Obama sanctions Russian officials

In return for invading Ukraine, Obama announced the US will sanction a few Russian officials.  Nine, or was it eleven of 'em. Of course he never names these officials, nor explains what they did, that puts them in the US shooting gallery, but Obama did get a lot of press coverage. 
   Obama has said nothing about increasing US natural gas exports,  bouncing Russian banks out of the world financial system, selling arms to Ukraine, offering Ukraine a trade deal as good as we give Canada, or anything else of substance. 

Beating up on GM, some more

The get-GM crowd is in full cry.  Defective ignition switches on a huge batch of GM cars.  The switches would occasionally fail and kill the engine.  This has been talked up as a lethal safty hazard with 12 deaths claimed over 10 years.  Wow!. 
   Now I am not a big fan of GM, they have done plenty of stupid things over the years.  But to call engine failure a lethal safety hazard?  Over the years I have experienced sudden engine failure on the road, maybe three times.  Last one, ten years ago,  was a Dodge Caravan that broke its timing belt on the way to Blind River Canada.  But you know, the engine just dies, and you pull the car over to the shoulder, and pop the hood, get out some tools, and try to fix it.  Twice before I got her going again, but the timing belt breakage was beyond my side-of-the-road repair abilities.  This sort of thing is a major pain in the tail, but I never considered it dangerous. 
   Oh well,  GM bashers have to get their kicks somewhere.

Scott Brown jumps into the race

You gotta love this guy.  He is electable with a capital E.  Any Republican who can win Ted Kennedy's seat in deep blue Massachusetts, has a way with voters.  Although he is a carpetbagger from Taxachusetts, he looks pretty good going up against Jean Shaheen for NH senate.  Coming from Massachusetts he is probably more liberal than hard shell conservatives in NH might like, but he is electable.  We could win with this guy. 

They still haven't found missing airliner

It's still missing.  We don't know anything that we didn't know a week ago.  But the TV coverage is non stop, every hour on the hour, and lots a time in between.  They don't have anything to say, but they are getting airtime.  They are even retelling old Bermuda triangle stories.  Pack journalism at its most packy.

They still do gun shows in NH

So my brother and I drove down to Concord to see what was what.  They drew a pretty good crowd.  Parking lot was full of pickups and SUV's.  Virtually no econoboxes.  The crowd was older, my generation, few young guys.  They had dealers dealing in rifles and handguns and shotguns.  Lot of ammunition for sale and being bought.  Lots of holsters and fancy knives, some WWII surplus stuff, including jerricans.  Did not find anything to buy, the few rifles I might have liked were way out of my price range.  

Getting an IP address. With or Without DNS

The entire world now talks to itself using Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, usually abbreviated to TCP/IP.  Back in the distant past other protocols were used, NETBUEI, DECNET, and such.  They are all dead now, and TCP/IP rules.  Protocol is a set of rules for doing business.  For instance protocol for using the plain old telephone goes like this.  Lift handset. Dial 1 plus the area code for long distance,  otherwise dial just seven digits.  TCP/IP, since it is used by computers is more complex, but it deals with the same issues. 

    Part of TCP/IP is the IP address, a long string of digits that works like a telephone number.  Each computer has to have an IP address, and all the IP addresses must be unique.  Two computers may NOT have the same IP address, for obvious reasons.  In the old days, you typed the IP address into your computer.  The network administrator for your site gave out IP addresses, kept track of the ones in use, and reissued IP addresses used by old computers that were taken out of service.  As you can imagine, the Network Administrator’s job got harder and harder to do in outfits that might have thousands of desktop PC’s on the Internet.

   So they invented an automatic program running on the server, to take care of it.  Each time a desktop powers up, it asks the TCP/IP server to give it a new IP address, which it keeps until it powers down.  This server program is called Domain Name Server (DNS) or Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP). Since Windows XP goes back to the bad old days of typing in IP addresses by hand, it still supports that, as well as DNS/DHCP.  You, proud computer operator get the choice of which, or both, to use.

  Normally all this complexity just works, and your computer goes on line every time you power it up.  But sometimes, for obscure and undocumented reasons,  DNS fails, your computer does not get an IP address, and you get a little message down on the task bar about “limited or no connectivity” and “IP address” .

  What to do? 

