Graffiti hotline

I’m probably one of the top callers to Raleigh’s Graffiti Hotline, the number to call when graffiti is spotted anywhere in the city. In fact, I’m on a first-name basis with them! After walking by a clean spot Monday that 24 hours earlier had spray paint on it, I felt I had to let someone know what a great job Raleigh’s Street Maintenance division has been doing to keep the city clean.

Below is my email to the division’s director, Elwood Davis, which cc’d city officials:
Continue reading →

Monitoring my alarm panel with Asterisk

Remember when I wanted to get my Asterisk phone system monitoring my home alarm panel? I did it today! It was surprisingly easy, too. Took about a half-hour of geeking to get it done.

Why monitor my alarm with Asterisk? Because the house has no land line and I don’t see the wisdom of paying some company $240 a year to do what I can do much better myself. Plus there’s something cool about having your computer do things when something physical happens – and Asterisk can do just that.
Continue reading →

Disable message balloons in Microsoft Outlook

I’m forced against my will to use Microsoft Outlook at $WORK. Frequently, Outlook will pop up a message balloon informing me that its accessing the network.

“Well, duh!” I say. “That’s what you’re supposed to be doing! Thanks for interrupting my work so you can bring me that critical information!” Talking to my computer is no use, though, as it just stares blankly back at me like a stupid dog.

Luckily I’ve found the recipe to turn off these useless messages for Outlook 2003. I made these registry changes and, voila, problem solved!

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Display Types\Balloons]
"Exchange"=dword:00000000
"NetConn"=dword:00000000
"NetWarn"=dword:00000000

(Hat tip, the Microsoft forums)

Gustav

I recently watched NOVA’s program on Hurricane Katrina called Storm That Drowned A City. It was a fascinating program detailing the timeline of Katrina’s march to New Orleans, focusing on how the storm’s surges undermined and overran the city’s levees. The takeaway was that the city is no better protected now than it was three years ago.

Now comes Tropical Storm Gustav, a storm which could quickly get nasty that is now making a turn towards New Orleans. The next week may provide a chance to see if we’ve learned anything.

Funky Towne

I love the marketing campaign for Raleigh Wide Open III, announcing the grand opening of the new convention center September 5th and 6th. The signs hanging from Fayetteville Street lightposts are hilarious. They say “Thou art now in Funky Towne,” “Get down with thy bad self,” “Get thine merriment on,” among others.

Very clever!

iPod video recipe

Here are the commands I’m using for importing DVDs into the iPod. Shown is the script for the Muppets DVD. It requires the libdvdcss libraries to be added, as well as the MP4Box app. MP4Box takes the mencoder-encoded file and stamps it with the appropriate iPod bits to make it show.

GUEST="Vincent_Price"; time mencoder dvd://8 -dvd-device /dev/scd0 -sws 9 -of lavf -lavfopts format=mp4 -vf scale=320:240 -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1381:vbv_maxrate=1500:vbv_bufsize=2000:nocabac:me=umh:trellis=1:level_idc=30:global_header:threads=2:pass=1:turbo -oac faac -faacopts mpeg=4:object=2:br=160:raw -channels 2 -srate 48000 -o Muppets-$GUEST.mp4 && MP4Box -add Muppets-$GUEST.mp4 output/Muppets-$GUEST.mp4 && [ -f output/Muppets-$GUEST.mp4 ] && rm Muppets-$GUEST.mp4 && echo "done."

Also see this helpful Ubuntu forum post for other cool tools.

No room for Fay

I’m glad Western North Carolina will be getting a good drink from Tropical Storm/Depression Fay. Lord knows they need it. As for me, though, I’m still sitting on 300+ gallons of rainwater, so I reluctantly removed the downspout hose from my tank when the first drops came down this morning.

I fiddled with my new tank pump this weekend in an effort to test it out. Turns out the 1″ suction hose I bought had the threads stripped on one connector. After much time spent patiently threading and rethreading the connector into the pump I finally got it on there properly. By that time it was already dark outside, so the pump will wait another week or two when it is dry again.

I have to say I’ve been very pleased with this August’s weather. It hasn’t been baking hot for the first summer in a while. Of course, we paid that price earlier this summer but even that didn’t last too long. We’ve also had reliable rain this month, which is a welcome change.