The Sisyphus Comments

Burning An ISO Image On A Mac

ISO images are the format of choice for transfering large programs like Linux distribution. Without going into the specifics, you must download the data in an ISO format then burn it to a blank CD-ROM or DVD.

If you are using a Mac, you are in luck since the OSX operating system comes with the built-in Disk Utility. However, the process for burning an ISO image is a little counter intuitive so I though I would post them in this article for future reference. These are the steps for burning an ISO image to disc using a Mac:

1. Insert a blank disc.
2. Start Disk Utility.
3. From the File menu, choose Open Disk Image and select the ISO to be burned.
4. In the list of volumes, you will now see an item representing the ISO file. Select it.
5. Click the Burn button and follow the instructions.

If you use a Windows or Linux computer, you are on your one since you will need burning software to burn the ISO image.

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Verizon Raises Administrative Fees

I was pleased to learn that Verizon had scraped its idiot idea to assess a convenience fee for paying your bill on their website or on your phone (see Verizon Implements A New “Convenience Fee”). . . THEN I RECEIVED MY LATEST BILL!  It seems that they are determined to get their $2.00 one way or the other.  The new increase to the administrative fee is assessed on each telephone line, resulting in a $2.52 increase to my bill.  A small part of the increase was due to an increase in the Federal Universal fee but most of the increase is the result of Verizon’s increased administrative fee.  I called my local office to see if this increase meant our original contractual agreement was terminated – I have yet to get my answer.  Stay tuned.

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Verizon Implements A New “Convenience Fee”

Verizon Wireless is planning to implement a $2.00 “convenience fee” if you pay your bill on their website. Although it will obviously be more expensive process your payment if you pay by check than it is if you pay electronically, they are betting we will just pay the fee. Send them an email and encourage them to reconsider this fee at http://www22.verizon.com/customersupport/contactus/

Please share this.

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Get The Best Local Price With Milo

I hate shopping! However, the one thing I hate more is buying a new gadget then finding the same thing for less money at another store. Unfortunately, the gas to drive to every store before buying would eat up any saving.

That’s why I was happy to discover Milo. Its a price comparison site that permits you to check prices at stores in your local area. Finding the best price is a breeze. If you are out shopping, you can also access Milo from your cell phone. Best of all – its free . . . as in beer.

Click Here To Check Out Milo

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Add Old-time Radio Programs To Your MP3 Player

I use my iPhone and iPod to listen to music at the gym and podcasts while driving. Now I have found something to give me a little variety – old-time radio programming.

The Internet Archive has a large selection of free and legal old radio programs like my favorite Dragnet. The shows are in MP3 format so you can listen on any music player or computer.

Click her to listen to Dragnet and other old-time radio shows

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Get Help Making Your Résumé

In this economy, it would be a good idea to maintain an up to date resume. Fortunately, you can turn to the web for help with the process of putting together a professional looking resume or cv. pdfCV is a free service that will help you create your résumé and produce a PDF copy of it so you can email it to prospective employers.

Just sign up for a free account and they will walk you though the entire process. You can edit and download your résumé every time you apply for a position to get a personalized résumé for each prospective employer.

Click Here For pdfCV.com

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New Diplomat ID Information

Listed below are two PDF files that are issued by the State Department that can be downloaded by clicking on the links. The first link, Department of State Identity Documents and License Plates, contains samples of identity documents and license plates that are used by legitimate diplomats. In addition, the Department of State now issues driver’s licenses to foreign diplomats and pictures are also contained in this document.

The second link is the 2010 edition of the Department of State’s Consular Notification and Access Guide which outlines procedures when arresting or contacting a foreign national, not just diplomats (It is a 150 page PDF file).

Department of State Identity Documents and License Plates

Diplomatic and Consular Notification

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File Too Large? JustBeamIt

One of the things I have never understood is the 50 MB limit many email systems put on file transfers. Unfortunately, when you try to send files like videos, it isn’t hard to go over the limit. If you find yourself in this situation, surf on over to justbeamit.com and give it a try.

You just drag the file you want to send (or browse and select the file the old fashion way) and you get a link to share with the person to whom you want to send the file. That person just clicks on the link and justbeamit.com will transfer the file.

