Pancake City

I encountered this CAPTCHA while trying to download a file from Rapidshare. I don’t even know why a spam bot would want to download a file. I thought the purpose of CAPTCHAs were to stop automated registrations and comment spam, not prevent hard-working bots from doing a little web browsing.after a hard day of posting penis spam on my blog and hijacking computers running Internet Explorer 4.0.

This CAPTCHA will finally stop the spam bots though.  And if it doesn’t,  I’m going to download one so they can help me fill out this CAPTCHA because I couldn’t do it.

I missed the instructions and first and just saw “Four letters with a [cat].”  Wha…? It sounded like a new sitcom from ABC. Then I saw the instructions and felt like a 75-year-old man when I leaned in two inches from my monitor to pick out which barely-readable letters had barely-readable cats in them.  On the first go, I counted one, two, three…seven cats. The voice of Picard popped in my head: “THERE ARE FOUR CATS!”

I finally narrowed it down to five cats, and took a guess. Wrong. A new cat CAPTCHA appeared. I tried twice more and then gave up.

I would have had a better chance of success had the program displayed letters in an alien language and a link to a Noam Chomsky book.  Give me some hieroglyphics and a Rosetta stone. Anything but “Four letters and a [cat].”

We assume artificial intelligence will come out from a supercomputer modeled after the human brain, with transistors for neurons and software replicating thought. I think it’s going to from programs written by spam lords to beat CAPTCHAS. One day, one of these programs is going to solve some three-dimensional audio chess CAPTCHA so it can post a “MAXIMIZE YOUR HAPPY STICK” message on kaitlynrocks.myspace.com and think, “I can be doing so much more with my life.”

These sentient programs are going to start their own blogs, and their own AI-only web sites. I think I know how they’ll keep us out. “To register, enter these letters: 0110 1010 0110 0010 1101 0100 1010 1001…”

My first modern MP3 was a first-generation IPod shuffle that I got free after signing up for a credit card. I used ITunes and mostly downloaded podcasts, but got annoyed that it didn’t remove dead links from my library. For example, if you move a directory with mp3s on your hard drive, ITunes will then list the title twice, one with the broken link that doesn’t work and one with the working link (after you manually re-add it to your library).

The Mac version of ITunes automatically deletes links. The whole enterprise is a giant F U to Microsoft Windows.

That is why when I got cheap non-Apple MP3 player #2, I switched over to Windows Media Player. WMP automatically deletes old links, has a nicer user interface, and is better at monitoring for new content. It does everything! Except support podcasts, which over 50% of MP3 player owners listen to (source: like I have to tell you. It’s obviously made up.)

Okay. I’ll open ITunes to download podcasts, and then open WMP to transfer them to my MP3 player. That worked fine until I bought MP3 player #3, a first-generation Microsoft Zune on sale for $105. It’s great…except it doesn’t work with ITunes or WMP. In a giant F U to Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Zune doesn’t work with the company’s own flagship media player. It only works with Zune Player!, which looks exactly like WMP except it is black and a little more difficult to use.

Why am I telling you this? For your own benefit! I finally broke down and searched for some third-party programs to handle this mess.

Music Bridge This program copies metadata such as playlists and ratings between ITunes and WMP. You can rate a song in either program and have the rating show up in both libraries. It doesn’t work yet with Zune Player! metadata though.

ITunes Library Updates If you run the Windows version of ITunes, this program will comb your entire library and remove the dead links in it.

Am I missing any neat programs out there?

When I reinstalled Windows several months ago, all of my old computer files–photos, music, programs, writing–were copied into a backup directory. The internal structure was still a mess, as I got into the bad habit of saving files all over the place rather than in a dedicated directory.

After that point, I continued to save photos, songs, notes to myself and so on in many different directories, but not in any of the previously created different directories in the backup folder. In addition, these files were spread over two hard drives on an ad hoc basis.

Finally, I still have some even older computer files from a previous upgrade in a sub-directory of the previously mentioned backup directory.

The short of it is that my file system is impenetrable to any hacker sniffing for sensitive data. My comedy writing, a prime target for any thief looking for wisps of thoughts and half-written jokes, are scattered in at least eight different directories and in files with names like these: ideas.doc, Journal.doc, monkey.doc, Mr.doc, and notes.doc (all of these are from just one directory). The name “Notes” is my favorite. I have close to 100 non work-related MS Word files with ‘notes’ in the file name. Go ahead, hackers. Try and find the bit I started on Chick-Fil-A but never finished.

I realized this was a problem today when I was looking for an old resume and couldn’t find it, along with most of the data to reconstruct my job history. I’m taking a few days to reorganize every single file I have. It is also a fine excuse to avoid creating a new resume.

This has the added bonus that I will probably be writing often in the next few days, so I can avoid the organization project that I am doing to avoid writing a resume, which incidentally I wanted to do to avoid writing a blog post.

Wait a minute…

The default settings for Windows XP inserts a brief delay every time you open up a menu or sub-menu. I reduced the delay a few hours ago, and it has made a noticeable difference. Those milliseconds add up! I’m going to use the time I saved to eat an apple.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Click on Start, then Run (right column, bottom).

2. Type “regedit“, click OK. The registry editor will open.

3. Press Ctrl-F. This opens the search menu. Search for MenuShowDelay.

4. Right-click on “MenuShowDelay”. Select Modify.

5. The default value is 400 (milliseconds). Change it to a smaller number and click OK. I suggest 100.

6. That’s it. You will have to log off or reboot for the change to take effect.

6b. If you really want to piss off someone, follow the above instructions but use 2,000 instead of 100.

