Hollis

home networking

2009-07-19T19:01:18Z

I just want to give a shout-out to DD-WRT, which is alternate firmware you can install on your home router.

I wanted to avoid putting our TiVo on our wireless network because it would get poor reception in the basement. Our cable modem is also in the basement, but was plugged directly in to the wireless router, so nowhere to plug in the TiVo. I also had a wired-only broadband router to work with, but I wanted just one network, so the TiVo could access wireless IPs and vice versa.

Solution: change DD-WRT's network mode from Gateway to Router (Setup -> Advanced Routing), and plug the wired router into a LAN (not WAN) port on the wireless. Now it's all one subnet, and traffic can flow unobstructed from both sides of the wireless router.

This probably would have been impossible with normal unmodified home routers, but DD-WRT let me piece this all together without needing to run any more cable, so I'm pretty thrilled about that. :)

cable --- wired --- wireless - - - laptop
            |           \
           TiVo           - - laptop

Internet via cell phone

2008-12-23T03:49:40Z

I discovered to my delight that it's actually really easy to get my laptop on the Internet via my cell phone. I've done it with a USB cable and via Bluetooth, and it's made my life more enjoyable recently.

Cell phones are actually modems, and they respond to normal modem commands. So to connect, I just plug in my phone to my laptop with the USB cable, then configure /dev/ttyACM0 as a modem (PPP connection). The only trick is to use *99# as the magic number to dial. That's all; it just works.

Bluetooth can be a little more tricky to associate your computer with your phone, but after that you can do the exact same thing with /dev/rfcomm0.

(With Windows I think you can install a driver from the phone maker to do the same thing.)

Now, it's not the best thing ever... I only get sustained speeds of 5-6 KBps. In addition to the amount of data to transfer, loading webpages is really slow, because loading a web page these days involves looking up and contacting a dozen different servers. Each of those lookups can take seconds, and that's pretty slow. But it's great for checking email, IM, and emergency web browsing.

I've used this to great effect at gemini621's house, since we've not found a reliable open wireless network to borrow. I also used it the other day sitting in the AT&T store for an hour and half. Pretty cool, and surprisingly easy.

Edited to add:
Two more points:

I have an unlimited data plan for my phone, which is what this scheme uses.
My phone is $0 with contract from AT&T.

highway gas mileage

2008-08-31T23:42:24Z

I've heard that gas mileage significantly drops off somewhere around 55mph. I guess it depends on your car, too. Anyways, as an experiment, I started driving 60mph instead of 70pmh on the highways. Having finished off most of a tank this way, I measured 34.2 miles per gallon. I don't remember exactly what my old around-town mpg was, but I believe it was between 30 and 31 mpg.

(In a habit I picked up from lazerchik, I zero my odometer whenever I fill my tank. The next time I fill up, I can divide that mileage by the number of gallons it took to fill up again, and calculate miles per gallon.)

I try to drive efficiently anyways (e.g. coasting to avoid stop/start at traffic lights). On the other hand, one of my tires has a small leak, so I'm afraid my tires were not well-inflated the whole time... ;)

Of course, this is just me driving my (2007) Corolla. Your mileage may vary.

conference spam

2008-08-31T23:10:12Z

I spoke at the MontaVista VISION conference last year. Since then, I have received a lot of spam from many of the sponsors and exhibitors. I actually spoke with a couple of the offending parties and they confirmed that they had gotten my contact information from MontaVista. This culminated yesterday when I received mail at my home address inviting me to the ARM Developer's Conference 2008. I've never had any dealings with ARM, so I believe that once again I have MontaVista to thank.

Other technical conferences treat their speakers differently. I presented at linux.conf.au 2006, and they showered their presenters with trinkets, a nice dinner, and ultimately a short helicopter ride over New Zealand. I'll be presenting at Linux Plumbers Conference next month, and they also have a speakers dinner.

I guess this is the difference between community-organized events and those run by companies who can resell your information as "business leads."

Georgia

2008-08-27T22:44:10Z

The rising cost of texting

2008-07-21T21:53:05Z

The rising cost of texting

The price of text messages has always irritated me, especially since we all know that a text consumes way less bandwidth than a minute of voice, but voice costs a fraction of text (even if you didn't already have a plan with lots of minutes). I now have a data plan that includes 200 text messages a month, but only because it came with AT&T's unlimited data plan.

