I love having nicely cleaned clothes. I hate having a nicely cleaned memory stick. Yesterday morning, I noticed that my memory stick was missing. Looked around quickly and couldn’t find it. I figured I’d check around later. A couple hours later, I get a call from Lis, asking if I forgot something. She then proceeded to tell me that she found my SanDisk Cruzer Mini in the drier — after the load was done. Ummmm… Not good. I asked her to leave it on my desk. I figured I’d check it out when I got home. Well, it turns out that the (at least my) Cruzer Mini can withstand a trip through the dual terrors of the washing machine and the drier. Good show, SanDisk.

This past Friday, I was asking Dave if he had updated the Firefox and/or Thunderbird toolkit.jar files for the new versions of Firefox and Thunderbird (or, mayhaps, DeerPark). Alas, he had not. Being the devious one that he is, he knew my susceptibility to suggestion and struck. He suggested that it would be nice if someone wrote a script to add these things. Arrrrgh! Freaking Dave. Then, to tighten the screws just a bit more, he suggested that it be written in Python. (I have been bitching for the past few weeks about how I’ve been forced to do a project in Perl and about how much quicker it could be done in Python.)

Well, with most of my free time this weekend gone, here’s the result. Please note, it’s only for OS X.

[UPDATE] Ooops, I posed to a Camino forum about this and it didn’t support Camino. D’oh! I’ve updated the script to cover this transparently.

This is hi-larious. Great use of the motion sensor, though you’ll only catch me beating my MBP when frustrated, but I’m not the boss of you, so go right ahead and abuse your MBP, I don’t care.

To continue my previous post, here’s the jar file for Thunderbird 1.5.0.2. In OS X, replace the tookit.jar file in /Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/chrome with this one. In contains the changes from here. Or don’t. I’m not the boss of you.

I read Dave’s post about getting Emacs bindings in Firefox 1.5.0.2. With the new Firefix update to 1.5.0.3, I went and created a new version for OS X 10.4.6. Seems to work nicely. Sweet.

I’ve had a MacBook Pro since the day I was laid off from VeriSign. Over time, I’ve slowly adapted to its little sharp corners that made the Apple OS X platform not as attractive to me as it has my wife. Now, I can easily say that I like it.

At work, I’ve got a wimpy Dell that I run Fedora Core 5 on. It’s good for most people, but fairly under-powered for my needs. I finally got annoyed enough with its wimpiness that I started talking loudly about replacing it with my MBP.

Mistake. I think I hurt its feelings as soon after that, it lost power, then wouldn’t start X when it came back up. Taking this as the final kick in the pants, I went with working on doing the switch instead of fixing what I think is the problem with X.

I have never used a Mac on the desktop for anything longer than five minutes, so it was a bit bumpy, especially with my PC keyboard. Not only did I have to start figuring out a new keyboard layout (Macs and PCs swap the ALT(?) and Win keys), I had to contend with not having a “c” key.

A few weeks ago, I spilled a diet Coke on my nice Microsoft keyboard. (I’m not a big fan of their OS, but I do love their split keyboards.) I cleaned it right up and everything mostly worked except for the “c”. After a more thorough cleaning, it all did work then, but it still flakes out every-so-often. On the MBP, pressing the “c” key tends to trigger the Exposé “show windows” action. This is not really the best key to have that function mapped to. I gave the keyboard another thorough cleaning, but nothing seemed to help.

The next-door crackhouse Best Buy is where I got the keyboard last time, so I went back there soon after they opened. Sold out. Dang. I played with a cow-orker’s Apple keyboard for a couple hours (hated it), then went off to get Stick Meat with some of my ex-cow-orkers.

After a tasty lunch and some catching up, Grumpy and I went to our neighborhood crack house Apple Store. I needed to get a USB hub and wanted to look at other possibilities for a keyboard. It was there that I found the Logitech S 530 Laser, specifically for the Mac.

While it’s not a split keyboard, it is a very nice, low profile keyboard. The key action is nice to me, but they might be placed just a bit too closely for my big fingers.

I also picked up an iSight for Deadli’s Powerbook. She and G seemed to enjoy using Photo Booth and the iSight built into my MBP. The Apple crackhead I talked with said that Photo Booth was included in the iSight package, so I thought, “What the heck? Why not?” Well, the Photo Booth software I was told was in the box was not, but it’s still fun to play with and I think Deadli and G will have a good time with it anyway.