Windows Repair

Built into Windows is a repair program.  It will reset the hardware by powering it down and then up again, and then go thru the “ask-the-server-for-an-IP-address” song and dance again.  This works a good deal of the time, (but not always).  To start repair, left click on the channel’s icon down on the task bar.  This will open up a “status” window that will tell you what’s broke and offer more information tab.  Click and you will find another tab labeled “Repair”.  Click on it and hope.  It may take a while, it gives the server plenty of time to get its act together and issue an IP address.  If it doesn’t work, you will have to wait about a minute to get the bad news.  If it does work, you are home free, at least for today.

IPCONFIG

 This is essentially a manual way of doing what Repair does, with some benefits of extra information.  IPCONFIG is a DOS program, you launch it  from the DOS window.  Get the DOS window open from the Windows Run option on the Start menu.  Microsoft renamed DOS to CMD, for the Run option.  That helped everyone, a lot.  Thanks MS. 

   Like all DOS programs, IPCONFIG works off switches on its command line.  Switch /ALL makes it list out all the I/O channels (Ethernet, Wireless, etc) on your machine.  It gives the IP address (if it has one),  serial numbers, and other stuff.  Switch /RELEASE hangs up your internet connection, turns in your IP address, and takes you off line.  Switch /RENEW  does the “ask-the-server-for-an-IP-address” song and dance.  I don’t know what IPCONFIG does with no command line switches, so I don’t run it that way.  Doing IPCONFIG /RELEASE  followed by IPCONFIG /RENEW is equivalent to doing the Windows Repair. 

Alternate Configuration

 And, sometimes the server is feeling cranky and just won’t issue an IP address no matter what.  My “server” is a little 4 port Belkin wireless router, it works fine on Trusty Desktop, but just won’t issue an IP address to AntiqueLaptop. 

    You can configure the channel ask for an IP address, but if that doesn’t work, just use an IP address that you assign.  And this works on the Belkin router, why I don’t know.  To set this up, left click on the taskbar icon of your channel.  Get the status window.  Click on “Properties”  lower left.  This will display a list of all the drivers, protocols, and other bits of software that make the channel work.  Scroll thru the list and find “TCP/IP”  Click on the properties button that comes up with the selection of TCP/IP.  This accesses the properties of the TCP/IP software.   On the “General” page of TCP/IP properties, you want to check  “Obtain an IP address automatically” and “Obtain a DNS Server address automatically”. That will make your computer attempt to do the DNS song and dance.  If that dance should fail, it goes to Plan B, “Alternate Configuration”.  Check “User Configured”.  The other choice “Automatic Private IP address” is undocumented, but I believe it only works in XP Professional, which few of us have.  Below the “User Configured” are boxes for IP address, sub net mask,  Default Gateway, and Preferred DNS server.  Fill them in.

   What to Use?  For my Belkin router 192.168.2.4 works for IP Address.  Trusty Desktop, who gets his IP address from DNS (the router) is 192.168.2.2.  And he is the only other computer in the house, so I figured the .4 IP address ought to work and not conflict.  If you have a different router, different IP addresses might work.  You gotta do some snooping around.  Sub net mask is 255,255,255,0.  Both Default Gateway AND  Preferred DNS Server is 192.168.2.1, again I got that from Trusty Desktop.     

And, Lo and Behold, Antique Laptop is now back on the net. 

Congress is OK on bailing out Ukraine.

At least that's what NHPR is reporting.  A Ukraine subsidy bill, offering $1 billion in aid has passed the House and a Senate committee.   The NHPR guys then went on at length about a controversy.  The Senate committee attached a rider containing "reform" of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)  NHPR reported that Democrats liked the IMF reforms and Republicans did not.  And the House bill lacks the IMF reforms and so a House Senate reconciliation and a revote on the final compromise might be necessary.  And that will be a big deal.  And NHPR does not approve.
   Of course, NHPR didn't bother to say just what these IMF "reforms" might be.   IMF has been in business of bailing out broke countries since the end of WWII.  They seem to do a fairly decent job over all those years. 
   I wonder what "reforms" might be necessary?  I can think of a lot of "reforms" that I would not approve of and few that I would approve.  The "reforms" that spring immediately to mind would attach more conditions to bail outs.  While we have 'em on their knees, let's make 'em do our will.  You gotta do multi cultural things, green things, put in a minimum wage, protect US intellectual property, meet US environmental standards, yadda, yadda, or else, no bailout.   Do things our way, or starve. 
   One other thing the NHPR boys didn't bother to report.  The I in IMF stands for International.  How does the US Congress get to change the rules of an international organization?  We all know that the US calls most of the shots at the IMF 'cause we still have more money than anyone else, but still, out of pure politeness, we ought not to be rewriting the rules in our national Congress.