About two years ago, I downloaded a free developer edition of IBM’s DB2 database server. To do this required that I jump through all sorts of registration hoops on the IBM website, but in the end I got what I needed.

The unintended side-effect of all this registering was that I got dropped inside the IBM database, and they are relentless in their sending of both paper and electronic mail regarding my DB2 “subscription.”

All of which culminates in this email received yesterday:

Hi Peter. This is Arthur Yuen from the IBM Software Maintenance group. In mid-August we sent you a letter for the maintenance renewal of a DB2 licence that is due for November 1st. This is a free software and has a $0 renewal.

I have enclosed the quotation below. Could you return my e-mail and approve this renewal? This way we will ensure proper maintenance on your software.

Attached to the email was a three-page PDF file, which ended with invoice for $0.

Delicious Library is a new program, for Mac OS X only, that lets you “import, browse, and share all your books, movies, music and video games.”

That sounds, on the surface, a lot like the hype for the Commodore 64 I used to deliver on the floor of Canadian Tire: “you can use it to manage your recipe collection” was our big pickup line.

But it’s 20 years later now, and computer have gotten easier to use, faster, and more lucious.

The big, cool hook for Delicious Library is that you can use your Apple iSight camera as a barcode scanner: hold your CDs, books and DVDs in front of the camera, and the application grabs an image, and all the cataloging information, over the Internet, and creates a new record for you.

And it works (click image for a larger version):

The barcode scanning takes a little getting used to, mostly just finding the right position to hold barcodes in front of the camera. Pulling a selection of items out of our living room — everything from Oliver’s picture books to DVDs — I batted about 80% on lookup success (the items that couldn’t be found were generally older or obscure, which makes sense).

Am I — and more importantly, is anyone else — crazy enough to catalogue all of my “content assets?” I don’t know. But if I was going to, I can’t think of a better, easier way of doing it.

The film Garden State, now playing at City Cinema here in Charlottetown, is worth seeing, if only for the delightful performance by Natalie Portman. She is the new Drew Barrymore, but has twice the personality.

From my brother Steve comes a pointer to The Official Gus Bodnar Fan Site. Longtime readers will recall that we are related.

I installed two digital “set back” thermostats this week in our house: they automatically turn the temperature in the house down at night and up in the morning. The packaging claims 30% energy savings are possible, so it seemed like a good investment, to say nothing of a way of using less oil.

One confusing thing: the instructions, which are quite complete, talk at some length about the need to “label the existing wires with included labels” before disconnecting the existing thermostat to ensure the wires can properly be routed to the new one.

My problem was that the existing two wires didn’t have labels. So I didn’t know where to route them on the new thermostat. Fortunately, in the Professional Reference Guide for the new thermostat, I found the following:

When the thermostats relay (switch) connects RH to W, the heat comes on. If the heating system already has a thermostat connected, use the same two wires that were on the old thermostat. When there are just two wires, there is no polarity, i.e., either wire can go to RH or W.

And in the manual for the old one, I found that, indeed, I had two wires, one RH and one W.

So I just wired one wire to the RH, and one to the W. And that worked.

We’re now 16.5 Celsius at night, and 19 Celsius in the morning.

Okay, this is weird: there is a Consolate of the Republic of Slovenia in Moncton, New Brunswick. This demands an investigatory phone call first thing Monday morning.

English speakers get weirded out when too many consonants pile up in a word. Which is why we tend to tremble before Ljubljana, capital city of Slovenia.

Here’s a handy guide that will make Ljubljana much easier to spell:

• LJ
• UB
• LJ
• ANA

Toadstool Books in Peterborough, NH is among my favourite sources for what is variously called “armchair travel,” “travel essays” or “travelogues” in the book trade.

While most chains and independents have a small section of such books, it’s rare that they verge out of the Bill Bryson, Tim Cahill, Paul Theroux, and “A Year in [Tuscany \| Provence \| Marseilles]” range.

Toadstool is an exception: they have an very healthy collection, perhaps 500 titles in all, with books that I quite simply haven’t seen anywhere else. I’d go as far as saying that they rival or exceed most speciality travel bookstores in this genre. I spent $50 this morning.

And their selection of travel guidebooks is pretty healthy too.

There are outlets in Peterborough, Keene and Milford, NH.

And I like this note on their website for its uncommon honesty:

IMPORTANT: PLEASE NOTE THAT THE BOOK SEARCH CAPABILITY HERE IS SOMEWHAT LIMITED. YOU MUST USE THE EXACT TITLE; IF YOU ARE UNSURE TRY THE AUTHOR. AND SOME VERY REGIONAL BOOKS WE TRULY DO KNOW ALL ABOUT SIMPLY ARE NOT LISTED. BUT PLEASE, PLEASE CALL OR EMAIL US IF YOU CAN’T FIND THE BOOK OR SUBJECT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR. WE HAVE BETTER SEARCHING CAPABILITIES IN THE STORE VIA CDROM, BOOKS IN PRINT, AND OUR OWN HEADS!!!!

Worth a visit if you’re in the area.

I once worked with a woman named Charlotte. In Charlottetown. I used to live in Peterborough, Ontario. Now I work, part of the year, up the hill from Peterborough, New Hampshire. In other words, I have considerable practice saying “Hi there, it’s Peter from Peterborough” on the phone.

I’ve written a lot in this space about the people and places of Peterborough, New Hampshire. But I’ve never taken any pictures. Until now.

Sitting in Twelve Pine, a café in downtown Peterborough, New Hampshire, eating fruit salad, a feta-spinach croissant, and drinking Honest Tea. Three WiFi networks to join: