Navy Seals - Winning.

After I heard that Navy Seals were involved in the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, I kept thinking about the movie. It is not a great movie, but definitely fits in my guilty pleasure category. I actually own it - I think I got a two disc set with Red Dawn for about $5 at Wally World. Winning squared.

KG-UV Commander Yahoo Group

Looks like a Yahoo Group for the KG-UV Commander has been started.

Bruce Schneier @ TEDX

I post stuff from Bruce occasionally as many of you might have noticed. For those of you who aren't familiar with him and his philosophy, this TED Talk is a good overview. He covers a lot of his basic views - security theater, security the feeling, security the reality, what a disconnect means between the two, trade-offs, how bad we are at evaluating security, our biases, etc.

Currently Reading

The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer

KG-UV Commander

Ed announced on the KG-UVD1 Yahoo group that Jim Mitchell, KC8UNJ, has released the KG-UV Commander software for programming the Wouxun handhelds.



David added some background about how it came to be:

"I was aware that Jim had developed programming software for certain Yaesu and Icom radios, so I contacted Jim last August, asking whether he would be possibly be interested in porting his software to the Wouxun radios. I told Jim that I had already prepared memory maps for the "tw" files and for the internal memory space of the radios (which I was making available to all who are interested). I was so pleased when Jim responded and said that he would be interested in porting his software.

I then discussed this project with Ed Griffin, proprietor of wouxun.us, and Ed very generously contributed radios for Jim to use in developing the software.

For the last eight months Jim has been working on this project, and a small group of beta testers have been playing with interim versions of the software and providing feedback to Jim. On April 30 Jim released a version which he is making available to the public.

The KG-UV Commander software is a very impressive package. I believe that it empowers the user to program literally every programmable feature of the Wouxun radios (including modifying band limits, which until now has required the separate unlock program). The Commander software reads and writes TW files, and also reads and writes CSV files (which are easy for Excel programmers and others to read and write for any future special programming applicatoins). And the program even reads ARRL TravelPlus frequency files! Furthermore, the program has a great user interface, and includes the normal spreadsheet editing features such as Add, Edit, Move, Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, and Sort."

I must say the software is a huge leap forward. I needed to add some frequencies to mine, so this was the perfect opportunity to try it out. I had an Excel spreadsheet with some data I wanted to copy over. It wouldn't let me do multiple rows at once - in fact, it was like the app wasn't taking the latest information from the Windows clipboard. I ended up adding the entires manually, but with the auto-offset feature enabled, it just took a minute to do it.

The sort works great - you can sort all the entries or just select a few rows. I used that feature to keep my favorites at the top of the list and independent of all the others that I just wanted sorted by frequency.

There is also a function to search for duplicates. The search is really slick. You can tell it to ignore duplicate frequencies if one entry has a tone configured while the other does not.

The software really levels the playing field with the big boys. It reminds me of the software I have for my VX-3R.

Jim did a great job and this is just another example of how Ed continues to support the community and why he will get my business/endorsement.

Vol Football Players Attacked by Police Dogs

Dooley continues to promote culture change by getting his players together with the police for a KPD training day. You can read the full story here.

Thumb Lock

For those that are concerned that the Serpa holsters may contribute to negligent discharges, Galco puts the shoe on the other digit - the thumb actually.

Full video below or click here to jump to the demo.



Via Say Uncle

Zombie Proof - Storm Proof?

They claim the house is zombie proof. (It is worth the click to see the other images.) After the recent storms, I think I want one as it looks to be weather proof.

Fortunately, my house did not suffer any damage during the storm. My car wasn't so lucky. I had to go to Nashville for meeting. A couple of guys rode with me for the one day trip. We made it through heavy rain and wind on the way out in the morning. On the way back, it wasn't as bad - until we got off the interstate and on to Mourfield Road - a quick look and map below. Try the Street View for a better sense of the road if you aren't familiar with it.

View Larger Map

Mourfield has crazy curves, is steep, and is cave-like due to the surrounding trees. Driving it at night, in the rain, with heavy fog, and a blanket of green debris was challenging to say the least. I was going about five miles an hour and had to stop multiple times to figure out where the road was. It felt like something out of a Swamp Thing movie. And that wasn't the worst of it. Minutes later, the car took a beating from a hail storm. We made it to Dano's house, but he was stuck in the car during the hail. It was deafening when the hail hit the car. I am very surprised that the windshield didn't shatter.

After the hail passed, the remainder of the trip was fairly uneventful. (Although, we did have to turn around as a tree had fallen on Bluegrass between the time we dropped Dano off and began to back track.)

I'm really lucky it wasn't worse. God protects fools and children.

Native Google Docs for Android

I was excited to see that a native app for Google Docs was released for my Android phone. I use Google Docs for a few things and really like having access from any machine - I thought this would just add to the utility of the service. Unfortunately, it isn't as useful as I had hoped.

My anal retentive nature requires that I log every tank of gas that goes in my wife's car. I have a Google spreadsheet to track the fill-ups, mileage, MPG, etc. The app was a lot slower than I thought it would be. Also, it isn't very robust. I needed to add a row below my last entry, but above my formulas. The only option I saw was to add a row at the bottom.

I still have hope for it - assuming Google will develop it like they do Google Docs services.

Via Business Insider

Out of Pocket

I had a wedding to attend. Here is some video from the event.