Advice on driving cross-country and back?

How long will it take, and how much will it cost, to drive cross-country and back?

Hi all. I'm planning a road trip for this summer, and I'm looking for some idea of what to expect.

The plan is to drive from Providence, RI to Seattle, WA via a northern route (through Chicago and etc). From there, we'll go down the West Coast through Portland, San Francisco, and LA - stopping in each major city - and then drive back via a southern route, preferably through Las Vegas, parts of Texas, and New Orleans. Eventually we'll want to end up back in Providence. I'm open to suggestions of cities to make sure to stop in, as long as they're compelling.

We're tentatively budgeting to make the initial drive out to Seattle in a week, spend a week on the West Coast, and then drive back in a week. Is that realistic, or should we count on it taking longer? We don't really need to see the tourist-y spots, but it'd be nice to spend at least part of a night in each place we stop.

Assuming we can stay for free with friends in cities across the country, what is a reasonable amount of money to allocate for this trip? We'll have 4 people in the car (gas/4). While we'll be low on funds, we'd like to realistically estimate the amount of money we'll need for gas, food, etc., assuming we travel modestly.

Any advice, anecdotes, etc. would be very helpful. Thanks!

How do I unlock my Juno mailbox?

My Juno program was corrupted and the mail problems were that I couldn't access my sent file and when I sent out an e-mail it would go into the "out" box and eventually would be sent again (sometimes multiple times).

I'm been wrestling around with an e-mail problem for days. My Juno
program was corrupted and the mail problems were that I couldn't access
my sent file and when I sent out an e-mail it would go into the "out"
box and eventually would be sent again (sometimes multiple times). I
have reinstalled Juno but still no sent file. This pops up
occasionally on the screen:

The mailbox "-/Library/Mail/POP-mymail@mail.juno.com/Sent
Messsages.mbox is currently locked by "My-Name-computer.local".
If you open a mailbox that is already in use you may damage it.

I cannot figure out what to do and can't seem to find anyone who CAN
tell me what to do. It is probably something very simple, and I'm
hoping that is the key to the problem.

Finding a Seattle cardiologist for a second opinion

Seeking either a recommendation for a cardiologist in Seattle or some pointers on how to find a good one.

This is for a friend in Anchorage who finds the specialists here to be less than informed. She's getting wishy washy treatment up here. After the doctor prescribed her a beta blocker, she was told to take it or not, it wouldn't make much of a difference. She basically has an extra beat every once in awhile. The cardiologist up here expressed concern – concern enough to call her on a Saturday, but then when she saw her, didn't give any further direction. So, she would like a second opinion.

We're going through a phase up here where you wonder about the local specialists. Another friend of mine was diagnosed with kidney problems, went to Virginia Mason in Seattle and found out her liver was shutting down, but her kidneys were doing okay. She had a reaction to the medication they had her on. That was never figured out up here. It's frustrating.

Help me find a better math placement test solution!

Any suggestions for cheap, online placement test setups for mathematics?

I'm in charge of organizing/administering the placement test for mathematics at the small liberal arts college where I work. For the last 5 years or so, we have used AiM Assessment in Mathematics as the back-end of our placement system. This setup uses Maple as the "brains" of a system that serves up browser-based multiple choice questions (at least for the placement test implementation part of things).

For whatever reason, my setup is not stable when 400-some-odd students are trying to access it all at the same time. I've tried reinstalling, proofing my questions, etc, and nothing seems to work. It's a bad introduction to the college when one of your first interactions as a student is trying to take a placement test that is not accessible. (The test hangs, and in the thick of things, I end up having to reboot the server once a day or so.)

So I'm interested in if anyone knows of any cheap solutions for setting up a mathematics placement test. Here are the parameters:

1. the test needs to serve between 400 and 500 students, who need to be able to access the test online, from a variety of browsers, with the ability to correlate the scores on the test to the student. I need to be able to download the results and do some processing to be able to send the results to the faculty.

2. Ideally, we would be able to have two parts of the test (14 questions each) (this is analogous to the current setup, and I'd rather retain the current set of questions this year).

3. My current set of questions are all multiple choice or multiple response. Some have graphics. But I'm not using any actual mathematics capability to grade the questions.

