Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/07/16/airhowa-png/
Virgin America has wireless access on its flights. For $13 you get enough bandwidth to video conference. It was fun.
I tried not to talk too much or too loudly from my seat. To be sure, everyone on Virgin America is pretty much immersed in their personal entertainment anyway so its not so much of a thing.
(Thanks, Todd, for the screen capture.)
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/07/10/wfa-work-from-air/
I’m flying to New York. Fortunately, I needn’t lose a work day because for $15, Virgin America has got me on the Internet!
It is zippy enough, and the latency is perfectly fine, so I am guessing it is a terrestrial network. VPN works fine, too.
http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
Last Result:
Download Speed: 964 kbps (120.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 337 kbps (42.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
It is a bit cramped, for sure. Fortunately, my Dell Mini 10 arrived yesterday, with Ubuntu pre-installed. (Vendor Linux!) I hope to write more about that later, but this is a zippy little thing that is probably about as usable as you’re ever going to get in a coach class airplane seat. Yay!
Virgin claim to have power plugs at each seat. I haven’t seen mine, but given the battery life this thing claims, I shouldn’t need to plug in for the duration of this continental crossing.
That looks like . . . Nevada. No . . . we’re above US Route 6 in Utah. 2112 miles to go. That’s another thing I dig about Virgin America: an interactive map at the seat terminal, and an adjustable headrest, which Southwest lacks . . .
Well, this is a work day, better get back to working.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/07/04/snapshot-my-e-mail-archive/
0-14:22 djh@ratchet ~> ls -lh mail/archive-* -rw------- 1 djh djh 18M Jun 14 17:17 mail/archive-1997 -rw------- 1 djh djh 29M Jun 14 17:16 mail/archive-1998 -rw------- 1 djh djh 18M Jun 14 17:13 mail/archive-1999 -rw------- 1 djh djh 26M Jun 14 17:13 mail/archive-2000 -rw------- 1 djh djh 25M Jun 14 17:11 mail/archive-2001 -rw------- 1 djh djh 18M Jun 17 2004 mail/archive-2002 -rw------- 1 djh djh 25M Jun 14 17:09 mail/archive-2003 -rw------- 1 djh djh 15M Jun 14 17:08 mail/archive-2004 -rw------- 1 djh djh 63M Jun 14 17:05 mail/archive-2005 -rw------- 1 djh djh 202M Jun 14 16:54 mail/archive-2006 -rw------- 1 djh djh 362M Jun 14 18:06 mail/archive-2007 -rw------- 1 djh djh 202M Jun 14 19:17 mail/archive-2008
I recently went through, and using mutt’s date-range filters, revised my e-mail archives, most notably saving messages stored in Gmail into these annual mbox archives.
I think it was around late 2005 that I started using Flickr, so the ramp up in sizes is pictures being e-mailed from mobile devices.
I delete most e-mail that I receive, but I pretty much archive all personal correspondence, and anything I send.
Also, I was disappointed that when I tried to copy archival messages into Gmail, via IMAP, Gmail would interpret the message date as the date it was copied in to the archive, and not the date the messages was created. That was disappointing. I like Gmail’s search capability, so it would have been nice to give it access to my corpus.
Mainly though, I dig Gmail’s interface, especially while traveling. But I recently got mutt running again because it is a much faster way to step through an Inbox and delete / reply / Archive than clicky click web interface. If only I could give it access to my Gmail contacts . . .
March 1997 was when my server hard drive crashed, and after that I began to take disaster recovery more seriously.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/06/17/adsense-suspended/
Back in 2005, Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products & User Experience at Google, stated:
“There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.”
Apparently Google lacks the same sort of respect for the web sites of its AdSense customers, because they started putting animated advertising on my site.
“Say it aint so.”
According to Google’s “self-service tech support” there is no way to turn them off, short of reverting to text-only ads.
This is wrong on a few levels. And I’m not sure if Google is just being its regular sloppy self or if they are getting desperate for revenue such that they’re finding more wiggle room in the “don’t be evil” philosophy.
