Mike Fisher

OSX Weather Widget Patch

2009-10-01T04:34:25Z

TUAW recently posted an item referencing a Daring Fireball post about how to change the OS X Weather Widget to show the last updated time so that it now works correctly in Snow Leopard. The TUAW article was submitted by an admitted non-JavaScripter, and it contains an important functional bug.

The bug causes the widget to show the current time, rather than the last update time.

// Format the time of the last data refresh
var currentTime = new Date();
var h = currentTime.getHours();
var m = currentTime.getMinutes();

Instead of doing this, I noted that the object.time variable referenced by Gruber is still present, but it doesn't have object.time.hour or object.time.minute specified. Instead, it's always a four-digit timestamp, so I split it and reassemble the digits as strings.

var hhmm = object.time;
hhmm = hhmm.split('');
var hr = '' + hhmm.shift() + hhmm.shift();
var min = '' + hhmm.shift() + hhmm.shift();

After this, it's just a matter of formatting the time (similar to the Gruber code).

First, launch Terminal.
If you have an old customized copy of the Weather Widget, either move it out of the way or remove it.
```
osx:~ $ rm -rf Library/Widgets/Weather.wdgt
```

Make a new local copy of the Weather Widget. Your version will be found before the Apple-distributed system version.

osx:~ $ mkdir -p Library/Widgets/Weather.wdgt
osx:~ $ cp -r /Library/Widgets/Weather.wdgt/ Library/Widgets/Weather.wdgt/

Apply the patches that were described in the Daring Fireball article as well as JavaScript updates to show the last-updated time. Here's the one-step command:

osx:~ $ curl http://www.csh.rit.edu/~mfisher/code/weather-widget/weather-widget.patch | patch -p1

Or if you want to review the patch,

osx:~ $ curl http://www.csh.rit.edu/~mfisher/code/weather-widget/weather-widget.patch > weather-widget.patch
osx:~ $ more weather-widget.patch
osx:~ $ patch -p1 < weather-widget.patch

If you prefer 12-hour time to 24-hour time, edit Library/Widgets/Weather.Wdgt/Weather.js. Around line 268, you should see this line:
```
if (0) { // change this 0 to 1 for 12 hr time (eg "7:42 am")
```
As noted in the comment, change the 0 to a 1 and you'll be set.
If you already have the widget shown on your dashboard, remove it and re-add it. Otherwise, just add it.

iPhone Battery Life Issues?

2009-09-22T22:58:48Z

Is anyone having recent iPhone battery life issues? I've noticed that since Sunday (9/20) or Monday, my battery has been draining like crazy. I use my phone so much that I feel like I notice changed behavior as though it was my own health. I'm currently using a 3GS running 3.1.

Right now, I'm at 59% battery with 46 minutes of active use, 6:17 of standby (all `net by WiFi or 3G, no voice phone, no SMS).

I disabled the Notifications today (but only had them for i.TV with no actual notifications configured) but haven't noticed improvement.

My best guess (which is baseless) is that it's somehow related to the Google changes where push email was added to Google Sync--even though I only use Google services through IMAP and CalDAV.

I'm running the following mail/calendar accounts:

Home email (Cyrus 2.3.15--updated to this version 9/17 but I used the iPhone normally after the updates without noticing problems)
Yahoo! email
Google email (over IMAP)
Google calendar (over CalDAV)
Work Exchange 2007 server (over ActiveSync, only syncing mail/calendar)

I don't really tend to use many non-Apple apps--I probably use Safari 75%, Mail 15-20%, and calendar/phone/maps the rest. Some iPod in there but not a lot.

I haven't made any other significant changes that would affect battery life, and I'm fairly in line with the typical recommendations for ensuring maximum battery life. Strangely enough, I didn't notice this problem until after I read an article like this, discussing that Apple is investigating battery problems.

Thruway Revenue Alternatives

2009-04-19T19:04:00Z

It's wonderful to see how fluid and adaptive the New York State Thruway Authority is in protecting its revenue streams. A mere two days after announcing that in January and February, passenger volume decreased 2.5% and commercial volume dropped 13% compared to the previous year, the NYSTA is offering a workaround (conveniently couched as a safety measure): increased cell phone use enforcement.

Undiscussed by R News is analysis of how the 5% increase in toll prices enacted this year could have affected use.

Meatloaf

2008-10-28T03:42:11Z

We made Tony D's Meatloaf and Gravy tonight. It was simple, yet tasty.

