Let me start off by saying that I didn’t ever plan to do a post on faulty products.  I did want to do a post on “products I like”.  We’ll get there.

But I’m very observant.  I don’t miss much.

And I just noticed that I went into my first floor bathroom, which days ago I had closed the heat vent off and shut the door to save energy since I rarely go in there, and it is just toasty warm in there!  I noticed lately that the heat is always off and the door closed to my son’s bedroom, but every time I go in there, it’s warm.

So that’s my first defective product to list.  The floor-mounted close-able heat vents that appear to close but do not impede the flow of heated air.

More to follow.

Over the years I’ve heard people use made-up words that I like (either because they’re funny or useful) so I decided to collect them here for everyone’s enjoyment.  I didn’t invent these myself except as noted.

Ruint : I wrote a post about this one!

Gravitoward : a shorter version of “gravitate toward”

Turtling : This is what kids do when you are in a hurry and trying to get out of the house but they won’t get moving.  (I invented this one).

See also, Words I like and hate

As you’ve probably noticed, I have a thing for language.  There are some words I like and words I hate, so I wanted to collect them here.

Words I like
interlineated
delimiter
reconcile
depleted
irrevocable
precarious
hungriness as used by Garbage

subtends (as in subtends an angle) z.B. a parsec or parallax second is the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends an angle of one arc second.

neologism.  I didn’t know there was a word for that.  I read this later and had to look up the definition again! (“A newly coined word or expression”).
barrel (verb, as in “Winter storm barrels into the midwest”).  I think this is so funny.  Steph called it a playfulish word.

There are also some words I hate.
temblor (synonym for earthquake).  I think I will nominate this to the LSSU List of Banished Words. (6/18/13 An earthquake by any other name… is still an earthquake.)
viral
most of the words on lssu list.
comptroller
pupil to mean student.
wean
vet (as verb)
noshing
materiel
couture.  This might be the most pretentious word in the English language.
tapped, with the direct object of a person, to mean seeking someone’s expert advice.
swag and swagger
dearth (wtf does this mean?)
gutwrenching
potable
comfy (thanks Sherry)
drops, in the sense of an album being released.  I think “rises” would be better, although both are just wrong.
colonel  (how does this get pronounced like ‘kernel’?)

I also dislike words that are exceptions to English language that you have to memorize and that lead to ambiguity, like
flammable/inflammable, valuable/invaluable.
Why can’t these be consistent, like… consistent/inconsistent or expensive/inexpensive?  WTF?

I thought I had started a list of links and software I like, but I can’t find it, so I will put it here.

Links

WordPress theme selector: http://wordpress.org/themes/tag-filter/

PHPBB style selector: https://www.phpbb.com/styles/demo/3.0/?from=submenu

Free Software

One of my favorites is a software program called PDF Redirect, which lets you print out PDFs from any application.  It installs as a printer, and when you print to it, you get a PDF.  For free!

Atomic Clock Sync (set PC clock to time server): http://download.cnet.com/Atomic-Clock-Sync/3000-18512_4-14844.html

Speedfan (CPU voltage and temperature monitoring utility): http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Putty (SSH and telnet client): http://www.putty.org/ and WinSCP (SFTP and FTP client for Windows).

Firefox extensions and add-ons: FireFTP, FireSSH (caution: doesn’t work well with emacs), Download Helper,  SQLite Manager, Google/Yandex search link fix.

RealVNC (remote access client): http://www.realvnc.com/

VLC Media Player (player for video and audio files): http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html and FFDshow codec pack: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/

To resize, crop, rotate, adjust image files: Faststone Photo Resizer (http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm)

For disk partitioning and data recovery, Mini Tool Partition Wizard (http://partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html) and Ubuntu Rescue Remix (http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/).

Music Tools

For ripping audio CDs to a lossless flac library, I recommend Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) and the scripting front end AutoFLAC (http://www.legroom.net/software/autoflac).  Once set up correctly to work together, you can go through a stack of CDs in a hurry.

Check your audio CDs for authenticity and discover which ones were created from MP3 files with True Audio’s Tau Analyzer.

For music file tag management for many file types, MP3Tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/) is indispensible.  I only rename my music files manually, but if you want to automate it, MP3 Tag&Rename is also useful.

For music file format conversions: Trader’s Little Helper (http://tlh.easytree.org/) is awesome.

I purchased AlbumPlayer (http://albumplayer.com/) jukebox software to play and manage my music library.  After trying out every program I can find, this is the best thing there is, and the support and license terms are excellent.  I’ve used this program almost every day for more than 5 years and it’s one of the best programs I’ve ever found.  It supports every audio and video format I tried, after installing BassAAC and BassALAC (http://www.un4seen.com/) (see also: AP forum topic).

Other computer resources

After dealing with an unbootable Windows 7 drive (a line of garbage displayed on the screen and then not booting), I discovered a Microsoft utility “bootrec“.
Executed “bootrec /fixmbr” and “bootrec /fixboot” from the command prompt, and this fixed the problem.  Startup Recovery did not detect any errors.

I woke up feeling somewhat better and thinking, like many people have, that schools should teach a bunch of essential skills that everyone should know.  Many of these things are normally taught by parents, which I presume is the ungiven reason for its absence in the curriculum.
However, I’d like to point out that not everyone has their parents, and even fewer people have good ones. And even the good ones can’t always know everything that belongs in this list.

I’ve been thinking for a long time how odd it is that in middle school, everyone was taught how to use a sewing machine, even though I only know one person who even owns a sewing machine.  40 years later, they’re still teaching this to my kids.

So, in this evolving post, I’m going to collect some things in one place that I think would be more valuable and better investment of time.

The first item that came to mind to commit to the list is  “When to go to the doctor.”

You should try to know where your food comes from, and how to shop for groceries, to look at expiration dates, to read labels, about cooking safety, to buy locally when you can.

How to mail things.  Most people waste so much money because they don’t know how to mail things.  Everyone should know what a letter, a large envelope, and a package is, and what options there are to mail packages (including the online-only options).  Learn how to use the post office website and the paypal Multi-order shipping tool to save money.

People do not evaluate risk well.  It’s important to try to do a better evaluation of risk based on actual facts. For example, just because you are personally in control of your car does not mean it’s safer to drive than to fly.

Don’t ever use your teeth as a tool like to strip wire.  You need them and they will crack later in your life if you do this.

Copyright law.  Everyone should have a basic understanding of copyright, and who owns what.  Unless you are paid to do it, or you relinquish your rights, when you create something, you own it.  I’ll elaborate on this later.

If you’re eating something that’s too hot, don’t inhale to cool it off.  Exhale only, or you could end up with the food stuck in your throat and choke to death.

Sometimes stores will sell things in a big package that costs more than two smaller ones.   Look for the latest expiration date on anything that you buy.

I think that sex education in schools should be augmented with dating and relationship ed.   For example, people who are inexperienced at relationships but who are rejected will typically internalize that there is something wrong with them.  Rejection is simply a fact with no message.

Learn how to protect yourself from spam and spoof emails.  Don’t click on links that say you “won” something.  They harvest your email address and then spam you forever.  Logan’s hotmail got compromised this way, and the next day he had 2000 spams and had to permanently set it to Exclusive mode.

Before cashing personal checks, call the issuing bank and ask them to confirm that the funds are in the account.  Otherwise you may end up paying a hefty bounced check fee — for a check you didn’t even write.  Ruint.