In addition to sending files up to 2 gigabytes, your file is also encrypted for security. One thing to remember is the the browser window must be left open until the transfer finishes. So bookmark the link and give it a try the next time you have to send a large file. One more thing – the service is free – as in beer!

Click here to visit justbeamit.com

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LA Detective May Be In Twitter Trouble

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — On Twitter, Sal LaBarbera is a popular LA detective known as LA Murder Cop. But a tweet he recently sent to his 3,265 followers – showing a bloody crime scene — has some questioning if it’s appropriate to show something so graphic on social media.

Read the Full Article

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Sentence Adjustments For Crack Convictions

There have been several changes to federal law and case law related to the Fair Sentencing Act. As a result, there has been a reconsideration of the sentences of thousands of federal inmates across the US who had been convicted of crack cocaine distribution related offenses. The issue had been the disparity of the length of the sentences for those who distributed crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine.

These cases have worked their way through the federal legal system and several hundred federal inmates are going to be released in the coming months. Here are the preliminary figures by USAO division:

Total # of eligible defendants in Western District of VA = 253

- Abingdon = 11
- Big Stone Gap = 3
- Charlottesville = 51
- Danville = 53
- Harrisonburg = 71
- Lynchburg = 11
- Roanoke = 53

54 of these 253 are eligible for IMMEDIATE release on 11/1.

Data on which inmates and where they plan on living is not available at this time. These figures are based on where they were convicted. Many of these inmates have been housed in Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities all over the country. The BOP and federal probation and parole have been putting into place several reentry services for these inmates, but the fact still remains that they are going to be coming out. I will try and get more direct info. on when, where and most importantly who so your agencies may best be prepared.

This information was provided by Sean Tepfer, Intelligence Officer & Law Enforcement Coordinator, US Attorney’s Office, Western District of Virginia,

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10th U.S. Circuit Understands Duty To Solve Crime

U.S. v. Burleson, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 18820, September 12, 2011

Shortly before midnight, while patrolling a residential neighborhood, an officer saw three men come out of an alley and begin walking down the middle of the street. One of the men was carrying a pit bull without a leash. The officer stopped the men to inform them that they were not allowed to walk down the middle of the street and to ask them why they were carrying the dog. The officer was aware of previous dog thefts that had occurred in the city and of other property crimes that had occurred in that neighborhood.. The men told the officer that they did not have leash for the dog, which satisfied the officer. The officer then asked the men for their names and requested a warrants check from dispatch. Dispatch notified the officer that Burleson had an outstanding arrest warrant. While he was being handcuffed, Burleson told the officer that he had two handguns and some ammunition in his waistband and pockets.

The district court suppressed the handguns and ammunition. The court concluded that the officer exceeded the permissible scope of the Terry stop after he told the men that they could not walk down the middle of the street and then satisfied his suspicions about the dog. The court found that the men did not do anything further to raise additional suspicion of criminal activity, therefore the officer had no lawful basis for continuing the detention to run a warrants check. Additionally, the court held that the warrants check was inappropriate because the cooperative nature of the men did not give the officer any objective reasons to be concerned for his safety.

The court of appeals disagreed. First, the court held that an officer may perform a warrants check on a pedestrian during the course of a lawful Terry stop. In this case, the Terry stop had not ended by the time the officer asked the men for their names and requested the warrants check.
Although the officer had told the men is was illegal to walk down the middle of the street, he still had the option to issue a citation or a verbal warning, depending on what transpired during the rest of the stop, to include the results of the warrants check.

Regarding the second basis for the stop, an investigation into whether the dog had been stolen, it was reasonable for the officer to obtain the men’s names and confirm their identifies in case the dog was later reported stolen. The officer testified that he asked the men for their identities for this purpose.
Second, the court held that officers are permitted to conduct a warrants check during a Terry stop regardless of whether they have officer-safety concerns. The court stated that while officer-safety concerns are often cited as a reason for requesting a warrants check during a Terry stop, it is not the only reason. Allowing warrants checks during Terry stops also promotes the strong government interest of solving crimes and bringing offenders to justice. Here, the officer was entitled to determine whether any of the men were evading justice and as it turned out, Burleson was.

