total.pardo

interesting how much the twittersphere updates with mentions of gustav:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23gustav

w2jig is reporting (or re-reporting) on the arrl freqs here:

http://tinyurl.com/65msmb

* 20 meters: 14.325 MHz USB

* Main frequency during Hurricanes — 40 meters: 7.268 MHz LSB

* Water Way Net (secondary frequency) Maritime Mobiles Net — 80 meters: 3.815 MHz

* Caribbean Net (alternates: 3.950 North Florida / 3.940 South Florida)

all freqs were full of chewed rags and war time hero fools. nothing gustav related. i heard more off established freqs on 80m than anything else. leads me to believe this twitter i read earlier from WA4D:

After Gustav fades Ham Radio propagandists will proclaim they made a difference. No metrics. No verifiable data. And the myth continues.

i hadn’t thought about it all that much before. what DO ARO (amateur radio operators) REALLY do before, during, and after a large scale disaster/emergency. how much of it is truly hype created to justify the continued existence of this hobby in the US? i guess when you are on board like i am, it takes a swift kick to the mouth to get me to look at it from another angle.

seriously, what will the average ARO do to assist with what undoubtably be a tragedy in NOLA? H&W messages? really? i am sure there will be AROs on the ground after the hurricane has done its worst, aiding the “real” rescuers and such (and that, readers, is another story for another day - the attitude your average first responder has towards the “unprofessional” radio operator) but will AROs in NJ be involved in passing traffic from lookie-lou’s in the garden state to loved ones on the ground in and around NOLA? if they had the resources, and the time, they should be up in georgia, etc - out of harms way. i imagine ma bell’s old system won’t be overloaded that much into the outlying areas, right? (snicker)

at least, WA4D’s comment has me thinking now. he could be wrong, but i think he is on to something.

i was surprised at one of my few visitor’s comments:

http://www.totalpardo.net/2008/08/29/by-2pm-labor-day-gas-prices-will-be-up-by/#disqus_thread

perhaps my sarcasm was lost? i realize the extraction infrastructure will be washed away - but i don’t get why the price of gas goes up BEFORE the actual event and increases precipitously (or at least it would seem) in the coming days (considering the contracts were signed WAY before this potential disaster). we’ll see.

wikipedia reports:  @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Gustav_(2008)

Hurricane Gustav is the seventh tropical cyclone, third hurricane and second major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. It formed on the morning of August 25, about 260 miles (420 km) southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and rapidly strengthened into a tropical storm that afternoon and into a hurricane early on August 26. Later that day it made landfall near the Haitian town of Jacmel. Between 59 and 78 deaths have been attributed to Gustav as of August 30, 2008.^[1][2] It intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in less than 24 hours,^[3] and is now expected to become a category 5 hurricane.^[4]

From this website, the AARL Web: Link

WX4NHC will be monitoring the Hurricane Watch Net on 14.325 MHz. Secondary HF frequencies will be 7.268 MHz and 3.950 MHz +/- interference, should we lose propagation on 20 meters.

EchoLink “WX-Talk” Conference Room and IRLP node 9219 will also be monitored. WX4NHC will also monitor CWOP, APRS and MADIS/MESONET automated weather stations in the affected area. Surface Reports using our online Hurricane Report form will be monitored. Amateur Weather Enthusiasts and ON-NHC Volunteers may report directly to WX4NHC online.

Go here to put in a form report on weather conditions.

Link

i have been monitoring the 80M freq and there is nothing on there but rag chewers.  the others are dead.

a cnn alert just came across saying the mayor of NO called gustav - “the mother of all storms.”  wow.  cat 4 in 24 hours.  maybe my prediction of high gas prices on tuesday was a little short…

Update: Maybe not so much. Thankfully for all the people in that region.  9/3/08

BlogDay

not sure i get it but i am supposed to mention 5 unknown blogs.

can i mention my blog five times?

so far i can say this…the windows version is much more customizable from a post management perspective.  to control the flow of the posts via marking read by date is huge for me - and the panic button is quite valuable if a few days of information is missed.  there are quirks between the versions that have shut me off from using them consistently over g-reader.   ALL g-reader needs is a way to post to a blog and there would be no reason for me to switch to ng/nnw.

perhaps it is my use of the keyboard shortcuts in g-reader, the instant hit of the letter ‘e’ to email someone (the contacts automagically come up upon the typing of the first few letters), the ability to star a post to hit it up later (yes, i know i can do it with clippings folder in ng/nnw, but it somehow seems less streamlined that way).

