tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65920411750690489322012-01-25T14:48:23.607-08:00Please don't feed the Steve.SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-70974820132000352062009-08-30T20:51:00.000-07:002009-08-31T21:10:01.742-07:00

Second week working on my new place. My dad has been helping me quite a bit, so things are coming along pretty well. Last week we removed all the popcorn from the ceiling, demolished part of one wall, and widened the entrance to the closet in the bedroom.This week we spent fixing all the stuff we destroyed last week. This primarily consisted of putting up drywall, corners and "spackling"

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-13661361713677700242009-08-24T20:42:00.000-07:002009-08-30T20:51:53.199-07:00

I just purchased a one-bedroom condo in Bellevue, WA. Great location (near Microsoft), it's in great shape and was an excellent price :) But... there are a few things I'd like to change. So here I am working on my new place - first day after closing escrow.Figure 1: Me and my chainsawTearing down a wall is a very delicate operation. It requires a lot of forethought, skill, an engineering

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-59912210345613993282009-02-04T21:10:00.000-08:002009-02-04T21:36:13.718-08:00

Yet another awesome update to the PHP-based moon phase script, which was a translation of the Perl Astro::MoonPhase module. This module is designed to calculate the phase of the moon for a particular date or set of dates, and is very accurate - and also pretty awesome, did I mention that?Christopher Hopper was kind enough to work the code into a PHP class, with doxygen-style comments and

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-45920653225205780562008-12-18T19:47:00.000-08:002008-12-18T22:41:15.448-08:00

One of the things I've been wanting to build is a personal touch screen kiosk-like thing where I can quickly access information (weather, movie times, etc) as well as listen to music, make a phone call, view photos and various other things. I recently had the opportunity to play with a Eee Box PC at work, so I thought this was a great platform on which to build this kit. The Eee Box features a

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-10035421355704829292008-10-27T23:22:00.000-07:002009-02-04T21:39:56.453-08:00

A little while ago I posted the code to a PHP-based moon phase calculation program, which was a translation of the Perl Astro::MoonPhase module. This application can calculate the phase of the moon for a particular date or set of dates, and is much more accurate than other PHP-based moon phase calculation programs I've seen.Thanks to Alexander Cicovic, I noticed a silly error in the phasehunt()

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-78538229942174306162008-10-21T20:11:00.000-07:002008-10-21T20:49:15.775-07:00

The BuildI've recently re-discovered an old hobby of mine; model rocketry! On a whim, a buddy of mine (John Kew) purchased a couple model rockets from a local hobby store. I purchased a rocket called the Big Daddy, which is a rather large rocket that accepts D and E sized engines. John went with a multi-stage rocket that, although was probably more technically advanced, was not nearly as

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-58133454908489164672008-10-04T21:59:00.001-07:002008-10-05T19:24:11.700-07:00

The drill press makes pumpkin carving a bit easier.

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-56916550896180102322008-06-16T00:43:00.000-07:002008-06-16T21:30:34.435-07:00

The page is just a place I can link to that includes a few tidbits about myself. I'll probably update this page occasionally.Work StuffTaking it home with meOpen-Source Software Lab at Microsofthttp://port25.technet.com/Online ProfilesInvading my own privacy Linkedin Facebook Orkut Blogger MySpacePersonal ProjectsStuff that mattersParaDB -- Paranormal Reporting Database http://

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-22891048201390950242008-05-24T01:17:00.000-07:002008-05-24T01:35:46.256-07:00

Last week someone sent me word about a new service from Google called Google Health. I'm sure a lot of folks are rightfully a bit dubious about this service, but luckily their privacy policy is pretty clear about how they share your data (it appears they won't, basically). So hopefully they'll follow that policy and folks will find it to be a valuable service.One has to wonder, of course, what

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-86123213643596622492008-05-20T01:00:00.000-07:002008-05-20T00:11:02.688-07:00

This last April I had the opportunity to attend SambaXP in Göttingen Germany. This was my first time in Germany, and I have to say I like the place a lot. Unfortunately, I didn't have a whole lot of time to explore. I spent most of the time in Göttingen where the conference was. But that, too, was a nice place to visit. I just wish I spoke any German at all.I flew into Copenhagen, Denmark (

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-77887418241602210212008-05-19T23:30:00.000-07:002008-05-20T00:09:45.465-07:00

I find it's sometimes difficult to explain my job to my friends and family. For the past three years I've worked at the Open Source Software Lab (OSSL) at Microsoft. Most of my family members don't really know what open source is, and even fewer know why Microsoft has such a lab. I'm afraid it would take quite some time to explain all the details. But for those who are curious about where I

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-9638531411399140042008-05-06T21:17:00.000-07:002008-05-20T00:11:36.521-07:00

Many folks may not know that I'm a bit of a fan of space weather. I've spent a considerable amount of my nerdy free time digging through the archives at the Space Weather Prediction Center (formerly the Space Environment Center) website. The SWPC is a division of NOAA, and is responsible for collecting data and monitoring events related to space weather. This includes monitoring changes in the

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-41849724998757102552008-05-05T19:58:00.000-07:002009-09-23T12:43:32.585-07:00

While developing ParaDB, I wanted to be able to calculate the phase of the moon given an arbitrary date and time. The only PHP software I found for this was the moon-phase class available from phpclasses.org. In my tests, however, I found it to be a bit less accurate than an equivalent Perl module I had used in the past called Astro::MoonPhase. So, I went ahead and just translated the Perl

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-43561074518713358262007-09-24T23:00:00.000-07:002007-09-24T23:05:34.909-07:00

Somehow I knew when I woke up this morning that today was going to be a crappy day. Maybe it was some kind of psychic metaphysical thing. I spent all day answering email and running from meeting to meeting. And then I stayed at work late to finish something I supposedly should have had done on Friday. Oops. I would have had it done sooner if it were not for all the meetings!I never thought

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-89157268265729285542007-09-02T20:05:00.000-07:002007-09-17T17:48:15.185-07:00

Well, it's done. Today my divorce was finalized. obsid@sentry:~$ su - Password: root@sentry:~# userdel susan root@sentry:~# root@sentry:~# root@sentry:~# :-( -su: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'Reference: http://xkcd.com/215/

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-17400306721465947972007-09-01T20:42:00.000-07:002007-09-02T00:25:38.937-07:00

A few years ago I received a small fire safe as a gift, which I've used since then to keep important documents, photographs, etc. I typically access the safe so rarely I never bothered to memorize the combination, and instead kept it on a document hidden in a dresser drawer in the bedroom (yeah I know that's smart, whatever). Well, guess what, the combination went missing and I needed to get

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-67310763245563631852007-08-30T00:09:00.000-07:002007-08-30T19:15:48.088-07:00

For the past two years I've worked as a contractor at the Linux and Open-Source Software Lab at Microsoft. When I first arrived in September of 2005, I joined a unique and slightly dysfunctional crowd of Linux and Open-Source experts whom they affectionately called the "penguins". At the time I was working with a number of other contractors, and a couple program managers - one of whom was Daniel

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592041175069048932.post-6910156645323967972007-08-29T22:50:00.000-07:002007-08-29T23:41:10.692-07:00

Well, as you can all clearly see, I've finally joined the ranks of the bloggers. I'm not all that certain how this will work out, whether I'll maintain the blog or even write another post after this one. But, I'll give it a shot.Over the years I've occasionally tried hacking out a little home page for myself, but they all came down eventually. My home page for the last 8 years has actually

SteveZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05578103300880297963noreply@blogger.com0