Month: October 2005

Is your printer spying on you?

By AMH

I know I’ve read about this in the past, and yet I always forget: the EFF reports on color laser printers putting tracking info in your printouts. So, yes, if you print something on a color laser printer, it is possible there is an embedded code which would allow the printout to be tracked back to the printer that produced it. The EFF page has some nice information about finding and decodinig the yellow dots used for these markings, as well as a list of printers that do and do not print these tracking dots. They are continuing to update … Continue reading Is your printer spying on you?

Teaching Carnivals

By AMH

I’d never heard of the “Carnival” concept in weblogging before, but it is apparently an arrangement among a number of webloggers to post articles around a central theme during a month and then one weblogger maintains a list of all of these posts, organized into subthemes. I found out about it after seeing a link to Teaching Carnival II – a Carnival about secondary education teaching. It’s a very cool idea for pulling together posts on a particular topic, and I found the Teaching Carnivals (I also went back to check the previous one) really great – people are posting … Continue reading Teaching Carnivals

Office Supply Woes

By AMH

I don’t understand why it is impossible to find a pad of blank, unlined 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Not an art pad or anything – what I think is called a “glue top scratch pad”. I’ve been getting them at the campus bookstore, but they don’t sell them anymore, and it turns out nobody else does either. What is so difficult about what I am looking for? Yes, that website I linked sells them, but not cheaply and I shouldn’t have to go online to find such a thing. While searching around, though, I found the best Wikipedia entry … Continue reading Office Supply Woes

What I Need

By AMH

I’m feeling uninspired about posting, so I’ll jump on a meme seen over at AAYOR: asking Google what I need. Google’s top ten suggestions: Amanda needs gnutar? Amanda needs to be rebuilt. Amanda needs to be loved. Amanda needs a mom in her corner with lots of time and attention to give her. Amanda needs a small config change. Amanda needs X11? Amanda needs her local food bank to put food on the table for herself and her daughter. Amanda needs to know: Why? Amanda needs new ones, STAT! Amanda needs to be recompiled on landon. I think Google is … Continue reading What I Need