Jonathan Saggau's Blog

So I went to Borders on Wall street today, thinking "hey, let's have a look at Fake Steve's book." I go to their little search engine kiosk, punch in the title and see "Humor" under section and "Likely in store" under availability. Hmmm. Ok. So the kiosk isn't hooked into their inventory. Fair enough, as a friend of mine likes to say. I go to the little help desk and ask "where's humor?" (they didn't get the joke...It was a dumb joke). I head in the direction of the pointing and grunting. I seek. I do not find. I approach another help desk, this one nearer to the section in question. I follow the nice Borders "associate" (when did we stop using "employee" and "clerk," by the way?) over to the section I was just examining, where she proceeds to look for Fake Steve's book on the same shelf I was. Apparently, alphabetical order is still alphabetical order. Glad I'm not crazy. "Let me go ask if anybody has seen it," she says. "Um. Okay," I reply. Now I don't think that I'm expecting miracles. I just want to know if they have a certain book. After about five minutes the (ahem) "associate" comes back with a "I don't think we have it, but we can order it for you." ...to which I reply (admittedly snidely) "If I had wanted to order it, I would have done so from the comfort of my own home from Amazon. Thanks for looking."

I have questions. Why do the Borders associates clearly have no access to inventory numbers? Why could she not tell me "we have two copies." I can understand having difficulty finding a specific volume, what with the abundance of end caps and special tables in the book stores these days. How hard is it to track inventory? Isn't that what those neat shiny computer doodads they have scattered all over the store are supposed to be good at? Grrrrr.

Shipley! Make a distributed version of Delicious Library or something. These people need help.

Posted by jonmarimba at 06:05 PM | Permalink

I don't use the either anymore.
I find the Terminal sufficient for most large-scale file movings (especially with the help of tree). Path Finder is where I live to browse my filesystem. Launching applications (also searching the web and making coffee) belongs to Quicksilver, which was recently open-sourced!
FYI: tree compiles on OSX Leopard if you make the following very small changes to tree.c:

--- ./tree-1.5.1.1/tree.c
+++ ./tree-1.5.1.1JS/tree.c
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
 * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
 */

-#include 
+//#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
@@ -182,7 +182,7 @@
#ifdef CYGWIN
extern int MB_CUR_MAX;
#else
-extern size_t MB_CUR_MAX;
+extern int __mb_cur_max;
#endif

int main(int argc, char **argv)

Posted by jonmarimba at 10:24 PM | Permalink

As you know from my last post, I have lots and lots of calendars. It used to be much much worse. Sharing calendars between my three Macs before Leopard server was a pain in the ass. Sure, you could put a calendar on a regular DAV server and subscribe to that calendar on your other machines, but you could not write to that calendar from any machine other than that which created it initially. All subscribed machines were read-only. What does this mean to me? You know about my 14 calendars, right? Triple it. That's right. I used to have 42 calendars on each of my 3 machines. 14 calendars to which I could write and 28 to which I was subscribed so I could read any appointments from my other two machines. What a mess.

Leopard calendar server has brought me back to a debatably sane 14 calendars. But how does one migrate all of those calendars spread across multiple machines onto the shiny new calDAV server? Like so:

1. Subscribe to your shiny new calDAV server (under the Accounts tab) in iCal preferences.
2. Create a new calendar on your calDAV server through iCal (File Menu -> new Calendar -> your server) for each of your 14 calendars.
3. Create a *.ics file from your old calendar by:
a. Selecting the calendars you want to export by using the export functionality in iCal (File Menu -> Export) on each of your machines or...
b. Mounting your DAV server and downloading all of 'em at once (assuming you're keeping your calendars on a DAV server now, which I was, this method is a lot easier for obvious reasons)...
4. Select the calendar from the source list (one residing on your new calDAV server) and import the *.ics files you wish to store in the new calendar (File Menu -> import).

Your appointments are now on your calDAV server and will show up on all of your subscribed machines fully editable from all.

Posted by jonmarimba at 09:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm scheduled to within an inch of my life, so there is no surprise that I have 14 calendars in iCal right now. I have calendars for billable hours vs. non-billable hours. I have calendars on my calDAV server that I share with clients, some under a different username than others, and some that I use to synchronize personal calendars across multiple machines, and yet another that I share with my assistant. (Hi Christina!) I have calendars coming out my ears from various sources.

