Darryl Hunt: WorSharks, Traverse Capture Game Five 3-1 To Take A 3-2 Series Lead

The Worcester Sharks scored three first period goals and withstood a late charge to defeat the Hartford Wolf Pack 3-1 Thursday night at the XL Center Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Hartford, Connecticut in front of an announced crowd of 1,857. Worcester now leads the best of seven series three games to two, with game six coming Saturday night at the DCU Center in Worcester.
The WorSharks were hoping to carry the momentum of Wednesday night's five goal third period outburst while Hartford was looking to take advantage of some home cooking as neither team had won in the other's building during the series. It was Worcester that would get what they wanted.
Roy Sommer's choice to play defenseman Mike Moore at forward and winger Riley Armstrong at the point on the power play finally paid dividends when a Moore screen prevented Hartford goaltender Matt Zaba from seeing Patrick Traverse's laser from the point. Traverse's blast beat Zaba over the right shoulder for the 1-0 lead at 5:56 of the first. Armstrong and Dan DaSilva had the assists on the power play tally.
Worcester would take a 2-0 lead at 7:15 of the first period when Traverse intercepted a Hartford clearing attempt at the blueline and blasted it on net. The puck hit T.J. Fox on the way by and deflected past Zaba. The goal was originally credited to Traverse, but was changed during the first intermission. While not credited with an assist, Brad Staubitz played a big role in the goal by throwing a huge hit on Wolf Pack defenseman Michael Sauer as Sauer tried to make the clearing play.
The WorSharks would grab another power play tally while skating with a two man advantage. Hartford was looking to skate out of the zone on a two on none breakaway after intercepting a Logan Couture pass across the zone, but Traverse just got the tip of his stick on the puck to turn the play around to a four on one advantage for Worcester. Traverse never took his eyes off Zaba, and beat him cleanly for the unassisted tally at 13:50 of the first.
The teams would play a very physical game for the rest of the contest resulting in several power play chances for both squads. Hartford's lone goal would come after Worcester had killed off just under 90 seconds of five on three play when WorSharks netminder Thomas Greiss couldn't control a bouncing puck that found the back of the net. The goal was credited to Dane Byers, but video replay seems to show it was Artem Anisimov's bad angle shot that broke by Greiss. And in a worse job of scoring, Anisimov didn't even receive an assist on play.
GAME NOTES
Worcester went with the same line-up and lines as the previous two games. Worcester had different players filling on on the fourth line after Bobby Sanguinetti leveled Fox with a huge open ice hit with about seven minutes to go in the second period. Fox did not return.
Frazer McLaren got into his first fight of the post season when he and Dane Byers dropped them at 7:20 of the first period. Both landed some huge shots, but McLaren got the nod when when one of his lefts knocked Byers off balance before they both fell to the ice.
The three stars of the game were:
1. Traverse (2g,a)
2. Greiss (27 saves)
3. Fox (gwg)
BOXSCORE
WOR 3 0 0 - 3
HFD 0 0 1 - 1
1st Period
Scoring: 1, Worcester, Traverse 1 (Armstrong, DaSilva), 5:56 (pp). 2, Worcester, Fox 2 (Traverse), 7:15. 3, Worcester, Traverse 2 (unassisted) 13:50 (pp)
Penalties: McBride Hfd (interference), 3:11; Sauer Hfd (interference), 5:37; McLaren Wor (fighting), 7:20; Byers Hfd (fighting), 7:20; Couture Wor (hooking), 8:35; Cavanagh Wor (hooking), 9:54; Moore Wor (roughing), 11:11; Dupont Hfd (roughing), 11:11; Potter Hfd (tripping), 12:49; Byers Hfd (roughing), 13:40; Weise Hfd (charging), 18:48; Vesce Wor (tripping), 19:46.
2nd Period
No Scoring
Penalties: Staubitz Wor (roughing), 3:19; Sauer Hfd (tripping), 17:48.
3rd Period
Scoring: 4, Hartford, Byers 2 (Potter, Sanguinetti), 13:33 (pp)
Penalties: Zalewski Wor (tripping), 11:15; Moore Wor (delay of game), 11:49.
Shots on Goal
Worcester 13-10-3-26
Hartford 4-9-15-28.
Power-play opportunities: Worcester 2 of 6; Hartford 1 of 6.
Goalies
Worcester, Greiss 3-2-0 (28 shots-27 saves)
Hartford, Zaba 2-3-0 (26 shots-23 saves).
A-1,857. Referees: Terry Koharski (10). Linesmen: Paul Simeon (66), Chris Low (88).

