Chris Russell's Space

2008 Mazdaspeed3 Slot Car

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:41:48 GMT

This is a great little car...

I don't drive like this but I think this video is pretty amusing nonetheless.

This is good review. Watch the torque steer...

Dave Russell Sr.'s 95th Birthday

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:04:15 GMT

My grandfather, Dave Russell Sr. of Springfield, Vermont (no he doesn't watch the Simpsons) is turning 95-years old on Sunday. My dad and I recently put up a website for him which will be used to promote a book he published two years ago entitled "Verses from a Vermont Hillside". I spent many happy days during my childhood up on the farm in Vermont and will always remember my grandfather's office in the basement and his old typewriter and hundreds of short stories and poems strewn about his old rolltop desk typed on carbon paper and on the back of discarded scraps of paper. The book compiles the best of his stories, poems and essays and is a great read. We hope to get some additional information posted that will allow people to order copies soon.

Happy 95th Birthday Grandfather. You're a great man and I miss being within driving distance of the farm.

http://daverussell.net

Ascribe vs. Imbue vs. Impute

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:39:51 GMT

Pop quiz vocab hotshots:

What's the difference between these three words?

I had to look them up recently while reading though a whitepaper. As I expected, the author was incorrectly ascribing the semantics of the word impute to the word imbue. Anyway, I had to look it up to be sure so I guess I might have made the same mistake.

At The Risk Of Ripping Your Ears Off

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:11:52 GMT

Zune "Premium Earbuds" (they're pretty good) ship with a cloth sleeve which protects and stiffens the cabling. It looks nice and is functional. However, when the cloth rubs against the zipper of your jacket, the vibration is transmitted along the cable to your ears. I read this suggestion on a Zune mailing list and although I do not recommend getting your ears ripped off, with a little care you can avoid peril and lose the noise.

"... [the] Secondary benefit to cord wrapped behind ear is that when you are working out the earbud doesn't fall out as easily. [of] Course then if you catch the cord on something you rip your entire ear off instead of just yanking the buds out, but to lose the rubbing sound transmission it is worth it."

Joining Windows Core

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:46:50 GMT

At the end of February, I transferred inside the Windows Division and joined the Application Platform Team (part of Windows Core Engineering). This is a big deal for me personally as I have been hired to help solve some vexing problems that have interested me for years.

Broken RSS Aggregation

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:45:20 GMT

Hmm... Looks like something has gone wrong with the RSS feeds displayed on this page. Seems like they have all been reset to pull from the New York Times.

In Memory of Kyra Husky

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:34:22 GMT

I am extremely sad to report that our female Siberian Husky Kyra died today two months shy of her tenth birthday due to liver cancer. We first became aware of a potentially serious problem on Tuesday and an ultrasound, an exploratory surgery and three days and she's gone. She was loved dearly and will be sorely missed.

New England Down In Flames

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:38:55 GMT

I don't want to talk about the Superbowl.

Windows Vista Slideshow Screen Resolution

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:45:16 GMT

The "Windows Photo Gallery" application bundled with Windows Vista supports a full-screen slideshow mode that sometimes tries to be a little too smart about choosing an optimal screen resolution for slideshow viewing. Specifically, the slideshow viewer may decide to reduce the screen resolution for full-screen viewing when invoked and doesn't expose any obvious way to override this default behavior.

For most people this is not a huge problem (if they notice it at all). Discriminating viewers may note a degradation in image quality. But you really run into a problem if your video adapter is driving a display device that (a) isn't recognized by plug-and-play (thus defaulting Window's knowledge of your dislay's actual capabilities to "Generic PnP Monitor" which is assumed to support a wide variety of different video modes) (b) doesn't actually support the display mode automaticlly selected by "Windows Photo Gallery" for full-screen slideshow viewing.

In my case, this Vista box is using an NVidia Quadro FX1000 (a dated but still kick-ass video adapter) connected to a Samsung DLP HDTV which I've configured for full 1080p (1920x1080 @ 60Hz) viewing on the desktop. However, when I flip to slideshow mode I'm toast - the Samsung supports only a view different display resolutions and the one chosen as I enter slideshow mode is not supported. The display flickers and then bluescreens (Samsung video input not detected NOT a Vista BSOD). So for me on this particular PC configuration slideshow just doesn't work out-of-the-box. Parenthetically, the standard Photo Viewer screensaver bundled with Vista is just a wrapper around Windows Photo Gallery's slideshow mode so it too is busted for this particular configuration.