i wonder overall if these rss readers are more the curse than the cure.

one inch deep yet four miles wide the knowledge oozes like sludge - accomplishing little overall other than covering my screen.  a information philosphy post for another day, perhaps.

above is the excuse you will hear used for the gas price gouging raise you will see when you fill your tank to return to work on Tuesday.  follow this storm and others at:

http://english.wunderground.com/tropical/

in other news, Sen. John McCain picks Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on GOP ticket for White House.

i avoid politics on this blog, so i comment here from a purely historical perspective…

history will be made this fall in the united states.  another line will be crossed.

think about it.

UPDATE:  Thankfully - many were spared destruction and injury while this storm was a dud.  Keep your eye on the storms in the queue.  9/3/08.

as the commenters on aza’s site said – ubiquity is what the web SHOULD be.

this is dramata-huge for people who are used to spotlight, inquisitor, and launch bar.

the code looks clean – and the idea is in line with the direction other services are going.

good luck, aza.

more:  labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/

;)  i can has ft-857d?

fta @ http://w4ti.net/ft857.html

The Yaesu FT-857 is a little marvel. Crammed into the enclosure is an MF, HF, VHF and UHF transceiver with most of the modern bells and whistles that anyone could want, and which can supply 100 watts on 160-6 meters, 50 watts on 2 meters, and 20 watts on the 440 MHz band. It is capable of operating in the CW, AM, SSB, FM, and digital modes. The engineers have built what seems to be intended as a mobile transceiver, suitable for installation in a vehicle, with a removable face plate which can be mounted separately from the electronics package.

my reasons for wanting this marvel are the mobile options, a replacement for my only solid state uhf/vhf rig, and the expanded capabilities of taking a rig into the woods to try qrp.   i have a 5 year old ft-8800 that is on the auction block.

time to kill a few birds with the same stone.  pardo has begun his ft-857d fund!

when that’s full – a trip to HRO newark is in order.

A melodic passage or phrase, especially in Wagnerian opera, associated with a specific character, situation, or element.

A dominant and recurring theme, as in a novel.

leitmotif

Oil rises as Gustav threatens Gulf of Mexico

<sarcasm on>(of course it would, why wouldn’t it?)</sarcasm off>

fta @ Oil rises as Gustav threatens Gulf of Mexico facilities - Aug. 27, 2008.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Oil prices ticked higher on Wednesday as Tropical Storm Gustav approached the Gulf of Mexico and the government reported a decline in crude and gasoline supplies.

so, the storage and distribution systems are that vulnerable that speculators need to drive up the price again.  and AUTOMAGICALLY there is an increase at the pump - despite the fact that the gas in the ground, the gas in the supply chain is already bought and paid for!

keep electing the ass clowns.  keep driving the gas guzzlers.

Exercise Ball To The Face - Watch more free videos

Exercise Ball To The Face Video.

are ya kiddin?

a quick look down the feeds this morning yielded this grand nugget of disappoint:

fta @ http://www.macworld.com/article/135236/2008/08/iphonepassword.html?lsrc=rss_main via macworld

Private information stored in Apple’s iPhone and protected by a lock code can be accessed by anyone with just a few button presses.

The iPhone, like most mobile phones, can be locked with a four-digit code, but where other phones in their locked state only permit calls to emergency service numbers such as 911 (in the U.S.), 999 (in the U.K.) and 112 (throughout Europe), a locked iPhone can be used to make a call to any number.

However, that’s not all you can do with a locked iPhone running the latest version of Apple’s software, 2.0.2.

Pressing the emergency call button at the unlock screen, followed by two taps on the home button, takes you to the iPhone’s private ‘favorites’ page without the need to enter the unlock code. If the owner of the phone has favorite entries in their address book containing URLs, e-mail addresses or mobile phone numbers, then those entries can be used to launch the browser, mail application or SMS (Short Message Service) software and gain access to private Web favorites, e-mail messages and text messages stored in the phone, again without entering the unlock code.

i’m sorry but this is regular jackass huge.  crayon eating ass clown huge. lets see how apple responds to this.  there needs to be something i think very soon.

Gizmodo has a video if you can’t stand to read about it.

