So I recently got tricked in to clicking on a Outbrain article clickbait scam ad.
Headline looked innocent enough, but when I clicked thru it quickly became apparent that it was one of those aweful “You won’t believe what happened next! Click here to find out!” bullshit ads.
Ya, I could have just tweaked Adblock, but then I’d have to spend a bunch of time touching every PC and phone in the house. Why do that when I can simply do a quick config change on the firewall and block the whole crap-ass domain.
You won’t believe what I did next!
- Start up NGAdmin and connect to your fw or the cc
Supreme Court opted not to hear the case despite a huge swath of IT folks sending in amicus briefs encouring the SC to hear the case. :(
Well, I guess it’s far past time to stop using Java.
Oracle may have “won” but it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory when everyone and their dog stops using Java.
We’ve already started at my company. We’re phasing out products that rely on Java (notably Cisco ASA firewalls) and are going to either non-java-web-based products, or products whose admin tools don’t use Java in any form.
Not sure what’ll happen with Android’s ART/Dalvik, but I have to assume Google has something in the wings to throw in to place if they don’t win the fair-use trial. Or even if they do win, for that matter
So I’ve been using a Dell XPS 15 9530 as my daily (and nightly!) driver for the past 8 months. I have the top-end version (3200x1800 touch, Core i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD)
It’s not the perfect laptop, but it’s damn close. I primarily use it for work, which is to say I use Windows, light virtualization, and spend a fair bit of time in Colocation facilities or at client sites. I also use it for all my gaming needs - at least once I week I play a few hours of Borderlands 2, or Mechwarrior online.
Things I like:
- Thin and light - For it’s size it’s remarkably powerful.
- Touchscreen - I didn’t think I’d use it a lot, but I often find myself poking at the screen. It’s nice to have the option.
- Keyboard - The keyboard is great. Absolutely no complains. It’s a joy to use
After reading about Mosh (Mobile Shell) I had to give it a try. This is truly SSH for the modern age. Connections STAY connected even when your IP changes, or you roam from network to network. You can put your laptop to sleep while connected, carry it to work, open it up, and the connection is still live. Amazing!
- Mosh on the server(s)
- This part is easy. Follow the instructions from the Mosh site for your distro. Since I’m running Ubuntu 12.04 it was as easy as “sudo apt-get install mosh” but it will vary from distro to distro.
- You may have to open some holes in your firewall – I had to do a “sudo ufw allow proto udp to any port 60000:61000” to let Ubuntu listen on the req’d ports.
- You’ll also need SSH access to your server, as the initial authentication + initialization of the Mosh session is handled via SSH.
- Cygwi
Here’s an amazing video about why the patent system is so badly broken, how it’s strangling the public domain, and radically stifling progress. Well worth watching – trust me, you need to see this.
First – So exciting! Doublefine (Tim Schafer – the name behind a slew of great games including Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Psychonauts, Brutal Legend) has started a Kickstart fundraiser for a new game. This is a great idea – bypassing publishers all together and putting the funding for the game in the hands of the audience. I LOVE this idea – I just wish I had 10k to give in order to qualify for the lunch with Tim!
Next, this list underlines why a game developer would want to go the above route. There are a number of incredible games on that list, many of which I have purchased from Steam or GOG. Sadly, and unbeknownst to me at the time, none of the proceeds of my purchase actually help the developer in the slightest. Many of them are out of business. This is a huge problem in the gaming industry. Publishers like EA (who haven’t actually developed a good game since the 90s!) pay a flat rate to the developers for the rights, and then pass nothing further on if the game actually does well. And the big-name publishers wonder why people no longer buy their formulaic overpriced and overproduced piles of crap. I basically read heading of that list as “You now have the right to pirate any of the following games.” Which is not to say that I condone piracy – I do everything I can to support game devs, but that doesn’t include giving any of my limited budget to a greedy publisher just to fill their coffers while the folks that actually DID THE WORK have to find new jobs since their studio was closed down. Grrrrr! Ars Technica has a great article on the list that I highly suggest you read.
Lots of changes to the site:
- I moved it from Godaddy to Amazon EC2. For about the same price (and free for the first year!) I get a VM all to myself.
- I’m flipping back to Wordpress from Drupal. Drupal 7.x’s bloggy XMLRPC interface just sucks too much ass.
That means that all of the remote management tools (e.g. to manage your site from Android) have failed to work since Drupal 6.x. Windows Live Writer, Ecto, and all other offline blog editing software no longer worked either. I’m giving up a bit of power in the site, but gaining a tonne of flexibility. It’s a pain in the ass to move back to Wordpress - I had to manually copy-paste my posts from the old Drupal site. Sorry to everyone, but the comments will be a casualty of the move. 
- I’m using a new theme – much cleaner. I hope you enjoy!
Hope you all enjoy! 
My wife and I got tired of living in an overpriced piece of crap apt, so we’ve moved to a better one. In the process we’ve cut our rent by 1⁄3 and gained a dishwasher and ensuite laundry! W00t!
We also switched over to Telus’ Optik internet and increased our intertube speed by 50% while cutting the price by $10/month! Sweet!
Oh! And! We get a free XBox360 for switching. W00t!
Anyone have any suggestions for 360 games? The package comes with Alan Wake and Forza3, and I’m planning on getting Shadow Complex and Limbo pdq… Anything else I should get?
Ok, I think that’s it - the site should be back to normal now.
If anyone notices anything that isn’t back to normal then please let me know.
Also, I hope you enjoy the new theme! :)
I’m upgrading my CMS from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 today. Please excuse any downtime and site-weirdness while I get things sorted in the new CMS.
Users should keep all the same rights and settings (e.g. donating users will continue to be ad-free) and all the posts+comments should remain in place.
Update - Site is sort of back. Still a lot of work to do with regards to formatting, but the info is all here so I’ve brought it back online. Let me know if y’all have any issues.
Update 2 - Site is mostly back. Rough format is back, though the theme still needs some work. I’m done for the day though. I’ll finish up the rest of the tweaks tomorrow. :)
Note: InternetExplorer formatting is badly broken, but does anyone use that piece of shit browser anymore? If you do, upgrade to Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Safari or any other standards compliant browser and save yourself a tonne of headaches - not to mention all the viruses/trojans/exploits you won’t be susceptible to anymore. :)
Seriously? This just underlines how badly the US patent system is broken.
How did a Microsoft cofounder get a patent on “Browser use for navigating through information?” I suppose he thinks IE was the first browser too.
“Managing a users peripheral attention” is patentable? I guess notes in the margin of textbooks all get to pay royalties to him too… Or the little TV station watermarks in the corners of TV broadcasts, or even the blinky light on cell phones that tell you that you missed a call.
The patent system was created to protect intellectual property, not stifle innovation or try to reap profits from an idea that is either obvious or has existed in other works for decades or even centuries.
Soooo…. I’ve been beta testing a new phone, and to ease the testing I ported Amon RA’s recovery ROM to it. It works beautifully.
As a result, I’m much more comfortable messing with RA’s recovery, so I took a few hours and got it working on the GW620 too.
Use Volume+ and – to navigate. Camera to select, and back to go back. :)
For some reason there are still “MISC” errors appearing, but you can safely ignore them – they don’t seem to do any harm.
I’ve tested a NAND backup and restore, and it works beautifully. No clue if BART works, or any of the other fuctions
So I’ve been playing Borderlands a LOT recently.
I can’t adequately describe how much ass it kicks.
However, there is only ONE save-slot per character, and if it gets corrupt you are royally boned.
My friend MrFish had his PC crash mid-save, and he lost his lvl 24 hunter.
Ouch!
So, I whipped up this little script to archive the savegame every 10 mins.
Simply put the script in your “Documents\My Games” folder, and run it before you start Borderlands.
(Oh, and you need to have 7zip installed.)
You’ll end up with a “bups” folder in My Games that has archives of your save games.
First: So I spent some time setting up Google reader yesterday, and I have to say it’s a powerful product! Combined with FeedR on my phone I can now read up on all my frequented sites from wherever I am. It’s a thing of beauty! I’d highly suggest anyone reading this give Reader a try.
Second: My site here has been languishing a little since all the GW620 firmware development moved over to OpenEtna. Not that I’m complaining – I think the OpenEtna project is waaay better than anything I was able to hack together on my own. It just goes to show the power of open source and collaborative development. However, it does mean that I need to come up with some new stuff to post about – more on that later.
Third: Now that OpenEtna has stabilized a bit, and we don’t need to wipe every time we install a new version, I’ve actually spent some time getting my phone all set up. Here’s a brief rundown of my rig:
- Launcher:
- LauncherPro. I know AWD (the default launcher on the firmware) is amazing, but LauncherPro adds a few key features that I just can’t live without – mostly in the widget department, and the triple-dock.
