How to get Windows 7 to share a printer on a Windows 2000/XP machine

I have been getting Windows 7 to work on my PC.

By the way, Windows 7 is wonderful.

Here is the solution to a problem I have been having which I want to record so that I can refer to it in the future. Sorry that this isn't more interesting to the general populace...

Network Share not working through Windows 7 home premium:

How to fix things on Windows 7 so that you can access a Windows 2000 shared printer:

1. Open registry editor ( Start search - regedit)
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
3. Create a new DWORD value with the following properties: NAME: LmCompatibilityLevel VALUE: 1
4. Restart your PC and try the connection again...

Today's interesting set of websites.

Dump.com
http://theportfolio.ofmichaelanderson.com/

Lifehacker Pack 2009:Essential Free Windows Downloads

Lifehacker Pack 2009: Our List of Essential Free Windows Downloads

Another version of things to load up immediately on a Windows PC. Lifehacker, by the way is a quality publication that comes up with many useful ideas and apps.

Bicycle Route Mapping

My friend Tom is an avid cyclist. When I came back from Florida I mentioned several websites that I have been using to map various routes, as well as tracks from my various GPS tracking devices. He send me his findings as well as this update:

Here's an update: http://www.bikemap.net is still the best I've found, although all of them have warts. My maps are at http://www.bikemap.net/user/tomfortmann/routes. Don't forget to hover your cursor over the elevation plot, and note the full-screen mode. Those two features put it ahead of the others.

Two others I found recently are

http://www.bikely.com Similar to bikemap.net but no dynamic elevation or full-screen mode

http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com Pretty good; multiple tracks; tiny editing and display windows are a big drawback

And as I told you before, mapmyride.com is a nonstarter for various reasons.

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before

Worldmapper

For those who like Maps, this is a tour de force in maps. There are many themes followed in the same format: a web page with explanations accompanied by a PDF suitable for posting on a bulletin board. In addition, they back up their maps with the data used to produce them.

tipjoy | the easiest way to give and make money online

tipjoy | the easiest way to give and make money online

What a great idea: you set up a small fund (say $5) and give small tips (one guy askedfor just $0.10 and had amased $246) to people who provide services or information that you like.

MagicJack

MagicJack far from enchanting - The Boston Globe

Actually, the review is much better than the headline would suggest. My major problem with this is that I don't make that many long-distance calls and so I wouldn't save that much money. But, if I were willing to let go of my regular telephone, I could connect this to a spare old computer and eliminate the charge for the phone.

Job Losses In Recent Recessions

Here is a very disturbing graph of unemployment that has been published by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House.
When I sent this to my friend Richard Homonoff, he replied:

You might want to take a look at William J Polley's blog post titled, "Employment losses continue to be in line with 1981-82 recession."

He looks at the eleven recessions since WWII.

He has a chart that is more comprehensive than Pelosi's.

In the chart below from that reference, the current unemployment line is in orange, is situated about in the middle of the pack and ends at 12 months.



It does appear to me that the Speaker is simplifying things to support her arguments in an unfair way. I don't think either side of the debate should do this -- even it if fits my own leanings. That only weakens your argument once smart people (like Richard) start digging deeper.

Says what we all think...

Don't click on the start button below if you are offended by profanity. If, on the other hand you find the use of profanity at times the last effective means of expressing your outrage or excitement, then click on...

Things I ran across today

Charles Kuralt: We listened to Charles Kural's America on the way down to Florida.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kuralt
• http://www.rememberingcharleskuralt.com/editorial.htm
• http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0102/14/lkl.00.html
• http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=charles+kuralt

Alan Berliner: Early Sunday morning, we saw part of a documentary by Alan Berliner on Sleeplessness. It was fascinating and this guy is a very good documentary film director/producer.

• http://www.alanberliner.com/index.html
• http://store.hbo.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2646795&cp=1890186
• http://www.slate.com/id/2166758/

EasyBloom: Very clever device for measuring environmental conditions for growing plants. Came from a discussion on xBBN about devices for measuring sunlight.

• http://www.easybloom.com/buy/overview.html

BirdCam: Nice sealed camera case that shoots automatically when it detects motion. Put right in front of your bird feeder for terrific closeups.

• http://www.wingscapes.com/
• http://www.keenzo.com/showproduct.asp?M=WINGSCAPES&ID=3514159&ref=GB

I did not run across the groundhog today.

