A guest post over at The Firearm Blog by an Australian Army Cadet who recently went through a very detailed simulator.

Murdoc needs one for the basement.

Note: This is just a quick tech tip that I’m posting so others searching for help can possibly benefit.

I’m in the middle of re-installing Windows XP on my main PC and when I tried to install the drivers for my Hewlet Packard HP LaserJet P2015d, I got the following error:

Executable ‘E:\P2015eGSG.exe’ had the following unrecoverable error: Couldn’t find library MSVCR80.dll(required by C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\MICROS~\OFFICE12\MSOXMLMF.DLL) Please ensure that it is installed.

Searching the web got me all sorts of suggestions, from moving files between directories in system folders to changing file settings and attributes to downloading and installing various packages from Microsoft or elsewhere.

What I did that ended up working just fine was this:

1. Boot PC with printer turned off (or disconnected)
2. Insert driver CD and exit install routine if it starts
3. Connect printer and turn it on
4. Give Windows a minute to “find” the printer
5. When it asks, have it automatically install the software

That worked like a charm for me. Good luck.

Strategy Page has a quick post on the French OH 395 full bone conduction headset. The speakers rest on the skin and transmit the sound via the listener’s bones, leaving the ears free to hear everything else.

When Murdoc was a kid, his dad would order stuff from the good old JS&A Catalog. Some of the things we tried included the Speak & Spell a year or two before it was in stores and a one-handed typing machine which Murdoc taught himself to use fairly well. Another product was called, I think, the Bone Phone. It was an FM radio inside of a flexible blue padded “collar” which draped around your neck. The radio’s speakers rested against your collarbone, and you “heard” the music despite your ears being open. I used it extensively one winter while skiing, and absolutely loved it.

Unfortunately, we usually sent back everything we ordered from JS&A before the end of the 30-day trial period or whatever it was. I think maybe the only thing we ever kept was the Speak & Spell. Anyway, I’ve always wondered why the bone speaker thing never caught on. I’ve got to think that there would be a lot of applications for it, both in the military and in the civilian world.

If anyone knows more about the Bone Phone or where to find JS&A catalogs from the 70s, let Murdoc know.

UPDATE: “Bone Fone”, not “Bone Phone.” Found a little info at the top of this page. I think that black-and-white image is from the JS&A catalog.

UPDATE 2: Now that I know how to spell it I’m finding lots of info:

Bone Fone from the JS&A Catalog

UPDATE: Back on the air.

A GunPundit post is #1 on a Bing search linked from MSN.com today, and traffic was through the roof until the host pulled the plug on the site. After explaining that it was legit traffic due to a temporary spike, the helpful support tech said “Sorry we can’t let it run with this traffic” and said I’d have to upgrade.

I understand that they can’t have one site hogging the majority of the resources on a server, but my sites combined do not pull in the traffic to justify dedicated hosting. I’ve had traffic higher than this in the past, and had no trouble after I installed a cache plug-in to prevent overloads when things spike for a day or two. Not sure why this is a problem today, but it is. I’ve seen where they temporarily move sites experiencing traffic to other servers until things die down, but apparently that isn’t an option for whatever reason.

Unfortunately, they are not telling me how long the site will be down. In fact, they aren’t being helpful at all.

UPDATE: Apparently got escalated. Someone else is at least going through the motions of being helpful. Hopefully I can disable a few things temporarily and be back on the air soon.

8GB Flash Drives with free shooter games loaded for $14.99.

Choose from Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Lockdown, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, and Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII.

Today (Thursday) only.

A few years back, I wrote a bit about the dangers of putting RFID chips into US passports: Are they nuts?

This is the roughly the same as requiring you to carry around a big sign with your name, passport number, birthday, and place of birth on it whenever you carry your passport in your pocket.

Anyone can scan that chip. And you won’t know that they’ve done it.

The plan was shelved temporarily, but since August 2007, only the new chipped e-passports have been issued.

Here’s some news: Hacker war drives San Francisco cloning RFID passports

Using a $250 Motorola RFID reader and antenna connected to his laptop, Chris recently drove around San Francisco reading RFID tags from passports, driver licenses, and other identity documents. In just 20 minutes, he found and cloned the passports of two very unaware US citizens. Fortunately, Chris wears a white hat; his video demonstration is meant to raise awareness to what he calls the unsuitability of RFID for tagging people. Specifically, he’s hoping to help get the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative — a homeland security project — scrapped.

Via Phil at RNS.

Highway sign in Texas last month

Pranks with electronic road signs stir worry

Pranksters in at least three states are messing with electronic road signs meant to warn motorists of possible traffic problems by putting drivers on notice about Nazi zombies and raptors. And highway safety officials aren’t amused.

The latest breach came Tuesday during the morning rush hour near Collinsville, Ill., where hackers changed a sign along southbound Interstate 255 to read, “DAILY LANE CLOSURES DUE TO ZOMBIES.”

And signs in Austin, Texas, recently flashed: “NAZI ZOMBIES! RUN!!!” and “ZOMBIES IN AREA! RUN.”

Though kinda amusing, I guess I’ve gotta agree that this is out of line.

A reader emails:

It’s not a metaphorical sign of the coming apocalypse as we usually refer to it. It’s an actual sign of the coming apocalypse.

Prepare yourself:

The last one, The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, won’t be out until June but is available for pre-order.

Danger Room has the story on a new USAF program to monitor and respond to blog postings regarding the Wild Blue Yonder bunch, including a handy flow chart to guide hall monitors to the correct action.

Here is a slightly edited and expanded version of a comment I left over at Say Uncle on the topic:

I never had a problem with this sort of program.

Over the years I’ve had a number of military public affairs types leave comments here at Murdoc Online. FWIW, I’ve nearly always found their messages worth reading, informative, and on topic. In other words, nearly the exact opposite of the trolls they were countering.

They also left comments directed at me that corrected or expanded upon posts I wrote. Always in a respectful, conversational manner. Most of them seemed to by Army personnel regarding Army programs (Styrker, anyone?) and I’ve never been sure which commenters are doing it on their own and which are part of an official response program.

To be honest, as long as the comments are basically truthful, honest, and constructive, I don’t have an issue with it. In fact, if the military didn’t have large programs like this underway, I’d be concerned.

I wouldn’t mind seeing some of this directed in more open way at the “real” mainstream media, either.

I’ve railed on and on about this in conversation, but apparently the only place I’ve mentioned it on MO was in this comment on the post about Fulton County awarding water conservation with a rate increase.

Motorists’ habits spur call for tax increases

WASHINGTON – Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which means fuel taxes aren’t raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.

A federal commission created by Congress to find a way to make up the growing revenue shortfall in the program that funds highway repairs and construction is talking about increasing federal gas and diesel taxes.

A roughly 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by the commission until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.

The commission will also recommend that states raise their own gasoline taxes and increase the use of toll roads.

But since the future seems to be filled with ever-increasing fuel efficiency, the long term plan apparently involves equipping all vehicles with GPS devices so that the government can charge you for how man miles you drive.

Seriously.

Via Jeff Soyer.

UPDATE: While posting at GunPundit, I realized that the GPS thing might be the diversion to keep us from looking at the tax increase.

Maj. Rick Wageman operates the virtual cockpit of an MQ-1 Predator Oct. 25 at a base in southern Afghanistan. The remote nature of the control allows the Predator to stay airborne for longer periods of time, changing pilots periodically to reduce stress and fatigue which can lead to mission failure. Major Wageman is a 62nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron pilot deployed from Cannon Air Force Base, N.M. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Samuel Morse)

As is usually the case, click for a bigger image.