"Fall to Your Knees Mac and Cheese"

2008-10-07T01:42:12Z

Tonight I tried making Fall to Your Knees Mac and Cheese.

I roughly used the "super delish variation" described, and it was unbelievably amazing. I think that it made my heart hurt.

NYT Cream of Tomato Soup

2008-10-06T01:12:20Z

I tried making the "Cream of Tomato Soup" from the New York Times Cookbook tonight. I was pretty disappointed--I'm not sure if I didn't properly select tomatoes (recipe called for "ripe tomatoes" and I used some fresh tomatoes on the vine from the store), but the soup turned out to taste more of cucumber than tomato, and its color was very pale pink (though I wasn't necessarily expecting it to turn out as red as Campbell's Tomato).

At least the grilled cheese sandwiches turned out well.

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

2008-07-07T03:31:13Z

Earlier in the year, Maria and I bought a copy of 200 Waterfalls in Central & Western New York, and we finally took the opportunity to start following some of its directions.

On Friday, we went to three sites: Medina Falls (Medina, NY), Serenity Falls (Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, NY), and Eternal Flame Falls (Chestnut Ridge Park, Orchard Park, NY). After this, we tried out the Anchor Bar (the claimed home of Buffalo Wings); Maria liked them, but I thought that they were over-crisped and had insufficient sauce.

On Sunday, we toured Stony Brook State Park (Dansville, NY) and enjoyed numerous waterfalls there and some of its trails.

I placed some of my pictures online.

mfisher @ 2008-06-16T22:05:00

2008-06-17T02:05:30Z

Our pet emergencies continued this weekend when we took Emmy to Maria's mom's house. Maria's mom lives outside a rural town and has a lot of space--so at some point, Emmy decided that it would be fun to do some digging. She came back up to the house with a black tongue from eating dirt and filthy paws, but when she came in, it was clear that her foot was bleeding.

Today, we took her in to the vet to see how serious things were. The vet was planning to simply use tissue glue to close the paw pad, but under closer inspection, it was too deep of a wound to be so simply closed: a stitch was required. Because we were concerned about Emmy chewing on the sore, she needed a bandage on the foot. She has to wear it in a plastic bag when she goes outside (as long as the ground is wet)--they gave me a retired bag of IV saline to tie around the leg. She also has to take some large antibiotics for the next two weeks, which will give us some great practice pilling dogs (the capsules are simply too big to hide in peanut butter).

In the Shadow of the Moon

2007-10-23T03:15:44Z

I watched In the Shadow of the Moon tonight (it was a free night for members at The Little, which was nice). I thought it was a really charming and touching movie---absolutely beautiful to watch---but it was disappointing to me because it reminded me how bereft of accomplishments my life has been in comparison to the astronauts'.

Caesarean section

2007-09-28T04:32:40Z

I saw a Caesarean section performed today. A few weeks ago, I saw a normal delivery.

I can't wait to be back seeing adults.

I have one more week on the OB floor, then five weeks on the paediatrics floor, and then five weeks on the psychiatric ward. I'm looking forward to psych more than I expected.

Test-Drove BMWs

2007-07-08T21:23:51Z

Today Maria and I went out to John Holtz BMW and participated in the Ultimate Drive for the cure (for breast cancer). We took out a 535xi Sports Wagon and a Z4 3.0i Roadster. Unfortunately, both were automatics, but it was fun to play with the DSG that the roadster had (I was too excited by the iDrive in the wagon to notice).

iPhone

2007-06-30T22:20:34Z

I went out to the Apple Store today to check out the iPhone. It was everything that I'd dreamed it would be. The on-screen keyboard was not a whole lot less user-friendly than the chiclet-like keyboard on the Treo I use (though not quite as nice as the wide-bodied Blackberry devices like the the 7200 series). I felt that its responsiveness was much better than either the Palm-based or Windows-based Treos I've used or Windows Mobile 5 PDAs.

I did tests with Google Reader (it chooses the mobile edition) and found that it was much nicer than the Treo or iPAQ use because of the ability to fit tremendously more text on the screen.

I configured it to use my work email server for inbound mail--it was pleasant, but I was unable to configure it to check email on a more frequent basis than 15 minute intervals, so I would not be pleased with it for an on-call type of device.

