Aaron's blog

One annoyance that has gotten me quite a few times lately is inconsistent Ctrl+Del key behavior.  If you weren't aware, in most programs this is supposed to delete one word to the right of the cursor's current position (and usually one of the spaces).  Similarly, Ctrl+Backspace deletes one word to the left of the cursor.

Some programs don't play nice with Ctrl+Del (I have found Ctrl+Backspace to be fairly consistent).  Would Microsoft please clean up their act?  Here are some results (all tested in Windows Vista, but I know I've seen some of the same in XP also):

• Notepad: deletes entire line to the right of the cursor
• Wordpad: deletes one word
• Word 2007: deletes one word
• OneNote 2007: deletes one word
• IE7 Address Bar & Search Box: deletes entire line to the right
• IE7 Textbox: does absolutely nothing
• Windows Live Writer: deletes one word
• Start Menu Search Box: deletes entire line to the right
• Visual Studio 2005: deletes one word
• Editing File Names in Explorer: deletes entire line to the right

So we see three entirely different, largely unpredictable results, from one company.  The closest thing to a trend is that the "major" word processing tools have the correct behavior, while simple things such as text-boxes and Notepad are wrong.  At least Ctrl+Z (undo) is there to save you when that whole line disappears.

So we all know about the User Access Control feature in Windows Vista.  It keeps unwanted programs from doing unwanted things.  However, it is a major pain in the butt for power users, who regularly like to change the type of settings that UAC is designed to protect.  So of course I promptly turned it off on both of my computers running Vista.  I kinda feel guilty about that.  And I don't really think UAC is that bad of an idea.

And yesterday I got a bad idea.  I thought, "Hmm, I should see if it really sucks that much, and share my experience."  Yes, I got to thinking that I should re-install Vista just so I could keep blog entries detailing each of the times that I was confronted by UAC (what it was for, was it quick, did I understand the need for it, etc.).  I imagine the encounters would number near 50 to get the system configured as desired, which really isn't that bad--especially compared to the amount of time to clean just one piece of spyware off of a computer.  Of course I would expect to be bothered by it maybe 3 or 4 times per week (or maybe less) after that as I do occasional installations and adjustments.

The bad idea part of this is because it would mean re-installing Vista (and the ensuing 8 or so hours to install all my programs).  And I have about 60GB of data on my HDD that I don't have a convenient method of backing up right now.  But maybe I'll figure something out.  Because I really think it would be an interesting experiment.

1. Install Vista.
2. Join Domain.
3. Reboot.
4. Perform Installs As Domain User (And Put Up With UAC).
5. Disable UAC.
6. Move Desktop Offsite.
7. Enjoy lack of priviledges to make any further changes, as the domain administrator account was never logged into on the computer, and hence its credentials aren't cached for Windows logon.  Can't re-enable UAC either (on the off chance that THOSE credentials are cached), as you don't have the privileges.
8. Surf the internet without flash or PDF support until reformatting the computer.

2019-10-25 - I remember that a library staff person somehow found this rant and replied with a decently helpful/explanatory comment (on the long gone site).

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If there's one thing I hate about the library, it's that the search functionality you can use to find books REALLY SUCKS.  In fact, when I think of the Bismarck Public Library, the foremost image in my mind is the island of computers, all with that dreaded search interface displayed on the screen.

Anyone remember the days where if you entered "Ernest Hemingway" you would get no results?  That's right, you would only get a list of the books he wrote if you entered "Hemingway, Ernest."  Just one of the many things that contributed to the general poorness of the system.  While this seems to be fixed now, it is representative of the silly things one must put up with.

Another frustration of mine is searching for the books in a series.  I used to read a lot of Star Trek and Star Wars books, most of which are part of a series.  Sometimes these series number well over 100 titles.  One would think a library would have an easy way to find out which book is next in the series (maybe to encourage more reading--just a thought).  Nope.  Go ahead, try it: http://www.odinlibrary.org/ Basic search has no drop down for searching for a series, but advanced search does.  Does it possibly return a list of the "Star Trek" series which the Fargo Public Library (for example) has?  Would I then be able to click on the name of one of the series (maybe "Star Trek: Voyager") and view all the titles of that series in numerical order?  Nope.  It returns a list of all the Star Trek books the library has, inconveniently ordered by title, alphabetically.

