What isn’t Apple, audiobooks, or alcohol is probably cats.
Today is my mother’s birthday. Happy birthday, Mom!
Today is my mother’s birthday. I’m working at a tradeshow until 9pm tonight, but I’ll call her when I get home to wish her a happy birthday.
But if she checks here before then, Happy Birthday, Mom!
If you’re an American Patriot, be sure to get yourself to the American Patriot Registration web site, and register.
If you’re an American Patriot, be sure to get yourself to the American Patriot Registration web site, and register.
Remember, non-terrorists have nothing to hide. Do your part and register!
After taking me off the Internet for 3 days, my ISP roars back with some very good customer support.
It looks like my new ISP may have actually saved their relationship with me. After 6 or so touches, mostly me calling them, where I got zero helpful information, I finally got a tech to call me back.
Not only did she call me with information that actually solved the problem, but she called back twice more to make sure I had the information and that it had worked.
Anyway, I’m still skeptical of BroadView Networks, but I’m definitely willing to give them a second chance.
My network is down, my e-mail is bouncing. It’s making me crazy!
Well, you won’t read this for a day or two at the earliest, but I’m gonna keep writing. My Internet connection is still down, and because I host my entire network myself, including web, mail, and DNS servers, it means everything is hosed.
Which might cause one to rethink the arrangement I have, except I do it this way so I get a lot more control, and I get to learn how it all works. I’ve become a decent Unix sysadmin, and had considerable fun.
One of the true benefits, though, is that I get to configure my mail server’s spam filtering. Because I control the server itself, I can add all the features and filters I want — or at least those I can figure out. My server is configured to bounce a lot of spam, in particular, any mail from any domain which does not actually resolve. Which right now is all of them.
My ISP says they’ll be back up tomorrow afternoon. That’ll be pretty much 72 hours, three full days, of being disconnected.
I better be getting this month free, or I’m gonna be pretty pissed…
I have a new ISP, having had my account sold to a new provider. And their current quality-of-service level is 0%: In the 36 hours since they flipped the switch, it’s all dead air.
I’ve been with my current ISP (or rather, the company they acquired, and then them) for more than seven years, with SDSL service for nearly four years. I’ve had great quality-of-service, with one outage in that entire time. And while I didn’t like paying the extra I was paying, I also wasn’t having any of the problems many friends and family passed on to me, so I figured it was worth it.
So two months ago they tell me they’re getting out of the DSL business, and will be selling transferring my account to another provider. Details to follow.
Except the details never follow, and last night they did the cut-over without any notice at all, and screwed it up completely. I’ve been without service for more than 24 hours, which to a geek like me is nearly a terminal condition.
If you’re able to view this, great. From my server logs it looks like some kinds of incoming connections are working, and when I tried accessing my web sites from work, I got through.
But I can’t get out! I can’t surf, or send e-mail. I can post to this weblog, but only because it’s on my internal network, not outside it.
Anyway, frustrating is not the word. My relationship with my new ISP is less than two days old and it’s already all bad.
BroadView Networks. Stay away.
When is a $3.50 ATM surcharge not very much?
An observation from a friend while in Las Vegas this weekend. He’s getting more cash at an ATM in the casino, where the surcharge is $3.50, and he’s pissed for being gouged.
Then he realized that the $300 he was withdrawing was for the blackjack tables.
At least he got a couple of free drinks while losing it…
Just a few predictions for the 2002 NCAA Tournament. Read ’em in three weeks and tell me how wrong I am!
Here’s a couple of predictions for the 2002 NCAA Basketball Tournament which starts in about an hour.
Duke takes it all. Kansas looks really strong, but every Duke player in the rotation knows what it takes to win a national championship. Duke’s not invincible, but they know it. Expect Jason Williams to focus, and win.
No way Cincinnati is a Final Four team. Yeah, they have 30 wins, but they won’t get four more.
Gonzaga got screwed by getting a #6 seed, and faces #2 Arizona in the second round. It’s going to be a Final Four-level game. I think AZ is going to bring it, but I’d love to see the ‘Zags move on instead.
Stanford is out in the first round.
USC is going to last a bit longer, but has to face Duke. And will lose.
Cal wins a game, but probably not two.
UCLA out in the first round.
Oregon, without any Tournament experience, will win two games, but no more.
Last year my tournament picks were in the 96th percentile at ESPN’s Tournament Challenge. Tell me how I did in three weeks!
A colleague asked me if Microsoft’s initiative to replace their aging file system with database technology was anything like what Be did in BeOS. The answer is no, and the reason is because it’s not a very good idea.
A recent article at CNet, about Microsoft’s futuristic concept of replacing the traditional file system with something more like a database, prompted a co-worker to ask me if this was along the same lines as what Be had done (in BFS, the advanced file system that was part of BeOS).
My answer was no. BeOS provided the 20% of the functionality that gave you 80% of what real people actually want to do.
The file system was fairly Unix-like (i.e., no resource forks or anything like that), with the ability to attach arbitrary attributes to files. Some attributes were system-maintained, others could be maintained by the application software that used the files. The attributes could be simple, like numbers or dates or strings, or complex binary data. There was no practical limit on the size or number of attributes, just as there was no practical limit on the size or number of files (64-bit file system).
Simple data attributes could be indexed, and searched upon by a basic but complete query language. The operating system provided a search panel that let you do some interesting things, like search for all e-mail you received in the “last week” or “today”, or all graphics files of any type that were edited on a particular day, etc. Applications could make use of the query engine, and provide their own customized functionality for, say, searching through your collection of contacts or appointments.
