GeekTravelling

Mr. Tech Reviews the iPad

2011-12-10T21:36:00.000-08:00

I've always been kind of a sideways fan of Apple. Ever since they adopted Berkely Unix as part of their Base Operating System, I thought it was a good alternative to Windows. I'm pretty much a died in the wool Open Source guy, I run Linux on my desktops and have been even know to run a copy of FreeBSD now and then.

The reason I've chosen this route, is twofold. One I get every ounce or CPU and Memory I paid for. It uses all of it. Second, I don't have to worry about constant upates to protect me from malware and other nasty threats. I update every once in awhile, but most updates are not "life threatening"

It's always been my opinion that Mac's are nice, if you have wads of cash to waste on looks. There is no performance advantage in buying a Mac. There are some security advantages in using an *nix based operating system over Windows, so Mac's score points there.

But I digress a bit. The iPad is not a Berkely Unix based operating system, it's Apples iOS 5. So it loses a few points there.

No Flash Support

One of the biggest glaring gaps are It doesn't support Flash. Now I've never been a big fan of Flash, but but there are a lot of sites that use it. I'm not a big fan of Javascript either, but since so many sites use it, browsers have to support it. Steve Jobs was pretty smug when he said "iPad users aren’t missing much video", in April of 2010. Here my short list of things I can't do on the iPad, because of lack of support for flash.

Daily Show with John Stewart Full Episodes
Grooveshark
South Park
Colbert Report
Any Flash Games

I'm not a big Facebook fan, but lots of people like to play those games and there's just lots and lots of Flash content out there and it's quite a big hole in the iPad to not support Flash. Almost every other manufaturer of tablets has Flash pre-installed. The iPad not only doesn't have it pre-installed, you cannot install it. If you go to the Adobe website it says it's not available "because of restrictions that Apple has put in place." So what I'm gathering is that even if Adobe had a version of Flash that would install on my iPad Apple won't let them do it? Why?

Music is a hassle

Next up on the list. My music. I've got lots and lots of MP3's, OGG's, WAV's and other audio formats, and I would like to be able to copy said files from the desktop of my choice to my tablet. Not so with the iPad. To get music into your iPad you have to install a 300mb applications, (The iTune store), then load all of your music into iTunes, which now makes another copy of your music, taking up twice the disk space, in Apples proprietary format. It was the same thing with the iPods, just a lot of back bending to get a music file from point A to point B. I've had a G1 phone for years and all I've ever had to do, to move music, video, or other files to and from my device is plug it in to any machine, Mac, Windows or Linux and drag and drop. It looks like a thumb drive to whatever machine I plug it into, no additional software is required. iPads on the other hand force you to install a large application and sign up for an account, verify your e-mail address, etc. Just to put your music files into your device. I'm sorry I just don't feel it's necessary for me to have to reveal my personal information to Apple, just so I can put my music on my device. I also now get regular spam from the iTunes store, and I assume I can opt out, but I'll have to log into their site to do it.

No Java

There are a lot of mobile devices that don't support Java. But the iPad is not a phone. It touts itself as being a crossover device between a phone and a desktop. I kind of expect that it will run my desktop applications. I've got quite a few applications that depend on Java applets loaded on the web, and my favorite IDE Eclipse

What it does well

So let's talk for a minute about what it does well. I have to say it looks very nice. It's a very sexy piece of technology. The included E-mail application is nice and the Safari Web browser seems to work well. The UI is snappy and has a nice feel to it. And I have been able to find a couple of useful free applications.

iPad Applications

Here's a short list of free iPad apps that I've really liked so far.

ABC Player - Since iPad doesn't support Flash, you'll need this if you want to watch streaming video from ABC. There's an NBC player and a PBS player as well. You'll need these extra apps if you want streaming video. Comedy central has a player, but you have to pay for it. If you have flash, watching full episodes is Free.
Flipboard - a cool way to read the news, allows you to change pages like flipping the pages of a book.
PivotalTracker - I've been using this Agile task management system in Eclipse and on the Web, I've very stoked that there's an iPad client because Safari seems to have problems with the Pivotal web interface.
MetalStorm - A fun, free basic flying a jet and shooting down other planes game. I've been laying off the games as of late (much too much work), but this one is a fun quick distraction.
UYH - Use Your Hand, a very cool little notepad app, that lets you use your finger to write like a pen. It doesn't to OCR, which would be ultra cool, but it's works pretty well if you want to write instead of type.
Skype - This has been a very cool app for a long time and the iPad app is no different, it made me fall in love with tablet computing. With the front and back camera's in the iPad you can do "see what I see types of calls"

For every cool application there are probably about 1000 that are just junk, much like the Android app ecosystem. Either they are a rip off of the original that doesn't work quite as well, or they are just overpriced for what they offer. For example having to pay for an application to watch streaming video that will also have commercials inserted. I can see paying money for a really robust application, but most of the things that are being charged for just aren't worth it.That being said, iPads, and Macs in general have always been targeted at those who don't mind spending a few extra bucks on something that looks sexy and stylish.If you don't really care about the looks, these are all things I was doing years ago with my G1 phone. The tablet glued a bigger screen to the whole affair, and voila!, a Tablet.So really what I have here, is a nice big sexy smart phone that won't do Flash, won't easily store my music and won't make phone calls, although there is a Skype client and several other VOIP clients. That being said, this was given to me as a gift. Because of that fact alone, I love it dearly. There are quite a few things that it does well, but I'm rather reticent to support a company that mucks around with likes of patent trolls. This type of behavior has seriously tarnished my impression of a company that at least had the 'nads to put a Unix based OS on their desktops.DISCLAIMER: My opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the opinions of anyone I have worked for, currently work for or may work for in the future. They also do not reflect the opinion of my cat, my next door neighbor, or the guy that hangs out down at the beach and talks to himself.My final opinion is to follow my geeky heart and gravitate towards, Open Source and Android. If I'm going to do a tablet. It's just got to be Android. The main reason, is that if I chose a set of applications and I get to like them. If I stop liking the hardware. Or the hardware vendor starts providing crappy customer service, or I stop liking the hardware vendor for any other reason. I can buy hardware from any other number of vendors that my application will run on. Locking yourself into a single hardware/software solution has never been a good idea, no matter how many dancing monkeys, or dolphins jumping through flaming hoops you get along with the deal, being able to choose is always a good thing.

All that being said, at the end of the day, I have to support a company that is going to further my chosen profession, as a creator of technology solutions, and I have to avoid supporting companies that indirectly hurt my profession, in the blind pursuit of profit, no matter how cool it would be to have a dolphin, ride a flaming monkey shot from a cannon, through a big letter A.

The day I met Dennis Ritchie

2011-10-13T17:19:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted in awhile, and I'm sorry, but you know I've been real busy, working on new projects and finishing old ones. I just had to post a little something though as a tribute to our fearless leader and geek of all geeks. I only met him once but I got to speak with him for a full hour and ask him all the questions I ever wanted, well maybe not all, but most of them.

First I have to say that Jeong Kim, president of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, described him best as a "humble and gracious man". In the tech industry, when people get to a certain level of knowledge, they tend to go one of two ways. Either they share the wealth and are happy to tell you what they know, or the get all "Ivory Tower" and become aloof and uncaring. Dennis Ritchie definitely went the "share the wealth route". Most people have no idea how much this man contributed to computing, and how what we do is only possible because we stand squarely on his shoulders.

I met Dennis Ritchie over 10 years ago. I have to qualify my story, with, it was 10 years ago, and I may not get every detail right (In case the story police happen by :p). At the time, I was producing and hosting a talk radio show called RadioNet. We broadcast on the AM radio on KSCO in Santa Cruz, California and we also streamed our show on the Internet using RealAudio and TrueSpeech. We interviewed the stars of technology and talked about this great "new" thing the Internet. The RadioNet crew, packed up the show and took it to Networld/Interop, which was THE big networking show of the day. Dennis Ritchie was there with his new operating system he called "Plan 9", named after the science fiction movie.

Of course I asked him about C and Unix. First came C. The need there I was told was a result of the old programmers adage, "Laziness is a virtue". They had some code on a PDP-11 that they wanted to run on a different piece of hardware, maybe it was the other way around, but back then, if you wanted to write a program that did X on one machine, you'd have to write a whole new program to to X on a machine from a different hardware vendor.

The Answer was C. You could write one program, and with a "quick" compile you could run the same set of code on multiple machines, Brilliant!!! Lazy :) C is still the language of choice if you want something ultra fast and tight, and a large number of Internet Servers out there are written in C. It's not the easiest programming language to write in, but it's certainly one of the fastest and most widely used.

I also asked him about Unix. I was told by the master, that there were 3 main things they did with Unix. First was the whole idea of files and directories in a hierarchical structure. It wasn't until Windoze, that the whole drive letter thing and backslash got introduced to confuse things.

The second idea behind Unix was no matter where you read and write from whether it be a file on the disk, a screen or a printer, you do it the same. Everything you could ever want to read or write to is represented by a file you can open and read and write. Want to write a text file, open and write, want to print something on the screen, open the file that represents the screen and write to it.

The last thing and in my opinion the most brilliant thing was the ability to take the output of one program and make it the input of another program. This functionality allows me to do really groovy things like "find . -print | xargs grep foo". I won't explain what that means here, that's fodder for another article, suffice to say, I use input/output redirection at least once a day and have done so for the last 20 or so years.

No offense to Mr. Jobs, it sucks that anyone should die, but it saddens me to think that Steve is lauded as a hero an a pioneer, when all he really did was take existing technology and made it really slick and sexy. All this, while a titan, who invented the operating system that Apples run on today (BSD Unix), goes largely unsung.

You will be missed by all who knew you and all who know who your are. Fare the well my gentle giant.

LulzSec, Anonymous, who will it be next?

2011-06-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

LulzSec and Anonymous are on everyones lips these days. They've practically become a household word. It never ceases to amaze me how the media can sensationalize something to the point of making people believe something is totally new. They never came right out and said it, but from reading the articles about these guys, it would make one think that organized groups breaking into peoples systems is totally unbelievable and unheard of. The reality is, that as long as the Internet has been around, there have been organized groups of "hackers" on both sides of this battle.

Now I first have to digress about the work "hacker". Just because someone is a "hacker" does not mean they break into computers. A "hacker" is someone who likes to take things apart and see how they work. Hacking does not imply malicious intent, it describes the action of pulling something apart to see how it works, then putting it back together in a new way that changes the way the original thing worked. For example, someone who takes the engine out of a car and puts a new engine in the car and modifies the car to fit the engine is a car hacker. Mostlty the term is applied to computers, as in, "I just hacked my Playstation and got it to run Linux".

"Cracking" on the other hand is the act of breaking into something by avoiding or breaking, the security mechanisms put in place, to protect computers from unwanted intruders. There are many "Cracker" programs that are easily downloadable on the Internet, that will unencrtypt files and recover passwords. There are programs avaialble to crack the passwords on anything from the spreadsheet you password protected, to your wireless network.

Encryption is entirely dependent on the assumption that there isn't enough computing power available to try all the possible combinations in a reasonable amount of time and break the encryption. The amount of computing power over the last 10 years has increased so much, that encryption that was used 10 years ago can easily be broken by the computers of today. The problem is, that many programs still in use today use those old encryption methods that are easily breakable.

