So we did give it try. We spent a 4 days at the parks, and we never spent more than 15 minutes in a line. Again, this was during the peak season. The wait times we saw posted as we walked by other rides were between 30 and 120 minutes, most were an hour or more. We paid $15 for our RideMax subscription, but I would have paid $100 for it with the value we got out of it with 8 people for 4 days. We were totally sold on how it works. I assume it sends us to where the crowds aren’t. We wandered off the plan once, and paid for it with a 90 minute line – we learned to stay on the plan. We got to see everything we wanted to, it just gave us an order and a time for each. We even got done with our plan a bit early. We were able to modify our plan from our iPhone.

If you’re going to one of the Disney parks during a congested time, I highly recommend RideMax. Personally, I won’t go without it.

He gushes too much.

I did admit that intervention was needed. I have no fashion knowledge (exhibit A: the before picture).

http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2011/11/four-destructive-myths-most-co.html

After seeing other organizations do it differently, and in the process accumulate technical debt, I keep reinforcing with my team “slow down a bit and do it right the first time. Don’t pick up the next work item until the current one is done. Real done. This will enable us to go effectively faster in the long term.”

After deciding to do some real upgrades, I’ve got a solution I’m happy with, it turned out to be a bit easier than I thought, and it sounds great.

First I got replacement speakers. I’ve always been a Crutchfield fan (because of their service and knowledge, not their prices), and ordered a set of 4 Polk Audio db 651s 6-1/2″ for the door and rear panels. At the time Crutchfield had the first set of 2 for $100, and the 2nd set of 2 discounted to $50. So $150 for 4 new speakers plus all the hardware and car-specific installation instructions. Wow, even with the original Acura head unit still there, the sound difference was quite large. Upon taking the original speakers out, I see that they are just cheap paper cone speakers. High end Acura Bose system? Not! If you care about sound quality at all, new speakers is the biggest bang-for-the-buck that you can do.

The speakers in the rear went in pretty easy. Just pop out the grill, unscrew, disconnect, and do the reverse with the new stuff. For the front doors, you need to remove the entire interior door panel and replace them from the inside, it’s not simple like the rear. This was probably that hardest part of the whole job. But still possible with a panel tool and some care.

The small speakers in the top of the dash really aren’t feasible to replace without taking the dash or the windshield out – I just left them there, and I get plenty of highs from the door speakers.

And I left the factory subwoofer as-is. More about that in a moment.

Lastly was a new head unit. I chose a JVC KW-KR810 for $300. Getting it installed (again, with the help of the car-specific instructions and hardware from Crutchfield) wasn’t bad. I had a hard time getting the old unit out because Acura was apparently a bit too liberal with the glue at the assembly factory. I ended up breaking the faceplace of the factory unit, after being as careful as possible. But the glue made me force it. But once that out was, the rest was straight forward.

I chose to go with the double-DIN format instead of the single-DIN. Visually, I find this fits better with the original styling of the Type-S. And since there is plenty of room to work with, might as well. In retrospect, I should have done the same with the new head unit in my wife’s Odyssey. I don’t need a little storage slot underneath the single-DIN head unit.

Frankly, one of the main reasons I chose this unit (besides the iPod integration) is because it offers custom colors in the lighting. So I’m able to maintain that even red lighting on the dash at night – it’s a total match. It allows for another color set when the headlights are off, so I can pick a nice visible white for that. My wife shakes her head at me for this, but I like maintaining the design integrity.

There is a cheaper version of this JVC unit without Bluetooth phone integration, but I chose to get this feature included. It comes with a wired microphone that I can install near the windshield visor. When a call comes in, the iPod pauses, I get the caller ID on the head unit, I push a button to answer, and the audio plays on the speakers. I find it great to not have to juggle my phone out of my pocket when getting a call. I underestimated how much I would like this. I can also make calls from the head unit with a few button pushes (it relies on remembered phone numbers, it’s not voice activated).

The other thing I really like about this unit is that the iPod controls are still active when it is docked and playing though the head unit. That means if I want to jump to another playlist or whatever, I can do that using my iPod itself, and not some menu mish-mash on the head unit.

One thing to realize about the original Acura stereo is that there is an external amp. So when connecting an aftermarket unit in to the wiring harness, the output lines to don’t go directly to the speakers, they go to an amp. So along with the head unit Crutchfield had me buy a PAC SOEM-4 interface to turn down the speaker outputs into what is suitable as inputs to the Acura amp. The external amp feeds the subwoofer, (so there are 4 inputs and 5 outputs), which may be why new head unit’s RCA outputs can’t be used.

Once the new head unit was hooked up and playing, I was surprised to hear another jump in audio quality (even from CDs). This time, I could actually hear the factory subwoofer. With the old head unit, I wondered if the subwoofer was actually hooked up. With the new head unit, no question. Boom! Hearing some real bass makes for a different listening experience. Yeah, the RSX has a lot of road noise, so it does get a bit drowned out, but that can be overcome by cranking up the volume

Another simple but nice item about the JVC head unit is two USB jacks it has. I connected the Bluetooth stub to the front USB jack, and connected my iPod to the rear USB jack. The rear USB jack isn’t reachable once the unit is installed, so I got an iPod-USB cable that I connected at install time, and snaked out the back and down the center console. This gets rid of an ugly cable hanging out the front of the stereo. And I got a black cable instead of the Apple white one, so it isn’t so obvious I have an iPod in the car. I can put my iPod in the cup holder in the center console and close the sliding cover such that only a subtle black cable is showing for just a few inches. I was able to get a black cable by buying a wall charger kit and discarding the wall charger.

There are a couple wishes I have that weren’t included in the head unit. First, when you turn the unit off, it is completely off. Not even the clock shows. I can push a button that will show the clock for 5 seconds when the unit is powered off (this is active only when the ignition is on), it would have been trivial for JVC to make this a configurable setting. It’s the only clock in the car (unlike some other cars). Second, the Bluetooth phone operation does not give you the ability to mute the microphone. You can mute the speaker output during a phone call, but not the input. That’s backwards. So, when I want to mute my phone (for example, when doing a teleconference during a traffic jam) I have to hit my phone’s mute button, which means I can’t keep it in my pocket – it has to be out and open.

It’s been about 10 months with this new system, and I still am very pleased with it. Should have done it way sooner.

Some co-workers pointed out what the cause of the problem was. DNS requests were being incorrectly returned by my router. So when my laptop sent a DNS query for a VPN host, which my router should have responded “no such hostname on the Internet”, instead my router responded with a dlinksearch.com web page saying “Couldn’t find that hostname, did you want one of the following search terms?” So my router, instead of leaving things alone, was trying to be helpful (in the intrusive sense, not the helpful sense) which in turned confused my VPN client. The VPN client expected that a VPN hostname would not get resolved by an Internet DNS server, but here was my router trying to be helpful and breaking the rules.

This was a DLink DIR-825, which otherwise has been great. Some Google searches point me to disabling the “Advanced DNS” (cough cough) setting. Make sure you reboot the router so the change takes effect. Let’s try again.

Wait, it’s still not working? Now what is going on? Oh, now my ISP (Time Warner) is doing the same thing, trying to be helpful (in the intrusive sense) and instead of responding “no such hostname on the Internet” it is sending a web page with a list of search suggestions. Would you please stop helping and just stick to the standards?

Repeat after me: standards are for predictability in interoperability.

So back to my router configuration. Instead of accepting the DNS servers as given to me by my ISP, I hardcode my router to use the Google Public DNS servers, because they don’t try to be helpful. Reboot the router and try again.

Ah, now it works. Hey router manufacturers and ISPs, do you now see how beneficial your help has been?

1) locate your manufacturer’s CDs for reinstalling. Assuming you bought a complete PC from a manufacturer like Dell or similar, when you first got the computer it should have come with a number of CDs for reinstalling the hard drive. You did keep those, right? If not, contact the manufacturer and they should be able to send you replacements, probably for a cost. Less-old computers may have those CD images hidden on the hard disk, with a utility to burn these CDs at home.

The most important CD is to reinstall the operating system. There may be other CDs for utilities and drivers, but with most of that newer software can be downloaded. So find the operating system CD before you do anything else. If you use Windows, you’re not going to want to plunk down $100-$200 for a replacement copy of Windows, especially for an old PC that’s worth less than that.

2) download a copy of dban: Darik’s Boot-and-Nuke. You’ll get an iso file from the web site. Then you’ll need to burn that iso into a bootable CD. Make sure that when you do that burn, you create a CD from the iso image, not a CD that has the iso file in it. Most burning software will label this something like “Create a CD from an image”, and the file selection dialog for the image file will include “*.iso”.

3) make real sure you have copied everything you need from the old computer. Since new computers typically have a way bigger hard drive than the old ones, you may just want to share the C drive on the old computer, and copy the entire old drive to the new computer over the network. (Don’t copy it into the root of the new hard drive, instead copy it to someplace like c:\Documents and Settings\myuserid\My Documents\old drive.) Yeah, 90% of that is stuff you won’t need and can delete later, but it’s safer to lazily delete unneeded content rather than explicitly copy just the needed content. It may be best to wait a month or more before erasing the old disk with dban, to give yourself time to remember everything you need.

4) put the dban CD into the old computer and boot from it. It contains it’s own stripped-down operating system that will bring you to a menu. You can wipe the old computer’s hard drive using a technique that approaches what the government considers secure. Note that simply booting into Windows and deleting files using Windows Explorer does not really remove the file data from the hard disk, it just removes the file entry from the index. This is like removing an entry from a searchable catalog in a library, but leaving the book on the shelf. If you go wandering you can stumble into the book even though it’s not listed in the catalog. Dban wipes all the shelves multiple times. It may take a couple hours to run.

5) use the manufacturer’s reinstallation CD’s on the old computer, as if you just installed a replacement blank hard drive. Your hard drive is blank, really blank. There may be multiple CD’s you need to get the OS back up and running.

6) install a free anti-virus such as Microsoft Security Essentials

7) make sure Windows Update is enabled. Look in My Computer -> Properties -> Automatic Updates. Run an update check now by opening up Internet Explorer and going to http://update.microsoft.com. Install the ActiveX plugin and download all the critical updates. This may take a while, especially if a Service Pack is included in the updates.

8 ) put on new copies of the standard stuff. If you use Firefox, download the latest instead of using whatever ancient version is on the old manufacturer’s CD. Same thing for utilities, especially Adobe Acrobat.

9) when you give the old computer away, make sure you include all the manufacturer’s CDs, so the new recipient can upgrade the hard drive if they run out of space or if the disk crashes.

10) sleep well knowing that your old computer is helping someone instead of making a landfill larger.

Love, Respect, Kindness. The bickering, mean voices, not sharing, and general selfishness are things we do not want in our home. It really sucks the spirit out when these things are going on. And it’s not right to be nice to strangers and mean to your own family. Close quarters does uncover the flaws in people, but we are all flawed and we need to deal with it. The attitude we have can make all the difference.

Do Your Duty. It’s not fair to have 5 capable people making a mess of the house and not cleaning up after themselves, leaving mommy to do it all. Do your homework before your recreation. Many hands make a light and even load.

Play Together. We need to have fun, and we need to do some of it together instead of in isolation. We need to budget time and money for family activities, and do things we can all participate in, whether it is a trip somewhere for a couple days, a handful of milkshakes, or a board game on a Sunday afternoon. We need to have positive interaction together and build memories.

I share this in the hope that someone else might benefit from what we’ve learned, and to see if there are suggestions from others.

The tire inflation ought to be checked at least a couple times a month. I just recently did this, and found one tire that had lost half its pressure, due to a slow leak. Ack! Running that low did cause some nasty wear on the outer edge of the tread. I didn’t catch it quick enough. I might suggest that you check the tire inflation at the same time you check the engine oil level. But I’d really suggest that the tire inflation is more prone to sudden change than the engine oil level, so perhaps the tire inflation ought to be checked more frequently. But a new engine is much more expensive than a new tire. Get yourself a good air pressure gauge (a round one, not a stick one), and either a stack of quarters or a small air compressor for home.

For the wheel alignment, this is something that can really only be done in a shop that has the proper equipment. Normally it will run around $60-$80 for a 4 wheel alignment. Even though the front wheels are more prone to being out of alignment than the rear ones (such as when hitting a curb while parking), you do want all 4 to be aligned, since you do have 4 tires.

Normally I dislike the subscription automotive services, but I stumbled across one I like quite a bit: a multi-year program for wheel alignment. I bought a 3-year program at the local tire shop so I can take my car in for 4-wheel alignment as many times as I want in that 3 year time period. The total cost for the program is $150 for each car. So for the cost of 2-3 alignments, I can get as many as I want in a 3 year period. I’d suggest getting an alignment every 3 months if you are on a program like this, or every 6 months (or hard curb impact) if you pay for each one without a program/subscription. So I think it is a really good deal. If a good alignment extends the life of the tire set by 50% by minimizing the wear, you can see that financially it is good deal and a worthy investment.

If I get time to create the LDAP authentication modifications I need, I’ll donate those back to the phpScheduleIt project.

Man, I love open source. Remember how hard this would have been 15 years ago?

I’ve been buying Sears Kenmore appliances. I don’t think they are particularly better than the regular brands. Actually, I believe they are from the regular brands, and just rebranded as Kenmore. But what Sears does really well is their parts management.

First, they keep track of your phone number when you buy an appliance. So if you call them for service or parts, they can look up what you bought previously. They also do this through their website, managemylife.com, which also allows you to keep track of non-Sears appliances.

Second, their online parts store offers exploded diagrams of all their appliances. This is really helpful for (a) figuring out how to disassemble an appliance, and (b) finding the part number for your defective piece, and (c) listing which Sears stores actually have the part in stock so you can drive over and pick it up without paying shipping. Yes, the parts are still really expensive, but you can find them easily.

So back to the clothes dryer. The hardest part was figuring out how to open the darn thing up. The parts diagrams didn’t help a lot, but I was eventually able to locate the panel that popped off (just under the front door), and was able to figure out how to pop it off (via some really difficult latches). Once the panel was open, you’ve got access to pretty much everything.

Make dang sure you unplug the dryer from the wall. You don’t want to meet 220 volts.

I figured the heating element would be the culprit. So off to the Sears store to buy a $60 part. Bring it back home, install it, still doesn’t work. Hmm. Some poking around on the forums and there is mention of the thermal cutoff and thermostat. They are located right next to the heating element, and I can see from the wiring how they are in series with the heating element. So I pull out my multimeter and start testing for continuity. Yup, the heating element looks good, thermostat looks good, ah the thermal cutoff has no continuity. So back to the Sears store to get a new thermal cutoff and thermostat (they come bundled together) for $30. BTW, Sears won’t accept the heating element for return because it is an electrical part that I opened and tried, even if it never got power. Replace the thermal cutoff and thermostat. Since I have a new heating element, might as well put that in too. Aha, it works! Clean the inside of the dryer out since I have it open. I note that the rollers for the drum have lint on them, that is why it was thunking a bit at the beginning of a cycle. Clean lint out of the dryer vent, since that may be what caused the thermal cutoff to trip.

So I’m out $90 and about 3 hours of labor (not counting driving to the store and back). Still a fraction of what it would have cost a repairman to come on-site, and I learned something new.

Now we can work on the backlog of dirty laundry. I don’t know why everyone dislikes putting their wet clothes all over the bonus room and turning on the ceiling fan.