My Experience Installing Windows 7RC

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my project last weekend was in upgrading my laptop from Windows 7 Public Beta to Windows 7 Release Candidate. (Win7RC is being made available to the general public starting today, but it was released through MSDN and TechNet last week.) I thought I’d write a few words on my experience.
Overall, the process was mostly uneventful. The public beta was surprisingly stable, with only a couple of bugs at the “minor annoyance” level:
The wallpaper shuffler under 7 Beta would occasionally hang.
The icons on the task bar were too widely spaced, and differentiating between “pinned” and minimized apps took getting used to. (Not a bug per sé, but an annoyance.)
The Nvidia video driver used by my laptop under Windows 7 was prone to crashing.
Other programs and drivers required installing under Vista-compatible mode.
The first two items in that bullet list have been addressed. The video driver seems more stable, but still at risk of crashes. And the program/other driver compatibility headaches still exist, as they are probably due to restrictions in the installers for those apps/drivers.
Other than the build number changing, in the branding on the desktop, and the visual fixes…to be honest, it’s very hard to tell a difference between 7 Beta and 7RC.
There were a few things that did annoy me with the process…although they are more gripes about the state of personal computing (and the burdens borne by playing with beta software) than issues with Windows 7 itself:
I did a system wipe/complete reinstall when upgrading. The little bit of early grumbling I saw of 7RC seems to have come from folks who may have attempted an upgrade. The reinstall path is a hassle, but it avoids issues caused by post-upgrade messes and conflicts.
While the Windows 7 installation was quick, reinstalling all my software took forever (in particular, the 1.2 gig required to bring Office 07 up-to-date). I remember back in the day, reinstalling software could be as simple as just restoring from backup. It would be nice if the software-reinstall part of the process could be streamlined. At least, the hassle provides a great excuse to lose programs I don’t actually need installed.
Having learned from my experience with rsync in January, moving from Vista to 7 Beta, I used Microsoft’s Easy Transfer utility to move personal files to/from an external drive for the wipe/reinstall. It really was easy, if a bit slow. For most users it probably would Just Work. I did, however, run into a couple of annoyances:
.lnk files (shortcuts) weren’t brought over, but I could recreate them manually
Taskbar-pinned icons migrated as undeletable white icons; I had to re-pin the apps (after reinstalling) and then un-pin if I wanted to get rid of them.
Customizations to the shortcut bar in Office ’07 apps were lost, and had to be recreated.
Office 07 custom themes weren’t migrated; I had to recover those style files from a backup of …AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Quick Styles
My Outlook macros weren’t migrated. I was had to scrounge a copy of VbaProject.OTM from a backup of …AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook to regain my GTD customizations.
I’m glad I remembered another couple of lessons from past experience: exporting firewall profiles and scheduled tasks, and importing them post-reinstall was quick, and saved me quite a bit of tweak-work.
Outlook 07, Windows 7RC, and AVG don’t currently play well together. Microsoft seems to have made a minor modification to how Windows and antivirus software talk to one another, causing Windows to not be able to verify AVG’s status. As a security measure, Outlook 07 locks down programmatic access…which can be a headache. (I haven’t been able to use “Send to Email Recipient” from Office apps since the reinstall.) Hopefully, that will be addressed by a future update to AVG.
I’m a little concerned about the warning I got when bringing iTunes back, about how I had authorized my account on a third computer…and that the maximum number of authorizations was 5. Considering that I’ve only used iTunes on this one machine (which I’ve wiped/reinstalled/upgraded twice), I’m left to wonder if Steve Jobs is seeking to discourage PC users from being responsible in discincenting major system cleanups. I’ll have at least one more reinstall (when Win 7 is officially released), and someday I will move to a new computer. I wonder what sort of bribe I’ll have to give to Apple to permit me to keep the few apps and songs I’ve bought.
Despite those gripes, I’ve been pleased with my Windows 7 experience. It’s more stable than any prior version of Windows I’ve worked with before (knock wood), and it’s aesthetically pleasing (which is important when you spend all day at a computer). 7RC also feels a little snappier than 7Beta, but that could be a fringe benefit of wiping 5 months of crap off the hard drive and starting over.