Google Charts

While I wasn't looking, Google has made some major improvements to their spreadsheets. One impressive capability is the ability to generate charts from dynamic data. Here are some examples:

Here is a more complex trig function charted:

And of course, the ever present pie chart. Google documents appears to be practically all I need from Excel in terms of charts.

Of course, the real payoff is when you can chart dynamic data retrieved from sources of data on the web. Here is the temperatures this month in Boston derived from numeric values on a web site generated by the National Weather Service and charted by me in Google Spreadsheets. As the days go on, new entries will appear in the website and be appropriately added to the end of the chart, all without me lifting a finger...

Pretty cool stuff.

I have always been fascinated by taking data produced by one system and combining with either data from another place or processing it automatically to produce something else. These days these are called "mashups". In the last 20 years this is the easiest way I have ever done this. You've been able to do this with excel for a long time, but it is far more complex and awkward. Google really understands the web and creates systems that work well on the web.

MUTO - An Ambiguous Animation

Here is an amazing website and several animations I just ran across. It boggles the mind to think how much time must have gone into creating the first 6 minute film.




Here is the explanation of the video:



Here is the video:


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Here is another video by BLU:

Internet marketing essentials: Change order of Blogger Posts

Internet marketing essentials: Change order of Blogger Posts

This is a really useful set of instructions to change the order in which blogger entries are listed -- FIFO or LIFO. This is a great example were an open system like Blogger (open in the sense that you can change a lot of things) permits you to make it work better than the implementers were able to make it work. A corollary to the rule that a group of people is always smarter than any of the individuals in the group.

FIFO Order

LIFO Order

What's Harry Been Doing Lately?

What have I been doing? Well, I have spent most of my waking hours working on LexMedia the non-profit corporation that runs the Public Access cable channels in Lexington, MA. In the last year we have completely reinvented LexMedia by:

1. Getting rid of the last Executive Director who was on a course of making LexMedia fail
2. Recruiting a new Executive Director who brings a lot of talents to LexMedia that we don't already have, and is a pleasure to work with. What a change!
3. Building a new studio at Kline Hall in the Avalon Lexington Hills residential complex.
4. Outfitting that studio with a completely new all digital broadcast system.

As Chairman of LexMedia, I have tried to foster an open organization where there are no pockets of unwarranted private information -- the kind of information inept people use to insure their job security. Rather we value people by what they accomplish.

Having said that, I represent my work at LexMedia by our website (lexmedia.org) which I manage. Take a look, and if you live in Lexington, check out the three channels we produce.

AntennaWeb

AntennaWeb

This is a very nice web site which answers the question that some people will be asking in the coming months: With the switch-over to digital TV next February, if I want to receive television over the air (as opposed via cable or satellite) what kind of antenna should I get and in what direction should I point it. If you click on the "choose an antenna" button, you will be asked for your street address. From this information, the website will determine your location, including elevation and sight line to the various television transmitters in your area. It will then tell you two things: Which stations you can expect to receive, what type of antenna you will need to receive those stations, and which direction you should point that antenna. Very nice site.

Most Popular Storied: Scientific American and other websites

Science and technology information from Scientific American

I just got an email message from Scientific American asking me survey questions about their website. After completing the survey, I went over to the website and discovered that it was seriously modified and improved from what I had seen before. Very nice, and I recommend it to you.

Now the reason for writing this entry: Most Popular Stories. I see this kind of list appearing in more and more websites (NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, ...), and I am attracted to it on each. In many respects, it is an organic, populist recommendation service that helps me sift through the average article and find the gems. It's a good example of social networking as opposed to the banal use of this concept in the MySpace's of the world.

But, now my concern: What is others are doing the exact same as I? I.e., not taking the time to explore the complete sea of articles and picking out the ones that I want to read? By using these lists, I am not only failing my fellow readers, but also contributing to a second order effect of reading a recommended article, thus sending it "popularity" even higher -- with the possible effect of swamping an excellent article, but one that by chance got washed to the side by people like me who only look at the most popular articles.

Having said this, I am now suitably self-warned not to just use the "most popular" lists. God, I sound like my mother warning me not to just seek out the popular kids in Jr. High School...

