Michael A. Burns

Listener's at The Sound LA acknowledge how great Led Zeppelin is by selecting 7 of their albums to be in the Top 100 Rock Albums of all time.

So, I thought I would write a quick little script to open a VPN connection and perform some routine maintenance on a remote system. I created an empty .vbs file, edit it, put in some simple commands and then double-click it to test it. Then, up comes a dialog that says, "There is no script engine for extension .vbs." What?

What I found was that an application I installed to test, Bluefish Editor, had changed a lot of file type associations including VBS files. Unfortunately, they apparently do not "clean up" the associations after uninstalling which I had done. (Most applications that I have run across do not restore associations when they are uninstalled. So, Bluefish is not alone in this.)

Anyway, to restore the VBS association with WScript, the main change I had to make was to change the value for "(Default)" in the Registry as follows:

• Run Regedit
• Select .vbs under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
• Change the value for (Default) to "VBSFile"

Once that change was in place, executing the VBS script worked as expected.

I have added a page containing some of the source code I have written over the years. I just have three little utilities up there for now, but I will continue to add to the archive as time allows.

My Source Code

Someone posted some links to videos of oldies last week on Facebook. While they were good, they were on the softer side of rock with some pop.

I grew up listening to all kinds of music, from classical to country to rock to new wave. However, I tend to like the slightly harder side of rock better than any thing else.

Led Zeppelin is my all time favorite band. As The Sound LA (100.3FM) puts it, "While others were making hits, Led Zeppelin was making albums!"

So, here is one of their classics for your enjoyment!


Led Zeppelin - Black Dog (Live Video)

And, here is a musical number from the Go Fish Guys...


Christmas With a Capital "C"

I stated here that I was using the Mollom module to help reduce the amount of anonymous comment spam that gets posted on this site. Unfortunately, it stopped working as I had hoped. Somehow, the setting for Mollom changed to text analysis from the captcha setting I had originally chosen. The text analysis mode was allowing several anonymous comments with spam through every day.

So, Mollom has been disabled!

I am now using the CAPTCHA module with the Image Captcha enabled. I have not had any anonymous comments with spam since.

I will keep you up-to-date if there are any changes ...

Why do we feel the need to deceive when trying to convince others that something is right?

The Kings played the Ottawa Senators last night (11/22/2010). Unfortunately, they lost!

The Kings scored a goal with 3 seconds left in the game. The referee waved it off immediately saying the stick was above the crossbar when it struck the puck. (For those not familiar with hockey rules, the stick must be lower than the crossbar of the goal when it strikes the puck and the puck ends up in the goal.) The video review said there was insufficient evidence to overturn the ruling on the ice.

Now, to the problem I have ...

Matt Murray posted the article "Game 20: Kings fall victim to some home cooking". The article uses a couple of photographs to suggest that the puck was "already past Leclaire" (the goalie) before the questionable stick to puck contact was made. However, looking at the pictures below carefully, it is plain to see that they are not from the same play.


First, if you watch the video replay (available here), you can see that Smyth is positioned to the left of the goal during the period in question as shown in the second picture. The first picture shows Smyth positioned in front of the goal.

Secondly, the pictures suggest that Smyth's stick was rising. However, once again, the video replay shows his stick moving downward.

Clearly, these pictures DO NOT prove that "the current system the NHL uses for replay is flawed" as the writer suggests.

I wanted it to be a goal, but clearly there was nothing definitive that would have allowed the replay official to overturn the call on the ice. If the call on the ice had allowed the goal, it would not have been overturned. Unfortunately, the call on the ice was no goal.

The system works.

Now, had they had better camera angles, who knows!