Miscellaneous Facts That Are Hard To Find On The Internet

This page contains obscure items that I couldn't find on the internet, and thus actually had to figure out myself. It primarily exists so search engines can find this page in the future. Lo, my attempt to better the world.

As this text is designed to be indexed by machines, reading it straight through will be an avant-garde experience, at best.

IBM DB2 JDBC Problems

If you are writing a JDBC Java program that interacts with IBM db2, and you get an error of sqlcode 805, some db2 websites will tell you there's a JDBC driver config problem. But you will also get this if you're not correctly cleaning up Statement objects and have littered the address space with too many of them (for me, around 1300). Clean them up and the problem will go away.

Visio Postscript Generation

If you are exporting postscript files from Visio, you'll notice that all circles will have an awful bumpiness to them. The curve won't be smooth at all. This is a bug with Visio, and is not your fault. There's no Postscript-export setting that can help you, as far as I can tell.

If you're willing to edit the postscript file directly, you can fix the problem. But who has the time for this, especially when generating a lot of diagrams? I used rounded boxes instead, where the problem is barely noticeable. I finally dropped Visio in favor of Omnigraffle on a Mac, which has no such problems.

Importing Excel Diagrams To PowerPoint So They Don't Look Awful

When you cut/paste a diagram from Excel into Powerpoint, Microsoft will do all sorts of crazy things to it. They might try to change the font to match your presentation (which rarely works), and resizing the diagram usually degrades the quality badly.

The trick is to use "Insert...Object..." and choose "Microsoft Excel Chart" with "Create from file" clicked. I'm not sure why this isn't the default behavior. In older versions of PowerPoint, it won't be called "Microsoft Excel Chart." Instead, you pick something like "Microsoft Object 3.0."

Changing The Caps Lock Key To The Control (CTRL) Key Like On A Good Sun Keyboard

If you grew up thinking that the Ctrl key belongs where most Windows PCs place the Caps Lock key, you're not alone in your grief. The software you need to fix things is a piece of shareware written by Mark Russinovich, called Ctrl2cap. If you're a member of the Totally Awesome Sun Keyboard Demographic, it's indispensible.

Update: Russinovich now works for Microsoft, but you can still grab the software at the updated link above.

Gore Vidal

I've looked everywhere for a video copy of Gore Vidal's famous 1968 TV debate with William F. Buckley. I can't find one. This is the debate where Vidal calls Buckley a "crypto-Nazi" and Buckley threatens to punch Vidal in the face. I even mailed a distant relative of Vidal's who was rumored to have a copy, but I've had no luck. I've seen brief snippets on documentaries, so it must exist in broadcast archives somewhere. IT'S BEEN FOUND.

German Bouncing Pogo Stick Boots

A few years ago there was a video on the internet of an unbelievable toy from Germany. Some company had created boots with big curves of bendy helicopter metal strapped to the bottom, making it possible for people to jump to terrific heights. There was video footage of human beings jumping effortlessly over Volkswagens. It was incredible.

However, it wasn't clear if or when these things would ever be released, or how much they would cost. So I called up the "North American distributor," who was a guy in California. They went for many hundreds of dollars (helicopter metal is expensive), and were really too pricey just to jump over a Volkswagen. He said they were priced for institutions, though I'm not sure why, say, Microsoft or the Ford Foundation would need them.

More recently there was a mainstream children's toy with the same idea, but much cheaper materials. It was a lot less impressive. So if you're looking for good German Pogo Stick Boots, know that they will cost you.

Last modified: April, 2006