So, finally, we got back to the office and I started to integrate it all and settle in. I’m still not comfortable, but things are starting to fall into place and I can see myself into this new workflow very shortly.

I liked the fact that each of my three main computers — home, office, and laptop — ran a different OS. I felt that it gave me a good overview of and experience with the main OSes out there. Now, I’m a bit sad that I’m mostly using just the two consumer OSes. It’s not because I got disenchanted with Fedora Core or Linux. I got disenchanted with the hardware it was running (well, “walking quickly”) on. I don’t think OS X or Windows would do any better while doing the same tasks on that hardware. (If I could even get Windows to do the same tasks.)

Overall, I’m pretty happy about it. I’m looking forward to getting back into the office now and getting back to “the struggle.” Additionally, having my work computer with me all the time might open the door to other usage possibilities.

Lately, I’ve been doing some work with Movable Type 3.2. All I can say is, I’m happy to be using WordPress for my personal blog. WP is soooo much nicer to work with.

Argh! It looks like FC5 changed how you administer your SELinux configuration, completely messing with the SELinux workflow I developed way back in FC4. Dag nabbit. Now I have to learn this new system before I can debug configuration issues in Apache and, no, Dave, I won’t turn it off.

It seems that every time I upgrade/install FC on a workstation or laptop, I have to fight this battle. Really, it’s only a small skirmish, but it’s annoying. Here’s the lastest “solution” for FC5. I created /etc/udev/rules.d/10-palm.rules with the following in it.

KERNEL==”ttyUSB[02468]“, SYSFS{product}==”Palm Handheld*”, NAME=”%k”, GROUP=”uucp”, MODE=”0660″, OPTIONS=”last_rule”

KERNEL==”ttyUSB[13579]“, SYSFS{product}==”Palm Handheld*”, NAME=”%k”, GROUP=”uucp”, MODE=”0660″, SYMLINK=”pilot”

These rules should ensure that /dev/pilot only points to the odd ttyUSB device created by the T3 when the hotsync button is pressed. Otherwise, /dev/pilot only seems to point to the odd device about 1/2 the time and the even device the other half.

udev, palm, linux, fedora core 5, fc5, linux palm

Us,
originally uploaded by sigsegv.

Well, the layoff went well. I had posted that I thought I’d feel a bit bad about leaving, but I didn’t. I honestly can say that I felt happy the entire time. The worst part of it was saying goodbye to my cow-orkers, but even that wasn’t bad. I hope all my layoffs go that well.

There I was, all nekkid without any corporate-provided mobile computing, so I went from being walked out of the office to picking up a MacBook. It’s a sweet machine, but I’m not 100% sure it’s for me yet. I have to give it some time though. At least Lis and I got a nice shot of us together with the built-in video.

I’ve been ranting a bit lately on much of the “show security” you see around here, mostly at airports, but also on subways and in other public spaces. Here is a good article by Patrick Smith on the matter, put much better than I can. Bruce Schneier has also written a lot about stupid U.S. airline security. (Here is a particularly good article.)

Mr. Smith article describes the fairly low-key reaction of Spain to the Madrid subway bombings. Why so low-key when we’re so wound-up? We both have experienced terrorist attacks. (Anyone remember Oklahoma City or the first World Trade Center bombing?) Maybe it’s because they have a much longer history with being a terrorist target? How about England’s reaction to their (more recent) terrorist attacks? They have a long history with terrorists too. I seem to recall that their reaction is closer to ours, at least with respect to abrogation of personal freedoms. (Maybe the English feel less entitled than Americans do, at least with respect to personal freedoms?)

Here’s a paragraph from Mr. Smith’s article that I especially like.

Except the Spanish, as victims, are sensible enough to realize that there’s only so much you can do, and don’t squander their resources on measures that do nothing to prevent bombings and everything to waste time and infringe on people’s rights. The citizens of Madrid might be fearful of additional carnage, but they’re also sensible and, in a quiet way, defiant. Our own reaction to terrorism has been anything but defiant — other than dropping bombs and shooting rockets at people, most of whom have nothing to do with the problem.

I think Americans are confusing offense for defiance.

I’ve been playing games with G on the computer over the past month or so. There is the new game that we got her recently that’s based on a movie series she likes. As with most of the games for her age group, it consists of a handful of activities for her to do combined with some reward — usually video clips — that they earn by playing the activities. In this game, playing one activity earns one video clip.

Since G really likes the characters in this game, she’s especially interested in the reward part. She learned on her own that she only has to enter an activity, then exit for it to register as having played an activity, She then goes to the reward area to see another video. Wash, rinse, repeat with the tenacity of a three year old.

