DAT Stuff

This was entered as a Writely document, to test Writely’s ability to post to my blog.

It can! However, the following features don’t work right:

• it can’t unpublish the entry
• posting updates adds an entry instead of updating the original one
• when I finish editing this document, then edit again, it doesn’t seem to know that it’s been posted to the blog. It would be nice if it kept that history (which would probably require fixing the previous two problems).

The entries themselves have some problems:

• no title
• they are not tagged (they default to the General tag, instead of picking up the tag I assigned on Writely)
• the “comment” link (under the entry) and the “view” link (on the admin pages) don’t work. The relative url of the entry is /2006/08/30//. There should be an entry name between the last two slashes…

In summary, Writely might be a nice editor to use in place of the built-in blog editor, if these problems are fixed…

I couldn’t get Xen to work on Fedora. I was following a quick start guide, but the computer failed to start with the Xen kernel.

I downloaded VMWare server and registered for a free license. During installation, it needed to compile a module; I didn’t have the compiler or kernel headers installed, so I had to dig around for the right packages to install. But once it was compiled and running, I installed Windows XP in a virtual machine on top of Linux.

I confirmed basic functionality (opened Internet Explorer and browsed to an external site), but the next step is to apply the all of the patches (including XP SP2). Then I’d like to clone the image and set up one for general use (Quicken, etc) and another for programming (compiler, debugger).

I noticed recently that Fedora Core 5 includes Xen (or at least makes it easier to install). I hadn’t used my Debian installation for a while, so I decided to wipe it and install Fedora. After I found the network install (boot.iso) and struggled a little to figure out the full URL I needed to enter for it to find packages, the installation was off and running.

Similar to Debian, it installed some packages I didn’t want, but the installation was fairly painless. It ran a long time, but I’m sure a large part of that was downloading packages. I actually started the installation twice, but the first time I entered a location in Norway (mostly because I had a better idea what path I needed to enter) and the downloads were taking forever. On the second attempt I found a server at NC State, and the installation went much quicker. It would be nice if the installer provided some assistance in identifying a fast mirror and the necessary path.

I did encounter two small problems:

1. When it installed the grub bootloader, it incorrectly identified the windows partition, so windows would not boot. After digging around on the internet, I figured out how to modify the grub commands to make it work.
2. After booting to Fedora and logging in to the Gnome UI, I ran the software update tool. Surprisingly, there were tens if not hundreds of packages that needed to be updated. I kicked off the process and it ran for at least an hour before I left for work. When I got home I was able to reboot and everything ran fine, so at least the update ran smoothly

More observations to come…

I learned a new trick yesterday. Apparently if you dial *228, you can update the software on your phone (option 1?). I’ve seen people advocate doing this update every month to keep up with the latest changes. I don’t know if this is unique to Verizon, but this is the first I’ve heard of it. I’ve had a LG VX4500 since 3/2005 and have been very unhappy with the network coverage. Maybe if I had known about this I could have updated the software and maybe it would have helped. But now it’s too late to tell. I dropped the phone in the lake a couple weeks ago and it hasn’t worked since. It fell off my belt (clip and all) into 2 inches of water. It was only there a few seconds, and I pulled it out in time to see it’s dying words before the screen faded. I tried to resuscitate it, but to no avail. I took it apart, without undoing any screws, and let it dry out for a few days; I even tried charging the battery after that but it never came back to life. I’m currently researching to find out how to replace it. The most likely candidates at this point are the Samsung i730 and Verizon XV6700 (made by HTC).

Here is a story about another feature of *228 that might help as well — updating the roaming information on the handset that should be done regularly.

On their FAQ, Verizon suggests doing the “Preferred Roaming List” update every three months or whenever you change pricing plans

I love del.icio.us, and I’ve used it extensively as a way to quickly bookmark things that I want to be able to find on both my home and work computers. Alas, the network gods at Wachovia have blocked access to the site from the corporate network, so it looks like it’s time to find something else. I’ve started working on a rails project that I can use, but until that’s finished I guess I’ll have to use my wiki.

In my last post about Flex, I mentioned that there was a non-commercial license available. Well, I took the time to apply, and after several weeks (after I had given up hope, really) I got an email that I had been granted a license. The email contained a one-time link to the adobe store where I could buy Flex 1.5 and Flex Builder for the cost of shipping & handling. The online store didn’t handle the transaction correctly, but after contacting customer service a totally free copy was on its way to my house.

The CDs arrived this week, and I installed Flex Builder last night. When I find time to experiment with it I’m excited to see what I can produce…

I got an idea for a web site — MoneyTrail.com. The domain is taken but not active.

My idea is to write something in the margin of a bill to drive people to the website. The web site would have a way for the person to identify a bill and see where it’s been. Then they could add their own information:

• name
• location
• how they got the currency, or other comments

I had this idea last week, but didn’t bother to check Google. Today I discovered that the idea has its own Wikipedia topic and the news page on Where’s George shows that it’s had major media coverage since 1999 (USA Today, Money, CNN).

