I decided a long time ago to stop posting “Sorry I haven’t posted…” entries whenever I’m too busy to update the blog, but I’m making an exception. I’ve only posted once in the past 2 1/2 months; I’m also behind on my email. To those who’ve emailed me in the last few weeks with no reply, I’m sorry.
I’ve been very busy at work for the last couple months, and will remain so for at least the next three months. Home’s been just as busy; with the kids finishing school for the year, there’s been a lot going on- banquets, recitals, and so on. What free time I’ve found has been spent trying to relax, largely away from the computer. I have found a little time for composing, but not nearly enough.
I bring this up now because I’m off tommorow for a 2 week vacation to Maine with my extended family. There’s a good chance there won’t be any updates here for a while, although its possible - I managed to post a picture from Maine last summer. I’ve got a few emails I’ll try to send tonight, but no promises… I’ve got to load the car, and the rest of the family arrives tonight in preparation for the drive tommorow.
As you probably haven’t noticed since I haven’t been posting, I turned off all comments a couple weeks ago due to a recent wave of spam that was getting around my controls. Since I’ll be away and unable to clean up any spam, I’m going to leave the comments off. You can always email me if you need me, just be warned that response times will likely be slow.
For a couple of months now, I’ve been seeing the eBay “It” commercials- where people are using various “It” shaped items while The Monkeys’ Sleepy Jean plays. That song is one of those that gets in my head and stays there for days. It’s a good catchy tune, although I couldn’t figure out why they chose that song.
Recently, I was having drinks with some co-workers in a bar that had closed-captioning enabled on the televisions. When the eBay commercial came on, I was surprised to see a caption that read “(The Monkeys’ Sleepy Jean plays)”. Why would you close-caption the name of a song? Seems like useless information for people who cannot hear music. For whatever reason, I continued watching long enough to see the lyrics start to appear, and I suddenly understood why all of those commercials use that that song. The second line of the chorus:
“Oh what can it mean?”
Just a little nugget for your Friday afternoon.
Update: I just love the internets. Within 2 hours, I received a comment from accesibility consultant Joe Clark (no relation), addressing my question above. Read Joe’s comment, and then have a look at his site. I especially enjoyed reading why Joe is interested in captioning.
Actual diagnosis from help desk staff member, responding to my report of recurring system lockups:
“You’ve got bulging capacitors.”
Not so loud, pal. That’s how rumors get started.
Last week, the clock/radio display in my car stopped working. I drive a 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder, and the clock/radio display is separate from the radio, sitting at the top of the dash, above the center vents (which are in turn above the radio). I decided to try and fix it yesterday, and managed to succeed in spite of myself.
Although the display didn’t work, the stereo continued to work. I had hoped the issue was just a blown fuse. After opening the fuse panel, I realized I didn’t know which of the 15 or so fuses to check. Instead of pulling each one, I ran in the house to find my owner’s manual. Ten minutes of searching later, I returned to the car, manual in hand, only to remember that the fusebox diagram is on the back of the fusebox panel cover. If I’d flipped the panel cover over when I removed it, I would have saved 10 minutes. Oops.
Upon reviewing the diagram and attempting to decode the hieroglyphics that are used in place of English, I didn’t see a fuse for the clock. I did see an extra fuse not labeled in the diagram. Of course, that fuse wasn’t blown. I also checked the radio fuse (even though the radio worked), what looked like the dashboard fuse (although the dash lights worked), and some fuse with a transistor icon (engine computer, I’d guess). No blown fuses.
At this point my only other hope was for a loose wire between the stero unit and the display unit. Checking for this meant getting inside the dash. Never a fun proposition in any car, I was fairly hopeful since the center dash portion of the Eclipse is a separate piece. After removing two screws down near the gearshift, the console cover lifted up and out.
I was on a roll, until I realized that I still couldn’t get to the display unit, which had a special cover that extends up and into the main dash. After spending 5 minutes looking for a way to remove this cover, I found the back moved a bit if I pulled a certain way. Five minutes after that, I had moved from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat, and managed to get the back of the cover to just pop out. After some more experimentation, I finally figured out the whole thing just “clipped” into place. With enough force applied to pull on it, it eventually popped out.
