Knoxscape deep thoughts

Florida Auto Portfolio

2011-10-26T10:47:00.005-04:00

National Auto Lenders purchases Florida Auto Portfolios. NAL is a leader in buying auto loan portfolios in Florida, buying portfolios both from buy-here/pay-here dealers and from finance companies.

Boca Raton Marriage Counseling

2010-04-29T20:15:00.002-04:00

The site at Boca Raton Marriage Counseling has been updated recently and shows how Carolyn Kelley can help couples and marriages succeed in the difficult times. Carolyn Kelley, LCSW is a therapist in Boca Raton, FL.

I oppose the WALL STREET BAILOUT

2008-09-24T07:42:00.001-04:00

I understand that the situation is difficult, but allowing Wall Street firms to sell that toxic waste bonds and derivatives to the Fed or the US Treasury is just obscene.

Just about any other solution is better. 700 Billion is a enormous number. Give that to the taxpayers, and let them catch up on their mortgages or debt or whatever. Let’s try a gigantic stimulus package BEFORE the taxpayers buy a bunch of garbage.

Or really do the Resolution Trust Solution. Seize insolvent firms and then manage the orderly unwinding of these toxic derivatives.

DO NOT GIVE IT TO WALL STREET FIRMS THAT CREATED THIS GIGANTIC MESS!

Please stand firm against this Big Government solution.

http://www.polarman.com/

New website

2007-02-02T08:23:00.000-05:00

Very interesting website at San Luis Preservation. It's all about the oldest continuously operating business, R&R Market, which is in the oldest town in Colorado.

Vista Virtual Desktops

2007-01-13T06:12:00.000-05:00

After looking for a virtual Vista desktop, several alternatives are
Active Virtual Desktop, http://www.astonshell.com/,
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtuawin/

Virtuawin is GPL. The first AVD says Vista ready, but I think I'll wait for some reviews to come in.

Me? Spam?

2006-09-10T09:05:00.000-04:00

For a while blogger/blogspot was making me fill in a CATCHA to make sure I was human to post to my own blog. I believe the reason was because many of my posts were a few short sentences with typically one link. Something like, "I need to look into technology blah, because it could help out blah blah." I didn't really understand this until I went to use Microsoft's Live Writer product and post to blogspot. It failed with an error message that directed me to a request a human review my blog. That all occurred and now I can post from from Live Writer. In fact, this post is using Live Writer.

OpenSearch

2006-09-04T13:02:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting OpenSearch tag set on shadows.com, which I need to investigate further. And perhaps add a search or two related to it. I believe this is one of those web 2.0 sites using social bookmarking. It's apparently implemented in Ruby on Rails, which is cool.

additional information on how to add search to IE7

2006-09-02T14:08:00.000-04:00

IE7 uses OpenSearch technology to power the built-in search bar. This lens covers posts on various searches being added.

read more | digg story

Best way to add searches to IE7 search bar

2006-09-02T10:30:00.000-04:00

A great feature of IE7 is the built-in search bar. Now that IE7 is at the release candidate level, this site allows users to customize and add searches to the bar. Browse through the hundreds of search provider plugins already added by users. Works for Firefox 2, too.

read more | digg story

Reddit personalized page

2006-09-02T09:51:00.000-04:00

Reddit is a kind of social bookmarking service that allows you to keep and rank links. Everyone sees all the links and ranks them, so there's a democratic effect of measuring links and sites. Here's my Reddit home page.

Microsoft Live Writer

2006-08-28T16:02:00.000-04:00

Testing the Live.com Writer application which is a blog editor. Although I was aware that such things existed, I had never used one. This one seems straightforward and simple and works with a variety of blog sites and tools: blogger, live spaces, typepad, and wordpress. Seems cool so far.

New Lens for search plugins

2006-08-09T22:13:00.000-04:00

Find a new lens at IE7 Search Additions. It's at squidoo. I found it pretty easy to organize and put together.