- Desktop Layout
As some of you may have noticed Drupal took a dump when I updated it. The site was offline for almost a day while I tried to get the errors resolved. It only took a few hours to fix, but I’ve been insanely busy with work and life for the past few moths so it took the day to scrape together the few hours it took to fix. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
The gang at OpenEtna have managed to get Froyo (Android 2.2) running on the GW620!
Wooohoooo!!!
All the info is on the OpenEtna Page.
The fine folks over at OpenEtna have released version 4.2 of their excellent 2.1 based firmware for the GW620. Mostly a bugfix release, but they have introduced the JIT from 2.2 in to this firmware, which makes things MUCH faster. Sound is fixed, GPS works again, but Call Display is still messed up. I’m hosting it here for ease of download.
Through a lot of hard work and modifying the frameworks, Polytheus has managed to get Android 2.1 working on the GW620! I’m hosting the file here, and I’d also encourage you all to go to the project page and click the donate button to buy him a beer for all his hard work.
This one is based off the Korean KH5200 V10T.
It’s an Android 1.6 image for the GW620. Apperently, the difference between the previous V10R and this V10T is mainly fixes around the keyboard and battery life. Personally, I didn’t have any problem with the battery life in the last image - it was a big improvement compared to 1.5 but others were having major issues.
Get the image here.
I’ve added the excellent ADW Launcher as well as the previous TagLauncher, and made a few other small refinements, but nothing major. Mainly small stuff.
e.g. Included Anycut to make it easy to set your APN back up…
Yay! Google released the Android 2.2 source today! I’ll poke around at it over the next few days - maybe I’ll have better luck getting it to compile! :D
Update: I downgraded to gcc4.3 and Java SDK5, and Froyo is compiling fine. I’m still unable to boot the result though. :( I’ll try again tomorrow.
Update2: The kernel is booting, but /system isn’t mounting, so ‘sh’ isn’t available, and logcat can’t run. Putting sh on the initrd changes the error - but it just quits directly after launching. Grrrr. Not sure why /system isn’t mounting - the init.rc looks ok… I may try getting it to mount by it’s device name instead of it’s mtd name. I’m off to work - I’ll poke at this some more when I get home.
Update 3: LiBe (in the comments below) managed to get 2.2 booting using Routehero’s 2.0 boot.img. I just played around a little on my lunch break and was able to duplicate his results. Same issues as before - e.g. No sound, no radio, no wifi. The boot.img was still using the old 2.6.27 kernel. Replacing the 2.6.27 kernel with the 2.6.29 from V10T resulted in a non-booting boot.img, and as before logcat doesn’t work so I can’t even see why it’s not booting. Grrrr. :(
However - 2.2 did seem to run ok. Once I turned off Animations it even ran fairly fast. :)
Update: The image based on V10T is almost done. Everything is working except Wifi won’t connect. :( Once I get it figured out I’ll upload the image.
I’ve installed the KH5200 V10T image on my phone, and will have a rooted + enhanced version ready for y’all soon.
I don’t see any differences in the phone yet, so I think it’s just a bugfix release…
Still have to enter the APN, Call Display still doesn’t work right unless the caller is in your address book, and SMS is still limited to 90 chars.
Update 2: Murphy was an optomist. OSX 10.6 is having some issues building Android. Gah!
Update: None of the builds I made under Ubuntu 10.4 x64 would boot, which can’t be right. I’ve rebooted in MacOS and am building again from here. Hopefully this one will boot.
Ok, so here we go - I’m trying to compile 2.1 with the KH5200 kernel. I’m using Polytheus’ Tech Notes to guide me thru the req’d changes to RILD, etc. Hopefully I can get something booting today, though I’m not holding my breath. I’ll update this post as I progress. :)
Quick note: I made a few more changes to the site.
- The mobile theme is MUCH better now. Have a look at m.zacpod.com from your android. Very simple and clean. :)
- Added a Docs section (see the menu up there ^^^) that will be a repository for all sorts of instructions. Enjoy!
LG has released the source code for the KH5200 (the Korean version of the GW620.) The source has the 2.6.29 kernel sources included, so hopefully we can get a newer android of Android running soon! We’re targetting 2.1 to start, but may try to get 2.2 going if 2.1 isn’t too tough.