I removed the display, only to find the single cable connector block was securely attached. I removed the stereo, and found all cables securely attached there as well. I eventually disassembled the entire display unit, and could find no issues. Sensing defeat, I started putting everything back together.
Fortunately, this proved easy. After returning the stereo and display to their places and checking all cabling, I popped the display cover back in just as it came off, and put the center console cover back in place. Still seated in the passenger seat, I put the two screws at the bottom of the panel back. That’s when I saw it.
The Eclipse’s central dash extends down into the center console, which runs between the two front seats. Just in front of the shifter and below the screw I was replacing, on the passenger side, sits the cigarette lighter, pointed upward. In my car, the socket is always empty, ready to accept a cell phone charger. Inside the socket, I could see a dime, which I couldn’t see from the driver’s seat. At that point, everything fell into place.
After removing the dime and completing re-assembly, I turned the ignition and confirmed the display was still not working. I then checked the fuse for the cigarette lighter, which was of course blown. One replacement fuse later, I turned the ignition and watched the clock display spring to life. Had I checked that fuse when I started, I would have saved the better part of an hour. Oops.
Happy New Year! Two years ago, I tried making some resolutions. Last year, I even gauged my success for the previous year, but I never did get around to posting a new set of resolutions. I’ve never been a big fan of the New Year’s Resolution, but having that list a couple years ago did help me focus on getting some things done. In that spirit, I’ve decided to post a list of resolutions once again. Some of them aren’t traditional resolution fodder, but merely projects I’ve been planning for a while, to do “maybe after the new year, when things slow down.” Hopefully listing them here will encourage me to do them.
Personal
Lose some weight and get in shape. I know this is everyone’s #1 resolution, but I need to focus on this. When I stopped smoking four or five years ago, I was out of shape, but within my ideal weight range. I gained alot of weight in the first year after quitting, and have lowly drifted up the scale in recent years. My goal is to lose 75 pounds by the end of the year… this will put me at the top of my ideal weight range. I know from experience that diets only work for a month or two. Instead, I intend to begin by using the gym at work at least 3 times per week, reducing junk food, and reducing portions at meals. If I don’t see some progress by the end of January, I can get more aggressive.
Early to bed, early to rise. I’ve always been a night owl, and never a morning person. This often has a domino effect of a few days time, and I have more trouble getting up each morning. Fortunately my job allows me some flexibility in when I arrive, but I’d rather be leaving earlier. Also, while on vacation last summer, I somehow got into an altered cycle, getting up every morning around 7am (wicked early for me), and enjoyed being up before everyone.
Write more music. I spent a litte time at the keyboard this past year, and came up with one piece I’m happy with. I’d like to find time to do more this year.
jclark.org
New organization with tags. I’ve been feeling boxed in by my category hierarchy for a while, and tags (like del.icio.us) make much more sense. This will require some planning, since I don’t want to break any old URIs. I’ll use redirects if I have to, but a system that doesn’t need redirects would be even better. This includes story URIs, category URIs, and date archive URIs. I’m considering a switch to Wordpress like Douglas just did. This would also allow for drafts, something I’d really like to have.
New Look and Feel. I’ve been working on this, very on-and-off, for months. I’ve about come to the conclusion I can’t do what I wanted to do, but I may do a scaled down version instead. I’ve got a picture Sean took for me that I’d really like to use.
More Howtos. I’ve written a number of howto articles here over the past few years, and they tend to be among the most popular articles on the site, with lots of search engine visitors. I’ve found that I really enjoy writing them, so I intend to do more of them. I may even make a sub-site to house them.
Post More. I did pretty well for the first half of ‘05, but fell down during the second half. This post is #294, just shy of the 300 post mark I had set as a goal for the end of ‘04. I’m going to target the 400 post mark by year’s end.
Projects
Improve my email. I have a couple of different email addresses that I use; one for companies I spend money with, and one for everyone else. In addition, I’m subscribed to a bunch of mailing lists (which I need to reduce); all together, it’s a real pain to check my mail if I’m not at home on my primary Mac. I’d really like to setup to pop all of my mail into a self-hosted IMAP server. Alternatively, I might consider looking at gmail again, if I can make it work transparently with my jclark.org email address.