UPDATE: Commenters are noting that if you set your Home button to access something else (like iPod functions) you won’t be able to get to anything else. So it’s a kludge, but better than the alternative, I guess.  THIS IS NOT ACCURATE!

LED Football | TouchGrove, LLC.

just wow!  a blast from the past!

fantastic site with videos showing properties for each of the elements – very informative!

http://www.periodicvideos.com/#

credit trikiniki for this link

this could actually be the next “big” thing.

scot asked me a few weeks ago about bringing gamers into the AR fold via gaming and their interests…perhaps this social interaction method is better even than outreach to gamers.

these social sites hit the younger generation where they live. scot and company can be on in the background while you are doing other things. its perfect.

i offered any assistance i could give.

HamRadio2.0 Live Beta Broadcast “Putting The Ham In Ham Radio”

It is time for HamRadio2.0 and you are invited to join our discussion on Ustream Live, Interactive Broadcasting. The above screenshot is channel HamRadio2.0 featuring text, audio, and video capabilities for each participant. Are you interested? Then prepare your web cam and audio. You might be chosen to co-host HamRadio2.0 with me. Fun!
The above screenshot is the control panel utilized by the broadcaster. I can create polls, invite a co-host or two, turn on your microphone, and few other goodies. What is really, really important is registration prior to joining my live broadcast. After registration, type HamRadio2.0, into the search bar. Or follow us on Twitter and/or FriendFeed for live updates. Join us as we have fun this Sunday at 11 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time or 1800 Universal Time Coordinated. 73.

[From KA3DRR: HamRadio2.0 Live Beta Broadcast "Putting The Ham In Ham Radio"]

after a good deal of pain, testing, checking, considering, i finally purchased ecto.

a good breakdown of the available blogging tools is available here:

http://performancing.com/blogging/desktop-blog-editing-software-roundup-which-tool-right-job

from james mowery:

Ecto is by far my favorite tool that I have found so far on the Mac operating system. Considering that there are only two well known competitors on the Mac OS that I have heard of, the other being MarsEdit, ecto makes things interesting by providing a better set of features than their competition. This review is of the latest beta release (ecto 3.0b44) as it has performed well in a production environment—mine anyways.

Interface

The interface design is pretty good, and although there are some improvements I would like to see implemented, I am satisfied with what it offers. Contrary to MarsEdit, ecto provides more features with a nice rich text interface. I also enjoy how you can access most features with one click, as I hate having to access drop-down menus. I do wish that the tags and categories section was a little less glitchy, and I also wished that removing special formatting was easy, but fortunately, these are some things that can be addressed with a simple patch

Features

Ecto has an impressive set of features, but I am most impressed with how little work I have had to do to setup everything. I installed the application, added my blog, and started writing. Importing media is also no big deal, and it all works very nicely. I did not notice a way to place media that already exists on the internet (like an image on Wikipedia) without having to go into the code view, and that is definitely a problem that needs to be looked at, but if you know basic HTML, this is only a minor setback. There is absolutely no reason why ecto can’t be an amazing addition to your blogging workflow.

Overall

If you are using a Mac operating system, ecto is my recommendation. This is based off the fact that I want an editor that will allow me to jump right in and be creative, not have to deal with editing markup and other things. Thankfully, ecto makes this easy by giving us a lot of control. I also really like the HTML that ecto generates. The ecto blog editor for Mac OS X is available for $17.95 at the time of this writing, and it is certainly worth every penny.

for me, it was the little things - categories/tags are passed through - so, if i select a category - and there is an alternate tag with the same name: BOOM (john madden style) the corresponding tag is selected! the older i get, the more concerned i become with saving time.

ecto is seamless with iPhoto and macournal. everyone talks nice! as my blog grows, i have become concerned with keeping the posts, no matter how insignificant, for posterity. almost as if they were a diary. macjournal helps me to keep all my posts in diary form for future reference.

there are only a handful of add-ons right now - but as this platform becomes more popular, i imagine there will be more. there are a few to mention - itunes tracks in posts, post to twitter, and growl notification. all nice add-ons worth using.

the ajax style word count is nice if you keep track of the number of words you write in a week. more fodder for a journal, some people track word count to make certain they are hitting their practice plateau. i don’t currently but know of some writers who do. (of course, i am the fellow that says you are not a writer until someone pays to read your stuff.)

on the go, and on window$, wlw and scribefire are still king - but that platform gets less and less use each week for me.

i never thought this day would come…