Whatever is going on down in Mountain View, I will just get along without the $10/mo or so I’ve gotten from AdSense revenue.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/06/17/spam-honorable-mention/
I hate spam at least as much as the next guy. Heck, fighting spam is my day job. But I just gotta say, this little guy who made it through the Gmail spam filter this morning just made me smile:
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/06/11/howto-python-feedparser-twiki-rss/
To make up for my snarkiness in my last post . . . it is an easy matter of fetching the WebRss node from Twiki and running it through the Universal Feed Parser:
# Twiki RSS Feed
twiki_rss_url='http://localhost/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebRss'
import feedparser
import time
import calendar
# http://www.feedparser.org/
d = feedparser.parse(twiki_rss_url)
for e in d['entries']:
# e.updated_parsed = tuple UTC
# calendar.timegm = seconds UTC
# time.localtime = tuple locale
print time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M",
time.localtime(calendar.timegm(e.updated_parsed)))
print e.rdf_value # Author
print e.title
print
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/06/11/i-hate-twiki/
Seriously, WikiWords are the dumbest idea for marking a link to a document node. But when you generate HTML that looks like this, you are doing it wrong:
<body class=”patternViewPage”><a name=”PageTop”></a>
<div id=”patternScreen”>
<div id=”patternPageShadow”>
<div id=”patternPage”>
<div id=”patternWrapper”><div id=”patternOuter”>
<div id=”patternFloatWrap”>
<div id=”patternMain”><div id=”patternClearHeaderCenter”></div>
<div id=”patternMainContents”><div class=”patternTop”>
<div class=”patternToolBar”>
<div class=”patternToolBarButtons”>
I mean, that just means that you have gone batshit insane.
Anyway, back to learning how to parse information from HTML documents using Python . . .
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/05/07/save-tesla-get-art/
Public Domain from teslasience.org
Are you a fan of Nikola Tesla? His last remaining laboratory, Wardenclyffe, on Long Island, where he had ambitions of developing a worldwide network of free electrical power, is threatened with sale and demolition. The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, a would-be museum, wishes to purchase, preserve, and museum-ify the land. They’ll accept donations via personal check. This random lady on Livejournal will accept donations on their behalfonline casino via PayPal, write a check, and for donations in excess of $20, she will draw you a picture of Nikola Tesla, “to your PG-rated specifications” and mail it to you.
(Thanks, beatonna!)
Update: Andrew suggested this crucial documentary on Nikola Tesla.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/05/04/2008-tech-ppe/
I enjoyed Pingdom’s recent posts about the size of technology companies, as well as the money they are making, and I asked myself how that equates to the average profit made per employee.
So, I borrowed Pingdom’s numbers, which Pingdom borrowed from Google Finance, and then I quickly larned myself on the Perl GD::Graph module and I generated my own graph:
Or, if you prefer:
| Company | PPE |
|---|---|
| Sun | $11,920.37 |
| HP | $25,950.16 |
| Yahoo | $30,882.35 |
| IBM | $30,969.62 |
| Amazon | $31,553.40 |
| Dell | $32,418.30 |
| Oracle | $63,699.41 |
| Intel | $64,121.21 |
| eBay | $109,876.54 |
| Adobe | $118,609.41 |
| Cisco | $121,731.77 |
| Apple | $150,937.50 |
| Baidu | $164,139.44 |
| Microsoft | $194,285.71 |
| $209,779.81 |
What is Baidu? Think of it as Chinese Google and you’ll know as much as I do. I’d reckon that profit-per-employee would be very roughly predictive of job security. My feeling about Google is that they are perpetually understaffed due to their traumatic recruiting process.
If you want to play, feel free to grab my ugly hack of a Perl script, the input data file, or unsorted output.
Update: Pingdom took my suggestion to heart and published their own summary.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/02/06/g1-rc33-update/
Google Latitude was announced yesterday. I was annoyed as heck that when I tried it on my G1 it said “coming soon” even though Google claimed it was supported on the G1 . . . well, pending an update that would roll “soon” . . . and of course there’s no way to contact the Google Latitude team to say WTF?!
I found a link to a T-Mobile message forum that said the update was rolling out gradually: some people have been updated, and others will receive their updates over the next two weeks. Two weeks? I want it now!! And I am not the only one. Waiting is for suckers, so I borrowed a mini-USB cable from a co-worker and upgraded my phone manually, thanks to these awesome instructions:
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/02/05/how-to-get-rc33-on-your-g1-without-the-wait/
Note: The “End” key means the red “call end / power” button.
In the time it took to write those two paragraphs, my G1 updated itself and now I can go play with Google Latitude!