I’m so proud.

After much searching, I found the secret to getting my Thinkpad T40 (with ipw2100 1.1.3 wireless driver) working with WPA2. My parents’ wireless access point is a Linksys WRT54G (ver 4), running the latest Linksys firmware. They’ve got it configured for WPA2 Personal wireless encryption. It was very easy to set up Lisa’s OS X 10.4 mactop (much easier than I remember configuring it for WEP on OS X 10.1), but I spent over a day trying to get wpa_supplicant (0.4.7) working. The secret was not using the ipw driver in wpa_supplicant, but using the generic wext driver. I was getting a lot of “Operation Not Supported” messages in the debug output of wpa_supplicant, but once I changed from the ipw driver to wext, everything worked just fine. I was happy, to say the least. Over 24 hours without access! /me shivers. (Well, without access on my laptop. Good thing I had other computers with which to get online or I wouldn’ t even be able to sit here and type as my head would have exploded.)

Sweet Remote

Blogs are a great way to avoid talking with other people. Instead, you can have online conversations in an environment where anyone can listen in. I’m most grateful to avoid having conversations with Grumpy. Even though his office is only a couple doors down the hall from mine, I can’t be bothered. Of course, that’s assuming that it’s one of the two or three days a month he’s actually at work, but that’s a tale for another day.

Yesterday, Grumpy asked Which Remote? If we were actually talking, he might have learned that just last week, I picked up a Logitech Harmony 676 remote. While it’s suggested price (and the price you can buy it at Best Buy) is around $200, it can be had at Amazon for around $120. While it is about 4x the cost of his new remote, I’d say it’s a wonderful remote.

Our AV or “home theater” system is fairly complex with parts from Sony (TV, DVD), Harmon Kardon (receiver), Hughes (DirecTivo), JVC (*cough*VCR*cough*/digital clock), and Onkyo (CD player). Each has their own remote. We have four main devices that we use: the TV, AV receiver, DVD player, and DirecTivo. Three remotes could effectively control these devices. Every-so-often, when the power flickers, we’d need to use the VCR remote to reset the digital clock. Whenever we’d have a babysitter or guests over, we’d have to give a two hour tutorial on how to watch TV or a DVD. We even wrote up a cheat sheet for them to use.

After a while, we started looking at something that could handle everything well and feel nice in the hand too. This is where the Harmony 676 comes in. It’s got that classic TiVo “peanut” shape and is nicely grippy in the hand (unlike normal TiVo remotes). It’s about 1 1/2 times bigger than the TiVo remote and flatter, but it doesn’t feel unwieldy in either my hands or Lisa’s smaller hands.

Most importantly, it controls everything and simplifies what we’d do, even on one remote. If we want to watch something on the TiVo, we press one button on the remote. It turns on the TV and receiver if they’re not already on and makes sure the TV and receiver are on the right input channels. If we want to watch something on the DVD player, press one button and everything’s set. If we didn’t have a crappy CD player, the same thing would apply to listening to CDs. (The CD player doesn’t have a standby mode, so the power has to be manually turned on or off. The remote can’t help with that.) Even unusual functionality can be accessed via the Harmony remote. While at the top, it provides buttons for meta functions (like “Watch TV”, “Watch a DVD”, etc.), you can also get into device-specific functions. At the time we set up the Harmony, our VCR clock was reset due to a recent (for large values of “recent”) power flicker. The clock hadn’t been reset up to this point because I’d have to get out the VCR remote, put batteries in it, then do the normal configuration. With the 676, I went into the device menus and found the correct functions to set the clock, all on my first try.

(There’s another Harmony — the 688 — that’s supposed to be specifically for systems with a PVR, but I don’t like how the buttons run together. I don’t know about you, but Lisa and I tend to push the buttons without looking at the remote, so it’s important for us to get some tactile feedback to determine what button our finger’s over.)

Set up is done via a web interface on the Logitech site where you configure the devices you have and the functions you want the device to do. It can be kind of tedious, especially if you’re a bit OC, like me. (I’ve heard some people say it was easy and done on their first try.) Setting up the DirecTV channels we get and which ones were our favorites was trying, although that leads to a nice little feature where the shows on your favorite channels are listed in the LCD display. Eventually, you finish configuring the device on the web interface and they push out a new firmware file to you that you use their firmware update program to reprogram the remote via USB. Tweaking the config can be a bit tedious too, but if you get stuck, their free tech support is wonderful and friendly.

