Pleh

I’ve been having issues getting a car charger for my 3G iPhone. Turns out, once I did some research, this is a known issue. Score one for the “careful, planned purchasing” approach. Anyway, in my research, I found this blog post. My main problem was not getting enough juice to the device, it was stopping the buzzing. Apparently, the iPhone isn’t shielded correctly and when the car charger and the headphone out / auxiliary input to my stereo are both plugged in, terrible noises abound. According to Carl’s post and other reviews I’ve found online, the Griffin Autopilot should fix that problem. As an added benefit, there’ll be fewer cable to connect to the iPhone and I’ll have external controls, which should make life a bit easier.

Now, to find one in the area that’s not too freaking expensive.

Last Tuesday, I got an iPhone 3G through work to replace my Motorola Q9h. Overall, I’m very happy with it. My biggest complaint would be the battery life. I could do a few more things to squeeze out some more minutes, but because I can usually tether it to my laptop somewhere, it’s not _that_ big of a deal. There are a couple other minor issues: some of the third party apps are a bit crashier than I would like and nobody seems to have a good SSH or network utility app, but I’m sure both of these will work out in a bit.

Even better is the fact that Gracie can use it too. She’ll ask if she can watch a movie or play a game on it and off she’ll go with it. This _never_ could have happened with the Q.

When you need to hot-add a SCSI disk to a Linux server, the following command will get the OS to re-scan the SCSI bus:

echo - - - >/sys/class/scsi_host/host$NUMBER/scan

$NUMBer is usually 0, but if you have more SCSI busses, you need to verify.

For more information on this, check here.

Looks like the DCist likes a picture of mine. I’m pleased that they liked it, but it would have been cool if they added a note to the picture on Flickr, which is how they got it. Still, it’s nice to be surprised by seeing my own picture pop up. Thanks, DCist.

I’m posting this in the hope that I’ll never waste another few hours trying to fix this problem again. This is probably only of interest to me.When installing Jira and other application that use (pooled?) JDBC connections in Tomcat 5.5 (others?) on the Redhat-based distros (Fedora, RHEL, CentOS…), if you see an error message looking like this…

2008-01-04 23:22:59,963 main WARN [core.entity.transaction.JNDIFactory] [ConnectionFactory.getConnection] Failed to find DataSource named java:comp/env/jdbc/JiraDS in JNDI server with name default. Trying normal database. javax.naming.NamingException: Could not create resource factory instance [Root exception is java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory]

…the problem is with the distro’s use of the Jakarta Commons version of DBCP and Tomcat’s expectation that the BasicDataSourceFactory class being in Tomcat’s naming-factory-dbcp.jar file. For whatever reason, the distro preferred the Jakarta version.This can be simply solved by adding the following to your JAVA_OPTS environmental variable:

-Djavax.sql.DataSource.Factory=org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory

…which is most likely in /etc/sysconfig/tomcat5.To give credit where credit is due, I found most of my info about this problem and the solution here.

May I never waste more time on this problem.

Technorati Tags: frustration, java, programming, sysadmin, throw the computer across the farking room, tomcat

On a happier note, I just noticed (a month late) that Wired has used one of my pictures in a blog post of theirs. Woot! This is the first time I’ve ever seen one of my pictures used for anything other than display on my Flickr page.

Technorati Tags: happy, photos

Over the past few days, my marriage has quickly unraveled. Honestly, though, it’s been unraveling for a few months, but Sunday was the tipping point. I don’t want to get into the details here, beyond the fact that is was Lisa who decided to end it, but neither of us is completely innocent. If you ask either of us, the amount and location of blame will differ some, but we mostly agree that, in the end, the love — the type of love that should be felt between husband and wife — isn’t there anymore. I firmly believe, that if Lisa were to reconsider her decision, we could get back to what we had with some work. Realistically, though, I don’t think that’ll happen. I need to look forward to this new future and cherish, but not mourn or worship the good stuff that we had. Most importantly, we still love and respect each other as friends and, really, that’s pretty great, since we still need to work together in dealing with Grace. She has been our biggest concern; how can we work through this with minimal damage to her?

