I switched from HaloScan to Disqus this weekend (as a result of Haloscan's decision to stop offering their free service). The whole process was pretty painless due to this nifty tutorial and script. It took about an hour all said and done. I've been meaning to switch for a while since I didn't like the way HaloScan puts the comments in a pop-up window. I'm pretty happy with Disqus so far. Let me know if you run into any problems with commenting!

I signed up for a Treasury Direct account this month (so I can buy I Bonds). They have the most impressive online security I've ever seen on a site designed for consumers.

When you sign up for your account, you enter your email address and pick a password. Then they send your account number to your email. You still can't login, though. They also send you in the postal mail a personalized decoder ring card. It has 10 columns and 5 rows of letters, presumably different from everyone else's.

When you go to log in to treasurydirect.gov, you punch in your account number as you would on any site. Then you use a virtual on-screen keyboard to enter your password. Many banking sites do this (such as HSBC), but Treasury Direct is the first I've seen that randomizes the order of the keys on the virtual keyboard. This is important because the whole point of the virtual keyboard is to prevent a program from logging the key strokes or mouse clicks of your password. If the on-screen keyboard is always the same, then having the virtual keyboard doesn't help at all against that sort of attack and is just an annoyance to the user.

The final login step involves the decoder card you received in the mail. The site gives you a list of coordinates (such as B2, G5, etc.) and you have to enter the letters at those coordinates. Entry of these letters is also done with the randomized virtual keyboard.

Very, very impressive. In this case, the government is the vanguard and a role model for the private sector. Let's hope the rest of the financial industry wakes up some day and follows the Treasury Department's lead.

Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food *** : These are essentially the same theme, so I'm rating them together. A compelling history and exploration of the food industry that should convince most readers to change the way they eat. Unfortunately, it's preachy at times and maligns science unjustly, so I deducted one star from the rating.

My 2009 in cities (in approximate chronological order):

• Sunriver, Oregon
• Lost Rocks, California
• Adirondacks, New York
• New York City
• Santa Clara, California
• San Francisco
• Bacharach, Germany
• Baden-Baden, Germany
• Freiberg, Germany
• Murren, Switzerland
• Lucerne, Switzerland
• Munich, Germany
• Saltzburg, Austria
• Vienna
• Government Camp, Oregon

One or more nights spent in each place. I changed jobs last year which, combined with the recession, meant that I travelled a lot less than last year.

I upgraded the heat sink on my home desktop this weekend to a Zalman CNPS9500. In addition to looking awesome, it is way quieter than my old heat sink... bordering on mute! I realize most people out there have probably moved on to laptops these days, but if you are still harboring a trusty desktop, definitely consider a heat sink upgrade!

Ecotopia **** : Thought-provoking "politics fiction". In the author's words, the book tries to convey "that there are real alternatives to our present corporatist, militarist, ultracompetitive, oil-obsessed course." One reviewer wrote, "it looks obvious--like the wheel", a prescient remark given that the book was written 35 years ago yet confronts issues that we still face today. It does have many flaws, but the story stays with you and is worthwhile reading for everybody!

I replaced the starter on my car this weekend, which was a bit more time consuming that I had planned, but was ultimately very successful (and economical). Here's how it went down:

For the past several months, my trusty Integra had intermittently refused to start. It took me a while to narrow down the relevant symptom, which was that a single click come from under the hood followed by silence. Repeated attempts (sometimes more than a dozen) would eventually lead to a successful start. It was gradually getting worse, so I knew I would have to do something soon.

The root cause of this ended up being that the copper contacts inside the starter had worn down and become corroded so much that they were no longer making contact and conducting electricity. I discovered this after reading the discussion forums on numerous Acura support web sites. After a failed attempt to find the necessary factory parts online, I eventually made my way to the ClickerFixer (whose web site has an excellent animation showing the problem) and ordered a kit.

While I was waiting for the parts to arrive, I located the Integra shop manual online. I read and printed out the relevant sections on removing the starter. The shop manual was essential, it would have been a lot harder without it.

Getting the starter out was by far the toughest part. The starter is wedged in the middle of the engine compartment amidst cables, hoses, vents, and, of course, the engine itself. Getting a wrench down inside took some work and most of the time I had to do it by touch since I couldn't see. The whole thing was pretty murderous on my knees owing to the awkward angle of approach.

