What happens when it gets cold outside? Automated weather sensors get a mind of their own. Wind chill of -135? No problem. I can't wait until the high gets back to 99.
Archive for the ‘Technology/Computers’ Category
Comments: 3February 1st, 2007 by Ryan Westendorf
Comments: 2January 19th, 2007 by Ryan Westendorf
You know, that either sounds like an Australian song or a very dirty movie. Anyways, things are suddenly changing very quickly at work. I can't say for sure how it's going to effect me, but I'm sure something is going to change at least a little bit. Many changes have happened in the past week and I'm sure more will come in the next week or two also.
In non-work news, Justin has a new webpage. Why am I writing that as if you cared? Well, for one, most of you are family. The other reason is that it forced me to figure out some more things about my server. I now know how to setup private FTP accounts for people that allows them to host a website or files on my server…so I'm opening up hosting to any family that want a simple webpage or whatever you want. It can be a great way to keep in touch with other family members or friends. Or it can just be another way for you to say, "Hey look, I'm on the internets!" I wouldn't even censor any pictures that might happen to be posted of yours truly. See? I'm an equal opportunity embarasser.
Another site of the week update is MyKin.US. It's a pretty cool website where family members can join an share information with other family members. Consider it the Facebook of families. I'm already on, so you can sign up and then find me on it. Some things are a little weird in how it works. For example, a few hours after I began playing with the site I accidentally married my dad to himself. I suppose that sort of stuff is okay in New Hampshire, but it sure make the website upset.
** EDIT ** I've struck out all of the above… I'm going to see if I can't setup something on my own site that can do basically the same thing.
Comments: 0December 9th, 2006 by Ryan Westendorf
I'm trying to get rid of some spam that's coming through my mail server this weekend, so I will be disabling my account until early Monday morning. Any messages you send me this weekend will bounce back. In the meantime, you can email me at ryan.westendorf(at)gmail(dot)com. Or just plop a message in the MeeboMe box on this page.
Comments: 0December 5th, 2006 by Ryan Westendorf
For all that Mediacom does dumb or wrong, they at least finally rolled out an upgrade to our internet speed this week. Just yesterday I had this for a speed test:
And now tonight I get this:
Looks like I should finally be able to start uploading my pictures to Flickr at full size without having to resize them all. I'll probably find some other crap to occupy the new found speeds, too. If you have Mediacom and haven't noticed the new speeds, try rebooting your modem to grab a new config file.
Comments: 0November 14th, 2006 by Ryan Westendorf
Well, obviously, the upgrade didn't go so well. Apparently the new version has different wildcard matching so my alarms that used to work didn't anymore. Lucky for me, it only took 3 days to figure that out. </sarcasm> I have most webpage stuff back to normal. Child Abduction Emergencies are being posted again as AMBER Alerts, but I can't get them to post if the office issues them under the Civil Emergency Message heading. I think it relates back to the problem with wildcards. Later this week when I'm up at a normal time, I'll reset the alarms that go to cell phones and pagers. I just don't want to do it now while normal people are asleep. 
Comments: 0November 12th, 2006 by Ryan Westendorf
I pulled off the public chat widget on the right sidebar for a bit. Tonight I noticed it was causing popups on some systems, so in the interest of not wanting to piss people off, it's gone. I'll check back with it periodically to see if the site it comes from has fixed the problem. Until then, you can still send me messages through the MeeboMe box. Even if it says I'm offline, you can also send me messages and I'll get them the next time I log in.
Comments: 0November 10th, 2006 by Ryan Westendorf
I'm updating the software that sends out weather and AMBER Alert messages and emails. Unfortunately, since the computer this software runs on is a little slow anyway, the upgrades will take me a little longer than the planned overnight outage. I'll post back when things are running again. This also will take down the PepperCam and live WX Warning Map linked to the right.
Comments: 0October 25th, 2006 by Ryan Westendorf
For some reason about a month back, I started getting spam comments on one of my posts. It started out slow, and the spam checked blocked pretty much all of the comments that were getting left. Recently, though, I've been getting somewhere around 160 comments posted a day. The odd thing, though, is that they all still go just to that post. I suppose it's a good thing, as then I don't have to look around trying to find the spam. I tried a new trick tonight by turning off the comments on that one post. Time will tell whether that stops the spam altogether for a while, or if they start migrating and moving to other posts. If that happens, then I'll be forced to get a script together that will close comments to any post about a month after it is originally written.
Comments: 0October 16th, 2006 by Ryan Westendorf
Tonight was, uh, interesting. Watching TV tonight at 10:00 you may not have noticed it, but a storm was brewing behind the scenes. Let's just say an argument started (and will probably last for a couple of days) about operating procedures. Apparently some departments decided to change the rules, but not let everyone else in on the idea. I'm sure I'll hear more about it this week, but I also have this feeling I will be getting a phone call sometime during the day on Monday about it. I tried to stand my ground, but quite honestly, I shouldn't even have to do that. Other than that, I won't post much about it… if you want the details, you'll have to talk to me.
Speaking of which, you'll notice a new box in the top right corner. It's my Meebo widget that will let you talk privately with me. It made a brief appearance during my first trip to Florida, but since I was only online while you all were sleeping…which isn't off from normal… it didn't get much use. Now I'm going to try to stay or get logged into Meebo more often so you can talk to me if you don't have my IM details or an IM client installed where you are.
Reply back with a comment to this post, though, if you don't see the box. I doubt I'll be able to do anything about it, but chances are if you can't see it, it means your internet provider is blocking the Meebo servers.
See? I started cranky and I ended up being nerdy and pleasant. It CAN be done, people! 
Comments: 0September 23rd, 2006 by Ryan Westendorf
After about a 2 year absence from APRS, my mobile tracker is again working. The original reason for the downtime was my GPS receiver died. A few months ago I got another one, and then the connector inside the radio became disconnected. So, I've modified things a bit and will now use one of my handheld radios hooked up to a GPS and a smart position beaconer called the TinyTrak to send out my position via my big radio in the car.
It may come and go for a bit as I get things truly figured out, but tests yesterday and today have proved successful. If you have Google Earth, you can now track me in there by using this placemark file. If you don't have Google Earth, it's all good. You can still track me at the jFindu page. That page should refresh on its own, but I've been told that some people behind firewalls don't see it refresh automatically.
When I get back home next week from Florida, I plan on building a housing for the radio & TinyTrak device so that I can tuck them away somewhere out of sight. I may leave the TinyTrak out, but the radio definitely needs to take on a covert mission somewhere in the car.