The only real way to protect yourself, from cracking type attacks, is to use the strongest encryption methods available and employ things like public and private keys. Biometrics, Key fobs and other security devices can also be employed to reduce the likliehood that your network or computer will be compromised by a cracking attack.

"Exploiting" is another method that is used in breaking into someones system. An exploit is usually a bug in the software that allows an outside attacker to run programs on the machine that has the bug. A hole for an exploit can also be caused by a mis-configuration, or more commonly lack of configuration. There are many things you can do to protect yourself from these types of attacks. First make sure your software is always up to date and configured properly, out of the box, default configurations are seldom the most secure. Second, Firewalls and Intrusion Detection software are a must if you have a network that has computers that allow connections from the outside world. I could write many articles on the different ways to secure your network, and even more articles about the different ways people can get into your network, in short, make sure you hire a computer professional, that knows more about security than anti-virus programs, but I'll get back to my main rant.

The number one reason networks are broken into, is because the people making the decisions, don't listen to the people they hire to be their experts. Being secure on the Internet is expensive and takes time. For most companies, security is an afterthought and is often overlooked for the sake of cost or time savings. In the computer business, there's an old saying: "Good, Fast, Cheap.... Pick any two".

It's kind of like taking your car to a sports stadium. Do you leave your car unlocked when you park it there? Well imagine that this parking lot has some of the most sophisticated car thiefs with all of the latest in locksmith technology and that given enough time they can break into almost any car in the lot. In this parking lot, even if you lock your car, the only thing that's protecting you is the fact that there are more cars than car thiefs. That's how it is on the Internet. When you plug your computer into the Internet, it's like parking your car in that giant parking lot and if you don't have the latest in alarms and protection, eventually, they will get around to you.

LulzSec and Anonymous are just the ones that made it in the news. There are literally thousands more like them all over the world, and anything that you have, that's plugged into the Internet is available to them to have a go at. Once in, they can get at anything that you have stored on your computer and record anything that you type. You have to remember, the Internet is a public network and as such, anyone is allowed.

So as long as people "cheap out" on security and ignore the warnings of their technology people groups like LulzSec and Anonymous will have it easy. With more and more people getting "wired", pickings for these guys are pretty fat these days. The only reason a larger numbers of people have not been broken in to, is because the bad guys just haven't got around to them yet. Thar be monsters out there, are you travelling the jungle in a rickshaw or an armored tank? If you want to continue to navigate the jungle in a rickshaw, eventually, you will become the lions dinner.

Using regex on a Drupal RSS Feed

2011-04-04T11:41:00.001-07:00

A brief intro on regex

regex or "Regular Expressions" are used just about everywhere. When you do a search on google, you are using a form of regular expression. When you do a find in a document, you are also using a form of regular expression.

What is a regular expression, for the un-initiated? Simply put, a regular expression is a way to write a concise definition that matches characters, words, and pattern in strings of text and documents. I won't go into a tutorial about "regex" - pronounced "rej-ex", you can read up about it at Wikipedia if you want to know more.

Testing your expressions

I've used regex for many years and many forms, and I've always struggled with it. It's kind of obtuse, and I've seen regular expressions, for verifying a valid e-mail address, that are hundreds of charachters long. It can get really complicate really quickly. In experimenting with using Regex as a parser in the Drupal Feed Importer stack, I ran across a very awesome tool that allows you to test out your regular expressions. It's RegExr at gskinner.com, and it's one of the best regex testing tools I've found. It even shows you your grouping matches, does multiline, and lots of other neat stuff.

Install Drupal Modules

To use regex on a news feed import in drupal, you'll first need the Feeds Module. This module allows you to import news feed items and elements into drupal nodes. Next you'll need the Feeds Regex Parser. This little module is great if you have a news feed that doesn't have the field parsed out all nice for you. In my case, I had a long address in one string and I need to pull the street address, city and state out. With the Feeds Regex Parser, you can import pieces from pattern matches using groupings.

For example, say I have a news feed that looks something like this:

<feed>

<item>

<address>123 Anystreet, Yourtown, CA</address>

</item>

<item>

<address>234 Anotherstreed, Anothertown, MI</address>

</item>

</feed>

And I want to pull out the address part of this without the town and state, and make it the title of the node I create from the feed.

Add New News Feed Importer

First create a new feed in Administer->Site Building->Feed Importers.

Give the feed a name and a description, then set up the feed on this screen:

Click on the basic settings and make sure you have the content type set as "Use standalone form" and that the Minmum refresh period is "Never". You can change the refresh period to your liking once it's all tested and working.

The fetcher should default to "HTTP Fetcher", so you don't need to make any changes here.

Next click change next to parser, then click "Select" next to the Regex Parser entry:

Once you've chosen the regex parser you can move on to the node processor settings, since the regex parser doesn't have any settings. Pick the content type you want to create with each feed item. I have chosen page, but if you choose feed, or feed item, your post will get created as part of an individual feed that has multiple nodes. I just want one page with no attachments, per news feed item, so I have chosen content type of "Page".

You can of course flavor the above to taste. Next is creating your mapping, which is pretty simple. You just select the only choice from the pulldown on the left, then select the field you want to load it into. Create as many entries as you need. We only need to pull the street address, so we'll create one.

We also need a unique identifier for this item, so we don't keep creating a new document every time we see it in the news feed. I'm using GUID. Notice I've checked the box on the GUID line to make it my unique target after I added it.

Import Your Data

You're almost there. Next you click on the top level menu item "Import", then click on the name of the importer you created. You can now enter your regular expressions. I've over simplified mine, and these most definately could be better in terms of construction, but I'm not here to discuss elegant regex writing. What I want to demonstrate below, is that your context, is your "Record Context", i.e. in what context will all of your record chopping regex occur?

So in the example below, my context shows <item></item> and then I am free to parse out my fields below that.

Lastly, enter the URL for your feed, then hit the import button and you are good to go!!

Anything that is specified in your grouping (In between the parenthesis) will be loaded into the field you specified in your mapping.

Caveats and Patch

You can use preg_match_all switches below, but I was not able to get them to work as expected. Also you can only have one group so a regex like the following won't work:

/$(.*),(.*)/

It will take whatever is in the first group.

I did write a small patch that concantenates the groups into one string for loading

In the FeedsREGEXParser.inc file in the module. Modify the following:

if (isset($matches[1])) {

return $matches[1];

} else {

return $matches[0];

}

To Be:

if (isset($matches[1])) {

$retval = "";

for ( $i = 1; $i < count($matches); $i++ ) {

$retval .= $matches[$i];

}

return $retval;

/* return $matches[1]; */

} else {

return $matches[0];

}

I'll submit this patch to the creator of the module for possible future inclussion, but in the meantime, it can help you strip comma's out of numbers and the like. So for example, something like:

/\$(.*),(.*)/

When applied to a string of "$100,000"

Will result in the number:

100000

Which can then be happily loaded into any numeric field.

-MT

How to sell your digital photography online

2011-02-16T19:43:00.000-08:00

With the advent of digital camera's and sites to sell your work on, it's never been easiers to make a little extra income by selling your digital photo's online.

I've been putting some time into assembling a stock photo library and have been putting some of my photos up on the various sites that sell stock photography. I'm at about a 25% to 50% acceptance rate depending on the site. These sites have editors that review the photo's and only post photos for sale that meet their standards. I've commented below on what I've found on each one. Some of them take up to a week to approve your photos for sale.

Sites I've found so far that you can easily sell your images on, are:

http://www.fotolia.com - Accepted the largest number of my photos (the Walmart of stock photos), can queue up largest number of photos for approval.

http://www.dreamtime.com - More picky than fotolia, but they also allow you to submit the raw file in addition to your JPG. they also allows you to queue up a large number of photos for approval.

http://www.bigstockphoto.com - about as picky as dreamscape but they only allow you to queue up 15 photos at a time until your approval rating gets to a certain point.

http://istockphoto.com - The pickiest of the bunch, and before you can submit anything you have to submit your 10 best images and if you don't get at least 7 out of 10 approved you have to wait 30 days before you can submit another 10.

I've also been playing around with High Dynamic Range Pictures and as soon as I get things uploaded and organized I'll post some of the links up here, one thing I have to say about that is Bracketing Rocks!!!.

Here's an example of a shot I took on a recent road trip that I applied the HDR stuff too using exposure bracketing on my Cannon Rebel.

In a future article, I'll talk about how I did it. It's become much easier with The Gimp

Aren't you ready for Linux Yet?

2010-11-09T16:20:00.001-08:00

"A Classic Drive By Attack" is what this article says.

So Microsoft Outlook has another bug that allows machines to be infected and taken over without the users clicking on an attachment or anything.

Plus many other security holes, in Office, and other security holes that have to be patched manually. I always hear much gnashing of teeth and wailing over the high cost of hiring the staff to administer Linux or Unix boxes, but once you install a Linux box, and once it's configured and running, administration is minimal.

I used to fix the Windoze boxes of family and friends when they got infected with a virus or malware, or crippled by spyware. Not anymore, now when someone brings me an infected box, I give them two options. Let me install Linux, or take it to someone else. So far nobody has turned me down. And of the 10 friends/family I have installed Linux for over the last two years, none of them have had a single virus or blue screen of death or other system issue. I also haven't received a single phone call about how does this work or that work, or this broke or that broke.

This has been typical of the Windoze environment ever since Windoze for Workgroups when they added networking and allowed the rest of the world in. I just don't get why people continue to buy the marketing hype of Redmond and continue to throw money at this swiss cheese platform.

And if you haven't worked with Windoze 2008 Server yet, let me tell you, you are in for big administration headaches and backwards compatability issues. In order to try to fill the holes in their swiss cheese, so many security "features" have been added, it pretty much rewrites the book on configuration of security on one of these machines. Things like authentication and networked filesystems and file permissions are very much fubar'd and require a whole new level of expertise to configure and maintain.

So to close, I'll relate a story. A friend of mine asks me about why their machines are running so slow in their office. This friend tells me they are going to buy new machines because everything is so slow now. I tell them, they probably have some kind of virus or malware, or something slowing the machines down and they don't need new hardware.

I speak with the business owner, and she tells me that everything runs great, it's just the slow machines. She also tells me Windoze if fine for their office (she forgets the compatability issues they had last month where people couldn't read each others documents).

The next day, this same business owner is reading e-mail and all of a sudden, a picture of a woman lacking clothing, doing the spread eagle appears on her screen. Needless to say, I went by their office and ran malware and anti-virus scan's on all the machine in the office. Turns out only one of the machines wasn't infected with multiple virus'

The moral to the story here is get off of the Redmond crack. Take the needle out and put something in your business that isn't prone to getting attacked every month from some new threat. It's great that there are security patches available, but before there is a patch, someone has to find the bug, and by the time you get the patch, it's already probably too late. Kinda like the old saying of "Closing the barn door after the horse is already gone".

Google Analytics Custom Variables - How To Trim Properly

2010-06-25T05:46:00.000-07:00

Well I've been geeking out with Google Analytics as of late, and I've got to say, why would anyone pay for it anymore? Awesome tool that satisfies most Analytics needs.