Really, I think the per-text pricing we're seeing must be an attempt to force consumers into monthly plans. I guess businesses like predictable monthly income, and text usage could be very sporadic. I suppose this is the exact same reason that we have fixed number-of-minutes plans with voice too, instead of pay-per-minute.

ultimate frisbee: geek sport?

2008-06-07T04:01:39Z

There was a recent NPR piece on ultimate frisbee. Since that's one of the few sports I actually enjoy playing, naturally I found it interesting...

For starters, they claim it's a geek sport. I'm not really in a position to judge; I've only played it in Austin, Austin is tech-heavy, and my social circle (including ultimate players) is mostly tech people. When I played in a city league for a couple seasons though, I met some of the UT ultimate players, and let me assure you: these guys are not geeks. Hard core. Of course, Carnegie Mellon has an awesome ultimate team (I found out years after graduating), and any sport that CMU excels at has to raise some questions.

But if that's true, why? The NPR piece claims the self-refereeing part appeals to geeks "liberatarian" sensibilities, and I call B.S. on that. Maybe it's just that jocks have all the other sports, and geeks would just rather not compete on those fields?

Eddie Izzard is funny

2008-05-09T02:46:28Z

For racingpenguins: YouTube funny (and Legos are awesome).

my favorite bug report

2008-04-28T18:50:48Z

http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4802695

Note the years in the timestamps:

Submit Date 14-JAN-2003
...
The date for JRE 6 update release which has this 64bit JRE support will be early 2009.

Now that is ridiculous. Sun should be embarrassed.

Smart People

2008-04-16T02:52:33Z

I would have enjoyed Smart People even if it were not filmed at Carnegie Mellon. Well-written dialog, and pretty entertaining. The Carnegie Mellon part was a nice bonus.

Also, I <3 that Juno girl.

geek celebrity

2008-04-06T15:49:02Z

Linus Torvalds opens a Fedora bug, and the first comment is in less than an hour. Contrast this with the usual Fedora bugzilla experience, which is to sit dormant for a year until somebody closes this bug because it's obsolete.

Even worse, fan boys (apparently including two members of the Fedora project board) decide that this is the appropriate forum in which to drool. Ridiculous.

Windows recovery CDs

2008-03-30T19:07:18Z

Computer vendors used to ship Windows install CDs so that if anything catastrophic happened to your system, you could reinstall. A while back they switched to just putting a "recovery partition" on the hard disk and not shipping CDs, since in theory the recovery partition could reinstall everything for you. I don't know why they did this; maybe to save pennies on materials and packaging.

It's a nice theory unless you need to replace your hard disk fails or you replace it. Then you still need the CDs. Well, not really being an x86 person, I had heard that CDs are still available from the hardware vendor, but you have to specifically ask for them. So today I called up Lenovo/IBM and, after navigating 6 layers of phone menus, asked for them. Everything was going fine until the support rep mentioned offhand that they cost $45 plus shipping (and I wanted to get them for 2 ThinkPads). I know that the cost of the CDs is not $45, and remember: this is for software that I already own.

The support rep said that I could burn them myself via the recovery partition, and it would take 7 CDs or 4 DVDs. So now I need to go buy a spindle of CD-Rs and sink some time into this. I'm trying to do the legal thing, but it's becoming less worth it compared the hassle.

Annoyed.

new laptop

2008-03-23T04:57:17Z

I ordered a new laptop last week: a Lenovo T61. Intel graphics over NVIDIA because of the Linux driver support, naturally. Spent $20 extra for Windows XP over Vista a) to annoy Microsoft and b) because it's more easily installed into a virtual machine. It should arrive this week.

I'm looking forward to it. I stopped using my 17" PowerBook a while ago because it's slow and damaged, so it will be nice to have a laptop again. Even better, it will be nice to have a system on which I can run KVM...

This will also be the first non-PowerPC system I've bought for myself in a very long time.

cleaning paintbrushes?