I’m not sure it really qualifies as art, but over the course of a year at work, my coworkers and I had a constantly changing display of action figures on top of our cubicles. Some days were more creative than others, with the scene changing several times. Other days were fairly static, with the figures hardly moving at all. Mike Martindale got some pictures to give you an idea, as did James Collins. I know several of the scenes were my creation, but I’m not sure I can take credit for all of them.

The eyes in the background are those of my daughter Serena. They were enlarged using The Rasterbator.

Many thanks to James and Mike for capturing the images and adding the narrative.

I have a much longer post in the works (mentally) on a related topic, but I had to get this thought out…

One of the main things I look for in the software that will run my web sites is something that (once installed) I can completely manage through the browser. I’ll accept that software upgrades may require working at the command line, but if I want to change content or layout, don’t make me edit files or muck around in the code.

For that reason, I think my use of MediaWiki may come to an end. I need to check out the new version (I’m using 1.4.x, and 1.5.4 is available), but from what I’ve seen in the few configuration changes I’ve made, I can’t imagine it being satisfactorily improved in the new version. The latest frustration point (changing the contents of the navigation sidebar) has been fixed in 1.5, so we’ll see…

I’ve been looking for a replacement for the built-in task manager, and I just found a good (free) one called Process Explorer. The Sysinternals Freeware site looks like it has a number of other good utilities as well.

Just now I ate a few Dove dark chocolates (very tasty)…

On the inside of the wrapper, they have quotes. The first one said “Find your passion.” I didn’t think much of it until I opened the next one, which said “Live your dreams.” Does my candy know something I don’t?

I better not read too much into it; the next one said “Be mischievous. It feels good.”

I found an interesting store that has Remote Control Cars Trucks Boats Nitro Gas Electric - Airsoft Guns, Magic Tricks and more!

I read today about Second Life, which sounds really interesting. It is “a 3D online persistent space totally created and evolved by its users”. Similar to Project Entropia, it has an in-game currency which can (at least in theory) be easily converted to real-world currency. Project Entropia really plays up this aspect, luring you to try to earn money by playing their game. Second Life seems more directed at designers and content creators, but they also promise the ability to “make real money in a virtual world”.

You can create one avatar in Second Life for free, but additional accounts (and premium accounts, which allow access to land ownership and a higher weekly allowance) cost $10 per month.

“Fab Lab” is an abbreviation for Fabrication Laboratory. It is a group of off-the-shelf, industrial-grade fabrication and electronics tools, wrapped in open source software and programs written by researchers at the Center for Bits and Atoms.

I stumbled on this before but apparently never made a note of it. eMachineShop lets you custom-design your own components with a variety of materials. They have a free CAD program that you can use to design and price things in a number of materials. If you need custom circuit boards, check out Pad2Pad.com

Check this out: Christmas lights (you need sound to get the whole effect).

Some wise guy(s) decided to slam my blog with comment spam. Fortunately I had it set to require approval for all comments, so none of them made it to the site. However, so I don’t have to be bothered with deleting it all, I’m requiring registration before you can comment.

One thing I love about blogs are sites like Technorati that make it easy for others to find blog entries. For example, John Dowdell found my post on Flex. He found my post using Technorati, and I found his the same way. I’m betting we used different search terms to find them, but the fact that one service connected us is pretty cool.

But what I really wanted to write about is Flex itself. I’ve always been intrigued by Flash, but could never justify the cost of the Flash development tools. I’ve looked at OpenLaszlo, which is great for the price (free) but lacks a good graphical development tool. If your idea of an IDE is Notepad, OpenLaszlo may be just what you need. They go one step further with their Eclipse plugin, but all it really provides is coding assistance, not graphical design tools.

I downloaded FlexBuilder 1.5, but haven’t had much time to work with it. With the little bit I have done, I’ve been impressed with the tools. What scares me is the price. What does it cost? Actually I have no idea. If you go to the Flex page and click on “Purchase Information“, you get a page that I interpret as “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it”.

I did see information about a non-commercial license, but it was confusing. It’s actually a non-commercial deployment license, implying that you don’t need it until you are ready to deploy your application. However, the copy of FlexBuilder I downloaded requires a license after an initial trial period, so it may expire before I can build anything.

Maybe I should skip version 1.5 and check out Flex 2 at their Labs site.

I continue to be impressed with the Windows tools in Helix, but have decided that it is really geared more toward criminal forensics than data recovery (it’s even got a chain of custody PDF).

I went back to DistroWatch.com and discovered a different category in the distribution search that appears more appropriate: Rescue. See my wiki for more details.

Well, I’m not sure where I got the previous information, but Helix is based on Knoppix. What really surprised me, however, is its windows support. After burning the CD, I stuck it back into my computer running Win XP, and it launched an application that could be used to research (and hopefully fix) a problem. I did have a problem shutting down the application — it repeatedly asked me whether I wanted to write a log file, but it finally quit after I said no 5-10 times.

I also booted from the CD, but didn’t do much there. I browsed around and saw that the forensics tools were very prominent; I launched Autopsy, but quickly discovered that I needed to RTFM before I went much further.