That being said, recently Google launched a new feature called Custom Variables. This new feature is very powerful, but it has some limitations. One of these is that during a single page load request, if you total up all the keys and all the values for your request, they can only equal 64 bytes in total.

Other limitation are that you are limited to setting 5 key value pairs at a time, and the other limitation I have run up against is that you cannot send multiple values for a single key in a single page load.

But wait there's more.... The 64 character limit is URIEncoded, that is to say if you have a string with a character that gets URIEncoded, say like a semi-colon, this single byte will be expanded to 3 bytes when it gets URIEncoded.

So AB;

Becomes

AB%3D

If you are using the code on the net I found that URIEncodes, then trims the string, then URIDecodes before passing to _setCustomVar, you can run into an error where you wind up with a partial string on the end, that when URIDecoded will generate an error. To solve this problem I wrote the following function that allows the setting of custom variables and will trim them to an arbitrary length and will also get rid of any partially URIEncoded strings at the end.

Enjoy:

  function gaTrimCustomVar(vstr,vlen) {
       // URI encode and truncate to vlen
       var tstr = encodeURIComponent(vstr).substr(0,vlen);

       // If the first character is URL encoded and length is not at least 3
       // we'll return untrimmed and let the upper level deal otherwise we would clear
           // the value completely and return an empty string.
       if( tstr.indexOf('%') == 0 && vlen < 3) {
        return vstr;
       }

           // load a pointer to any partial URI encoded characters at the end

           var uptr = tstr.substr(tstr.length - 2,2).indexOf('%');

       // If there aren't any partial URI encoded characters at the end, return
       if(uptr == -1) {
        return decodeURIComponent(tstr);
       }
     
       // return only up to the last partially URI encoded character.
       return decodeURIComponent(tstr.substr(0,(tstr.length - 2) + 1));

       }

Conficker - Still paying for the mistakes of the past

2010-06-24T21:15:00.000-07:00

I've been specializing in Analytics lately and I use Linux on all my desktop machines, so I haven't really paying that much attention to the Windoze arena other than the nicely manicured, maintained by a team of overseas engineers Windoze machines. I was reading this article from The Atlantic the other day, and I think the time has finally come to migrate off of Redmond Swiss Cheese once and for all.

The Conficker worm is one MF, for sure. The problem is this. You don't have to get infected by it directly. If there's a machine that's on the same network you're on, and it has the Conficker worm. That machine will actively attack your machine. It will try new security holes, and it will even try password cracks to try and guess your passwords.

First detected back in 2008, this thing has just gotten bigger and badder ever since. Sure there are patches, and apparently only some unreleased Beta of Windows 7 was vulnerable, but most of the other release before it were at one point vulnerable.

So let's say that you have one of these Windows systems and you are installing it fresh. It's probably vulnerable out of the box and will need an update. Well guess what, you have to connect to the Internet, to get the patch to close the hole. If you are on a network and there are machines that are infected, they will be actively attacking your machine. It's a race against time to see if you can patch your system before the nasties get in.

I just don't get it, I'm talking with my significant other's employer, they have seem to be having the same problems every network with Windows has, things work, then don't work, machines get infected with virus' and other nasty stuff, compatibility issues with older version and when I tell them they need to get off Windows and onto Mac's or Linux, they say "Well Windows has been working fine for us". When in fact they have all of the problems I just described. It's funny how people computers can run slow, crash and have all kinds of other issues that keep them from working and things are "working fine for us". The very next day, this same person I had the conversation with has the nastiest picture she has ever seen, spread eagle on her screen with the message "Watch Me Masturbate!". I think their ready for Linux now :)

Windows vs. Linux the candy bar analogy

2010-04-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

So I was trying to explain to my significant other, this morning, about why, having worked with both *nix systems and Windows systems, do I dislike working with the OS from Redmond so much? Do I have something personal against Bill Gates? I mean come on man what's the deal yo? I really should like Windows, many of the things I do take much longer in Windows than just about any other OS, so there are more billable hours to be had. As an ethical consultant though, I really do want what's best for the customer. Also billable hours where the customer is in a panic because they are trying to recover important files that were lost because of some weakness in their operating system is not a fun call. I kind of summed up my dilemma in analogy that went something like this.

It would be like being a great chef, able to create any dish that tasted like anything in the world. But all people wanted to order from you, or have you prepare. were deep fried candy bars. They taste yummy to the customers, but the problem is, the customers keep keeling over dead. But it doesn't stop there, because you fed them the candy bar in the first place, you have to round up the Pope, the Local Witch Doctor and a guy from India named Bob to have a lengthly ceremony, where small animals are sacrificed to resurrect the now lifeless customer.

The customers is alive again, they are missing some fingers off of their left hand. Not to worry though, "Give me another candy bar!" the customer cries, "I'll pay anything, I love it!,and besides, it's what everyone is eating, I get a side of deep fried candy bar with almost every meal I order from any restaurant, why not? Oh and do I get a discount on you sewing my spare fingers back on?"

So I send the Pope, the Witch Doctor and Bob home with a healthy donation to the church, a goat and a support contract, or did I send the goat to the Pope? Well, regardless, the very next thing the customer does is order another deep fried candy bar. I say to the customer, "Look man, if you eat that you will just die again, and I'll have to call the Pope and things will get ugly, but you know, I can make you something that will taste just like that other candy bar, it will have the chocolate, the nougat, the caramel, everything the other candy bar has, and it won't kill you, except it's totally magical and organic, made by little elves in a far away land with chocolate rivers and houses made out of gingerbread, at least that's what I might as well be saying when I start to talk to the customer about the advantages of Open Source and the protected memory architecture of a *nix system vs. other operating systems that don't have these nifty features, not to mention the savings in time and money in maintenance, performance, downtime, etc.

You just can't beat a LAMP system (Linux, Apache, Mysql, PHP) for small to medium sized deployments. I just set up a small store owner with Ubuntu and Zoneminder on an 8 year old PC that would no longer run Windows, and now it's a low cost security camera server replacement for her 3 Axis Video cams in her store. Whenever my friends or family come to me with their Windows machines infected, again, I have just started to wipe them and put Ubuntu on them. If they want to keep their Windows, fine, but I'm not going to try to unravel their messes anymore. Oh and if you want to know what kind of new computer to buy, get a blue one :p

If you've got the dough, nothing will give you that low end torque like a Solaris Risc box running a well tuned Oracle database, oh baby! I put in a Sun box at a large deployment to process credit cards on the Internet a few years back, and it's still running without a reboot, chugging away. The Windows server that was processing credit cards for only a few local machines, had to be rebooted every night or the machine would hang, requiring someone to go down to the server room and hit the reset buttton in the middle of the day while cash registers were pumping and plastic was sliding. The problem was because of a poorly written application, but therein lies the big difference between most *nix systems and Windows based systems. In *nix land, it's much more difficult to write a program that will completely hang or crash the machine. Because of protected memory, which I won't go into detail about in this article, it makes it harder for a regular user to run a program that will cause the system and other users grief, it also makes it harder for virus' and other malicious programs to do extensive damage should they happen to get in.

All that being said, maybe one day, people will start to use an Operating system that is crafted by tiny elves in a far away magical land and forsake the evil king who rules from atop his green mountain of cash, with his armies of briefcase wielding stormtroopers, but then again, to quote a phrase "and maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt". Until then though, I guess I'll just shut up, put a few bills from the mountain in my pocket and go home :p

Mozilla 3.6 and VMWare

2010-04-15T16:57:00.000-07:00

I went there, and I went back. Some kinda issues on that baby. Chrome doesn't work at all (yet) with VMWare, but oooohhh what a Sexy browser, I just love Chrome, and now that it's on Linux, it makes it all better.

Anyway, after going down the long dark upgrade hole of Mozilla 3.6 pre2, Well actually the Upgrade was easy, it was what happened afterwards that was a long dark hole.

Firstly, my My VMWare did not work. Wouldn't even let me log into the console. This problem is easy enough to fix. Turns out that in 3.6 (And 3.7) SSL2 is disabled by default. I'm not sure what the story is, but I assume it has something to do with SSL2 being easily cracked. Anyway, the solution to getting it to actually log in, is to enable SSL2.

To enable SSL2, in the address bar at the top of your browser type in:
_
about:config

Scroll down to

security.enable_ssl2

Then click on whre it says false and click "Toggle", it should then say True.

Stop and start the browser (Actually I don't know if that's 100% necessary), and you'll get a login screen.

The next problem I ran into was that I couldn't get the console started, but It may not have been all 3.6's fault. Part of the problem was that because I couldn't get VMWare running, I decided to try to get to my VMWare server w/out Mozilla. Wrongo!!, I try to install the VMWare player and the installation process removed VMWare server, Doh!

After re-installing the VMWare Server and Downgrading my Mozilla to 3.5.9, I was ready to go, or so I thought. My VMWare instance would boot to 95%, then just stop. A poke around the log files found some errors about bad links in /var/run. To solve this, I did the following:

1. Stop the VMWare services by doing:

sudo /etc/init.d/vmware stop

2. Check to make sure no vmware process are running

ps -ax | grep vmware

There may be stuck vmware process' running, you have to kill by hand with kill or kill -9, make sure to kill the vmware-watchdog process first, or it will keep starting up process' you are trying to kill.

3. After everything is stopped, go to the /var/run directory(ies) from your /var/log/vmware log entries and remove any .lck file in the .lck directories.

4. Run vmware-config.pl and select the defaults all the way through.

You installation _SHOULD_ work now, if it doesn't, hey it worked for me :p

Star Trek Online, How to NOT get it working in Linux (Ubuntu)

2010-04-09T13:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I wanted to make a short post as I thought I had it working using the method below. When the screen came up to the initial game after I installed, logged in, updated, etc. The Video was scrambled.

Since then I have been hopelessly lost down a road of re-installs and Wine Internet Explorer madness. I won't bore you with details, but just wanted to follow up to my last article and let anyone know that, the guy in the Video made it look, Sooooo.... Easy, nothing about the extra bits and bobs that you might need or that he was using, anyway, suffice to say, I'm still dual booting to get my Kling-On, but I did manage to get Team Fortress 2 working on Ubuntu, but that's another story, I'm going to hit the waves for a bit while I wait for the Excel, Visual Basic, ODBC Macro monstrosity I have written is finished before it's off to the world of Cut, Paste and Glue!

I also saw someone comment about how my later articles were better than my earlier ones, and you know, it's because I'm better too, but that's REALLY, another story, until then Geek on, and I'll see you in space you squishy Federation types :p

Star Trek Online, How to get it working in Linux (Ubuntu)

2010-04-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

OK I haven't posted in awhile, but this will be my geekiest post to date. Not only do I talk about Star Trek, I talk about a Star Trek game, not only is it a game, it's an online game, a massively multi-player, online game (MMO). Now if that weren't geeky enough, at the end of this post I'm going to provide links that will allow you to install Star Trek Online under Linux. So if you are not already having spasms of geek joy just thinking about playing your geeky game about your geeky TV show with other geeks on the Internet on the geekiest (and most user friendly, ahem!) operating system on the planet, then read on.