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/01/20/windows-7-beta-installed/
Well, I found a torrent and acquired the .iso file. How to verify that it is legitimate? Well, unlike free software projects, Microsoft doesn’t supply checksums, so I Googled the md5sum:
0-23:03 djh@noneedto Windows 7 Official Beta 1 build 7000 x64 EN$ md5sum Windows\ 7\ Official\ Beta\ 1\ build\ 7000\ x64\ EN.iso 773fc9cc60338c612af716a2a14f177d Windows 7 Official Beta 1 build 7000 x64 EN.iso
Well, no panics over a trojan. The install process was quite boring. It loaded files, then it presented, of all things, a blue screen! But not the blue screen of death, but the blue screen of light glowing from the top. The computer sat there a good five minutes showing me the blue screen of light as I wondered to myself whether the install had wedged. Eventually a button appeared that said like “Install Windows Now” and I chose my old Windows XP partition. You can’t “upgrade” from Windows XP: it just moves the old Windows out of the way and you get to dig around your hard drive to find all your old files and drag them to where Windows 7 can find them.
I also had to whip out the old Knoppix Live Boot CD to restore my bootblock, because unlike free software projects, Microsoft assumes that there is only one Operating System you care to run on your computer. I Googled up this reference page and ran the following:
sudo grub > root (hd0,1) > setup (hd0) > quit
My details differ slightly because my Linux partition is on the second partition, whilst Windows is on the first.
The initial impression is that it is really zippy. I installed the free version of Avira AntiVir and Windows shut up about virus protection. I was pleased when Windows gave me a dialog asking if I really wanted Avira to edit the system settings so that it could start on boot: hopefully this will lead to less cruft in users’ systems as Windows 7 gets deployed.
The “Shutdown” item doesn’t actually present a menu to Shutdown or Reboot, it just shuts the thing down–fast!
My next adventure will be to figure out how to turn down the power supply fan speed. I accomplished this with lm-sensors and the like so now Linux runs very quietly–until Windows can run without aggravating my Tinnitus I’m not likely to use it much. I’m also not sure what I would do with Windows, besides occasionally play a PC game or possibly manage photos. I have gotten very much at home with Linux.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/01/11/windows-7-beta-fail/
Ever since I upgraded the guts in my computer my Windows XP partition has failed to boot. Even the Windows XP install / recovery disk blue screens! Oh well: I guess I’m stuck on Linux or whatever, which had flaky support for the Ethernet until one day Ubuntu updated its kernel and then my Ethernet device started working consistently. I guess I just can’t play games. Still, it would be nice to be able to boot into Windows, you know? I could watch Netflix-on-demand, and Windows XP is probably the nicest interface for uploading photos in to Flickr. Though, GNOME or whatever I’m using right now works okay . . .
I have heard that Windows 7 is Microsoft backing away from Vista, which I have never had occasion to use, and just kind of going back and fleshing out the utilitarian OS that is or was Windows XP. Hell, I loathe Microsoft but I like Windows XP! So, when I heard about the free Beta download I was eager to try it out.
But I can’t. I register and everything and get to the download screen which has a big “Download Now” button on it and I click and click and nothing happens. Why is that?
What web browsers support the Windows 7 Beta download experience?
Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 support the Windows 7 Beta download experience. Please note that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 users behind a proxy server should use the automatic configuration for their proxy server for the best download experience.
Windows Beta 7 Download Experience? OMFG you have got to be kidding me! In order to transfer a file to a remote computer you skip decades of open, portable, universally-supported protocols like FTP, HTTP, or even BitTorrent and opt instead for an experience? An “experience” that only works for those who are running the latest version of the Microsoft Web Browser on the Microsoft Operating System? Because, you know, I guess the geeky kids willing to try out weird new Operating Systems would all be running Windows on their desktop, right?
I’ll give them credit for trying to open up with a “public beta” but better luck next time, Microsoft!
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/01/06/photos-flickr-073/
Changes
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/01/05/photos-flickr-072/
After another long hiatus, I fixed up my Photos Flickr WordPress plugin.
Changes
readme.txtSee Photos Flickr in Action
You can track plans and progress on my “projects” page.
Update: looks like pagination is broken. Joy!
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2009/01/02/wp-super-cache/
I just enabled a caching plugin. This ought to make browsing the site a wee bit faster. More importantly, it should reduce stress on the web server, which is an older beast managed by friends. If anyone notices new or unexpected behavior, please give me a shout!
Happy 2009, everybody!
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