Coming up for air update: Wireless Project initiative

So what the heck have I been up to all this time?! Well...while working like a dog, buying new computer and networking equipment, fitting in a vacation to see the bro who's a bro, while also drinking a lot of his awesome wine, somewhere in there, I decided to get off my butt and start a "local wireless initiative". Otherwise known as, er, getting rid of of many computer or networking wires as possible.

I started with my usb attached printer. Since I have a laptop that I normally don't keep anywhere near my desk (where the all-in-one copier/scanner/printer is), if I ever wanted to print something, I had to walk my laptop (remembering to unplug everything) over to the desk to plug into the usb hub. Ugh. So...I plugged a donated usb bluetooth adapter into my printer, and I can now stream print jobs from my couch 10 feet away (yeah, yeah, small condo). Totally free!

The next project was to get rid of the wired keyboard and mouse. I've shunned bluetooth solutions in the past because the laggy and unresponsive feel of the input was just something I couldn't live with, especially if I was going to be doing some serious gaming with these periphals. This year seems to be the renaissance of rf devices in the 2.4 Ghz range. And when this keyboard/mouse combination became available, I knew I couldn't put it off any longer. No lag, awesome keyboard, and mouse with some serious juice, including a couple of programmable buttons, and a scroll wheel that scrolls vertical AND horizontal. Wut?! Yeah. Really. All wireless, and not bluetooth. $70.

The last wire I had to get rid of was my USB external hard drive. I love it, it's light weight and portable, but...there's this USB cable that I always have to have plugged into the laptop if I wanted to access the files on it. So...I have this Wi-Fi draft n gaming router that I actually get 300 mbps out of, and it has a USB port on it. There is a firmware update for it that allows USB hard drives to be accessible from the WAN connection...duh! Update the firmware, install the network sharing utility (a modified hot-sync'ing utility, from what I can tell), and bam...wireless USB. Since USB 2.0 can transmit at a theoretical limit of 240 mbps, and 802.11n is as fast as 300 mbps, that means that I didn't lose any speed at all when I went with this solution. I can play HD content, wirelessly, from this hard drive, and there is no lag, or dropped frames, at all. To put it a different way. I can play all my video files from this hard drive at the same speed that I already enjoyed from a wired connection. Bliss! And free! (Well, the router cost a bit, but I didn't buy it for this project.) UPDATE: USB 2.0 is supposed to have a limit of 480 Mbps, so I already lost some there. I also noticed that while I could play 720p HD content with no lag, 1080p is a totally different story. Also, file transfer rates are way slower than a wired connection, only in the 1.25 to 1.75 MB/s range. These rates could be related to settings or firmware. DLink forums are rife with complaints about the firmware updates for this router, so be warned. I expected 1080p content to lag, but did not expect file transfers to be this slow. I'll provide an update if I figure this out.
UPDATE 2: After crawling through the support forums for this particular feature of D-Link routers, this is about the fastest it's going to get. Full HD content that requires bit rates of 8 mbps and up just will not be able to stream from the USB attached hard drive without some lag. Faster (and more expensive) external USB drives can get up to about 3.75 MB/s, or ~30 mbps. I'm getting in the 14 mbps range, but streaming without buffering is what causes the lag on 1080p content. I was able to configure my Media Player Classic Home Cinema to handle the buffering (using its max setting in the the "EVR custom pres" video renderer), but it still felt like a compromise. Wired USB compares at 189 mbps or 23.8 MB/s for real world file transfer speed. And no lag. Meh. My router has the capability of Wireless USB, but I guess I can live with one more wire into my laptop.

So what's left in the wireless project initiative? I now have only 2 wires plugged into my laptop: an HDMI cable into my receiver, and an AC Adapter. If a standard ever gets adopted between WirelessHD or UWB (Ultra Wide Band), and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg, then I can get rid of the HDMI cable. And...if the wireless recharging experiments finally come to market, I can get rid of the AC Adapter, too. Even so, I'm pretty happy that I was able to pair all my wires down to just these last 2, and all relatively easy, and affordably.

Valentine's Day 2009

Well, folks, it's that time of the year again. Of course we've seen the obligatory stories on anti-western sentiment around the world. Normally, I'm all for being against this holiday, but from the angle of attacking it as crassly commercial. But times are tough in 2009, and several economic sectors are hurting, especially retail, so I had a different idea about what should happen on this faux celebratory occasion. Without further ado, this year's effort.
Enjoy!

