Dean Paxton

Category: Uncategorized

  • 1). Web Graphics Software by

    1). Web Graphics Software by Xara (via Metafilter- Windows 9x/NT/2K). I’ve used Xara 3D in the past as a shortcut to making animated text. Xara 3D is fast, cool, and can export as animated .gif’s. XaraX is competing with Macromedia Freehand and Adobe Illustrator… XaraX is much faster, easier to use, and lacking the bloat of most full studio rendering applications. Another product from Xara is Xara Webstyle, which is designed to create text, buttons, lines etc… and even export javascript for rollovers. Very cool… Make sure you register your software. Xara, Inc has told me personally that almost 98 percent of it’s user base is operating unlicensed software… These guys aren’t microsoft, they deserve to get paid.

    2). Next on the list is audiomulch. (Windows 9x/NT/2K via RJ) Audiomulch is an environment for creating music. If you use Fruityloops and Rebirth for computer music composition, try audiomulch. This needs a lot of processor because you edit realtime, but the control and options are limitless. Also he software supports the industry standard VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugin format giving AudioMulch users access to a large and ever increasing number of third-party processes. This is shareware, not crippled. It appears to be in beta, so there is no expiration date as of yet.

    3). Also, do visit the software section… the Oct. update is early… pat on the back for me!

  • People keep saying it’s not

    People keep saying it’s not good
    To learn things by heart,
    But pretty things well said –
    It’s nice to have them in your head.

    – Robert Frost

    Brilliant, absolutely brilliant….

  • Posts are getting more and

    Posts are getting more and more lengthy, I’m posting less frequently as well. I’m sorry for the lack of fabulous commentary, but I’ve got something cooking. Something good, something cool, something I can’t talk about yet. But, there’s a lot of work to do with this and as always, my mind is moving, non-stop, never resting… sleeping is a pain in the ass. Remember the paxtonland motto: “There’s plenty of time for sleep when you are dead.”

  • The Great TiVo Giveaway Contest

    The Great TiVo Giveaway Contest I won one, it’s on the way via UPS. Get yours… I don’t think they discriminate too much.

  • A paxtonland rant: I was

    A paxtonland rant: I was reading a follow up article about
    the year 2000 on c|net’s
    news.com     (via arstechnica.com). It talks of the lack of litigation that
    was promised. I seem to remember that the Gardner Group said that there would
    be over a trillion dollars in litigation over year 2000 problems. Of course,
    even they can be wrong. Thoughts about the aftermath of Y2K, here’s the top
    few websites:

    Did this thing even happen? Well, look for yourself check
    google directory     it has all of the y2k sites categorized. There must be
    some sites with updated y2k info. I’m not saying that the whole thing was a
    big scary sham and a waste of time. However, if it were a big consipracy of
    the software/technology industry, don’t you think that we’d have followed up
    on it. You know, all sorts of “post y2k” fixes and updates that you’d still need? Nope, we did our part. We coded and upgraded our asses off because management
    said so. What has dissappeared are the authors that made money from all the books and y2k survival plans, they’re in Cancun tanning. The
    companies that sold bulk food pellets, generators, and water purification hokum are history as well. The radio shows that basically survived
    because of y2k, but died shortly thereafter… namely, Art
    Bell    , are history. A quote from the article says "Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.,
    who voted against the legislation last year and commissioned the General Accounting
    Office report, said the study “confirms that in the courts, the Y2K bill was
    mostly used by big companies to delay or sidetrack relief to consumers."”     This really just about sums up the way that lawyers and lawmakers regard this situation.

    Okay, let’s get this right for the last time, for the record: Computer people
    worked tirelessly against any possible y2k fallout. They coded 24 hours a day,
    they upgraded systems for months. The worked furiously, in a professional and
    dedicated manner. This is why there was no y2k armegeddeon. We saved your sorry
    business asses and the thanks we got was laughter and ridicule over the lack
    of y2k disaster. Management created the y2k problem, management ignored it for
    25 years +, and technology people paid the price. Software did not crash, systems
    did not fail, and the economy is intact because of computer and technology people.
    Software vendors with y2k patches, programmers spending hundreds and thousands
    of hours on remediation, systems administators updating and upgrading millions
    of PC’s and servers… so damn you managers and lawyers all to hell… as for
    you, Joe Consumer, don’t forget that…. – this has been a paxtonland
    rant, thank you for your support.

  • That “debate” is hysterical………definately a

    That “debate” is hysterical………definately a “lesser of two evils” scenerio.