You can find the source code here.
Update 3: Made a few more changes:
- QR codes on the right for ease of Android access
- Mobile site is now live, but the theme isn’t so hot. Trying to find an AJAX theme that rocked as much as the wordpress mobile theme
- Donate button is back, plus if you’re logged in when you donate the site will stop showing you the button and hide the ads, and shows a “Thank you” message instead.
- Front page changed - now it shows the full text of the first story, teasers (with “more” links) for the next 10, and text links for the remainder
- Killed the titles from the comments
- Removed my Gravatar from all the posts, but left it on the comments
Update: Something seems to have gone horribly wrong with the first image. Give this one a try instead. A few people have confirmed that it works. It’s a slightly smaller repack of the same image - I reduced the size by removing a few of the apps I’d crammed in to /system/app, so you’ll have to install Facebook and Google Sky yourself now. ;)
Well, Rogers/LG is being brutally slow releasing the 1.6 update. There is already a Korean update for the KH5200 that mostly works on the GW620, so I spent some time today making it run as smooth as possible. I currently have an image that is working well, but you have to manually config the APN after installing or there’s no 3G connectivity.
The image is as done as it’s going to get tonight. Don’t get it here! Make sure to read the Known issues while it’s downloading – there are some things you need to do to make the image work properly.
The status so far:
- Running well on 1.
Quick note – I just changed my webhost from Sunwave over to GoDaddy. For the same price I get 30x the storage and 60x the transfer/bandwidth, plus 24⁄7 support! Crazy!
There may have been some service disruption yesterday as the DNS records propagated, but it looks like it’s all good now.
The extra storage on the new host should allow me to host more than 1 firmware image at a time – Woohoo!
I’m in Toronto for work + visits till the 23rd, and the internet at my hotel is REALLY slow. Excuse my slow updates. :)
ADB mysteriously stopped working in Linux for the 1.6 version of Android on the LG Eve. Here’s an adb that should work on the new image. As always, let me know if you have any problems!
Update: Don’t use this unless you really have to - the new Korean 1.6 image is WAY more stable. This one crashes, apps don’t work, and it basically sucks.
Ok, here’s a quick and dirty root of the Rogers beta 1.6 rom.
3g will not work unless you do a factory reset.
The ABI problem is fixed, so NDK code will install. (e.g. Dosbox, Google Goggles, etc)
I’ve been running this for a week, and it’s fairly stable. Outside of having to factory-reset to get 3g working, everything has been smooth with it
It’s just been a VERY busy few weeks. Lots of travel to new clients, and so much work that I’ve not had the energy to do anything ‘cept relax in my free time.
I have done a few fun things though:
- Built a 2-node MythTV/Mythbuntu based media center. Post about that is coming soon. I didn’t get the new core i3 based media server I was planning on, but have rebuilt my existing server using mythbuntu and added a nVidia ION based box for the bedroom.
- Upgraded my GW620 to firmware 1.0f. It’s still android 1.5, but seems a little snappier. The root method still works, so I’m going to port my apps2sd changes on to the new image this week. I should have an updated firmware for y’all soon. Maybe even today if I don’t get sidetracked.
I’ve decided to spend my tax return on a pair of new media systems and a projector. Here’s what I’m looking at so far: Projector: Epson 705HD.
- It’s a nice inexpensive projector that has been getting rave reviews. It will be perfect for our living room.
Media Server: For the living room – running the projector
- Mythbuntu front and back ends
- Will also run rtorrent, rtgui, file services, and the MPD music server.
- Core i3 530 @ 2.93GHZ
- 2gb DDR3 1600 RA
Fixed! I can now use ADB to talk to the phone in OSX! Turns out that it’s a problem with the way that LG designed the phone’s composite device vs the way that OSX recognizes composite devices. USB devices all present a class and a subclass to the OS when they’re plugged in. For composite devices the class is 0 and the subclass can be 0 (legacy) or 16(current.) Linux plays a little fast and loose, and assumes that anything with a class of 0 is a composite device, but OSX is a little more stringent. It looks for the subclass to be proper. LG made the subclass on the GW620 a 2. Not 0 or 16 like the USB spec says, but 2. Totally non-standard. So, I modified the Info.plist for OSX’s composite device driver so that it would also accept 2. Problem solved. :) Here’s what you need to do to make it work:
- Open terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
- “cd /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBCompositeDriver.kext/Contents”
- “sudo nano Info.plist” (or vi, or emacs, or whatever console editor you prefer)
- Copy the IOUSBComposite section (from to )
- Paste the section in at line 66 (right after where it appears) so you have 2 copies in the file
- Change the bDeviceSubClass value from 0 to 2
- Change the key name from “IOUSBComposite” to “GW620
CyrilLD over at XDA found the serial console header on the GW620! It’s the 5 contacts in a row underneath the SIM card. The center one is the TX pin. This is a 3.3v serial port, so you’ll need a level converter of some sort to connect it directly to a PC’s serial port, but most USB-Serial adapters already operate at 3.3v so they should work fine.