Here are some simplified general instructions, and here are the official Microsoft instructions. I was able to use the general instructions for XP Pro, but needed the Microsoft instructions for XP Home.

I’ve never been to a political event before. These guys have just about convinced me to go to theirs.

In their half-mocking half-real commentary, I think they hit the nail on the head. The noisy people on the fringes who make for riveting news coverage are dominating the conversation. Aligning with parties has become a substitute for being informed and exercising good judgment (the party does that for you). Fear is being used as a tool to get control, solving problems has become secondary. Politicians are quick to criticize, but slow to offer real proposals.

Some amount of tension and disagreement is OK, it helps us look at things critically. But not so much tension that it paralyzes us. We’re in the latter now, and it’s not good.

I saw a bumper sticker today: “Get involved. The world is run by those who show up.”

Let’s do take it down a notch, stop vilifying each other, and really figure out how to solve the complex challenges facing the USA.

I am in the 70-80% of people who are moderates, I don’t speak out because I have stuff to do, but I am here (but only until 6:00 because I have a sitter).

warning: rpmts_HdrFromFdno: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 37017186
Public key for gnutls-devel-1.4.1-3.el5_4.8.x86_64.rpm is not installed

Hmm. Some hunting around on Google and it’s not immediately obvious what the problem is. But here are a couple hints: (1) the first line is a warning, and isn’t where yum dies at. (2) the second line is one of the packages I’m trying to upgrade.

It turns out that the warning really is the key to the problem. A read through “man rpm” indicates that the RPMs I’m trying to install are signed, but the key to validate the signature isn’t present. (I would think of these as similar to x509 CA certificates, but GPG calls them public keys.) So OK, where do I get the key from? It’s already on my server in the /etc/pki/rpm-gpg directory, but the rpm command it hasn’t yet been told that it can use that key. To do that, run the command “rpm –import /etc/pki/rpm/gpg/RPM*” to import all the keys in that directory into the RPM database. Note that the “import” flag has two leading dashes, which is typically for an option with a long name. You probably need only the file “RPM-GPG-KEY-release”, so you can be more selective with the import if you wish. The rest of this article assumes you weren’t selective.

Keep reading “man rpm” in the section titled “Digital signature and digest verification”, and you’ll see that the key you just imported can be managed like an regular RPM. Do a “rpm -qa gpg-pubkey*” and you can see ones like the following:

gpg-pubkey-2fa658e0-45700c69
gpg-pubkey-37017186-45761324
gpg-pubkey-db42a60e-37ea5438
gpg-pubkey-897da07a-3c979a7f
gpg-pubkey-42193e6b-4624eff2

And do you see that one of these, “gpg-pubkey-37017186-45761324″, matches the “37017186″ back in the first warning at the top? Run yum again, and the updated RPMs get installed. Success!

Want to verify you got the right key installed? Treat it like an RPM.

$ rpm -qi gpg-pubkey-37017186-45761324
Name        : gpg-pubkey                   Relocations: (not relocatable)
Version     : 37017186                          Vendor: (none)
Release     : 45761324                      Build Date: Mon 10 May 2010 01:49:25 PM EDT
Install Date: Mon 10 May 2010 01:49:25 PM EDT      Build Host: localhost
Group       : Public Keys                   Source RPM: (none)
Size        : 0                                License: pubkey
Signature   : (none)
Summary     : gpg(Red Hat, Inc. (release key) )

Note that the version says “37017186″ (per the first warning above) and the summary says it is the release key (which comes from the filename /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release).

Want to clean up the other keys you probably don’t need? With names like “auxilary”, “beta”, and “former”, you probably don’t need them. Just keep the release key. So again, treat them like an RPM item:

# rpm -e gpg-pubkey-2fa658e0-45700c69
# rpm -e gpg-pubkey-db42a60e-37ea5438
# rpm -e gpg-pubkey-897da07a-3c979a7f
# rpm -e gpg-pubkey-42193e6b-4624eff2
# rpm -qa gpg-pubkey*
gpg-pubkey-37017186-45761324

Now you can cleanly accept signed release updates.

Anyway, one of the leaking incidents occurred recently. I just woke up the kids for school. I’m standing in their bedroom on the 2nd floor and asking myself, “why do I hear water running above me?” So I grab a flashlight and dash upstairs to the attic. There is water flowing out of the top of the water heater and down the sides, as if it has ruptured. At least the water heater is surrounded by a drip pan which drains outside the house. The drip pan was full to the brim, and just a little bit had spilled out. I quickly shut off the inlet valve on the water heater and the pan continued to drain. It looked like less than half a gallon had spilled outside of the pan, I consider myself very lucky. Time to call for a replacement water heater. I also take note to make sure the drain on the outside of the house for the drip pan is free of debris that may interfere with draining.

Since the water heater is in an attic closet bounded by the A-frame roof, there is limited height. It turns out that my water heater is a few inches shorter than the typical short model, so it is a bit of a specialty product that the typical big-box retailers don’t carry. So I need to call a real plumber. Although the plumber did a first-class job and was done within 4 hours of when I called them, it also cost me $1100. Ouch.

So while the plumber was working, I was my usual inquisitive self and was asking questions. And I had done some research on the net before calling the plumber. The typical lifespan of a water heater is about 8 years. Mine had died at about the 9 year mark, so it wasn’t out of bounds. The most common cause of water heater death is a build-up of sediment at the bottom of the tank. This sediment is present in the water supply, and simply settles while in the heater. There is a relatively easy way to flush out the sediment, which until then I had never heard of. Here is what the plumber told me:

The water heater should have on it what looks like a spigot near the bottom where you can attach a garden hose, just like the hose bib on the outside of your house you use to wash your car and water your garden. And once a year, you should do just that – a power flush. Get a garden hose (make sure it doesn’t leak before you do this), connect it to the spigot on the water heater, run the hose to a safe location (ie, a bath tub or out a window to outside), open the spigot on the heater and let the water blast though the hose for about 5 minutes. The water will be hot, so be careful that the hose and water output doesn’t hurt anyone or anything. Do not shutoff the inlet of the water heater, you want the water to blast out of the garden hose at pressure instead of simply (partially) draining the tank without pressure. The reason you want it to be pressurized is because of what is behind the spigot – a tube that causes the water flow to stir up the sediment on the bottom of the tank so it can be flushed out the spigot. When the 5 minutes are up, close the spigot (make sure it is fully closed), and remove the garden hose. Be careful of hot water that may still be in the garden hose while you are removing it.

You should do this once a year. I got a Sharpie pen and wrote on my new water heater “flush on March 15″. Had I known about this earlier, I would have done it and would expect a longer lifetime of my water heater. The plumber said that it should be possible to get several more years than average from a water heater that is well-maintained.

Get yourself a Live CD of your favorite distro. My current favorite is Fedora. A Live CD is a bootable CD that will let you run the OS without installing it on your hard drive. Yeah, when you shut down all the data is gone, and the Live CD does run slow, but it is a great tool for doing tasks like the following. Most Live CDs are 32-bit, but that is OK – you need the OS just to probe the hardware.

Get to a shell prompt and run the command “cat /proc/cpuinfo”. The proc filesystem is something I have come to love as I’ve learned more about Linux, but I digress yet again. The output of that command should look something like this:

[marcelk@alma ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E6750  @ 2.66GHz
stepping        : 11
cpu MHz         : 2000.000
cache size      : 4096 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi
mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm syscall nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips        : 5323.55
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

So out of all those lines, take a look at the one that says “flags:”. There are a bunch of codes there, the meaning for those codes is described in the file /usr/include/asm/cpufeature.h. The flag you want to see is “lm”. It’s an abbreviation for “long mode”, which basically means your CPU is x86_64 capable. So you can run 64-bit Linux, 64-bit Windows, or 64-bit whatever, even though you currently aren’t running it at the moment. If the “lm” flag doesn’t appear, then you have only a 32-bit CPU that can run only a 32-bit OS.

So yes, I can run 64-bit Linux on the computer above. And so… squirrel! … but I digress again.

For a quick photographic description, here is a picture of the stairs going into my office building. That yellow stuff is pollen. It’s kind of clear where people have been walking. The rest is not dust, not dirt. That is pollen. It comes from the long leaf pine. The prolific pollen is probably what permits this pine to grow like weeds around here. The good news is that it lasts a couple weeks and a good couple rains washes it away. But the really good news is that this pine pollen is too large to be absorbed into the bloodstream, so it doesn’t effect people.

Here is a sign I purchased and posted outside our laundry room:

I found 3 suppliers online:

• Rice Signs
• The Traffic Sign Store
• USA Traffic Signs

I’m sure there are more, but these are the ones I found. I made my purchase from USA Traffic Signs, and was serviced well. You may have a local supplier if you look in the phone book under “Barricades”.

The stock sign I bought was $18 plus shipping. Also possible but even more expensive are green street signs with whatever name you want (~$40). You can also get US Highway (route 66, anyone?) and Interstate signs with numbers you select, but those are more expensive ($40-60).

There are different sizes available. You probably want the smallest size. The larges ones on the side of the road look small, but that is because you are far away. They really are quite large, too large for a typical decoration.

Also look for the reflectivity: “engineer grade” (good) or “high intensity prismatic” (better).

And if you have an unusual thrist for knowledge about traffic signs, take a read through the Unofficial Manual of Traffic Signs. It even tells you which font to use in Photoshop to make it look real.

Now that you know where to honestly purchase signs, don’t steal any!

And if you are really into this kind of thing, how about a traffic light?

1) Ooh! Pick my market! I have cable modem service from my local carrier. It’s $55/month for 3Mbs downstream and 300kbps upstream. It’s been pretty reliable. The downstream hasn’t been bandwidth to burn, but has been sufficient for most tasks. (I strongly confess that it is a miracle compared to narrowband). On the other hand, the upstream has been paltry. I can do only one VoIP call at a time, and any uploads to Flickr or similar grind everyone else in the home to a virtual halt. There definitely is a limit on how much I can backup to Mozy. I would love to have just 1Mbps upstream – it would make a huge difference. And even 10Mbps downstream would give me some buffer space. I don’t think anyone will be using 1Gbps anytime soon (remember the “640k is enough RAM for anyone” comment from Bill Gates?), but an honest 100Mbps I think is really the sweet spot. I’d be willing to pay $100/month for 100Mbps symmetric.

On a related note, the limited upstream bandwidth is a thorn in my side. I would love to see some competition come in and challenge the incumbent providers to rethink their bandwidth asymmetry. I do not engage in the transfer of bootleg content. I use Flickr and Mozy. Why must your upstream policy make that painful?

2) We are being seduced into a monopoly. Back in circa 1999 when we were experiencing Google Search for the first time and saying “ooh, aah”, I remember someone saying “Google will become the next Microsoft”. (Remember the lock Microsoft had back then.) I was thinking, “Are you serious?” Fast forward 10 years. They were right. It scares me that Google could potentially own everything from end to end. The OS (Chrome/Android). The servers. The applications. The content. The network. It reminds me of what IBM was pitching during that same period: one throat to choke: PCs, operating system (OS/2), network (IBM Global Network), servers, middleware. Except that IBM ended up selling off the resources that became commodity. And they were geared toward enterprise customers, not consumers. But things are a bit different this time around. The network is much improved. Interoperability has made great strides. Google has a chance to own it all. Unlikely, but possible.

I don’t think Google ultimately has the guts nor the palate to deal with supporting end consumers, whether it is a cell phone or an ISP or anything else that requires more than online help, such as driving a service truck to your house with a backhoe and a ladder. I expect they’ll take a few dips in the water and end up not liking it. But maybe they’ll take persistence lessons from Microsoft.

3) The network is the computer (ref). The technology has matured to a point where it starts to become possible to leave your data and your app in the cloud instead of on your local hard disk. Cloud computing will mature to the point where you can secure your data in a public infrastructure. And virtualization will become so commonplace that you’ll look back and say “I can’t believe we didn’t do this before now.”

So 5 years from now, the current major players will still be there, but in different positions, with different upward/downward trends. There will still be competition, great progress, new up-and-comers, a couple players gone, and great expectations for the following 5 years.

After doing reading on consumerreports.org and Amazon reviews (which is one of the major reasons I purchase from Amazon) looking for a good performer at a decent price, I settled on a Hoover UH30010COM. Using it for a week, here are my impressions:

There are actually two cleaners in the package, the first is the upright which you expect, but for bonus points there is a small portable canister. The canister has a shoulder strap, or you can just carry it since it is decently light, and is great for doing a flight of stairs or cleaning the inside of your car, or sucking the cobwebs from the ceiling. It does require a bag (1 included) and is a bit noisy, but I find it nice and portable. My only complain is that there isn’t an obvious place to wind the cord, and not a place to park the long tube attachment and wide brush when they are not in use. Both of my boys were arguing about getting to use it to clean the stairs and other spots – we’ll see how long that lasts.

The upright is very lightweight. The UPS guy that delivered it said he was interested in one for his parents, I think it would be great for anyone with limited strength. It moves effortlessly across the carpet, it’s almost as if it has a power drive assist. It has a high/low setting, so you can tune it down if you want to be a bit more gentle or quiet. The power button lights up when it is plugged in, so you know if you have power. It has LED headlights for the floor instead of a incandescent bulb, so those won’t burn out. It’s more quiet than our old vacuum and seems to pull up more dirt. It has a large bag, inside of a zippered fabric pouch. Has a nice handle for carrying around, and the usual cord winder. It has rollers on the front of the base, so when you wheel it across a wood floor it isn’t rubbing/scratching as it goes. It claims to have self-adjusting height, which I don’t have experience with as our carpet is uniform.

Overall I’m very pleased. A good choice. It was $250 for both machines on Amazon. Don’t forget to get extra bags for both the canister and the upright (different bag types).

Friday evening I’m driving home from work. It’s dark, rainy, and I’m going about 50 mph down a 4 lane divided road. Then I hear a big thunk. That was not a pothole. I didn’t see anything before it happened. It felt like it came from the left side of the car, so I immediately look to the left. I see just on the other side of the window a close-up of a deer head, a doe. My brain says, “ok, you just hit a deer”. I look in the rearview mirror as I slow down and I see the deer get up off the ground and run off the road into the woods.

There isn’t anywhere to stop on the road I’m on, so I pull of onto the first side street into an apartment complex. First step is to take a look at the damage. I try to open the driver’s side door to get out, but it won’t open more than a little bit. So I crawl across to get out the passenger’s side door and walk around. It’s just bent sheet metal, and the side mirror is hanging down. The door has a good-sized bend, there is a couple dents in the fender. Sigh, first damage to this car.

I call the police, it turns out that a police report isn’t needed. I took it in to a body shop for an estimate. They will replace the fender, the outer shell of the door, and the side mirror. The insurance company has been really good to work with, they are covering it under my comprehensive coverage instead of the collision coverage, which for me has no deductible so it won’t cost me anything out of pocket. My friends say “oh no, this is your favorite call that you blogged about? We’re so sorry!” Yes, the car was in basic pristine condition prior to this. But I’m OK with it, although it is a pain it won’t cost me anything and it will be put back in pristine condition. So I take a deep breath and just deal with it.

Another week and it should be all fixed.

So as I’m looking at the damage waiting for the police to arrive, I’m thinking that if I had been a couple hundreths of a second later I would have hit the deer head on and it would have been a much more unpleasant outcome. So I do have things to be grateful for.

I tell her that it will smell better when it is our own fresh food.

