Jefferson Proving Ground Photos

Full size Photos from Jefferson Proving Ground can be found at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jack.demaree/JPG

Tis the season

I have had a few (very few) requests for the link to the Holiday cards. Yes, I still have them online. There are links from the www.RipleyCounty.net page or the direct URLs are:
http://wb9otx.com/card/

http://ripleycounty.net/card/card.htm

Happy Holidays...................from jack

Rename Master (free)

Rename Master is a utility for renaming large groups of files with a few clicks. Anyone that has worked with websites, file archives, or collections of music, videos, or pictures has probably spent way too much time renaming hundreds of files. The program provides an easy to use interface that allows you to perform simple and advanced rename operations, very easily. You can even preview the to-be-renamed file names before you finalize it and apply any changes. Advanced renaming features include adding, removing from the original file name, replacing characters (name or extension) and support for several meta variables, that allow you to perform renaming based on the files size, date and several other criteria. Renaming operations can be saved as scripts, so they can easily be reused at a later time. Additional features include optional Explorer integration, uppercase/lowercase conversion, file filters and more. A powerful, yet easy to use renaming utility!
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/renamemaster.html

Crackling fireplace

There’s nothing like a crackling fire to warm you inside and out during the holiday season. And now… you can even have that “fire” on your desktop.

At iYule.tv, you can purchase 30-minutes of crackling fire and a beautiful original score by Geoff Smith formated for wide or standard screen portable players, your computer or Apple TV. This was filmed in high definition, and can come with or without music.

This is a collaborative effort between Geoff, Paul Cullgian, and Cali and Neal. The cost for the Yule Log is anywhere from $5.00 to $10.00, depending on what you need. Why should you pay for this? Well, a portion of the proceeds is going to charity. ‘Tis the Season for giving, after all. In Cali’s own words:

This is something we?ve worked on nights and weekends for almost a month and we hope it?s something that will warm your heart and bring smiles to the faces of friends you share it with.

If you?re giving someone an iPod that plays video this year, load it up with the iYule Log.

If you?re taking that special someone in your life out for a nice holiday dinner, load iYule Log on your iPod and put it on the table for a touch of whimsical romance.

Proceeds will be split by the producers and a percentage will go to three of our favorite charities. Geoff chose the Songs of Love Foundation, a charity that provides personalized songs for chronically and terminally ill children and young adults. Paul has chosen LitLiberation, the largest online literacy experiment in history. Neal and I have chosen Heifer International, a non-profit that helps families in poverty by giving them valuable live animals to provide eggs, milk and farming help.

The video we've produced is a cozy multi-sensory experience that pulls me into the romantic essence of a fireplace, every time I turn it on to watch.
Get it here:
http://www.premiumcast.com/index.php?&req=vp&id=11752
Warning !!! you will need a broadband connection to download (1 Gig file size)
If you need a MP4 player get a free one at:
http://www.videolan.org/

Flo Pegee - A legend of Versailles Ind.

I was ask about Flo Pegee and if I had any photos of her home. So I have up loaded all the pictures I have to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jack.demaree/FloPegee

Below text copied from: "Tales of Versailles" by Alan Smith Sr.

Flo Pegee or Florence Skeen was a legend in Versailles. Views differed, so it is left up to the reader how she should be judged. Flo was called a "witch" by some children because of the style in which she dressed when she was of older age. She was convicted as an abortionist in her late years, but she always claimed that she was a friend to those in need. Her father was Calvin Skeen, who ran the Hassmer House, (now the Yellow Dog) and was a prominent man in Versailles. Flo's brother shot himself at the Hassmer House when he was 20 years old. For many years Flo operated a saloon in a small green house on lot #72 on the southwest corner of Main Cross (now Tyson St.) and Washington Streets. While she ran this saloon Flo had a pet parrot named Polly. Polly was very popular with the town children and customers. Polly was trained to say some appropriate and not so appropriate phrases, but was enjoyed by most customers. Flo was a talented seamstress and made hats and clothes for many of her friends. Upon her death, she specified that she not be buried below ground. According to her wishes, she was buried in an above ground stone tomb in Cliff Hill Cemetery.