Very often, I'll place an appointment in one calendar and later wish to move it to another. Perhaps I'll have a tentative appointment with a client, so I'll put that in my non-billable calendar. When that appointment happens, perhaps I'll put that into my billable calendar. Unfortunately, my billable calender is under a different username on my calDAV server than my billable calendar (one of them I share, the other I do not). Normally, when I want to move an appointment from one calendar to another I right/ctrl-click the appointment and select the calendar I want to move it to. Unfortunately, the only calendars listed in that contextual menu are those under the same user account as the appointment I'm trying to move. Bummer.

The workaround:

1. Select the appointment you would like to move.
2. Use your favorite method of getting it to the clipboard (I use command-X to cut)
3. Select the calendar from the source list to which you would like to move the appointment
4. Paste (command - v for me)

All appointment data when cut or copied is retained when pasted into the other calendar.

Wouldn't it be nice to have ALL of your calendars in the contextual menu? Radar: 5593635

Posted by jonmarimba at 08:37 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Wow. Alex.SpeechVoice is creepy. Apple's latest "read your email to you" speech synthesizer breathes (!) before it (he?) starts speaking. It's also, by far, the largest file in my installation of Leopard.

See?



Update:

The software generating the view above is called GrandPerspective and I love it. Thanks to DeRay for emailing me about this.

Posted by jonmarimba at 11:58 PM | Permalink

Poof. Phone gone. 'twas a real pro. I carry my iphone in a case with a very difficult to remove clip attached to the inside of the front strap of my computer bag, which I always hang diagonally across my chest to make it more difficult for someone to run off with my stuff. Doing this places the iphone in its case between my chest and a somewhat tensioned strap. During the afternoon on Thursday, I vaguely registered that I was bumped into a couple of times while walking through the WTC "Viewing Area." I'm accustomed to this as navigating through there without screaming at slow-moving Midwesterners (of which I was once one, so I try to be nice) sometimes proves difficult. I don't think I'll be taking my subway shortcut any more.

If you're wondering what's the absolute worst part about getting an iPhone stolen, it's not that creepy feeling of violation that comes from having one's personal property lifted, it's transferring service to a new iPhone through AT&T. I had originally opted to avoid the two-year AT&T suck customer service lock-in with a "Go Phone" plan, gambling that somebody would come out with a hack that would allow me to use (say) T-Mobile with my iPhone. Until that happens, though I would just love to be able to use the device in the same way I have been. When I got my new iPhone, I thought perhaps the option to transfer my current AT&T number to a new phone would be the logical one to choose. Nope. Apparently, AT&T/Apple never thought that anyone would want to transfer service from one iPhone to another (at least not on the "Go Phone" plan). Long story short: as of right now I'm out the 78(ish) dollar balance I had in my "Go Phone" prepaid account as well as a new activation fee. Why? The only way I could get an activation (according to AT&T customer service) is to go through the "I want a new contract" activation process (without the "all nines" hack). Since my credit doesn't suck, I have a two - year AT&T contract to try to get out of now. That is a pickpocketing I'm going to fight.

For those waiting for iPong, I was expecting to have it ready for public consumption by tonight, but have just jailbroken my new phone. The network error handling and preference code was coming together nicely before my little adventure. I should be able to release something fairly stable during the week.

The way-too-adventurous among us can find the code as it stands now on google. I moved the repository there a few nights ago in anticipation of the release.

Posted by jonmarimba at 02:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This post may be short, given that I'm learning to type with this thing. I do have to make a little confession. This is my backup iPhone. That's right. Thinking a client (who, I've learned, got his before me) would want one, and realizing I could return a sealed product, I grabbed two when I went to the Apple store. With the number transfer and activation problems, I made an impulsive decision to pay the restocking fee on this one and unboxed iPhone number 2. Now I think ATT got suspicious of me trying to activate two phones on two plans... Well, let's just say that the prepaid plans are no great deal. (yes, they accepted my credit the first time around). Oh well. My other iPhone is a rental.

Posted by Jonathan at 04:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is why we use OS X and Linux as much as possible...

Posted by jonmarimba at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Let's just say this is the LAST day I spend trying to get nerd hardware working with OS X. My old USB to RS-232 converter won't work, no matter which .kext I download, modify plist, install... It went so far as to register /dev/tty.usbserial for me, but the "device is busy" message was all I could get when trying to connect to it. Usb networking? Hah! There is one USB networking kext out there for using the Sharp Zaurus device. It looks hackable (if I want to spend a couple of days deciphering a thousand - line c++ file) to make usb networking happen with the gumstix. ... or I could just run ubuntu in parallels and allow it to take over the USB devices. A couple of modprobes with a bone stock ubuntu kernel setup and I was talking to the gumstix over usb networking AND serial. :) Yup. Nerdy things will be happening in linux. AND! I can still use my sexy mac to do it. Maybe I should clear out a partition to do Linux on this thing directly...