I’m now trying to build a kernel (based on the default LG sources) that will output to that port during boot. If I can get boot messages on that serial port, then I should be able to duplicate the settings on the 2.6.29 kernel and hopefully get enough info to figure out where it’s crashing. Finger’s crossed!
*cry*
Ok. So, I finished bringing the LG mods in to the 2.6.29 kernel and the beasty still won’t boot. it just sits there taunting me with a “Booting linux” prompt.
No error message, no console activity, no nothing. Just nothing.
Nothing.
Arg
To quote King Crimson: “Frustration will be my epitaph.”
Sooo I’m trying to port the changes that LG made to the kernel (that let it run on the GW620 hardware) and it is being a serious pain in the arse.
We need kernel 2.6.29 in order to fully run Android 2.0. So, a porting I will go! Gah! I started by trying to use diff to merge the changes automatically in to the newer kernel. I tried a few different approaches, and they all failed badly. Either there were 100s of merge errors, or the code was uncompilable spaghetti at the end of the merge, or a combination of the two.
I’m now trying to bring just the required hardware drivers in to a stock 2.6.29 source tree, and even that is giving me an insane amount of grief. Arg
LG Just gave us access to the GW620’s open source code!
We should now be able to compile a more recent kernel for it, and hopefully get Android 2.0 working! Wooohooo!
I’ve uploaded the source code here. It’s open source, so I don’t think LG will mind.
Update:
Tolemac has made an Apps2SD image based on 1.0g that is way better than mine. I highly recommend that anyone looking for an update check out his image at
Cheers!
*Features:
Important note: There’ve been a few reports of people being unable to boot their restored backups. This is due to the version of unyaffs installed on the system. It is very important that you use the patched version detailed here.
If you use the ‘stock’ version of unyaffs then permissions are not correctly extracted, and the backup of your system partition will be corrupted. You may still be able to get around this by restoring the system.img from whatever firmware you’re using and then restoring the userdata.img from your backup. YMMV.
Nandroid for the LG Eve GW620. Modified by Zacpod (www.zacpod.com) from Nandroid 2.0 I’ve modified Nandroid and the CM Recovery image to (Mostly) work on the Eve. So, we can now take backups of our devices. Yay! Unfortunately this will not work from Windows - you need to use MacOS or Linux. Windows just doesn’t have the tools required to make it work. It might work in Cygwin under windows, but I’ve not tested it. Here’s the tool! Disclaimer: This software is provided as is. I take absolutely no resposibility for anything that may break while it is in use. All I can say is that it works well for me. Your mileage may vary. Instuctions for use: Backup:
- Boot the device in to Fastboot mode. (e.g. power the device on and hit space within about 2-3 seconds)
- From a Linux root command prompt (#, not $) cd to the directory you unpacked this archive in to
- Type “fastboot boot everecovery01a.img” You may need to specify the full path to the android sdk. E.g. “/usr/android-sdk-linux/tools/fastboot boot everecovery01a.img
A few of us over at XDA have been trying to root the Eve for a few weeks now, and we’ve finally done it! W00t!
This guide assumes you already have ADB access to your device. If you don’t you need to google for the android SDK and get yourself connected.
Let me know how this works for you all, or if anything is unclear. :)
- Download this version of Superuser Whitelist and unpack it somewhere safe
- On the GW620 dial “3845#*620#” to get in to the secret menu
- Tap “Module Test” then tap “Stability Test” then tap “Enable Root Permission
After playing with this phone for almost a week now, I can say that I am very impressed. Not since the first time I played with a Palm Pro have I been so enamoured of a handheld computer. This little beauty is amazing! I know it’s not as slick as the Droid, but it fills a sweet spot in the market that I am smack dab in the middle of. It’s a tiny, powerful, android based smartphone with a full slide out querty keyboard - and it’s actually smaller than any other handheld I’ve ever owned. Plus, with a 3 year contract it only cost me $50 Canadian! Bonus!