Finally, if you get stuck and don’t want to continue further tweaking your configuration, the “Help” button on the remote is truly helpful and will usually walk you through fixing whatever problem there is with what you’re currently trying to do.

Overall, while I did have reservations about spending so much on a universal remote that I was unsure we’d like and use, we’re very happy with it and consider the money well spent.

UPDATE: Actually, it’s very close to the size of the TiVo remote, if not slightly smaller.

My new phone

A couple months ago, I wrote about trying to find a new cell phone. While the urgency did wear off, I never did stop looking. Last week, I was flipping through the massive Cingular insert in Maximum PC and saw it there…. It had everything I was looking for. It’s the Nokia N-Gage. Heh… nooooo. It’s the Sony-Ericsson z520a. It’s not quite as geeky fun as the Nokia 6682 would have been with it’s Symbian OS and EDGE data connectivity, but the z520a is at least currently available. (The Cingular 6682 had some stability issues and was temporarily yanked until — I’ve read — mid-December.) The extra bonus is that the z520a is about 1/3 the cost of the 6682.

Ever since my Palm T3 died and had to be replaced out of warranty to the tune of about $125, I’ve been looking at PDAs that I could replace my T3 with. For what it’s worth, I mostly love my T3, but as far as I can tell, Palm’s no longer making it and fixing it is getting to be painful.

One of the devices I’ve eyed has been the Nokia 770. Until today, I didn’t know that it went on sale in the US last week. I’ve been quite intrigued by it’s design and the fact that it’s an open platform that Nokia’s actively promoting to open source developers. Still, I had similar thoughts about the Zaurus and I’m glad I never bought into that.

Unfortunately, regardless of my need, I think using the 770 would be really annoying for lefties. If you look at its design you’ll see the hard buttons and rocker on the left front along with other buttons on the left side of the top of the device. Heck, even look at the Flash animations. You’ll see that they did not consider left-handed people when designing this device.

As a lefty, I’ve gotten used to being ignored when it comes to device design. It’s rare that I find a lefty-specific design. I understand why this is, as lefties are in the minority — I’ve seen estimates of lefties being 10 - 20% of the population — and we’re a pretty adaptable bunch, but when something hand held and focused on writing is designed with obviously no lefty testing done, that really pisses me off.

How can a lefty use this device? I thought about rotating it 180 degrees about the Z axis. This way, I should be able to hold the device in my right hand, but it’d be near impossible to access the top (and now bottom) buttons. That’s also assuming that the device supports flipping the image.

I guess I could also hold the device with my right hand supporting the back, instead of along the edge and just deal with no easy button access. It’s not the first time I’d have to make a compromise like this, but it’s very annoying.

I use a Logitech MX 1000 mouse at work. It’s a very sweet mouse that sits nicely in my right hand. It’s wireless, tracks nicely, has great battery life, and a plethora of buttons — enough for my non-MX1000-using cow-orkers to kid me about it.

My only beef against it is that I wish the wheel would scroll smoothly, like many of today’s Microsoft mice. Well, that and the fact that — as of a few hours ago — the middle button stopped responding to clicks. It’s part of the wheel device, but every other part of the wheel works. I can scroll up and down, left and right, just no middle clicky. I swapped mice with another cow-orker who uses an MX1000 and found his working nicely, while mine still didn’t work on his Mac.

A mouse without the middle clicky feature is dead to me, so I plugged in my old USB MS Intellimouse Explorer, reconfigured X — it shouldn’t be as tough as it is — and got on the phone to Logitech.

After sitting on hold for 15+ minutes, I spoke with Alex. He listened to my story, asked when and where I bought it, took down the model number, part number, and serial number of my MX1000, then said they’d be sending a replacement within seven business days. Sweet.

Of course, a response like this shouldn’t please me as much as it does. I’m so used to the sorry state of consumer electronics support that I expected to talk — over a bad connection — with a person (well, after spending an hour locked in phone-tree hell, being presented with options that had no connection what-so-ever with my current problem) in a call center in India who can barely speak English. She or he would read from as script, not veering one bit to take into account the troubleshooting I’ve already done. Finally, they’ll tell me I need to install the latest Windows software for the mouse to be officially declared broken. When I tell them (again) that I’m running Linux, not Windows, for them to say, “Sorry, our hardware is only supported under Windows,” then rudely hang up so that they can get on to their next call and increase their call stats. Wait ten minutes for the blood pressure to go down, then call back, pretending to be using Windows, silently pausing when they ask me to install some Windows software or check some Windows setting. I hate the fact that I have to lie to get anything done with some many tech support people, if not for the moral issues, but I want Linux to be counted. I don’t want these companies to look at the user stats that only allow you to choose Windows or MacOS and say, “Our user base has no interest in Linux.”