Improve my home network. I’ve got a couple of PCs around the house in addition to the iMac and Powerbook, and I’ve never gotten Printer Sharing to work as seemlessly as it should. I’m also currently using my old Desktop PC as little more than a printer share, which is a waste. I want to free up the PC for possible use as a server (see later items), and get the printer shared to all of the machines that need it, seemlessly. I won’t outline the issues I’ve had with this in the past, except to say that I’ll be getting started by upgrading the iMac to Tiger (which I got for Christmas).
Automate Photo Distribution. I’ve been using iPhoto on the iMac to manage pictures from our digital cameras, but this makes it difficult to print them (Due to the issues above, I can’t normally print from the iMac), and for Sherri to access them from her Windows Laptop. I normally have to explicitly export a number of photos to the old Desktop PC (going away, see above), and then she accesses them via a file share. She’d like to have copies of all the pictures on her Laptop, so she can show them when we travel. I’m going to figure out how to automatically publish all pictures in iPhoto’s library to other locations (primarilly her laptop, but possibly also to a file server as a backup). The laptop is often asleep, so it will have to sync when ever it’s awake, automagically. Also, I want to use the iPhoto albums to provide some kind of organization when exporting. Ideas for publishing/syncing include creating an Atom feed and designing a custom aggregator, and/or using rsync. I’m hoping iPhoto’s album data is stored in XML so I can get at it easily. Also, once I upgrade to Tiger, I may find some use from Automator.
Backups & Storage. I need a backup solution badly. If the iMac died today, I’d probably lose some photos, and alot of other data. Same for the other PCs. I’d really like to setup a RAID storage array somewhere on the network, and make backups to it. I’m considering a NAS Raid solution from Infrant, but I’ve also got a couple PCs that could become servers. Big storage on the network could also be helpful for number 5….
Consider dumping TiVo and building a MythTV setup. This one isn’t definate, but I’m certainly considering it. If I do, I’ll probably have 3 to 5 TV sets connected, so it could make for some fun HOWTOs.
Household projects. There’s a number of these which I won’t belabor. The biggies are cleaning and renovating the basement, and renovating the family room.
Secret Project. I can’t say now, it would spoil a surprise for someone. I’ll tell next year, if it gets completed.
So, there they are. In the past, this has been a Monthly Blogging Challenge. I don’t think anyone’s posted one for January yet, so I’ll follow tradition, and challenge everyone to post resolutions/goals for the new year. If you did this last year, be sure to review how you did as well. If you participate, please post a comment here with a link, send a trackback.
Update: fixed typos in steps 3 & 8.
My preaching the joys of Mac to all my coworkers has claimed another victim; John, who I share my office with, purchase a shiny new 20″ iMac G5 two days ago. John asked me for a way to get some files off his old Windows PC without booting Windows, because his Windows install is very flaky, and doesn’t like to boot anymore. I developed the following procedure using a Ubuntu Live CD.
This wasn’t as easy as I’d expected. Ubuntu Live is great, but it’s not designed for system recovery. I had 2 yr old copy of Knoppix in the office, but I couldn’t get everything working, so I tried a brand new Ubuntu Live CD. With a little work I got things going.
The Premise: Boot a Windows PC using a Ubuntu Live CD. Mount the Windows drive and share it using Windows File Sharing (aka Samba). I chose to share with Samba because just about everything can be a client. Windows, Mac OS X, and most Unixen/Linuxen can retrieve files from Samba shares.
The Requirements: Ubuntu Live CD, network connection between the unbootable machine and the machine that will recover the files, and a live internet connection (proxied is ok). The internet connection is required because the Live CD is missing a key piece of software, which we can get with a net connection. Other LiveCDs may not have this restriction (a recent Knoppix, perhaps, but that’s another HOWTO). Note that if your recovery system is a Mac, you don’t even need a router/switch to connect the machines… the Mac’s ethernet port is auto-sensing, and will reverse directions if connected to a PC’s ethernet card with a standard RJ-45 cable. Sweet.