I've really been enjoying this game, it's very cool to get my Kling-On :p. So far PvP as a Klingon is the best part of the game. There's a mission called "A Good Day To Die" where the object is to be killed 50 times in PvP. The only drawback with PvP'ing is that PvP is the primary way for a Klingon to level, Federation types have all types of missions they can run to level up and get good loot. It also means Federation types are soft and squishy. They don't PvP much, whereas the Klingons pretty much have to PvP to level or get any good loot. The alternative for Klingons is to grind exploration missions. I think once more content is added for Klingons, they will become less the PvP elite that they are now and it will balance out a bit. Still though, Klingon vs. Federation at the moment is pretty much a game of burn down the noob, hehe.

So on with how to get this sucker installed on Linux (Ubuntu Hardy Heron w/ Upgrades was what I installed on). First I tried to install this under VMWare. Even with the latest release and much gnashing of Teeth, no go. Next I tried VirtualBox. I really liked VirtualBox and I think I will move to it for my personal use of things like GotoMeeting, etc. Things I have to run I have to have Windoze for. Anyway, VirtualBox had a problem, even though I had read people had gotten it to work. Of those who reported it to to work it worked very slow.

In comes Wine, yeah Wine. The difference between Wine and VMWare or VirtualBox, is that VMWare and VirtualBox, at their base are hardware emulators. They emulate a virtual piece of hardware, that any operating system can be installed on. Wine on the other hand is an API that interfaces Windows applications to the Linux OS. It's more of a bridge than an emulator. That being said. I found this nifty YouTube Video where this clever chap shows step by step how to install it.

The application he's using is PlayOnLinux, which helps you install your Windoze games on Linux. It can be downloaded from http://www.playonlinux.com

You'll also want to install the PlayOnLinux plugin POL Helper (Also in the video)

Instructions for that can be found in the following thread:

http://www.playonlinux.com/en/topic-2415-Plugin_POL_Helper.html

So my friends, sit back, relax, and geek out!

IPOD Nano 8gb 5g review

2010-02-25T07:54:00.000-08:00

So the thing looks and feels really, really cool, it felt good to have in my hand. The cool metal feeling made me feel like I was almost gripping something erotic. Then I plugged it into my computer, and the feeling changed from one of bliss, to kind of feeling like waking up in the morning after a drunken binge, next to a fat hairy guy, and you can't really remember what happened but your but kinda hurts.

I'll make no bones about loving Linux and abhoring the piece of Junk Redmond feigns to call an operating system. So all of my other devices just plug in and look like USB drives, my girlfriends freaking Palm does that and you already know what I think of that deprecated has been. To be fair, the IPOD does show up as a USB drive and you can copy music files to it, but then when you unplug it, it does not show that you have any Music on your IPOD.

So I embarked on a Journey of trying to get one of the many programs that can load music onto IPODS from Linux, most of them depend on a library called libgpod. This library is used by many of the Linux applications that manage your music library to easily sync your music with your IPOD.

The problem is that instead of the IPOD seeing that there is new files on it's drive and figuring out how to index them in it's database, the IPOD depends on an external application to update their little SQL database with artists and titles, etc. That's where libgpod comes in. Problem is Apple has changed the format, (once again), so none of the program that work with the previous versions of IPOD's work with the 5g (5th generation) IPODS.

After trying to download and compile libgpod from source and applying patches from the net. I finally admitted defeat and downloaded iTunes. Are you kidding me?!? 300mb and a half hour installation, just to get some MP3 files copied to my music player?? Apple can put it in a sexy package and make it simple, but they are as bad as the evil that lurks in Redmond when it comes to being closed and proprietary.

So my advice, unless you want to look cool, but fail in the tech department, get one of these. If you want a simple to use, low profile music player, there are many out there. Make sure you get a player that doesn't need additional software installed on your machine, that's really the key. You should just be able to plug the player into a USB port, then drag and drop supported format files onto it and be done. The player should figure out from what you load on it, what to do with it and should not require additional software be installed.

That's my Music Player design lesson for the day, class dismissed :p

Anime Music Video, an Internet Art Form

2008-04-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

Anime Music Videos, or AMV's as theya re called, are just another example of how the Internet has created new forms of art. Groups of Anime fans take their favorite animations and put combine them with effects and their favorite music to create original forms of art, that are really a communication medium. Small bands of friends share AMV's to express emotions or send a message to each other or the group. Here is a link to my daughters YouTube site with some of the better, IMO, examples of the art form.

April Fools, Geek Style

2008-04-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

Every year on April 1 the IETF publishes a Joke RFC.

Here is a link to this years RFC 5241

Here's a classic from 2001 RFC 3092 The Etymology of Foo

Happy April Fools

Confuse-A-Cat

2008-01-15T07:58:00.000-08:00

I was cruising around one of my favorite sites fark.com, and found this gem in the video section. This video leaves no doubt in my mind that these guys are, in fact, completely insane.

Mr. T, William Shatner, Verne Troyer (coming soon), It's World of Warcraft!!

2007-12-11T14:03:00.000-08:00

First the South Park tie in, now popular celebs stumping for the game. They've got some sharp marketing people over there at Blizzard. I love the Mr. T Spot. Gonna get me some Night Elf Mohawk.... Fool!!

Not to be outdone, one of my heros, old Mr. overacting himself, you know what to do dog!

They've also got Jean-Claude Van Damme in a French commercial

And for the Spanish speaking set there's Willy Toledo

And because Mr. T is the man *smirk* Here's a word from Snickers

Ubuntu Installation Tips

2007-12-05T10:07:00.000-08:00

We'll I've been using Ubuntu for almost a year now. I've been through 4 new installs and 5 upgrades, and I must say I'm still impressed. In going through a few installs I found a couple of gotchas that I wanted to pass along in the hopes that it might save someone some time. The Ubuntu community has been very good to me, so as they say, it's time to put back into the pot.

Sound
-------
Under Linux there are older programs that use oss or other methods that take over the sound card so that only one application can play sound at a time. I use artsd, but there is also aoss and other solutions. There's another article here on this blog that goes into more detail of how to implement artsd, but know that if you only get audio from one program at a time, it's probably because it is using oss or trying to talk directly to the sound card. If you are using wine to run Windows programs you can also run wine under aoss or arts so that it will play nice with other audio apps.

Flash, Windows and Other non-free stuff
-----------------------------------------
The easiest way I've found is to use the Synaptics package manger and install "Automatix". This nifty little program will go out and grab all the non-free stuff you need to play DVD's and other proprietary media on your machine. You can still get the pieces manually by adding the proper repositories and installing the right pieces, but Automatix makes this part a no-brainer.

Video and Network Cards
--------------------------
If you have an ATI or NVIDIA card or certain Network cards you'll probably want to install the non-free drivers for these. Automatix may take care of getting these installed, but if it doesn't, then you'll need to install the restricted drivers package (you can use Synaptics and do a search for restricted). Be sure that you have the "Proprietary drivers for devices (restricted)" checked in Synaptics->Repositories->Ubuntu Software Tab. You want to make sure you check "linux-restricted-modules-xxx" where xxx is the release/architecture of the kernel you are using.

64 Bit Installs
---------------
I did one of these installations and although I was very stoked to be running 64 bit, there was a bit of backbending I had to do to get 32 bit compiled apps to work as not everything is available yet in 64 bit. That being said, most of the important things are available in 64 bit, and you can always compile from source, the things that aren't but if you're lazy like me, 32 bit Ubuntu still kicks arse on anything else on the block.

Games
--------
I managed to get Warcraft, Eve-Online (albiet w/ only oss audio), and Steam w/ Team Fortress 2 working on Gutsy. Games that are written natively for Windoze will always run better there because tools like wine need to create a virtual machine to run the Windoze software. It's nice to be able to say you run games in Linux, but if you want peak performance, you've unfortunately got to run these in Windoze. That being said, if you've got enough horsepower, there's nothing like sticking it to the man in Redmond and running MS Free.

The Nitty Gritty and Support
------------------------------
If you have a problem and have to get into the guts, remember google is your friend, just put Ubuntu as your first keyword and you won't often fail to find an answer. If that doesn't work, posting on the Ubuntu forums has always worked well for me.

Upgrading from earlier releases
--------------------------------
I upgraded and now my video or network doesn't work. It's probably because you need to re-install the restricted modules for the new release. Upgrades will disable restricted modules and 3rd party software so after an upgrade be sure to re-install these restricted pieces (I've been bitten by this one more than once). Also re-installing other applications after an upgrade, or if parts of the install fail, re-installing via apt-get or Synaptics can often set you right.

That's about it for now. Remeber - In a world without fences, who needs Gates?

Paros Proxy - Web Debugging/Testing at it's finest.

2007-12-03T10:39:00.000-08:00

I just got this one up and running under Ubuntu Gutsy. This is a very nice Web Development Tool as well as a nice debugging tool for seeing exactly what is going on in an HTTP connection. I think it's really intended as a security auditing tool, but I think people in Web Development are missing the boat if they don't take a look at this tool to test development modifications to existing live sites.

The big thing I like about it is the ability to modify HTML on the fly as it goes from the Web Server to the browser. This is a must have for anyone that needs to get down the the nitty gritty level of debugging sites at the HTTP protocol level as well as picking through generated HTML and Javascript code.

I write different Javascript for Websites. With this tool I can intercept the code in any site, then modify the code before my browser sees it. By doing this I can easily test pieces of Javascript in a live site to see if they work before giving them to the customer.

This is written in Java so you should be able to run it on pretty much anything. Since I run it on Ubuntu I've included a couple of notes about running it there.

This one will require sun Java 6. as the gcj Java that comes with Ubuntu won't work with Paros (at least with the 3.2.13 release I worked with).

If you are on Gutsy you can use apt-get or synaptic package manager to install java-6-sun.

Then in the startserver.sh script uncomment the line that sets
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun

And change the line to run /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/bin/java instead of just java (which will run /usr/bin/java which by default will be gcj)

If you don't make these changes you'll get a java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException for SunX509. I've sent the small change needed in the Javascript to eliminate this particular error so we'll hope to see it as a fix in a future release, in the meantime though, It seems to work very well on Ubuntu with the Sun Java 6. It's a must have for anyone in Web Development. There is an equivalent product called "Fiddler" for Windoze, but it only runs in Windoze, so there you have it. Bop on over to the Paros Website grab a copy give and give it a go.

ATI, Ubuntu Gutsy , Compiz, BigDesktop - Beautiful :)

2007-12-02T23:57:00.000-08:00

Even in 2D mode without Compiz, Ubuntu Linux with Big Desktop is the shiznit. Turn on Compiz and it's a desktop experience that makes is a pleasure to sit at the computer.

So far I've gotten the following goodness working on Ubuntu:
World of Warcraft
Team Fortress 2 (w/ voice coms)
Eve Online (Although I'm still trying to figure out how to get the sound to share)

The key things to watch out for when configuring games is that wine and some of the older Linux audio applications will us oss and/or talk to the sound card directly and not be nice and share.

I couple of options exist to share the sound hardware.

aoss, esd and arts. For me arts has worked the best, I haven't tried esd and I got static with aoss.

To start arts, first start the server by doing the following:

$ artsd -d &

The -d tells it to go full duplex so you can use voice comm applications.