Be experimented for a while with “going all the way” and actually using a real database for the file system. And in our experiments we found that there was tremendous value to the traditional file system, that it does a lot of things very, very well. People discount the value because they take it for granted, and the database thing sure sounds sexier.
And one day we will store stuff in some giant, fully indexed and searchable system, and it’ll look like a database in some ways, and give lots of new power. But it’s so complex to do that right, and well, and completely that it’ll take years of pretty sucky solutions before it’s actually useful in real life. So I hope Microsoft commits to this, because it’ll make Longhorn (the next version of Windows) ship that much later than planned.
Here’s another way to think about it. Take the Internet today and consider it a traditional file system (because in a lot of ways it’s very like a traditional file system). There’s this notion of the Semantic Web being developed right now, which will be a lot like what Microsoft envisions for their new data storage technology.
But today Google works pretty fuckin’ well, using the traditional approach. It doesn’t depend on a lot of central management of the data, where the Semantic Web will require that a whole lot of web pages will have to change. By “a whole lot” I actually mean just about all of them, i.e., billions.
The Semantic Web sounds like a great place to be in 10 years, but it’ll require a lot of ditch digging. And I don’t want to have to do the digging myself, nor do I envy the people who do end up doing it.
On the other hand, those Microsofties probably deserve it.
Andersen Consulting renamed themselves Accenture. At the time it seemed like a bad idea to lose a name with brand recognition and value. Now they look like rocket scientists.
A little while ago Andersen Consulting renamed themselves Accenture, and announced it with a bunch of SuperBowl ads. I remember having conversations with other folks in marketing, about what a terrible idea it was to change from a name that had a lot of brand equity and recognition to something new.
Now the folks behind the name change look like rocket scientists, eh?
Rochelle has started in on the kitchen. I wonder if I should take the credit cards away from her.
With all my BeBoxes blocking her route to completion on the cleanup of our parlor, Rochelle has started in on the kitchen. Which needs it, but it’s not a small project.
I strongly suspect that I should take the credit cards away from her.
Today I attached to my Mac G4 the most advanced, comfortable keyboard I’ve ever used: a 10-year old Apple Extended Keyboard.
Today I gave up on the KeyTronic, the keyboard I selected when I couldn’t stand anymore the Apple Pro Keyboard that came with my new computer. I used it for several months to be able to say that I truly gave it a shot. But, in the end, it sucked. Like most keyboards today suck.
I now have my trusty 10-year old Apple Extended Keyboard attached to my 6-month old Apple G4, using a Griffin Technology iMate ADB-to-USB adapter.
It’s kind of an ugly hack. I’d much rather be using a modern USB keyboard, especially one with the special keys for volume up/down/mute and CD eject, like the new Apple Pro Keyboard.
But all of those just have the wrong feel. Too spongy, wrong resistance, not enough tactile feedback. The AEK is perhaps the finest keyboard ever made. Certainly, it is to me. I may never give it up.
The senator from Disney wants the SSSCA to put copy protection systems in every digital device and operating system. He wants it because he’s been paid to want it, but it’s a horrible idea with terrible consequences to consumers.
Senator Fritz Hollings from South Carolina is frequently referred to as the senator from Disney. The reason is he takes a lot of money from Big Entertainment (nearly $300K in the last election cycle) and in return he favors laws that Big Entertainment wants passed. Here’s the latest one.
The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) is another example of laws that don’t get people upset at first, but are another step on the road to ruin. The SSSCA mandates that copy protection be built into every digital device and operating system.
At first you think, no big deal, it’ll only affect those music pirates. But if you investigate further, you find it’ll prevent you from making those music compilation tapes or CDs — of music you paid for. It’ll prevent you from making backups of your software on your PC — software you paid for. It’ll prevent you from recording TV shows onto a digital device, even if you’re just using it like a VCR.
It’ll make your children felons if they use a 10 second clip of a movie in a homework project. That is, except they won’t be able to use a 10 second movie clip in anything — unless you pay for the privilege. The SSSCA’s mandated systems will see to that.
The SSSCA is yet another tactic of Big Entertainment “to use their copyright not just to obtain fair compensation but in effect to exercise complete dominance and total control of the copyrighted work…”, according to Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia.
Just like Microsoft wants a piece of every transaction anywhere on the Internet, Big Entertainment wants a piece of any use anywhere of any piece of material on which they assert they hold the copyright. This includes eliminating the concept of “fair use,” which is today what lets you do all of the things I listed above.
An article with more details, especially some details of the slimy practices of the Recording Industry, is at Fox News. Republicans Should Back Recording Artists, Consumers is definitely worth the read.
Hollings was hoping to rush discussion of the SSSCA through the Senate and get it passed into law quickly and quietly. The technology industry is not so excited about this legislation, and in congressional testimony on the Act Intel executive VP Leslie Vadasz warned that such legislation would be catastrophic for the high-technology industry.
Hollings blasted him for having the spine to stick up to him, and in general the hearings were the usual Congressional posturing and ego-stroking for their largest campaign donors.
There are not a lot of representatives on the side of the consumer in this debate. Even Intel is mostly interested in keeping Congress out of their business, not in ensuring consumer-friendly digital rights management.
If we don’t act now, we don’t get to complain later.