The Steps:
Boot from a Ubuntu Live CD. This method was tested with Ubuntu 5.10 “Breezy Badger”. It should work with Ubuntu 5.4, “Hoary Hedgehog” as well, although I have not (yet) tested this.
Open a Terminal window. From the menus at the top of the screen, choose Applications | Accessories | Terminal.
Now we need to create a mount point for the Windows drive. We’ll use the traditional location of /mnt.
cd /mnt
sudo mkdir windrive
Run the Ubuntu Disks Manager. From the system menu bar, choose System | Administration | Disks. In the Disks Manager, find the Hard Disk icon that represents your Windows drive. It is usually /dev/hda. You may see other Hard Disks that you don’t recognize, these are virtual devices created by the LiveCD.
On the partitions tab, locate your Windows partition. For many systems, there will be only one partition to choose. The Partition Type should be (something like) NTFS, FAT, or FAT32. In the Access Path text box, enter /mnt/windrive. Make a note of the “Device” value. In the example below (and on many machines), its /dev/hda1. Click Enable.
Return to the terminal window. Type mount and press enter. In the output generated, look for the device name from the last step, and note the value after the word “type”. Pay special attention to spelling, case, etc. In the example below, our device /dev/hda1 has a type of ntfs.
Although the windows drive is now mounted, we can’t use it yet to share, because it’s only accessible to the root user, due to the default mount behavior for Windows drives. We need to remount the drive ourselves and override this. First, return to the Disks Manager, and Click Disable. Close Disks Manager.
In the terminal window again, mount the drive manually. Be sure to substitute your device name if it’s not /dev/hda1, and to substitue your filesystem type, if it’s not ntfs. The ls command should show you the contents of your Windows drive.
sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/windrive -o "umask=022"
ls windrive
So far, so good- we can read the contents of the Windows drive as the default user (named, oddly enough, ubuntu). Now we have to enable Windows File Sharing, aka Samba. The bad news is, the LiveCD doesn’t include the smbd, the Samba Daemon. The good news is, you can install it automatically, and in memory (since we’re running from CD). If you access the web via a proxy server, step 10 is for you. If not, skip ahead to step 11.
(Proxy users only) We need to tell Ubuntu’s package system how to use your proxy to access the Internets. From the system menu bar, choose System | Administration | Synaptic Package Manager. From Synaptic’s menu bar, choose Settings | Preferences. On the Network tab, enter your proxy settings. Click OK, and quit Synaptic.
From the system menu bar, choose System | Administration | Shared Folders. The Shared Folders app will start, and warn you that no sharing services are installed. Check the box for Samba, and click Apply. An installation progress dialog will appear; when the installation is complete, you will see the message “Changes Applied”. Close the dialog.
In the Sharing window, choose Add. In the Share Folder dialog that appears, change the path to /mnt/windrive. Set the name to Windrive, and check the “Allow browsing folder” box. Click ok.
We’ve told the system to share the Windows drive via Windows File Sharing, but Samba will prompt for a user name and password that don’t exist. Let’s fix that. Return to the terminal window, and run a couple of commands. After the first command, you’ll be asked for a new SMB password. This is the password you’ll use from another computer to access the share. Use something you’ll remember, this is just a temporary hack. I used ‘test’.
sudo smbpasswd -a ubuntu
sudo sh -c "echo 'ubuntu=\"ubuntu\"' > /etc/samba/smbusers"
We’re ready to test. The easiest way to connect to your machine is using the IP address. You can check your IP with the ifconfig command. Look for a line that begins “inet addr”.
Test it! From Windows, you can use Start | Run… and enter “\172.17.25.46\windrive” (change the IP, of course). When prompted for credentials, user name is “ubuntu”, password is “test” (or whatever you used in step 13).
You can now access the files on the Windows drive of the PC running Ubunutu Live. I’ll try to get a Mac OS X screen shot up later.
I almost never link and run, but this was just too good. Software geeks, enjoy your moment while you can. The Day of Reckoning is at hand.
P.S. If you have been living under a rock don’t know who Blake Ross is, here you go.
Update: The post seems to have been removed. Shame.