  • An exclusive paxtonland presidential debate

    An exclusive paxtonland presidential debate preview:

    "I shore hates it when they’re always cussin’ on TV, I’m tellin’ ya that shit really pisses me off! I goddamn well want a clean moral society that don’t talk like we were raised by a bunch of dumb fucks. Jesus, whatta bunch of assholes!"

    – George "dubbya" Bush

    "As usual my opponent is being fiscally irresponsible. I propose we have a tax on the use of bad language and use the monies to pay for midnight basketball for the thousands of poor, disadvantaged, crack head, gang members, and their millions of illegitimate children. And whatever money is left over… we’ll think up something to spend it on but, we promise we won’t return it to the tax payers."

    – Al "father of the internet" Gore.

  • Ars Technica: Multiboot Microsoft OSes

    Ars Technica: Multiboot Microsoft OSes for those of you who are interested in multibooting Win2K/WinME/Win9x systems, this is a great guide. They don’t address other operating systems beyond MS, but they do have great dialoge about file systems, a complete mystery to some. What is more interesting than forcing operating systems to coexist on the same drive, is the possibility of multiple, removable hard drives.

    I’m much more in favor of removable drive carriers and multiple hard drives. Drive trays should cost no more than $50 and the carriers should cost no more than $15-20. That way you can swap hard drives, OS’s, even use drives as temporary storage… experiment with operating systems in safety. Total cost for an experiment such as this should be no more than $150.00… check it out. I’ll post some links to the hardware. Gary does it, I do it at the office… worth a look anyway.

  • ‘);for(lKi=0;lKi’)};void(close())}”>Attention Gary: Check this out…

  • synj industries, inc. Ridiculously good

    synj industries, inc. Ridiculously good stuff.

  • I’m sorry I haven’t been

    I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much. I’ve been putting in some big time hours working. But, it looks like I’m somewhat vindicated on the Wen Ho Lee thing. Clinton is even pissed about it. What a miserable, sad thing to do to a U.S. citizen. I’m still furious. Anyway, greetings to Gary who is about to embark on a sugery, we hope it goes well. Also he’s released his first application for commercial sale, we’ll wish him well with that too.

  • Another twist in nuclear secrets

    Another twist in nuclear secrets case as Lee’s release held up as the case falls apart against him, the feds manage to secure a single plea of guilty and arrange Dr. Lee’s release after 9 months in solitary confinement. Free Wen Ho Lee!

    How long are we going to let the government push around technology people and minorities? Stories of information leaks by American scientists to China, not to mention the series of security blunders that made media news earlier this year at Los Alamos (where he worked) and other places. What better goat than a “Chinese” man. (Who is actually born in Taiwan and a naturalized U.S. citizen). What I think is that they had, in Dr. Lee, a scapegoat to draw attention away from Gore due to some shady dealings the executive branch had with China. It is election time you know…

    Not only is the pure and simple racism, but it’s yet another example of The Law badly mishandling technology people. They have a brutish lack of understanding of technology coupled an overzealous compulsion to attack that which they don’t understand. Also on the “dumbass technophobes” list are the lawyers (defense and prosecution), judges and juries. Mix into that the propensity to hate Asians and Indians that are technical or medical professionals and you have Wen Ho Lee in jail for something no one understands. It’s not a new kind of racist hatred, the hatred of technology and technical people. Something that I’ve dealt with and most of you have too. Good thing we aren’t up against this… (my comments collected from metafilter.com, thanks Mr. Haughey for giving me a voice)

  • Metafilter members are still bemoaning

    Metafilter members are still bemoaning the loss of Project Cool Sightings: For a good, long time Project Cool’s Sightings was the place to get your website noticed. The curator, editor, and primary driver behind the effort was the long suffering Glen Davis. To me, he is one of the top 5 people in internet development. Period. So, a nod from PC was a ticket to web fame. Fame and admission to the class of developers considered to be in the second rung below the long standing “digerati” of 25 or so web developers. The reason that I say he is long suffering is because he gave up fame and fortune to continue to contribute, manage, and drive a development focused and content driven community for web people. Many people got something from PC at some point, for free. He gave to it tirelessly while he could have been doing $1000 a day consulting, managing some huge capitol rich website for six figures, or started his own web firm… he didn’t do any of that in favor of Project Cool.