DVD Videos

Q.
I can see that you are into making videos by looking at your YouTube page. Can you give me (us) some pointers on the task? Thanks, Bill H.
A.
I am ask this question very often and I always answer it the same way,"buy a DVD set-top recorder". A good place to get one is Wal-Mart. They always have a large selection to choose from. Just plug your CamCorder or AVI camera into the DVD recorder and push the record button.

Now if you are a geek and want to experiment get a capture video card for your computer. The ATI "All In One Wonder" is the one I use but there are many to choose from. The easiest and also included with Windows is Windows Movie Maker, Very simple to use but limited in features. Here is a nice basic free editor:
http://dvdstyler.de/
You can pay hundreds of dollars for high end editors if you care to, but the beginner should start out simple till you get the hang of editing your movie. You can always upgrade if you find you want to go high class.
If you want to make a nice presentation with still photos try:
http://animoto.com/
or you can do it with Microsoft Power Point if you have it.
You can also up-load your photos to:
http://picasaweb.google.com
for a slide show that your friends can view online.

With any form of video just be prepared to spend a lot of your time. My first edit and with a menu took about eight hours to get uploaded and finished. As I said at the beginning "just buy a set top DVD recorder".

Thanks Bill, hope this helps with your movies...........jack

The perfect shot

I was sound asleep in my chair in my living room when I awoke to a load buzz. It was my motion alarm set to sound when movement was detected near the house. I was now wide awake and gathering my thoughts. I looked at the clock to find it was four AM. I grabbed my pistol, flipped the TV remote to view the security cameras that scan the property. There he was sneaking down the driveway, was it the mad coax cutter or the jerk that sugars gas tanks? no it was a very large coyote just checking out the yard. I opened the door, clapped my hands and gave out a loud yell, "Get out of here"! His very large glassy eyes looked direct at me for a few seconds then he just pranced off to the high way, crossed into the neighbor's yard and out of sight. Not a big deal this time, but if it had been the Stone Queen or other jerk I would have had a perfect shot. To end this short story, I backed up the DVR recording to DVD so I could show my wife when the morning came and went off to bed. The moral of this story, "Don't mess around my house if you have bad intentions".

PrimoPDF

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Get it here: http://www.primopdf.com/

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a traditional North American holiday to give thanks to God at the conclusion of the harvest season. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada.

Read more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

Internet security

Q.
What Internet security suite do you use ?
A.
Preferring stand-alone programs that tend to do one job well and take up fewer resources than the big cludgy suites like McAfee, Norton and ZoneAlarm. (Forget AOL! It should be declared an Internet traffic hazard.)

NOD-32 anti-virus I feel is one of the best and NOD32 is a steal at $29.95 a year for a two-year subscription.
http://www.eset.com/products/nod32.php

Next is AVG free if you are on a budget.
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/

If you are still running XP, PC Tools offers a very nice free Firewall.
http://www.pctools.com/firewall/?ref=google_free&gclid=CNG3jJG3648CFQg1WAodREgpMg

lavasoft is free for the taking and offers a good protection from spy-ware and malware.
http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php
There is also a pay version, but think not worth the cost.

Although I have not used it, nod32 comes highly recommended and yes it is a security suite (all in one) The cost is about $60 per year. Free 90 day trial at:
http://www.betterantivirus.com/nod32-90-day-trial-offer/

A firewall is kind of a pain in the rear for a novice to use, but if you do not use a router connected to your modem you may want to use one for added protection.

Thank you for your question......... Jack

A nice Christmas gift

A nice Christmas gift for your wife would be "The Master's Message" a book of short stories written by my Wife Betty. Here is what she tells about herself:
I was born in the state of Maine, but my parents brought me to Indiana when I was very small. I have lived in Southeastern Indiana most all my life. My husband is a Vietnam veteran. I married young and I am still married to the same man. I have two children and two grandchildren. The writing bug bit me many years ago and for almost three years I wrote and distributed a newsletter, which consisted of biblical teaching, inspirational segments and short stories. I have spent endless hours sitting in front of the computer applying the story telling to the screen in front of me and then sending it on to numerous people hungry for an opportunity to escape, if only for a short time, into a world of imagination. The teaching area of my letters and the inspirations were a means of getting God's message out to those who cared to listen. Hence, the title of my book. "The Master's Message." We have all been told from time to time that we are incapable of accomplishing our dreams. Why is it that we buy into all that negativity? I am an ordinary human being, with an ordinary background, in an ordinary life and I have proven that anything is possible if you just step out and have faith. We all have God given gifts and talents and if it is our desire then it is God's desire also, providing it is used to be a blessing to someone. I hope that this book blesses you. The one who is reading this now is hopefully one of many, but nevertheless, if only one is touched, then my job is done.