It would have been nice if the shop manual had included bolt sizes. I accidentally removed the wrong bolts at first and ended up taking apart the starter solenoid. Not only did this make it harder to get the starter out, but I then later had to learn how to reassemble the solenoid. The whole solenoid experience probably added an hour or more to the total time.

Once the correct bolts had been located, and after the sacrifice of some skin on my knuckles, I finally had the starter in my hands. The replacement of the failed parts was quite trivial. The old copper plates were badly worn and pitted. It may have been possible to sand them down and try to reuse them, but I had already bought the replacement parts and I didn't want to have to take the starter out again if it didn't work.

Getting it back into the engine was a lot easier now that I knew what was I was doing. It was still a challenge, and I was sweating by the end, but it was all rewarded when I turned the key and the engine roared to life on the first attempt!

Total cost, $28 for parts and about four hours of time. I could probably do it in 2 hours or less now that I know what I'm doing. I also feel good that I was able to repair the unit versus going to a mechanic who probably would have wanted to replace the whole thing.

Breaking Dawn *** : The last and best of the Twilight series.

More and more clothes seem to be coming with those little symbols on the care labels instead of English instructions. At first I resisted, but then I took the time to learn what they meant and now I'm a fan. They take up less space, are quicker to read, and are international. The linked site even has a handy PDF that you can print out and hang up in your laundry area.

Some of the older symbols have temperatures inside the symbols, but I like the new ones, which use one, two, or three dots. The temperature was always in Celsius which required mental arithmetic and the digits were often hard to read.

Borders of Infinity **** : Continuation of story line from Vor Game.

Watchmen **** : Great graphic novel, beautiful illustrations and color, engaging plot. Definitely one of the stranger super hero stories out there. Much better than the movie!

The Google juggernaut continues...

Todd reported that my FeedBurner links weren't working any more (thanks Todd!). I logged into my FeedBurner account to learn that Google has aquired them. Somehow in the process, my links were broken. I'm still working on fixing the problem, but this seems like a smart acquisition for Google.

Google also picked up AdMob.

And now I see that Google has deployed a flu shot locator (for both regular and swine flu vaccines). I want to hate Google for the ever-increasing presence they have in my life, but they keep doing everything right. The competition is nowhere in sight... Bing, if you want to win, you have to start coming up with stuff like this first!

Speaking of Google, I still have a few Google Wave invites left if anybody wants one.

I read this article in the New York Times last week on stiffer British penalties for texting while driving. I like Britain's approach although I think the driver in the case discussed in the article got off too lightly! She got a much bigger penalty than she would have gotten in the U.S., though.

Wanting to see how stiff Oregon's new cell phone penalties would be when they go into effect in January, I found a site, Driving Laws, that had links to Oregon's House Bill 2377 which says:

The offense described in this section, operating a motor vehicle while using a mobile communication device, is a Class D traffic violation.

A Class D traffic violation? Is this a joke?! That carries a penalty of $97. To put it in perspective, here are some other Class D traffic violations:

• Driving 1 to 10 miles over the speed limit
• Protruding into a pedestrian crosswalk at a stop light
• Blocking traffic by temporarily stopping or driving too slowly

This is way too lenient in my opinion! I would think Class A or B would be more appropriate. Because talking on the cell phone puts other people's safety at risk, it should be compared to something like "reckless endangerment of a highway worker" (Class A) or "careless driving" (Class B).

For those readers in denial who say, "I can talk on my cell (or text) perfectly safely while driving", please refer to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute report that found that texting increased collision risk by 23 times. That same article cites a study that found a 4 times increase in collision risk caused by talking on the cell phone (regardless of whether hands-free mode is used).

One thing is for sure: the federal government isn't looking out for us. I'm still trying to figure out why the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration buried data showing the mobile phone use dangerously distracts drivers.

I'm going to write my Oregon state legislative representative (Ginny Burdick) and see about getting the penalties increased. Not that I'm optimistic that anything will change. But at least it's a start...

That, and a personal plea to the intelligent readers of my blog to never text while driving and to limit talking on the cell phone to absolute emergencies!

After a couple years of steady use and countless drops onto the pavement, I traded in my trusty Blackberry Pearl for a Blackberry Curve a little while ago. I was really looking forward to picking up Wi-Fi support (especially for using free hotspots while on vacation without a laptop). I had become a pretty fast typer on the Pearl's partial keyboard, but I was curious to see if the Curve's full keyboard would prove superior.