I disabled the WiFi and tried to guess how unpleasant it would be to use as a data device over the EDGE service. I did not find it to be significantly worse than the Treo's data service (which is much faster) but I think that's because the Windows Mobile 5 Internet Explorer appears to render HTML/CSS very slowly--the iPhone does a much better job.

I did not buy it today because my Verizon contract goes until September, but I had a hard time walking away from it. I think that I will be switching--Verizon does not offer comparably-priced Blackberry data plans (by my read, Verizon would cost $20/month more than AT&T; Verizon does not seem to have a consumer-priced data plan). The only question is when.

Update: More about the keyboard. I forgot to mention that I did have trouble with the "two-thumbs" method of typing. I got a lot of Ps rather than Os. The workaround that I adopted while I was playing was generally to use my left thumb for the left side of the keyboard and my right index finger for the right side of the keyboard. I did generally hit the modifier key (change the keyboard template from alpha to numeric/symbol) with my index finger, even though it's on the left side.

RIP Mr. Wizard

2007-06-13T02:58:06Z

Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert) passed away today at 89 due to cancer. He is a big part of the reason that I like TV and science.

Voice of the Voter

2007-05-09T18:09:49Z

Maria got me involved with the Voice of the Voter program that is organized by the D&C, WXXI, and WHAM-TV.

They are running a blog and gave me posting access, so others may be seeing my screeds.

Maria and I were walking our dog last night near the Mt. Hope Cemetery, and we met a lady through the fence with an interesting story: she had just received a $100 fine for having her dog off its leash. Her dog, a five-year-old golden retriever, was a clearly well-behaved and well-trained animal. She said that despite this fine (she said that she was considering it an admission fee), she was not going to change her ways—and as I noticed the dangling leash in her hand and the responsibly bagged dog waste she carried, it was clear that she was right.

With Rochester's impressively high murder and auto theft numbers, why is collecting fines from pet owners a higher priority than criminal investigation?

Walking the Dog

2007-03-01T04:02:07Z

About six weeks ago (which goes to show how often I post), Maria and I got a dog, a yellow lab mix, Emmy, from Rudy's Rescue.

Although Emmy is a joy to have, we still had some growing pains with her and wanted to improve our own knowledge of dog training, so we have been working through Dogs At Your Feet training, which is excellent.

Here was the route that we walked tonight (3.5mi in roughly an hour, but the sidewalks are not cleared from ice or snow). I tried to hit all of the vertices (but missed Crittenden & Mt. Hope) and edges (but missed many more) without retracing my steps (which I didn't technically do because of sidewalk on both sides of the road, but still didn't do well).

Tarot Card Survey

2007-02-09T15:33:19Z

You are the Hanged Man

Self-sacrifice, Sacrifice, Devotion, Bound.

With the Hanged man there is often a sense of fatalism, waiting for something to happen. Or a fear of
loss from a situation, rather than gain.

The Hanged Man is perhaps the most fascinating card in the deck. It reflects the story of Odin who offered himself as a sacrifice in order to gain knowledge. Hanging from the world tree, wounded by a spear, given no bread or mead, he hung for nine days. On the last day, he saw on the ground runes that had fallen from the tree, understood their meaning, and, coming down, scooped them up for his own. All knowledge is to be found in these runes.

The Hanged Man, in similar fashion, is a card about suspension, not life or death. It signifies selflessness, sacrifice and prophecy. You make yourself vulnerable and in doing so, gain illumination. You see the world differently, with almost mystical insights.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

mfisher @ 2007-01-08T15:07:00

2007-01-08T20:07:22Z

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
North Central
The West
Boston
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Pivotal Moments of Rochesterians

2007-01-03T03:30:16Z

My fiancee is perpetually interested in hearing about folks' defining moments; since everyone has (some), she's working to put together a book about the Pivotal Moments of Rochesterians. If you have any suggestions of people, famous or not, please nominate them.

Engaged

2006-11-11T02:03:54Z

A lot of things have happened this year that I didn't expect:

I wrecked my motorcycle, broke my leg, and spent a long time recovering.
I applied to, was accepted to, and am doing pretty well in, the nursing program at work.
I bought a house in Rochester.
I got a cat.
I got engaged.

I met Maria about a year ago, had some great times hanging out with her before the accident, and then things went pretty quiet while I was recovering. After I got back on my feet, I started seeing her more and more seriously and I realized that I wouldn't want to be without her for the rest of my life (she feels similarly). So I proposed, she accepted, and that's that.