2008-03-22T19:03:14Z

Painted the computer room over the last couple days. It looks good, though we don't have anything hanging on the walls yet, and are waiting for the bases of our new filing cabinets to arrive at Ikea.

This made me wonder though: what is the Right Way to clean paintbrushes and rollers after use? Surely that stuff isn't supposed to go down the drain or be washed into the yard with a hose, but I don't know what else to do with it.

super delegates

2008-02-10T19:15:15Z

Why have I never heard of a "super delegate" until this year?

Also, I guess they get to pick the democratic nominee (search for "mathematically impossible")... that feels a little strange, doesn't it?

TurboTax Online alternatives for Linux

2008-01-20T21:39:05Z

Since I'm planning a couple decent-sized expenses this year, and expect my 2007 return to differ from previous years, I'm looking to do my taxes a little early. I just got my W-2 yesterday, so went to log in to TurboTax Online, which I've used for the past couple of years.

Despite the fact that Intuit supports Firefox on Windows and Mac OS, and things have worked fine other years, this year they refused to let me log in with Firefox because I'm using Linux.

I contacted their customer support, and (promptly) got this answer:

We were trying to support Linux ever since but it really seems that TurboTax is not compatible with Linux. This concern is still being studied and worked out by our Software Engineers. Also, since we upgraded our products due to innovation and due to this, it seems that our product is no longer compatible with Linux. As much as we want to, we can't support Linux right now.

Looks like they've innovated themselves out of a customer.

Looking for alternatives, I came across TaxACT. Although they only officially list Windows and Mac OS support, Firefox on Linux works just fine (of course). It's also remarkably cheaper; in fact, if I understand correctly, a federal return is free.

One downside: unlike TurboTax, it doesn't contain a Fair Market Value valuation guide for common household donations (e.g. a teeshirt is worth $2 this year), but Goodwill has one that they publish in their tax information, so it looks like that won't be a big deal.

essential mobile tools

2007-12-31T05:34:08Z

These are the most useful tools I've found for the new phone, roughly in order of importance. All of them are free.

Google Maps	Java	Automatically finds your current location based on the cell tower you're currently using; no GPS needed.
Mobical	web	Backup your phone info (contacts, bookmarks, etc) via SyncML (a technology your phone must support). You can also edit your info via a nice web interface. Of course, you should be comfortable with their privacy policy first.
GMail	Java	You can access GMail via mobile web browser too, but the Java version is faster and uses less data.
Opera Mini	Java	My phone comes with the "Netfront" browser integrated, but it falls down for more complex sites. Opera is much more full-featured, but doesn't integrate as well with the rest of the phone (e.g. doesn't sync your bookmarks via SyncML).
Google	web	Homepage for mobile devices. Customize to display your GMail inbox, local weather, etc.
IMDB Mobile	web	I can't tell what connection this has to the main IMDB site. It may be an unofficial reformatting gateway. Regardless, "who is that actor?" is an important question to be able to answer on your phone, IMHO.
Austin Chronicle	web	Austin movie showtimes.
LookWAYup	web	Dictionary.
LiveJournal	web	Yes, I have posted to my weblog from my cellphone.
Slashdot	web	Can you believe they still call it "palm"?
Flickr	web	'Nuff said.
AllRecipes.com	web	Includes searching for recipes.
American Airlines	web	Lots of good travel info.
JetBlue	web	Pretty much just flight status.

W580i cell phone

2007-12-30T21:16:23Z

For Christmas I got a Sony Ericsson W580i phone (it comes in three color choices; mine is black/orange). I also got an unlimited data plan with it, and this phone has really exceeded my expectations.

I love the phone's form-factor. My old Sony Ericsson phone (Z525a) was 1" thick -- physically uncomfortable in the front pocket. The W580i is half that thickness, and it's a slider phone. Slide phones are awesome. The screen has 320x240 resolution, which is better than the previous generation of phones (though worse than the iPhone).

Why didn't I get an iPhone? A few reasons:
- The iPhone costs $400, and also precludes my corporate discount for the service plan, so that's about $60/month. The W580i costs $50 after rebate, and because I keep my discounted service plan is ~$50/month.
- The big reason though is that I'm just tired of supporting Apple's lock-in. My PowerBook is falling apart and not worth repairing, and I just don't want to be tied to Apple software for anything at this point. I can not run iTunes on my Linux systems.

