I don't understand. I keep blogging about Cheesburger Brown and his amazing sci-fi books but he remains un-discovered. You would have thought this blog, which is read by billionsdozens of people, would have elevated him to Asimov status by now.
Oh, well, I'll just keep trying.
Seriously, his stuff is really good and almost all of it is FREE:
- The Darth Side: Memoirs of A Monster (Darth Vader's Blog). Written in 2005 leading up to the release of The Revenge of The Sith. Hilarious.
- Simon of Space. One of my favorite science fiction novels of all time. Unfortunately it's no longer available on line/free, but you can buy paper versions of it here. I have an autographed copy.
- The Bikes of New York. One of his classic free novellas.
- The Secret Mathematic. His current serial. He posts a new chapter about every week. He's currently up to chapter 28 (which I completed last night and which motivated me to post this).
My prior blog posts on his stuff are here.
live.com is (finally!) sooo much better. Yes, I know "Google" has become a verb and it's hard to say "Live it", but the reality is
- Live's search results are (finally) better.
- Live's mapping (http://maps.live.com) is far superior. Better directions, better satellite imaging, better local information, better looking, and easier to use.
- The live.com search page loads just as fast as Google's and is far more interesting (see below; every day the image changes twice...during the Olympics it's a cool Olympic photo each time).
- You're taking money from my kid's mouths when you use Google. (The only people who read my blog are my family and friends).
Oh and while I'm shilling for my company's cool products, if you have a Windows PC that includes Windows Media Center (Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows Vista Home Premium, or Windows Vista Ultimate) you absolutely HAVE TO at least try watching some events with it! Go here to learn more:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/mediacenter/olympics.mspx
The user experience is really, really good, but most importantly you can watch hundreds of hours of Olympic coverage in HD quality anytime you want.
If you have an XBox360 as well, Windows Media Center and your XBox360 work VERY well together via something we call "Windows Media Center Extender". The entire Media Center experience (including live TV or this cool Olympics application) are available on your XBox360 over your home network. I was instrumental in inventing this technology, so I'm a bit biased, but trust me...it really is great!
For example, I was able to watch the US Women's soccer team beat Japan by simply turning on my XBox360 and pressing the "Green button" on the remote...3 days after the event.
I'm pretty vocal about products, services, and stores that I love. I'm just as vocal about those that frustrate me. I've had an iPhone 3G since last Thursday and, frankly, I'm frustrated by it. So frustrated that I'm composing a pissy review in my head that I plan on posting here soon.
But I want to skewer it right, so I'm prepping by posting this rant which is about just how great Amazon.com is.
Charlie's Top-Ten list of why Amazon.com rocks:
10. Consistent UI
9. Always available
8. Great performance
7. If I want it, they have it
6. The reviews are super-useful
5. DRM-free music
4. Recommendations actually work
3. Amazon Prime saves me tons of money and just makes me feel good
2. The Amazon Kindle has changed my reading life
1. They give me free money (for example, if you sign up for Prime by clicking here, I get $12 that I can use to buy more junk).
There. How's that for love?
Now watch for my post where I rip Apple and the iPhone a new one...
From the Windows Home Server Team Blog:
The team is pleased to announce that Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 has been released to manufacturing (RTM) and is now available on the Microsoft Download Center!
This update fixes the data corruption bug that was found in Windows Home Server in December (and has great new functionality too).
From Wikipedia, regarding the song “Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead!” from the movie The Wizard of Oz:
The Munchkins then sing the march-style number "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead". After its one verse, there is another interruption, as the city officials need to determine if the witch is "undeniably and reliably dead". The coroner avers, and the mayor reiterates Glinda's advice to the Munchkins to spread the news. The Munchkins oblige, and sing the one verse of "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead" again.
Last December, the Windows Home Server was haunted by our own Wicked Witch of the East.
