http://iboone.net/blog/ Random ramblings en-us 2007-02-26T22:03:54-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000055.html So I'm a smoker. Smoked tens of thousands of cigarettes and enjoyed most of them. And why wouldn't I? Within 10 seconds of inhaling the smoke, nicotine has reached my brain. Once there, it has no trouble crossing the blood-brain barrier and going to work on the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. It increases the activity of these receptors, leading to the release of adrenaline which promptly increases my heart rate, blood pressure, respiration and the amount of glucose in my blood. Mean while, in the reward circuits of my brain where feelings of pleasure and ephoria come from, dopamine levels are rising. This is what makes me feel good, and what has kept me lighting up cigarette after cigarette. Or, as some who like to use big language call it, Addiction. But the other big thing, perhaps in some ways even tougher than the addiction, is the habit. There are certain times when you simply light up. Hop in the car, start the engine, pull away and reach for the smokes. Eat a meal, have a smoke. Find yourself outside with nothing in your hands, light up a smoke. I find that when quitting, the addiction combined with the habit is a very tough combination to break. The addiction causes withdrawal symptoms such as insomnia, irritability, anxiety and nicotine cravings. I find I always start looking forward to a smoke a few minutes before I have it. The habit dictates I light up as soon as I start moving in the car. As I'm grabbing the last few things to head to work, the cigarette I'll have when I leave has already crossed my mind. Finishing lunch, I'm looking forward to that smoke. Combine this with feeling shitty because of the withdrawal symptoms as you walk inside Chevron to pay for your fuel, and why wouldn't you quickly add "One pack du Maurier Light please" ?? It's a lethal combination. A cigarette doesn't increase your chances of lung cancer for at least 20 years; I'm pissed off and feel like crap NOW; I'll feel better after a cigarette and things will be back to normal again! Quitting will be easier tomorrow... So this time I'm trying it with the patch. First I'll rid myself of the habit, then I can worry about slowly knocking down the nicotine addiction. I've got high hopes this time. Of course I'm only on the tail end of day #1, but this time it's different. I have a pack of smokes sitting right here. I have a lighter. There's nothing stopping me from lighting up right now. But I haven't and I won't. I've never had this kind of control before! The other times I quit I simply couldn't have any cigarettes even remotely accessible. I'm not ashamed to admit that even week old cigarette butts stuck in the sand of my ash bucket would tempt me... Sure, the thought still crosses my mind as I sit here. Just now it feels like it's time to wander outside with a cigarette and see what the weather's doing. Inhale that smoke, admire the stars and the moon, I would really enjoy one right now... But I can tell myself I'm already getting the nicotine I need, so having a smoke wouldn't do much anyways. The patch is keeping the reward centers of the brain happy and I just have to get used to not lighting up all the time. It feels kind of funny, not taking a break for a cig, but I'll get used to it...... Personal Boone 2007-02-26T22:03:54-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000054.html Again I was impressed by the honesty and integrity of a company called Gemini Logic Inc. I ordered an updated version of one of their products yesterday to go with our updated accounting software. This morning I received a phone call asking whether I was aware of the new features to be found in the updated accounting software which rendered the Gemini Logic program unnecessary to us. Sure enough, the functionality we required was in fact buried in our accounting software and I was able to cancel our order with Gemini Logic. When a company goes out of their way to save me money at the cost of their own revenue, especially when I'm a one-time customer, I'm impressed. Two thumbs up for them.... Boone 2007-02-15T09:24:44-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000053.html Web Boone 2006-11-03T23:41:49-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000052.html Creating sites that work equally well in all browsers is teeth-pulling work, as anyone who's tried well knows. And now, now we have Internet Explorer 7! As Scoble says, "That might demonstrate that Web 2 sites might need to do some homework to get their sites to be performant in both IE7 and Firefox." What frustrations! Yet another browser to work around, more hacks and special code to make things work all 'round. Wouldn't it be nice if there were just some standards that both web developers and browsers could follow that would guarantee everything would work in all browsers? Oh, what's that? We *do* have standards??? Uhhh, ermmm, I don't understand??!?! Did somebody forget to notify Microsoft???... Web Boone 2006-10-19T17:04:46-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000051.html So I run across "Yahoo! Search Marketing" (actually found it from Google, a paid listing, hah!) and decide to sign up and give it a whirl. It's not quite as slick as Google as I begin the sign-up process, but I soon run into a brick wall: I'm just... confused, actually.... Web Boone 2006-06-26T00:59:05-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000050.html There are many software packages out there that you