Then do:

$ artsdsp TeamSpeak

or

$ artsdsp wine WoW.exe

Other than that, but "ubuntu" before your searches and there are lots of awesome folks in the Ubuntu community that have been there and documented what they have done to get it to all work.

I have been having a few issues with the ATI card and BigDesktop w/ 3D Acceleration, but on the whole I've been very happy with my new install. You can get the nitty gritty of it on the Ubuntu forums at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3882866#post3882866

Enjoy and have a nice big cup of Ubuntu!!

World of Warcraft on Ubuntu Gutsy w/ Teamspeak (and Music)

2007-12-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

So I've gone upgrade crazy. I've got the Latest Ubuntu Gutsy Gabon (7.10) installed. And I got all my doo-dads working as well.

First off, I found the most useful walk-throughs on answers by prefacing my searches with "Ubuntu"

For example "ubuntu warcraft install howto" on google did wonders. Lots of good advice, etc.

In a nutshell the procedure is

1. Install wine on Ubuntu
2. Get the WOW download or copy the contents of all 4 install CD's into a single directory.
3. enter "wine Installer.exe"

There are many other details depending on your video card, etc. but probably the most useful notes are as follows:

1. Wine will try to "own" the audio device. So only one program at a time when running under wine will have audio. The solution to this is to use either aoss or arts on Ubuntu.

With aoss you do something like:

aoss wine wow.exe
aoss TeamSpeak # the linux binary

I found aoss to be not so good and had static when using TeamSpeak.

I personally use arts. You start up artsd first (the daemon) as follows:

artsd -d

The -d puts it in full duplex mode so you can use your mic.

Then start your applications like aoss, i.e.

artsdsp wine wow.exe
artsdsp TeamSpeak
artsdsp rythmbox

Anything that uses audio in wine or any linux programs that use oss audio need to use either aoss or arts if you want to run more than one program with audio output at a time.

Enjoy...

Seamless Mouse and Keyboard Switching on Windows and Linux

2007-12-01T10:28:00.000-08:00

This is by far one of the handiest utilities I've seen for a computer in many years.

It's called Synergy. And what it does is this: Let's say you have two computers a laptop and a deskop. Your laptop is on the left desktop on the right. When you start up Synergy you can move your mouse to the left side of your desktop screen and it shows up on the right side of the laptop screen. You can also use your keyboard input and you can do this with several computers. What it means is you can use one keyboard an mouse to seamlessly control several computers.

It works on both Linux and Windows and is interoperable so you could have 2 windows, 2 linux or a windows and a linux or any combination of up to 5 computers (center, top, bottom, left and right). It's very easy to set up, I've been using it frequently for the last couple of days and it seems to work beautifully.

You can get this baby at http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Bye bye desk full of keyboards and mice, Yeah!!!

Legal MP3 Downloads, Somebody finally got it

2007-11-25T08:45:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't heard. Amazon has MP3 downloads. DRM free, no download client required, just purchase the music and download it with your browser. It's not about paying for the music really. You can try the file sharing networks, but it can be hard to find the song you want and quality tends to vary, not to mention, if you get popped by the Metalicops. It could get ugly. If I figure my time is worth $60 an hour it only has to save me a minute of time to be worth the download charge. I really think Amazon has got it right, large selection, and I'm not locked to a single computer or device, I get decent quality MP3's fast download.
It will be interesting to see if the service flies with the recording companies. There is a note on the site about this being Beta. I wonder if there's some kind of digital signature in the MP3's so they can see how many of their purchased files wind up on P2P networks. In the mean time, I'm downloading like a madman and filling out my library. Enjoy.

Vista Again? Not so In Business

2007-11-24T04:19:00.000-08:00

I haven't been doing a lot of travelling over the past couple of months, but that's fine with me. It's not so much fun to go places these days, with security, surly airline staff and the like. I read a story recently about a guy who was threatened with arrest when he tried to get some love for the laptop that he says airport security broke.

So I was reading about Vista again *smirk*. Their new service pack one that's supposed to have some performance improvements, really doesn't. It's really kind of funny. I do quite a bit of work with large companies, and not a single one has Vista installed. Most of them run XP on the desktop and Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 in the server room. It's not just because there are hardware costs associated, i.e. need more hardware, it's because of the risk of upgrading. These IT departments have been burned before by compatibility issues and server downtime, they're going on the "If it's not broke don't fix it" methodology, which, in my opinion, is not a bad one.

It's sad to see but in the Windows shops, the IT staff is constantly in an uproar about something. This failing, that breaking, etc. I've seen places where system failure were so frequent, they set up rooms of people that just watch the systems waiting for them to fail. When I go into a *nix shop. (That's Unix/Linux for the uninitiated). Although there are system failure, user support, etc. There isn't the, "Oh my god we've got a huge problem", feeling in the air. The engineers are engaged in creating and designing instead of plugging holes.

As a consultant I have a love hate relationship with Windows. It always takes me longer to do things with Windows than with any other OS I have worked with. It's good when you are charging by the hour, but bad whenever you are trying to get something done for yourself.
Things like copying files from one machine to another, or just downloading something from the Internet almost always takes me longer on a Windows machine. Most people see Windows on a desktop and it doesn't to all that bad of a job there, if you aren't too concerned about security. I see Windows on huge pieces of hardware dealing with large amounts of data. It's always fun to try to copy a large file across the network, after it prepares to copy for 20 or 30 minutes, it will start to copy, get part of the way through and die a horrible death. To be fair, this type of a scenario is usually caused by some 3rd party piece of resident anti-virus software, that corporation are forced to install if they want any semblance of security on their Windows servers.
I'll get off of my soap box again, but I will refer you to an article written by Juergen Haas which goes into some of the more technical details of making the choice between Windows vs. Unix.

Team Fortress 2, Good FPS Fun

2007-11-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

In my off time, I enjoy playing a game or two. Single players are OK, but when it comes to pure gaming satisfaction, multi-player games are the stuff. When you play against a computer there is always some pattern, that when figured out, enables easy wins. When playing against a human opponent, you never know what they'll do. It makes for a richer gaming experience, In my opinion, and there is a small visceral satisfaction in knowing there's someone on the other end of that missile you just fired going, "Dammit, he just shot me!".

I've been a big fan of the EA Battlefield series for some time and have been liking Battlefield 2142, but just found a new FPS (First Person Shooter) that has great gameplay, an abundance of servers and terrific player vs. player action. It's one of the only video games that plays just like it's trailers. With alot of games you watch the trailers get excited about it, then the game itself comes nowhere close to the hype of the trailer. With Team Fortress 2, the games plays like the trailer. You don't just blow people up, you blow the hell out of them. When using a flamethrower you don't just set people on fire, you burn them down!

I'm including a couple screenshots from some recent gameplay and be sure to check out the site at The Orange Box Site

These are shots of a couple of guys that got their just rewards after filling me full of lead. The game gives you the opportunity to take a screen shot of the avatar of the person that just killed you. Here are a couple

Windoze Vista? Are you nuts?

2007-09-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

Do you like to have to upgrade your hardware, add memory, etc? Do you like to have the applications and drivers that you have used for years no longer work? If you're a sucker for punishment, then I guess Vista is the Operating System for you. I have heard many war stories of this no longer works, or my machine runs like a dog now after people I know have installed Vista.

As this person says in this video, Vista is not a new and improved OS, it's just a different OS. There is nothing I have seen to date that makes me want to again pony up to the Microsoft Tax to upgrade my machines. If you want my advice, stick with XP until you are dragged kicking and screaming to Vista. It's been the same story from DOS to Windows 3.1 to Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows XP to Vista, every subsequent release adds more un-needed features, more bloat and always requires more hardware horsepower to run. Add that some of the applications you currently run will no longer fully work and I have to ask, "What are you people thinking?"

Airline Passenger Bill of Rights .. Take out passenger and you got it right.

2007-09-26T08:13:00.001-07:00

It's sad that it's come to this. Most of the airlines are so lacking in customer service it's amazing they are still in business. Oh yeah I almost forgot, they provide bad customer service, people stop flying them, then they ask the government (meaning us taxpayers) to bail them out.

I was in Phoenix recently and I saw a lady go up to the ticket counter and the agent said "Hello How are you today?" The lady responded "Not to well, I haven't been treated very nicely by your fellow employess". Now the woman was not belligerent, she was not agro in any way. Rather her tone was very conciliatory and rather downtrodden. The agent however that it was necessary, in front of me, to take the lady aside, and start wagging his finger in her face and tell her that "If she didn't shape up her attitude that she wasn't going to get on the plane"

I see things like this happen alot. Airline employees seem to have free reign to treat the customers any way they like and any time anyone complains or has an issue with the service passengers are threatened with not being able to get to their destinations. These days I just suck it up, try to keep my head down and not be noticed. I don't want to miss a business engagement because some Airline ticket agent is having a bad day, or they don't like the look of me or my attitude.

Anyway the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights had all the bite removed from it and is now a watered down version of the original that removes any real protection to us consumers, gives the Airlines lots of leeway, and really doesn't address the problems experienced by travelers. I'm sure the Airlines are breathing a sigh of relief, us passengers are left wondering why our elected representatives don't really represent us at all.

New I-Phone? I think not.

2007-09-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

I've been a big Treo fan for years. I've still got my Treo 700p (The P is for the Palm Version). I've really loved this phone and Palm-OS has been good to me over the years.

Unfortunately all that has changed. You can no longer get support from Palm on their Palm phones. You have to go to the cell phone provider to get support on your Palm-OS. Problem is support for the phone consists of, "Well send you a replacement unit" Anyway I digress.

Needless to say, I am now searching for a new platform. I've been eying the I-Phone, but from what I've read, it's very sexy, but get under the hood and it blows up. Recent reports of installing software to allow use of the phone with other service providers causing the phones not to work and the support of only one phone service provider are leaving me cold on this one.

I'm actually quite interested in the new Linux phone initially there will be only one manufacturer, but I'm all about Open environments. I'm kind of concerned about the lack of applications for the phone, but with the Open Development environment, if I like I can port my favorite Linux applications right on to my phone. Try that I-Phone users!!

I've always been a big fan of Apple because they are not Microsoft and they don't seem to be quite as involved in predatory business practices as MS appears to be in, they always seem to be more expensive and sometimes have a more closed environment than MS though. Also their move to BSD Based Unix on their OS X, was brilliant IMO.

The high initial price of the I-Phone and the closed environment of the operating system are motivating me to look for something better. The new Linux phone won't be out until later this fall, and I'll probably wait a bit after that before I check one out to make sure it's had some air time and major problems fixed. Guess I'll stick with my teh suck 700p for a little while longer.

Overweight Passenger Forced to Buy Second Ticket

2007-09-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

Well it's about frickin' time I say.

I can't tell you how many times I've had to sit next to an overweight passenger that overflowed into my seat.

I paid for my space, If I don't fit in it, then I need to buy more space. Simple as that. If I do fit in my space, it's not fair that I should have to share that space with someone who comes over into my seat.

Anyway, good on ya Southwest (Although I think you're recent dress code issues were taking it a bit too far).

Southwest Makes Big Guy (430 lbs. worth) buy a second ticket.