See Yourself in Mercendes-Benz GLK

Mercedes-Benz Canada recently launched their microsite in support of the Canadian Introduction of their all new GLK, a mid size premium SUV.
The microsite was inspired by the innovative design of the bold new GLK. The site offers a lot of technical and product insights, features that essential for prospective buyers. Once you enter the site, an introduction will ask you "Where Do You See Yourself?” by clicking this unique personality profiler will help visitors to create an image of their own GLK experience and at the end you can download your GLK personality image as your desktop wallpaper. The site also features an interactive gallery full of all new GLK high-quality images and videos.
The key objective of the site was perfectly executed, the interactive capability really send the messages straight to prospective buyers, creating an emotional connection to GLK. With the boxy and edgy style of GLK make the black theme concept reflect its target demography.
The site also offer a social share buttons, like facebook, digg, delicious and a link that you can use to share the site to your circle of friends. A free sign up for e-updates also included.
If you think you are ready for a test drive, a “book a test drive” link is also available and if the price is your concern why not check “build and price” link and start your GLK experience and see yourself driving your own Mercedes GLK Here.

Enhancing Conditional Routing in Rails

routing infrastructure supports the concept of conditional routes: preconditions that must be satisfied before a particular route will trigger. Rails 2.1 supports one built-in condition, HTTP method checking, which is of some use but rather limited. What I needed was to be able to limit certain routes to only trigger when a particular host-name was used to access the application. I thought Id have to write messy additional logic until a little comment tucked away in ActionController::Routing::RouteSet and ActionController::Routing::Routing caught my eye. Here I briefly show you how to leverage this functionality for your own purposes. The Goal  Conditional Routes in routes.rb Lets work backwards and see the result I was aiming for. I wanted to expand the existing capabilities of the routing engine and be able to restrict routes to specific hosts. The conditional routing option works by adding a parameter to your route specifications. Here are some examples: map.with_options(:controller => 'feeds', :conditions => {:hosts => MY_HOSTS}) do feed feed.feeds_articles '/feeds/articles', :action => 'articles' feed.feeds_podcast '/feeds/podcast', :action => 'podcast' end or map.resources :podcasts, :conditions => {:hosts => MY_HOSTS}, :member => {:show_notes => :get, :transcript => :get}, :collection => {:admin => :get} do podcast podcast.resources :comments, :member => {:report_as_ham => :get, :report_as_spam => :get} end or even map.connect ':controller/:action/:id', :conditions => {:hosts => MY_HOSTS} In Rails 2.1, however, no such option :hosts exists, only an option to check the HTTP method via :method. The Implementation I havent really ever needed to use the conditional routing support before, and didnt really think about it due to it only supporting the HTTP method check. For that reason, I originally thought Id have to write my own logic, either patching existing Routing routines (nearly right!) or by writing new stuff that could get messy (bad idea). During a last scan through the code for the keyword conditions, I saw this comment: # Plugins may override this method to add other conditions, like checks on # host, subdomain, and so forth. Note that changes here only affect route # recognition, not generation. Good, a place to start afterall! The solution is elegant as it only requires overriding two simple routines. You can do this in your own app by writing code that gets loaded at startup. Here is one implementation in its entirety: require 'action_controller' module ActionController module Routing class RouteSet def extract_request_environment(request) { :method => request.method, :host => request.host } end end class Route def recognition_conditions result = ["(match = #{Regexp.new(recognition_pattern).inspect}.match(path))"] result << "conditions[:method] === env[:method]" if conditions[:method] result << "conditions[:hosts].include?(env[:host])" if conditions[:hosts] result end end end end My code is very simplistic and tuned for my needs, but gives you an example of where to patch in. Here, I simply supply a list of host names I care about, and check the incoming host against that list. Use extract_request_environment to parse out and store any data you will want to use in your conditional checks. This data will be available in the env hash later on. recognition_conditions generates an Array of String objects that contain the Ruby code that will be used to build dynamic conditional test methods when the routing engine compiles the routes data in routes.rb. I drop the source file into my projects pre-existing lib/plugins/action_controller_extensions/lib directory as action_controller_extensions.rb and include an init.rb loader stub in my lib/plugins/action_controller_extensions directory: require 'action_controller_extensions' My app deals with loading up such plugins at startup. You may have a different set-up. You can get the same effect by putting a require for the main source file in your startup code. It would be great to see other generally useful conditionals contributed by the community.

