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Bits of Everything

Bids Too High for Bolton Town Park

The Post Star reported that plans to renovate Rogers Park Pier in Bolton Landing have been set back after bids came in too high and were rejected.

Public Employee Pay Blasted

WNBZ had a story about Unshackle Upstate’s charges that the state’s pay structure is not only outpacing the private sector, but also burdening local tax bases with the bill. Amen to that!

Rare Weapons Donated to Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ticonderoga has been given a collection of more than 100 antique firearms. Read about it here in the Press Republican.

Net Neutrality Rules a Boon to Consumers

What is this all about? Read the Wall Street Journal to learn more.

Michael Jackson Video Showing Penguin Dance Leaked

I had heard that Michael Jackson was going to debut a new dance expected to be as big as his moon walk. YouTube has a leaked clip of what it may have looked like.

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But Can It Swing a Golf Club?

This is a really cool video which shows the tremendous advances in robotic technology. This video demonstrates a high-speed robotic hand bouncing and throwing a ball while also doing other cool things. Watch it twirl a pen, knot a rope and catch a cell phone.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KxjVlaLBmk

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Tech Speak

I apologize for the interruption in service yesterday. CName records, A Name records, SQL backups and more caused some issues yesterday.

This unattributed quote came to mind:

“In a few minutes a computer can make a mistake so great that it would have taken many men many months to equal it.”

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Bits of Everything

Champlain’s Astrolabe Now on a Keychain

The Times of Ti had an interesting story about a new keychain made in celebration of Samuel de Champlain’s Quadricentennial year. The keychain is made like an astrolabe which Champlain used in discovering the lake which bears his name. It was a astronomical instrument which was used in locating and predicting the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars; determining local time given local latitude and vice-versa; surveying; and triangulation. With no GPS, what’s an explorer to do?

No East Lake George for You

The Post Star reports that there will be no new village of East Lake George this year.

Ticonderoga Ferry Gets New Owners

The Press Republican reports that the Ti Ferry has been sold. This is a great trip over to Vermont from Ticonderoga if you’ve never taken it.

Is the Huletts Current the Best Blog Out There?

There’s a new invention coming soon that will revolutionize the Internet. You know the answer to this question already but if you want to learn how the Internet is about to change, click here.

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Webcam Back Online

Jeff Klauder reports that his webcam, which he is sharing with us on our left sidebar, is back online. It seems like the camera and the router are both sensitive to power surges, so we can’t make any guarantees that it will not go out again. For the time being however, if you want to check the real time conditions of the lake, it’s running again. Thanks Jeff for sharing your view with us.

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Can You Hear Me Now? I’m in the Kitchen

Verizon has introduced one sweet device in it’s new Verizon hub. It will work with a Verizon wireless cell phone to eliminate the need for a landline. It can also send and receive text messages, and willl have limited browser capabilities (to read the Huletts Current) and to do things like sending driving directions to your phone. The idea here is that the hub can sync to your calendar, contacts, maps, traffic and weather reports via broadband. Subscribers have to live in an E911-capable area, and will be able to bring any phone number with them if they want to sign up for new service. You can get these for around $95 after rebate with a subscription fee of $35 per month — which comes with unlimited minutes and texts to and from the device.

If you’ve already gotten one, we’d be interested to learn your thoughts? It’s designed to compete with the iPhone so it may shake out one way or the other but I was in a Verizon store recently and they were selling like crazy.

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Camera is Broken But Don’t Be “Negative” :-)

We’ve been informed by Jeff Klauder that he’s been having some technical difficulties with his webcam but he hopes to have it up running soon. So if you’ve been clicking on the link on the left sidebar trying to see Nobles Island and a “real-time” view of Lake George, hang in there a few more days and don’t be “negative”. That’s a real bad pun. Camera. Negatives?

Anyhow, Jeff did send us a picture from last week as the ice was thawing. As soon as it goes back online, we’ll let you know.

Spring Thaw 2009

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The Conficker Worm – What You Can Do

If you watched 60 Minutes on CBS this evening, you may have seen this piece on the new conficker worm which is scheduled to do something on April 1st. Even the security companies don’t know what it may do on April 1st.

Conficker is spread by exploiting several weaknesses in Microsoft’s Windows operating system. (The program does not infect Macintosh or Linux-based computers.)

It is a very virulent security breach that can read keystrokes from your computer, even capturing your passwords and bank information. The most recent versions of the program have significantly changed to even remove commercial antivirus software and to turn off Microsoft’s security update service. It can also block communications with Web services provided by security companies to update their products. It will also open holes in firewalls in an effort to improve its communication with other infected computers.
It can be spread on social networking sites such as MySpace through a message from a “friend” or it might infect a computer if you download free music or games.

Here is a link to download a program to detect conficker on your computer.

Here is a link to remove conficker if it is on your computer.

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Technical Update


In an effort to bring you the Huletts Current anywhere, we have added functionality which detects when a user is on a mobile phone and adapts the web site content to the mobile phone capabilities. We have also optimized for the iPhone, so if you’re on the go, you can always see the Huletts Current on a screen which is now optimized for viewing in a mini-browser. If you’re a mobile user, we’re interested in your feedback.



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Technical Update


We received the following email and because it is so original it needs no introduction.

“I am a 7th grader at _______ school and would like to use your blog in a book report. I can’t find a way to print out posts.”

Well, this is one smart 7th grader because you couldn’t print out posts until we got this request. But now you can. You will need to click on the title of the post to bring it up in its own window and then you will see a “Print” button at the bottom which you can click on. That will allow the post to be printed.

This is the only proof we need that the Current has hit the “Big Leagues”. Watch out CNN & Fox!