The iPhone did show me how awesome a phone with a data plan is though, and as far as I'm concerned the killer app is Google Maps. While I was driving through an unfamiliar twisty neighborhood recently, puppybane navigated with a real-time view of our location. Awesome.

In addition to the SE software I have loved for years, the W580i also has built-in MP3 software (you can currently get M2 cards in capacities up to 4GB) and built-in HTML-capable web browser. This browser is capable for simple sites (especially sites designed for mobile devices), but falls short on some more complex ones. That's OK though, because you can install Opera Mini too, which is the standard mobile web browser.

The one software issue I had was that AT&T Wireless messes with the software they ship on their phones. In my case, the biggest issue I had was that AT&T doesn't allow 3rd party Java apps (such as Google Maps) to freely access the internet. Instead, they have the phone prompt you to allow or deny every individual access, which means you have to say "yes" a dozen times when trying to pan the map once. Absolutely ridiculous.

AT&T also removes some of the themes and sounds shipped by SE and replaces them with their own, and override some of the buttons and functions to always go to AT&T services. In other words, they try to enforce as much lock-in as they can (sound familiar?), and are limited only because they didn't actually create the hardware and software they're mucking with.

The solution is called debranding (not to be confused with unlocking). You can flash the original SE-provided software onto the phone, replacing the mangled stuff that AT&T put on there. It's actually a pretty straightforward process, though it does unfortunately require a Windows computer. I did a lot of research, then paid $10 via PayPal and a few minutes later had the original software, and now I am free to use all the applications I want.

With that one tweak, I am now extremely excited about this little phone.

Non-black laptop bag?

2007-12-29T06:44:24Z

Where would one find a canvas messenger-style laptop bag? They are proving suprisingly elusive. :(

caffeine headache mitigation tip

2007-12-15T03:25:58Z

I have found that two carefully timed ~~1 oz.~~ 1.5 oz. shots of coffee are enough to keep me from getting a caffeine headache. I usually have coffee around 1pm, so I do the first shot then, and then a followup 2-3 hours later.

It's been working well for a week or so...

interesting links

2007-10-22T05:12:33Z

Scary mouse invasion
For the medical professionals out there who don't like vodka (more detail: turns out rum and scotch work just as well)
For people considering visiting Ireland
Plumpynut: best thing ever?
Valerie Plame is pissed

Summertime in London

2007-08-10T21:14:01Z

Summertime in London.

Friday links

2007-07-27T22:24:43Z

Microsoft in China:

During Gates’ tour of China this spring, David Fitzpatrick asked Gates how he could reconcile Microsoft’s relationship with the Chinese government with China’s suppression of freedom of speech and disregard for human rights. There was a long pause, after which Gates finally said, “I don’t want to give an answer to that.”

It's just tap water... but you knew that already, right?

Bull-running is not not for the faint of heart [GRAPHIC IMAGE].

gmail

2007-07-19T22:02:12Z

I started using Google Mail the other day (just forwarding my various addresses there). I got tired of my primary email address having a small quota, which meant that when people sent me large attachments (e.g. photos) or I didn't clear out spam quickly enough, my mail would start bouncing. They finally added the one feature I really wanted: being able to set a custom From address so that mail sent from Gmail appears to come from a non-gmail.com address.

I actually haven't had a spam filter on my personal email account. Now that I'm using gmail, I'm amazed to realize how much time I've been wasting manually deleting all that crap.

Overall I'm very impressed. Usually the problem with web applications is that they offer much less functionality and performance than "rich clients", i.e. the native applications you install and run on your PC. In this case though, Gmail is actually faster than the native clients I've been using (!!), and offers a better feature set as well. For example, I really like the filter-instead-of-folder workflow, and seeing an entire two-way conversation grouped into the same page is fantastic. I don't know of "rich" email clients that do this, and Gmail has been out there for years.

It looks like there are a few things missing, such as the ability to import old email archives, but overall I'm very happy with it.

Addictive Flash game

2007-04-09T03:47:41Z

Addictive Flash game.