Unfortunately, updating the video driver from Lenovo didn’t fix it. Even reloading the OS from a factory image didn’t fix it. As was pointed out by a friend, here is what to do: open the Catalyst Control Center program, go to the PowerPlay tab and disable PowerPlay. That’s it. It hasn’t had a BSOD since. Thank you Mike!

I settled on Subclipse, as it is relatively easy to get working. It would be nice if an svn client was natively included, but we can work around that.

First, versioning. From what I can tell by looking at the plugin version numbers, it appears that RAD 7.5 is based on Eclipse 3.4 which maps to the Eclipse version name Ganymede. So when you are looking at the subclipse web site, get the version of subclipse that can work in the Ganymede (3.4) version of Eclipse.

First, start up RAD and go to the menu “Help” -> “Software Updates” and click on the “Available Software” tab. Then click on the “Manage Sites” button. If you scroll towards the bottom of the list, you should see one titled “http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.2.x”. As of this writing, subclipse has version 1.6, which is what I use, check the subclipse site for more info. There isn’t a way to edit the 1.2 software site URL to make it a later version, so you’ll need to click “Add” to make a new one. Use the URL for the update site for the latest version of subclipse that runs on Eclipse 3.4, which as of this writing is “http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.6.x”. After you’ve added this URL to the list, check the box on its left, then click OK to get back to the “Available Software” dialog.

Now click on the plus sign next to the subclipse 1.6 entry and after a moment of “Pending” it should show you some entries. I got 3 and selected all 3 checkboxes. Then I clicked the “Install” button on the top right corner of the dialog. The screen capture below shows the plugins that those 3 selections installed. Give it a few minutes to install and restart.

Our svn server has only an ssh interface, so I have to use a repository URL in the form of “svn+ssh://”.

Martin Woodward provided some good help. What got me working the rest of the way was the following: go to the menu “Window” -> “Preferences” -> “Team” -> “SVN” and set the SVN interface client to “SVNKit (Pure Java)”. I didn’t need to install TortoiseSVN and set the environment variable for tortoisePlink as Martin describes, but TortoiseSVN is good to have around anyway.

Now go to the menu “File” -> “New” -> “Other” -> “SVN” -> “Checkout Projects from SVN” and enter your repository URL (mine is in the “svn+ssh://” format). If you don’t want to set up ssh keys, you will be prompted for your ssh password and that can be saved in RAD so you don’t need to enter it each time. And compared to the setup on my old laptop, I didn’t get a popup MS-DOS window for each svn transaction.

I originally had been using JavaHL instead of SVNKit as the interface client, and had been getting errors such as “Folder ” does not exist” and “can’t create tunnel”, which went away when I started using SVNKit. Perhaps if I used tortoisePlink with JavaHL it would work, but I didn’t try that. As always, it’s a community of us that helps us work through all of it.

Here is the IBM statement on software supported with RAD. Scroll down to the bottom to “Source Configuration Management”.

My take on this is let’s not forget where we came from, not be self-centered, step back more to realize what an amazing world we live in, and recognize technology as an enabler and not as an end in itself. Lastly, let’s not make technology a requisite to make us happy. We can find happiness no matter where we are.

I also like being independent of my ISP for email services: should I ever change ISP I’d like to keep my email address. And gmail is a reliable (enough) service with tons of storage at the right cost (free). My ISP rejects my attempt to send email while traveling on a different network, but gmail doesn’t.

So how to put these things together? IMAP.

IMAP is a protocol for leaving your mail messages on the server, but still access those messages from your client as if they were downloaded locally. It’s a much richer protocol than POP3. And it can handle folders. Make a change on the client and it is immediately stored on the server. So I can use Thunderbird but everything is handled on the gmail servers.

I’m not sure how popular the IMAP service is on gmail, but I think it is pretty cool. My own ISP offers only a web interface and POP3.

Here’s how to enable it: Login to the gmail web interface. Select “Settings” then “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” and click “Enable IMAP”. It is disabled by default, but so easy to turn on. Don’t forget to click the “Save Changes” button. Now you need to configure Thunderbird to connect to the gmail servers for both receiving new mail (IMAP server) and sending outgoing mail (SMTP server). Here are the instructions for Thunderbird, or just click on the “Configuration Instructions” link in the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab. Make sure that in Thunderbird’s “Security Settings” for the IMAP server that you select “SSL” so traffic flows encrypted on port 993. And in the “Security and Authentication” settings for the SMTP server make sure that you select “Use name and password” and “TLS”. This will enable all your Thunderbird traffic to be secure for when you are in the hotel or conference center or coffee shop, both incoming and outgoing mail.

But what if I want to access my email from multiple computers? The nature of configuring multiple clients to hit the same IMAP account is that a change made via one client immediately appears on all the other clients. So IMAP is the perfect way to do this. As an added benefit, I can still use the gmail web interface and see the same inbox and folders: I just got another client for free.

Are address books handled via IMAP? No. But there is a Thunderbird plugin, AddressBooks Synchronizer, to handle that. It can sync your Thunderbird address books across multiple Thunderbird instances using your IMAP account. This is how I keep my Thunderbird address book synch’d across all my clients. It doesn’t make my Thunderbird address book available in the gmail web interface, but someone is working on a Thunderbird plugin to do that too.

Maybe someday I’ll give up my old ways and use a pure browser-based email client. But in the meantime this is how I do it.

The net is that you download a file, unzip it to your SD card, put the card in the camera, press a special button sequence, and there it is. If you don’t like it, just power cycle your camera and don’t do the special button sequence, as it needs to be loaded each time. I think this is pretty cool. Just having a decent battery meter is a big help.

It’s called CHDK, and it’s free. Take a look if you have a Canon camera.

I’ll continue writing about each bullet in detail here, just click on the things I wish I knew before working category or the sitemap.

Fortunately, this is really easy to fix. In gmail web interface, go to “Settings” and then go to the “General” tab. At the bottom select the radio button “Always use https”. Don’t forget to click “Save Changes”. There, fixed. Now all your web traffic to the gmail servers will be encrypted.

Google, there really is no excuse for avoiding SSL as the default. Yes, it will put a bit more load on your servers, but security is our friend.

[Note: this applies only to the web interface, not the IMAP or POP interface.]

I didn’t have a wrist grounding strap. So I touched any anti-static wrapper I had to the metal frame of the case before opening the wrapper, touched the inside of the wrapper to the case after opening it, and didn’t move myself until the part was installed. I wanted to take special care with the CPU and memory.

With Newegg, be aware of the return policies for the case, CPU, memory, and Windows OS, they are not the standard return policies. Once you’ve opened the box, no changing your mind. I suspect other retailers aren’t much different.

The SG31G2v2 includes the case, power supply, motherboard, cables, drivers, and other miscellaneous parts. What you need to add is a CPU, memory, and hard disk. And any other accessories you want, such as keyboard, mouse, monitor, card reader, DVD drive, etc.

I really like the small form factor of the Shuttle case. That’s why I paid a bit extra for the case, versus a full-size desktop.

It has an LGA775 CPU socket. I chose to install an Intel E7400 CPU, which is a Core 2 Duo running at 2.8GHz. I didn’t want to pay significantly more money for a slightly higher clock speed, the price/benefit ratio for that falls out of whack. I think the performance constraint is going to be with the disk I/O anyway. Align the triangles and very carefully place it in the socket. The pins are in the socket instead of the CPU die. The E7400 comes with an Intel CPU fan, you won’t need it because the Shuttle has a built-in cooler named ICE2 than runs a liquid-filled coil across the CPU and into the chassis fan. The benefit of that is only 1 fan in the case but still having CPU-specific cooling. The Shuttle also comes with thermal paste to seal the cooler to the CPU, the Intel CPU does not come with thermal paste.

There are 2 DIMM slots for a 2GB module in each, for a max total of 4GB. It’s best to remove the drive bay to reach the DIMM slots. The DIMMs just pop right in as you would expect. At 4GB for $50, it’s a no-brainer to put in as much memory as possible. I selected G.Skill 240-pin DDR2 800. I’m amazed at how far the RAM prices have dropped over the last couple years. Some of the RAM gets used by the video, so I really get 3.24GB of usable RAM in Windows.

There is a removable drive bay which can take a total of 3 drives: an internal 3.5 inch, another 3.5 inch with optional external faceplate (such as a floppy drive, another internal hard disk, or in my case a multi-function card reader), and a 5.25 inch slot with optional external faceplate (such as a DVD drive).

Internal hard drive: I selected a Western Digital WD1001FALS Caviar Black 1TB 7200RPM SATA drive. The price is right, the capacity is great, and it is basically silent even during high use. There are 3 internal SATA data connectors on the motherboard, and the case comes with 1 SATA data cable (locking). So if you are using an OEM hard drive that didn’t come with a SATA data cable, you are set. Shuttle even provides 2 sets of screws for the drives. One set can be used for the 3.5 inch hard disk, and the other for the DVD drive. Shuttle provides a power cable with two SATA power connectors, so no Molex-to-SATA converter is needed for up to 2 SATA drives. Even if such a converter is needed, Shuttle provides one in the accessory box, so you could run a total of 3 SATA devices using the included parts. I used the SATA data cable provided by Shuttle for the hard drive.

Card reader: I selected a Rosewill RCR-IC001 which is the size of a floppy drive. It exposes the front of the reader right below the DVD drive. It connects to the motherboard via USB for both data and power. It uses a USB header connection which is different than the usual external USB A/B connector. The Shuttle has 1 USB header port on the motherboard. The reader has a USB header cable permanently attached to it, and it plugged right in to the header connection on the motherboard. The power to this reader is supplied by USB, so no separate power connection is required. Since this is a retail package instead of an OEM package, Rosewill provided screws to secure the reader to the drive bay. It’s a little weird that SD cards go in the reader upside down, but that’s not a big issue.

DVD drive: I selected a Samsung SH-S223L dual-layer SATA DVD burner with LightScribe. I wanted this PC to be legacy-free, so I chose SATA instead of IDE. If your hard disk is SATA, you will need to acquire another SATA data cable (such as this one) for a SATA optical drive, Shuttle provides only one. An 18 inch SATA data is the perfect length. Luckily, Shuttle provides not 1 but 2 SATA power native connectors. So you can run 1 power connector to your SATA hard drive, and the other power connector to your SATA optical drive. Thank you Shuttle! Even though this DVD drive comes in OEM packaging (as opposed to retail, meaning there is no screws, cables, manuals, or box, it’s just a raw drive wrapped in bubble wrap), it does come with a CD that contains Nero burning software and firmware updates. Be careful when installing Nero, it will try to own just about every possible file extension for audio and video files. Yuck! I clicked “Deselect All” in the Nero installer so that those file extensions will continue to be owned by Windows Media Player and iTunes.

There also is an IDE bus on the motherboard, and the case is wired with an IDE cable that can connect 2 devices (master and slave). Although there are 3 SATA data connectors on the motherboard, the middle SATA data connector is a bit hard to reach when the IDE cable is present at the same time. The IDE cable collapses from a full-width ribbon to a layered reduced-width cable right there near the connector, so it is crowded. Since I don’t have any IDE devices, I removed the IDE cable from the case. This definitely helped it be less crowded. If you want to use an IDE optical drive, there are a total of three 4-pin Molex power connectors. And there is an audio-out cable for the optical drive, in case you want that. I don’t bother with that since I rip my old audio CDs to MP3. The SATA DVD drive didn’t have an analog audio-out interface anyway.

I don’t have any PCI or PCI Express cards. Just using the built-in video. I’m not a gamer.

So after I was done, there was 1 SATA data port, 1 IDE data bus (that could run both a master and slave device), and three 4-pin Molex power connectors unused. The Molex-to-SATA power converter provided by Shuttle also went unused. All the drive bays were full. The PCI and PCIe slots were unused. I had all the screws I needed, and ordered just a single SATA data cable.

For the OS, yes, I picked Windows. But XP. I wish I could run Linux, but the family has applications that are Windows only. I don’t like sending money to Redmond. No need for Vista, XP Home works fine, and I already have all the peripheral drivers I need. I got the system builders version. It does come with media and a license sticker for your case. Just boot the CD and follow the on-screen wizard. It did take about 3 hours to do a full format of my hard drive.

Since I wanted to let the family use this computer, and I’ll take over the old one, we now have 2 computers in a small space. No room for a 2nd monitor/keyboard/mouse. I wanted a KVM switch to reuse the monitor in our small desk space. I got a Startech SV215MICUSBA. I like the wired remote control that I can put next to the monitor to switch between the 2 PCs, no need for a keyboard sequence. And I like that it includes audio out for speakers and mic in that connects to both computers. It expects a USB keyboard and mouse, and analog VGA video output and monitor. When you switch from one computer to the other, the keyboard and mouse get disconnected from the non-selected computer: you hear the audio cue that Windows is disconnecting USB devices. And the selected computer sounds about finding new USB devices. But it all seems to work fine.

The original keyboard I had was PS2 connected, I wanted to replace it with a USB one. I found a Saitek PZ30AU Black USB Standard Eclipse keyboard that had lots of recommendations. I like that the keys are backlit (in blue), as the desk is in a room that doesn’t have much natural light. The backlight has 3 settings (bright, dim, off) that are controlled from a small button on the keyboard. Even with the backlight novelty, I think the keys move OK. I also like the built in wrist rest.

And during installation, Windows hardware detection would hang until I discovered that my existing USB mouse was flaky. It wouldn’t hang if I disconnected the mouse. It had been acting a bit weird on the old computer. I replaced it with a simple Logitech SBF-96. You can’t get much more simple than that.

Total parts list:

Shipping costs for everything was $39 extra.

It is fast and quiet. Niiiiice.

There is a blue power LED on the front of the Shuttle case. It is really bright. So bright that at night it bathes the room in a blue glow. I need to close the doors of the computer desk at night.

I tried a Microsoft Comfort Curve keyboard, and eventually decided that for the Curve to really work you have to consistently use that keyboard. I spend most of my computer time on a regular laptop keyboard, so the Curve keyboard would be the exception. For the little bit of time I used this one I had to look at where I was typing, which I don’t typically do. I gave up on it and went with the Saitek keyboard.

For a while, I was rather displeased with the video quality from the analog VGA connection. It looked blurry, and the contrast appeared too low and the saturation too high. I spent a bunch of time fiddling with the color correction settings on the card via Windows Display properties. When I finally remembered that my LCD monitor had its own settings, I selected the monitor’s “auto config” and it’s much better. Just a teeny bit less clear than my old computer, but now it is OK.

The Shuttle web site says it has 7.1 surround sound. Be aware that there are several 1/8″ headphone-style connectors for analog, not a single S/PDIF optical or coaxial digital output.

It’s kind of amazing to do a “dir c:\” and see only 3 entries: “Windows”, “Documents and Settings”, and “Program Files”. No junk installed by the manufacturer.

Overall I’m really pleased with how it turned out. I was basically quite surprised at how well everything came together. Part of that credit should go to Shuttle, they did a nice job. I had been looking at a pre-built system from a well-known manufacturer for about the same amount of money, but they had a smaller disk drive but included an LCD monitor. Between 5 iPod users and 3 camera owners sharing this PC, we need the disk space. Even though the specs looked similar, I think I ended up with a higher quality system. I understand that in the razor-thin-margins of the PC industry, finding the cheapest components is what it is about. And as in most places, you get what you pay for. I think I ended up with a good balance of price and quality/performance. I’d do it again.