Spaces have gone Live

2006-08-05T10:04:00.000-04:00

MSN spaces can now be found as part of Live.com. So you have to go to Add plugins to IE7

Add Oodle.com to IE7 Search

2006-07-29T12:49:00.000-04:00

Oodle.com was added to Add Search Providers to IE7 by the Tedster.
Search Engine for classifieds local. To find the merchandise, the cars, the cover, the works, tickets and more. Take a look. Oodle recently introduced API's that allow partners to access the information directly. Cool.

IE7 and Firefox search toolbar is open

2006-07-22T06:27:00.000-04:00

There's a new blog covering OpenSearch and IE7 and Firefox search providers that's at Search providers

IE7 resources for search toolbar

2006-07-21T17:45:00.000-04:00

Check out resources for IE7's search toolbar.

Add Search Plugins IE7

2006-07-21T15:54:00.000-04:00

Add Search plugins has some interesting information about using OpenSearch: Add search plugins to IE7 and Firefox 2. The OpenSearch site has an RSS feed so that you can easily monitor new searches/plugins that have been added. Check it out.

The IE7 search toolbar; more than search

2006-07-21T07:36:00.000-04:00

Interesting post about IE7's search toolbar and how to add internet tools like whois and tracert to the IE7 search toolbar.

2006-07-08T08:57:00.000-04:00

Thomas Hawk's opinion about Jill Greenberg should be read. Since I think she does these things to get publicity, the only way to fight that is to create links to Thomas's site.

2006-06-21T12:43:00.000-04:00

The new Internet Explorer 7 has cool search toolbar that lets you add search engines. I found it a bit frustrating that there was no user way to add and customize searches. I’ve set up a website, www.OpenSearchList.com, that lets you find searches and easily add your own to that toolbar. It uses the OpenSearch standard to manage XML files that meet the openSearch standard.

2006-04-30T16:27:00.000-04:00

Welcome : (View) Perspective sounds like a good opportunity to try out a wiki.

2006-04-16T10:02:00.000-04:00

Shopify: "Add your products, accept credit card payments, track and respond to orders, all without needing a geek in the family" Could be useful once they go live.

2006-03-09T17:50:00.000-05:00

Pod2Mob.com - Mobile Podcasting: "When we first launched our slogan was 'Cut the White Cord!' It’s not that we do not like iPods and their little white cables, but we just like living in a totally MOBILE world." Possible way to get podcasts on a cellphone.

2006-03-06T17:26:00.000-05:00

FeederReader Home FeederReader is a full-featured RSS Aggregator with podcast listening and watching ("podcasting" or "podcatching") and enclosure support, running on Windows Mobile. Something for me to look into for my cell phone.

2006-02-26T15:57:00.000-05:00

Polarman: First Impressions of the HTC Wizard (Cingular 8125): "First Impressions of the HTC Wizard (Cingular 8125)" Here I give some of the problems and successes I've had with my new phone.

2006-02-24T06:23:00.000-05:00

PC Mobility: "The KR1 Mobile Router gives you a fast, WiFi network when you don't have access to DSL or cable. The Router provides Internet and data access via most any 1xEV-DO PC Card or 1xEV-DO cell phone. It's perfect for teams working off site or on the road, companies displaying at trade shows, small businesses or home use." A pretty cool looking device, especially for people that live in hurricane alley.

2006-02-07T06:45:00.000-05:00

Ie 7 Beta 2 Standalone Web Design, Web Development And Ecommerce Tutorials. Interesting way to test IE7 Beta.

2006-02-05T09:06:00.000-05:00

Polarman: Email gives way to RSS: "It's time Email gives way to RSS" Yes. RSS is a better technology than email. See my post there on http://www.polarman.com

2006-01-23T08:30:00.000-05:00

Real-time Domain Search is very cool tool for searching for domain names. I believe it uses an AJAX type of technology.

2006-01-18T17:44:00.000-05:00

DriveImage XML - Backup and Image logical Drives and Partitions: "DriveImage XML is an easy to use and reliable program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives. "

2006-01-18T07:42:00.000-05:00

ComputerZen.com - Scott Hanselman - Scott Hanselman's 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List Wow! what a bunch of tools!

2006-01-17T06:11:00.000-05:00

SystemRescueCd homepage Normally I use BartPE but it's good to have options.

