My dad’s cousin, Paul Von Fange sends out a newsletter with the latest updates on the Von Fange family genealogy, and with stories from our past. To my surprise I found myself mentioned in this one (December of 2003).

So which Von Fanges are populating the Internet? I found 23 Tom Von Fanges, due to his furniture business site on the Internet. I (Paul) pulled in 33 references due to the family web site. My dad Erich, because of the publication and information on his pre-history books, comes in at 163 references. But the king of the family Internet users has to be my little cousin, once removed, Daniel Von Fange who garners an incredible 3,150 hits. That young man is up to something!

And, somehow, he found my webserver’s home page and looking at it from a historical and genealogical point of view, was mystified.

Here’s an interesting graphic from a site about which I know nothing: http://wallace.vonfange.net/index. What you see is the only page at this web site and we have no Wallace Von Fange in our records. The page reads, “An official server of the Von Fange Empire.” If anyone can reveal the location of this kingdom or anything about the site, let me know.

LUFS is a way giving the filesystem an interface to your code. There are loads of good ideas that this enables. (via Allen Green)

A few days ago, I was pondering on what capability I want added most to computing. The answer was pervasive syncing. I have a laptop Mac, and a desktop Mac. Other than my email (which is IMAP) things do not sync across them. If I add a calendar even on one, it SHOULD show up on the other. It bugs me to no end.

I just found Adam Bosworths’s blog. He is right on with several of his discussions, especially the one about modifying information offline.

I really look forward to the day when operating offline is not impossible.

I just spotted Nicecast, an easy to use audio broadcast application. Something like this could make huge waves.

<p>Cleaning out my tabs&#8230;</p>

<ul>
    <li><a href="http://denham.typepad.com/km/2003/11/km_pickings.html">KM, what have we delivered.</a> &#8211; a fast overview of the stuff KM has done, and how well it has worked.</li>
    <li><a href="http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=WoodyIntro">Woody</a> &#8211; A way of doing forms in Cocoon.</li>
    <li><a href="http://skti.org/skEdit.php">SkEdit</a> &#8211; cute HTML editor for OS X. I need to try it one of these days.</li>
    <li><a href="http://www.nicholsgrp.com/2003/12/10/bad_luck.html">Strange Attractors</a> &#8211; Jeff Nichols discovers a hidden talent.</li>
    <li><a href="http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/14.jpg">Photo taken at Anti-Terror demonstration in Iraq</a> &#8211; This photo changed my perception of the situation in Iraq. One, it looks like Flordia. Two, the people standing around with guns at the demonstration are there not two fight the people, but to defend the people and their freedoms. Three, the people with guns are Iraqi. There is hope in Iraq.</li>
    <li><a href="http://mpt.phrasewise.com/2003/11/11#a542">SSL rant</a> &#8211; I hate SSL certificates. Here&#8217;s a yet another good rant against them.</li>
</ul>

“Compliment of the day sir, With full trust and understanding I come to you for help and joint venture if my proposal will be worthwhile. The whole World is completely aware of the recent outbreak of war in Liberia,although normalcy are returning to some locations around the country. i am General Henry Malawik,The Former Chief of Defence Staff in Liberiacurrently on political exile.I am 58years old.”

Notice the smashing of key spamish words into another word to make an unique token? Intentional or not?

Sam Javanrouh has taken a stunning city sunset photo. It’s one you can just look and look and look at.

November 5th my PowerMac G4 died spectacularly. I walked through tech support with Apple who diagnosed it as having hardware problems and sent me off to take it to Comp USA. Today, 33 days later, I have a working desktop computer again. Nevermore will I take a Mac to Comp USA.

Wednesday, after hanging up with Apple. I call CompUSA Me (On phone): … It dies on boot to a grey prohibitory sign. It won’t even boot off of the system restore disks, or the panther or jaguar install CDs … The hard drive is fine, I can boot the computer up as a firewire hard drive… CompUSA: …Okay bring it in… Me: Do you need me to bring the CD’s that came with the computer, and the panther CD’s? CompUSA: No, just bring the machine itself. Don’t bring the CD’s or the monitor.

I make the 30 minute drive to CompUSA and drop it off, again explaining every detail of what it is doing, and what we have done so far to try to get it working. Friday night, voicemail:

CompUSA: I have seen this problem once before. You almost certainly have a broken hard drive. We can’t work on your computer without the CD’s. You should have brought in the CD’s. Frankly I am surprised you did not do a system restore before you brought it in. You should have done a system restore.

Now I am filled with confidence. I bring the CD’s in Sunday afternoon. Then wait for them to call back saying it is fixed. Friday or Saturday, I give up waiting.

Me: I calling to check on the status of my PowerMac. Service number blaa blaa. CompUSA: Let me check…… We need you to bring in the CD’s so that we can fix the system… Me: I brought in the CDs last Sunday. CompUSA: Let me go look…… Oh, you did.

So I wait, and wait, and wait some more. Two or three weeks later while out of town, I get a voicemail:

CompUSA: We found the problem, it’s bad motherboard. But we can’t find proof that this computer has AppleCare, so a repair would be out of warrantee. The cost for the new motherboard is $650 plus a $99 dollar labor charge.

I return a few days later from out of town. I call apple to make sure it is under warrentee.

Me: CompUSA says my computer is not under warrantee. Is it? Apple: …It’s covered under AppleCare until blaa blaa 2004. They should fix it.

I call CompUSA:

Me: …. It is under AppleCare, I just talked to apple… CompUSA: … we can’t find that it is under applecare… Do you want to pay for repairs?

I call Apple

Me: …CompUSA won’t listen to me… What can I do? Apple: I will create a case number with all your warrantee and serial number information. They can look that up.

I call CompUSA

Me: … Just look up case number blaaa blaaa blaaa … CompUSA: No. I told you we can’t see that this computer is covered under applecare. To get it repaired you will need to pay for the repairs, or bring in your original proof of purchase.

I don’t have my original proof of purchase anymore, it having vanished to who knows where. Next day (I think) I make the 30 minute drive to CompUSA.

Me: I’m Daniel Von Fange. CompUSA.(Air gets frigid) Oh. The one with the powermac. Me: Yeah, that’s me. CompUSA: (looooong pause and icy stare.) CompUSA: … $650 for the motherboard …. or bring original proof of purchase and maybe we can we can do something…. Me: I don’t have my proof of purchase. Call Apple. They know it is under warrantee. I’ve talked to them several times. CompUSA: I told you before. … pay for repairs…. or original proof of purchase. Me: Can I have my computer back then? CompUSA: I’ll go get it.

So they gave me the computer back. And it had ugly white stickers on it, that will take a lot of work to peal the residue of off so that my PowerMac case looks beautiful again.

I took the computer to a different store in Charlotte, The Computer Room. It’s only a fifty minute drive to get there. The Computer Room took care of me. I at last have a working computer.

In the interest of full disclosure, I found out that the AppleCare registration for my computer is off by a digit of my computer’s serial number. Data entry problem somewhere, I guess. The computer room gracefully handled this, CompUSA did not. Nor did CompUSA ever seem to hear a word I said the entire time.

“If you think your too small to make a difference on the planet, then you have not been with a mesquito in your bed at night.” –South African unknown author (via 347.com.

“The young men know the rules. The old men know the exceptions” (Via 347 as well)

“In the beginners mind are many possibilities, but in the masters mind are few.” (Read it somewhere. It is indeed true.)

I’ve always wanted to experiment with AI optimization of robotic creatures. The SodaRace challenge looks like a fun way to play with optimizations and genetic algorithms. (via Jonn Robb)