Fifty most common interview questions

50 COMMON INTERVIEW Q&A « Bhuvana Sundaramoorthy’s Blog:
21. What irritates you about co-workers?
This is a trap question. Think real hard but fail to come up with
anything that irritates you. A short statement that you seem to get
along with folks is great.

Gas Price Search

MSN Autos has a great gas price search tool. It looks like Kentucky has the lowest gas prices right now. Too bad it wasn’t where I was this past weekend.

Tivo is installed

And it rocks. More importantly, dual tuner Tivos rock. Mythbusters is recording on one and we’re watching Scrubs on the other. I’m pretty impressed with the record quality. More impressions later.

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Tivo arrives tomorrow

Yippee! Now I need to pick a remote that will do everything in a simple package. I’m thinking a Harmony 550.

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Charter stinks (again)

but for a different reason this time. Our internet service has been abysmal for the last couple of weeks, but given all of my other stuff going on with them, I didn’t call. I know that they can’t fix problems they don’t know about. Unfortunately, they already do, they just haven’t fixed it yet. There has been an outage in our area for the last two weeks or so, but they haven’t managed to fix it yet. I might as well do a chat to let them know that it stinks for me too.

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Laptop desks

Hmm… My biggest issue with my MacBook Pro is the fact that it runs very hot. Since I don’t want to turn into that guy, but I don’t want to give up my using my laptop on the couch, I’m looking for a good lap desk. I’ve looked at plenty of the cheap ones, but I’m too picky. Macworld posted a review of lap desks that can help. I’m leaning toward the Lapinator, but the Lapdesk Ultra Lite looks good as well. Anyone out there used on of these?

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List of Transformers announced for the movie

I was really hoping for Soundwave

Transformers Hype! – The latest Transformers news and rumors:
The Transformers that will be in the film include:

Autobots:
Optimus Prime
Bumblebee
Jazz
Ratchet
Ironhide

Decepticons:
Megatron
Starscream
Brawl
Bonecrusher
Barricade
Scorponok
Frenzy
Blackout

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No DVR today

or ever, at least from Charter. They cancelled my appointment and rescheduled for Monday. No one thought it would be a good idea to call me and let me know that though, so I got up early this morning, cabled my home theater, and eliminated the cable box from the mix.

When 12:00 rolled around and they still weren’t there, I knew I was in trouble. I called and spoke with Maria, who was apparently new to her telephone and headset. She didn’t know how to mute, put someone on hold, or use her headset. After a quick conversation, I asked for an escalation. The escalation engineer didn’t offer any explanation about the change. In the end, I just cancelled my order, along with my telephone service they were going to install today. I’m just going to get a Tivo.

I’ve not had a good day, so I’m settling in to watch the extended edition of The Two Towers. It was always my favorite chapter of The Lord of the Rings. The Battle of Helm’s Deep is one of the best battles I’ve ever read. While the movie isn’t a direct translation of the written battle, it is close enough for me to forgive.

Technorati Tags: charter, dvr, the two towers, the lord of the rings

SecureWorks faked flaw

A few weeks ago at the BlackHat 2006 conference, there was a demo of a security flaw in Intel’s wireless drivers for the Centrino platform. Jon Ellch and David Maynor presented the flaw without revealing a key detail: it was with a third party card and drivers. I know people get tired of hearing Mac users talk about how they are impervious to, well, everything. The arrogance of some it frustrating and irritating. However, making stuff up doesn’t help anyone. The misleading presentation didn’t help make anyone more secure.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):
Sounds like SecureWorks, the company who sponsored all this Mac hackery, is finally fessing up to their falsification and admitting that they, in fact, did not find the flaw in Apple’s drivers, and that they used a 3rd party card and software to facilitate the exploit. As icing on the cake part of a ‘responsible disclosure policy,’ they aren’t releasing the name of the manufacturer of said 3rd party magic hacking tools. Three cheers for truth (and discretion) in journalism.

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APOD: 2006 August 18 – Spitzer s Orion

APOD: 2006 August 18 – Spitzer s Orion
:

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New DVR installation tomorrow

Charter is coming out to install their Moxi-based DVR at our place. A little bit of history is necessary here though.

Our first DVR was a ReplayTV 5040, the last model with commercial advance. It was a touch choice, since Tivo was very popular with my friends. Commercial advance was a big enough selling point for me, so we went with the ReplayTV. Honestly, it was great. Commercial advance worked well, though it did make a few mistakes from time to time, but so do I when I skip commercials manually. Ultimately, we sold it off because we were watching too much TV. After the release of the 5004, which dropped commercial advance as a feature, demand for the 5040 peaked. I sold it for almost twice what I paid for it.

We took almost a year off from DVRs, but watching TV without it was just to irritating. We were always missing shows and we missed pause terribly. I didn’t really want to pay for monthly service again, so I added a tuner to an aging PC and bought a copy of Windows Media Center. I really like the media center concept, but I got tired of having a Windows XP-based PC in the home theater. It worked as well as could be expected. I have a couple of complaints about the size of the recorded files, even on the lowest quality settings. However, it is fantastic as an all-in-one do it all box. I used it as a DVD player, radio, weather and movie outlet, and jukebox. There are some things that don’t work very well, but the interface is simple and flexible.

In the end, I got a little tired of patching, crashing and wireless problems. I wanted something simple, so a set-top box was ideal. When I found out that Charter was finally offering a DVR in my area, I jumped at the chance. I’ll be using it tomorrow, so I’ll post my impressions then.

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The Passing Zone rules!

These guys are some of the best jugglers I’ve ever seen. People juggling rocks.

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Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

We watched the pilot last weekend – from Netflix, via David – and I must say that we were absolutely blown away. Its smart and funny, like every other Aaron Sorkin show, but this is going to be a very challenging show for lots of people in America. Sorkin has never been afraid to take on issues and continues to do so here. I don’t want to spoil it, but I had an “Oh crap!” moment when the reason for “the argument” is revealed.

One other note, Matthew Perry and Brad Whitford make a great on-screen duo. They balance each other nicely and play off of one another better very well. This show is an absolute must see.

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Rick Majerus is a funny guy

David, this quote is for you.

After Kentucky defeated Utah for the national title in 1998, Ashley Judd gave Utes’ coach Rick Majerus a hug, something he will never forget: “She hugged me as a consolation because we lost,” he said the other day. “I went to bed for two years with that as my sex life.”

Some gems from days gone by

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Star Trek Inspirational Posters

Here are some absolutely fantastic Star Trek Inspirational Posters.

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