2006-01-15T07:07:00.000-05:00

Spyware, Adware, Spam, Phishing, Viruses, Identity Theft Protection SiteAdvisor: "SiteAdvisor helps protect you from all kinds of Web-based security threats including spyware, adware, spam, viruses, browser-based attacks, phishing, online fraud and identity theft" Very interesting site.

2006-01-07T09:32:00.000-05:00

A VC: Jealousy. The baby Bell's are mad that they don't get the same respect as Google. Here are further thoughts of mine: http://www.polarman.com/2006/01/jealousy_of_bab.html

2006-01-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

Law Blog : Judge to Scrushy: Give HealthSouth Back Its MoneyCan't keep performance based bonus when you artificially created the performance!

2005-12-20T11:21:00.000-05:00

Amazon.com: GMP XC-DPG502: Electronicsthis is a dual port WAN router that might do what I want.

2005-12-03T11:57:00.000-05:00

A discussion of what's new in Access 12: "Access has become the most broadly used database in the world because of 5 key strengths: ..." The Microsoft Access teams blogs about new developments.

2005-12-03T06:42:00.000-05:00

You Use Digg? Then You Need To Read The Newly Added TOS and Privacy Policy. Digg is an interesting new twist on the community-run sites similar to slashdot. The twist is that there are no editors; users monitor potential stories and if enough like the story, it bubbles to the front page. Very interesting.

read more | digg story

2005-11-28T08:20:00.000-05:00

Google Groups : microsoft.public.windows.server.dns

2005-10-04T09:11:00.000-04:00

Implement WPA2-Personal wireless security on a Windows XP SP2-based computer: "Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2 (WPA2) is the latest version of security for wireless networks. It's more secure than Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and easy to set up using the features built into Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)."

2005-09-29T07:36:00.000-04:00

How To Retrieve the Results of a Parameter Query Using DAO: "use data access objects (DAO) in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications to retrieve the results of a Parameter QueryDef from Microsoft Access. "

2005-09-18T22:02:00.000-04:00

Alias cannot be seen by same machine: "DisableLoopbackCheck" might be the answer to a problem I'm having with two domain controllers and an alias in the DNS.

2005-08-31T09:55:00.001-04:00

Connecting to SMB share on a Windows 2000-based computer or a Windows Server 2003-based computer may not work with an alias name This can be used to create an alias so that you have a virtual server, thus creating a poor's man hot standby.

2005-08-31T09:55:00.000-04:00

2005-08-30T14:22:00.000-04:00

Google Sitemaps - Welcome!: "Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to help improve your coverage in the Google index." May need to investigate.

2005-08-30T07:49:00.000-04:00

View Additional Account Info with Acctinfo.dll - The Lazyadmin.com"The page includes information is not typically available in Active Directory Users and Computers like the date when the user's password was last set, the user's password will expiry date, as well dates and times when a user last logged on and off..." looks good. I will have to install it.

2005-08-10T20:00:00.000-04:00

NCSE Resource: "'Intelligent Design' Not Accepted by the overwhelming majority of Scientists"

2005-08-10T14:35:00.000-04:00

Intelligent Design Intelligent Design is the latest Creationist non-science dressed up as pretend science. It is anti-science, with no claims of its own, just attacking science but making no testable claims of its own.

2005-08-07T07:40:00.000-04:00

Strongspace? Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Something to consider for online storage, along with box.com (?). $8 a month for 4 GB of storage. No other restrictions.

2005-08-06T08:20:00.000-04:00

Availability and description of the File Checksum Integrity Verifier utilityA useful way to create a hash of files so you can verify if they've been changed.

2005-08-03T11:19:00.000-04:00

Download details: SyncToy v1 Beta An interesting tool that might make all the robocopy scripts I use now less important.

2005-07-29T18:14:00.000-04:00

Command Line Tools | Free software and tools for Windows 2003 XP 2000 NT Interesting command line tools, including querying a ODBC database, pinging a port, and directory information.

2005-07-07T10:34:00.000-04:00

DNS Stuff: DNS tools, DNS hosting tests, WHOIS, tracert, ping, and other network and domain name tools. Great tools.

