So, I just reloaded the laptop, and installed Google’s Chrome browser.  (I’d rather not, but being in the web development world it’s best to have a variety of browsers installed.)

I installed under the local user, then I joined my corporate domain.  When I logged on as a domain user, I couldn’t find the Chrome executable.  Looked in C:\Program Files, then searched the C: drive.  Nothing.  WTF?  Where did Chrome go?

So I went over to my desktop to see what my shortcut was pointing at.  Ah.  The answer.

C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

Again. WTF?

Apparently Chrome installs itself to the user’s AppData folder (which is hidden – thus not searched – by default).  After reading a bit online it seems that it installs this way so users without Admin privileges can install the application.

Great for people in the corporate environment who want to get around IT, not great for those IT departments.  Also not OK for people who set up, say, their parents, with non-admin access to their own PCs so nothing gets “accidentally” installed resulting in a long-distance service call.

I had no idea you could just bypass the admin requirement by installing to a different location.  Not cool.

This install scheme means that if you and your wife share a computer, but have unique logons, each of you would have your own version of Chrome installed.  So you’d each have to update your instances separately.

There may be some merits to “user-based” application installs, but I’d rather not have Google make that decision for me, without my knowlegde or consent.  But I suppose that’s their style, isn’t it.

“Hey baby, we’re not evil! Trust us!”

“I attacked him and took a severe beating to the head,” Planthaber told FoxNews.com. “But I got him off of her long enough for her to scramble to the room where she keeps her pink .38 special.”

Brown, who reigned as the 2009 Miss Tierra Verde, snatched her gun from a nearby bedroom and shot the suspect several times – hitting him in the chest, groin, thigh and back, her fiance said. Hill was pronounced dead at the scene.

Panthaber, a 42-year-old arborist, said he believes he and his fiancee were targeted because of their wealth. He claimed a pizza delivery man and possible accomplice staked out the home for three months before Hill attempted to burglarize it.

“We live in a very prominent area and my fiancee wears a $60,000 engagement ring,” he said. “The pizza man knew we had money because sometimes we needed change for a $100 bill when he came to deliver pizza.”

Elizabeth Taylor, star of Cleopatra (which is currently the most expensive film (adjusted for inflation) ever made), passed away on March 23, 2011, at the age of 79.

Some of her most famous film roles also included Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and as Wilma Flintstone’s mother in the Flintstones movie.

Other notable facts are that her parents were both American, but she was born in England, she had violet eyes, was the voice of Maggie Simpson’s first word, and was married 8 times!

A supergun that targets enemy snipers by the sound of their gunfire is being trialled by British soldiers, it emerged today.

The ‘gunfire locator’ is fitted next to the scopes of rifles which uses sonar to calculate an enemy’s position within 1.3 seconds.

Paratroopers even field-tested the device by offering themselves as targets to Taliban insurgents last weekend in order to draw out the fire.

***

Troops serving on the front line currently use telescopic lenses and scopes fitted to their rifled to pick off enemy soldiers.

But the rifle-mounted locator picks up the sound of the gun’s muzzle when the bullet is fired and then track the waves of sound through the air.

The same technology used in Nintendo Wii games – where players use wireless controllers – has been used to develop the sensor.

Stop referring to the Richter Scale.  It hasn’t been used since the 1970′s.  It was replaced by the Moment magnitude scale.  The Richter scale was no good at measuring mega quakes.  The new scale is not a base 10 scale, like Richter was.

In the Moment scale, each increment of one is 30 time stronger than the previous number.  So a 9.0 is 900 times stronger than a 7.0, and 30 times stronger than an 8.0.

Nobody seems to know that Richter is no more, including most news reporters, so you have to help spread the word.

About every 18 years or so, we experience a phenomenon here on Earth where the moon looks unusually large. Tonight we experience one of these SUPER Moons.

Due to the orbit of the moon being in the shape of an ellipse, when the moon gets close to earth it looks gigantic. This position within the orbit can also be responsible for raising the tides even higher. Nothing to worry about though, it only raises it about an inch.

More info here.

Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., unveiled today his five-year path to a balanced budget, leaving several federal agencies behind. Among the items on the cutting room floor are the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development.

“There’s a lot of things in here that everybody could agree to, Republicans and Democrats, but nobody’s leading on the president’s side and on our side we felt we needed to put this forward to get the debate started, at the very least,” the freshman Senator explained at a Capitol Hill press conference this afternoon.

The proposal also calls for the repeal of “Obamacare,” but leaves entitlements untouched.

“There’s an argument for every federal program up here… Nobody’s coming up here asking me for money that’s not for a good reason. But the alternative is that we get into a point of financial disaster where nobody gets any money,” he said.

Obama’s campaign slogan was mesmerisingly simple and brimming with self-belief: “Yes we can.” His presidency, however, is turning out to be more about “no we won’t.” Even more worryingly, it seems to be very much about: “Maybe we can… do what, exactly?“ The world feels like a dangerous place when leaders are seen to lack certitude but the only thing President Obama seems decisive about is his indecision. What should the US do about Libya? What should the US do about the Middle East in general? What about the country’s crippling debts? What is the US going to do about Afghanistan, about Iran?

What is President Obama doing about anything? The most alarming answer – your guess is as good as mine – is also, frankly, the most accurate one. What the President is not doing is being clear, resolute and pro-active, which is surely a big part of his job description. This is what he has to say about the popular uprising in Libya: “Gaddafi must go.” At least, that was his position on March 3.

The Barack H. Obama Elementary School in Asbury Park, N.J. will be shuttered this summer, largely due to low enrollment, the Asbury Park Press reports.

Bruce N. Rodman, the official who oversees the district’s finances, determined that it was necessary for one of the district’s elementary schools to close and the Obama school’s enrollment had dropped 35 percent in the past 10 years, the newspaper reports.

The kilt, or man skirt, is a traditional Scottish garment that goes all the way back to… the late 1700′s?  Or put another way, dudes didn’t start wearing kilts until around the time of the American Revolution.

It evolved from a cloak, which turned into a man dress, which then turned into a man skirt.  The first man dress versions (the “Great Kilt”) came about in the 1600′s, but the skirt didn’t appear until later.

The garment originated in Scotland.  The Scots wore it as a symbol of their culture- basically a way to say “we may be under English rule, but we’re not English- we wear man-skirts!”

That kind of backfired when later English monarchs thought the man-skirt was cute, so they started dressing their proper English boys in them.  Then it became OK for anyone to wear a kilt.

As I said earlier, the garment is Scottish, not Irish.  And although both groups have funny accents, there is supposed to be a difference in their cultures.  However, when England was trying to dilute the Irish population (see this post) a bunch of Scots moved to Ireland.  (The English took away the Irish land and allowed the Scots to rent it!)  They mostly settled in the Irish province of Ulster, and were known as the Ulster Scots.

It stands to reason that the Ulster Scots brought their man-skirts with them when they moved, so there were kilts in Ireland at that time.

The kilt really gained popularity in Ireland in the early 1900′s as a symbol of “Greater Celtic” heritage.  So people started wearing them because they were trendy, and because it made them look all deep and ethnic and stuff.  Much like the way that the Mom from the Cosby Show started wearing those African dresses in the later seasons or people wear those Indian dots on their foreheads.