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Copy and Paste Exactly – If You Want

I have always subscribed to the “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” school of thought. That is why I am not quite sure I agree with the way that Lion now handles the keyboard commands for copy/cut and paste.

Apple has always followed the same copy/cut and paste convention as the Windows world. You simple used Command-C (Windows: Control-C) for for “copying” and Command-X (Windows: Control-X) for “cutting” (moving an item from its current location to some other location).

Under Apple’s new Lion convention, you have to “Think Different.” The “Command-C” combination still copies the item to the clipboard but the pasting process is different. You can still press Command-V to paste and copy the files but to move the files you now press Command-Option-V.

If you include the “Shift” key when either copying or moving files, the file’s permissions and other attributes are moved along with the file. I know some of you are saying “the file what??”. Well, sometimes when a file is moved or copied the owner of a file and who has the right read or write to the file are changed (actually it is read, write and execute). By using the “Shift” key you have the option to “Paste Exactly“, which preserves all file attributes.

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Lion Ate My Software

I am old enough and experienced enough to know that no good thing lasts forever but I sure do miss Rosetta on my new MacBook Pro. For those of you who are still using a heathen Windows machine, Rosetta is a software solution that Apple included in its operating system when they switched to Intel processors. It allowed users to continue to run Power PC software until the developers upgraded their software or a suitable replacement program could be located. Unfortunately, Apple chose not to include Rosetta in OSX Lion. In their defense, it has been at least five years since they transitioned to Intel and we have had plenty of time to upgrade our software. However, my “why fix it if it isn’t broken” philosophy has finally caught up with me.

I can no longer use several freeware programs that I used occasionally for specific purposes but I can live without them. Unfortunately, I have also lost the use of Fireworks (an old Photoshop type program), Quickbook 5.0 (my business accounting program), Microsoft Office 2004 (including Word, PowerPoint and Excel) and Kompozer (a web page design program). I am still searching for replacements but I have located a couple of possible solutions.

Since I run Parallels Desktop and Windows XP on my Macbook Pro, I could just use the Windows version of Office. However, I normally only open Desktop when I need to use one of the two programs I need that don’t come in a Mac flavor. Instead, I have elected to give Libre Office a try. LibreOffice is a free, open source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications: Writer (Word), Calc (Excel), Impress (PowerPoint), Draw, Math and Base (Access). You can produce, open or edit any document, spreadsheet or presentation that was created in Microsoft Office. So far, it looks like a good replacement for my old Office suite.

I replaced Kompozer, which was an open source web design program, with Blue Griffon, another open source program. I normally use this program for simple website editing so I don’t need a really powerful program like Dreamweaver. I think Blue Griffon is going to work out fine.

Macromedia Fireworks was my “go to” graphics editing program for many years. It was Macromedia’s equivalent to Adobe’s Photoshop. However, Adobe has since bought Macromedia and the latest version of Fireworks costs $299 – way over my budget. Instead of emptying my bank account, I opted for Seashore, another open source program. I haven’t had a chance to use the program much but so far it looks like it will work for my limited graphics editing needs.

Finally, I had to deal with the loss of Quickbooks, which is going to be a bit of a problem for me. Natually, I was using version 5, which is a really old version. My plan is to continue using, Quickbooks on my old Macbook until the new year then either choose a new accounting program or install a virtual version of Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro via Parallels Desktop. Fortunately, the next issue of Mac Life is going to tackle the issue of migrating from Quicken so they may help me make my decision.

Basically, I am turning to open source software to solve my Lion issues. The other option is to simply purchase the latest and greatest versions of Microsoft Office, Quickbooks, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. That option is just a little rich for my blood so I am going to see if the free open source software meets my needs first.

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Life Down the Rabbit Hole

What’s up is down and what’s down is up! If you are sitting there wondering if you are losing it or if the scroll direction on OSX Lion is different – put away the Xanax.

The out-of-the-box trackpad configuration actually causes the page to scroll in the opposite direction of your finger movement. I am sure there are a lot of folks who think this is a good idea.  However, I am not one of them so let’s take another trip to the System Preferences. Locate the “Trackpad” preference, then select “Scroll & Zoom and uncheck the “Scroll direction: natural” box. Close out the System Preferences and your scrolling motion should be back to normal – even if you aren’t.

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