Unfortunately, after only one week, my Curve refused to charge! I tried reinstalling the drivers and using the car charger, neither of which helped. I was getting ready to throw in the towel and contact AT&T for a replacement when I stumbled across this helpful post on the Blackberry support forums.

It turns out that the mini-USB connector on the Blackberry is very susceptible to getting out of alignment just enough that it won't charge. I employed the recommended screwdriver technique from the article to gently bend the connector back into alignment, and I was charging again in no time.

So if your phone (or other device) that relies on a mini-USB port for charging won't charge, give it a try!

While I'm on the subject of Blackberries, if you have one with a full keyboard, then you are really missing out if you haven't enabled keyboard shortcuts. To enable them, go to Phone, Options, General Options, and set "Dial from Home Screen" to "Off". Now you will be able to launch common tasks with a single keypress from the home screen, such as "M" to view your messages or "W" to launch the web browser. More details on this useful Blackberry 101 Beginner's Guide.

I love making coffee and talking about making coffee. So I was really excited when I read about two new coffee makers in Wired recently. But, first, a little history.

I used to use a French press, but it requires too much cleanup. So for the past several years, I've been using a moka pot, which gives a strong cup of coffee and is easy to clean. The coffee out of a moka pot is also a lot less gritty than the French press. However, I think the consensus of most coffee experts is that the French press produces superior coffee.

Which brings us to the first of the new coffee makers, the AeroPress. It is similar to a French press but with the filter at the bottom instead of the top. Most importantly, it supposedly very easy to clean. I just ordered one from Amazon.

The other tempting device is the MyPressi Twist. It is advertised as a portable espresso maker, but given its anticipated low cost ($130) and small size, it would be a great alternative for home use as well. The only unknown at this point is how much the carbon dioxide cartridges are going to cost. The web site says that "standard" cartridges are used, whatever that means. As long as they are not too expensive, they are going to sell a lot of Twists.

Eclipse ** : Third Twilight book. The weakest and most poorly written of the series. But if you're reading the series, what choice do you have but to read this one as well?

I have to give a plug for Banana Republic's credit card: I accidentally incurred a late fee (we were on vacation and didn't get to it in time--so it was my fault). Called them up and they refunded it without any fight. Turns out that they allow one courtesy fee refund per year! I had heard that banks were being really tough with fees lately, glad it wasn't true in this case.

What Renting DVDs Teaches Us About CD Yield Maximization: Instead of buying a one- or two-year CD, always buy a five-year. If you need the money early or the interest rates go way up, you still come out ahead even after paying the early-withdrawal penalty. Seems to make sense!

I got caught up on some of my Atlantic reading while we were on vacation last month. These articles really impressed me:

How American Health Care Killed My Father: Excellent summary of the problems with American health care and how it won't be fixed by the current proposals. Offers a way that the system could work better, and I think it would work - if it could ever get passed into law (doubtful)!

The Founders' Great Mistake: Problems with the way the Constitution defines the president's powers and how to fix it.

Petabytes on a budget: How to build cheap cloud storage: And I thought my home-built 4 terabyte server was impressive...

New Moon *** : Book 2 of Twilight Series. Enter the werewolf.

Love in the Time of Cholera **** : Probably the ultimate story of love in all its forms. A difficult read at times, but ultimately very rewarding.

Anathem ***** : Science "monks" sequester themselves from the rest of the world for 1, 10, 100, or 1000 years at a time so that they can solve interesting problems in peace. Takes place on another planet with a whole new vocabulary to learn and enjoy. Based loosely on the Clock of the Long Now.

Sourcery *** : Another Discworld novel. 'Nuff said.

OpenStreetMap is a cool project to provide an open source map of as much of the world as possible. They have quite a bit of coverage of Portland already, but are hosting a mapping party in Portland on June 20th to fill in some missing areas. I would love to participate, but will be riding Tour de Blast that day.

The Truth About Bender's Brain: Bender-from-Futurama's brain is a 6502. I love it! (Link is to second page of article.)

Gai-jin *** : Part of James Clavell's "Asian Saga". Unfortunately, not nearly as good as his epic novel "Shogun". But still worthwhile if you've read the rest of the series or like historical fiction about Japan in the 19th century.

Here's a great article on couch surfing. I gave Phil some advice when he embarked on his bicycle trip across America last year. (The article got his trip stats wrong--he did 90 miles a day!) I wish couch surfing had been around when Eric and I did our bike trip. We probably would have met a lot more people that way. I guess we'll have to do it again one of these days...

