. Lost Computer News from Silicon Valley en-US ./blog.php?2008-02-140000 ./blog.php?2008-02-140000
When does spring time bring that wonderful change in time of year we call Daylight Savings? I could probably Google the question and get tens of thousands of web sites to check one at a time but I would rather just ask my local computer.

How do I ask my computer?]]> ggates@sladesys.com (Gregory Gates) Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:00:00 -0800 ./blog.php?2008-02-140000#comments ./blog.php?2008-01-290000 ./blog.php?2008-01-290000
There must be some logic when playing video, either in the desktop software or media player application, to not let the monitor sleep using the power management service. Even in Windows, a running Media Player will never put the monitor to sleep. I understand the logic when video is playing, not audio only, but that is another discussion.

It was late, to simulate a burn-in, I wanted Tvtime to keep playing all night but without the monitor on. I wanted to be as green as I can be.]]> ggates@sladesys.com (Gregory Gates) Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:00:00 -0800 ./blog.php?2008-01-290000#comments ./blog.php?2008-01-280000 ./blog.php?2008-01-280000
There were two problems compiling Tvtime on Fedora 8. First, the include file 'linux/compiler.h' was removed causing the src/videoinput.c file from compiling. Second, the GNU C++ compiler has become more syntax strict causing the plugins/greedyh.cpp file to be first of many to fail. The GNU compiler reports an error when the class name is redundantly included in the method declaration.]]> ggates@sladesys.com (Gregory Gates) Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:00:00 -0800 ./blog.php?2008-01-280000#comments ./blog.php?2008-01-210000 ./blog.php?2008-01-210000
Having left the dedicated Microsoft fray many years ago, I have surrounded myself with Linux and Macintosh computers mostly, thus I did not have the Google Toolbar installed on any browsers and frankly did not want to install it just for the Google Pagerank value. It was time for some quick research.

Just for kicks, I googled (when did 'googled' become a verb?) the 'Google Pagerank value' search string and started looking at the result websites. A few of the result websites had extensive doctorate thesis level analysis of the formulae behind the Google Pagerank algorithm. A few other result websites offered looking up any URL and retrieving the Google Pagerank value while viewing Google Ads. And, another set of results described how to query Google to retrieve an URL's Google Pagerank value. As an engineer, this caught me eye, time for some reverse engineering techniques.

]]> ggates@sladesys.com (Gregory Gates) Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:00:00 -0800 ./blog.php?2008-01-210000#comments ./blog.php?2007-10-010000 ./blog.php?2007-10-010000
I have to admit, my C++ code does look awkward to the purist, for there is only one main.cpp and many include files with inline coded methods as opposed the to the traditional method of one header file containing a class definition and one source file with the class implementation. Regrettably, the pursits remained unconvinced by my attempts to articulate the roots of the C language single, multi-pass compilers, or the use of pre-compiled headers. Perhaps, I will have more success by getting this on paper, so to speak.]]> ggates@sladesys.com (Gregory Gates) Mon, 01 Oct 2007 09:00:00 -0700 ./blog.php?2007-10-010000#comments