2005-06-25T08:44:00.000-04:00

Microsoft Windows XP: Using Software Restriction Policies to Protect Against Unauthorized Software This is the most detailed explanation of Software Restrictions.

2005-06-13T06:06:00.000-04:00

Windows Desktop Search - Tech: Customizing the Stock PreviewsItem previews with MSN Search.

2005-06-11T08:12:00.000-04:00

Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system looks interesting in those cases where someone might be using traffic analysis to your detriment.

2005-06-01T14:28:00.000-04:00

Microsoft Windows XP: Using Software Restriction Policies to Protect Against Unauthorized SoftwareThis is one of the best ways to keep malware off your system.

Here's what I recommend. Remove the LNK file type from the list of executible file types.

Skip administrators so you can regain control if you really make a mess.

Also to investigate URL's.

Allow c:\windows, c:\program files

2005-05-27T07:59:00.000-04:00

Phidgets - USB sensors, USB robot sensors, robot kits, hobby robots, robot parts a variety of of cool things to add to your computer.

2005-04-21T07:34:00.000-04:00

WindowsDevCenter.com: Windows Server Hacks: Remotely Enable Remote Desktop This is something I've always wanted to do, be able to remotely turn on desktop sharing.

2005-03-24T07:05:00.000-05:00

Browser Security TestInteresting test for checking browser vulnerabilities.

2005-03-15T06:34:00.000-05:00

LimitLogin - Log and limit concurrent user logons: "Displaying the logins information of any user in the domain according to a specific criterion (e.g. all the logged-on sessions to a specific client machine or Domain Controller, or all the machines a certain user is currently logged on to). "

2005-03-14T19:33:00.000-05:00

HOW TO: Determine When a Shelled Process Ends in Access 2000: "When you run the Shell() function in a Visual Basic for Applications procedure, it starts an executable program asynchronously and returns control to the procedure. This shelled program continues to run independently of your procedure until you close it. "

2005-03-14T15:34:00.000-05:00

Online poker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Poker played online has been responsible for the dramatic increase in the number of poker players." Actually, I'm linking to this because many bloggers are linking to it to attempt to punish those responsible for comment spam.

2005-03-13T19:47:00.000-05:00

SUperior SU: "a powerful desktop switcher utility that allows for running multiple shells on different desktops on behalf of different users"

2005-03-12T17:22:00.000-05:00

Vonage ClickToCall API: "hack up some ASP.NET code, place on your web page, and allow people to call you for free"

2005-03-12T10:43:00.000-05:00

RTCM - Links - Free Security SupportHas a number of useful utilities and helpful links.

2005-03-12T07:33:00.000-05:00

Saw Tooth Distortion - How to Delete Undeletable Files

2005-03-10T21:02:00.000-05:00

Automating the Installation and Execution of Spybot Search & Destroy: "The objective of this article is to outline how to install and run Spybot Search & Destroy remotely, automatically and as unobtrusively as possible "

2005-03-01T20:04:00.000-05:00

tripThis utility has the potential for being an instantious smart run popup.

2005-03-01T20:03:00.001-05:00

tripThis utility has the potential of

2005-03-01T20:03:00.000-05:00

tripThis utility has the potential of being like an instantious smart run popup.

2005-01-06T17:46:00.000-05:00

NetMesh: Light-Weight Digital Identity (LID) Another Single Sign On system that might be worth investigating.

2005-01-04T07:25:00.000-05:00

Sysinternals Freeware - Utilities for Windows NT and Windows 2000 - Autoruns Sometimes I think the guys at Sysinternals know more about Windows than Microsoft. This free utility helps you determine ALL the executibles launched at startup.

2004-12-15T07:26:00.000-05:00

Whois Source - Wildcard Domain Search LookupSome interesting domain tools here.

2004-12-14T12:21:00.000-05:00

Jetable.org - Home This is another disposable email site worth using. It lets you set a variable amount of time that you'd like to have the disposable email address forwarded to your real email.

2004-12-13T07:49:00.000-05:00

Peter Near's BlogPeter has an explaination for ripping DVD's to a media center that will allow an extender to play the ripped media. This is a necessary step because out of the box, a MCX won't play the remote DVD's.

