Month: April 2004

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Shutting down SFU services I am not using

I installed Services for Unix a little while ago and things have been somewhat okay. My server locked up once or twice but I blamed those shutdowns on myself even though I could not see that I did anything wrong. Today I tried to scan a document into CorelDraw that I have on my server. I use CorelDraw infrequently and this has worked for me in the past on W2K and now on W2K3. Today the server locked up. I rebooted and tried again. It locked up. Now I am pissed off! After some research and a few more reboots I finally located the culprit, nissvc, or otherwise known as Server for NIS. Task Manager showed it was consuming 30% to 100% of the cpu. I tried changing the settings back to the default settings but I could not seem to get rid of the problem. So I shut it down. Actually I shut down Server for NIS, Server for NFS, and the rest of servers in Services for Unix console. I don't use any of them except sftp and it is not listed.

 

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Mailing tax returns in the internet age

I am a strong believer in the efficiency and accuracy of completing your tax return using a computer program. I think I have been using tax programs for nearly a decade. So you may wonder why I am mailing in my federal and state tax returns. The answer is the price to submit electronic returns and the fact that I owe money. This year Taxcut eliminated their “free” submittal. In its place they wanted nearly $30 for something I could do for less than a dollar. Even though I am getting money back I am not in that much of a hurry. I cannot believe that I am the only person who noticed the stealth price increase. Since it is in the best interest of the IRS to lower the barriers to electronic submitting more tax returns I am amused by their silence.

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Tax Returns not quite done

I reviewed the returns today and made some minor revisions. I had it wrong yesterday. I am filing:

  1. Two federal returns
  2. Three state returns
  3. Three 1065 returns
  4. One school district return.

I will get them signed this evening and in the mail tommorrow.

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Msnbc webparts

I added two MSNBC webparts, weather & news, to the intranet site. We were running out of water in our cistern and rain has been forecast for the last couple of days. I typically check the weather at least once a day so this will save me some clicks. While I was at it I added the news webpart and a page viewer webpart for the Google search. My first choice for the Google search was the form webpart but I couldn't get it to work.

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beliefnet: Intelligent Design Isn't 'Stealth Creationism' By William Dembski

“Intelligent design, on the other hand, is committed to the following propositions:

ID1: Specified complexity and irreducible complexity are reliable indicators or hallmarks of design.
ID2: Biological systems exhibit specified complexity and employ irreducibly complex subsystems.
ID3: Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of specified complexity or irreducible complexity.
ID4: Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanation for the origin of specified complexity and irreducible complexity in biological systems. “

Many of my thoughts on evolution and scientific creationism align with this theory. What I learned very early in my education was that the more I learned about things, the more I realized how much I didn't know. Each question I answered triggered five more questions I could not answer. I think Albert Einstein said it best,

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)

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Here's the best birthday card I got…or at least the funniest! Oh, by the way, Cooper is a dog and Norman is a cat. I don't get any respect from furry animals!

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My wife, my son, and I went to the Cincinnati Museuum last night to see their newest exhibit. I learned a lot about religious symbols, the history of Catholicism, and the construction of St. Peters church. For more info click on the logo below.