Published on Monday 6th November 2006 .
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has spent almost $50,000 on unsolicited phone calls to residents of the Illinois 8th District. David McSweeney is the Republican running for Congress in the Illinois 8th, yet the phone call starts off by saying, "Hello, I’m calling with information about Melissa Bean." Congresswoman Melissa Bean is the Democrat running for Congress in the Illinois 8th. Recipients of the calls who hang up right away are lead to believe that the call is from supporters of Melissa Bean. Those who listen to the remainder of the call hear a smear message about Congresswoman Bean. This is not limited to the Illinois 8th, but it is also happening in the Illinois 6th and other districts across the country.
Will politicians stop at nothing to win these elections? I phrase that question with politicians and not Republicans because I cannot say with any certainty that Democrats are guilt-free in using dirty tactics to win an election. Although according to Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment the other night, President Bush will surely stop at nothing to keep his party in power. What is your take on the dirty tactics being used in our nation’s elections?
Update: The FBI has launched an investigation of deceptive calls received by some Virginia residents. One caller claimed to be from the Board of Elections, and threatened criminal charges against Timothy Daly of Arlington if he voted in Virginia. The reason? The caller said that Daly was registered to vote in New York, not Virginia. Another caller, claiming to work for the Democratic candidate Jim Webb, told Lawrence Baumann that his polling place had been moved to a non-existent street. It appears that these intimidating and deceptive calls were all directed towards Democratic voters. Check one more line crossed!
Published on Thursday 2nd November 2006 .
So, I was about to go to bed around 10, but I thought I would see just how easy it was to create a ringtone out of an mp3. I found a tutorial for doing so in Linux, and I was able to easily adapt the instructions for Windows. I used Audacity to trim the mp3s and save them as wav files. Then I used LAME to convert them to the proper quality mp3 files.
FYI: For a RAZR v3, you will need mp3s encoded at 44.1kHz and 64kbps. The tutorials I saw suggest keeping your ringtones at 200kB or less, but I was able to get away with ringtones that were more than twice as large.
After I did the trimming and conversions, I copied them to my phone via Bluetooth. You have to copy the mp3s to the audio folder on the phone. You won’t be able to transfer files to your RAZR with USB, because that only gives you the option to use your RAZR as a modem. It appears Bluetooth is the easiest way to transfer files to a RAZR v3 from a computer.
I bet you’re wondering what songs I made into ringtones. I started off with Ice Ice Baby. Then I went a little more current with I Write Sins Not Tragedies. While looking for Cake’s version of Mahna Mahna, I decided to also make a ringtone out of Short Skirt, Long Jacket. Then I took clips from Seasons of Love and Imagine for Chris. And I finished off my play time with a SexyBack ringtone. I’m not quite as cool as Hersch is with the inline multimedia. As soon as I figure it out, I’ll post the ringtones under a password protected post for the inner circle to utilize. I don’t know if the ringtones are short enough to be legal for free distribution here.
Update: As it happens, both Wired and Lifehacker have tutorials on using Audacity to make ringtones. I’d re-invent the where here, but the beauty of the web is that I don’t have to 
* That was easy® is a registered trademark of Staples, Inc. Get yourself an Easy Button, also available in Spanish.
Published on Wednesday 1st November 2006 .
Google Browser Sync is a Firefox extension that allows you to synchronize your saved passwords, cookies, bookmarks and other settings between various computers, all running Firefox with the Browser Sync extension installed. You can even synchronize the opened tabs and windows from one session to another, and from one computer to another.
I admit to being a little skeptical at first, thinking that this might be too much information to hand over to Google. I still wonder just how much of my information should be going to Google, but that is an issue I will have to deal with as problems arise. The extension works rather well, although I have noticed that I am sometimes missing bookmarks when synchronizing between browsers. The phantom bookmarks do not appear on one computer, while they do on another. It’s bizarre.
So, if you’re like me and you jump between several different computers, and perhaps also like me you use several different operating systems, Browser Sync may be your answer to managing all of your Firefox information.
Published on Wednesday 1st November 2006 .
My former boss has a post on his blog about an ultimatum given to students regarding non-educational files stored in their network folders. Students have to remove said non-educational files from the network before a November 15th deadline or risk disciplinary actions. Any attempts to cover up the storage of non-educational files will result in tougher penalties.
Here I go playing devil’s advocate: how were the students notified of the deadline? I see that the school’s home page has a notice on the side of the page, but is that enough?
Again, I am not saying I disagree with the move. I am just wondering what happens when there is a large group of students who claim ignorance. You obviously cannot suspend a few hundred students from using the computers, but how many is too many?
The issue of regulation enforcement is one I have always found particularly interesting, and not just in education. Having not had formal training on administrative matters, I do not actually know where to draw the lines. Is consistency and drawing a straight line more important than having leniency and understanding? I guess I’ll have to wait and see how things play out over there.
Published on Wednesday 1st November 2006 .
Chris and I have joined the masses with our new RAZR v3 phones. Neither of us being magenta people, we both went for the pearl gray offered by T-Mobile. It’s been a while since Chris has had a new phone, and it’s been a while since I’ve had a Motorola phone. We’re both pretty excited to have new phones, and we’re hopeful that they will give us better reception around town.
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