So, as I did almost weekly between the ages of 12 and 17, one has to go to the library, find a book towards the end of the series, look inside the front cover, note which book they haven't read yet, and go search by title.  Which may or may not work, because the search doesn't automatically look for "Conquerors" when a search for "Conqueror" is entered.  At least NDSU search (which is a whole other case of poor functionality) does this.  It can be quite comical actually, especially if you enter 4-letter words that start with "f".

As it is, searching for things on the Internet is WAY easier than in the library.  Probably that's because webpages are structured in a fundamentally different way.  Or that web designers customize their sites to be more searchable.  But there is definitely room for improvement.  If I were some sort of search engineer working at Google right now, I would be dedicating my 20% time to figuring out a better system for this.  Then Google could sell this to libraries across the world, much like their Search Appliance.  Or even give it to them for free, and display ads next to the results.  I'd be willing to look at ads if I was able to find what I wanted.

So, later today I'll be heading down to the library, in search of a book that has all the others listed inside the front cover.  Hopefully I can check out a book on the same day that I get a new library card...

Apparently Microsoft has chosen to not include the three default IPSec policies in Vista.  You may recall that XP and Server 2003 included ones for the client to request security, the server to request security, and the server to require security.  Those built-in ones sure made things easier for the beginning user (me).  I guess now I will just have to actually know what I'm doing in order to configure IPSec.

There is now a HDD protection driver for Toshiba computers (mine's an R15 tablet PC) running Windows Vista (and it's in Windows Update--nice touch).  Now, I just wish they would come out with one that enables the auto-rotation of the screen when I convert to tablet mode.  I'll take this as a good sign that it might be coming.

Well, I probably should have posted this earlier, but I did make it home safely on schedule on the 28th.  Grandparents and my family were there to meet me, but my luggage wasn't.  I suspect they didn't make it on the plane out of Houston after I took them through customs, as it was a short lay-over there.  Fortunately they were delivered to my house the next morning.

It's good to be back, and while I had a great time in Mexico, of course there were things that I missed.  It's going to be nice to have more possessions than those that I could fit in two suitcases, for one.

As for the future of this blog: I don't think I'll be posting here anymore, but I'd like to keep the content around for others and especially myself to look at in a few years.  Likely http://www.axvius.com/aaron will turn into my own landing page when I move this blog, but I will be sure to have a link to all of this from that page.

And here are the visitor stats from the middle of August up until now: 836 total visits, 2,571 pages

I've been to several interesting things over the last couple of days:

Thursday Javier, Daniela & I went to an area of the town called Xochimilco.  We saw an old cathedral (not as nice as many that I've seen, and definitely showing it's age, but still impressive), ate at a market, and went for a ride in "trajineras."  There is a canal system in that part of the city, and the trajineras are the most common type of boat there.  They are propelled by pushing a pole against the ground, which is about 8 feet under water.  We went on a trip of about 1.5 hours.  It was very relaxing.  There are other trajineras that pull up along side you, offering a variety of services, ranging from taking your picture or selling you food to a real live mariachi performance (and even marimbas if you prefer).  Reportedly they are pretty popular for parties at night too.

Friday Aline, Angeles, Daniela, and I went shopping (Christmas shopping of course).  First we went to Suburbia, which is a lot like Herbergers, and then to Wal-Mart.  After that Angeles dropped us of at Frida Kahlo's former house, which is now a museum/art gallery dedicated to her.  She was a painter who lived a very traumatic life.  Then we went to a market and had quesadillas and sopas, which are tostadas with beans, lettuce, cream, and steak.  The museum is in a part of the city called Coyoacan (my third trip there), and we went to the market in the plaza area, where we tried some new candies.

This morning we went shopping with Aline's friend Miren at the same Suburbia as yesterday.  Well, that was after waiting "1/2 hour" (actually more like 1 1/2 hours) for Miren to dye her hair.  We had frozen yogurt at a place called Nutrissa, which was very similar to TCBY.  We dropped Miren off at her house, and then went home for a afternoon lunch of hamburgers, which were very good.

No special plans for tonight, but tomorrow will be busy with all the relatives coming.  It's a very large family.

Yesterday Javier, Javier, Julia, Daniela, and I went on a trip to Chapultapec.  This is an area of the city that is sort of like a giant park/historical zone.  The first place we went to was the Anthropological Museum of Mexico.  They had a temporary exposition on Persia which was pretty interesting, and then we moved on to the main part.  It is arranged around a central courtyard area which is half-covered by a roof held up entirely by one big pillar in the center.

The first building we went to was about the beginning of man--not specific to Mexico.  They didn't have any clothes on the models.