Postscript: My friend Richard wrote me a response which I find very interesting:

Dear Harry,

Too bad Sciam doesn't keep a month by month "most popular" list so we
can go back.

Your point about relying on others to monitor news sources will lop
off some unseen gems has a parallel in the efficient (stock) market
hypothesis. EMH suggests that there is no point in individuals doing
research to test/explore whether a stock is under- or over-valued
because the current prices reflect the combined knowledge/wisdom of
the market participants. But if everyone assumes that stocks are
efficiently priced and if no one does the analysis, the prices will no
longer be "efficiently-priced." And I guess that is why some
investors still hire some people to do securities analysis;
presumably, those securities analysts pick up enough gems to pay for
their time and effort.

Regards,
Richard

HOW TO: Import Non-Commercial DVD into iMovie '08

Unlike PCs, the standard Macintosh software (e.g., iMovie) does not provide a command or document how to import the contents of an even non-copy protected DVD into a program running on the Macintosh. It turns out that you can do with with standard issue Macintosh programs, you just have to know what to do. Here is a set of steps needed to perform this action that I found using Google.

1. Insert DVD.
2. Open Disk Utility.
3. Select the disk and then select “New Image”. Save the disk image wherever is convenient, such as the desktop.
4. Once the disk image is written, open iMovie 08.
5. Mount the new disk image. A “Camera Detected, Scanning Contents” window will appear in iMovie 08, followed by an import window. You can now import the DVD contents and start editing away.

I wish iMovie would just say, “Hey, this DVD doesn’t have copy protection, it must be yours, so I’ll import it for you!” Alas, this is not the case, making the process more cumbersome than it needs to be. I can image that the idea of importing straight from a DVD was shot down by Apple’s legal team… sigh

On The Media: Prank Calling

On The Media: Prank Calling

Professional hoaxer Alan Abel has spent a lifetime pulling pranks on the media, like his campaign to clothe naked animals or his character Omar the Beggar. Abel’s antics are preserved in the documentary, now on DVD, Abel Raises Cain.

Photography and The Law: Know Your Rights

Photography and The Law: Know Your Rights

There are several issues that arise when I decide whether or not I feel comfortable taking a picture. These issues usually arise when people are included in the scene. This article lays out the legal rules and rights you have as a photographer, but I find that frequently my own sense of respecting someone's privacy takes precedence. But, it is good to know the law before you start defending yourself against heavy handed "authorities".

JungleDisk

JungleDisk - Reliable online storage powered by Amazon S3 ™

I have searched for years for a backup system that would work for me. I bet I'm not that unusual in my "requirements" -- these are not particularly difficult ones and some of them relate to my behaviors, which again, I believe are not very unusual (at least with regards to backing up my computer data...)

For me, to be useful, a backup system has to be:

1. Automatic: This is why I am looking for a "system" rather than just doing it myself every time I create something new a valuable.
   
   
2. Reliable: What's the purpose of using a backup system if it isn't reliable. I think many people have a false sense of security with their backup systems because they rarely try to recover files.
   
   
3. Easy -- both to backup and recover: The backup system ought to be as "easy" as using the file management capabilities of the operating system -- and hopefully just an extension of that OS.
   
   
4. Inexpensive: Even though I know that my data is very valuable, somehow I still think the backup system ought to be inexpensive.
   
   
5. Done in the background: Again, even though it is important, backing up files doesn't seem like it ought to interfere with my use of the computer. I wish some virus protection systems would exhibit the same characteristics.
   
   
6. Cross-platform: Although I have one principal computer I use, my family and I make use of several laptops, both PCs and Macs, as well as several servers. All of these machines should be backed up, not just my primary PC.

After stumbling along for many years, I have finally found a system that does all of this: JungleDisk. There are two really good parts of this system: The multiplatform client program that implements the logic of when and what to backup, and the backend storage component (Amazon's S3) which is a very inexpensive storage system charged for by the high integrity billing system of Amazon.

The net effect is that for the first time, I now have my pictures backed up properly -- in fact so well that as I travel, take pictures and download them to my laptop, to my delight these pictures are backed up to the Amazon file storage while I sleep. And, did I mention inexpensive? After the initial upload to the file server when I am charged for network bandwidth (not very much), all of my pictures from 2007 and 2008 (42Gbytes) are now being backed up for about $6.50/month which seems pretty good to me.