She showed up just as we were trying to put the final touches on our Power Pack 1 release and she was so nasty that we had no choice but to hold off on releasing Power Pack 1 until we could determine that she was “undeniably and reliably dead”. Because of how ugly she was we had to make sure that all of her blood relatives were dead too.
I’m extremely (I mean *really*) excited to be in a position where we can finally sign the song declaring that the wicked witch is dead: Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead! (mp3).
It has been a grueling time getting this release out but I am very gratified that it's done, and that we did it right.
An old co-worker of mine, Sandro Menzel, has been doing an amazing job capturing fine automobiles and then doing really great digital touchup. Check out his Flickr collection here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smenzel/
In 1997 I had "Stongard", a clear 3M film applied to the lower 12" of the hood and other leading edges of my 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera to protect the paint. After 11 years the film started to yellow and corners were coming up in spots so I had it professionally removed (to avoid risking having the clear coat come up).
Unfortunately the edge of the film on the hood left a horizontal line all the way across the hood (about 2" above the crest). I've spent the last 3 weeks learning how to fix paint blemishes like this. Tonight I declare victory! As you can see from this picture there is no line and the paint is absolutely perfect (modulo 21 years and 30K miles of wear). It took an incredible amount of work to get here, mostly because I had to learn along the way.
First, I tried to remove the "scratch" using my Griot's orbital polisher. After many hours of hard work I really made no significant progress, even using Griot's #1 polish. I consulted with a professional detailer who has done our other cars (Aaron at 3LG Auto Detailing). He informed me that while the Groit's polisher is good for "weekend warriors" it really lacks in cutting ability.
But I have always been very scared of using commercial polishing machines because I have heard how easy it is to permanently damage paint with them. Aaron informed me that there is a "professional" quality "dual action orbital" polisher that blows the Groit's machine away: The Flex XC 3401 VRG. I ordered one along with a Manzerna polish and pad kit that Aaron recommended. They arrived yesterday.
I also came to learn that to really remove blemishes like the one I was dealing with polishing would likely just keep "pushing" the scratch down into the clearcoat. And that I needed to wetsand to really get it out. This scared the crap out of me. I couldn't imagine rubbing SAND PAPER, wet or not, on the finish of my beloved 21 year old car. What if I screwed up?
Youtube to the rescue. I found a bunch of really good videos on Youtube that demonstrate how to safely and effectively wetsand auto paint. Here are the basic steps I followed:
- Wetsand using 2000 grit wetsand paper using a flexible sanding block. Light pressure, lots of water, moving at a 45 degree angle to the scratch. Only a few strokes at a time, checking progress to ensure I didn't go to deep.
- Polish with Menzerna PowerGloass Compound using the Flex 3401. Compound is a very aggressive (according to Aaron on a scale of 1-10 it's an 8) polish that removes the wetsand marks.
- Polish with Menzerna Intensive polish (5 on the 1-10 scale). I did the entire front clip (hood/fenders) starting with this step (the rest of the car looks great from the work I did with the Griot's products).
- Polish with Menzerna Nano Polish (PO 106). 3 on the 1-10 scale.
- Polish with Menzerna Micro Polish (PO 85RD). 0.5 on the 1-10 scale.
I actually did a few of these steps multiple times because, as Aaron showed me, I was not using the Flex polisher correctly. I was running it a too low an RPM (he suggests full speed) with way too much polish and I was not letting the polish "let go".
Finally I applied a coat of my favorite Carnauba wax: One Grand Blitz wax, dressed the rubber, cleaned the glass and took this picture:
When removing the crest on the hood it broke. So I ordered a new OEM crest from Pelican Parts and installed it:
I'm having new film applied next week. This time I'm having the entire hood covered. It's great to know that the paint finish under that film will be absolutely perfect.
Every few months I make a renewed effort to do the "social networking" thing. I download the latest tools, poke around, post status updates, read other people's stuff, and basically try to "live it".
I've been pretty consistent with using Facebook regularly.
