Connecting to Google Voice Via SIP

GoogleVoiceNumber@216.239.37.15:5061

Avatar is something I plan to watch. There seem to be many movies out right now that are interesting.

I have been doing much work on a 15" MacBook Pro, great laptop, but shouldn't I use a desktop for most of my work? Seems that a bigger screen would be more productive. I took a trip to the MS Store in Mission Viejo and the Apple store as well to see what they offered.

I have been hearing about his 27" iMac, and it sure seems like a neat machine. Then there is also the Sony L series, with touch screen, BluRay and TV tuner, only 24" screen, however so much more then the iMac has, but then it comes with Windows 7, rather then something Unix like. Would be nice if there was a 3rd option, running Ubuntu. I think Dell should make such a thing, they are the Linux friendly manufacture, of the majors. I guess HP is also an option, but the build quality of the last media center I tried left something to be desired, although the price was rather attractive. I would try another one on for size, they have those cool HD bays, neat feature.

Seems like as much time as I spend on the computer, would be a good investment, and since this is for work, should be tax deductable.

landlines, thing of the past?

I wonder how many people like I don't really find my land line all that useful anymore. I question why I pay $20/month for something I don't really use that much. When you have a cellphone, SIP, Skype, and you can even call on Twitter it seems like it is enough. I was told that even after you cancel your land line 911 service tends to continue to work. Tempting to save that money. Internet connection is invaluable, but a landline and cable TV isn't for the next generation.

It makes me wonder if Google Voice lets you transfer your land line, to a free Google Voice that then transfers the call to Gizmo which the bought, how many land lines will be lost? Cellphone only households are at 18% already.

Bare

is a bizarre idea of painting electronic circuits on skin.

Forbes

LiLAX got a new hosting offer from Language Weaver, cool, at the Hughes center, we are aiming for January 9 for our first meeting.
View Larger Map

The Spy Factory is a very well researched and presented program. It was just on broadcast 28.4 again and I have to say that it is sad how much info we had and ignored. On the other hand there is also the loss of liberty, which we have suffered. The expense of watching all of this, which is all of our burden. Resources given to defense do make our living standard deteriorate.

I move from having cable to not having it, changes what you get from the TV. Is broadcast any worst then having more channels, you can't watch anyhow? There is only so much time and so much info to absorb. Same problem intelligence has.

Microsoft Announces Quarterly Earnings Release Date and Upcoming Events for

Microsoft Announces Quarterly Earnings Release Date and Upcoming Events for the forth quarter. Will be interesting to see if the MS Stores have been doing. I hope they talk about them.

Replacement DVD player PET741B/37

Don't use other languages in TWiTlive, I got kicked out for pointing out that JooJoo sounded like 豬 (pig). But OK, whatever, the CrunchPad is an interesting product, if it ever sees the light of day. So I am no longer a part of the TWiT chat room as I don't like the rules there.

Canceled cable a while back and notice that broadcast TV is a pretty good deal, but the internet fills the rest with NetFlix or Blockbuster(store around the corner), maybe DishTV at $20/month for 100 channels would be good, but a year commitment, hmmm, can I do that? NYTimes articule about TV, give a pretty good overview about what to watch, Boxee, Hulu and Netflix are great! On the air I get full high def, who has time for more? TWC, you lost me with your high prices and lousy picture quality.

I have given away some Wave invites and people have asked, well what is this good for? Today I found a great explanation: Google Wave is 40 year old email reinvented as it would be today, but why hear it from me, watch the awsome video from epipheo they explain it in 2 minutes, better then I could in an hour.



I have more invites.