2004-12-06T07:41:00.000-05:00

X-RayPc Spyware RemoverThis tool provides an easy to use list of running processes.

2004-11-17T07:42:00.000-05:00

The Great Software ListA good site to start with when looking for a specific new program.

2004-11-12T11:45:00.000-05:00

Boca Raton Airport - AirportMonitor - by Megadata - powered by PASSURAn interesting site involving monitoring planes near boca raton, apparently using near-real time radar.

2004-11-10T11:57:00.000-05:00

IP Address Locator - Enter an IP address to find its location - Lookup Country Region City etcThis site does a lot to find out where a particular IP address is coming from. It also is capable of taking a tracert and attempting to find the path that a packet takes.

2004-10-05T21:29:00.000-04:00

Divxstation - Tweak w2k3 server to make it Look like XP, Part 1 This can be useful if you are using a w2k3 server as a workstation.

2004-09-20T20:35:00.000-04:00

Lloyd Borrett - Computing - Play the Petals Around the Rose game (JavaScript)A little recreation.

2004-09-02T10:45:00.000-04:00

We are preparing for Hurricane Frances today. I will try to keep you up to date on our status. Fortunately our house is well built and has excellent rolladen shutters. I have check them all and most are shut at this point.

2004-08-23T06:51:00.000-04:00

URLinfo beta from Fagan FinderThis site brings together a lot of search engine, whois, link, and blog tools for a URL.

2004-08-20T16:23:00.000-04:00

How to Remove Spyware and Malware from a Windows computer This is a general guide to removing bad software from your computer, and has links to a number of useful tools, of which I had learned the hard way of most of them. It's nice to have them all in one place.

2004-08-12T16:05:00.000-04:00

I have installed the Windows XP Service Pack 2 on several machines. I used the full install from MSDN. One machine it was installed on already had a release candidate on it, and it easily installed on top of that. One machine is XP home and the others are Pro. All are working well. The home machine has AOL and it is working fine. Some people have complained that various feature improvements weren't made. I think they completely miss the point of really hardening the system. First get the operating system really secure THEN worry about improvements. Any improvements would have necessarily slowed down the release of the security features. Another complaint I've seen is that the new improved firewall only checks inbound connections. From my perspective, if malicious code gets on your machine, it's too late. My dad had a situation where a day-zero exploit got on his machine and it turned off Zone Alarm. As it died, ZA warned my dad and disabled his machine. To get his machine going again, he uninstalled ZA, leaving the malware happy talking on the internet and feeding him ads.

Norton Antivirus has been upgraded to work (using WMI) to report to the security center. That's working on the one machine I have with Norton.

Improvements that I would have like to have seen in SP2 would be a quick way to add sites to your trusted zone, and a more restrictive Internet Zone in IE. That would prevent some exploits; that's the way I run my machine. Perhaps there's a IE helper function that is a button to add the current site to your trusted zone. Another general improvement I would like to see is better support to run as Least Privileged user. Too many applications (hear me, Intuit??) think the application has to run with administrator rights. This is partially Microsoft's problem since users by default in Home are administrators, Intuit can get away with such clumsy programming.

So far I'm very happy with XP SP2 and here's hoping that it dramatically reduces malware.

Testing of email posting feature in blogger

2004-08-11T07:39:00.000-04:00

This message was posted by sending blogger a email.

2004-07-30T09:19:00.000-04:00

The Parasite Fight: "Finding, Removing & Protecting Yourself From Scumware"

2004-07-25T15:50:00.000-04:00

Financial Calculators at Dinkytown.net Here's a useful site for estimating your taxes for the current year.

2004-07-11T08:33:00.000-04:00

Download details: Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools

using XCOPY as a backup technique is a good method because it can look for only changed files and thus be efficient, as well as working through all subdirectories to backup everything. However, it has the limitation that any moved files or deleted files in the source directory remain in the target directory.

I have recently found ROBOCOPY which has a mirror option which does exactly what I want for backup purposes. It removes any files at the target directory that no longer exist in the source directory.