Luckily it's not hard to fix.

Refer to the Windows Knowledge Base Article 930102 for specific details.

Summary:

Add the DWORD value WinSATScore = 500 (decimal) to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Photo Gallery\SlideShow key in the registry to instruct Windws Photo Gallery to use the desktop display settings when switching into slideshow mode. This solves both the image quality and the unsupported display resolution problems.

Please insert a CD

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:39:15 GMT

I'm sitting on the sofa with my wireless keyboard/mouse typing this message. My workstation is ten feet away from me connected to an HDTV. I want to rip the audio CD that I just dropped in the tray before I sat down. But, I forgot to retract the drive tray.

Right about now it sure would be handy if the right-click conext menu item "Eject" normally associated with Windows optical drives toggled state to "Retract" when the drive tray is ejected. Sounds like a good lunchtime hack to figure out how to change the behavior. I'm getting up to push the button now.

ObjectGraph Web 2.0 Dictionary/Thesuarus

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:35:16 GMT

I was customizing an installation of Opera and stumbled across an optional side-panel dictionary plug-in from ObjectGraph.com. Basically, they present an AJAX-powered web form that retrieves/displays dictionary queries for each character you type. Even over my crappy HughesNet satellite "broadband" connection the form is responsive enough to be useful. There's also an online Thesuarus.

ObjectGraph.com : Interactive Dictionary

Windows Media Player 11 Taskbar Settings

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 21:58:53 GMT

Booting a clean install of Vista Ultimate, the first time you minimize Windows Media Player (WMP) 11 you're prompted to decide if you want WMP to display itself as either a standard taskbar task icon OR a taskbar-embedded mini-player. I elect the taskbar-embedded mini-player-on-minimize option and continue on. Later, I decide I prefer the standard taskbar icon-on-minimize display option because restoring the mini-player window requires a precise mouse action. But how to restore the standard behavior?

After drilling through all the WMP option menu dialog boxes I've come up with nothing. WMP prompts you but doesn't appear to expose the setting anywhere. As with most things Winows, the work-around is trivial if not a little counterintuitive. The WMP mini-player embedded in the taskbar is a so-called taskbar toolbar. Toggle mini-player vs. standard-taskbar-icon-on-minimize behavior as follows:

right-click the taskbar and unlock the taskbar if it's locked
toogle WMP mini-player-on-minimize by right-clicking the taskbar and selecting the Toolbars | Windows Media Player checkbox-menu item.

Let There Be Bass (Electric)

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:55:11 GMT

Sitting here half watching the Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival on PBS Great Performances and suddenly - wow... Okay Jeff Beck (one of my personal favorites from way back) is jamming... But, who is this kid he's got up on stage on bass? Man, it's amazing to see so much tallent stuffed into someone so young... Absent credits for Beck's band, a little digging on the web revels that a young woman named Tal Wilkenfeld appeared with Beck for the Chicago 2007 Guitar Festival. I'm definitely going to buy her debut CD and dig through my jazz CD's (because I haven't listened to any of them for what seems like years).

Here are some links:

PBS Great Performances: Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007

Tal Wilkenfeld (Wikipedia) .::. Tal Wilkenfeld (Official Site)

Jeff Beck w/Tal Wilkenfeld "Big Block" @ Crossroads 2007 (YouTube video)

Rockies Swept

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:00:26 GMT

Sweet. I orderred my Boston Red Sox 2007 World Series Champions baseball cap this AM. I'll keep it next to my 2004 World Series cap

WS Game Four and Slam the Door?

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 23:50:06 GMT

Well... I really didn't expect that the Red Sox would go up 3-0 on the Colorado Rockies in the World Series. There was a lot of hype about the Rockies in the press but so far, there's only been a few brief moments where Colorado has seriously threatened to take the lead let alone win a game. Tonight's game four starts in about 45 minutes in Boston. At this point, the Rockies are in a giant hole staring at four back-to-back win-it-or-hang-up-the-cleats games. The Red Sox need only win one out of the next four to become World Series Champions for 2007. It should be a good game tonight.

Ishkur's Guide To Electronic Music

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:48:03 GMT

Man this is great! Check this out: http://www.di.fm/edmguide/music.swf

Yankees Down in Flames

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 03:55:06 GMT

Sweet. Sox vs. Indians for the AL Championship Friday night, 7:30 EST in Fenway broadcast on FOX.