Indecision 2006

2006-11-06T19:54:02Z

Office	Candidate(s)	Comments/Other Predictions
Governor/Vice Governor	John Clifton/Donald Silberger (LP)	Spitzer (D) will win.
Comptroller	John Cain (LP)	Hevesi (D) will win but get removed from office.
Attorney General	Christopher B. Garvey (LP)	Cuomo (D) will win.
US Senator	Jeffrey T. Russell (LP)	Clinton (D) will win big. I might have voted for her but haven't appreciated her recent politicking at the expense of any values I had started to believe she had.
State Supreme Court (3)	Dan Doyle (Ind), Evelyn Franzee (Ind), Clark J. Zimmerman, Jr. (D)
Representative in Congress	Louise M. Slaughter (D)	She's gotten pork money for both RIT and U of R, generally for positive things.
State Senator	Willa Powell (D)	Robach (R + all other endorsements) will win in a landslide, but I don't feel that enough has been done to fix the State economy.
Member of Assembly	John J. Ferlicca (R)	Susan John (D + all other endorsements) is incumbent, and I feel the State government has been a failure in terms of getting taxes under control.
Family Court Judge	Maryanne H. Townsend (I)	Gallaher (D) is too close to the retiring incumbent O'Connor.
City Court Judge	Debra A. Crowder (I)	Lets me avoid a R/D choice.
Commissioner of Schools	Van H. White (D)	Only candidate on the ballot.

mfisher @ 2006-10-02T21:42:00

2006-10-03T01:42:55Z

Long time, no write.

I'm tentatively planning on following up with a more general-interest entry, but for now, I'm going to write about shavegeekery.

Over a month ago, I tried out Shave Secret oil, which I bought on a whim. It worked much better than I expected, and was actually a pretty interesting experience: I was able to see just about all of the whiskers that I removed during a shave (I'm used to using a lotion that prevents me from really seeing the whiskers). Additionally, it had the pleasant aspect that it did a great job of minimizing razor burn.

Since I can't be happy with just one thing, I tried out some King of Shaves gear: some "Formula Alpha Shaving Oil Supercooled Menthol" and "AlphaGel DDS Shaving Gel Natural Unmentholated". I tried the shaving oil and was nonplussed: despite costing more than the Shave Secret, it just didn't work as well for me. It seemed to dilute more and wouldn't stick around for my third shaving pass, so I nicked myself up a bit.

I tried the gel in two ways: I first tried it as it wasn't supposed to be used, as a lather (using my trusty Vulfix brush) and found it to be borderline. It did not stay whipped up, but I got a reasonably close and comfortable shave. After that, I tried it as a gel (simply applied to the face). I thought that it was nice that it stayed clear (so I could see through it, although I'm used to that with the shave oils), but it just didn't give me a great shave. The razor pulled at the whiskers. The gel didn't rinse off very easily and left my face itchy for a while.

Today, I had one of the best shaves I've had since I started this project. I used the King of Shaves oil underneath the Vulfix Shaving Cream, which seemed to help make everything go much more smoothly for all three passes. Although I nicked myself a few times, it was pretty minor, because the wounds closed up just from the cold water rinse.

Wordplay, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

2006-07-09T03:35:48Z

Today, I saw Wordplay and Dead Man's Chest with my folks and gazhaban.

Wordplay was funny and clever. It made me very happy to be at the movies, and it had enough non-crossword material that I didn't feel as guilty for dragging my mom and gazhaban to a film that I was more interested in watching with Dad (A Prairie Home Companion, which we watched two weeks ago, fits into this same category). 4/5.

Pirates 2 was utter dreck. At best, it was a popcorn movie that just went too long without a sufficient plot or decent characters to back the time up. More critically, it was a big-budget B movie that still ended up looking like something hacked together with 1950s technology. The Kraken just didn't interact with the ships very naturally. I slept through about a half an hour in the beginning, didn't feel like I missed out on plot, and still felt that the movie ran too long. If this was the only kind of movie that I could see, I would stop seeing movies. 2/5.

I feel like I need to re-watch The African Queen so that I can get the bad taste out of my mouth and see a good adventure movie with a boat...maybe soon.

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-06-21T04:52:51Z

Today I finally had the opportunity to see An Inconvenient Truth. There was a special showing at The Little which featured a discussion panel by Dr. Elizabeth Thorndike (Board of Directors CEI), Kevin Williams (Chief Meteorologist, News 10 NBC/WHEC-TV), and Robert Bechtold (President, Harbec Plastics).

