Ask MetaFilter posts by turbodog

WTB Wired Home Intercom, PST.

turbodog — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:22:36 -0800

Our house is undergoing an extensive remodel and I would like to install a wired, press-to-talk intercom between the first and second floors (and the basement as well, if possible). Ideally, I would prefer a solution that draws no power when the PTT button is not pressed. Does something like this exist? At first glance it seems simple to make an intercom that only uses power to drive a speaker on the other end when the PTT switch is on.

Giro d'Italia Route Maps

turbodog — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:21:20 -0800

Where on the web are detailed routes or maps of the 2007 Giro d'Italia? This summer I will be in the vicinity of the Giro and I really want to watch one stage in person, at least. My problem is the route maps aren't very detailed and I can't tell what parts of the route are closest to where I'll be (San Gimignano).

Every site about the race seem to use the exact same graphics and just list start and finish locations. Most likely they came from the official Giro site itself. About the best I can find is here, which is just a larger version of the same map.

Someone started a Google Earth project for the Giro, but it only has route details for some of the mountain stages.

From the map, it looks like stages 7, 8, 9 and 10 are the best candidates, but I need more info to plan my outings.

How can I get Windows 2000 to "Smooth edges of screen fonts" again?

turbodog — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 21:18:49 -0800

How can I get Windows 2000 to "Smooth edges of screen fonts" again? I recently upgraded my Windows 2000 box from a Geforce Ti 4200 to a Geforce 6800. Because of nVidia's unified drivers, this should be a painless upgrade. However, Windows 2000 font smoothing no longer works. Screen text is very blurry and checking/unchecking "Smooth edges of screen fonts" has no apparent effect.

I've tried several different versions of Geforce drivers, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

Does anyone know how I can make Windows make my screen text readable again?

Is it feasible to ship liquor from Europe to the US?

turbodog — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 10:38:02 -0800

Is it feasible to ship liquor from Europe to the US? Shortly I will be vacationing in the vicinity of some of my favorite drinkables. Is it practical or even possible to ship liquor and/or beer back to the US? I know that I can bring 1L back in duty-free, but what if I want to bring back 6 bottles or so without having to haul it myself?

Tools for writing application documentation

turbodog — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:53:45 -0800

For the purpose of documentating an application, I'm looking for a WYSIWYG editor that can yield both in HTML and PDF formats, but meets a few other criteria. [More Inside] Criteria:
- Need WYSIWYG: don't want to muck with HTML across a large document
- Need HTML: organized and hyperlinked from a table of contents at the top, so it can be read "top down" or as in-program documentation by linking to the appropriate page.
- Need PDF: shouldn't be a big issue since I can probably render PDF from whatever HTML I end up with.
- Need automatic TOC generation/upkeep that links to the referenced item
- Nice to have: automatically include a link back to the TOC at the end of each section. If I had to do this by hand it wouldn't be the end of the world.

What I already considered:
- Word: WYSIWYG, does the TOC the way I'd like, but really afraid of the HTML it would generate
- Open Office: WYSIWYG, does TOCs but doesn't link to the referenced location, HTML hopefully sucks less than Word's
- Generic WYSIWYG HTML tools: don't automatically do a TOC

Any ideas on other tools I could check out? Free/open source solutions a big plus.

DOS Program Automation

turbodog — Tue, 31 May 2005 16:40:24 -0800

Does anyone know of a program (preferably free and/or open source) for automating DOS applications? I have a DOS app that I can run under Windows and I just need to send it a sequence of keypresses.

Are ads in RSS feeds possible/good/bad or just

turbodog — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 14:26:22 -0800

Are ads in RSS feeds possible/good/bad or just ugly? [MI]

Can you search Google with terms that include

turbodog — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 13:02:38 -0800

Can you search Google with terms that include special characters (10%, #1, etc.)? Even in quotations, Google seems to drop the characters it doesn't like.