cek.log

Great car photos by Sandro

2008-07-17T17:00:55Z

E-Type Jaguar
Originally uploaded by smenzel

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/

Extreme auto paint care

2008-07-16T07:56:46Z

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.

ǝɯ ʍolloɟ

2008-07-14T17:40:49Z

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.

Hacking the Kindle

2008-06-17T07:33:00Z

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!

Kindle update

2008-06-07T06:35:10Z

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:

The Lost Fleet: Courageous by Jack Campbell (I'm almost done with this book)
The Lost Fleet: Fearless by Jack Campbell
The Lost Fleet: Dauntless by Jack Campbell
Accelerando by Charles Stross
Glasshouse by Charles Stross
Rise to Rebellion: A Novel of the American Revolution by Jeff Shaara
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath, Dan Heath

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.

Kindl. Kindel. Kindle.

2007-12-10T05:47:22Z

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.

Book Review: Halting State

2007-12-10T05:33:33Z

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.

Windows Home Server is actually useful!

2007-12-01T23:57:03Z

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

10 years ago I had hair. I and I loved COM.

2007-11-27T03:57:37Z

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."

Book Review: Scorpion Down

2007-10-29T17:15:20Z

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.

Book Review: Queen of Candesce: Book Two of Virga

2007-10-29T16:36:00Z

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"...

The connections are eerie

2007-09-25T18:13:54Z

Via my regular browsing of blog searches for Windows Home Server related stuff I came across this poor guy's extremely sad story of data loss.

http://adams-allegory.blogspot.com/2007/09/weve-lost-everything.html

First connection: He should have had a Windows Home Server.

Second connection: As if to make himself feel better he adds a funny video from YouTube to his post. The Windows Home Server team has a great sense of humor. (Yes, this is a tenuous connection to be sure, but work with me, ok?)

Third connection: The video in question is a commercial for the Shick/Wilkenson Quattro razor. The codename for the Windows Home Server incubation project was "Quattro".

A conspiracy? Coincidence? You decide.

Book Review: Spook Country

2007-09-07T17:31:36Z

Johnny Mnemonic, Neuromancer, Count Zero, Burning Chrome. All phenomenal stories. Some of my favorite reads.

The Difference Engine & Pattern Recognition: I never finished them. They just didn't resonate with me.

But I still will buy anything William Gibson writes and give it a go. I just finished his latest novel, Spook Country and here are my thoughts...

In the end, it's a great premise. I won't spoil it for you but the premise is actually pretty funny. I appreciated the subtle humor and the fact that it was exposed to me until almost the very end.

But, overall I felt the book started too slowly, developed too randomly, and then ended to quickly.

Spook Country gets 3 stars from me. A good, worthwhile read, but nowhere near the caliber of, say Neuromancer.

I want more life!

2007-08-13T06:14:43Z

I like to like things somewhat off the beaten path. But when asked what my favorite movie of all time is, like almost everyone else I know who has even a smidgen of taste, I say "Blade Runner".

No need for me to wax poetic about how great it is. I mean it has been around for 25 years now, and if you don't already dig it nothing I say will change your mind.

I was playing a new XBox360 game I can't mention last night and after I finished I decided to poke around the Live Marketplace. I noticed a video from "Comic-Con" with "Blade Runner" in the title. Turned out it was a Q&A session with Ridley Scott, Sean Young, and other members of the cast & crew discussing Blade Runner: Final Cut, a 5 disc set that will be released this December.

View the trailer here.

Update: More great info on www.thedigitalbits.com.

Update: Ridley Scott interview here.

Wow! How did I miss the news of this earlier?!? The 5 disc set includes a newly cut version of the movie ("The Final Cut") with added & extended scenes, added lines, and updated special effects (but no CGI, yay!). Disc 2 includes the original US Theatrical version, the original International Theatrical version, and the Director's cut from 1993. Other discs include a 3 hour documentary with tons of alternate shots of scenes, featureless, and the rare "Work Print Version".

Amazon has the set on pre-order in DVD, HD-DVD, and Blue-Ray form. I already placed my One-Click order for the HD-DVD version!

Name dropping trivia: Darryl Hannah who plays Pris, and her sister Page, were friends with my sisters. In fact my oldest sister Amy lived with Darryl in Telluride for a while.

PhotoSync for Windows Home Server

2007-08-05T20:02:00Z

09-22-02 107.jpg
Originally uploaded by ckindel

I just updated my Windows Home Server with Ed Halloway's PhotoSync Beta 2.

This Add-in for Windows Home Server automatically ensures that all photos stored in a particular folder on your home server are automatically published to your Flickr account.

I have a shared folder on my home server named \\server\screensaverpics. Every time we offload photos from a camera I copy a few of the really great photos to this folder. Then all of the PCs in the house have their screensavers set to the Windows "My Pictures" screensaver pointing to \\server\screensaverpics.

Now that I have PhotoSync automatically publishing that folder to my Flickr account all those great pictures are automatically published to all of my friends and families too.