4. Cheap is good. The current setup is free (except for my time and aggravation), and I don't get the sense that there is any support for spending money on the project when there is a solution that "works". (Not really, but...) So Maple TA or something like that, which wants to charge $8/student, is out.

5. I need to be able to get this up and rolling by the first of May.

6. I have access to a server and to students who can help me install stuff. The server is currently running Linux Red Hat 8, I think. (I use a mac, in general.)

Thanks!

Cable TV weirdness

Why is my cable TV signal acting differently and is this just me/just my provider?

For the past 2-3 months I have noticed some changes to my TV signal, I have plain cable but no cable box. I'm wondering if this makes sense to anyone else.

The changes are;

1. Commercials are now much, much louder than programs; since the dawn of time this has been true but in the past few months the difference has become so great that my wife and I have to dive for the remote whenever one comes on because it blasts out as twice the volume of the show we were watching.

2. Audio/video unsynced; more and more often this is happeneing, sometimes the audio is as much as a second out of sync with the video, this seems worse on some channels than others.

3. Shows cut off at the end; more and more often shows are cut off before they finish, the most consistant one is Letterman, the last 2-4 minutes of the show are replaced with any number of other shows that I have never heard of.

4. Digital type interference; sometimes the video but most often the audio is garbled in that "digital interference" way, just for a split second at a time, the most consistant case is the first split second of each commerical or each show when it comes back from commercial, there is always a little, quick glitch of garbled audio, it's so short my wife didn't even notice it until I pointed it out.

Is anyone out there seeing any of these symptoms or am I losing my mind.. or both? Perhaps they are getting sloppy due to the looming darkening of analogue cable?

NetObjects Web Calendar v1.0

NetObjects Web Calendar v1.0
Size: 6.11 MB

Create great looking calendars for your website with NetObjects Web Calendar. Easy-to-use interface and familiar calendar application tools, you can create your first calendar in minutes. Easily add events and recurring details and display them by week, month or year. Integrate your calendar into your website by modifying the colors and size to match your look-and-feel. As with all NetObjects products, no HTML knowledge is required.

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Soon on our Way... Shenzhen - Shenzhen, China

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Shenzhen, China

Shenzhen was where I saw the Asian version of "MiniMundus" or the miniature global village, where small copies of famous landmarks were built.  My sister and I had a great time going around the park, and by the end of the day, I just wanted to drop from exhaustion.

I miss sleep, or Working from 9 to five, pm to pm - Porto Seguro, Brazil

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Porto Seguro, Brazil

Once again, I'm working all night.  I'm supposed to be leaving Brazil on the 15th and there's a lot left to do.  Let me elaborate...there's a lot left to do that I told all the big bosses and managers that we would have done before I left.  I'm trying, I really am.  It's just so hard to get things done here.  Compared with working in the US, I can't just explain what I want done and then be able to leave so that when I come back, it's finished and is correct.  Nope, I've got to be here and be checking up on them or watching over the shoulder. 

Which means that each task is taking longer than I was originally told.  Sure, they could be finished with the rework and rebuild right now, but the equipment would fall apart within the year.  As an engineer, I would rather see this take longer to finish, than have to explain why the equipment failed again so quickly.  But the up-and-coming product/project manager; start-up;commissioning engineer in me doesn't want to have to go back to my superiors and say, no, I couldn't meet the last resort time schedule to get to stopping point "A".  Any excuses about cultural or language differences won't matter because it was my responsibility to get this job finished.

Well technically, I don't HAVE to leave on the 15th.  But I've already got another job that I need to be at in Oregon on the 18th.  And I told everyone from my direct manager to the VP of the North American group and the VP of the global product line that we could have tasks "A, B, C, etc" finished in time for me to leave.  So now I've got to push the people here to work as hard as I had wanted them to for the last few weeks.  This will be the third or fourth day this week that I've been awake for 24hrs.

I'll just have to chalk this up as another lesson learned at the School of Experience, Hard Knocks, and Tough Breaks...

BluffTitler DX9 7.20

BluffTitler DX9 7.20
Size: 6.14 MB

BluffTitler DX9 - 3D video titling and 3D picture/video wipes

BluffTitler is an effects program for creating 3D text animations and 3D picture/video wipes. The result can be played in realtime by the player and screensaver or exported to picture and video formats for use in your videos (chroma key supported), multi-media presentations, VJ performances and websites.