To be fair, there are a few things I don’t like about it:
- The “LG IME” predictive text helper / software keyboard is horrible. Really, really, horrible. Turn it off as soon as you can. For the longest time I thought the space bar was broken because of the way the IME uses the first space to select the word, and the 2nd to actually insert a space. Sad, and on a full keyboard it’s completely pointless. But, it’s easy to turn off, and once it’s off the keyboard behaves the way a keyboard should. :)
- It’s Android 1.5 instead of 1.6 or 2.0. It’s a small gripe, really, and I assume it’ll be fixed in the near future with an over-the-air software upgrade. Still, it would have been nice if this new device came installed with the current version of Android. Version 1.5 works fine, however, and most of the missing features are fairly minor.
- The battery. The battery lasts me all day from 8am to 8pm under fairly heavy use with wifi on. Barely. I’m sure I could save a tonne of power and add a few more hours on to that by turning wifi off, but why use my data-plan when I have wifi at home + work? Still, I’ve yet to actually run out of power, and since it comes with a handy USB cable, I can charge it from my laptop in a pinch.
- The home and back buttons are too sensitive. Maybe it’s just my big paws, but I often end up exiting the app I’m using by mistake. It’s happening less now than when I first got the device, but it’s still an issue.
The short version: This laptop rocks. End of story. ;)
The longer version: This is my first ever Mac, and I have to say I’m impressed. As a long-time PC geek, I’m finding it very easy to adapt to the Mac way of doing things. There are still a few things Ineed windows or Linux for, most notably Outlook and Xen Center, but for the most part I’ve been able to find OSX apps that suit all my needs. For the rest, VMWare Fusion fills the gap by letting me run my needed apps on my OSX desktop.
I bought the higher end 13.3” MacBook at 2.4 ghz with the backlit keyboard, and it is totally worth the extra cash. The keyboard was a huge point of contention for me. Though the Mac keyboard is growing on me, I still miss the keyboard from my old Dell. The feel of the Apple KB is nice, but it’s keys are spaced far apart and it’s missing a few important keys as a result. No page up, no page down, no insert and no delete - it’s killing me right now, but I expect I’ll get used to it. The backlight is just plain sexy. It makes the machine a treat to use in bed.
Oh, and speaking of bed - this beauty has no vents on the bottom. You can toss it on a bed/couch/carpet/whatever and not have to worry about it roasting due to lack of airflow. It’s been a mystery to me for years why laptops insist on having vents on the bottom where they get blocked if you use the thing on the top of your lap. In all honesty, this was one of three main selling feature of this laptop for me. The other two being the trackpad and the ability to run OSX+Win7+Linux.
Ah, the trackpad. It is an absolute joy to use. Seriously. Working on any other laptop now feels cramped and counter-intuitive in comparison. The trackpad is HUGE, and the gestures are a joy to work with. The main thing preventing me from getting a Mac earlier was the continuing (retarded) decision to stick with a single mouse button. On the new-style pad removing the button and creating the two-finger right click-anywhere has totally resolved that issue for me, and then some
I got married on Feb 27th to my lovely wife Pixy. A few weeks before the wedding we took a wedding band workshop at Devil’s Workshop to make each other’s bands. It was absolutely amazing! The instructor was friendly, patient, and very encouraging. She made sure we were all comfortable with what we were doing, and was an excellent teacher.
The workshop was quite comfortable and cozy, with enough space and tools for 2 couples to work on their creations.
We started with 2 little bars of gold
OVERVIEW:
The box contains the wheel, the pedals, the shifter, and the power supply. The quality is simply amazing, with a very solid feel. I should also mention the smell. The wheel and shifter smell like new leather seats. It’s a little distracting initially; I keep finding myself leaning forward to smell the wheel at the end of each race…
Getting everything hooked up was a snap, and the software installed easily. I did have a small problem with it detecting the wheel initially, but it was solved simply by unplugging and re-plugging the wheel at the “Detected Game Controllers” screen, at which point the wheel appeared and allowed me to test/configure it
You’ll be missed. Majel Barrett Roddenberry Passes Away/
A few months ago I was tasked with cleaning and organizing one of our client’s cable racks. After a quick site visit, I understood why… This pic will explain more than words possibly could:
What a nightmare!