I’ve got a lot of anger about the situation, what happened, and how things ended, but this is destructive energy that won’t help anything. I’m trying to find ways to deal with it, while still being constructive. To this end, I have an appointment with a counselor this afternoon. Hopefully, he’ll give me some suggestions on how this can be done. I’ve been keeping most of it in when talking with Lis. This has mostly worked, but every-so-often, something snarky and hurtful slips out. Lis is pretty good at taking it, but it does build up and it does hurt her.

Last night, after an especially nasty spat, we were able to collect ourselves and talk about where we go from here. Neither of us — right now, at least — feels especially pressed to leave. We’re still comfortable around each other, though we need to work out comfortable levels of modesty, touchiness, and personal space. We think that, for the time being, Lis will continue to live with us. She’ll take care of Grace through the summer, continuing to be a stay-at-home-mom. Next month, when G starts her final year of pre-school, Lis will look for a full-time job. Luckily, it looks like my job might allow for a certain level of work-at-home time. I need to talk this over with my boss, but I might be able to take her to school, pick her up, and bring her to daycare while Lis is at work. From daycare, I’ll continue into the office. Lis will pick G up when she’s done with work and bring her home. The money Lis earns will go towards daycare and savings. Unless her new job has outstanding healthcare, she’ll remain on mine for the meantime and I’ll continue to share my finances.

Eventually, Lis will have to move out, as the state of Virginia requires that couples with children must live apart for 12 months before a divorce can be issued. Hopefully, Lis will have enough time to save up enough money for a nice place with plenty of room for both her and Grace. The good news — to me — is that as of at least right now, this room for Grace will be for visits. I’ll have physical custody. We’ll share legal custody. We want to try to arrange things where Lis can have an active role in G’s everyday life, but still have her live primarily with me. For the time being, G and I will continue to live in our house, but I think we’ll eventually want to sell it. (Too many memories of dreams of a now-different future, yadda yadda…)

We’ve discussed the possibility of Grace and me moving out of state, probably to be closer to my family in Arizona. This will probably require a lot of planning as neither of us want to be part-time parents. If we do move, we’ll need to find a way for Lis to regularly — at least twice a month, hopefully — be with Gracie. Either Lis comes to us or, as G gets older, she goes to Lis. I can also see G going out to be with Lis for a month or so around the time her family has their annual trip to North Carolina. We’re also a bit concerned about the Arizona school system compared to the Virginia one. While the disparity isn’t as large as we thought, Arizona’s is still the lesser of the two. Regardless, all of this needs to be researched more as it could have a profound impact on G if done wrong.

Well, OK, most of this could have a profound impact on G if done wrong. Sadly, I’m told it has to be done, but if we can work together, we can try to minimize the chances of that happening.

Technorati Tags: divorce, the beginning, sad, separation, the end

If you noticed the sun get blotted out, a frost fall over the land, or darkness everywhere, even during the day, don’t worry. It was only Cheney taking over the presidency while Bush had a colonoscopy.

Technorati Tags: funny

Sitting here watching the Yankees play the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Tropicana Field. Wow! With all the beautiful, new stadiums in baseball today, this place stands out and blows a raspberry at them all. It’s stupendously ugly, from the bouncy bouncy outfield to the blotchy, poorly laid artificial grass. I can’t think of a more ugly baseball stadium, can you?

Technorati Tags: baseball, Tropicana Frield, Tampa Bay

Here’s my first attempt at the new resume. It needs some tweaking though. If anyone sees anything they think would be interesting to me, please pass it on. Also, if you see something you think should be changed, please let me know.

Thanks. Hopefully, by this time next week, I’ll be gainfully employed again.

Technorati Tags: job, looking for work, resume

Alright. This has got to stop. This is the second job in a row where Andy’s been laid off and taken me down with him. About a quarter of the company was let go yesterday with only a paycheck for time worked and a possibility of a week of severance. Not that things are much better for the other 3/4 — the CEO said there’s only a 30% chance of the company making through July. Guess I should deposit that paycheck now, before it bounces and get to finding my resume.