Animations are built out of layers that can be animated independently. The current version of BluffTitler supports 8 different layer types: camera, light, text, picture, video, plasma, particle and audio. Layers can be connected to each other for special effects.

Effects that can be created with BluffTitler include:

-golden beveled titles
-blood dripping titles
-JPG textured titles
-MPG textured titles
-slimy titles
-hairy titles
-exploding titles
-reflection mapped titles
-twisted titles
-cartoon shaded titles
-golden glowing titles
-spooky lightened titles
-titles with silver spikes
-jumbling titles
-inverted titles
-bouncing titles
-powerfield emitting titles
-titles with flying hearts
-pumping titles

and also:

-plasma backgrounds
-background videos morphing into donuts
-particle effects
-MP3 audio
-morphing JPG pictures
-exploding video backgrounds
-fractal backgrounds

The following 2 aspects make BluffTitler truly easy to use:

BluffTitler works completely in realtime: you immediately see the final result of your actions!

BluffTitler uses a minimalistic intuitive user interface that does not try to impress with dozens of windows, tabs and dialogs. Instead, thanks to clever GUI design and AI techniques, it only features 2 windows: the edit window and the render window. You are guaranteed not to get lost in BluffTitler!

Requirements:
· Version 7 requires Windows XP or Vista.
· Version 7 requires DirectX 9 version June 2007 or later. If the program complains about not being able to find D3DX9_34.dll you will have to install the latest version of DirectX.

What's New in This Release:
· Vertical align dropdown listbox in text layer
· 6 new plasma layer effects: vertical gradient, double vertical gradient, horizontal gradient, radial gradient, horizontal lines and vertical lines
· 2 new effects in picture layer: rounded and abgeeckt
· Filled scroller mode
· Menu items Layer > Bring active Layer Backward and Forward
· Hyperlinks and attached particles take transparent pixels of picture layer into account
· Antialiasing Quality dropdown listbox in the File > Export as Movie... dialog
· Support for multi-monitor systems
· Possibility to link to HTML files
· Links to PHP files are loaded as BT or HTML files depending on their content
· Clean URLs ending on / are accepted
· JPG, PNG and BMP files without file extensions are recognized
· Reading Order dropdown listbox in font dialog
· Video layer can render Flash videos (SWF)
· Maximum number of characters in the text layer increased from 500 to 1000
· Maximum show duration increased from 3 minutes to 60 minutes
· bugfix: text layers using quotes are now correctly saved and loaded
· bugfix: XML attributes between single and double quotation marks are now correctly parsed
· bugfix: looping show with dynamic content problem fixed
· bugfix: correct soft returns for RTL languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi)
· bugfix: flickering mouse cursor fixed
· bugfix: flickering transparent video layer problem fixed
· bugfix: relative link paths problem fixed
· bugfix: invisible plasma layer on GeForce 8 problem fixed ...

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Spring Vector Banner

Spring Vector Banner
1 ai, eps, & cdr - 3.52 MB

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Helderberg 4x4 Course - Stellenbosch, South Africa

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Stellenbosch, South Africa

This last Saturday saw the Dusted team taking on the mountains of the Helderberg. Given the competitive history between the Cruiser and the Rover, and the fact that both vehicles are fitted with two-way radios, there was a lot of banter thrown around (all in good fun though). The Cruiser was superior on the tight corners, but in the end there was little to differentiate the two vehicles.

The drivers are the main obstacle at this stage to the vehicles realising their full potential. As a result, a 4x4 course is currently being investigated as a means to eliminating this constraint.

Making the Rounds at - Jason (and Lucky) Save the Day

Superman lets others help with the rescue this time.
This article covers episodes from March 3 and March 4.Patrick didn't take the 'daddy' news very well. The way he has been with his suspicions for the last couple weeks, I had expected a different reaction from him, though I'm not sure why. He's actually being true to form. He's angry Robin didn't tell him, but on the other hand he's scared to...