The next building showed after man learned what clothes were (good thing too, because they were hunting woolly mammoths in the snow).  And it was more Mexico-specific.

The rest of the buildings were more interesting.  They covered the Mexicas, the Aztecs, and each of the regions of Mexico (North, South, and Central).  I thought the one about the construction of Tenochtitlan was really interesting.  The tribe was told by their god to find a place where an eagle is sitting on a cactus with a snake in its beak, and to build their city there.  As luck would have it, they found that eagle in the middle of a lake.  So they drove piles of some sort of water resistant trunk into the lake and built their city on top of that.  The problem here is that Mexico City was built on top of this city after it was conquered. Downtown Mexico City (located precisely over the center of the old city) has many heavy buildings, like...a cathedral and an art museum made of marble.

Daniela says that the art museum is actually sinking 5-or-so centimeters per year.  The government is considering moving it.  When I visited the cathedral, they had a pendulum hanging in the middle of it to show how much it was leaning to the side (a foot or so, with a pendulum length around 100 feet).  It is also sinking.

After the museum the Javiers and Julia went home.  Daniella and I went to the castle that's in Chapultapec, which was built by an emperor they had from Europe.  Mexico's presidents have also lived there, up until 1939 when it was converted into a museum.  We saw lots of paintings and murals inside, along with lots of old furniture and exhibits of old stuff.  I think my mom would have really liked it.

Then we went to the zoo (also in Chapultapec) and ate at the TacoInn.  By the time we finished the zoo was closing, so we didn't get to see much, except for some birds.  There were a lot of people leaving the zoo though--apparently it's very popular.

We got some cotton candy on the way out, and rode 3 buses home.

Yesterday I went to the pyramids of Teotihuacan with Laura.  I woke up at 11:00 (in know, in know, that's kind of late), took a shower, and all of a sudden Laura was sitting at the dining room table.  She showed me a bunch of pictures that Tom and Jean (my grandparents) and my family had sent her over the years.  There were a bunch of me and my siblings when we were really young, which was pretty neat. 

Most interesting I thought was the one of me and Laura (sister Laura) playing in the new sandbox, which I remember my dad building.  It had a date on it of July 1990, placing me at only 3-and-a-half years old. Then she asked if I wanted to go to Teotihuacan then or Monday.  Well, I didn't really have any commitments, so off we went.  We walked a few blocks, took the subway for 40 minutes, and hopped on a nice motor coach for the rest of the way (only 28 pesos, or $2.50 USD, for the 1 hour ride).

We spotted the pyramids from a long ways off.  When we finally got there, we started walking in the wrong direction (couldn't see the pyramids from there).  But Laura talked to someone and we found the right place.  The admission fee was 45 pesos.  I think the pictures I took would explain everything pretty well, but on the slow dial-up connection I have here I could see it taking me more than an hour to get everything uploaded right, so you'll have to look at my pictures when I get back.  I'll just say it was really cold, it was really windy, the steps were really steep, and Laura actually beat me to the top (I went walking around on one of the levels while waiting for her, and she got ahead of me).  The big one is 213 feet tall if I remember right.

The bus ride back was very nice, with only about 10 people on the very quiet, peaceful, dark bus.  So yes, I promptly fell asleep. Laura and I got off the bus in the middle of a traffic jam, took a short subway ride (2 pesos no matter how far you go), and had some quesadillas.  I really liked them--deep-fried bread around either meat or cheese, with cheese, cream, and salsa on top.  I really stuffed myself by eating four.  Then we went to Laura's apartment, which is pretty small but cozy.  There had been a lot of a special kind of cactus at Teotihuacan which they make pulque out of, which is an alcoholic beverage.  I had expressed interest in trying it, so we went to the pulqueria near Laura's house and got a half-liter of it.  The place smelled really strongly (badly) of fermenting.

It turns out that the smell is much worse than the taste.  I think it would be fair to say that it almost tastes like nothing (similar to my raw egg drinking experience).  Despite the unobjectable taste, I only drank about half-a-cup.  I stayed on Laura's couch for the night, which was actually almost long enough to fit me comfortably.

Saturday I didn't really do anything exciting until the evening when Aline, Angela, and I went to Angela's cousin's house.  Her husband really resembled a short version of one of my high-school teachers, Mr. Skytland.  We had an excellent meal there of spaghetti and pizza, and I stuffed myself almost to the point of sickness.  Afterwards we played cards and dominoes until 10:00 when we headed back.