Last week I jumped in again and discovered that the tools and the actual "network" are far better than they were last time I tried. I'm now updating my status on Twitter using a great Windows app called Twhril as well as from my mobile. You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ckindel.
I've also discovered Friendfeed. It does a great job of aggregating all the social network sites out there and providing a unified feed of changes and status updates. If you want to track my Flickr photos, Google Reader shared items (stuff I find interesting in the blogosphere), tweets (Twitter posts), Facebook updates, blog posts (here and on the Windows Home Server Team Blog), and other random stuff just go here: http://friendfeed.com/cek.
When I left my Amazon Kindle on the airplane after I arrived from Taipei last week I realized that someone finding it would have no way of knowing it was mine. Fortunately Northwest Airlines knew I was sitting in seat 5B and let me know it was in the lost & found.
I did some poking around and found that it is possible to put your own screen saver pictures on the the Kindle. This guy has been tearing the Kindle apart and finding all sorts of hidden treasures.
Based on his instructions, I decided to put some pics of the family on there with some overlay text with my name and phone number so that if the device was in sleep mode whoever found it might be able to contact me. Here's an example:
That's my sister Laurie when she was little...
Below are the instructions for putting custom screen saver pictures on your Kindle (copied from the above link):
- Attach the Kindle to a computer using the USB cord.
- Using Windows Explorer (or whatever you use to see individual files/folders) , you should see a new drive called Kindle under My Computer. Go to that drive. (Or if you have an SD card in your Kindle, you can go to the SD drive.)
- Create a new folder called “pictures” and a subfolder called “screensavers” under it. Make sure both folder names are all lowercase.
- Copy your image files into the screensavers folder. Your pictures should be 600×800 pixels and black & white. .jpg & .png files appear to both work.
- After copying is complete & it is safe, remove the Kindle from the USB connection.
- Go to your Home menu and press alt-z. This will create a new book called “screensavers” . Open it. You’ll see each of your pictures. You can advance through them with the prev. page and next page buttons. Note: The new book will appear at the END of your book list.
- While viewing your pictures, look at the bottom of the Kindle screen. If you see your battery indicator & Menu prompt, press alt-F to go into Full Screen mode.
- On each photo, press alt-shift-0 (i.e., alt-shift-zero) . After a brief delay, you’ll get a message that your picture has been exported as screensaver. Click Close on the message.
- Navigate to each of the pictures you want to use and repeat the above step.
- When you’ve got all your pictures loaded, test them by going into & out of sleep mode. Alt-aA (i.e., alt-font size button) puts it to sleep & wakes it up again. Each time it sleeps, it should use a different image. If you see the same image all the time, relook at Step 3.
If you want to get rid of your custom screen savers, follow these steps:
- Attach the Kindle to a computer using the USB cord.
- Using Windows Explorer (or whatever you use to see individual files/folders) , go to your Kindle drive under My Computer.
- If you see a folder called system, skip this step. If you don’t see the system folder, click on the Tools menu & then Folder Options. Go to the View tab, and look at the Advanced Settings. Under Hidden Files and Folders, select Show Hidden Files and Folders. Click Apply, then OK. You should now see a system folder.
- Under the system folder, you’ll see a screen_saver folder. Delete all the files that are in that folder.
- After you disconnect from the USB, you may see your last custom screensaver one more time, but after that it will revert back to the pre-loaded Kindle screensaver images.
Another great tip is "Alt-T" which will show you the time.
Enjoy!
Wow, has it really been since December that I last blogged? I guess I've been busy... Those of you paying attention (not that I actually believe there are very many of you) will probably understand what I've been so busy with. It's probably been the hardest 6 months of my career. But hard work pays off, right? Watch the Windows Home Server Team Blog for some exciting news any day now...
Even though I have been busy, I have had a chance to read a few books. Well actually, according to my purchase history on Amazon, I've read close to 30 since December! Almost all of these were on my Kindle, which I have grown quite fond of.