Music Review: The Horrorpops -

The Horrorpops boogie, gloat, intimidate and blaze their own path on their most mature album to date.
Within the panoply of bands resurrecting the rockabilly attitude of yesteryear, The Horrorpops have done what few others can - stand out. They’ve managed to bridge a genre gap by incorporating pop hooks and a brash, decidedly rocking sound into what could otherwise have been an exercise in uninspired replication, and by swing-bashing out a...

Book Review: by Jonathan Barnes

A great Victorian Sherlock Holmes adventure - with a nasty side trip through H.P. Lovecraft's darkness.
Victorian London will be forever etched into the minds of readers that enjoy twisty mysteries and macabre adventures set against a history sharply defined in books and movies. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories first come to mind, as well as later forays such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore. Stephen...

Treading The Waters Of Blogosphere Reviews

What your fifth grade teacher didn't tell you about book reviews.
Another late night. Time to peruse book reviews written by bloggers. I've found a mixed bag. Mostly what I've seen are people confusing a critique, an opinion (usually a recommendation), and a report. I know, I'm quibbling here. But there is a difference and how the blogosphere has changed things is that everything now is considered a...

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 70

The March to 270 Continues.
THE COUNTERStarting weight: 299 poundsLast weigh-in (March 3): 270.8Total pounds lost: 28.2Pounds until 240: 30.8For four straight days, I executed my assault on 270 perfectly. My body was a calorie burning machine. My mind was a perfect balance of ferocity and discipline. My actions were desirable, my speech on point.So Monday, I took a...

Book Review: by E. A. Vander Veer

Formatted to be user-friendly, Facebook: The Missing Manual contains a great deal of valuable information for new or confused users.
My first experience with Facebook could be divided into two distinct phases. First, there was the discovery phase, where I signed up and created my personal profile, and then there was the confusion phase where I stared at the screen and couldn't think of what to do next. I was now part of a growing online community of more than 50 million...

Presented By: How Do I: Get Started with the VisualStudio Domain Specific Languages?

How Do I: Get Started with the VisualStudio Domain Specific Languages? In this video, Dylan Miles, briefly shows you what the DSL tools are in the Visual Studio SDK, some of the main concepts as well as how to get started. >> Subscribe to Feed
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Microsoft and Bill Gates Play Catch Up

Microsoft makes a huge announcement: they will begin being just like Google in the coming years, only pricier.
Well, Microsoft has done it again. Playing the classic “My software can beat up your software” game.In this virtual playground, where Google is the handsome, young football player who goes to church and makes straight A’s, Microsoft sits on a bench feeding pigeons with a furrowed brow saying “I can do that too” each...

The Harmony One Remote Control

I recently had the opportunity to test a new remote control from Logitech. Those of you who are audio or...
I recently had the opportunity to test a new remote control from Logitech. Those of you who are audio or videophiles will recognize the Logitech Harmony series of remotes. These remotes work on the concept of "activities", such as watching TV, or a DVD, a video, or listening to music. The remote is programmed to operate your equipment...

Concert Review: Rain - The Beatles Experience at the Riverside Theater, Milwaukee, 03/02/08

The best Beatles experience ever!
The first thing Beatles you see is on the sidescreens, where Beatles trivia questions come popping up. And let me tell you, there ain't any gimmes in this bunch. If it hadn't been for the guy behind me feeding me the answers, I would have got a grand total of two or three answers correct. After the questions, though, you can sit back, relax and...

Presented By: Microsoft FxCop 1.35 for download

Microsoft FxCop 1.35 for download   Fxcop 1.35 can be found here: Download Microsoft FxCop 1.35 FxCop has historically been on GotDotNet - Since we turned that off last week we didn't have a location for downloading "just" the released version of FXCop -outside downloading the entire SDK. Last night David Kean built a code gallery site for you to download it: Download Microsoft FxCop 1.35 Remember you can still get FxCop 1.36 Beta from Microsoft Downloads. >> Subscribe to Feed
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Classic Bosco footage

This is a video from last winter but thought it was worth sharing again. Go have some fun in the snow everyone.

More Chocolate

• Bosco and his snow shadow friend
• Bosco goes to the carnival
• How to photograph your dog better
• Chocolate brownies, yum!
• Weekend at Bosco’s