Technorati Tags: layoff, job, scary

This isn’t some super nifty trick or anything, but it’s kind of nice if you are sharing an AppleTV with multiple users. Now that the 1.1 update is out and you can view YouTube on your AppleTV, create a dedicated YouTube account for your device. Log into this account on your AppleTV, then on your computers. When one of you wants to share a YouTube video with the other or you would rather view the clip on your TV instead of your computer, save it to that account’s favorites. These favorites can be accessed on the AppleTV. Viola! Simple YouTube viewing on your AppleTV.

See? Told you is wasn’t anything special, but at least you don’t have to type in a YouTube URL into your AppleTV. What a pain that on-screen keyboard is.

Technorati Tags: apple tv, YouTube, television

Finally got my first ride in today. It’s been a loooong time since I was out on the trails. They’ve done a lot of work over at Wakefield since then. I rode some of it today, but I was taking it easy and my allergies were not, so didn’t get to all the new stuff yet. I hope to get out a time or two more this coming week (depending on how quickly I can do my laundry ) and check out the rest of it.

So far, I feel pretty good. We’ll see what pain tomorrow brings, though.

Technorati Tags: biking, mountain biking, Wakefield

The Wordpress 2.1.3 -> 2.2 upgrade was pretty easy. All done.

Technorati Tags: wordpress

Last Wednesday, I finally got around to getting time for a ride. I got home fairly early and started getting ready right away. As I was getting into some riding clothes, G found out I as leaving shortly and started crying. After talking with Lis a bit, we all decided to head to Wakefield, where G will play while Lis watches her and I’ll ride. Now, time was running short, so we hurriedly gathered our stuff and headed out to Wakefield.

We slowly made our way through traffic and I tried to get into a good state of mind for riding. I’m always nervous before my first few rides of the year, but I was eager to ride. When we got there, Lis and G headed straight for the nearby playground. I went around to the back of the truck, got my bike down, then started putting on my shoes. Left foot… front strap… done… middle strap… done… top strap… snap! Crap! What the heck? The clip that holds the strap to the other side of the shoe broke. Hmmm… Well, the other two straps are holding pretty well. I guess I can just fold the strap back and left it flap loose.

OK…. Next…. Helmet…. Helmet? Awwww, crap. Forgot the helmet.

Well, game over. I can ride with a broken shoe, but not without a helmet. Turns out I also forgot my gloves and a wipe-down towel for after the ride.

G played for a few more minutes at the playground, then we wandered around “exploring” for a while, then headed home.

Maybe I can get my first ride in sometime soon. Just gotta see about getting some new shoes first.

Technorati Tags: biking, mountain biking

It turns out that it can be quite a lot when aggregated with $25 for other people. It can also mean quite a lot when loaned to businesses in developing countries.
I just finished watching a Frontline/World report on microfinance. I was sitting here at my laptop, watching this report on our TiVo and I saw how much a few hundred dollars loaned to a small business in a developing country can mean. Best of all, this was all done via the Internet and around banks. (I have a deep distrust and dislike of banks and most financial institutions.) It’s so simple to go to a site like Kiva and drop a few $25 loans. I figure that, with the repayment rates they’re seeing (currently, 100%, but normally greater than 96%), I’ll probably get the money back, then re-invest in some other business that needs it. If I don’t get it back, oh well, it’s only $25.

It’s nice to know that an amount that means so relatively little to me can make a big difference to someone else.

It also helps that the first entrepreneur they talked with was named Grace.
So, if you’ve got it (and if you’re reading this, you probably do), check out sites like Kiva or some other Internet-based microfinance site and see what you can do to help make a difference in somebody’s life. (And, yes, in this case, I am the boss of you.)

