How to be black

I really liked today's "conversation" in the Washington Post, "How to be black" Baratunde Thurston. He's a comedian and writer, and wrote an auto-biographical book, some of which is excerpted in a slideshow on the WP website.

Worth a look. I really loved #11 "How to speak for all black people", and #13 "How to be the black employee", because I think they are also applicable to being a woman or other underrepresented person in technology. (I think I had a post on this?.... ah, yes, I did.)

My student is so good you can't have them

It's been positively fascinating reading recommendation letters for prospective graduate students. The majority are fairly normal, but a few are kind of clingy.

"Ms. Hopper is awesome and will do great at your university, except I really don't want her to go there, I want her to stay with meeeeeeeee."

Sometimes, the clingy professors will trash the student too, sort of like in the way I tell people, "this chocolate cake is TERRIBLE, you definitely don't want any."

While it's true good students are hard to find, and showing some level of adoration and commitment toward them is a good idea, clinging too tightly is bad practice professionally and managerially. And in fact, I've heard some stories of clingy advisors that cross me as borderline abusive.

Maybe in other fields this sort of thing is tolerable, but a graduate student in CS, even a bad one, can get a job anywhere, and make 5 times as much as they would as a PhD student. So it doesn't cross me as particularly clever to treat them poorly.

EOL, End of Life for XP & Vista

For those of you that don't know, XP & Vista are no longer supported.

Support for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) ended on July 13, 2010.*

Support for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) ended on July 12, 2011.

Computer Repair Lakeland, FL

www.MyComputerGirl.com

863-521-1079

      

Paper top 40 predictions

I've decided I am absolutely terrible at predicting which papers will be "a hit" and which papers will never get cited or read.

Like most academics, I'm usually working on several papers at the same time. In my mind as we're preparing and submitting, I often place bets on how the reviews will come back. Formulating my prediction involves not only the content of the paper, but also the publication venue, who I expect the reviewers might be, and other misc. variables.

I'm nearly always wrong.

And post-publication, the papers I am most proud of are never cited. The papers I am most ashamed of are frequently cited. I am considering employing reverse psychology as I write.

Either that or switch into mobile computing. Those people are so connected every paper has a gazillion citations.

Find a Faster DNS Server with Namebench

One way to speed up your Internet browsing experience is using a faster DNS server. Today we take a look at Namebench, which will compare your current DNS server against others out there, and help you find a faster one.

Namebench
Download the file and run the executable (link below).
http://code.google.com/p/namebench/downloads/list

Namebench starts up and will include the current DNS server you have configured on your system. In this example we’re behind a router and using the DNS server from the ISP. Include the global DNS providers and the best available regional DNS server, then start the Benchmark.

The test starts to run and you’ll see the queries it’s running through. The benchmark takes about 5-10 minutes to complete.

After it’s complete you’ll get a report of the results. Based on its findings, it will show you what DNS server is fastest for your system.

It also displays different types of graphs so you can get a better feel for the different results.

You can export the results to a .csv file as well so you can present the results in Excel.

Conclusion
This is a free project that is in continuing development, so results might not be perfect, and there may be more features added in the future. If you’re looking for a method to help find a faster DNS server for your system, Namebench is a cool free utility to help you out.
If you’re looking for a public DNS server that is customizable and includes filters, you might want to check out our article on helping to protect your kids from questionable content using OpenDNS. You can also check out how to speed up your web browsing with Google Public DNS.

How-to Geek, H. (2010, May 1). Find a faster dns server with namebench.
Retrieved from http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16372/find-a-faster-dns-server-with-namebench/

Computer Repair Lakeland, FL

www.MyComputerGirl.com

863-521-1079

      

Signal Boost: Stop the Internet Blacklist Bills

If you went to google.com, boingboing.net, wikipedia, or dozens of other sites on the net today, you may have noticed they have been blacked out in protest. This was done to bring the public's attention to two bills before congress: SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act).

Why the protest? Well, these bills were intended to curb online piracy and copyright infringement (good), but did so in a really technologically uninformed and dangerous way (bad).

In addition to these bills not actually helping curb online piracy, they grant an incredible amount of leeway to allow the government and companies to arbitrarily censor and monitor the communication of people using the internet, both in our country and abroad. A few fun nuggets about the PIPA bill, quoted from publicknowledge.org :

• PIPA is overbroad. By including "information location tools," it makes nearly every actor on the Internet a potential violator.
• PIPA is bad international precedent. By sanctioning government interference with DNS, it would be used as justification for other countries to hinder freedom of expression of online.
• PIPA is ripe for abuse. By creating a "private right of action," rights holders could directly go after payment processors and ad networks.
• PIPA speeds fragmentation of the Internet. By targeting DNS, it could lead to a fragmentation of the Internet, running contrary to the U.S. government's commitment to advancing a single, global Internet.