• Having kids is the most wonderful thing that can happen to you (outside of getting married to a wonderful woman, of course). Having kids will also be the most stressful and trying thing that can happen to you, which hopefully is unlike what happens being married to a wonderful woman. Let me be blunt: having kids will force you to give up selfishness. You are going to have to put more things than you are used to of your own desire on the back burner. Prepare yourself for doing that, and do it willingly, and do it out of love for your family. Guys typically aren’t naturally good at this. You aren’t supposed to completely sacrifice yourself, especially in a passive-aggressive manner, but you are going to need to give up things. If you can be selfless, and do it for the right reason, you will be amazed at the happiness it brings to you and your family. Not giving yourself to your family is going to put your wife through the wringer, don’t do that to her.
• If you wife has a vaginal birth (not a C-section), you are going to need to give her time to heal before being physically intimate again. Being intimate will happen again, especially if you do the bullet above. However, recognize that pushing a small watermelon through your pelvis is going to do some damage. If you listen to the OB, they will probably give you an estimate on how long your wife will need to heal after birth. I suggest that you double it. Putting your wife in pain for your satisfaction is not consistent with the spirit of physical intimacy, no matter that you are not used to waiting that long. Be patient and deal with it. If men were the ones to get pregnant and give birth, we would go extinct as a species.
• I was talking to a guy several years ago, and he said, “When I have kids, I will work at my employer as long as possible every day so I can afford to buy my kids all the stuff I didn’t have.” My response was, “Dude, kids (well, the small ones until we teach them otherwise) don’t care about objects. What they want is your time. They are happy playing with a big cardboard box, and they want you to get on the floor and play with them and read them stories. They don’t need things, they want you.” The best present you can give your kids is yourself when they ask for it. That doesn’t always correspond to when you want, or what you expect. When you depart from this mortal life, your family is the only thing you can take with you. The sad thing is that at some point your kids will probably stop asking to play with you.
• It is so easy for your wife to get completely consumed with being a mom. With a newborn, there is not a full night’s sleep and there are no vacation days.
  • You have to give her a break. When you come home from work, take over the kids and let your wife do something of her own choosing for a couple hours. It doesn’t matter if you had a hard day at work and need some break time, she started when she woke up in the morning and won’t finish until she goes to bed, and likely there will be middle-of-the-night fulfillments. That’s more than your 8.5 hours.
  • The rule is “when the baby sleeps, mommy sleeps.” Baby naps are not always to be used for mom to catch up on chores. Mommy needs to catch up on sleep so she can be a functioning person. When she is caught up on sleep, then she can catch up on chores.
  • Don’t forget that your wife is still your wife and not just a mom. It is very easy for both parents to become parents and forget to be spouses. Find someone you trust to be a babysitter earlier than you think. Go out for a short date and talk about things other than just the kids. The intention is for the kids to grow up and leave the house, but your wife should stay with you.
  • The house is going to be a mess. Just expect it. Instead of being part of the problem, be part of the solution. You will need to own more chores. There is no sharing equally and keeping track of points. You need to jump in and do as much as you can, independent of what your wife may or may not have done.
• If your wife is breast feeding instead of using formula, her breats will get bigger. However, they also become very tender, especially at the start of nursing. Treat her carefully. The skin will toughen up over a few weeks to handle the nursing. They will return to usual size after nursing stops. Also, when a baby is breast feeding, the poop actually isn’t too bad. It’s when you go to formula or solid foods that it turns into the classic stinky mess. Enjoy it while you can.
• Be patient. Take a deep breath and don’t have a temper. Kids will throw enough temper tantrums, you don’t need the parents doing it too. Just let the unimportant things go. Yes, having kids will dramatically alter your perspective on what is important. Lack of patience is one of the easiest ways to mess up a family.
• Jump in and be willing to figure it out. Every child is different, and every parenting situation is different. Figure out what works for you and your family. Experiment. What works for child #1 may not work for child #2, even if they are twins. You’ll find lots of things that don’t work, followed by an “aha!” moment.
• The What to Expect When You’re Expecting and What to Expect the First Year are good books that dads should follow along in as their wife reads. At lot of stuff that seems weird actually is quite normal. And the only way to learn it is by experience.
• Kids don’t actually cost very much money, except perhaps in healthcare. If you can get hand-me-down clothes or go to Goodwill (they destroy clothes anyway), it’s really not bad. They don’t eat much, don’t need expensive toys, can travel in your lap on airplanes, etc. Don’t bother buying them nice new expensive things, because when they are little they don’t care. It’s later when they need car insurance and college tuition that it starts to hurt your wallet.
• Kids are amazingly resilient. They bounce good. Typically the parents need to take a deep breath instead of panicking.

I hope you find this useful. Having kids is a trip. I didn’t think it would be so before it happened, but my life would be so empty if I lost my kids. My life is way more complicated now with kids, but I’ve grown to prefer it that way – it’s more fulfilling.

(Disclaimer: yes, I am employed by IBM.)

I’ve found a few good leads that I didn’t know of, but I guess it’s a good outlet for me to write and share my list of favs with others. If you’re local, hopefully you’ll find something of value. I’ll keep adding to it. http://marcelk.yelp.com.

There are multiple reasons the line is inflecting:

• the overhead cost of virtualization (as compared to bare metal) is becoming acceptable. Commodity hardware can run with enough cores and enough RAM that it isn’t horribly expensive anymore. The benefit is coming in line with falling cost.
• the maturity of the hypervisors has gotten to be quite good. The field has lots of players, and the competition is beneficial for consumers.
• the cost of the hypervisors has dropped dramatically. In many cases, what can be better than “free”? (I mean gratis, not libre.)
• management tools for hypervisors and virtual images are arriving and improving. As an example, look at what VMware is doing. Other vendors are trying to do similar.

I also see lots of talk about desktop virtualization. It’s interesting, but that’s not where the first wave and big wave will be at. The action, the adoption, and the money (both in savings for consumers, and profit for suppliers) will be in server virtualization. Just as desktop Linux has followed server Linux, desktop virtualization will follow server virtualization. Virtualization will be the next “big thing” in computing.

Wow, we have come a long way. The computing power in my old iPod would have blown away early systems. I can’t wait to see what will be commonplace in 8 more years.

After a number of tests, the doctor tells me I’m a good candidate. My uncorrected vision is 20/200 in one eye, and a bit worse in the other eye. However, with my glasses I can see 20/15. I do have some astigmatism that make my contacts more like 20/20. One of the doctor office people goes into detail explaining the procedure and such. Later I ask a friend at church who is an eye surgeon in the military about the procedure and the equipment that this office uses, he says he has performed about 60 of these procedures on patients, and had it performed on himself about 2 years ago, and he feels confident with it. He recognizes the equipment at this clinic (VISX Star S4 IR Laser / iLASIK / WaveScan / CustomVue) and says it is widely used and pretty much state of the art. So I’m thinking that if a doctor in this field would do it to themself, that is basically the ultimate test of confidence.

The office has an appointment open for the following week to perform the procedure, so I take it.

I’m asked to not wear my soft contacts for a week before the procedure. I’m told it has something to do with affecting the shape of the cornea, and they want it to be stable for the procedure. So I wear my glasses for a week (even during a touch football game that week).

There are two lasers that will be used for the procedure. The first, the intralase, creates the corneal flap. The second, the excimer laser, reshapes the cornea after the flap has been peeled back.

On the day of the procedure I show up at the office at 8am. No need for fasting, since there is no general anesthesia. They take me into a room for another test, they kind where you sit in a chair and put your chin and forehead in front of a machine that looks in your eye. It’s a scanner that measures my eye so that the excimer laser knows what to do. The office’s brochure says “…the VISX WaveScan creates a WavePrint map, which reveals the way your entire optical system processes light. This creates a personalized fingerprint of your vision…allowing each of your eyes to be treated for their unique imperfections.” Relax and look at the red dot.

Then I’m taken to a waiting room. I’m given an optional Valium dose and some consent / waiver papers to sign. I read the papers and I see a few things that surprise me. First is verbage about getting one eye done at a time, therefore if something goes wrong, at least you still have one good eye. So it asks for me to write a short explanation why I want to have both eyes treated at the same time, as if doing so is a bit unusual. Funny, I don’t remember the doctor explaining that as an option, but my memory isn’t perfect. Second, there is some verbage explaining the risks of the procedure which includes terms like “potential catastrophic loss of vision”. That gives me pause. I had asked before quite a bit about the risks and the answers all sounded reasonable. So I assume this verbage is the cover-your-butt legalese (“you acknowledged that it was possible for this to go wrong”) and sign it. They give me several doses of anti-bacterial drops and a dose of numbing drops.

I am given a surgical cap to match my street clothes and proceed to the intralase room. The intralase system shines a laser to create small air bubbles in the cornea. Once the bubbles are there, the corneal flap can be peeled back without the need for a cutting knife. The staff tells me that the nice thing about the air bubble approach is that if the doctor doesn’t like how the air bubbles have formed, the rest of the procedure can be aborted and the air bubbles will dissipate on their own within a day or so. I lie down on a table (reclined chair, actually) and am given more numbing drops. They then bring out a device that looks like a small magnifying glass with the handle. The lens of the magnifying-glass thing is small enough fit on the surface of my eye, which is what they do. It doesn’t hurt, and I can see through it. Then I hear the doctor tell the technician, “Apply suction.” Then I feel this magnifying glass thing start sucking itself firmly onto my eye, and the vision in that eye goes dark. It’s hard to describe other than being visually numb in that eye. But the eye isn’t entirely physically numb, I feel the suction. The suction was a bit uncomfortable, even for someone used to contact lenses. Then a good-sized machine is placed over me that looks like a digital camera that is 3 feet wide, with the lens right over my suctioned eye. This is the intralase laser. Then the lens of the intralase laser then is slowly lowered until it makes contact with and is lined up to the magnifying glass on my eye. But then it keeps going, pushing down on my eye and creating pressure. It creates quite a bit of pressure, or in technical terms, it squishes the heck out of my eye. Since I’m laying on a table, I’ve got nowhere to back up. I let out a gentle verbal “aaaaaah” to let the staff know I’m uncomfortable (although not in significant pain) and the doctor says “Yes, the pressure may be uncomfortable, it won’t last long.” After about 30 seconds of squishing the machine lets up. The pressure was such a distraction I didn’t even notice the intralse laser working. They release the suction on the magnifying glass thing and I let out a sigh of relief. They repeat the process on the other eye.

After the intralase is done with the second eye I can see, my vision is like looking through glasses that have been smeared with Vaseline. I assume I’m looking through all the air bubbles that were just created. They lead me down the hall to the room with the excimer laser. I lie down on the table (reclined chair). They place a shield over one eye and start working on the other. They start by taping back my upper and lower lid. They then place what looks like a round grommet in the eye, I’m assuming it is to prevent the lids from interfering with the corneal area. About 2 feet in front of my face is the excimer laser system, it has an illuminated white circle and a flashing red dot in the middle. It’s kind of like an electronic Cyclops. I can see the doctor gently poking around in my eye with a small instrument. After a few moments of that, the Cyclops becomes more blurry that it was originally. I assume at this point that the corneal flap has been peeled back. They ask me to focus on the red blinking light. Another few moments and then I can hear the staff saying words like “acquiring…verifying…25 seconds…” Then I can hear them counting down and the laser is making a loud clicking noise. Midway through this there is a difference in how focused that the Cyclops appears. The clicking stops and then the doctor does some more gentle poking around in my eye with an instrument. In a moment the Cyclops comes into better focus, and I assume the corneal flap has been placed back. The grommet is removed, the tape is removed, and they move to the other eye. After the numbing drops I received earlier, and squishing of the intralase system, I don’t really feel a thing during this entire excimer process. As far as the discomfort goes, if you can survive the intralase process, you are home free. The tape removal (with a couple of my eyebrow hairs) is what hurts the most in the excimer room.

Then I am led to a regular exam room and the doctor uses a regular non-invasive microscope to look at how the corneal flap is resting. He says “Perfect.” And I’m done. They lead me out to the waiting room for my wife to take me home. Since the air bubbles are still present, my vision is too cloudy to drive myself, and there is a bit of discomfort in my eyes. It feels best to leave them closed. But I can open them enough to dial my cell phone. They give me a packet that includes two kinds of medicated drops, and a package of lubricating drops. There is more stuff in the packet which I’ll describe below.

My wife takes me home. I can see a bit, but I prefer not to keep my eyes open. I lie down in bed to just rest, turn on my iPod, and the Valium in my system helps me take a 2 hour nap. I’m supposed to take the medicated drops every 2 hours, so I do that after I wake up. The drops don’t hurt. I get a bite to eat. Now my eyes are starting to hurt, as the numbing drops wear off, and I definitely prefer to keep my eyes closed. I lie back down in bed and put my iPod back on. I take another unanticipated 2 hour nap, I’m assuming it’s the Valium still in my system. My eyes feel like there is some sand in them but not scratchy. More drops, this time I stay awake through the podcast I was listening to earlier. About 6 hours after the surgery, the discomfort starts to get better. Keep putting in drops every 2 hours. I still prefer to keep them closed, and I figure out part of it is light sensitivity. If I cover my head with a blanket so it is dark, I can open them longer than in the light. Still hurts a bit.

Some friends come over that evening to check on me. I can see them and walk around the house by myself, although there is still some cloudiness. One of them says, “Wow, I was expecting to see you with giant bandages on your head, and instead no bandages and you can even see me.” Considering that 8 hours earlier my eye was peeled open and shot with a laser, it is pretty amazing. I get a good night rest, even with the day naps. For the first week, I need to wear sports goggles while sleeping at night. I assume it is for side sleepers so the pillow doesn’t put pressure on the eye, or to prevent you from rubbing your eye and displace the corneal flap.

The next day the sandy discomfort is gone. I can see with good focus but with what I’d call a “halo effect”. Any areas of high contrast appear to have a fuzzy halo around the bright part. It’s almost like I have my glasses with a little bit of fog. I go to the doctor’s office for a followup visit. The vision in both eyes is checked with the usual chart and I can see 20/15 in both eyes, even though I still have the halo effect. I ask the doctor about the halo effect, and he says it is normal and will probably take about 3 months to clear up. I work at home using my laptop most of this day. I’m back in the office the next day.

A few days later, the cloudiness has cleared up but the halo effect is still there. I’m starting to get used to the halo a bit. The halo does cause some difficulty for night driving, but it is manageable if I am careful where to look and concentrate. I also have an increased need to wear sunglasses in daylight.

It feels quite weird to not take my contacts out at night and instead go to bed with clear vision and wake up with clear vision. I do feel a tiny bit of pressure around my eye, but perhaps that is from the cold I have. A week after the procedure I should be able to graduate from the medicated eye drops, but I’m told I should use the lubricating eye drops for at least a couple more months. So far so good. I’ll consider it a real success when the halo effect goes away and I don’t need eye drops anymore.

In retrospect, there wasn’t much pain or discomfort.

You might want to take a look at Wikipedia, they have a pretty good article on the subject.

I’ll post followup comments here.

I have noticed that there is a difference between butter and margarine. Using butter in the bread dough gives it a delicate texture without being crusty greasy. But using margarine in the filling and frosting makes it more sweet. So I selected margarine and butter in specific places below.

BTW, “tsp” means teaspoon and “tbsp” means tablespoon. Read carefully.

