Hugh's Worthless Blog

The daily builds of the open source Chromium browser (upon which Google Chrome is based) has a PPA (Personal Package Archive) for anyone to use to try out Chromium on an Ubuntu Linux desktop. The instructions for installing it can be found here . I am running version 4.0.260.0 (Ubuntu build 33244) on a Hardy Heron (8.04.2) desktop and it seems to run very smoothly, especially using Google apps like GMail and Google docs. It does not seem to like my Flash plugin and keeps crashing on it, but that may be more of a benefit than a problem! I know the KSDK.com and StlToday.com sites are always overrun with extremely annoying Flash ads these days and I am happy for them not to run. I will run Flash apps on my Firefox browser on my laptop where I do my most mission critical Flash-based tasks like maintaining my Farmville and Farm Town farms on Facebook . I also just received a Google Wave account and some invites today and now I have to figure out how it is actually useful. It's ni...

Since I am never one to pass up a free deal, I recently received a mailing at work for a free 4GB USB flash drive or SDHC card from a place called " Micro Center " which just opened up in the Brentwood Promenade. I was then not too surprised to receive a similar (but not exactly the same) mailing from the same place at home. This sounded too good to be true, especially since it is located directly on my way home from the Brentwood Metrolink station to our house. So I thought I would stop by yesterday and use my first free coupon to check the place out. I was not sure how big it was going to be, if it was going to be smallish like the old "InkStop" places that just closed down, or more like a Radio Shack/Apple Store or what. I was surprised to see that it was over half the size of a Best Buy type "big box" store, and half the store seemed to be filled with accessories, cables and computer parts -- items of which Best Buy usually carries only a small selec...

Well, I found this gem and just had to share. One of our faculty members had one of her old UPS systems die so I was looking for a replacement for her at CDWG.com when I found a 1250VA APC Back-UPS NS for only $92 with free shipping for us (educational price, no tax). For "retail" purchasers it is actually less ($89.99) but you have to pay about $10 shipping! That is quite a deal for a 1250VA UPS with AVR, although I had never heard of the "NS" series before (although it looks and specs out very similarly to APC "RS" series LCD units we have.) But that is definitely a deal. And if you want to purchase 11 of these babies, it will only run you $879.99 ! That's only $79.99 each! In comparison perennial favorite NewEgg.com is selling the identical UPS for a more typical $199.99 . How can CDW be selling this unit so cheaply? I will not complain, and instead have just ordered another one for another lab in the department that just bought a new Dell Precis...

Some big news came out yesterday that should affect many people in the St. Louis area, especially in the mid-county area. The New highway I-64 is going to open up almost a month early on Dec 7, 2009. Being a Richmond Heights resident that lives very close to the highway and is affected quite a bit by the traffic flow in the area, I will be interested to see if the area roads do in fact get less congested. Just last weekend they opened up the infamous new "jug handle" intersection at Hanley and Eager/Dale which supposedly should ease congestion there. I have actually not driven over there yet to check it out, but that should make it easier now to exit left out of the Meridian Metrolink garage to go westbound to Eager again. I know that when they closed off the Eager to Hanley intersection and forced all the Eager to Dale traffic on the little road in front of the garage it was quite a pain to turn westbound there. Since I park there for work whenever the weather is too bad ...

First off, Steven Curtis Chapman just released his latest album, Beauty Will Rise , and finally all those critics who say all his albums sound the same will have to stop saying that. This is not a radio friendly Christian pop rock production with predictable drum beats and layers of electric guitars. Frankly, it is not an "easy" listen at all, without any "sing-a-long" type hit singles like "Dive", "Live Out Loud" or "The Great Adventure". Instead there are 12 primarily acoustic tracks, without much added post-production and with nothing that "rocks" much at all. This is a deep, introspective album where Chapman deals with his own feelings and faith, and he does not sugar coat anything with cute cliches or catchy guitar riffs. My favorite tracks on the album are the title track "Beauty Will Rise", "Faithful" and "Just Have to Wait". I found it interesting that the titles of two of the tracks ...