There is a lengthy list of reputable organizations protesting these bills, including legal scholars, human rights organizations, industry groups, and engineers. Also, Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab and fellow CS blogger, has a great post summarizing this issue, as does Trevor Trimm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

I urge you to take action and urge your congress members to reject this bill. 

More thoughts on unsolicited professorial advice

One other thing you get a lot of advice about as a new professor is how to run your show.

"Don't spend too much time on teaching"

"Write every day"

"Don't take too many grad students your first year"

The thing is, like anything, do what works for you. You want to spend 14 hours on making Teh Perfect Slides for your first class, do it. You want to get up at 4am and start writing, go for it. Want to relax all weekend playing Facebook games while occasionally picking at your grant proposal, sounds grand!

The trick is to know what makes you happy and know your own style, and work that way. You have a lot of flexibility in your schedule, the trick is figuring out how to best structure it so you're most productive. And to factor in recharging time, for whatever that means for you.

How come My personal Pc Deep freeze Upward -- Helpful information to repair Pc Freezes

How come my personal pc deep freeze? inch WE had been asking yourself this particular query personally not long ago. I'd end up being utilizing my personal pc such as every other period. Whenever suddenly my personal pc freezes upward. WE can't entry any kind of applications. My personal computer mouse isn't shifting anyplace. WE can't make use of control/alt/delete. The one thing that you can do is actually switch off your pc by hand that is hazardous for the pc as well as makes you shed any kind of info had been utilizing at that time.

Those who have skilled this particular understands how large of the discomfort some type of computer deep freeze is actually. Which is a whole lot worse for individuals who such as me personally experienced this particular occurring for them regularly. This simply appears to emerge from nowhere fast as well as could be a large annoyance.

Exactly what WE discovered had been how the difficulties had been originating from my personal Home windows registry. The actual registry is actually the most crucial as well as delicate section of your pc. It has the info which operates all your software program as well as equipment. While you set up, revise, as well as remove applications the actual registry gets full of undesirable info.

This particular undesirable info leads to 2 difficulties. To begin with this decelerates your pc substantially. Just like a visitors quickly pull, your pc gets stuffed up along with info as well as must be washed to operate quick once again. Another issue is actually home windows mistake communications as well as your pc very cold upward. This particular ineffective as well as damaged home elevators the actual registry counteracts along with additional applications leading to severe difficulties.

The only method to repair this issue and stop such pc freezes would be to restore the actual Home windows registry. Since it is actually this type of delicate region it had been suggested to utilize a plan to wash upward registry mistakes personally. Used to do therefore as well as my personal pc halted very cold nearly instantly. Better still this started to operate enjoy it had been completely new!

If you're fascinated I've suggested this program WE utilized beneath to resolve this issue personally. With this particular plan you won't ever need to question how come my personal pc deep freeze upward again. Try it out!

Fun with Google

You know that game where you type something into Google and note its wacky suggestions? I have no idea why, but I tried it today with 'Professors are'. This is the result:

So it would appear I am a candy bar, overpaid, and super-mean. Excellent! Ready for the Spring semester to start.

I also tried 'Computer Scientists are', and this is the result:

I suppose 3/4 ain't bad (I kind of like the blank one...)

How to fix .exe for XP

Copy this to notepad and save as exe.bat and then run. You may have to reboot afterwards.


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.exe]
@="exefile"
"Content Type"="application/x-msdownload"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.exe\PersistentHandler]
@="{098f2470-bae0-11cd-b579-08002b30bfeb}"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile]
@="Application"
"EditFlags"=hex:38,07,00,00
"TileInfo"="prop:FileDescription;Company;FileVersion"
"InfoTip"="prop:FileDescription;Company;FileVersion;Create;Size"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\DefaultIcon]
@="%1"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell]


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open]
"EditFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\runas]


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\runas\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex]


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\DropHandler]
@="{86C86720-42A0-1069-A2E8-08002B30309D}"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers]


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\PEAnalyser]
@="{09A63660-16F9-11d0-B1DF-004F56001CA7}"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\PifProps]
@="{86F19A00-42A0-1069-A2E9-08002B30309D}"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\ShimLayer Property Page]
@="{513D916F-2A8E-4F51-AEAB-0CBC76FB1AF8}"

Computer Repair Lakeland, FL

www.MyComputerGirl.com

863-521-1079