Posted by jonmarimba at 03:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MOTU Symphonic Instrument appears to be working on my case-sensitive file system now. Let's just say that there's a symlink in /Library/ pointing application\ Support to Application\ Support.

No. I. am. NOT. kidding.

Erg. Seems this only works on the PPC version. Back to the Intel drawing board.

Posted by Jonathan at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's what the ISP for one of my clients did today:
1. They called a non-technical contact at the client indicating that there had been some kind of phishing fraud related to ebay originating at one of their IP addresses. (Not bloody likely as users at that location have no access to servers there and the servers have very few ports facing "the world.")
a. Left a phone number to the "network investigations unit."
b. Left a ticket number
c. TOOK BOTH THE PRIMARY AND BACKUP INTERNET (T1) CONNECTIONS DOWN at the client's main office!
2. I called the number they left.
a. Line's busy
b. Line rings forever
c. Answering machine....
d. Line rings forever
3. I called the usual tech support number
a. Support rep. indicates that the "network investigations unit" has put an "administrative hold on the lines"
b. Support rep. indicates that the "network investigations unit" can't be contacted internally, rather the support rep. has the same phone number I've been given.
c. Support rep. indicates that the "network investigations unit" is small and can best be contacted by leaving a message or an email. (I did both)
d. Support rep. indicates candidly that the "network investigations unit" has the tendency to take customers' connections down and then make it impossible for the customer to contact them.
4. I moved the main database server for the client to another location a few blocks away (this takes a couple of hours).
a. I assume that the "network investigations unit" decided that it was best to screw only the main part of the business... to the tune of roughly $ 20,000.00 per day of lost revenue (hence the backup internet connection).
5. As of yet, I have still heard nothing from the "network investigations unit."

Question:
What would you do if your ISP took your main and redundant Internet connections down on (apparently) a report from a third party and refused to be contacted?

Posted by Jonathan at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With the help of Drew Thaler's instructions on how to grab disk access by running an app in gdb, it looks like the bug in Parallels Workstation was even weirder than the case-sensitivity problem. Parallels uses QT, a cross-platform GUI toolkit to handle user interface presentation, rather than the much-more-common-on-OSX-but-not-cross-platform toolkit called cocoa. Unfortunately, it follows my library search path to get to QT. My installation of QT is broken. (I've known this for a while and haven't had the time to rebuild it from source). Why doesn't Parallels force inclusion of QT from the app bundle? I don't know. Bug report filed.

See the extended entry for Drew's instructions (thanks Drew!)

Continue reading "Parallels' problem isn't case-sensitivity." »

Posted by Jonathan at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Grumble grumble grumble...

The background:
I come from Linux. Let's get that out there in the open right away. (I feel better already). I make money (among other sort of more businessman-like things) playing sysadmin to several Windows (no fun), Linux (fun), and OS X (friendly) machines.

Comfort finds me in the command-line and, while I'm no bash genius (Juan is, I think), I get around. One old carryover that I bring with me from the Linux world is a penchant for case-sensitive file-systems. I like 'em. Feels like home, ok? I guess that makes sense.

The hate:
Two pieces of software that I find very impressive just puke on case-sensitive file systems.
Parallels workstation (which I love) might allow me to use windows right along with my primary install of OS X. If only it didn't puke all over the place when trying to run on case-sensitive hfs+. I find myself dual-booting off of an external firewire (handily defeating the purpose of owning parallels in the first place) installation of OS X to run this otherwise fantastic software.
MOTU Symphonic Instrument, which is a really fantastic sample-based orchestral synthesizer, has the following behavior:
1. On PPC, there is a bus error
2. On Intel (it's UB), the whole machine hangs. That's right, folks. My machine is HOSED
Once again, if I boot into a case-insensitive file system, it runs (and it's really really cool).

The response:
Parallels:
NONE! I have submitted bug reports through the beta of parallels. I have submitted bug reports now that the software is out of beta. I believe in this software. I have paid for this software to support it's development despite the problems I am having.

MOTU Symphonic Instrument:
NONE! I have submitted bug reports and tried to call their (ALWAYS busy) support number. I have, again, happily paid for this software (there is no demo available; I just bought it based on the reputation of their hardware and software).

Question:
Am I *that much* of an outlier? Seriously. Am I the only somewhat old-school Linux geek who prefers a case-sensitive system on OS X?

Solution:
Ug. I guess I'll just buy a huge external drive, make a very careful extra backup (in addition to my usual backup) of both of my machines and go case-insensitive. Pain. In. The. Butt.

Posted by Jonathan at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)