I still think the industrial and mechanical design of the Kindle sucks. Even after so much use I still cannot pick the damn thing up without accidentally turning a page. The page flip buttons are just horrible. But I've gotten used to the UI design and it's workable. The reading and purchasing experience is still amazingly good.
I've used it on the beach in Hawaii, on airplanes, in bed, on the couch, and even in the car while waiting to pick up kids and stuff. It is so convenient to have an entire library of books at my fingertips. It works great even where Wispernet is not available; just plug it into a USB port and you can put books on it anywhere. In fact I did this just this week while I was in Taipei.
Sometimes I buy books directly on the device and sometimes I buy them from my computer. One-click shopping on Amazon.com is pretty darn dangerous!
When I started out I was very conservative about buying books for it. I'd buy one at a time and not another until I finished. Now I generally buy 2 or 3 in a shopping session and seem to usually have 3 or 4 unread books "waiting to be read at a time". For example, right now I have the following waiting to be read:
It'll probably be a while before Amazon comes out with better hardware. When they do I'm sure I'll be one of the first to buy. For now, the friction-free book buying and great reading experience make it easy to put up with the poor hardware design.
Back before the invention of the printing press my great, great, great grandfather came to the United States from Bavaria. His name was August Kindl.
At Ellis Island the immigration officials added the 'e'...hence my family's name.
We pronounce it Kindl. Not Kind-el.
Kindl translates to "child" in Bavarian. Those who know me well will find this fitting.
Amazon recently launched their Kindle reading device. Pronounced the same way as my last name. I find that very annoying because I'm constantly thinking people are referring to me but they're not.
I bought a Kindle and have been trying it out for a week. My thoughts:
- Great concept, crappy execution.
- The reading experience is visually great. It really does read well.
- The book buying experience is fantastic. It just works.
- The page flip buttons are the 2nd worst ergonomic design in the history of electronic devices. You cannot pick the device up without accidentally flipping a page, and heaven forbid you accidentally lean on one of the buttons...you'll find yourself several chapters away from where you were with no way of getting back.
- It requires an AC adapter to charge. They should have just done the work to make it capable of charging from USB. Yes, I know it can trickle charge from USB, but only if it has some charge left. I know this because I have lost my Kindle charger. I was able to craft a new one out of an old wall wart I had lying around and a trip to Radio Shack.
I'm taking the Kindl to Hawaii for almost 2 weeks. Normally I take a stack of 5 or 6 books to Hawaii, but this time I'm forcing myself just to bring the Kindl. We'll see how it does on the beach with sand and all...
Kindle means "burn". I hope this kindl doesn't forget sunscreen and kindle his skin while on the beach reading his Kindle.
This was my first Kindle book. That's right Charlie Kindel bought a Kindle. I have to say it's getting annoying having everyone saying my name...
Here's my quick review of Halting State by Charles Stross...
The big idea is an interesting one: the future world where MMORPG gaming becomes so ubiquitous that the following happens
- Humans participate everywhere because their mobiles are powerful enough to get them in the game. Gesture based control with head's-up-displays via eyeglasses.
- The Man uses MMORPGs not only to spy on the public, but to manipulate (and train) them.
- Crimes committed in the virtual realty of a MMORPG can be serious enough to jeopardize national security, and result in murder.
As a person formerly addicted to Asheron's Crack I'm a believer that all the above will come true. Mr. Stross does a fair job of showing us what it may look like.
I found the Scottish accents distracting and was disappointed with the ending. I won't spoil it for you, but I just expected more, given how the story built up.
If you are into hard Sci-Fi, and want a slightly different perspective of what society may be in like in 10 or so years, I'd recommend Halting State.
Today, instead of being the GM for Windows Home Server, I was simply a user...
For the last two weeks my wife has been giving me the gears because the voicemail attachements from Vonage refused to play in Outlook on her computer.
It was one of those weird software problems that defied logic. All other types of attachments opened fine. I could send her an email with a .wav file attached and it would play fine. Opening her mailbox on another PC worked great. But the .wav files from Vonage refused to work on her computer.
I uninstalled Office and re-isntalled it. No joy.
"Ahhh...", I said to myself, "why am I wasting my time on this when I have this product running in my house that is supposed to save time?". Duh.
So I booted her computer from the Windows Home Server Restore CD, choose a backup from just over two weeks ago, and went and put the lights on the Christmas tree.
About 40 minutes later I went back in the Kitchen and the process was done and I exited the wizard. Her machine booted, I fired up Outlook and played one of those .wav file attachments just fine.
Talk about holiday joy! :-)
-cek
Somewhere Henk de Koning unearthed a video of me taken 10 years ago yesterday touting The Component Object model. Back then I was "the COM guy" and I had hair. Egads.
"Don blogged about a video of Gudge explaining COM. This reminded me of an old video I found while cleaning up my office. I promised Don to digitize and publish it. So, here it is. Charlie Kindel on the wonderful world of COM. recorded November 25, 1997.
Charlie 1
Charlie 2
Charlie 3
"
I like to tell people that I have forgotten more about COM than most people will ever know. I also like to remind people that "Monikers are more powerful than you think."
In 1987 I was an intern at IBM Federal Systems Division in Manassas, VA. I was working on testing the software for the AN/BQQ-5D bow-mounted spherical array sonar system for the SSN 688 Class (Los Angeles) fast attack nuclear submarines.
This was shortly after Tom Clancy had written The Hunt for Red October, one of my favorite books of all time. In fact, my "interview" for the internship was almost entirely a discussion about the book and how realistic a picture Clancy had painted of the Los Angeles's sonar system. 
I learned a lot while working at IBM. 99% of what I learned was cool facts and history about submarine warfare from the ex-Navy submariners who were working with me during our testing of the system. The other 1% I learned was the only thing that had anything to do with my future career: I learned I didn't want to work for IBM.
In any case, the experience solidified my interest in submarines and now I read just about anything I can about them.
Last night I finished Ed Offley's Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion.  Here's my take:
Not a great book. It does provide a useful history about the Scorpion tragedy, but does not do a good job of making the authors' case that the Soviets sank her with a torpedo. Too many of the points Ed uses to try to prove his theory are simply not backed with solid evidence.
For example, a key element of his theory is derived from his assertion that the US found the Scorpion's wreckage in early June 1968 with the help of the Soviets. He implies that the only way the Soviets would know where the Scorpion was is if they had something to do with sinking her. However, his only "proof" that the Soviets told the US her location was an interview in the 1980s, with a US Navy Admiral who had retired in 1963, 5 years before the incident. I can think of dozens of scenarios where an old Navy admiral could have "heard" the Soviets helped the US locate the Scorpion. For example, knowing how Navy guys love to shoot-the-*** I can imagine poker game in 1969 where this Admiral and his buddies were speculating on the demise of the Scorpion and someone said "I bet we knew where she was because the Ruskies told us!".  This Admiral later recalled the "speculation" as fact.
This is one example of several I noticed in the book that left me skeptical that there is really any proof the Soviets sank the Scorpion.
I will say, however, that Mr. Offley does make a strong case for the US knowing the Scorpion was lost before they official say she was and that they found her wreckage before they officially said they did.
So the real title of this book should be "Scorpion Down: We don't know why she sunk, but we do know the Pentagon lied about when they knew".
Someday, hopefully, the Navy records of the incident will become declassified and we'll know for sure. But for now, I'm not convinced.
Late last year I "discovered" Karl Schroeder when I read Sun of Suns: Book One of Virga. Recently he released the 2nd book of this series titled Queen of Candesce: Book Two of Virga and I finished it this weekend.
Like the first book I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like the first book, I found a few too many "convenient" plot alignments. But overall, Karl paints an amazing picture of a "world" that is extraordinarily rich and unique.
I am now eagerly awaiting "Book Three"...
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