    The focus has been scattered across the internet. No one is picking good sites and getting good web developers attention and visitors. No one with any credibility at least. Now, every weblog, journal, and directory is it’s own “Sightings.” It’s like “Sightings” has been spread out across a couple thousand weblogs. Then it is a race among the top 50 weblogs to post a “cool” site first, then everyone links to it too, credits that site (or not) and comments on it in an editorial fashion. Browsers have to find this stuff for themselves all over again, just like it was before PC existed. No classification, no examples of a specific form of development or style. And most importantly, no real boost to the hit count. An endorsement by Mr. Davis was/is an invitation to the top tier… Now, we have to rely on those top 50 or so sites, like Zeldmann.com, Kottke.org, Glassdog.com, and even slashdot.org for noteriety. Well, guess what? They aren’t interested in your notoriety, recognition, or fame.

    As far as the weblogs are concerned. They are too busy linking to strange sites, pontificating about whatever is on their mind, and linking news stories that are easily found on 100 news sites. (Sound like any web page we know of? – hahaha)

  • MS not doing the linux

    MS not doing the linux thing via (old) yahoo news: Looks like we all panicked for no reason. Here we were speculating and postulating how MS was going to pull this one off. Evidently, they aren’t. At least not that anyone within MS is willing to admit. Good thing we can trust them to leave the market to determine it’s own course without any tampering from them.

  • The Annotated Dennis Miller (via

    The Annotated Dennis Miller (via metafilter): Dennis is evidently so far above the heads of of the braindead armchair masses that his comments need their own reference guide.

  • a). Toonami: Line-up I think

    a). Toonami: Line-up I think I love Japaneese cartoons. I’ve been watching “Sailor Moon” and “Dragonball Z” for a while, but I’ve recently been caught up with “Reboot,” “Gundam Wing,” and “Tenchi in Tokyo.” Slashdot has been running stories and discussions of this, but I’ve largley ignored this genre of animation for years. I’m sorry now that I did. Anime has been around since “Speedracer” in the early 60’s.

    b). I just listened to an 8 minute live version of Traffic’s “Low Spark of High Heeled-Boys.” Thanks to Napster, I also have a live version of Stevie Ray Vaughan doing “Voodoo Child” live on Austin City Limits. Thanks Rich for turning me on to napster almost 18 months ago. Right or wrong, mp3’s have improved the general quality of life for just about everyone who uses them. Go ahead and charge me, I don’t mind…

  • “Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate,

    “Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

    The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average. “
    – Average for what? Dogs? Give me a freakin’ break, no wonder these guys pull out the billy clubs and beat anything that moves around them… That’s what we need to solve police problems, dumber cops!

  • To serve and protect. Too

    To serve and protect. Too Smart? Can’t be a cop I think this one comes under the heading “Things that make you go hmmmmm”

  • Dean: Let me know if

    Dean: Let me know if you want to try the SETI thing again. I’ll give it a shot.

  • eSafe Desktop looks interesting if

    eSafe Desktop looks interesting if you’d like to protect your highly sensitive quicken data from the big scary internet. Evidently you can lock files, programs, and god knows what away from prying eyes. This should be of great concern to cable modem users with teenage neighbors. Especially ones with nothing better to do than chip away at your open ports and crack into them while you are chained to your desk at work. All because you left your computer on…

  • Tom, I was for quite

    Tom, I was for quite a while. I wasn’t working with teams at all, but I did have about 10 machines (including 3 pretty powerful servers) hacking away at SETI and distributed.net’s bovine project. I don’t remember why I stopped, but it was fun watching my number climb. Perhaps we should start a team and start crunching. I’d rather do SETI than the distributed.net encryption cracking effort.

  • ok, I’m in. I have

    ok, I’m in. I have fruity all set up so once I get a good tune I’ll send it your way so you can listen in.

  • Gary Fletcher’s PaintCam – Watch

    Gary Fletcher’s PaintCam – Watch Live as Paint Dries on the Internet! I’m not sure if this is safe for younger eyes. There’s no limit to what people are willing to publish on the internet now… but, imagine this? Live? Wow!

  • Dean, you mentioned SETI. Are

    Dean, you mentioned SETI. Are you presently crunching numbers for SETI at home? A real good friend of mine does that and seems to be really into it. I’ve been meaning to try it myself, but it is one more of those things I never seem to get around to. I’m busy enough trying to figure out PhotoShop.

  • Democracy and Stupidity (via metafilter)

    Democracy and Stupidity (via metafilter) from the Ethical Spectacle, written by Johathan Wallace is an excellent, although heady, article challenging G.W. Bush’s viability as a president. I’ve been saying, much less eloquently and without references, what this article says since his announcement as a candidate. He’s an underacheiving, ill-spoken, slacker… born of a good name. How can he possible hope to fill the shoes of Truman, Reagan, and FDR? Baby boomers suck… only about 25 more years of this to get through until we hold the power. More to come, to be sure…