First things first. I made a logical diagram of the various vlan connections, and documented any special ports that were in use. Then the fun began. All cables were disconnected.
Welcome to the start of my new site! Obviously, there’s not much here yet, but I’ll be adding whatever comes to mind in the future.
There are a few reasons you might want a serial port on your router. Maybe you’re a firmware hacker, or maybe you’re running a bleeding edge version of OpenWRT, or maybe you just want to watch the beastie boot up. Regardless of your reasons, here’s how you do it.
- First, you’ll need a 3.3v serial to USB converter. This is VERY important. If you just solder on a serial port to the router’s motherboard you will fry it as soon as you plug it in to your PC. PC serial ports output 5v, and the router can only handle 3.3v. Since you already need a voltage converter, you may as well get one that also converts to USB.
I recommend the Pololu device: http://www.robotshop.ca/pololu-usb-to-serial-adapter.html
The Pololu is currently out of stock, but this one (or any other USB -> 3.3v serial) should work just as well: http://www.robotshop.ca/sfe-ft232rl-usb-to-serial.html - Crack open your router
- Unplug the antenna leads, and pull the main router board out of the casing.
Many moons ago there was a racing game. Not just any racing game, but a game featuring cars from the golden age of automobiles. The newest car in the game was a 1973 Firebird, and the oldest was a 1932 Ford.
The game had a number of tracks, ranging from cluttered city streets, to small town main streets, to gravel and dirt country roads. Basically, there was something for everyone.
It featured a fairly realistic physics model, and was an amazing amount of fun to play. The best part of the game, however, was tuning your rides. There were thousands of aftermarket parts, licensed and realistically modeled, that you could install on your car. Everything from Holly carbs, to glasspack mufflers, to cams, headers, and crankshafts. These all combined with a physics model of the engine to give you an unprecedented amount of control over every aspect of your ride.
Plus, all the parts were part of a massive dynamic economy that tied everything together with part and car auctions. The price of that high-end turbocharger you want is based on supply and demand, not some arbitrary dollar figure.
I actually had 3 separate 1965 Mustangs. Each of them tuned, balanced, and tested (for hours!) to be perfectly controlled on a specific track type. My offroad ‘stang could barely stay on an asphalt road, but was a joy to drive on the “Hazard Hollow” dirt track. Conversely, the ‘stang I’d tuned for the road wouldn’t have made it around the first corner of the dirt track.
Woot! I now have the first stage of my new computer. I’m still using some cast off/borrowed components that need to be upgraded/replaced, but at a state where I can boot it up and play! Wow is it ever fast! I can’t wait to see what it’ll be like in a few months when I’ve finished souping it up. Mostly, what I need to upgrade is the ram and hard drive. Planning on getting 4 gigs of ddr2-800 which should be way more than enough RAM, and a pair of striped Baracuda 500gig drives. That’ll give me a full terabyte of storage at ~170mb/s speeds.
Right now I just have a Core 2 Duo E6300. It’s the cheapest of Intel’s dual core offerings, but it’s VERY temporary. The motherboard it’s plugged in to is top of the line, and was the most expensive part. When the quad core chips come down to about $500 I’ll grab one of those to replace the E6300.
Oh, and lastly, here’s a pic of me over at Fishy’s, all dressed up for a client appreciation gala. It was a night of shmoozing with the clients at The Old Mill. The food was divine, the band was incredible, and the booze was flowing a little too freely. 
So a few co-workers and I went out on the town last night… Started at a place called Einstein’s, and ended up at the Silver Dollar.
It’s been a looong time since I’ve been that drunk, and wow did I ever need it! Got completely plashtered! So smashed, in fact, that I ordered AND enjoyed some deep fried pickles. Believe it.
The Silver Dollar had a live bluegrass band, and holy crap they were amazing! Kept the place swinging till well after midnight! Apperent;y, they’re there every wed
This morning, however, I’m paying the price. No headache, but I feel queasy and slightly dizzy. Ah well, small price to pay I suppose…
Well,
I knew it was gonna be hard doing a full time gig, and sure enough…it is!
After 2 weeks, I’m ready for a holiday, lol!
Still, ALL our clients are non profit. United Way, Foster Parents play, Aids 2006 Conference, Canadian Cancer Society, etc. Kick ass! Seriously beats the shit out of having IBM send me to a bank to fix their network… The people I get sent to work with are folks I’d want to help anyway! Woot!