An article that appeared in our local newspaper:

http://www.ripleynews.com/2006/06_10_19_Author.html

Here is a sample from the publisher "Author House"

http://ripleycounty.net/sample_book.txt

Betty Demaree's Web Page:
http://www.betty.wb9otx.com/

If you would like a copy of "The Master's Message" in time for Christmas please email Betty at:
bdemaree@comcast.net
Your book will be shipped Priority Mail. You may pay with PayPal or Money order. She will reply with the details for your order.

How do you find this stuff ?

How do you find this stuff ?
My answer is always the same, "I search for it".
Try Google's Advanced Search at:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
or
Here are some tips to try.
By default the search engine tries to locate pages which have exact matches for all of the words entered in your search query. If that fails, it then tries to locate pages which contain any words in your search query.

In addition, there are several ways to modify the default search behavior.

1. phrase search
The search engine supports three types of phrase search.
* To match an exact phrase, use quotes around the phrase
Example: "free search engine"
* To match a near (within a couple of words) phrase, use square brackets [around the words]
Example: [free search engine]
* To match a far (within several words) phrase, use braces { around the words }
Example: {free search engine}
2. + and - qualifiers
If you prepend a word with + that word is required to be on the page.
If you prepend a word with - that word is required to not be on the page.
Example: +always -never
3. * wildcard
If a query word ends with a * all words on a page which start the same way as that query word will match.
Example: gift*
4. ? wildcard
If a query word contains a ? any character will match that position.
Example: b?g
5. boolean search
You can use the following boolean operators in your search: AND, OR, NOT. These operators MUST be in capital letters.
Example: (contact AND us) OR (about AND us)

All of these techniques can be combined: +alway* -ne??r*

Happy searching ...............Jack

KAGUYA (SELENE) press release

November 13, 2007 (JST)

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have successfully performed the world's first high-definition image taking of an Earth-rise* by the lunar explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE,) which was injected into a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km on October 18, 2007 (Japan Standard Time. Following times and dates are all JST.)

The Apollo project was the first mission to take images of Earth rising over the Moon. The KAGUYA successfully shot high-definition images of the Earth-rise showing an impressive image of the blue Earth which was the only floating object in pitch-dark space. These are the world's first high-definition earth images taken from about 380,000 km away from the earth in space.

The image taking was performed by the KAGUYA's onboard high definition television (HDTV) for space use developed by NHK. The moving image data acquired by the KAGUYA was received at the JAXA Usuda Deep Space Center, and processed by NHK.

The satellite was confirmed to be in good health through telemetry data received at the Usuda station.

* Note: we use the expression "Earth-rise" in this press release, but the Earth-rise is a phenomenon seen only from satellites that travel around the Moon, such as the KAGUYA and the Apollo space ship. The Earth-rise cannot be observed by a person who is on the Moon as they can always see the Earth at the same position.

Read & see more at:

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071113_kaguya_e.html

Windows' Notepad Replacement

NoteTab Light improves on Windows' Notepad in so many ways; it's tough to count them. Start with the basics: You can open multiple files, not just one as you're forced to do in Notepad. Each file runs in its own tab so switching between them is easy. The program comes with all kinds of nifty built-in utilities too, such as a feature that strips HTML out of a document, a Paste Board that saves text clips automatically, macros and plenty of oddball free tools such as a mortgage-rate calculator. Get it here for free:

http://www.notetab.com/ntl.php

I wish people would use a simple program like this to strip out the garbage ">>>>>" like that, from the forward emails. Copy and paste them into this program and strip out the garbage, then paste it back into a new email you want to send to 35 people in the next 10 minutes so your phone will ring at 7 pm with good news......... jack