Bread machine dough:

• 1 cup water
• 4 cups bread flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 stick butter (room temperature, slightly mushy)
• 1/4 cup dry milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp yeast

Dump all the above items at once into the bread machine and run the dough cycle (mix and knead, not bake). Take the dough out of the machine and roll it out thin on a flat surface like a clean countertop. Aim for a rectangle of bread dough that is approximately 12″ x 24″. It’s OK if it isn’t a perfect rectangle. Plan ahead to take the margarine and butter (all 3 1/2 sticks) and cream cheese out of the fridge in plenty of time to warm to room temperature.

Filling:
Take 1 1/2 sticks of margarine (room temperature, slightly mushy) and evenly spread it across the entire dough surface using a spatula or similar. Go all the way to the edges. In a bowl mix 2 cups brown sugar and 3 tbsp cinnamon (ground). Brown sugar works much better than white granulated sugar, and common ground cinnamon is fine. Use a fork to mix them together and break up the brown sugar lumps by squishing it. Dump the mixture on the buttered dough surface and evenly spread it around the entire surface with a spatula or similar, all the way to the edges.

Roll up the dough, using the long side of the rectangle. Keep the roll reasonably tight instead of saggy. When done, you should have a roll that is 24″ long and about 3″ in diameter. Using a steak knife or other good cutting instrument that cuts without too much squishing or ripping, gently cut the roll into sections about 1 3/4 inches wide. Gently place the pieces into a greased baking pan so the filling doesn’t fall out. It should fill about two 9×9 pans, or one 9×13 plus a bit extra. Give the dough time to rise, so that the rolls in the pan are starting to touch each other. Placing the pans in a 150 degree oven may help the rising process. If the rolls are placed too far apart or fail to rise, then the filling will run out and pool on the bottom of the pan.

Bake the rolls at about 385 degrees until the the bread dough on top starts to get nicely toasty brown. Take them out of the oven to cool a bit. Let them cool inside the cooking pans, they will soak up some of the melted filling. While they are cooling, work on the frosting.

Frosting:

• 3 oz of cream cheese (room temperature, almost half of a standard 8 oz package)
• 1 stick of margarine
• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp salt

Put all these ingredients into a bowl and blend with a motorized mixer until it changes from dusty clumpy to smooth moist frosting.

After the rolls go from hot to warm, apply the frosting. If you put the frosting on while hot, the frosting will melt completely, which probably isn’t what you want. Eat them soon after applying the frosting, while they are still warm. All of them, which is why some friends or neighbors should be present or within delivery distance. This ain’t health food, it’s happy food.

He highlights the fact that simplicity is good, and simplicity sells. The message is aimed at the I/T industry and the products it creates. While there isn’t anything mind-blowing in his presentation, he does a good and enjoyable job of driving the point home that technology products have gotten to be a mess, and we need simple things that just work. Makes sense to me.

As an industry we have got to get ourselves out of the mindset that better = more features. The complexity is killing us.

Cloud computing is not a silver bullet, just like anything else is not a silver bullet. The way a lot of people talk about cloud computing, at least the way it is used today, it is just another name for consuming externally hosted services. Consuming externally hosted services will always have these flaws: (1) the Internet is inherently an unreliable network, (2) service providers can have temporary interruptions in their service, (3) service providers can betray the customer in big ways such as compromising sensitive customer data or by going out of business entirely.

So how to deal with these issues? Try the following:

• create an SLA (service level agreement) with the service provider, so expectations are set with both parties, and the service provider can incur penalties for breach of be encouraged to keep the agreement.
• have an offline/sync capability for the service so your business process can keep running during a temporary outage of the service provider, and merge non-destructively when they are back up.
• keep local backups of your cloud data in case the cloud gets corrupted. Usually storage is cheaper than transaction processing to replicate locally.
• run your piece of the cloud internally, so you maintain control of the infrastructure. In effect, you become part of the cloud, with the only customer being you.

Not every business process is business critical, and all have different risk elements/levels. I use Mozy for backup, keep things in the Google cloud, and others. But I don’t run drop-dead business-critical processes in someone else’s cloud. In the end, you are responsible for your I/T. Cost management and risk management always go together. If you want to reduce the cost by shifting the ownership/management to someone else (the service provider), be prepared for increased risk, or at least the perception of increased risk, because you no longer control the infrastructure for your business process. I/T is still a balancing act.

I think there is more to cloud computing than simply consuming externally hosted services.

First, I paid $199 for the system, including a wireless adapter. There was no tax or shipping cost. This was a discount of around $170, which was offered to me directly from Tivo via email. I’m not sure what I did to become eligible for the discount, other than own a Series 2 for more than 3 years and poke through their web site upon receiving an earlier offer for a $50 discount. The price is great. And since I did a transfer-of-service from my Series 2, I don’t have a minimum commitment period. I’m still on the monthly plan. It’s the best of all worlds. I did have to call Tivo to get the discount and place the order (the discount wasn’t available in the online sotre), and they did check my Tivo service number for the offers/discounts that I was eligible for.

I am unusual in that I get my TV content via an antenna, I don’t have satellite or cable. Yes, my Tivo HD is connected to an antenna, and it does great at receiving digital content. And I’m using only a pair of “rabbit ears” on top of the cabinet, I’ll upgrade to a roof-mount antenna when I run some cable under the house. The Tivo HD has migrated me to terrestrial digital without an external converter box. And it can record two channels simultaneously, something my Series 2 couldn’t do. Even with my old standard-definition TV, the picture quality of all the channels (even the digital standard-def channels) is much improved versus the analog content which had static and ghosting. Even the non-techies in the family like it.

This is a great product at a great price. I wish I could tell you how to become eligible for the same discount I got.

It appears that the list price is in transition from $89 to $49. But I found them on Amazon for $30, and there are other suppliers that carry them at various discounts.

They sound better and are more comfortable than my old pair of $30 Sony earbuds, and leave the Apple earbuds in the dust. These are a definite step up from the usual consumer earbuds, but are still at a consumer price. They have a sound that I would describe as full, detailed, clear, and pleasant. The box advertises “bass-driven sound” and I do find that the bass is almost too much. On my other earbuds I used to run the iPod EQ as “Bass Booster”, but with the Sennheisers I put the iPod EQ as “Bass Reducer” to keep it flat, or as “Off” if I want the bass to kick. The bass, lack of a tinny sound, and presence is very dependent on a sealing fit. The earbuds come with 3 different sizes of rings for the earbuds for your ear canal. Sometimes on a big yawn an earbud can come unsealed and the bass drops off dramatically. I haven’t tried any strenuous physical activity with them yet, but they fit me well. Because of the seal effect, they do offer good isolation from ambient sound. In fact, my family has taking up to sneaking up on me from behind while I’m listening at my desk because they like to see me jump. One good tip with the asymmetric cord is for the cord section from the split to the right ear to be worn behind your neck – it is less apt to get tangled on something near you. The cord is made of a strange rubber that never wants to get completely unkinked, but that is just a nit.

I definitely like these earbuds, especially at this price point. Read the comments below for some caveats.

Today I had lunch with IBM’s Chief Privacy Officer. As Bruce talks about the security mindset, I was educated today on the privacy mindset. Some good base principles were developed by the OECD. To give a simple example, a well-intentioned employee built a widget for intranet web pages that would track who visited, so you could see who visited your pages. The widget would display this not only to the page owner, but to anyone else who visited the page. The privacy mindset should ask questions like: “did you tell me you were going to collect this personal information? Did I as a user give you permission collect this personal information? Is this personal information protected? Do I want all my fellow employees knowing which intranet web sites I visit?” I suspect these are questions that did not get asked by the well-intentioned widget author. But I think the lessons from Bruce and the CPO are mind-widening (especially for engineers), grounded in reality, inherently valuable, and necessary.

One of the big turnoffs to the HD plunge has been the next-gen DVD battle: HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray. Frankly, I don’t care who wins, as long as there is only one format for discs and players. Now that HD-DVD has quit the fight and Blu-ray is the winner, one would be tempted to go buy a Blu-ray player now. But hold on a second, are the existing Blu-ray players on the market going to work for the long term, meaning do they support Profile 2.0? Basically, no. The PS3 is the only existing player that is upgradeable to Profile 2.0, and even that upgrade isn’t available yet. Although I would have a hard time explaining to my kids why a potential PS3 in our house isn’t allowed to play games, just movies, while I secretly play “Need for Speed” late at night, I think I’ll just wait until later in the year for a Profile 2.0 player. It’s not like I haven’t waited before. Besides, I have my eye on a Wii.

Also be careful of how much personally identifiable information you disclose. If a web site asks for my birthday for marketing purposes, I won’t give it. If they require it, I will give a fake one. If you’ve talked to anyone hit by identity theft, you don’t want to experience it yourself.

For these purposes, I have asked the credit bureaus to freeze my personal information so it isn’t disclosed to lenders. Since lenders need to know my credit worthiness before approving credit, this means no credit can be opened in my name. Right now I have all the credit I need and don’t need more. This also prevents someone else from obtaining credit in my name without my approval, i.e. identity theft. If I do need to get more credit, I can unfreeze just long enough for the new lender to approve me, then it goes back to a frozen state.

Clark Howard has some good pointers on how to freeze your credit information. You need to do it with each of the three credit reporting bureaus. All it takes is a letter and $10 for each one. Clark even provides the form letter. My requests were processed in about one week. Frankly, I recommend everyone do this. Recognize that the credit bureaus are in the business of selling your credit information to lenders, and lenders are in the business of getting interest and fees from you. Nobody is in business for you except yourself.

You also are entitled to a yearly credit report for free. Get your free report each year to make sure it is accurate. Then when you need credit, there won’t be any surprises. Start with the US Federal Trade Commision web site to make sure you go to the right site that offers the free credit report (there are copycats/imposters out there that may require costs).

Keep your finances in order and you’ll avoid a lot of pain.

http://producten.hema.nl/

Yes, it is in Dutch, but just look at the web page for 10 seconds (after it finishes loading, you don’t need to scroll) and determine what you can see…

There is only one best way to do something. Bzzz. Wrong.

I don’t have any choice. Bzzz. Wrong again.

Let’s start with the first one. As you saw in the post title, there are always many ways to accomplish something. Always. Call them options. Some of those options may be sub-optimal, and some of them may suck, some may be mediocre, and a couple may look pretty darn good, but those are all options. Just because you don’t know about an option or don’t like an option doesn’t prevent it from being an option.

So the first step is to catalog all the options. Dig around and find all the options. I would even propose that the first option to come to mind when you are tackling a problem is probably not the best option. Go back and think critically and look at all the fringes for options you may have initially missed. There are always more options.

Then, for each option you’ve found, identify its pros and cons. Again, you may have bias and gloss over some of the pros and/or cons, but think critically and really dig here. With effort I bet you’ll find some pros you initially hadn’t thought of for initially unappealing ideas, and vice versa for the initially appealing ideas. Either play devil’s advocate yourself, or get someone to do that for you. You need to challenge the status quo and the preconceptions.

Then, which option do you pick? There is no absolute. Absolutes exist only in math and religion (and even those have some wiggle room). So figure out what you are trying to optimize for. Maybe you are optimizing for flexibility, speed, cost, value, effort, strategy, breadth, depth, coolness, stability, bleeding-edgeness, whatever. The best option is going to depend on what you are optimizing for. In other words, it depends. You will probably be optimizing for multiple facets. But you can’t optimize for everything, you need to target.

Once a company PR person called me after I had worked on a dozen projects. She said, “tell me about your coolest project so we can promote it.” My reply was, “Cool to who? The business person, the executive, the CS student, the manager, the middle-aged I/T worker, the intellectual property lawyer, the customer?” I would have picked a different project for each of those people. Each project had a strong point or connected with a certain constituency, there wasn’t one project that did it all. So I was basically asking the PR person who they wanted to optimize for. And that is basically the question we need to ask ourselves: in this circumstance, what I am optimizing for? That will guide you to pick the best option for this circumstance. It’s entirely possible, and sometimes even beneficial, to pick another option in a different circumstance. If you are picking the same option regardless of the circumstance then I’ll bet you are making the wrong choice in some of those circumstances. But on the flip side, realize that churn has a cost too.

Another thing to keep in mind is the difference between project execution and decision making. As engineers, at the beginning of a project we are prone to jumping in and starting execution before making the hard decisions. It is easier to do than to think. However, if you think criticially before you execute, you will end up in a better place. Some level of challenge within a team is healthy and desirable. Also realize that within teams certain people may have the specific role of decision maker instead of do-er, and the decision maker is not a lesser role than the do-er.

So, bottom line, there is always more than one way to do it. Figure out what makes the most sense in your circumstance.

But I found the Tire Rack. There are four things that I was pleasantly surprised by.

First, they have lots of review data performed by themselves and comments/ratings from customers. This info is very helpful. You can see how tires are rated on a number of criteria. That helps you balance criteria for what is important for you (i.e., snow/ice performance vs. road noise vs. tread wear). Unless you have a lot of knowledge of tires, I found this to be invaluable in helping me make a purchase choice. They have a really good database of automobile info, so just select your car and they will tell you exactly what the OEM tire is, and list the other tires that match that size. You can see how the tires are ranked for each category (based on ratings, not sales popularity).

Second, they have a lot of articles on general information in the Tech Center area. Everything from air pressure principles to a vibration diagnosis flowchart. They are concise and understandable. It’s really good education. Even if you don’t buy tires from Tire Rack, read these articles.

Third, the shipping cost was way less than I thought it was. For my 4 tires, there were shipped via FedEx (not overnight) at a cost of $40. They arrived in 3 days. I had them delivered to my house. Even with the shipping cost included, I saved $130 on the set versus buying them from the local store. They didn’t arrive in a box, just bundled together with a strap and a shipping label affixed right to the tread.

Fourth, the local tire store was happy to install the tires I ordered via the net. They have a usual fee of $25 per tire for mounting, balancing, valve stem, disposal, etc. That’s twice the charge as if I had bought the tires from them ($12.50), and they also didn’t include lifetime rotation/balance. I just put the new tires in the back of my car, and drove it to the store, and asked them to do the work. The tires I got are asymmetric (there is a particular side that needs to face out), and the installer at the tire shop mounted one of them backwards, so I had to ask them to correct that, which they recognized as a mistake and corrected.

All in all, making a tire purchase on the net, doing it in an informed way, and having the installation performed locally went better than I thought. I’ll do this again next time.

So if the Internet is so great for finding everything at a great price, does it apply to automobile dealer parts? In this case, I found two places that do. They are Majestic Honda and Acura Carland. I have successfully gotten authentic dealer parts from both at about a 30% discount from the MSRP. I also noticed that my local dealer is a bit above the MSRP, so it is an even better deal for me. One appears to be based in Rhode Island and the other in Georgia, so I don’t know if they are related to each other.

Both offer exploded diagram pictures for each part category, so even though the pictures are grainy you can generally find what you are looking for. Yes, there is a significant shipping charge, but it will still be less than the local dealer unless you’re getting something small.

I’m not affiliated with these folks, but did want to let others know about them and that I had a good experience. I plan on using them again next time I need dealer parts.

Instead of being a consumer during the holidays, be a provider.

Since Vonage provided me with an adapter (Motorola VT2442), and I already have a Linksys WRT54G for wireless access in my house, there is a pretty easy solution for this problem. It doesn’t require any extra hardware or software, just some configuration.