can use to design circuit boards. They include Albium Designer (formerly Protel), OrCAD, FreePCB and CadSoft's Eagle Layout Editor...... Electronics Boone 2006-03-03T00:24:43-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000049.html So we've got our wireless router with ripped off cover and warranty voided in one hand. In the other hand we've got our PG-31 GPS module. How do we make them sing and dance and make lovely music together? It's shockingly easy actually...... Electronics Boone 2006-03-02T01:34:26-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000048.html So we're going to stick GPS on a Linksys wireless router. I guess we need the actual GPS chunk from someone somewhere. Many of the hand held GPS units you might be familiar with have a serial output, perhaps we could use that? Well we could, but there's some things to think about first...... Electronics Boone 2006-03-01T23:06:23-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000047.html The best way to learn something is to do it. To do something you need a goal in mind. So what's something very simple yet very cool that we can try make? I have an idea... it involves a Linksys WRT-54G Wireless Router, OpenWRT custom firmware, and, let's see, how about GPS....... Electronics Boone 2006-03-01T22:21:34-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000046.html Ever wanted to pretend you're an engineer? Thought what it must be like to design cool stuff and have it manafactured for you? No? Oh... Well, too bad, I'm not stopping!... Electronics Boone 2006-03-01T21:38:08-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000045.html Much of yesterday was spent trying to figure out what parts to use for a power regulation circuit I'm building. Hours was spent perusing the catalogue from DIgi-Key, a Minnesota based company. With well over 500,000 parts available, you spend most of your time trying to figure out which one of about 10,000 parts to use. Any one of them would work, but the shear number of options is boggling. Just before five, at the end of a "normal" work day, my shopping cart is complete and I go through the check out procedure. No questions how I'd like it shipped, it's just going to cost $8.00, their standard charge. At 4:47 I click the final Confirm button and my order is sent off through cyber space. I wonder when I'll get the package and decide it should come the day after tomorrow. They'd get the order in the morning, ship it, and I'd get it the next day via their promised next day delivery. Imagine my surprise when I find the package delivered before 8AM this morning! Literally 15 hours later I have my order in my hand. Now that's how you run a company! 14 line items, 400 total pieces and it's in my hands the very thing the next morning. It's not even worth going to Radio Shack 15 minutes away to pick something up quickly. If one works regular 8-5 hours you can have it in your hands almost instantly! Order it just before you leave and have it in your hands just "work-minutes" later. It seems that being in Canada, and especially being in Chilliwack, nothing ever happens that quickly. I would love to see inside DigiKey, see how they pull this off!... Technology Boone 2006-02-22T18:06:31-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000044.html If you have multiple computers next to each other, you'll want to check out Synergy, an awesome open source (GPL) application that lets you "share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s)." This is awesome for use with my tablet, simply slide the mouse cursor across and I'm mousing and keyboarding on the tablet. Since it's usually in its dock next to my monitor, this works perfect. Configuration was not exactly intuitive, but once it's going it works great.... Technology Boone 2005-12-14T21:00:48-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000043.html A couple months ago I took some pictures with the flash pointed at the ceiling, called bounce flash. You don't get the hard shadows you normally do, instead you get a nice soft shadow directly beneath things. I was quite impressed with the results. Hardly prize winning, but 10x better than you get with the flash directly on the subject: The flowers, of course, were done by the amazing Lani Hasselfield of Hasselfield Floral.... Personal Boone 2005-12-03T01:28:40-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000042.html I'm developing a serious hatred for spammers. My server's been a source of spam a couple times the last few weeks. It was simple to trace it down to a particular user on my server, a site with PHP forum software. PHP holes are hardly a surprise, so I quickly shut down the site (chmod -rx htdocs/) and emailed the site admin to upgrade their software before reenabling. Figuring it was taken care of, I forgot about it. But today, same thing. Shut down the site again and sent another email. I finally had some time to help try find the problem. Turned out to be a simple PHP bulk emailer that the spammers had installed last time they got in! A remarkably simple script, it simply presented an HTML form where the From, Subject, etc lines were filled in and a huge list of emails into a textarea. Emails sent were mostly "Wells Fargo" and "Royal Bank" phishing emails. Landed me on some black lists I now gotta get off of. Gah, bloody criminals.... Web Boone 2005-11-14T21:38:59-08:00 http://iboone.net/blog/000041.html Before: and After: The PCB's arrived from Bangkok, they work great! Much nicer than the prototype boards I hacked together.... Projects Boone 2005-11-06T15:44:29-08:00