Fix Disconnect Problems on Battlefield 2142

2007-08-04T10:14:00.001-07:00

For those of you that don't know, Battlefield 2142 is one of my Favorite FPS (First Person Shooter) games. It's a multi-player futuristic shoot-em-up that is the third generation of the original Battlefield 1942. If you like FPS games at all, this is one of the top of the line games.
Although the game has worked flawlessly for me, a couple of different people have reported problems with being randomly disconnected from games both with and without messages from Punkbuster.

These things have worked for some people and if you are having problems with disconnects when you play BF2142 try these links first.

For Punkbuster Kicks

For Disconnects

If that doesn't work you can try to uninstall Windows update KB917422 by going to Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel, checking the show updates box, and removing KB917422. Do so at your own risk.

See you on the Battlefield

Get rid of the annoying beeping when playing games on Windows XP

2007-07-30T23:59:00.001-07:00

My machine recently started beeping when pressing multiple keys on the keyboard.

As I understand it, the Windows keyboard buffer is filling up and it's giving me a system beep sound. My games function properly, I just get this annoying beep when I try to hold a key or a key combination found.

I saw some solutions like trying to increase the buffer size in the registry, but the one I opted for was to go to Control Panel->System->Hardware->Device Manager

Then select View->Show Hidden Devices

Then in non-plug and play devices, right click on beep and then disable.

After you re-boot, the beep is gone!!

Some Old Classic Links

2007-07-30T23:48:00.002-07:00

I was recently reminded of a couple of fun links from a few years back.

Check out Larry's Face

Poor Larry....

And of course

Fear The Mullet

And Remember

Anything is possible at Zombo Com

Will Internet Radio, as we know it, die on the vine?

2007-04-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

At least in America that may be the case. A recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board may mean the end of listener supported radio stations like SOMA, Chronix, and Radio Paradise.

Internet based radio stations will now have to pay an additional fee, per listener, on top of the fees they already must pay to royalties performing rights organizations like BMI, ASCAP and SESAC.

Having been in the radio business myself I know that even with advertisers and commercials, most radio stations run on a razor thing budget. A large cut of their revenue goes to pay the royalties. For listener supported radio, that margin is even thinner, with no commercial sponsors to help pay the royalty fees.

The music industry keeps trying to force the old model into the new technology and it's a square peg in a round hole. Certainly there needs to be protection for the artists who's work we enjoy, so that they are properly compensated, but it needs to be balanced in a way that we can actually hear this good music. If it's left up to the current delivery machine of FM radio stations, I fear we will be resigned to listening to the same tired music over and over and over.

If you want your voice to be heard, you can sign the on-line petition, or use THIS LINK to call, write or e-mail (Calling is best) your representative in the US.

You can also read a bit more about the subject in this Wired Article

Do your part to save Internet Radio.

Napster Bad... Beer Goood!!

2007-04-13T07:23:00.000-07:00

This one has been around for awhile, but I thought I'd post it here. Remember the old Napster, before they got bought out?

This is a little piece on the RIAA's effort to shut them down.

Champ Chaos Video from Yesteryear

Rex is Da Man - Nice 3d Animation

2007-04-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

I had seen this one awhile back, and was watching videos with my daughter, on the net, last night, and it reminded me of this video.

Nice work guys.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/33563/rex/?filters=5

Star Trek vs. Star Wars

2007-04-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

I was making the previous post and looking at the picture in the About me section and thought I should make clear my stand on the Star Trek vs. Star Wars.

First I love the Star Wars franchise, great effects, one of the best space movies ever IMO, good on ya, George Lucas. But to be honest, Star Wars is mere eye candy compared to Star Trek. I'm not talking about the new Star Trek, with prissy, Jean Luc, or the manly Captain Janeway, I'm talking about the F* the prime directive, give me some Romulan Ale, and bring on the green girls Captain Kirk.

The special effects are cheesy by todays standards, the costumes are a laugh, but the main point was the story. It was about the interaction of the characters and the choices they made. It was about alot of things, but it was a story of what happens to a group of people who got on a big ship to go out into the universe to "check it out".

I think the newer Star Treks are somewhat formula-ized versions of other television dramas, but the original, that was breaking new television ground, it was innovative and fresh.

So just to be clear, my vote, Star Trek, Original FTW.

You know what to do dog!

-GT

Buying a new computer? Buy Local, F* The Internet

2007-04-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

When buying a personal computer the advice I always give people is as follows: "Call around to local computer stores, when you find one that treats you like a customer, buy it there"

I say this for two reasons:

1. They treat you like a customer, meaning they answer your questions and don't make you feel stupid, and if there's a problem, they'll make it right.

2. They are local, so if there's a problem you can put your computer in your car and drive it over to the place you bought it, and ask them to fix it, or for your money back.

I'll also from now on, add this bit of advice; Do a "Sucks Search". Go to Google and type in for example "ibuypower sucks". If there are alot of hits to your search of people that took the time to write about their poor experience, then you probably shouldn't do business with that company.

A case in point. I bought 2 computers for my childen (1 each) for Christmas. The machine I bought for my son worked fine. The machine for my daughter however has not worked since we purchased it for more than a couple of days.

When we got it and plugged in, it ran fine for a couple of days, then the hard drive started to fail. They sent me a new hard drive, I installed it, and it ran fine for another couple of days, then the machine stopped booting. It would start to turn on and the fans would start up, but then the machine would just turn itself off. The company sent me a new power supply, and I installed that, but it did not fix the problem.

I then sent the whole machine back to them for repair. They replaced the motherboard (or so they said) and sent it back to me. It ran fine for two days then started doing the won't boot thing. They received the computer back over 2 weeks ago, and I talked to them yesterday and I was told by someone that they hadn't started work on the machine yet, but they were waiting on a part to come in and should have it in the next couple of days.

At this point I've had enough, 3 months and I haven't had a machine that I paid for work for more than a week straight. So I ask for my money back. First I am told that I am past the 30 day Warranty period and they won't give me my money back. Then after arguing on the phone with a "Manager" for half an hour, he finally agreed to give me my money back, but less a 20% re-stocking fee.

Even thought the machine has not been working for any given 30 day period, and even though they have had the machine for more time in the last 3 months than I have, they refuse to honor their warranty stating that's it's been longer than 30 days since they shipped it.

Now had I done a sucks search on ibuypower before I started this whole nightmare, my daughter would probably have a working computer and I wouldn't be out several hundred dollars or hard earned money, because of a 20% re-stocking fee on something the company never actually delivered.

To make a long story short, when buying a new computer, heed the following advice:

1. Don't under any circumstances buy from ibuypower.com :p
2. Don't buy it on the Internet and have it shipped, if there's a problem, you'll have to ship it back, you could buy on-site repair service, but if they can't fix the problem, you can't take it back to where you bought it and talk to the person you bought it from face to face.
3. Use a local computer dealer for the same reason above. Talk to the person who will put together your machine and if he/she treats you like a customer and answers your questions, even if it costs more up front, you will save money in the long run in time and sanity.
4. When you buy a computer from a local store, make sure they service it on-site, and don't have to ship it back to the manufacturer for repair. This is basically the same as buying it from the Internet with a middle man involved. It gives the seller an excuse to say, "We're not responsible, you'll have to take it up with the manufacturer".
5. Look at the Warranty that comes with the machine. Does the warranty start on date of delivery or date of purchase? If something goes wrong will they use new or "refurbished" parts to fix your machine? Will they give you your money back if you are not satisfied, if so, for how long?
6.Do a "sucks search" on google before you buy. That one would have saved me alot of money and hassle.

I'm sure there is more to add, but that's the basics. Follow this advice, as I should have, and you'll be a happy computer owner.

-GT

Microsoft, Deceptive? Say it aint so! smirk

2007-04-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

I just read this article titled:

Microsoft Sued Over Deceptive 'Vista-Capable' Sticker

Microsoft, Deceptive? Go figure. When are you people going to wake up.

So here is this company. They screw you around for years, forcing you to spend lot's of time and money to upgrade, patch for virus', recover from system crashes, the list goes on, but instead of looking at an alternative, like a Mac, or Linux, you still give the company your money, you still use their product because you are too F*ing lazy to seek an alternative, then you sue them for doing what they have a long history of doing. Not to mention the fact that they have some of the deepest corporate pockets in the world and an army of lawyers that take on countries on a regular basis.

I just installed a new Server. It does e-mail via the postfix server and courier IMAP, it serves up the family website, and the website for my consulting engagements. It also server as the print and file server for the other computers in the house. It does all of this with a decrepit 350mhz, pentium 2, 256mb of RAM and a 4gb hard disk. If you want the new Vista in the recommended configuration, you'll need 100 times the processing power, 8 times the RAM and twice the hard drive space. This, my friends, is the beauty of Linux. All the taste of Windows, but half the bloat.

Micro$oft vs. Anything Else

2007-04-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

You know, I have nothing personal against Bill. As a matter of fact I kind of admire his geek made good story. The software made by his company however is another story.

As a consultant I guess I should like Micro$oft, because any given IT task I have to do, usually takes twice as long (and usually the purchase of additional expensive software) to accomplish as it does under any other operating system. Pick one, Solaris, Mac OS, Any Linux Flavor, HP-UX, AIX, Dec-Ultrix, QNX, to name a few.

What the advent of Windows in the Server world has done is to breed a generation of MCSE's that can regurgitate the requisite points and clicks need to configure a Windows operating system, but they do not understand the underlying concepts of what their network and hardware is trying to do so they build bloated applications and flooded networks. To be fair there are MCSE's out there that know their stuff, but the majority I've run into know about Windows, but ask them an architecture question and they'll start pulling answers out of their arse.

Let's talk about Vista for a moment. They did this to us with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP and up the line. Each successive operating system has been more bloated than the next. Each upgrade causing the customer to have to buy bigger faster hardware just to equal the performance of their old operating system/hardware combination. In addition to that, the new operating system is 64 bit, but most of the applications and drivers are still 32 bit. Which means you'll have to run those suckers under a 32 bit emulator which will give you yet another performance hit. I just don't get it. Let's see, I'm going to cause myself days of un-told pain and suffering so I can upgrade to something that runs slower and is less stable than what I currently have? Ya right..

The architecture, hmmm... Well I can sum that up with two words, "Protected Memory". All of the other operating systems I mentioned above, Unix and Unix work alikes have something called protected memory. The operating system itself, i.e. the video drivers, disk drivers, passwords, logins, etc are all stored in what's called protected memory. Your applications, like your spreadsheets, web browsers and e-mail programs all run in what's called "User Memory". This is also sometimes referred to as kernel space and user space. The concept here is that while your applications run merrily away, they can only access the core of your system or "Protected Memory" through very well defined API's (Application Programming Interfaces).

In the Windows world everything runs in the same space. In other words, once you're in you're in. This is what makes Windows more prone to virus' than other operating systems that utilize the concept of "Protected Memory". On Windows, Any program you install can access parts of the operating system that it's usually not a good idea for programs to access. Things you run on your user desktop can re-install drivers, write directly to the hard disk and update your system registry where all your important system configuration information is stored. Once you're in to a Windows system it's a fairly simple matter to infect it with something nasty.

In the "Protected Memory" world, once someone gets in, they are in to that application, i.e. a mail server or a web server. The difference here is that just because they have broken in to one application still doesn't mean they can get at your system. Once someone is in to your system they then have to try to break in to protected memory which in a lot of cases just can't be done. "Protected Memory" not only helps protect machines from getting completely compromised by hackers, it also keeps poorly written applications from crashing or locking up your machine.