I think Vonage may claim that their adapter automatically throttles PC traffic while you are making a phone call, but that doesn’t work for me. So I’ve had to do the following.

First of all, connect the Vonage adapter directly to your ISP. If you have a cable modem or DSL adapter, connect the ISP ethernet to the Internet port on the Vonage adapter. If the Vonage adapter was the only adapter you had, this would be the default configuration.

Second, connect the Linksys adapter as a downstream device from the Vonage adapter. Connect LAN port 1 of the Vonage adapter to the Internet/WAN port of the Linksys adapter. Now you have 2 chained firewalls. Connect all your computers to the LAN ports of the Linksys adapter. Do not plug any ethernet devices into ports 2 through 4 of the Vonage adapter.

Third, go do a speed test to see what your upstream bandwidth is. A quick Google search should find some decent ones, such as SpeakEasy, DSL Reports, or SpeedTest.net. Run the test and see what your upstream bandwidth is. Mine is around 350kbs. You may want to try more than one to find the maximum values.

Fourth, check the VoIP bandwidth. This is determined by your call quality setting. Logon to the Vonage web site, select “Features”, select “Bandwidth Saver” and look at which setting is selected: 30, 50, or 90kbs. This is how much bandwidth you need to reserve for your VoIP traffic. I have 90kbs selected, so I’ll reserve that a just a bit more: 100kbs.

Fifth, login to your Linksys management console. My Linksys device has QoS (quality of service) support. On this particular device, under the “Applications and Gaming” menu is a “QoS” menu. It has an entry titled “Limit Upstream Bandwidth”. Set it to the value of the upstream bandwidth from the test minus 100kbs. So I set mine to 250kbps. And I clicked the “Enable” button and used the “Manual” setting instead of “Auto”. Don’t forget to click “Save Settings”. If you don’t have this Linksys model, poke around the menus of the device you do have and see if it offers similar function.

So what this does is limit upstream bandwidth for all devices connected to the Linksys (ethernet and wireless PCs) to 250kbps, reserving 100kbps of upstream bandwidth for VoIP calls. Yes, this does limit PC upstream traffic to 250kpbs at all times, even when a VoIP call isn’t running, but this is a decent configuration for the cost.

Lastly, go do a speed test again and see what the upstream bandwidth is. It should be the value you set in the Linksys, i.e. 250kbps. Now you have a 100kbs reserve for your VoIP traffic.

Have you seen this often when writing software, writing a book, painting a room, organizing your finances, or basically any other non-trivial project? Why does this happen? I think it is well-meaning hard-working people who are optimistic. People fail to be pessimistic enough about complexity and roadblocks. As a result, a large increase in effort is needed near the end of the project to keep it on schedule. Our optimism gets us in trouble.

So what do we do? Be pessimistic in your time estimate. Then double it. Seriously.

It’s better to finish earlier than expectations than later. As I keep telling students: with schedules, it’s more important to be accurate than optimistic. Also, take this quote from Star Trek III: The Search For Spock:

Kirk: “How long to re-fit?”
Scotty: “Eight weeks. But you don’t have eight weeks, so I’ll do it for you in two.”
Kirk: “Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?”
Scotty: “How else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?”

First, the bad news. The clock doesn’t pop out forward from the dash. It pops out backwards behind the dash. So don’t try to pop out the clock from the front of the dash, you’ll just end up damaging the dash. This means to access the clock you need to take out 3 large pieces of the dash. The good news is that most everything just pops out. What doesn’t pop out is held in only with standard screws. Once you understand how it works, you’ll say “ah, that wasn’t so bad.”

Click on these thumbnails to get a full-size image.

The first two major parts of the dash just pop off. It’s not difficult, but it’s not obvious what to do. I started prying next to the steering column and gently worked my way across. I started at similar points on both sides. Then you can slip your fingers behind and gently work it until it pops completely loose. For the prying I used a plastic/vinyl flat tool that happened to come from my kitchen. I would recommend against a hard tool like a screwdriver because you’ll leave marks. The plastic kitchen tool I used left no marks.

Once you’ve popped it loose, don’t try pulling on the fascia to get it completely away from the dash. Each piece of fascia has switches with wiring that goes behind the dash – those wires are still connected. The wiring for each of these switches can be disconnected from the switch, and once that is done then you can move the fascia all the way away from the dash. Each wiring connector has a tab that locks it onto the switch, so don’t try disconnecting the wiring by force. Instead you’ll need to find the tab for each connector, depress the tab (they do take a bit of effort), and then the connector should slide off with an unforced pull or a little bit of wiggling. DO NOT pull by the wires; instead you should be pulling by the block connector while depressing the tab. Some wires have more slack than others, so you may find that a certain order of disconnecting/reconnecting is needed.

For the right fascia around the stereo, the shortest wires are for the interior light switch and the fog lights (if installed) – do those two first. Then you’ll have more slack for disconnecting the three wire groups for the climate controls. My van does not have the satellite navigation.

Here is a picture that shows the back of the right fascia, so you can see where the wires connect to.

For the left fascia around the sliding door buttons, the wires were about equal length so just do them in the order that you can reach.

Now the bottom half of the dash on both sides is removed.

Next comes the top half of the dash. This is all one piece. It is held in by screws along the bottom, and tabs across the top. Get a phillips screwdriver and remove the screws (don’t lose them). Then gently work the top half of the dash out. It is not connected to the instrument cluster (speedometer, etc.), just the border.

Again, be careful of the wires for the clock and hazard blinkers – you must disconnect the wires using the tabs before pulling the fascia all the way away from the dash. Once you’ve gotten this far then you have completed disassembly.

Now that you can access the rear of the clock, the bulb comes out with a quarter turn of a screwdriver. It looks to be the size of an LED, but I think it is a regular but very small bulb. You can also verify it is burned out by using a multimeter to test for continuity. Put the new bulb in (should cost about $3 at the dealer). While you are there, check the rest of the bulbs in the switches and the climate controls. I think there are two different kinds of bulbs: the common one is for backlighting, and the other is for “on” indicators such as the cruise control and fog lights.

For the top half of the dash, position it in the correct place, reconnect the wires, pop it in, and replace the screws. Do the same thing for the left and right fascia, except that there aren’t any screws. Just remember to reconnect all the wires, or some things will stop functioning.

You’re all done! See, that wasn’t so bad. Don’t you feel proud that you didn’t pay the dealer $90 in labor?

So how do you approach it? There is a balance point. At one extreme is a brute-force exhaustive search across the landscape in a solo expedition. Or build the entire thing from scratch and learn the same lessons that other people already have. Sure, that removes your dependencies on other people and satisfies pride and control freaks, but it is also extremely time intensive. And in some cases, you are reinventing the wheel. Most employers don’t want you to spend that much time on it. Time is money. I’m afraid most of us tend toward this extreme. So my suggestion is to get more in the middle.

Find out who the people are that have experience (or may be the experts in) what you are trying to learn. Spend some time talking to them. You can ask about their experience in that area. Utilize their experience and the lessons they have already learned. They can offer pointers for an accelerated start, best practices, anti-patterns, and most importantly, a net evaluation. The knowledge you can get based on the time invested is a huge improvement over the solo expedition. And the insights that other people can provide may exceed your own capabilities anyway.

At the other extreme is lack of due diligence and not doing your homework and being a burden to other people. Don’t go that far, pawning off your core learning responsibilities to other people. Respect their time. And sometimes take other people’s comments with a grain of salt. But don’t work in isolation either. Sure, it increases your dependencies, but an appropriate level of interdependency within an organization is a desirable thing.

So next time you are working on a big problem, ask around a bit. And be willing to respond to other people’s questions too.

After Bite is a liquid that you put directly on the bite after it has occurred. It reduces the itching. In my opinion, it really reduces the itching, depending how soon you put it on. If I notice an itch coming on within a few minutes after getting bit, and I put on a couple applications of After Bite, the itching generally goes away in less than an hour, and the swelling also goes down. This all may sound like a TV infomercial, but the stuff really does work for me, seriously. Of course, don’t scratch the bite area even with this treatment.

From what I can tell, the active ingredient is ammonia, it’s not an anti-histamine like Benadryl or an anti-inflammatory like Cortaid. I don’t think it smells as bad as repellent, and I wouldn’t have guessed that ammonia would have this effect, I can just say that it works for me. I have found After Bite at Eckerd and Target, so I would assume you should be able to find it at similar retailers. In the stores it’s generally located next to the repellents.

Hmm, maybe the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding was on to something with the Windex…

Cooking is as much science as art. Yet we may think about it mostly as an art. But the behavior and interaction of food elements definitely has a science to it, a set of discoverable and consistent properties and rules. But the end product of cooking is appreciated mostly in an artistic context, how it pleases the palette, eyes, nose, and texture. But to get there, the cook had to understand and apply the science of food.

I think software development ought to follow the same model: the developer needs to understand and apply the science, but the science is a tool to build something elegant and pleasing, and which can be appreciated by the user. The end result should be measured in terms of value to the user, not the developer’s ego. In many places it seems that software has lost the art aspect, it can be added back relatively easily if you put a little effort into it. Don’t forget the art in development. Make it elegant for the user.

We use a lot of rechargable batteries in our house, and in a few places we use standard alkaline or lithium batteries. When you have 50 batteries in a desk drawer, sometimes the full ones and the empty ones (waiting for the recycle bin) get mixed up, especially when the kids have been in the drawer. I’ve had a number of battery testers, but they never seemed to work well, especially the inexpensive testers.

The testers I like apply a load to the battery instead of simply measuring the voltage without a load. I bought the ZTS Mini-MBT9R for $30 from Thomas Distributing who included a free case.

What the product description doesn’t quite say clearly is that there is an included test lead wire (similar to most multimeters) that is used when testing non-9V batteries. For example, if you have a AA battery you want to test, you touch the battery’s positive terminal to the tester and then touch the test lead to the battery’s negative terminal. It’s not extremely ergonomic, but it does work. The test lead can be tucked into a slot around the case’s seam to store it.

Unlike the previous ones, I believe I’ll be using this tester for quite some time to come.

The bikes we rode were what I would call beach-style cruisers, with big handle bars and sitting upright. Compared to my mountain bike, it was like moving from a sports car to a boat car, but I did get used to it after a while. So when they say “fat tire”, they don’t mean mountain bike. When one of the participants got a flat tire midway through the tour, the guide was able to fix it right there on the spot.

The tour was about four hours long. We went at an easy pace, and stopped midway for a snack and rest at an outdoor cafe (food not included in the tour price). We were able to see an amazing number of sights in those 4 hours, and I was very pleasantly surprised at how the bikes made it quick and easy to get around town. I think it is much better than what you could do on foot or on the Metro. Of course, we didn’t have time to go inside the buildings that we saw, but if you want to do that then this tour would be a great introduction / orientation to whatever you’d like to do on your own in-depth. There was plenty of opportunity to visit with the other participants, especially since they all spoke English, and compare notes on their experiences in the country.

Their shop where we started and ended the tour was set up for visitors, with free bathrooms, ponchos for 1 € (it was sprinkling that day, and they even offered to buy them back if unopened), free Internet access, snacks for sale, etc. The tour itself was reasonably priced (24 €), I never had the feeling I was being ripped off. In fact, it seemed to be quite a good value. The tour was well executed, the equipment was good, and all the staff was really nice.

They also offer specialty tours, such as “Paris at Night” and tours on Segways. I would have loved to have taken the Segway tour, but I would be in trouble if I did one without my wife who is a big Segway fan.

The tour was a lot of fun and an excellent way to spend your time in the city. Based on my experience, I give these folks a big thumbs up. If you find yourself in a city where these tours are offered, give them a try and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Some of the most successful people I’ve seen have a broad array of knowledge. They definitely are not experts in everything, but they know enough to get around a little bit. What they don’t know, they can look up or route. They have specialties, but they also know a little about a lot of things. They know enough to recognize patterns and remember history. You may think jack of all trades, master of none, but they do have some areas of focus that they can lead in. But they have had a varied past without purging their previous lives. Those people can apply concepts from other areas to the problem at hand.

It has been mentioned by others that nothing we go through is new, it is just history repeating itself. For example, many of the recent advances in personal and mid-range computing are lessons learned from the mainframe 30 years ago. There are definitely new ways in which technology can be applied. People who recognize patterns and remember history have an advantage in determining those best ways to apply. Combining invention with insight, meaning how to apply the invention, is the way of innovation.

Broad knowledge also applies to understanding the context of any situation. The more you know about how another part of the system works (i.e., related component, customer process, etc.), the more optimal your part can fit with the rest of the whole.

Broad knowledge also applies to careers in general. You should get to know something about all the parts of a product life cycle: customer requirements, design, development, testing, support, sales, etc. This means working with all different kinds of people in different circumstances. With diversity comes capability.

Particular skills combined with a broad foundation is key to success.

• Wikipedia. This may sound lame, but it works quite well. So picture this scenario: you are in a meeting, and in the discussion suddenly there are terms and acronyms you’ve never heard before. Everyone else seems to know these things except for you. You are about to get left in the dust. You need a quick explanation of what that stuff is. What should you do? Do a quick search on Wikipedia. The entries for technology and pop culture are especially well written, but I don’t care about pop culture. Read the first paragraph or two of the Wikipedia entry and you are back in the game.
• Play. Budget some time to explore some areas you’ve always wanted. You may be surprised at the payoff, even though it may take a while. I got a wonderful job because of something I did as an unrelated side project. It doesn’t have to be related to your current job responsibilities. But be careful not to take noticeable time away from your current job.
• Follow links. Click one level deeper than you usually do. Do a little exploratory reading. Not only does it give you more context, the cool thing it gives you is more relationships.
• Listen. Spend time listening to people outside of your core area. You’ll be surprised at what you can apply from them. You will see patterns emerge that cross multiple areas.
• Read. I’ll explain in more detail in a later post, but consume lots of summaries. Go for breadth instead of depth.
• Ponder. My best ideas come either in the shower or driving in the car with the radio off. Take time away from work and give your brain some space to wander around unguided. For me, this happens when the screen and speakers are off.
• Get a devil’s advocate. Take your favorite topic that you believe the most in, and let someone pick it apart as if it was a series of mistakes. Contrary to what you may think, there is always more than one way to do it. You may find a better way. Unpleasant as it may be, being pushed and challenged is a great way to get better. And some of the best lessons learned are the lessons that come from mistakes. Pain has an amazing way of improving your memory.

If you thought you were done learning when you graduated from school, think again. In the I/T field the learning never stops. The question is: can you keep up?

Every time I watch their show on TV my mouth is watering, my stomach is growling, and the dishes look doable by regular people. I even bought the cookbook which came with a free DVD set. In my opinion, their recipes are noticeably better than most others, and they are tuned to be easy. What more could you ask? (yeah, except for them to visit my house and cook for my family – I mean Bridget and Julia, not Christopher )

So here is the solution for Windows XP users: Dualview. You can set up the LCD projector to act like a 2nd independent screen that can coexist with your laptop desktop. So keep your laptop desktop intact and its original size, but you can use the LCD projector as a second desktop that is an extension of the first. The LCD projector starts clean, then open your presentation application, then drag the presentation application off the laptop screen until it appears on the LCD projector. That is the only thing that appears on the LCD projector. So if any instant messages come in during my presentation, I can see it on my laptop screen but the audience won’t see it (i.e., prompts from a friendly mole in the audience). Even better, I can look at softcopy presentation notes while the audience sees my presentation slides.

