Lately I’ve been doing a lot of work between my multiple computers and since I like having only one monitor/keyboard/mouse shared amongst them, I’ve been using VNC to control then. A friend of mine has told me that Apple Remote Desktop is faster, so I decided to spend the money and order a copy. I received my copy this morning and I have to say that I’m blown away. My network is no slouch (gigabit ethernet) so it wasn’t the bandwidth that was the problem in the sluggishness of VNC. Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) is not only faster, but easier to use. If I want to move a file to another machine, I just drag it to the window. It does lots of other stuff, but just being able to control machines (share the screen) makes ARD worth it.
Completed another race
Today I completed the America’s Finest City Half Marathon. I’m still not sure what my motivation is for continuing to run, but I figured I was already in shape from June’s marathon, so I might as well do a half marathon. This race was a completely different experience from the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon. This was significantly smaller than the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon with a limit of 6000 half marathon runners (it sold out) compared to over 20,000. The budget was much smaller as noticed with the race expo being held in the basement (basically) of a local hotel instead of the convention center. One of the biggest issues I saw with the race, due to its start location, is that we had to board buses to be driven about 25 minutes to the start line instead of basically driving right up to it. So I had to get up at 4:30 am for the 7 am start. Also, the race numbers were given out alphabetically instead of by estimated finish time and then everyone regardless of estimated finish time, started all bunched up. It took me over 2 miles of zig zagging before I was able to maintain my pace.
I did quite well and beat my goal of 2 hours (just over a 9 minute mile) by coming in at 1:49:29 for a pace of an 8 minute, 22 second mile. Not bad, in my opinion.
So, next year, I’ve decided to just run the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon (I’ve already signed up) and spend other times with activities like mountain biking and I know my wife wants to go kayaking, so maybe we can do that.
Is programming really engineering?
In a recent blog post that I read, the author said that he had just finished reading To Engineer is Human and said that programming is not engineering. While that may be true in the pure sense of programming, but to say that all programmers don’t do engineering is absolutely incorrect in my opinion. I read the book mentioned during my 4 years of engineering school to earn a BS in Engineering at Harvey Mudd College and find it hard to believe that I don’t use some of that education in my career as a software engineer (a term that the blog post author doesn’t believe in). I do a significant amount of design work in my day to day work and have to problem solve which I consider engineering. Pure programming, in my opinion, is the stuff that is being outsourced to countries like Russia and India (not to say that those countries don’t have engineers). Anyone can write code according to specification, but it takes thinking to design software, analyze risks (in most cases not physical risks), and do cost/benefit analysis; skills that I learned in my training as an engineer.
This will probably be an ongoing debate that will never have an agreement, but it saddens me to see people lump together people that have an engineering background with people that just decided to write code as a hobby (some of those people are good enough, in my opinion, to be engineers).
That damn cross, again
Congress, senate, and the president decided to bypass a court ruling and enact a law to transfer the Mt. Soledad cross to the United States government. There seems to be much rejoicing by our mayor and city council members about this; rightfully so, the city no longer has to pay to defend the cross that shouldn’t be there; the federal government will now be entangled in the legal battle about a religious symbol on government property. As I’ve said before (I think), I have no problems with people’s religious beliefs as long as they are not imposed on me and likewise I will not impose my religious beliefs on others. Not only is this cross on land that I, as a taxpayer, own, my tax dollars are now paying to keep this religious symbol. The cross just needs to be moved and then the matter will be over.
It appears to me that in the last few years (probably since George W. Bush came into office), that our country has brought religion more into politics. I don’t seem to recall stupid laws, rulings, etc. being so prominent prior to 2000. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention or maybe the president has decided that his sole purpose in office is to make everyone belief in his right wing conserative Christian beliefs. This kind of imposing religion on others (which is being done by the law about stem cells, limiting abortion, etc.) seems to be what radical extremist in Iraq, Iran, and the rest of the Middle East are trying to do.
Airport Security
Last SUnday, we returned from our week long trip to San Francisco/San Jose and as usual came back on a plane. This was our first flight after the new rules about no liquids and the increased paranoia about terrorism. The San Jose airport didn’t appear to have tighetened security and we passed through security without problems as usual. Most people seemed to be adjusting to the new rules. When we arrived in San Diego, I saw national guard troops at the gates apparently inspecting all carry on luggage. The difference in security at the airports makes you go “hmmm”. It isn’t unusual to have different rules and practices at different airports, but if the government is serious about security, it needs to be consistent. What kind of scared me about the troops is that they had a bucket full of confiscated liquids and gels; this was at the gate where all the passengers had already passed through the security checkpoint. Were the security screeners asleep at the wheel? Shouldn’t everything have been searched before hand?