The film was about what I'd expected from reviews, even from left-leaning sites like Salon.com. The format was basically a camera following a live studio presentation that Gore gave with his sentiments as well as some footage of his presenting to other countries' leaders. About 4% of the movie was spent dealing with Gore's loss in 2000; maybe another 4% was spent trying to develop Gore's character with commentary such as how it was important for him to try to help steer the world right after his son had a near-fatal car accident.

Gore presented some really interesting before-and-after pictures of parts of the world that had glaciers (as recently as 30 years ago) and how the glaciers had receded tremendously since then. This was probably the most unique thing that I observed in the movie. Aside from that, there was a lot of graph presentation magic and flashy animations. They used a segment from Futurama, which was very amusing.

All in all, it didn't make a believer out of me. I felt that the standard sleight-of-hand was done: present the viewer with many points and strongly imply a correlation. Provide lots of graphs without sufficient labeling.

On the other hand, I've long been in mild agreement with those who argue for moderation in consumption: I can hardly call myself a "conservationist" since that label has been taken by (what I consider) fringe groups.

Gore also pulled the fairly typical "ruling elite" liberal tricks: talk about conservation, but get chauffeured in a Lincoln and do lots of world travel to places that require special, fuel-inefficient, means like helicopters. Slam Ford for not producing fuel-efficient cars, but still use them. I think it would have been slightly less distracting for his argument (at least for me) had he shown himself off being carted around in a Prius.

The review panel was what really made the event worthwhile. Thorndike, appearing for the tree-hugger crowd, appeared to be poorly prepared for her opportunity to speak and couldn't even maintain sufficient concentration to properly use the handheld microphone. She looked uncomfortable during Williams' time.

Williams, appearing for the global warming denying crowd, was exceedingly well-prepared and presented his opinion (while there are some disturbing trends, the data do not support policy changes at this point) exceedingly well. He received the most attention during the crowd's Q-and-A period, and generally defended his position well. Even after the theater cleared, he was questioned about his position by local talk show host Brother Wease (who was much shorter and quieter than I'd imagined).

Bechtold represented industry, but said very little very well: he advocated taking personal responsibility to improve your own consumption; the closest he got to suggesting a policy change was in encouraging people to choose to buy their power from renewable energy providers, which will stimulate demand and encourage additional deployment of renewable energy technologies.

Old-Timey Stuff

2006-06-14T18:44:58Z

While I was recuperating, I found that there was an Internet community that is interested in old-time shaving techniques. After reading much of the Shave Blog archives, I picked up a bunch of stuff, including a badger hair brush and a Merkur Heavy-Duty safety razor. I figured that I'd take a small step backward technologically (with a safety razor) before attempting a straight razor, which is what I'd eventually like to learn to use.

I've been practicing with the Merkur for a week now, and am getting better. My shaves are not as close as the Shave Blog guy brags about (not a whole lot worse than the Mach 3 though). I'm back to nicking myself comparably to how I did with the Mach 3. The Shave Blog guy and other "shave geeks" are right about one of the elements: the irritation I have after a single-blade shave does not seem bad as after a Mach 3 shave.

I am also interested in improving my penmanship (anyone who's attempted to read my scrawl understands that there's a long way to go). I've been mildly interested in fountain pens for a while, but I think the utensil is the minor part, in my case. I've been eyeing a few sites (Stutler, IAMPETH) but I was wondering if there were any good books/resources that would help me get going quickly. I'm not looking for something that is too ornate, but I want a writing style that is classier looking than the D'Nealian that I was taught (not that I stuck directly to it or was helped by moving from a D'Nealian school to a traditional school between first and second grades). I think I'm mainly looking at rmeinhart here, but others may have good suggestions too.

Leg Pictures After 6 Weeks

2006-04-29T14:54:52Z

In case you're interested, here are some pictures of my leg wounds after six weeks (no blood, minor scabbing). The long scar is from the surgery where the plate and screws were inserted and the small scar on the left (inside) of the leg is from the open fracture.

I have been in PT for about three weeks now and my leg flexibility has improved consistently; my therapist has generally been pleased. I'm in the middle of a long period in between doctor's visits: I see my knee surgeon on May 9, and my spinal surgeon on May 16. I'm not sure what to expect from my knee surgeon (I've been at 10% weight bearing status since I was in the hospital, so I certainly hope that this increases), but the prediction was that I would not need my back brace any more past the next appointment.