Valentine’s Day 2009: The Valentine’s Day Bailout

So Bailout, TARP, and Stimulus
Are s’posed to save the day.
But Retail, just as perilous,
Has yet to get some play.

Now comes that madeup holiday,
Already in dire straits
From Anti-Westerns making hay
Of lewd romantic dates.

Don’t florists also need a boost
To sell their fragrant wares?
Or should consumers be induced
To buy some plushy bears?

And candy makers, what of them?
Maligned for years and years,
Expanding waists and LDL,
They’re now reduced to tears.

Ah, Valentine, what would you think
If you still lived today,
To see your feast day on the brink
Of fiscal disarray?

Consumerism, long denounced,
Its debt it can repay,
If stocks and bonds can get a bounce
Before Valentine’s Day.
-James Morris, February 14, 2009

Update, Geek-Style

So it's been a while since my last update. Okay, okay, it's been a while since I've posted regularly at all. Yep, rasserfrasser employers with their insane ideas about steady work to go with that steady paycheck.

Anyway, just to give you an update since the office move. Not only did I get blistered thumbs from checking every data port over that weekend, but when I came into the office that Monday, the 2 veeps spear-heading the move showed up in my cube all ashen-faced. Geh, what now?! One of the servers that host our website decided that this was the perfect time to have its hard drive go belly up. Backups? Nah, of course not. Image the server that survived? Nup, not an option, either, since it would take a week to get a replacement HDD delivered that matched the specs. Cheh. Guess who has to rebuild a whole new server from scratch...in one day...while also continuing to do all the work currently scheduled for our customers' projects? I've been playing catchup ever since.

After that, I also had an internal project to maintain our partnership status with Microsoft as an Independent Software Vendor, ISV for short. Every two years my company has to go through this process to get our software tested, and it's been my burden to package up our software and provide instructions so that a third party tester can validate that our bits meet the requirements. If we pass, we get all these goodies from Microsoft to play with, like their latest versions of, well, everything. Literally tens of thousands of dollars worth of software. Free. All so that we, as an ISV, can develop our own code to work with it. It's quite the chore. But this year was the fastest our code ever got tested. And passed. For me, though, it was just another task to check off as completed, so stop bugging me about it, Mr Veep in charge of whatever you're in charge of!

Well, this is my last week before I go on a two-week vacation, spent in much warmer climes than frosty Chicago. The year-end rush to chase every bit of revenue down is in full swing. I'm cross-training, like 4 people, just so that the company can squeeze out just that little bit while I'm gone. Who know if any of these projects will actually happen while I'm gone? Meh, I guess I'll find out when I get back because I don't intend to check any email or answer any phone calls from the office while I'm out exposing my skin to light that isn't generated by heating up exotic chemical gases in glass tubes. You know, the sun!? Four days till I'm on a plan out west. I hope I can survive!

Michael Crichton Dead at 66

Of cancer. A sad day for science fiction aficionados. I will especially miss the passion and wit he brought in recent years to skepticism of the theory of Anthropogenic CO2-based Global Warming.

Windows 3.11 Finally Dead

Apparently, there was some sort of brouhaha going on in Chicago yesterday...related to hope, or change. Or something. But that's not what this post is about.

No, this post is about death and finality. The finality of no more embedded licenses. Of a 15 year-old OS. Ah, Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, how nostalgic. Finally, we won't have to see that antiquated Windows™ logo as a screen saver on a beat-up cash register at some really, really, really run-down gas station.

That's hope and change I can live with.

Geek Trenches #25: The Office Move

Say you've established geek cred in your company, even in a company run by geeks (yeah, believe me, all the jokes about software programmers not really being geeks are true). What happens when you're office location goes through a move? Panic sets in, just how are they going to abuse me?! Never mind that for months you've been told from the CEO all the way down to your immediate supervisor that you're "just another employee", "we've got it covered", "just expect to do what everybody else is supposed to, pack up your cube, etc."

Moving day comes...

Training room PCs have been moved the night before, how do we check that they all work (boot up, network connectivity, etc)? Er...um...My boss and the Crystal Enterprise admin are slated to go over and check that today...and I get "volunteered" to go to the new office with them (never mind that, as I pointed out, I'm just supposed to pack my cube today)...The Crystal Enterprise admin never had admin rights to the training room server to begin with. My boss doesn't have domain admin rights, either. Good thing I "was there" to grant those rights, because the Crystal Enterprise service was down, and someone needed to restart the service. And what else do we discover? Bad data ports...on half the jacks in the training room. I gave up my lunch to do "help out". So, we go back to the old office and my boss reports to the veeps "in charge" of the move about the bad ports.