Another Weather Map

(Google Earth), Weather.com has been using it for about 4 months that I know of. Double click on the interactive and then it works just like Google Earth (It is GE actually) without running the program. Then click on the tab for “Weather Layers”. You can check radar or clouds or both. You can get pretty close to the exact area you live and see the clouds and radar if there is bad weather in the area. You can also adjust the transparency of the clouds. Its a pretty cool website.
http://www.weather.com/weather/map/interactive/

WLW RADIO

If you know me well you know I love radio and it is a big part of my life. I am 62 and I have been fasinated sense I was about 6 years old. When 6 I had an all American five in a wood cabinet. It set on a small table next to my bed and played all night with a small speaker that I had wired in. The external speaker was placed under the pillow so only I could hear it. WOWO, WLW, KDKA, WSM, and many others put me to sleep every night. Its to bad that you younger than I missed this world of radio and only watched TV. I still listen to AM radio but it is nothing like it was then. If you would like to step back into time here is a few links I have found telling of "The Big One" WLW Radio from Cincinnati, Ohio.
http://www.ominous-valve.com/wlw.html
http://hawkins.pair.com/wlw.shtml

Veterans Day - November 11th

Veterans Day is an American holiday honoring military veterans. Both a federal holiday and a state holiday in all states, it is celebrated on the same day as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day in other parts of the world, falling on November 11, the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I. (Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.)

Veterans Day is largely intended to thank living veterans for their service, to acknowledge that their contributions to United States national security are appreciated, and to underscore the fact that all those who served - not only those who died - have sacrificed and done their duty.

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Day

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I always thought I spoke with the accent of a true Midwesterner being from Indiana. Find out your Linguistic Profile at this fun page.

***My Linguistic Profile:***

60% General American English

20% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Yankee

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofamericanenglishdoyouspeakquiz/

Indiana Fall Colors

As promised I took a few photos of the Fall tree colors from Cliff Hill Cemetery overlooking the Versailles Lake.
Here is one of the entrance arch to Cliff Hill with some colorful trees in the background .
The rest of the photos are at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jack.demaree/FallColors2007
As always, all of my public photos can be seen at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jack.demaree
The trees are not as colorful this year due to the very dry season we had. I hope you like them.

Free Full Books

Thousands of free books you can read.
Just a few clicks away.

http://www.fullbooks.com/

Paul Tibbets, dies at 92

Paul Tibbets pilot who bombed Hiroshima

To the end of his days, Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. believed that dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima was a justifiable means of shortening World War II and preserving the lives of hundreds of thousands of American servicemen who military experts said might have died in a final Allied invasion of Japan.

Read the complete article: Click Here


Tibbets was one of my heroes.
Jack

A Very Sad Day

Today is a very sad day here at the Demaree household. Our little black dog named Baxter has passed away. He was born in the state of Illinois 11 years ago. He was brought to Indiana by my daughter Sandy. He lived with her for a few months them came to our home and has brought 10 years of joy to Betty and I. He was Betty's dog from the start but when she was away he made up with me. He did not like thunder and would climb on my lap when storms came, he would beg setting up at my feet when I had my lunch and always gave him a few crums. He was my red dog K.C.'s sidekick. I'm sure K.C. will miss him as much or more than we. I have had dogs all of my life and each time I loose one I have to cry as they are part of our family. Baxter will be missed greatly.

Under $200 PC

Everex delivers $198 Google-friendly PC by ZDNet's Dan Farber -- Everex has teamed up with open source players to create a $198 PC (sans display). The Everex Green gPC TC2502 runs a Linux OS and is loaded with (or has links to) free applications, including Gmail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Google Product Search, Google Blogger, Google YouTube, Google Maps, Google News, Meebo [...]
I did a WalMart store search for this computer and found it not in stock within 100 miles of Madison or Greensburg. However, you may purchase it online and have it shipped to the closest WalMart store for no shipping charge. Just be aware this computer has an OS of Linux. This means Windows programs will not run on this computer. I think this computer would be great for someone just wanting to use email and Web surfing. The printer that you use with this computer would have to have a Linux driver. Also I think you must have a broadband ISP (cable or DSL) connection.(Caveat emptor)

Read more