Cure for Cancer is AIDS: Allow me to bring to your attention this article in Wired News: Altered HIV Attacks Mice Tumors - It seems scientists have genetically altered the deadly AIDS-causing HIV to attack metastisized melanoma cells in mice. This is some innovative stuff! Using the mechanisms of one deadly disease to attack another is an awesome prospect. I'm glad that the scientists who are working on this stuff are so innovative. Using one enemy to destroy another is something we're used to seeing in the political arena, but applying it to biology. Genetic research is really paying off!

My first ASP.NET Application: Well, GoDaddy offers SQL and ASP.NET, so I started playing with it last night - my first ASP.NET application is up here and will evolve as I do. Right now it connects to a database, offers a pull down box, and changes the image based on which one you choose. I haven't thought of what I want to do with this, but suggestions are welcome, just email me.
The only problem with developing the ASP.NET app is that I can't access the SQL server from outside of where the server is located, so I can't use the visual development tool in Visual Studio .NET to define the Connection object. For some reason, it won't let you set up a Connection object with the designer unless it can validate the connection. VStudio needs to be smarter and allow you to use the Connection designer with data that it can't verify. Tsk, oh well. I just hand-coded the connection object and it's working fine.

For all you Chess-heads out there - Mike's List brought up a link to a visual chess game on the web. It shows lines of influence as force waves on the board, and also graphically represents its own thinking as it evaluates moves. It's a neat project, and artistically pleasing. You should go check it out for yourself.... Since it's a Java Applet, its strength will likely be different depending on what computer you play on, but it was wise enough to grab a piece from me in about 15 moves even on this old clunker I'm using (1.5Ghz PIII) so the algorithms are reasonably smart. Of course, I'm no deep thinker, and am not well versed in many opening lines...so I'm probably easy pickings.

Well, looks like my transition is complete. I'll be making changes to some of the pages in the site, but not much will change on the main (blog) page. I may try my hand at some ASP.NET now that I have access to this, and that may change my slideshow page, and my Chess Games page. It may make for more notes pages, as well, with topics and comments stored in a database and with easy access for me to add stuff that I learn (like 802.11n should be added to my wireless notes page [see left] but I haven't had the motivation.)
Some work remains on getting Tripod pages out of Google and these pages into Google. I don't own the rgautier.tripod.com sub-domain [duh!] so I can't post a 301 permanent redirect on it, and of course Tripod won't be doing that anytime soon. Hopefully Google re-walks my site under the new domain name. I added links on all the old pages to here (thank god for templated pages, eh?), so Google might pick up on the recurring link and go ahead and walk me...one can only hope.

Watch this space: I am moving off of Tripod within the next 2 months. While they've been stable over the years, their support of certain functionality (such as .htaccess support and server side scripting) is overly limited. I have found a better deal at another web hosting company and will be redirecting traffic to http://www.richgautier.com once I have transitioned my code to their servers. The web host I have chosen is http://www.godaddy.com - a <$8/month deal with 2GB of storage space, ASP.NET support, SQL Server and 10GB of data transfer a month. Considering what Tripod charges, this is a hell of a deal. So, be on the lookout for the change soon.

PGN Errors and the state of Chess Software: I play Chess at Pogo.com and at the Free Internet Chess Server. Both of these services will email your chess games to you, in PGN format, so that you can create yourself a nice chess history. I then use Crafty to analyze my games, and try to learn from my mistakes (not necessarily successfully). Well, on my web page, I had added the Crafty analysis output of these games, but it was taking up too much space. So, I have moved to a Java applet that allows for commented PGN files to be posted. I got this applet, and its source code at www.mychess.com.
At first, the applet didn't understand the PGN output from Crafty because Crafty inserted comments before move 1, and the applet kept trying to add the comments to a non-existent move in the game. Then, it turns out that Crafty was having problems with the PGN files from Pogo - pawn promotions were annotated in the PGN, but without the necessary = sign in the string (e.g. c1Q, instead of the proper c1=Q). Crafty couldn't understand what it meant, and would create phantom games for each of the moves following the promotion.
So, I manually did a search and replace to fix the PGN file I had, and also modified my VBScript that scours my email so that it would automatically fix these problems when it pulls out the games.
Well, FICS is where I play more recently, and its PGN output seemed to be cleaner than Pogo's. So I downloaded those, and began the analysis of those games. Well, pawn promotions were handled fine, but it seemed that some of the games were causing problems and I was getting more phantom games in the output from Crafty. I went back and manually checked the files, and it appears that in some instances, there is a bug in FICS' code with their line-wrapping code. When the line wrap breaks in the middle of a move (after the first ply), it repeats a previous move, and creates a file that has a 3-ply move in it (the 2 ply it should and the errant ghost move).
This is getting a little exasperating, since it prevents me from easily posting my more recent games on my site. Although, I have implemented the Java PGN viewer and an older set of games that I had from Pogo. (see links on left). I modified the PGN viewer to ignore the errant comments, and also to automatically flip the board to see it from my own perspective when playing the game.

I use Blender, and Blender uses Python - but only if it can find it. It took me a while to find out how to properly point Blender to the python installation directory on Windows XP, but I found the information on the web at this link. Just in case you're searching for help on this - now you've found it...by the way, you're welcome. (grin) The instructions were wrong about the environment variable, that was about the gist of it. You have to point PYTHONPATH, not PYTHON.

Well, the weekend is over. One of the things we did this weekend was go to the movies, to see Fat Albert. It seems that this movie is getting mixed reviews. Either you hated it or loved it. Personally, I thought it was a great rendition of the Fat Albert I remember. Some of the impressions of the cartoon characters were a bit more in tune with the politically correct views of the day (for example, it's not entirely obvious that Mushmouth is supposedly tripping over his own lips when trying to speak, but this was painfully obvious in the original cartoon). Keenan did a GREAT job as Fat Albert, and I think that he handled the role with supreme taste. The whole point of Fat Albert is a well-adjusted fat boy who doesn't let what other people say about him bother him. This came off well in his acting. I was very glad to see the Cosby family production values made it into the film. Two or three times they referred to the overuse of bad language, but did it in such a way as to not subject us to any f-bombs.
The end scene with Cosby and friends at Al Robertson's grave was wonderful, and it was a touching tribute. I hear that Ebert and Ropert didn't like it. Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how wrong they may be. It was a good movie, folks, good enough to go see. Remember, though, that what you're seeing is fantasy, not reality. Schools today (even in my youth, and I'm 38) are bit more like Lord of the Flies than what you'll see here.

Received my degree in the mail, along with my honors colors - I graduated Magna Cum Laude, thats what the gold line above the school seal says. So glad I'm finally finished with this, and I'm looking forward to whatever I decide to do next. I'll have to decide soon, though.

If you're going to be signing up for Blockbuster's DVD at home service, do yourself a big favor, and get yourself a piece of the ad-referral pie. I was going to sign up anyway, and instead of going straight there, I went through a site that is giving away free ipods. It's a completely legitimate offer, and I saw good reviews of it on a reputable news site. All you have to do is join, complete an online offer, and refer friends to do the same. That's it!
Here is my referral link. To help me get my iPod (and start you off toward getting yours!!), click this http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=13588550

As long as they're giving away referral money, you want to make sure that you get your piece of what's coming to you.