We know what device you use in the bedroom

Earlier today I activated a new digital converter (cable TV) box from my local cable company. I dialed the number listed on the activation instructions and the automatic speech recognition system prompted me for the usual information – number of devices being configured, serial number, etc.  One of the questions was a bit disconcerting,

“What is the name of the room where you’ll be using this digital converter?”

I understand that labeling the device makes it easier to troubleshoot. I can call tech support and say, “Cable isn’t working in my living room, please fix it,” and the appropriate signals would be sent to that specific unit. But it felt strange letting the cable company know where in my home I was using the cable box. So I answered, “upstairs,” but that was not acceptable to the computerized voice on the other end of the line. Finally, I said, “bedroom.”

Next time I’ll say, “bathroom.” 

2nd Annual New Hampshire ARES Academy

The 2nd Annual New Hampshire ARES Academy will be held on Saturday, March 17th from 8:30am – 4:00pm at the NH Fire Academy in Concord.

Custom Safari Style Sheets (Using CSS to Remove the Facebook Ticker)

Facebook recently released a new homepage ticker which, for some, is not a welcome change. Well, you can hide the ticker by using a custom style sheet in the Safari web browser. By creating your own style sheet, you can override the tickerActivityStories class defined in Facebook’s CSS and hide the ticker.

Step 1: Open up a text editor like TextEdit, BBEdit, TextMate, etc. Place the following CSS code in the document:


.tickerActivityStories {
	height: 0;
	display: none;
}

Step 2: Save the document as a text file and name it, fb_styles.css (you can name it anything you want, just make sure it has the ‘.css’ extension.)

Step 3: Open Safari and go to Preferences/Advanced. From the Style Sheet drop down menu select ‘Other…’ and choose the fb_styles.css file. Quit Safari and then reopen it.

That’s it. The ticker should vanish from the sidebar the when you are on Facebook.

Note: This only works in Apple’s Safari browser. If your browser supports custom style sheets, then these instructions may work for you. Additionally, browser plugins exist that can do the same thing.