Last weekend, a bunch of us went kayaking down the St Croix river. It was a beautiful ride down with lots of wildlife to see along the way.

I didn't collect any GPS data on this trip, but used Google My Maps to mark out the route. The embedded version shown below was created using My Maps Plus.





As always, there are plenty of pictures on my smugmug page.

I have been meaning to post this for a while. On our bike ride to Lake Elmo, I collected some GPS data intending to plot them on Google maps.

I looked at a few existing solutions for this and tried using www.mtbguru.com. The interface on this website was quite painful and I finally settled on using www.everytrail.com. This site is a little better, but is still a little buggy.

An embedded version of the resulting page is posted below. If you do click the link and go over to the everytrail site, I would suggest using the full-screen view. The GPS data gets skewed in the non-full-screen view (one of the few bugs).

Lake Elmo Ride at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: GPS, Photos & Geotagging!

Check out the pictures below or on my smugmug page

Labels: Biking

Just use Gmail paper. Free printing of your emails on "96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum" that actually saves the environment. And those wonderful photos that are attached.... printed on glossy soybean paper. The service doesn't currently support printing mp3 or wav files, but this is Google right... they'll figure out a way.

Or maybe you'd like some free wireless internet at home. Easy...Simply get the TiSP system and plug it into your toilet, and voila... you are connected to the inter-sewer gateway. Dont forget to use the GFlush™ system. Google has really been working hard on your plumbing this last year.

For other great Google products, check this post out.

Mozilla Firefox has the feature that allows you to store your passwords for you. The passwords are encrypted and stored on your computer. However, in case you forget your password, you can open up the Preferences/Options menu and see your passwords under the 'Security' tab.


This isn't a security problem as long as long as you have a password protected account on the computer and log off or lock your computer when you are not using the computer. But if someone was to use your computer even for a few minutes, they would be able to look at your passwords.

Disabling the 'Save Passwords' feature is one option, but having your passwords saved is a useful feature to have. Another option is to set a 'Master Password' and only if you enter the 'Master Password' can you access the other passwords.

One other option is to hide the passwords completely. You can do this by editing the 'passwordManager.xul' file. In Linux this would be under '/usr/share/firefox/chrome/toolkit/content/passwordmgr' (depending on where you installed firefox). You can edit the .xul file directly.

On Windows, the toolkit is compressed and stored as a jar file (Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome\toolkit.jar). You have to extract the .jar file and can find the .xul file under content\passwordmgr\. Once you edit the .xul file, you will need to re-compress the content folder using zip compression and name it toolkit.jar.

Editing passwordManager.xul

1. Before you go any further, make a backup of the passwordManager.xul file (or toolkit.jar on Windows).

2. Open the file for editing and look for the lines:
<button id="togglePasswords">
oncommand="TogglePasswordVisible();"/>

3. Delete or comment these lines out (<!-- code --> to comment).

Optionally, you can also delete or comment out the code for the button removeAllSignons.

4. Save the file. On Linux, you are done. Just restart Firefox.

Under Windows, you need to make the new toolkit.jar file. Just re-archive the content folder and name the archive toolkit.jar and replace the old one. Restart Firefox.

The result should be a clean password list window.

Labels: Firefox

Just got back from an awesome dirt-biking trip in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

I have uploaded some pictures that can be viewed here

And here are a few videos...

Attempting a jump over our little hill:



Craig nearly landing over Meredith:



And here is one of Bryan showing off his hill climbing skills:

Labels: Dirt Biking

It looks like Google has done it again with their April Fools jokes. This year they have launched 'Google Romance' a website that uses Google's Soulmate Search™ program to find you a Contextual Date™, that they would pay for. By the way, the Soulmate Search™ program uses the latest psychographic and search algorithms to "bear on the problem of hooking up our users" :-).

I guess I should sign up now!!!

Anyway, here are some pranks from previous years...
2005 http://www.google.com/googlegulp/
2004 http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html
2002 http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html
2000 http://www.google.com/mentalplex/

After few weeks of toiling away after work.... alright sometimes during work as well, I've completed what has easily been my toughest woodworking project yet. I've been meaning to get a coffee table for a while now and after watching a few shows on the DIY network, decided to draw out something that I thought I could build. A few modifications later, here is what I came up with...






The making...
Joining all the pieces that make up each side


A jig I used to make the dowel holes


An assembled side


The assembled frame


Attaching the secondary table top


Almost done

Labels: Woodworking

I've spent the last few months building stuff for a portable traffice surveillance system for rural intersections. It has been a lot of hardware work with building the equipment that goes at each sensor station, and with 18 different stations, lab space has become quite tight. Sure tools and parts are strewn all over the place at the lab, but I never have trouble finding what I need.

Moneydance launched a new version of thier software a few days ago. It sure does have a nicer interface and a more functional report generation tool than the previous version. I had been a Quicken user for a while and loved the simplicity and power of the tool. But when I made the switch to Ubuntu earlier this year (well I guess it is last year now), Moneydance as the Linux option didn't disappoint at all. It is not open source or free, but for 30 bucks, it is not a bad deal at all. Moneydance can connect to most online instituitions that Quicken can connect to, and can import everything from Quicken or Money which is really handy while making the switch.

Now if only it could also make my money multiply for me...