Yep, I have just enough time to wolf down a Clif bar, and actually pack up my PC and peripherals before I get "volunteered" again to go back to the new office for the second time today. This time? Check every data port in the office.

Blaaarrgh

Now I have a blister on my thumbs from jacking in and out a cat5 plug into over 150 data ports. I was supposed to be having a beer with my peers at 3pm, but nooooo....

And tomorrow, I get to go back to the office again, along with all the other staff, to set up all my stuff in my cube...I wonder what new and lovely surprises will be in store for me?

Cursed by competence...

Coding through the motions

© Scott Adams

It's going to be another long day. One database platform down, two to go...

On another note, I finally picked up a coffee grinder. Had to buy it at the Schmucks™ just down the block because, a) I need coffee and had just whole bean left in the kitchen, and b) I need coffee now! Totally lowtech affair where you decide how fine the ground by ticking off the seconds. Probably a good thing with my current state of mind right now.

Mmmm....coffee.

Working over the weekend...

Yes, it's been quite a long time since I've posted anything. Work has been sapping so much of my time that I'm barely keeping on top of the news, let alone forming an interesting enough opinion to post on a topic.

So what am I doing now? Right now, on a Saturday at 4:30pm local time? Working. Well, right right now, I'm waiting for a developer to call me back so that I can figure out a discrepancy in table schema between the oracle, ms sql, and ms access platforms. So, here's a pic of my home work environment:

Not the sexiest use of a badass 50" HD plasma, but I do get to brag about it being part of my dual-monitor configuration. That's an RDP session to my work PC on the big screen, and you can kinda make out the VB code window on it. My laptop, acting as the primary monitor, is in the foreground, right.

Yep. Geek.

C'mon, developer, gimme a callback! I want to finish this up and get this software release out the door!

Update (8:30pm local time): You know, debugging my own code...fine, I get that. I wrote it, I should at least make sure it works.

Debugging somebody else's code? Especially when it looks like pure, chunky effluvia that obviously was never even tested? Yeah, that's not so much fun. I'm checking in this drek and calling it a night.

Valentine's Day 2008

Around this time of year you always see stories in the news about the build up to Valentine's Day, the perfect gift, etc. Gag.

Anyway, in among these articles, you also see some "News of the Odd" type reports about how some other countries have their own take on St. Valentine's Feast Day. Like in some east Asian countries.

Or how some strict, mostly anti-western elements in other countries don't really handle it well, at all.

This year's poem, set to ballad verse, touches upon that, and how maybe we here in the West might want to rethink the whole multi-culti thing on our own soil (Archbishop of Canterbury, I'm looking in your direction).

Enjoy!

Valentine’s Day 2008: Love Under Siege

Mercantilism run amok,
At least so in the West,
Describes this day so few can duck
Whose Saint runs second best.

And while we suffer in the thrall
Of Hallmark, F.T.D.,
A world away, there is a brawl
Where romance is the key.

The Saudis banned the ruddy rose
To dampen passion’s flame,
For fear that when such ardor flows,
Romance they cannot tame.

Ironic, thus, that in the land
Where Islam’s honor bound,
St. Valentine, as contraband,
Has martyrs underground.

The Hindus, too, wage war upon
The Western god Amor.
Their nativists denounce the Son
Of Venus, to restore

Tradition, as a counter to
Romantic Love’s appeal.
That nation sure does seem to rue
That Kamasutra deal.

So maybe we should reassess
The dues that we must pay.
Our Western Culture won’t regress
On St. Valentine’s Day.

-James Morris, February 14, 2008

Scansion, Shmansion, a Recap of 2007

I guess I owe my readers, all 5 of you, a li'l su'n su'n before the day of horrors, I mean Valentine's Day, commences.

Last year's effort was, shall we say, ghoulish. Not much to it besides it being "real horrorshow, droogs". If Michael Jackson wrote his stuff in iambic pentameter couplets, "Thriller" might have sounded a little like this. He probably wouldn't have sold 104 million copies, but hey, my rhymes are better.

Oh well. This year's effort is written and ready to post. Meh, it's cute and worth a chuckle.

Don't forget to click on the poetry label to read my poems from years' past.