Live Spaces and IE 7 Crash...

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:47:32 GMT

Here's a good one: If I log into my Live Spaces account and attempt to change the layout, IE7 crashes with an unhandled exception every time (running on Windows XP). Hmm... maybe I'll submit some feedback. Or file a bug report when I get into the office tomorrow...

Xcerion Xios

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:21:24 GMT

http://xcerion.com/

XIOS, an "XML Operating System" from Swedish Xcerion is an interesting system. However, XIOS is not an operating system. Rather, it is a fancy scripting host that sits atop a real operating system.

Safe Labels in C++

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:07:36 GMT

An excellent new article on Artima C++ describes techiques for leveraging macros and templates to perform compile-time validation on normally error-prone (i.e. dangerous) bit-level manipulations.

http://www.artima.com/cppsource/safelabels.html

Photo Album: In Memory of Kyra Husky - 4/1999 to 2/2008

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:16:18 GMT

In Memory of Kyra Husky - 4/1999 to 2/2008

Kyra on _Her_ Love Seat in Maine

Kyra Sitting In The Snow

Kyra and Best Pal Cody

Beautiful Loving Blue Eyes

"I Love You" Look

Kyra and Her Duck

She Carried The Duck Around Constantly

Bunked Down In Her House of Straw

Cody and Kyra In The Yard

Kyra In the Yard on a Pile of Straw

More Photos...

Photo Album: Cherry Valley Falls

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:30:42 GMT

Cherry Valley Falls

Photo Album: Cascades

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:40:21 GMT

Cascades

Snow-Capped Fir

Sunrise Over Carnation

Tolt Reservior Road

North Bend

Haystack outside Goldbar

Falls on the Way to Mt. Rainier

Mt. Rainier

Moss on Fir Tree

two-eagles-fishing-for-salmon-on-stossel-creek

Photo Album: Three Day Drive from Maine to Washington State

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 01:03:21 GMT

Three Day Drive from Maine to Washington State

Looking Back at the Madness

Traveling Relatively Light

iPod in FM Transmitter Cradle

Welcome to North Dakota

Early AM on the highway driving West through Montana

Stopped in Montana

Montana

Montana Rest Stop

More Photos...

Blog list: Blog list

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:58:18 GMT

Doron Holon's Whole In My Head
Microsoft engineer and Windows kernel-mode driver jock Doron Holan's blog.
Mark Russinovich
Microsoft Technical Fellow and god of Windows OS internals Mark Russinovich's blog.
Herb Sutter
Microsoft Fellow and ISO C++ Library Comitte member Herb Sutter's blog.
Peter Wieland
Windows Driver Frameworks lead Peter Wieland blogs about UDMF/KDMF and the Windows driver development.

Custom List: Electronic Music in Seattle

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 22:15:44 GMT

Electronic Music in Seattle

NorthwestTekno
News, events...
Nectar Lounge
Club
Chop Suey
Club
The Showbox
Club
Neumos
Club
The Fenix
Club

Custom List: Citizen You

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 06:27:35 GMT

Citizen You

The Avalon Project at Yale Law
The Federalist Papers and related documents in law, history, anddiplomacy. A good read if you find yourself searching for meaning in a coast-to-coast strip mall.
Why We Fight
If you're paying attention, watching this movie should make youfeel very uneasy.

Custom List: Tunes

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:56:20 GMT

Tunes

KEXP Seattle, WA USA
Where the music really matters. And it does.
KCRW Santa Monica, CA USA
NPR and electronic music. These days that means great tunes, andgreat reporting of bad news...
SomaFM, San Fransisco CA, USA
San Fran's SomaFM provides streams for a wide variety of musicaltastes. I like Groove Salad personally.
Original Electronic Music (OEM) Radio
Independent artists submissions on random shuffle. I didn't expect too much when I first found this stream. But, it's great.
Limbik Frequencies
Limbik Frequencies has recently launched a new website and seemsto be back cranking out the eclectic beats that make it one of my all-time favorite streams.
Philosomatika
100% Psychedelic Trance - Get your stomp on!

Custom List: My Other Websites

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 18:43:29 GMT

My Other Websites

Chris' LinkedIn Profile
If I work with you now, or have worked with you in the past, addme to your LinkedIn network.
Chris' Blog v1
This is my first blog that I maintained through the years I wasworking out of the basement in Maine.