*pant pant*

Okay, rant over. I’m happy with Logitech’s response and look forward to getting a fixed MX1000 in up to seven business days. Oh, and one final cool part? I don’t need to return the broken one. Time for a mouse autopsy.

With the MLB regular season winding down and the Yankees still in the hunt for a playoff spot, I went about looking for their magic number and on a side-quest to find out how it’s computed. The actual computation of a magic number is 162 - (your team’s wins - the other team’s losses). The “other team” is the second place team if your team’s in first place or the first place team if your team isn’t. As of this morning, the Yanks are in first place with 93 wins and 65 losses. The Red Sox are in second with 92 wins and 66 losses. 162 - (93 + 66) = 3. Any combination of three Yankee wins and Red Sox losses will ensure at least a tie for first place in the American League East division. (If you want to determine the magic number for winning it outright, add one.) The Red Sox magic number is five (162 - 92 - 65).

While looking into the magic number system, I came across UC Berkeley’s RIOT system. It uses schedule to determine the minimal number of additional wins a team needs to a) clinch at least a tie for their division b) clinch at least a tie for a playoff spot c) avoid being eliminated from contending for first place in their division and d) avoid being eliminated from contending for a playoff spot.

I’m starting to believe that, just like email clients, all cell phones suck, just some suck more than others. I don’t want too much in my cell phone besides good phone capabilities and bluetooth. It’s that last part that’s really making things tough. It seems that bluetooth is a high-end feature and one high-end feature, apparently, demands another high-end feature, which demands another… *sigh* I don’t care about the freakin’ camera. I don’t care about playing MP3s on my phone. I don’t care about ring tones. I don’t care about downloading games or surfing the web. I don’t even care much about PDA capabilites beyond being able to keep track of my contacts’ phone numbers. (And having phone book entries be by the contact and not the phone number…. Having three entries in the phone book for one person, just because they have a work, home, and mobile number is asinine.)

My wife and I have been using a Cingular Family Plan and our contract’s expired, so we’re looking to refresh our phones and indenture ourselves for another couple years. We’ve been fairly happy with the Cingular coverage in the northern Virginia area, but are far from in love with them. We’d change carriers if we knew of any that had at least as good a coverage area (here and in Arizona — where my parents live — and in Florida — where Mickey lives. (See, mom and dad, I put you ahead of Mickey. ;))) and that also offered a variety of bluetooth-enabled phones. Last I checked, the CDMA carriers (Sprint, Verizon, ???) had a pretty limited selection, if any. My “limited” I mean, “one.” This might have changed though, so I should check. In the GSM realm (Cingular, T-Mobile, ???), each provider seems to offer a crippled-handful of bluetooth phones, but, really, do I hate Cingular enough to go to T-Mobile? That’d have to be a whole lotta hate….

So, anyway, here I am, on the precipice of another two years of Cingular and the only interesting bluetooth-enabled cell phones that interest me are the Sony-Ericsson S710a, the Motorola RAZR V3, and the entry, the Nokia 6682. The swivel of the S-E is brain-damaged and just awkward, so I’m pretty sure that’s not gonna happen. The RAZR is nice and thin and a clamshell — which I really thought I wanted this time — but it’s kind of flimsy and I’ve read bad things about it, including a near-unreadable screen in the sun and that stupid contact thing I ranted about above. Now, the 6682 is quite interesting. Is that bar form-factor that I’m used to, but thought I wanted to move away from. Nokia’s got a pretty good reputation for phone functions. There’s no contact supidity as with the RAZR…. It does have way more functionality than I want and I’m going to have to pay for that extra, unneeded stuff. I’m a bit nervous about it playing with some of my bluetooth gear, such as my Palm T3 or my Thinkpad. Hmmmm… Gotta think about this, but I think the 6682 has the current lead. I want to get my hands on one and see how it feels.

(What? Proof-read? Bah! That’s for people who don’t have to get up in a few hours….)

This seems to be the first place I’ve read about useless “security” measures outside of security-geek circles. It’s good to see that that non-geek (differently geeked? :)) folk are starting to realize what a waste of time and effort these things are.