Let's talk about that time thing. I said up above that it takes twice as long to get things done, and here's why. First, point and click, point and click. A half hour later you've navigated to the places you needed to go to updated your configurations the way you wanted them. In a *nix system there are certainly graphical config programs if pointing and clicking is your thing, but on the back end instead of a cryptic "Registry" where everything is stored in multiple levels in text and hex, there's a directory, with text files (usually /etc) where all your application configuratino is stored. There's usually only one or two files per application and everything is in there, usually with comments telling you what each configuration parameter is for. It makes configuration of systems and applications, nice, simple and less prone to failure.

I've always found, in the IT business, that it is always best to have options. If you have a hammer in your tool box, you can only drive nails. If you have a hammer and a screwdriver in your tool box you can drive screws and nails. The point being is the more tools you have the more problems you can solve. Next time you are out looking for a new server or a new set of desktops think about a Unix or Linux solution. If you have the basic needs of most business', i.e. E-mail, Web, Database, Word Processing, Graphics, then a good Unix or Linux distro may be the ticket. It will cost you less up front, has commercially available support, won't get virus' and will keep people from installing alot of extra chat programs and the like on your nice new desktops or servers.

My current favorites are Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server, although I've only had the server running about a week, setup was text based, which is OK, but it took a bit, being new to the system, to get it how I wanted it configured. It was, however, very easy to get a postfix mail server with spam assassin and a Courier IMAP with SSL running. I've still got to get my Apache and mySQL set up the way I want them. I'll let you know more about how I like it after I've had it running for a bit.

For Video games, well it's just Windows. The same thing that makes Windows suck at being a desktop, is what makes it great for playing a video game. In an operating system there is something called a scheduler that divides up the single or multiple CPU's to work on any given process at any given time. In Windows the scheduler tends to like to dedicate all of your CPU power to just one process at a time for long periods of time. This is why sometimes when you run Windows and start a big print job, all the other applications either lock up or run very slowly. In *nix, the schedulers tend to divide the CPU time up a bit more evenly (although you can adjust certain process to hog all the CPU if you like, it's generally called a "nice" value). In Windows, if you start a heavy duty game, it will dedicate all of your CPU power to a single game process (although multiple CPU's and multiple core CPU's tend to be a bit under-utilized in Windows as compared to most *nix systems).

I could go on about this for days, and I think I will, but for now, I've got to get back to the consulting biz..

Safe Travels,
GT

Why is Corporate America So F*'d Up?

2007-03-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've been working this job now for a year and it never ceases to amaze me that the Dilbert Principle plays itself out on such a regular and predictable basis. It's a sea of cubicles and pointy haired bosses and even less capable "engineers" that really haven't got a clue. I hear things like "We don't use open source, it could have security holes". "You want that one small change made? Sorry, won't happen until next year". "That didn't get done? Oh well you must have forgotten the cover sheet on your TPS report"

What I do in effect is go to a customer site. They ask me what time it is. I ask them for their watch. I look at their watch and tell them what time it is. I then put the watch in my pocket, get on a plane and go home.

The people that really have their act together are the small shops that don't have alot of people. They know how to operate their watches, and what they need is some fine tuning on setting timezones, how to properly wind it, etc. They seem to get the fact that throwing money away on bad projects and not correcting mistakes before the resources are spent is a bad thing.

Big corporations on the other hand cannot tell whether it's 3 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon. They need lots of help just to find out if it's day or night. As a cost savings measure windows are know only available for the Janitorial staff and upper level executives. As an example, I was working at a multi-national fortune 500 company recently and they wrote a bunch of lengthly documents about the requirements for the project. The only problem is that the requirements would not meet the needs of project.

The totally insane part of it is that even after I told them this and documented it, they still proceeded ahead with the original requirements because "That was what we spec'd, that is what we are going to do". "We had knife fights for 3 months to get this document together, we're not changing it now".

It doesn't matter that the project will not give the end users what they want, it doesn't matter that they are throwing wads of cash at a project that won't give them dollar one of return on investment, what matters is they have agreement on some marching orders, and by god, and damned the torpedoes, full speed ahead. They're so far down the river (or up the creek) that there is no turning back. But at the end of the day, they spent a bunch of the companies money, didn't get anything back, but they are still employed because they did exactly what they were told, by the letter.

I wrote something up that called out the error of their ways, but then had someone looking over my should that made me take out any references to lack of accuracy, or will not work. It was a classic exercise in futility, the only thing that was left was a document that said everything was great, make it so number one.

This is not something that is unique either. I see this corporate disease almost everywhere I go. It's the old, "None of us is as dumb as all of us" adage.

There is an epidemic of mediocrity where the barely qualified make million dollar decisions and those who are qualified have left and gotten consulting jobs, or are in Vermont somewhere painting canoes.

I don't have a solution... Yet.. Maybe there isn't one. All I can do is search for the answer and hope that one day a solution will present itself. If I find it, I'll post the solution I found, here on my blog, from my new 100 foot fully crewed yacht.

Meanwhile though, I'm maintaining the status quo in corporate America and sending them the bill. In other words, if your not part of the solution, there's money to be made by prolonging the problem.

-GT

Hot dog for breakfast? Go to jail.

2007-03-14T08:24:00.001-07:00

Another one that makes you go WTF? What is this person tryng to communicate? I asked the person inside he truck and he said it was on there when he bought it, it looked kind of wierd so he kept on there.

Google Earth, what cool things have you been wasting time on?

2007-03-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

I'm headed of to Jersey City. Before I went, I found a close hotel, got directions and checked out the neighborhood on Google Earth.

Here's a pic of where I'll be working/crashing for a couple of days, with the 3D buildings options turned on.

You just can't beat it. Just about the coolest thing I've seen on the Internet since the browser.

Download Google Earth, you won't be sorry you did. Google is even as cool enough to have a Windoze, a Mac and a Linux version.

Go Google!

New Airport Security Express Lane

2007-03-12T03:53:00.001-07:00

Too bad nobody was using it. They only have these in a few airports and it costs $99 a year to join up. This one was in San Jose. The person at the checkpoint said thay are "Negotiating with other airports". I'm taking the wait and see approach. Once I see them in more airports, then I might plunk down the up front cash.

Free Custom Treo 700p Ringtones

2007-03-12T03:17:00.000-07:00

So I've had this phone for almost a year now and I finally got tired of reaching for my phone every time somebody else who has the same phone gets a call while they are standing in my proximity. So I finally broke down and tried to get my own custom ringtones on the Treo 700p. I specifically wanted the Timmy! ringtone from Comedy Central after seeing it during the Daily Show (John Stewart Rocks!).

When I went to mobile.comedycentral.com, the first thing it tried to do was play a bunch of flash, on a mobile phone? Come Comedy Central... I guess the jokes on me eh?

I finally break out my laptop to bring up the mobile.comedycentral.com site, after finding that it didn't work on my mobile phone. I had the option to listen in a flash file, or to buy the ringtone.

Ummm.... Riiiiiiigggghhht.... So I do a bit more looking, and I can get MP3 ringtones on my phone, but I have to buy a 25$ program to be able to use these files as ringtones.

Bzzzznnnnntttt..... On to more fruitful pursuits. After much googling about I found that the following works for putting custom ringtones on your phone.

1. Take a PCM wave file or files, of 195k in size or less and e-mail it to yourself.

2. Then using your mail program download the attachment and when the attachment shows up in the bottom of your message, tap and hold the icon on the right of the filename. When the menu comes up tap "select viewer", then pick "voice memo"
3. After you have selected the viewer all you should have to do is click on each wav file, then click "View"
4. Answer yes to transfer it to Voice Memo, then when Voice Memo appears, press the menu button and select "Copy to Ringtone"

Your Wave file should now be available as a Ringtone along with the stock Treo Ringtones.

This will allow you to create your own ringtones from sound files and play them on your phone.

As a note:
You'll have to convert your wav file to a lower bitrate, mono, lower sample rate, etc to get a good length tone. The Treo also chops off WAV ringtones at the 195k mark. Also as a last bit of advice. Don't make the sound file longer than 20 seconds, as it will cause problems with going over to voicemail.

Enjoy.

GT

Pilot Conversations

2007-03-03T08:19:00.000-08:00

I found this funny little bit, in the forums of the guild that I play World of Warcraft with.

We're all a bunch of old farts that still lay video games. I digress though. In my travels I've met quite a few pilots, and while I can't say for sure whether this is completely true or not, I can just see these guys saying things like this.

Tower: "Delta 351, you have traffic at 10 o'clock, 6 miles!"
Delta 351: "Give us another hint! We have digital watches!"

Tower: "TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 degrees."
TWA 2341: "Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?"
Tower: "Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"

From an unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff line: "I'm f...ing bored!"
Ground Traffic Control: "Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!"
Unknown aircraft: "I said I was f...ing bored, not f...ing stupid!"

O'Hare Approach Control to a 747: "United 329 heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, three miles, Eastbound."
United 329: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this... I've got the little Fokker in sight."

A student became lost during a solo cross-country flight. While attempting to locate the aircraft on radar, ATC asked, "What was your last known position?"
Student: "When I was number one for takeoff."

A DC-10 had come in a little hot and thus had an exceedingly long roll out after touching down.
San Jose Tower Noted: "American 751, make a hard right turn at the end of the runway, if you are able. If you are not able, take the Guadeloupe exit off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return to the airport."

A Pan Am 727 flight, waiting for start clearance in Munich , overheard the following:
Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"
Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."
Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany . Why must I speak English?"
Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war!"

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency 124.7"
Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."
Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff behind Eastern 702, contact Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern 702?"
Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger; and yes, we copied Eastern... we've already notified our caterers."

One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee. Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said,

"What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"
The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I'll have enough parts for another one."

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign: Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: " Frankfurt , Speedbird 206! Clear of active runway."
Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, -- And I didn't land."

While taxiing at London's Gatwick Airport , the crew of a US Air flight departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a United 727.
An irate female ground controller lashed out at the US Air crew, screaming: "US Air 2771, where the hell are you going? I told you to turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it's difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!"
Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting hysterically: "God! Now you've screwed everything up! It'll take forever to sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour, and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?"
"Yes, ma'am," the humbled crew responded.
Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of mind. Tension in every cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high. Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone, asking:
"Wasn't I married to you once?"

Anna Nicole Smith.... Why?

2007-03-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

I was having breakfast this morning and reading the newspaper, and it occurred to me that in the newspaper I was reading didn't have a single story about the war in the front sections of the paper. There were only 3 stories semi-related to the ware in the "World" section of the paper.

There was a story about Anna Nicole there in the front section though.

When I got back home tonight, I found this link on fark.com and I have to agree with the submitter.

Pay attention people! There are things going on in the world that need your attention, and Anna Nicole Smith is not one of them.

'Nuff Said

The Story of Naked Guy on Spinning Bull

2007-03-01T13:37:00.001-08:00

After some poking around I finally found out what exactly the statue is trying to communicate. Apparently the statue was commissioned by one of the founders of the company. The bull represents one of their competitors and the naked guy is them leaping over the competition. Go figure.... Guess that's art.