So, though I am tired, I’m also quite pleased with life. :)
Just getting ready for a family picnic today… The whole fam damily on my Dad’s side is gathering at my aunts farm. Probably be about 50-60 folks there, most of whom I haven’t seen in 5 years. Should be a riot, and I’m sure I’ll have some interesting stories afterwards. :)
Bought myself a new router. Very exciting! Linksys WRT54GL. The L at the end is for Linux! Installed linux on it, and now I’ve turned my router into the cheapest little workstation you’ve ever seen! Can run a command prompt, and I’m thinking about installing a web server on it just to see it work!
Been too long since I’ve updated, but holy crap have I been a busy lil beaver!
One of my clients moved. FunFunFun! They didn’t move very far, but the new place had zero infrastructure, so we had to run net cable, install jacks at one end and the patch panel at the other. The electricians who pulled the cable thru the walls for us didn’t label either end, so figuring out which cables went to which desk was a real pain in the ass. Hours of tracing cable. Still, I got it built and made a few months living in the process.
Oh, and the guy who moved the phone system? He was drunk the whooooole time. Not just tipsy, or inebriated, but slurring & staggering drunk. It’s a miracle that he got the system up and running. Poor Claire checked in on him at one point and he was walking around in circles unable to decide which problem to work on first. She had to tell him 1 thing to fix, then come back in 45 mins to give him the next thing. Had to ride his ass the whole time. Shoulda seen her laugh when his invoice came, lol!
Also just did something crazy… I was approaching a local outsourcing company about doing some overflow contract work with them, and they wouldn’t let me leave until I’d agreed to work for them. The work sounds like great fun, the pay is excellent, and the company seems to good to be true… They do a lot of free work for charities and non-profit companies, have no interest in going public, pay well, have great benefits, and they’re even giving me a company metropass ( local transit pass, for you non-Torontonians ) to get to and from clients! It’s a full time gig (eek!!) but they’re letting me take days when I need to service my other clients!
It’s been a looooong time since I worked m-f. I’m a little freaked out at the prospect, but the thought of not having to deal with all the billing, selling, etc, is balancing me out some. Plus, if I keep my cost-of-living about where it is now I’ll be able to save up a large wadge of cash in a small wadge of time! W00t to that! Guess that means I’m selling out, lol, but fuck it!
I know death isn’t supposed to make me happy, and that I’m a terrible Buddhist because of this, but….
Wooooo! Another crooked capitalist bites the dust. I almost wish I believed in hell so I could imagine him rotting there. Greedy fucker.
Kenneth Lay, Rot In Pain.
Oh… just in case y’all don’t know who he is… He was the head of Enron. Came up with great ideas like faking brownouts in cali to drive up energy prices, among a long list of other winners. Guy was evil, plain and simple. The pinnacle of the capitalist ideal. May Darwin prune off his branch of the human tree.
Whew…. What a weekend!
There was a fiasco with MaBell, which knocked me offline till Monday morning… There were 2 dialtones on my jack. So, I’d dial a number and hear ringing and busy signal at the same time. DSL was soooo offline as a result. *cry* I had to go a whole 3 days without internet!
Got all moved in to my new digs. It’s the smallest apt I’ve ever lived in, but I’m thinking of it as ‘cozy’ while I try to find places for everything.
Fishy said “It’s nice, everything is in arm’s reach.”
The place is a disaster right now, of course….
Holy crap!
There’s a new sport/martial art called Parkour or Freerunning. It’s absolutely mental!
Vids:
Urban Ninjas and
Insane Russian Dude!
If you’re only going to watch one, watch the Russian dude. Guy has no respect for his own mortality.
So sweet!
Norway is building an international seed bank in the arctic! Here’s the BBC article.
There’s a close-to-zero ecologic footprint house being tested in Toronto. Thing filters it’s own water and waste, runs on wind and solar, and isn’t tied in to the power grid. Totally amazing! I want one like that - with a satellite uplink - in the middle of the wilderness somewhere!
My other bus is a porche.
During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what
the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be
institutionalized.
“Well,” said the Director, “we fill up a bathtub, then we
offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or
her to empty the bathtub.”
“Oh, I understand,” said the visitor. “A normal person would
…just eat a half jar of Nutella with a spoon!
(swiftly conceals chocolaty spoon in mouth)