I just released version 1.53 of Presto's Hard Drive Monitor. Check it out if you're into such things!

It's been a tumultuous week for our aquarium. I added a six-line wrasse, a Clarkii clown, 20 turbo snails, 10 crabs, a sand-sifting cucumber, a lettuce nudibranch, and two clams. Everybody seems to be doing well except for one of the clams which died after one day and the cucumber which died after four days.

I also arranged all the cabling and tubes to better integrate a Red Sea Wavemaster. And removed a ton of algae from the tank.

All of which is making the tank look better than it's looked in a long time. Unfortunately, all of the commotion caused some stress on one of the longest tank residents, a yellow tang named Scotty. I found him dead in the tank after work. R.I.P., Scotty.

If you are in the market for a new Windows laptop, it's hard to beat the Best Buy Blue Label Toshiba. I've bought over a dozen laptops for work in the past two months, and the Toshiba is my favorite overall. And at $799, it's a steal...

Sunshine *** : Makes me nostalgic for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Well filmed, but impossible physics and some ridiculous plot gyrations cost this movie a star.

If you're doing tax loss harvesting, this guide may come in handy: Approximating Total Stock Market.

I upgraded my Linksys router from DD-WRT to Tomato today. I like Tomato's clean interface and superior QoS capabilities. If Tomato runs on your hardware, check it out!

Das Leben der Anderen ***** : Must-see movie about East Germany's secret police. I was originally turned on to this movie by an article in Wired, Piecing Together the Dark Legacy of East Germany's Secret Police.

Hot Cartoon Makes Understanding Credit Crisis Simple And Fun: Educational and entertaining. Well worth 11 minutes to go and watch it!

Rocky Mountain News prints final edition: This makes me very sad. Newspapers are on life support right now and this is something we all should be worried about!

It's interesting that the government has decided to bail out the financial and automotive industries but not the newspaper industry. I would argue that newspapers are just as essential to the functioning of our society as either of those industries!

1.4 gigapixel picture of Obama's inaugural address. I wasted a lot of time today zooming in on the faces in the audience. The user snapshots are pretty interesting (and funny at times).

Mort *** : Personification of Death in Discworld.

I've been using the Windows 7 beta for a few weeks now. It's a winner! The Bumper List of Windows 7 Secrets from MSDN Blogs has a great walk-through of some of the new features. It's awesome to see Microsoft adding so many tweaks for power users.

King of Kong ***** : Donkey Kong documentary. Watch out for those barrels!

Cod ***** : The cod is responsible for everything! I'm a sucker for fish and economics books like this.

As somebody who regularly uses the word "monkey", I took particular interest in this article: Your Boss is a Monkey. Good tips on the use of the least-reinforcing scenario.

Gmail just keeps getting better and better. Some time back, I noticed that Google added the ability to view PDF attachments right in your browser (they are converted into HTML pages). Since launching Acrobat is always a pain, I love that feature.

Today I noticed that if somebody sends you an mp3 attachment, you can play it straight from Gmail without downloading and launching an external media player... very cool!

Study looks to link male names with criminality: "Poor Ernest and Preston, they were doomed from birth." One of the comments below the story from a fellow Preston sums it up perfectly: Aw, nuts! (Thanks for the link Eric!)

Equal Rites **** : Making my way through the Discworld novels. You gotta love Granny Weatherwax!

I'm trying out my friend Greg's new service, GeoBadger:

Lookin' good, Greg!

Buying Myself a Birthday Present: I wonder what it must be like to be able to spend $20,000 on a watch!

I set up my first Linux KVM (kernel-based virtual machine) this week. It was a lot easier than I was expecting (using Ubuntu 8.04).

Using KVM for virtualization is nice because it uses a lot fewer system resources (RAM in particular) than hosted hypervisors such as VirtualBox or VMWare. Plus installation is quicker and easier. And performance is probably superior.

The official Ubuntu documentation on installing KVM was very useful. I followed it almost exactly. There is also a decent HowtoForge KVM tutorial. One tip is that you don't need to specify the "qemu:///system" in the virsh commands (e.g., "virsh list" or "virsh start ubuntu" work just fine on my system).

If you are running Linux, I highly recommend checking it out! It's very cool.

Here's a nice Python class for implementing daemons under Linux. It has start, stop, and restart methods and creates a PID file.