The only downside is that I need to be able to see the LCD projector screen, since that is the only way to see what is happening on this second desktop. But the upside is that I can configure it and just leave it like that permanently. No more having to resize the desktop to fit the projector and undoing the damage afterwards. Just plug in the projector’s external video cable and go. (I do find that Dualview gets automatically disabled after I suspend or reboot without the projector cable attached, but a few simple clicks can re-enable it.)

Read this article to learn how to enable Dualview. Hopefully your laptop supports it as well as mine, not all do. For the external desktop, size it to be optimized for the LCD projector (usually 1024×768).

Before attempting to drag a window between desktops, make sure that you un-maximize it. Otherwise you can’t drag it. Also be careful after dragging not to drop it in a way that the menu bar controls don’t appear on any screen. Since most applications (including PowerPoint) remember their last screen position when they are restarted, it is possible for an application to restart on the projector desktop without being able to see it such as when the projector is turned off or the cable is disconnected – if this happens, disable Dualview and it should come back to the laptop desktop. Enjoy!

Use this handy little tool that I call the newspaper test. First, make a tentative choice, then think of the worst case scenario for that choice, then plug into this template:

• Headline: [worst case scenario]. [the choice]. What were they thinking?

Let me give you an example:

• Headline: Lost all the source code for the product, release date delayed indefinitely. They never got around to putting it into the repository before a hard drive crashed. What were they thinking?

The second stage of this test is to pretend that the above item is printed in a newspaper that your coworkers, management, and competition read. Now put yourselves in your shoes, and ponder on how they might react to such a published item. For example, think about what the newspaper article would infer about your decision and what the consequence might be. For example:

• Infers: ouch.
• Consequence: Marcel, call for you on line 2 from the VP. She doesn’t sound happy. Do you have your financial affairs in order?

Now the nice thing about this tool is that it works on a range of data. Let’s try another example:

• Headline: Lurking bug found minutes before the CDs started manufacturing. They ran the testcases just one more time to be sure. What were they thinking?
• Infers: awesome. This is a person that makes sure things are right and is constantly thinking about customer satisfaction.
• Consequences: Marcel, this poster-mounted award check for you doesn’t fit through your doorway by myself. Can you give me a hand?

And as an added bonus, this tool also works for personal situations outside of the office. For example:

• Headline: Mayhem. Father lets 3-year old play inside car with the keys left in ignition. What where they thinking?
• Infers: typical male.
• Consequences: Sir, I’m glad nobody was hurt, but I’m still not clear on why we need to dispatch three tow trucks and a crane to your house.

So, the next time you are wondering what choice to make, give this tool a try!

Thankfully, there is a wonderful plugin for WordPress that does a very excellent job of filtering spam. Otherwise I would have to moderate all the comments and continually delete the spam. The plugin is Akismet and it is included in WordPress. All you have to do is get a free user key and activate it. It is wonderfully accurate and wonderfully easy to use. A HUGE THANK YOU!!! to the folks that developed this and were willing to share it.

Until I set this blog up, I had no idea that spamming blogs was so pervasive, but I really shouldn’t be surprised. I call myself a Christian, but I have nothing kind to say about spammers. I’ll just leave it at that. The sad thing is, the spammers are probably making good money. Eventually the network may figure out how to block spam effectively at the source, but I’m afraid there will always be people who exploit in one way or another.

Please do your part: don’t let your machine become a bot. Keep it fully patched and stay away from untrustworthy software.

screen capture movies: Camtasia is a great tool for creating a canned demo that plays like a movie. Not only can you export out in a variety of formats such as Flash, Quicktime, etc., but it is basically a movie editor with a timeline and transitions. Add special effects such as callouts (text in a baloon), etc. I especially like how it generates all the HTML wrappers for a Flash file you can put on a web server, so users can watch the movie via their browser. It’s not free, it’s not cheap, but it does come with a 30-day trial and is worth the money in a corporate setting.

window sizing: Sizer is a neat little utility that is the easiest way to snap a window to a pre-determined size. Need to get a screenshot that you intend to show on a projector that has a resolution of 1024×768? If you don’t get it at the correct size and aspect ratio, it will look fuzzy on the projector. Sizer adds a new function to the right-click options on a menu bar to snap it to your favorite size. It’s a lot better than manually dragging the standard window resizer very carefully until you get the (almost) right height and width. Not only does it work great, it is free.

screen capture: Windows has a built-in screen capture utility. Just press Alt-PrintScreen and the active window will be put onto the clipboard. Then you can go into a graphic tool like Gimp and do a paste (i.e., Paste as New). Press Ctrl-PrintScreen to capture the whole screen to the clipboard. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

image editing: Unless you’ve already got a multi-hundred dollar package like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, you need Gimp. It approaches Photoshop with power, but is free. It has layers, PNG support, third party plugins, etc. I even use it for basic tasks like cropping and resizing. It’s quite mature.

If you have any favorites, please comment.

I temporary installed the new hard drive in my PC, leaving the original C drive there too. I gave a new drive letter assignment (such as “f:”) to this new drive. Then I used Ghost for Linux (G4L) to create partitions on the new hard drive that were exactly the same size as the old hard drive (using Linux fdisk), mark the boot partition as bootable, and do a byte-by-byte copy of data from the old partitions to the new partitions. G4L is a nice tool: download the ISO image, burn a CD, and then boot that CD to come up in Linux with the tool running. The undesirable thing here is that since the partitions on the new drive were exactly the same size as on the old drive, I didn’t have more usable space yet, as the the space improvement I wanted was sitting on the new drive as unallocated space. But I’ll fix that in a moment. If you have more than one partition on your c: drive (i.e., service partition, etc), make sure that the unpartitioned/unallocated space directly follows your main Windows partition (assuming that your main Windows partition is the one you want to grow). If you have another partition besides Windows on your c: drive such as a recovery partition, create those at the end of the new hard drive.

Next was to go into the Local Disk Manager in the Microsoft Management Console (“Manage My Computer”) and remove the drive letter assignment for the new drive, this leaves it with no drive letter. Shutdown the PC, leave the new drive connected, but disconnect the old drive. Simply disconnecting the SATA or IDE cable is fine, you can leave the power cable connected and leave it in the bracket. Then boot Windows. (Make sure your BIOS is configured to include the new drive in the list of bootable devices.) Windows will automatically assign the drive letter “c:” to the new drive, because at this point there is no “c:” drive: the new drive doesn’t have a drive letter assigned and the old drive is no longer visible because it is disconnected. So now I’m running on the new drive, but I haven’t yet been able to take advantage of the bigger capacity since the partitions had been created with the same size as the old drive.

Lastly, I bought a hard drive enclosure for 3.5 inch disks that would let me attach a hard drive via USB. I found this one for $25 that can handle both SATA and IDE hard drives. I removed the new hard drive from my PC and put it in the enclosure. Then I attached the enclosure via USB to another PC that has a valid license for Partition Magic. Even though the drive was externally attached via USB, Partition Magic recognized the drive and I was able to resize the Windows partition to use the adjacent unpartitioned free space on the drive. Partition Magic did its stuff to the partition table in just a couple seconds and now my Windows partition is much bigger and takes advantage of the bigger drive. Take the hard drive out of the enclosure and put it back in the PC. Boot and look at all the nice free space.

Although there is a Linux tool that appears to be an equivalent to Partition Magic, it was unclear to me if it has a good track record with NTFS partitions – I would love for it to do that. Since I had access to a machine with a valid license for Partition Magic, doing the external USB enclosure was easy. If you don’t have access to a valid license of Partition Magic then you probably want to give GParted or QtParted a try. Both of those are graphical front ends to the GNU Parted tool. If they don’t work, you still have the original drive with all the data and can try another tool.

If the drive I wanted to make bigger was not the c: drive, then I wouldn’t have needed G4L or Partition Magic. Just let Windows format the new drive and copy all the files/directories over via Windows Explorer, and change the drive letter. It’s the c: drive that is the tricky one.

I started out with two drives in my PC, one as c: for the operating system, but I immediately installed a d: drive for all the new applications I installed and data files. But with a new digital camera (not to mention 3 iPods in the family), we had an exploding amount of data, so I installed a 3rd drive as e: just for all the pictures as the d: drive got filled up. Now with half a terabyte of disk storage I hope we’ll be OK for another year at least.

(I’ll write a post soon on how I do off-site backups of my important files.)

Bureaucracy isn’t always bad. There are places where bureacracy can have positive effects. Rules and processes exist for a good reason: they help the organization to scale, and frankly they help to prevent problems that have occurred in the past so they aren’t repeated. Bureaucracy also needs to be balanced such that there isn’t so much of it that it removes the opportunity for personal judgement. There are places where it gets out of balance, but don’t assume that mere presence implies out-of-balance. On the flip side, we tend to be naive about how complex the world really is. Although simple is good, we shouldn’t oversimplify it to the point that we make poor decisions.

Large processes in an organization are often segmented into smaller processes which are carried out by individuals. So one of the side effects of a bureacracy is that certain people have responsibilty for parts of an organization’s process. If you can figure out who owns which part of the process, (this is the good part:) you can get the organization or those owners to do the process for you. Basically you can get other people to do things to help your project.

Here are some examples of that:

• Write the product documentation all by yourself (most programmers are poor writers) vs. a trained Information Development staffer (technical writer) writes the documentation for you.
• Be aware of and install all the patches for your operating system and application, do backups, manage licenses, etc. vs. use the servers provided by the I/T department.
• Get sued vs. work with your organization’s lawyers to maintain intellectual property protection.

Now the part that many people have a difficult time swallowing is that the process usually needs to be done the way that the owner wants, not the way you want. That is probably because the owner has a lot of experience and knowledge for that process and has figured out how to minimize risk for that process, whereas if you were doing it you would want to minimize the effort instead of the risk. As I’ve mentioned before, there is a cost for everything. In this case the cost for someone else doing the process for you is that it needs to be done their way. And I’m going to propose that in most cases that cost is worth it. Get the bureacracy to work for you. Use your organization as an asset, not a liability. The cost may be some lost flexibility, but if in the end you get more done that applies the experience of experts, that is probably a cost worth paying.

What the Palm website doesn’t tell you is that these are not custom fit just for Palm devices, you need to get a pair of scissors and cut them for the device you want, even if you have a Palm. The package comes with 13 sheets that are about 3.5 inches by 2.6 inches (after you trim off the printed info). This is more than big enough to cover any mobile device screen, and can handle about 3 iPod nanos from one sheet. No, you can’t do the entire face of a video iPod, but you can do the screen area (you do have a full body case, right?). At about a buck and a half a sheet, it’s pretty good deal, as long as you are patient with the scissors. Measure from the bottom right corner to stay away from the printed info, else you will have the printed info on your screen; I’m not sure why Palm actually printed stuff on the protector itself instead of just on the peel-off backing, but you lose only a quarter to half an inch of height and width. The protectors are quite strong with not too much glare, and appear to come off with just the right amount of effort. The package also comes with a cleaning cloth and a straightedge to help minimize air bubbles during application.

• AdBlock
• IEView
• Copy Plain Text
• Fasterfox
• SessionSaver
• Firebug
• Foxmarks

Generally, as a software developer you are hired to do more than just write code. I would expect that if an employee did nothing more than just write code, their career path would be pretty short.

Here is a list of tasks that a software developer may be involved in during a product cycle (this list is off the top of my head, is not complete):

• identify market opportunity
• identify customer requirements
• identify competition
• obtain funding
• scope product function
• identify user scenarios and roles
• identify existing technologies to fulfill needs
• acquire or research missing technologies
• size the items in the product plan
• determine other project plan elements such as milestones and dates
• acquire employees with needed skills
• build infrastructure for development and test
• identify high-level architecture
• identify mid-level architecture/modules
• organize the development team
• develop the code
• resolve merge conflicts
• report to management/funders periodically regarding the progress
• respond to changes in customer requirements
• respond to changes in competitors’ products
• respond to changes in technology shortfalls
• prepare the code for internationalization and accessibility
• add diagnostic capability (ie, logging)
• develop functional test case plan
• write, run, and debug functional test cases
• do the same for the performance test cases
• identify performance bottlenecks and implement optimizations
• create customer documentation
• create and test install scripts
• verify release candidate install images
• create live demos
• give live demos to first potential customers and analysts
• triage customer problem reports as product bugs, customer mistakes, or environment incompatibilies
• recreate and fix product bugs
• create and package fixpacks, update product documentation
• identify long-term support plan
• provide in-depth training and documentation for support staff
• respond to customer issues that support staff can’t handle
• respond to requests from high-end customers to add customer-specific features to the product
• participation with standards bodies
• interfacing with lawyers regarding writing patents, embeding/licensing technology from other organizations, avoiding source code contamination, etc.

Did you notice how only one of those items says “develop the code”?

You may think that most of these items will fall to someone else in your organization. While that may be true in some respects, you will still be affected. For example, the item “obtain funding” may fall to you in the form of “build a mockup demo that the boss can show to potential customers/funders”. The item “identify competition” may fall to you in the form of “figure out what this competitor’s product does to see if really does what it looks like”. The item “organize the development team” may fall to you in the form of “figure out what everyone else is doing so there are no holes, no overlap, and that the interfaces will connect appropriately”.

Another surprise for most people: if products are being well supported and used by organizations, the cost of support is greater than the cost of developing the product. Yup. The first time I heard that I was really surprised. The majority of the cost is in supporting the product, not in building it from scratch. You may take shortcuts in support to drive that cost down, but recognize that as a shortcut that may eventually cause that customer to defect to a competitor.

Understand that software has a lifecycle, it’s not just about “develop”. It is going to need a team, infrastructure, and processes. You will be involved in those things. That is most likely part of what you are being paid for, and is important to your employer and customers.

I heard a story of a person who founded a startup and ran it for several years. Of course the appeal of the startup is choice of what you work on. Due to a bookkeeping error, there was some confusion with the federal tax authority regarding some financial matters. Because the startup had only two employees, one of them was tasked with resolving the issue, which took about 50% of their time over the next year. It was a huge drain on working on their true passion and very frustrating. Although anecdotal, the point of this story is to not assume that a startup you can spend 100% of your efforts working on your research or product. Because startups tend to be very focused on development, the rest of the support structure isn’t there like at a large company. A support structure can run the range of being a bureaucratic drain to being a enabling gain. In more places than you may assume, it is an enabling gain. Lacking the support structure you need to do everything yourself. Everything.

A friend who founded a startup has talked about “terminal success”. His point is that even if you are in a startup that is successful in creating the technology or product, you may not have enough mass (i.e., influence) to affect the market. You are effectively at a dead end, despite development success. Even though they got everything they wanted in terms of getting the startup going, they didn’t have enough market influence to make an impact. The pure notion of “build it and they will come” is a fallicy. This friend says, “generally it takes about 4 years to build up enough reputation to really get your business going. Basically, you will be taking a loss for about 4 years until people hear about you enough to get going. You will also need to allocate about 1/3 of your budget for marketing programs – that is programs, not headcount. Doing a startup is hard – you have to really want to do it.” This friend eventually left the startup and joined a large company because they wanted to be in an organization that already had the mass to make significant impact in the market, and that is where I met him. But there are plenty of success stories regarding startups, some of them massive mind-blowing successes. I’m not here to dismiss startups. My point is to not assume that a startup’s success is guaranteed or that it is a cakewalk.