The Obligatory Easter Egg Post

Gary LemasterFirst, I'd like to wish a Happy Easter to all of my readers who celebrate it. I thought a fancy egg post would be most appropriate today, and a real expert at this sort of thing is egg shell artist, Gary Lemaster. (I thought my friend, Tracy Broback's children might especially enjoy this one.)Gary LeMaster is the artist who creates these incredible carvings.Gary writes:"Almost everyone asks me what the eggs are made of, thinking that no one in their right mind would attempt to carve a real eggshell. They see that they are "egg-shaped" but assume that they are either ceramic or plastic. Despite that, they are - in fact - real eggshells, constructed primarily of calcium carbonate and produced in their original form by real geese, ostrich, rhea, emu, turkeys, chickens, etc." "First, I empty and clean each egg. After the egg has dried, I use a lead pencil to sketch the details of my artwork directly on the shell. I then cut away appropriate sections of the design or engrave the surface of the shell (or both), using a variety of diamond and carbide cutting tools. My tool of choice is a dental handpiece powered by an air compressor which generates over 400,000 rpm's for the burs to do their job.""Once the egg has been fully worked, I use my hands and an abrasive cleanser to remove any remaining pencil marks. The egg is then submerged in two bleach baths to disintegrate any membrane residue from the inside surface. Finally, the egg is signed and sealed with three or four coats of lacquer. It is then placed on a stand inside a glass dome to preserve and enhance its beauty. Each egg is, of course, signed anddated by the artist and comes with a signed and dated certificate of authenticity stating the title of the egg and avowing that each egg is made by hand."Gary has a web site called, "The Eggshell Sculptor" Click HERE to see more of his beautiful work.

CitiField may become a hunk of junk

From the NY Post: The Mets are striking out with Wall Street's bond investors after the credit rating of team's new home Citi Field got slammed with a threat of being downgraded to junk status.Moody's Investors Service said yesterday it might trash Citi Field's ratings on $613 million it borrowed in 2006 through bonds to erect the stadium, which opened last month.The problem isn't the team's under-performance this season or a shortage of loyal fans. Moody's says the monkey wrench is that the backup insurance guaranteeing that the bonds would be repaid could be on the skids due to the recession.The backup guarantees were provided by Ambac Assurance Corp., which itself has fallen on hard times and got downgraded itself -- leaving all its paper similarly tainted in Moody's view.

Squawkback: What Are Your Tips for Buying Used Cars?

It has been a while since Ive posted a Squawkback reader question. Id love to hear your tips, gotchas, and tricks when shopping for and buying used cars. Ever since my better halfs 2005 Subaru Impreza was in a crazy accident and declared a total write-off by the insurance company, weve been in the market to replace our wheels. The challenge is, I have no idea how to buy a used car. Weve looked for used cars online, used cars by owner, and checked out various used car dealers. Im stumped. Im not loving the wheelin and dealin games and I want to avoid buying an expensive lemon. So if youve got some ideas on how to save money on a quality used car Id love to hear from you. What are your tips, tricks, and gotchas for buying used cars? Pre-order Squawkfoxs book 397 Ways To Save Money from Amazon.ca! Top Squawks 50 Ways to Save $1,000 a Year How to Write a Resume (series) How I paid off my $17,000 debt in six months How To Buy Life Insurance Without Getting Screwed Free Printable Workout Log Download your free eBook: Frugal Food  Fitness