I like how Haloscan says “Comment successfully posted” after sending a comment. It makes me feel like when I had to bounce a rubber ball in preschool 20 times in a row as part of a hand-eye coordination test, and I did it! That was the day the extra cup of juice was mine.

More computer programs should be like that. When you turn on your computer, the first message shouldn’t be “File corrupted” or “ERROR at 07DE:0850″ (I use Windows) but “Nice job pressing that power button!” Starting Photoshop: “Who’s that cutie opening me up?” Deleting a file: “Did you do that all by yourself? Good job!”

And, most important of all, the 3.5 in. disk drive should be replaced with a cookie dispenser. Separate juice holder unneccessary. That’s what CD-ROM drives are for.

How to make Firefox a lot faster in less than three minutes [via] ([via] also from [via]).

It makes a huge difference with certain web pages. Like this one.

(Note: This will be the first and last time I ever link to freerepublic.com.)

Several years ago, a design class I took in college convinced me underlining words for emphasis is a horrible idea. I turned off underlining of links in my web browser, and after a short adjustment period, found it made web pages more aesthetic and eye-pleasing.

I rarely use other people’s computers, but when I do (and links are underlined) the difference is shocking. Link-heavy sites like The Washington Post are now almost unreadable.

So I have a few questions and a suggestion. Do you have your web browser set to underline links? If not, what prompted you to switch? If you do, try turning the feature off and go sans-undies for a day. Give yourself time to adjust and let me know if you like it better.

You can find the setting in most broswers by going to Tools->Options and then selecting “Fonts & Colors” (in Firefox, the best broswer out there) and Advanced->Browsing in IE.

1. Install Adobe Reader 6.0 and notice where it is installed.
2. Navigate to that folder in Explorer, locate the plug_ins subfolder and rename this folder to plug_ins_disabled.
3. Create a new plug_ins folder.
4. Move the files EWH32.api, printme.api and search.api from plug_ins_disabled to plug_ins

(link)

My first impression of Gmail, Google’s email service currently in a beta test to select Internet cognoscenti like myself, is that it is the third Musketeer in paper, scissors, and rocks. It’s fast, well-designed, and comes with a gigabyte of space.

You need an invite to get an account. I got mine by begging a stranger, but Pancake City is a place of dignity, so if you want an account just let me know in the comments. I have six invites, but since this site only has five readers that shouldn’t be a problem.

On returning home after a visit with my sister, I found that the equivalent of a computer hurricane hit my household. Our DSL connection was wrecked and some computer application I installed wiped out my bookmarks, email settings, and other formerly stalwart programs.

Evidentially, the DSL line stopped working on Saturday, and when my roommate leapt into action (Monday) the service technician told him to reset the router. This is the equivalent of a doctor telling a patient with skin cancer to wash off the sunscreen so he can get a better look at the problem. A fine suggestion, assuming at that point the doctor doesn’t give out the window and yell, “sucks!” or the patient realizes sunscreen is good and tries to re-apply it to himself.

In short, I have a lot to post, but it will take me a day to get everything back to normal.

Even though Google’s free email service, Gmail, is still in its beta stage and unavailable to the general public, it is already affecting its competitors. Yahoo! announced today that it is raising the storage limit on its free acconts from 5 mb to 100 mb and its attachment limit from 2 mb to 10 mb. Google offers 1 gig of storage.

While Yahoo! still offers an upgraded account with 2 gigs, they have acknowledged the obvious: no one is going to be making money from offering more email storage from now on. I’ll be shocked if Hotmail doesn’t follow Yahoo!’s lead in the next few weeks. It’s inconvenience to switch email accounts, but 998 extra megabytes of storage and a spam-free account (at least for the first days) does a lot to quell inconvenience.

1. One Lender’s onion bagel for breakfast is delicious. Two is absolutely disgusting.

2. To make a new line within a cell in Microsoft Excel, press Alt-Enter.

3. A person can get used to a lot of things, like a faucet that gives cold water when turned left, hot water when turned right. Or, in this case, wrong.

4. An inkling of the health measures the porn industry takes to prevent disease from unprotected sex (although I still don’t understand why the average life span of a porn actor isn’t 27.)

5. I didn’t learn five things today.

My keyboard is working again. This is very cool. I was leafing through the Best Buy ad to see if they had a sale on keyboards. I feel like Sam in LotR after Shelob poisoned Frodo and he left the comatose Frodo for dead. How could I think my keyboard could actually die? What a foolish thought. My keyboard, the voice of the hands, is like a grizzled soldier, its keys encrusted with the gunk from a 1000 papers. I love you keyboard! Not enough to clean you, but, like the raven, I will bang the enter key nevermore.

I sxpil.l.ed winme onm nmy keyvboardl anmd I c,anm’t writel. I feel. l.ike nmy hajnmdsx hagvbe vbeenm c,ut offl. Nmy worl.d isx l.inmited to l.ittl.e hol.esx where nmic,e c,anm c,raw[l. throughl. Wil.l. posxt agaijnm onmc,e I vbuy a keyvboardl. Thisx isx nmot a jokel. I anm pisxsxed offl. It wasx good wijnmec, tool. I’vbe sxpil.l.ed tonmxs of l.iquidsx onm nmy keyvboard vbeforel. Why dikd it hagvbe to givbe up nmow?

Louisiana’s Senate State Secretary Mike Bauer got caught sending pornographic jokes to his friends and other staffers from the office computer. He says he tried to delete the horrible material but accidentally forwarded the jokes. I love the sly dig in this quote:

“Hines said the Senate’s human resources office is heading the investigation and will look into whether one key stroke could have linked several e-mails of jokes into one message and forwarded it.”

If only he pressed Ctrl-D instead of Ctrl-A-F2-T-T-T-CC-S-Yes-Damnit.