Naked Guy On Spinning Bull?

2007-02-27T13:44:00.001-08:00

Some things just make you say OMGWTF. Both the bull and the guy on his back are anatomically correct and what this sculpture is supposed to signify is somewhat beyond me. I found this outside of a high tech company I'm working at this week. There was no placard on it so no name or sculptor.

Tunes in your mobile

2007-02-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

I have one of those new phones that stores my mp3's. The only problem is that I have yet to find a decent device that will play my music on the car stereo. Leave it to those forward thinking engineers at Chrysler to put an auxiliary jack right in the front panel of the in dash stereo. Next time you rent a car, ask for the Chrysler. You can plug your mp3 player in and cruise down the road in tuneful bliss.

Southwest Airlines, good rates, feel like cattle

2007-02-24T17:44:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, this trip to San Diego reminded me of the Joy of traveling on Southwest Air.

I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this is, but there's no assigned seating.

They way it works is there is an A, B or C printed on your ticket. Then you queue up in your respective line, then they open each gate in alphabetical order, A first, then B, then C.

Then the way it works ism, you kill each other for the best seats. If you're in the C group, you can just suck it up in the middle seat. It really makes you feel like cattle and the vibe when you look at another passenger is more of a "You better not get my aisle seat, you bastard" kind of of a feeling rather than a "Hey fellow road warrior, sup?" state of mind.

I guess the theory is, that it loads and un-loads planes faster, but I just don't see it. Maybe they save 3 or 4 minutes.

Being 6 feet 3 inches tall, I always reserve an aisle seat, on other more civilized airlines, where they allow you to reserve a seat.

The only problem is, Sometimes Southwest has ridiculously low fares, or they have a direct flight to where I need to go when nobody else does. So sometimes you just gotta roll the dice and hope you get the seat you want.

So I'm back from San Diego, off the flying cattle car, and not really ready, but have to anyway, it's back to work. I'll be schlepping around the Pit (Silicon Valley) for the next couple of weeks, and there's a trip to Cleveland, Ohio in there somewhere too. I'm going to go slide on some snow tomorrow in the Sierra's and be back on the road Monday.

Uneventful Travels,
GT

Shout out to Ubuntu

2007-02-18T14:30:00.000-08:00

I had to send the good word out to the groovy people at Ubuntu - Linux for Humans.

I've seen quite a few Linux flavors over the years, but this was easiest installing yet.

It did a better job of automagically recognizing things like my sound and wireless cards than Windoze did.

I got my first cup of Ubuntu when I lost a hard drive on my laptop. I was still able to work on my machine while I waited for my new hard disk by booting Ubuntu off of a CD and writing files to my USB drive.

When I got my new hard drive, I made my machine dual boot and put both Ubuntu and Windoze (Some software I have to use for work, but not much, still only runs under Windoze. I know it's totally barbaric, but hey it's a living).

Overall the whole package has a nice finished feel to it. It has lots of great things already pre-installed, like Open Office, The GIMP, and there's even a Windoze Remote Desktop Client!

I dual boot installed my 14 year old daughters machine too with the 64 bit version of Ubuntu and She's loving it. She's in to video and music editing and the package management software makes installing new software a no brainer.

To make a long story short, if you've been thinking about tyring out a new Linux distro, Ubuntu is easy to install, easy to use, and the price is right. It basically the Shiznit!

Smoker's Pole

2007-02-18T00:32:00.001-08:00

Are people who use these 'Pole Smokers'?

Travel Advice for the Un-initiated

2007-02-17T23:20:00.000-08:00

I will pass along a few tips I have picked up in my years as a traveler, in the hopes that it will maybe make your life easier. To be honest it's not really out of any altruistic motivation that I impart these pearls of wisdom. It's really in the hope that I won't be stuck behind your sorry, clueless ass because you are fiddle farting around and didn't pay attention. Selfishness aside, lets move on to the reason for this post.

Before You Arrive
---------------------

1. I use Kayak, it has all of the major carriers (except Southwest :( ). You can easily pick the time you want to leave and arrive, put in multiple stops, etc. My boss turned me on to it and it's really the best way I've found on the next to find the right flights and times. NOTE: If the link from Kayak does not go directly to the airlines but instead to Orbitz or Cheap Tickets, get the flight information and book it directly with the airline. If you don't book directly with the airline it gives the airlines one more excuse not to reimburse/compensate you if there's a problem with your flight. The same goes with hotels and rental cars, go straight to the source.

2. Check in on the airline Web Site - Some airlines allow you to check in and print your boarding pass at home. If you can't do that, use the self service terminals near the airline check-in counters. This will save you time. NOTE: Make sure to read all of the fine print. You may not be able to use Web Site check in, if you have checked luggage.

3. Travel Light - Use the roll away luggage that will fit in the overhead bins, don't check luggage and it will cut 30-60 minutes off of your travel time easily. NOTE: Be prepared to "Gate Check" your luggage on smaller planes. Ask at the ticket counter before you get board. Otherwise you'll hold everyone on the plane up after you figure out you can't fit your bag in the plane and have to get back to the front of the plane to give it to the flight attendant to check.

4. Print out or Write down your flight information and have it handy. Get your ID out and have it ready as you will probably need to show it more than once. If you are leaving the country make sure you have your passport.

5. Take a bath. Nobody wants to sit next to your stinky ass all the way from California to New York. And while your at it, that breath mint I'm offering you, it's not because I'm being all nice and sharing, it's because the malodorous stench emanating from your festering gob is about ready to make the hair on my head leave their follicles and migrate to a more hospitable environment.

6. Measure your ass. If you can't fit the bar down that separates one seat from another, you need to purchase enough seat to hold your ass. No offense to fat people, but DAMN! Get your ass outta my seat.

At the Airport
-----------------
1. Paste on a smile and suck it up. Probably the number one rule. I've seen this a hundred times at least. Traveler talks to airline personnel, traveler is justifiably angry and vents anger at airline personnel, airline personnel politely tells traveler that there is nothing they can do to help and they're terribly sorry, as the airline personnel think to themselves "I've got your customer service hangin'". If you paste on the smile, suck it up, and ask them, please if they could assist you with your problem, chances are they'll still think to themselves "I've got it hangin' right here buddy", but at least there is the oft chance that they will actually assist you with your problem and do what they can to help. If you go in with an attitude you reduce your chances of getting help to somewhere around zero. Just remember, when using air travel, not only does shit happen, shit happens ALOT.

2. Have your ID and your boarding pass in your hand and ready when you get to the first checkpoint. Fumbling through your bag or pockets to find your ID or boarding pass is bad form.

3. No you can't take liquids through the checkpoint. No that water bottle can't go. You can technically take bottles of 3 ounces or less in a 1 quart plastic bag. You have to take the plastic bag out all by itself when you get to the x-ray machine, and at some airports you have to present it to a preliminary inspector. I avoid all the hassle and leave the liquids at home. You can take stick deodorant and all your other toiletries, except for: shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste and shaving cream. Those things you do not bring, you can get at the hotel on the other end. Make sure you call ahead and that your hotel has what you need before you arrive (most decent ones do).

4. As you approach the X-ray untie your shoes and take your laptops out of the bags. The shoes must go through the X-ray machine and the laptops have to go through all by themselves. Check your pockets for metal, belt buckles, money clips, etc. Having to go through the checkpoint multiple times because you forgot metal on your person increases your chump status in the eyes of your fellow travelers.

5. No you cannot take those lighters through. Check your pockets man!! Toss them before you get to the x-ray machine.

Getting On The Plane
-------------------------

You'd think this would be simple but so many people mess this one up.

1. Yo! Get out of the frickin' aisle! If you are near the front of the plane and there are people that need to get by, step out of the aisle and wait to "F" with putting your stuff in the overhead rack when there is nobody waiting to get by you.

2. Hey that's my stuff in there. When you do put your things in the overhead rack. Be considerate of other peoples stuff. GENTLY, move it aside, but don't smash it to get your stuff in.

3. Get to your seat, sit down and keep your hands and arms inside until the vehicle comes to a complete stop. Don't get up, wander around, talk to your buddy in the seat 5 rows back, or go to the bathroom. Sit down and buckle up.

Getting off the plane
------------------------
For some people this is even harder than getting on, but with practice, it's a skill that can be easily mastered.

1. Yo! Get out of the frickin' aisle! - If you have stuff in the overhead bin and you can get it out quickly, then do so. Otherwise, wait for the people that can operate an overhead luggage bin to pass until you can figure out the operational details of the in-flight luggage storage unit.

2. Yo! Get out the frickin' aisle! - When you get off of the plane, don't stand around in front of the gate exit looking for where to go next. Move along citizen, get out of the way and off to the side before stopping to make sure your head and other body parts are still attached.

I'm Traveling to Sunny (we hope) San Diego next week for a family vaction. I'll post some pictures of our wandering and the interesting folks we meet along the way. Until then these words of wisdom - taken from a poster

It Could Be that the Purpose of Your Life Is Only to Serve as a Warning to Others.

Travel Tip #101 - Get a room that is empty

2007-02-17T21:23:00.000-08:00

On a recent trip to Texas, I got in rather late, or really early, however you want to look at it. I do the credit card/ID dance with the front desk person and stumble blearily to my room.

I take the room key from my pocket and slide it in the door, hear the click of the latch, open the door and see a guy standing there in is BVD's, who says "Hey I'm in here".

Being now fully awake, I make my way back to the front desk and ask the person there if "I can please have a room that does not already have someone in it".

I suppose that if it were a couple of Swedish bikini models in the room I might have thought "Man this new hotel points program is great".

But as it was, I should have asked for my room, without guest. So remember road warriors, your travel tip for the day is, when you check in, make sure you ask for the un-occupied room option. Unless of course you'd like to redeem some of your points..

Driving in Texas

2007-02-17T19:01:00.000-08:00

Dallas freeway at rush hour. Poor guy, shouldn't have had that second breakfast burrito.

Welcome To My Blog

2007-02-17T18:02:00.000-08:00

When I found out that my neighbors cat had a blog, I figured, it was high time to start a blog of my own.

I travel around the US quite a bit in my traveling type job, and I have my handy Treo 700p, so I figured I'd post some pictures from around the country of people and places and share them with the blogsphere.

I've been around in the computer business for 20+ years, Play WoW, Snow-Ski, Disc Golf, and enjoy spending time with my wife and two kids.

I'll probably be bashing the l-user's quite a bit in this blog, and I also enjoy watching the completely insane things people do. Along those lines, you've got to check out fark.com
most likely one of my favorite all time sites.

I'll start out with a couple of technology links that the geeks in the crowd will enjoy.

The Tao of Programming - If you are in the technology business - know it, live it
Simon - BOFH - "What was your user name again?"
Tech Support Nietzsche Style - "Our product is obviously too complex for you"

And leave you with this thought.

There are those that manage what they don't understand, and those that understand what they don't manage, then there are those that just don't manage to understand.

LA Library - Librarian Action Figure with Real Shushing Action!

2007-02-17T17:56:00.001-08:00

Librarian Action Figure - With Real Shushing Action!

I found this one while checking out the gift shop at the LA public library. I would think if it was an LA librarian action figure she would also need the Kung-Fu grip.