Technorati Tags: frontline/world, kiva, loans, microfinance, tivo

A few weeks ago, I went to make sure I’d be getting MLB Extra Innings package from Cox. It was one of the things I needed available when I left DirecTV. They told me that InDemand (the service that provides MLBEI to Cox) and MLB couldn’t come to an agreement and they weren’t offering MLBEI this year. Bummer.

For 2006 MLBEI subscribers, they were offering to rebate the $90 subscription price to MLB.tv. It’s a nice deal, but not as nice as MLBEI. I was annoyed, but this took some of the bitterness out. Meh.

Now today, I read that InDemand and MLB came to an agreement and they’re offering MLBEI immediately. Woot!

I waited until I got home to call Cox about it. After all, just because InDemand’s offering it now, doesn’t mean that Cox will be. I also wanted to make sure they were still honoring the rebate offer since I’ve already purchased MLB.tv. The Cox rep I talked with said that they were and, yes, they are offering MLBEI now. It’s about $160, but that’s not that big of a deal spread out over the season. Double woot! Set me up.

Wha? No cablecard support?!?! Aw man… I love baseball and love being able to catch most Yankee games, but there’s no way I’d give up my S3 TiVo. Looks like for me, it’s free MLB.tv and those games on ESPN. Pleh.

At least I’m saving $160.

Technorati Tags: baseball, cox, mlb extra innings, cablecard, television, tivo, Yankees

Looks like I’m going to get much better acquainted with EMI’s catalog come May. Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end for DRM. This can’t bode well for eMusic though.

Technorati Tags: drm sucks, emusic, good riddance, music

Right after it was announced — and I mean right after – in January, I bought an Apple TV unit. I’ve been occasionally playing content from my MacBook Pro on the big screen, but it was awkward. There was no way I was showing Lis how to do it and she has stuff she’d like to display there and play on the home theatre sound system too.

After about a month’s delay, it finally arrived this past Thursday. The setup was dead simple. Plugged the component video and optical audio outputs into my receiver, where I linked the two together as one device. Turned on the TV, then powered up the unit. Not including the run out to Radio Shack for an optical cable and dinner at Friendly’s with G, the setup probably took five minutes at most. And, yes, it works fine on our seven-year-old HD (1080i) capable, 4:3 screen. (Side note: the initial boot on our 4:3 screen had the Apple logo a bit distorted as it was assuming the TV would be running in a 16:9 aspect ratio. After you go through the setup, though, the problem disappears.)

The Apple TV allows you to sync on iTunes to the device itself. Other (Windows or OS X) computers that want to display iTunes content on the screen will have to stream to the device. There’s a five streaming device limit. I have no idea why.

Our home network as two access points. One’s an open 802.11G AP. The other device is a closed Airport Extreme that does 802.11 (pre-)N. To avoid a performance hit on the pre-N network, we keep both devices running. Lisa’s first-gen MBP, without (pre-)N talks with the G AP and my second-gen, (pre-)N capable MBP talks with the Airport. The Apple TV also talks with the Airport as it’s also a (pre-)N device.

Since Lis will be the one most using our TV and is connecting over the slower of the two APs, I set her up as the sync source. I sync to the Apple TV. (Well, my MBP does. )

Overall, I like the Apple TV. Here are a few thoughts I have on it:

• I’m a bit concerned about the 40GB hard drive on the device. We’re only about 1/3 used now that all of Lisa’s content is synced over, but I can see this growing quickly. From what I’ve seen on the inter-tubes, though, this might be not-too-annoying to swap out.  [Update: Well, hey-ho-howdy, here's one.]
• The interface feels a bit slow. It’s not terribly slow, but it is a bit.
• It crashed at least once on me. On the plus side (or worrisome — depending on your perspective), it has a watchdog timer that auto-rebooted it after it locked up. This is a 1.0 device, though, so I’ll give it some leeway, as long as it’s not very frequent.
• Entering a 50-character, random character string as the WPA2 key using their sluggish on-screen keyboard interface is a pain in the ass. Entering it a second time after you have a brain fart is even more of a PITA.
• I was surprised that the device doesn’t aggregate the iTunes sources that it’s configured for. You have to explicitly choose the source iTunes DB that you use.
• Apple’s remote-enabled devices (such as Lisa’s and my MBPs and the Apple TV) allow you to pair with a specific remote, which makes the device ignore all other Apple Remote signals. As far as I can tell, they will respond to any Apple Remote by default. This is really fun when you’re sitting back on the couch with two MBPs and you hit play on the remote; all three devices respond by playing different things. On the plus side, the Apple Remote has a very wide range of coverage.
• Speaking of the Apple Remote, it’s a very simple device. It’s got six buttons: up, down, left, right, play/pause, and menu. Using this remote to watch Lost on my laptop’s screen with Front Row was easy, but, for whatever reason, I’m having issues controlling playback with it on the Apple TV.
• Streaming is surprisingly smooth, from both of our MBPs. It thought it might get a but chunky with Lisa’s over the 802.11G network, but it’s not.
• Good Lord, I really don’t like that default Ken Burns effect in the slide show mode. I need to find out how to turn that off.
• I had some DRM (grrrr!) issues trying to get some TV shows from my MBP to stream to the Apple TV. Eventually, I read on the Apple forums that I had to de-authorize my MBP, then re-authorize. After this, there was no problem.
• I was also surprised that, while you get lots of previews of songs, movies, and TV shows from the Apple TV interface, you can’t directly purchase anything from that interface. How long do you think until that’s enabled? I can’t see Apple not making it easier for people to buy from their store.

Anyway, I like the Apple TV. It’s got a lot of potential, but it’s still got some rough edges. Still, it’s a good, useful device now. I think it’d give it a 4 out of 5.

Technorati Tags: airport extreme, gadgets, geeky, apple tv, review, wireless

Actually, it’s the Yankees‘ 2007 schedule, not baseball’s, but, hey, baseball’s nothing without the Yankees…. Anyway, I went looking for the full NYY 2007 schedule in a Google Calendar format yesterday and couldn’t find it anywhere. I found the weekday day games. I found the west coast games. I found the Yankees’ and Mets’ (shudder) day game schedule. I found 2006 schedules and results, but I found no 2007 schedule.

“No problem!” thought I. “I’ll just find an online source, find the right format, some magic happens, then, *Poof!* schedule.”

I created a new gCal, made a few entries, then exported it to iCal (VCAL?) format. Looked around the internets and found a good schedule on the ESPN site. A little cut&paste later and I had a nice, one-game-per-line entry for the month of April. Wash, rinse, repeat for May through September.

Looking through the iCal, I could make out the parts pretty easily. Some of the fields were a little odd, but they didn’t look like anything I needed to bother with. I decided to repeat them verbatim. I whipped up a Python script, knocked out a couple silly bugs, then produced the full, iCal-formatted file. Google Calendar didn’t like importing it.

“No problem!” thought I. “I’ll just tweak some of the vcal…. There.”

“What? Still not importing?”

“Hmmm, OK, I’ll tweak this vcal…. There.”

“What?!?! Freaking vcal! I wonder if Apple’s iCal can read it.”

“Oh, nice. iCal reads it but gCal won’t. Heeeeey…. iCal has an export function…”

And that’s how I wound up — more or less — with a fully public, shared 2007 New York Yankees game schedule.

I think the problem was that every line in the Google Calendar-compatible file needed to be terminated with a ^M (ctrl-M). I still haven’t figured out how to get Python to print a literal ^M character. I thought it involved raw strings, but that didn’t help any. I figure I might have to try Unicode strings and embed the hex value of ^M in the string, but I didn’t know the right value and didn’t want to spend too much more time on the issue, especially since I already had my gCal set up.

Oh, and that program I wrote? I found out later on that I could have just manipulated the schedule files I got from ESPN and saved them as a CSV and imported them. Much less work there. Oh well. Live and learn.

Technorati Tags: ical, programming, Python, geeky, funny, google calendar, Yankees