I’m not convinced that the screening at the airport will really prevent terrorism. In my opinion, the only effective way to counter terrorism is through intelligence like the plot foiled in the UK. If I thought hard enough, I’m sure I could find holes in airport security, but since I’m not a terrorist, I won’t spend time thinking about it.
Apple Newton – 10 year old technology lives on
I received my Newton MP2100 last week and it is everything that I had remembered (for the most part). The handwriting recognition works well and everything seems so elegant about this 10 year old technology. In fact, I’m writing this while sitting at the beach watching my wife surf (I’ll post it when I get home). People have developed WiFi and Bluetooth drivers for it (the Newton I purchased had both a WiFi and a Bluetooth card) and there are tons of programs for it. In addition, I know many in the old Newton developer community, so I have a wider access to free programs (free is always good). In addition, I loaded the HP IRDA printers drivers for it and was able to print from any application to my LaserJet 2100MP; a feat that still cannot be accomplished on Palm OS. I found a few email programs out there including MailV so that I can send my notes and such to myself via email. People are working on or have written apps to communicate with OS X. There are a few down sides to the Newton. It has always had a heap problem so you have to be careful with how many programs you install. I’m using NewtCase to “freeze” stuff I’m not using. The device doesn’t have USB so transferring stuff over the serial port (while doable) is slow. It doesn’t have color, but I’m not sure I mind that. I’m still wading through the hundreds of programs available to see what I want to install. SO far, I have a ToDo list program and I’m using Notes and Calls.
I don’t really remember how to program NewtonScript so it’s hard to hack away at programs (I want to bypass the registration code for the WiFi driver as the author is no longer accepting registrations for it and it delays for 10 seconds each time I insert the card). The Newton was so flexible in terms of modifying virtually any application (good from a hacker point of view, bad from the point of view of selling software) and it was very extensible. The soup method of storing information allowed other programs to add fields to say the Names application while still remaining compatible with the rest of the OS (everything is integrated so if you use the Calls application, you can look up a phone number). Palm OS isn’t this flexible and it hasn’t been until Palm, Inc. wrote their own Contacts application that the concept of extensible fields came to be; however the format is not compatible with older devices.
Did I mention flash memory? If the batteries die on this device, nothing is lost. Something that the Palm OS only got recently.
Overall, I’m quite pleased with my new acquisition. I still have more to remember and more to play with; this is the most excited I’ve been about technology in a long time.
Can’t people read?
I’m sure not all smokers are inconsiderate idiots, but it seems that many I encounter are. At the airport last Sunday, I couldn’t help but to shake my head at the smoker in this picture sitting on the bench that says “Thank you For Not Smoking”. It was kind of tricky to get the picture without looking too suspicious. Click on the left picture and then look closely at the bench; an enlargement of the sign is in the second picture.
TiVo needs to get a clue
I called TiVo and after 20 minutes, go to speak to a support rep. When I mentioned that I had a Pioneer box, the rep said to call TiVo. I said, no, it is a software issue and it happened after the upgrade this past weekend. Then she said that the issue will be resolved in the next update, but didn’t know when that would be available. So why did she tell me it was a Pioneer problem? Today I hate TiVo.
Nice job, TiVo!
We got back from our trip on Sunday and found that the TiVo (Pioneer 810H) was stuck. I yanked the power cord and rebooted it. It came back up and said it had done an upgrade. OK, fine, I like the TiVo upgrades as they add new features. However, this time TiVo made a royal mess. First off, the unit needed a kick start to get running after the update meaning we didn’t record shows for 2 days. Second off, navigating the menus is extremely slow. Third off, one of the shows we recorded after the upgrade (Saved on TNT which my wife really likes) had some hiccups where the picture was pixelated and it stuttered during playback. Reading the forums shows that I’m not the only person with this problem.
I’m on hold now waiting for TiVo after calling once and mentioning Pioneer which gave me the Pioneer number and disconnected me. Pioneer said to call TiVo and not mention Pioneer (I kind of figured that, but thought I’d play by the rules). We’ll see what TiVo has to say when they’ll fix this mess. Uggh.
Hand washing 101
This past week at WWDC, most men that left the restroom washed their hands which is good news. However, many never took hand washing 101. The first part of hand washing is water, the second part is soap and the third part is actually rubbing hands together for at least 15 seconds. It is particularly disgusting to see educated people not washing their hands. Several years ago, a family friend mentioned how he always uses a paper towel to open the bathroom door when leaving. I’ve gone one step further and use my elbow to make the paper dispenser eject the towels. There are so many germs around that I just can’t understand people not washing their hands. Yuck!