Jeffrey Barr

A friend whose websites I maintain is at ISC West. He is a dealer/installer and invited me to come out and walk the floor with him. So, I'm off to Vegas for a night.

A Palindrome in the form of a 224 word poem.

I got an email solicitation related to another website I have. I was curious, but wary and checked a number of terms in the email on Google. One thing I checked was the provided phone number. That is what led me to the site 800Notes. It calls itself a "Directory of UnKnown Callers."

Just reading through random phone numbers, you get a sense of how helpful the site is and how much you need to research companies and people with whom you may do business.

Just set this up using a Linksys Dual-Band Wireless-N Gaming Adapter. It was easy to set up on my wireless network. Just went through the gaming adapter set up on the PC and then plug it into the ethernet port on my DVR. The DVR found the network and started downloading the catalog of shows right away.

However, besides some interesting kids shows, there is not much free stuff available worth noting. I was really hoping for some TV shows that I want to start or have started to watch, as it would be nice to see what I've missed. I'd be completely sold if they just had all the previous seasons of BSG.

If you got to this site looking for group theory information related to Cayley Tables, hit my Thesis link in the upper left corner. It links to my Master's thesis in Computer Science from San Diego State University in 2005. The title of my thesis was Computational Tools for Group Theory: A Program for the Generation, Identification, and Analysis of Finite Groups.

Based on all that is going on in politics and the economy these days, this was the best question and answer on a Washington Post chat with David Broder.

New York : So who would you pick: Lebron James or Kobe Bryant?
David S. Broder: I just wish we we had one of them playing for the Wizards.

Only in my dreams.

The New York Times has an awesome graphic of the Twitter Chatter During the Super Bowl. The programmers used the Twitter API to get the data from Twitter and combined it in a very interesting way. This also shows the value of an API because Twitter is basically getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising from the New York Times since this graphic is getting a lot of play on the tubes.

Interesting article on how Twitter is being used by more and more companies and groups to assist in customer service. By keeping an RSS feed to a search of terms or having a company Twitter account, the companies are quickly responding to customer complaints and questions. Now if twitter could just figure out a revenue stream. Found via Lance Armstrong's tweet (yes, that Lance Armstrong)

One service I am really appreciating are the free audiobooks from the San Diego Public Library. I've already listened to multiple books and can listen to them on both my MP3 player and my phone. Books are available in both secure MP3 and WMA formats. The DRM allows the library to check out the audiobook for 3 weeks and then automatically erase it. However, you can keep it indefinitely on a portable player such as an IPod. I sync the portable files via Microsoft Media Player.

Some of the books I've listened to are:
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
As well as assorted science fiction books.

I've been trying a laptop at home that has Ubuntu installed and have to say I've been enjoying using it. As a software engineer it is nice to have all the linux based tools and as a user the interface and install system is top notch. Adding Eclipse was very easy as well as a variety of programming languages. Also, finding software to do everyday stuff like video editing was easy although I have not yet tried Kino out. Also, it has nice update features and comes with good standard software and great online documentation and support. Just add Ubuntu to the search phrase for a software package or need and you can easily find installation or usage instructions.

Makes me wonder how successful these Netbooks will be.