I am replacing all uses of XCOPY with ROBOCOPY as in the following:

robocopy "C:\Documents and Settings\knox\My Documents" "\\EVOLUTION\Knox\My Documents" /MIR /ETA

The /MIR means Mirror the directory and all subdirectories. The /ETA option means show an estimate time of when large files will finish. You may want to use the /COPYALL switch which copies attributes, NTFS security, ownership and auditing info.

ROBOCOPY is distributed by Microsoft for free as part of the Windows server 2003 resource kit. It also runs fine on windows XP.

It also has a cool monitor feature where it runs continously looking for changes.

2004-07-08T07:20:00.000-04:00

From this great article C# versus Java "Most developers, especially those with a background in C or C++, would probably agree that features like operator overloading, pointers, preprocessor directives, delegates and deterministic object cleanup make C# more expressive than Java in a number of cases. Similarly, Java developers who learn C# will be pleasantly surprised at features that are missing in Java that will seem glaring in their absence once one uses them in C#, such as boxing, enumerations and pass by reference. On the other hand the lack of checked exceptions, inner classes, cross platform portability or the fact that a class is not the smallest unit of distribution of code makes the choice of C# over Java not a clearcut case of choosing more language features without having to make any compromises."

2004-06-28T07:20:00.000-04:00

Russel Nelson writes a blog which I find fascinating and educational. Most of the time I find myself in agreement, but in a recent column he writes about
Law without government where he says "If I had my choice of perfect worlds, there would be no government in it. People purchase protection from a private company of their choice. This company, in turn, subscribes to a system of laws which is privately written. Independent judges interpret the law fairly, or they don't get the business next time."

His recent column on private laws stuck me as unworkable in practice. Mainly because if law is complex now, it would get even more complex, because there would need to come into effect a meta-law system to interpret and deal with interactions between two law-systems. Example: I as a small business owner, go to rent a copier. Right now, I can count on various provisions of the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) to govern our transaction. Under the privatized law system, you’d have to find out whose law they subscribe to. It may have provisions that conflict with the law I am subscribing to.

The outcome would be as if we ignored geographical boundaries and took Georgia’s law and Alabama’s law and sat the two systems on top of each other. Worse, let’s take two different Nation’s law and superimpose them on each other.

Malaysia comes to mind as a place that has a system of laws similar what he proposes. Malaysia has Islamic law that applies to Muslims, and different laws that apply to the other citizens. Two parallel judicial systems, etc. Clearly, it must work to some degree since it exists, but I would not care to live in such a system. As a businessperson, the first question you have to ask a customer is what their religion is so you can figure out if you can pay them interest and how to conform to their law. How would the meta-law govern teenage dating?

I'm happy to have the Bill of Rights and the rule of law under a constitutional democratic republic.

2004-06-25T10:17:00.000-04:00

833633 - How to strengthen the security settings for the Local Machine zone in Internet ExplorerI did this on 6/25/04 to test various applications.

2004-06-15T12:31:00.000-04:00

Trend Micro - Free online virus ScanThis is pretty useful for those cases where you need a quick virus scan, and possibly a fix.

2004-06-08T08:25:00.000-04:00

Fagan Finder ? // search engines, reference, tools, and moreInteresting site dealing with a bunch of search tools.

2004-05-30T15:26:00.000-04:00

Nord-Vision Business Systeme GmbHThey have a useful free program for updating dynamic DNS.

2004-05-29T07:36:00.000-04:00

Wikipedia:Copyrights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The goal of Wikipedia is to create an information source in an encyclopedia format that is freely available. The license we use grants free access to our content in the same sense as free software is licensed freely. "

2004-05-17T14:11:00.000-04:00

GoToMeeting : Home Interesting provider in the web meeting space.

2004-05-03T09:17:00.000-04:00

SMBmeta.org Home Page Something to investigate about small and medium businesses.

2004-05-01T13:34:00.000-04:00

Asterisk - The Open Source Linux PBX: "Asterisk is a complete PBX in software. It runs on Linux and provides all of the features you would expect from a PBX and more. Asterisk does voice over IP in three protocols, and can interoperate with almost all standards-based telephony equipment using relatively inexpensive hardware."