, enable USB Debugging (Home > Settings >
   Applications > Development > check the option USB Debugging.
2. Download PDAnet for free to your PC or Mac.
3. Launch the PDAnet Installer and follow all the prompts. At some point, it will prompt you to plug in the USB cable, install USB drivers, etc.
4. During this process, it will also install the app on your Droid.
5. Now, run the PDAnet app that is on your Droid, and press button to “Enable USB tether”

That’s it. There will be a tray icon (Windows users) and you can always click there to enable/disable the PDAnet modem connection.

You can also make it connect automatically so that when you stick the USB into the computer, it will connect right way (but make sure USB tether is enabled on the Droid.


Finally, the connection feels a bit like dial-upish, but hey…it’s better than nothing!

Enjoy!

PS. Fortunately, we didn't use too much during our trip.