Even though this is completely the wrong time of year for this, I’m posting this recipie for pie crust, because it makes the best crust in the known universe, and because I just found the yellowing copy of the recipe that’s been lost to me for several years. So, for posterity:
Basic Pie Crust
Makes 3 single 8-9 inch crusts (use two single crusts for a double crust pie, such as Apple Pie)
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water
Place all ingredients in a large bowl. Cut the cold butter into small pieces, tabespoon-size or less. Using a hand-held pastry blender with bowed metal blades, cut the butter into the flour mixture or rub the butter into it by hand. Mix until it resembles coarse meal.
Add the ice water, two tablespoons at a time, until the pie dough just holds together. You probably won’t need all the water. Remember, the pie dough should not be wet and sticky. If it appears crumbly, add a little more water.
If using a food processor: Put all the ingredients, except the water, into the bowl of the machine and process until a coarse meal forms. Add the water, a little at a time, until a ball forms.
Now, gather the pie dough into a ball and place on a large piece of plastic wrap. Fold one edge of the wrap over the dough and flatten it out with the heel of your hand. Wrap the pie dough with the plastic wrap and refrigerate it for about 45 minutes to an hour.
After the pastry has chilled, divide it into three equal-size pieces. For a double-crust pie, let two of the pieces of dough sit at room temperature a few minutes before rolling each out. Flour the work surface and rolling pin as needed to keep the dough from sticking. Roll out the pie dough. Wrap and chill any unused dough.
So yes, I’m back from vacation- have been for a week and a half, I just haven’t gotten back into the swing of posting yet. Dugh recently called me on it as part a post about astronomy software. This turns out to be an excellent coincidence, because I was away in Maine.
My father is from Maine, and I’ve been going there on vacation since I was a child. Maine is where my interest in astronomy was born. The skies on Mt. Desert Island are just incredible on a clear night- indescribable. Without the glare from polution and city lights, the sky is very dark- except for the countless stars. The Milky Way is so bright and packed with stars that you could mistake it for a cloud at first, until your eyes adjust and start resolving it into myriad distant stars. Every time I go back, all it takes is the first clear night to instantly rekindle my passion for the night sky. My brother-in-law, Bob, was with us for the first time (this was a big family vacation, 10 of us in all), and couldn’t believe the sky- he’d never seen anything like it.
While I was there, I visted Island Astronomy for the first time. It’s a small astronomy shop located in a family lighthouse. Visit the site, and you may recognize the picture- it’s very highly photographed. The shop’s owner, Peter Lord, is a great guy. I really enjoyed talking to him. Of course, I didn’t escape unscathed. Although I got an 10″ Dobsonian a last year for my birthday, I never have a scope in Maine because the Dob is too large to travel with. I solved this problem by buying an Orion 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain from Peter. It’s a small scope, but perfect for travel. I got some great views of Jupiter with it after the fireworks on July 4. Island Astronomy also has viewing sessions and workshops for novices- If you visit Bar Harbor (or anywhere else on MDI), be sure to take a trip to Bernard on the quite side of the Island and check out Island Astronomy.
In my comments on Dugh’s post, I mentioned that the best way to learn the constellations, named stars, etc., is a good book and a clear night. Even in areas without the spectacular views of Maine, you can learn about the sky just by looking. This time of year, the Big Dipper (part of Ursa Major) is high in the northern sky and easily identified. With a little knowledge, this familliar sky sight is your signpost to the North Star (Polaris), the Little Dipper, Arcturus (brightest of the Summer stars), Spica (another bright star), as well as the circumpolar constallations such as Draco, Casseiopia, and Cepheus. Also easy to find are the three stars of the Summer Triangle - Vega, Deneb, and Altair, as well as their constellations Lyra, Cygnus, and Aquilla.
For a great guide to learning these and more, check out H.A. Rey’s classic The Stars: A New Way to See Them. If the author’s name seems familliar, it is - he’s the author of the Curious George books. And yes, he illustrated The Stars. For something with a bit more info, I’d never give up my copy of National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky - it’s a great, highly portable guide.
However you like to enjoy the night sky, make sure you do so from time to time. Just go out, and look up.
Still on Vacation. For now, enjoy a picture.
Shot with my Kodak DX3900, in native b&w mode.