I work at a large company, so I admit to having some bias. But in the 15 years I have been with my company, even through the dot com era, I had opportunities to learn and engage in challenging and fun and varied work, interaction with a lot of really good people, and I have been well compensated financially. And I have been able to change positions about every 2 years. So instead of changing employers every 2 years and dealing with that churn, I have been able to achieve the same desired result while accumulating deeper contacts into the company, promotions, accruing more vacation, etc. The large company gives me a mobility and new opportunities that a small startup probably doesn’t have.

There are pros and cons to both startups and big companies. There are times and places where one makes more sense than the other. They are complimentary. Your task is to analyze your situation, and determine your desire with your eyes wide open, and figure out which one makes the most sense for you.

Two of my three cordless phones died at about the same time, plus I started working from home more in my finished attic (3rd floor). After having a number of simple cordless handsets for my home telephone, I liked the idea of an integrated system. And now that I’ve had it for a while, it has been nice. The product is the Uniden CLX475-3. It is multi-handset system that includes a base station and three handsets. This is what I like about it:

• all the handsets communicate with the single base station. So I need only one RJ11 phone jack. The handsets can be placed anywhere in the house there is a electrical outlet for the handset to sit in a charger when not in use. The base station is plugged into my Vonage adapter, but it should connect fine to any analog service.
• you can intercom between any two handsets. So when my wife on the 1st floor wants to ask me a quick question while I’m in the 3rd floor attic office, she can ring my handset and get a high-quality audio connection without the telco and without climbing 2 flights of stairs.
• transfer a call from one handset to another, so no more yelling, “hey, pick it up, it’s for you!”
• a nice backlit display and keys. You can access the phonebook, callerid info, settings, commands, pictures (yup), etc.
• multiple handsets can join a call without making the remote party too soft to hear. This is the benefit of using only one RJ11 jack.
• a phonemail-waiting indicator on the base station and each handset. So you can look at any handset to check if you have phonemail. It’s a blinking light, so you don’t need to use the menu.
• ability to listen to phonemail or perform any answering machine function from any handset, don’t need to be at the base station.
• ability to screen calls (listen to the phonemail as it is being recorded) from any handset. You have to push a button to do that, but at least it is possible.
• decent speakerphone built into each handset and the base. Actually, the base can be used independent of any handset, so even though you have three handsets you really have the equivalent of four phones.
• standard headset jack, and a softkey to mute the handset’s microphone. This is a must for work-at-home people. My headset has a hardware mute button, so I use that since the softkey is under a menu.
• you can configure the handset and the base station through the built-in display, or you can connect the handset to your PC via a USB cable and use the supplied software. This is one of the more interesting features. With this software you can copy phonebook entries across all the handsets, pick ringtones and other basic handset configuration, select pictures for your phonebook entries that will appear when they call (callerid) or you call (outgoing phonebook) (yes, I have face pictures of family members in the handset). It also does nice things like syncing the handset clock to your PC clock. And you can rip audio from your PC as your phonemail greeting. So basically I can create a handset profile and just copy the profile to all the handsets, or set up a profile for each handset. I can also configure the base station via the handset via the software. Basically, no more tedious configuration using the handset menu or base station menu.
• a room monitor feature. This is helpful when a child is taking a nap but I want to putter in the garage, the garage handset can have a steady listen connection to another handset near the child.
• the battery life is pretty good. I can do 3 hours of conference calls and the battery meter shows half-depleted.

The things I don’t like about this system:

• It is a 5.8GHz digital system and claims to be WiFi friendly, but when I use it in my office right next to two WiFi devices it does stutter for a few seconds at the beginning of a call, which I assume is its attempt to find a clear channel. Once it stabilizes it runs fine.
• I had an older 900MHz system that had greater range than this one. This one does reach all areas of the house and yard, but trails off after I leave the yard. Since our neighborhood pool is next door, it would be really nice if I could get reception at the pool. It barely reaches the pool parking lot, but not the pool. Perhaps placing the base station on the 3rd floor instead of the 1st floor would help reach a bit farther, but I like having the default call screener (base station) on the first floor where we can hear it from the kitchen and family room. The only wishlist feature I would like this system to have is to designate one of the handsets instead of the base station as the default call screener. The system also has what they call “DirectLink”, which is basically a way to use multiple handsets in a peer-to-peer fashion without the base station – it is walkie talkie intercom service instead of telco phone service. It does maintain a two-way steady connection and is not push-to-talk. I tried it once on a road trip with two cars, but the cars had to be pretty close (i.e., tailgating close) for good reception. And to connect to the other handset required several menu operations which took my eyes off the road for too long. Using a regular push-to-talk device would work better for reasons of range and ease.

You can add more handsets to the system for a maximum total of ten, but each additional handset is $60 each from the manufacturer. So getting the initial package is a pretty good deal.

Overall I’ve liked the system.

Those are all great attempts at excuses for not utilizing something that was built by someone else. If you believe those, then you will waste a lot of time building your own infrastructure. As I mentioned in a previous post, you can’t afford to do that. The key to being productive and generating value is to spend your time on valuable things, things at the top of the value chain instead of the middle or the bottom, things that are unique that others can’t do as well as you. But to do things at the top of the stack requires things below you, call it enablement or infrastructure. So the point is to stand on the shoulders of others by using the infrastructure that they have created. If you don’t, then you have to build that infrastructure yourself, and that will suck the resources out of your project and dramatically limit your ability to progress and succeed. The same wheels have been invented so many times that it is truly wasteful. Reinventing wheels isn’t going to help anyone.

Without standing on the shoulders of others, you won’t progress at a reasonable rate. You can’t do it all yourself.

Within an organization, to beg, borrow or steal is ok, as long as credit is given. One of the greatest compliments someone can give me is to use my code. I would like credit (in the form of management recognition, financial sharing, etc), but yes, stand on my shoulders, and let others stand on your shoulders. By supporting each other we can create a stronger ecosystem that is good for everyone. We are measured on contributions utilized, not effort expended.

So sometimes I feel compelled to spend time tweaking something to work just right. Sure, it worked good enough before, but it wasn’t perfect. So instead of moving on to something more productive I waste time trying to squeeze out that last level of perfection.

You may hear business people talking about ROI. It is Return On Investment, figuring out if what you are investing in is worth it, or if it would be smarter for your limited resources to be invested somewhere else that will give greater returns. Generally the ROI for “tweaking for perfection” is not worth it. There are times when “good enough” really is good enough, and it may be more frequent than you think. Yes, there are times when perfection is needed, but before you go for that you really need to think critically about the real requirements. There isn’t time to make everything perfect in every circumstance.

I was watching a few students on a development team. These two students had different opinions over how a piece of code should be done. But the assignment to write the code was given to one of the students. The student wrote it, it worked, and was checked in to the repository. Later, the other student analyzed the code that was written by the first student, changed it, and checked that in to the repository, all without talking to the first student. Of course, when the first student discovered what the second student had done, there was some friction between them that took a while to resolve.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the original code from the first student, it worked and met the specification. My objection with the second student was the time spent re-doing code which was already sufficient. That was time that could have been directed into something more productive that could have advanced the team. The first version of the code wasn’t done the way the second student wanted, but it met the needs of the project. There was a loss to the team both in terms of time and teamwork.

What it basically comes down to is trust. In a team you have to trust other people. Yes, you need to know if the other person is trustworthy. Assume they are unless proven otherwise. But if they are then you need to exercise that trust. If you don’t exercise that trust then you’ll need to do everything yourself. And you don’t have the time for that and that is not the definition of a team.

The team was working on a big project that was going to add a significant amount of new automation to an existing business process. Had all the business data been in a relational database, it would have been easy. But the data was spread across all kinds of storage, including flat files and mainframes. So we spent a lot of time on a data store abstraction mechanism. And we wanted a rich client but had to support multiple UI types, so we wrote multiple clients using multiple UI toolkits. So did we have time left over to actually automate the target business process? Not really.

I can image someone saying this to me: Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never write your own infrastructure when your project has a deadline! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha…

That was back in 1994, so I could claim a small excuse in that there wasn’t a lot of off-the-shelf infrastructure available then as compared to now. But even then we were reinventing wheels that already existed elsewhere. So the moral of the story is to spend the vast majority (if not all) of your effort on the application instead of the pre-requisites for the application. You’re not paid to build pre-requisites, you are paid to build applications. Users of the application don’t care about the infrastructure, as long as it doesn’t adversely affect the application.

The scare in being open is that a provider’s high-profit item can be commoditized. I believe that commoditization is inevitable. You may try to delay it, but it will happen eventually. The commodity line is always rising. So embrace it now, and instead spend your resources working on high-value items above the commodity line. You will probably need to periodically exit business areas that are falling below the commodity line and start fresh on something higher up. The one thing constant about the I/T industry is change.

Eclipse is probably the best example of a proprietary thing that was turned into an ecosystem. Many people think of Eclipse as a Java IDE but it’s really an application framework. So applications other than a Java IDE can run inside it, for example object/business modeling, administration, groupware/email, etc. And it has the capability for running plugins developed by 3rd parties, one site alone lists more than 800 plugins available.

IBM could have held on to Eclipse as a proprietary item and not released it as open source. But I don’t think it would have reached the same level of use in the community had it done so. By making it open, the number of participants has greatly increased. Quoting Metcalfe’s Law, the value of the network is the square of the number of the participants. When you get enough participants across a broad enough set of sources, the value becomes compelling enough that people will want to participate. That is how you get to have a community of adopters and contributors and hundreds of 3rd-party plugins.

When it becomes an ecosystem, instead of building raw elements and infrastructure, you can focus on your specialties, or in other words, work higher up in the value chain. Instead of writing GUI widgets, you can do what you are good at and use the GUI widgets. Building things higher up the value chain means more capability for the customer and greater profit margins for the provider and a stronger industry. It’s better for everyone. Even when an IBM competitor like BEA joins the Eclipse Foundation, not only is it OK, it is good. It means the ecosystem is growing.

So the corollary now is to use standards and off-the-shelf components whenever possible. Sure, they won’t be optimized for your purpose and may not do it exactly as you’d like and there may be some not-invented-here feelings, but you can’t afford to optimize everything. Given that there are enough computing resources available now (CPU cycles, storage, network bandwidth, etc.) you can let things be un-optimized. It is OK to waste some resources. That is what is new.

I just finished developing a large application with a team and we didn’t optimize anything. Then in our test cycle we did see some significant performance problems at a certain scale. Analysis identified that by optimizing how we stored one object class we could get rid of the performance problem. Everything else worked fine. So we got an entire product performing well by optimizing just one thing. Just one thing, and all it took was about 50 lines of code. Keeping everything else un-optimized keeps the complexity down, and the complexity is where the real cost is.

All these things are helpful and will do something for you. The cool thing is that in this world of open source they don’t cost anything, right? Wrong.

While it may be true that there might not be a direct up-front financial cost for acquiring those things (assuming they are gratis), it is blatantly false that there is no back-end cost for those things. Everything has a cost. That cost may be in the form of time to integrate, increased risk, footprint size, complexity, limitations introduced, bugs inherited, intellectual property liability or contamination, or something else.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting that you always avoid using things. What I am suggesting is that you always determine what the cost is, and evaluate if the benefit provided by that thing is worth the cost. Do not assume you can get the benefit without the cost.

Nothing is without some kind of cost. Nothing. There are some good deals, some bad deals, and some so-so deals. Just be conscious of what you get yourself into.

One of those things that aren’t worth the cost is cable tv. Part of it is that I am involved in enough things that I don’t have the time to watch much tv, but it boggles my mind why anyone would pay $60/month (a.k.a. $720/year) for the purpose of watching tv shows that are still full of commercials. With all the chatter about free Wifi spots has everyone forgot about a mature technology that allows for free tv reception? It’s called an “antenna”. Hook up an antenna to your tv and you can receive sometimes a dozen channels at no monthly cost, ever, with no contract, for an unlimited number of tv sets in your household. It doesn’t always need to be on a 30-foot-high pole in your yard, a regular pair of rabbit ears in your living room may suffice. Yeah, I don’t get the Discovery channel or HGTV, but if I did it would probably introduce sufficient strife in my household anyway. Outside of that, generally it seems that even with 100 channels, there still isn’t anything worth watching.

Here are some sites that a friend gave me that you may find helpful:

• Consumer Electronics Association AntennaWeb: shows the distance and orientation between the broadcasters and your residence (this is cool)
• Plain Money: answers some basic questions about antennas
• HDTV Info Port: more answers to basic questions

That said, one of the things that is worth the cost is my Tivo. For the few things I do watch on tv, I never watch live so everything is time shifted. Not having to deal with a stack of tapes is wonderful. I’m on the $12/month plan with Tivo. (I’m not a fan of subscription services, but I understand that is how the hardware cost is amortized since I paid only $100 for the device.)

So while talking with a friend recently about my Tivo, they were aghast to learn that my Tivo was hooked up to an antenna instead of cable or satellite tv. “Is that even possible?” they asked. “Sure it is,” I replied. “Works great.” I have full functionality with my Tivo hooked up to an antenna and a broadband connection. The Tivo box has a coax connector on the back that actually is labelled “Antenna”, and it has a tuner inside. You don’t need satellite or cable tv for Tivo. Just connect it and go.

As developers it is relatively easy for us to understand the design, know how features ought or ought not to be used, and the nuances of the configuration. The builder understands their own house. But can the same be said of the end user? Generally we develop software for users, not ourselves. Are the users left drifting in a sea of compexity unable to get their bearings?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Unix and grew up on it. But I have heard new Unix users complain about it being difficult to use. My best rebuttal is, “Unix isn’t user-hostile, it is expert-friendly.” How many times can something similar be said of systems we build every day? It has been my experience that each time we add something, it causes other issues which in turn require more things to be added. It can become a death spiral.

The Macintosh goes a long way to making Unix usable. Linksys and Tivo do a good job of making Linux usable.

If your software isn’t usable, people aren’t going to use it. And if noone uses it, then you are wasting your time developing it. Above all, it has to be consumable.

Remember the 80/20 rule and put it to practice. That last 20% of function is going to be really expensive, add a lot of complexity, and probably not be needed by the majority of users. Maybe you are better off without that last 20%. Keep your scope as small as possible, and don’t let it creep larger. It will definitely want to creep larger, you will have to purposely push it back.

Have good defaults, and have your software try to do the right thing automatically. How many of us want to just run the installer and crank it up without reading a 2-inch thick manual? It should do something meaningful without hardly any requirements on the user. If you absolutely need a configuration setting like a database name, figure out how to probe the database server to get a list of the available databases, and either let the user pick the right one from the list or (better yet) probe the database schema to see if you can automatically figure out which one should be used. If you need a database password, ask for it in the UI instead of requiring the user to edit some configuration file buried deep in the filesystem that is described only on page 183 of the manual.

Remember the golden rule for documentation. If you were new to this, what documentation would you want to have and how should it be organized? This applies not only to users, but also co-developers (meaningful comments, architecture descriptions, etc.).

As developers we sometimes pride ourselves on the complexity of an item we’ve built. It is human nature for us to think that bigger is better. But in the CS world, it isn’t. Elegant is better. And elegant is usually about right-sizing instead of super-sizing.

Take a look at how Agile methodology and XP describe it. Make a conscious decision of what you are going to exclude, and let it go without feeling guilty. It is impossible to please everyone, so just get used to it.

If you do it right, it should be simple. And building a simple solution usually requires multiple tries. But it is better for the developers to expend effort than for the users to.