I am listening to a funny http://www.eguiders.com/video/leo-laporte-explains-how-he-s-making-1-5-million-in-podcasting

The movie industry is screwed, their product is inferior to the freely available pirate versions of their product. The funny part about it is that they react by encumbering BluRay with lots of protection to keep the content from being copied, further making the free versions which now perhaps perfectly legitimate users might create so they can take the content with them on a laptop to that plane where they don't want to pack all physical media. We know from the music industry that for a while it was very hard to pay for the content in a format you wanted, now Amazon sells unlocked music online for a reasonable price. You can buy music again, meanwhile Netflix is delivering content cheap and in a format that works, but because it is still dependent on a stream of pretty high bandwidth, it is so much easier to share unlocked movies, so whoever pays gets penalized vs the people who just download or share the movies that have been unlocked. I get it, we need to pay the people who make movies, but given that they make it hard to get movies in a good format, and the stuff is available for free, it seems they should give up on copy protection and release in a format that is usable. I write this blog post after getting frustrated with DVDs and BluRay's menu structures where they make you watch the FBI waring for every disk, they don't let you skip the previews. Why can't I just turn the thing on and watch the movie? Don't waste my time. I know I am not the only one frustrated with things not working and blocking me to get things done, because they don't trust the people who pay them. However we have the power, we are paying for this stuff, lets demand it in a better format.

Say no to DRM!

There is lots of content on the internet now, explore what is available often free, YouTube, Hulu, TWiT, all delivered cheaper then DVDs and BluRays, it costs Netflix 5 cents to internet deliver a movie, this is the future, but let us cache it on the HD, like I can do with iTunes, copy it move it to whatever device I want to use, charge if you must, support it with ads if you must, I get it you have to pay your rent and buy food too. Don't alienate your clients.

T-mobile has a cool page that lets you find out which numbers you can port to them. In my limited testing seems that AT&T, VoxLineSystems, Google Voice all work, however IPKall doesn't. Something to keep in mind when you get a phone number from someone, can you port it out.

Tonight there is a UUASC meeting with a great guy from Google talking about IPV6 stats, meanwhile live.twit.tv is a great live video podcast, looking at Chris DiBona there neat, he leads a team I would love to be on. Andy Ruben leads the Android team, another great place with a future. Google is hiring again, cool, seems like a great place to work, if you are looking for a refuge from your family. Somewhere that would keep you busy doing neat stuff.

Need Linux help?:

I got the ATI card working sort of, the computer was too slow, returned it to Fry's and they slapped a new price on it: $37.99, wow, that is half of what I paid, was tempted to buy it again, but didn't, however really cheap, with Mac drivers, if I could find them, this might work for me.

Mac OS X programs: Grand Perspective, MactheRipper(copy DVD to HD),CarbonCopy 2.3(OS X 10.2.8), Jaguar -> Panther.

800MhzG3 256 MB

mactopia,

I installed the supplied software with a new driver from the website, I wish the thing would come with a very short instruction manual in the box telling you how to install, the supplied docs are very long winded. However it appears like it is now scanning channels.

ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Dual Tuner sounded like a great thing at Fry's but the box already hinted at a crappy product because some things were just crossed out with a dark marker, further examination proves it is what I want, but in taking it home Nov 7th, and playing with it for 2 weeks, still no joy. Today I made a breakthrough, the remote will turn my PC off, it isn't bricked, but what makes it tick? How do you get it to display video?

Windows activation sucks, I am writing this on a OS X and listening to a podcast on Ubuntu from TWIT, although the video and the audio are of different programs right now. No wonder I don't use Windows anymore, I seem to remember that I spent most of my time in Windows doing stupid things like activation and drivers, a Mac just works and Ubuntu just works, no hassle, simpler easy and open source in that case. Yet they want to capture the minds again with Windows 7, and I am hearing about all this activation crap on TWiT, I am now inclined not to use it, I almost warmed up to it, but no, not interested anymore, no wonder Apple has such a high PE, and MSFT such a low one. However I remember once hearing an IT guy crying on the phone to Adobe about how hard it is to move a copy from one computer to another, I guess Gimp will get some users from this hassle, yet PhotoShop is still better then Gimp.

Open source business seems like an easy idea, it could be lucrative. We now have a wealth of open source software that could power businesses that are failing. We have had a 115 bank failures this year, but is banking a bad business? Probably not, so why not start a new bank powered by new ideas? One that has new open source software at its core, uses all the new ways of promoting itself on the internet to find customers, is open source and internet powered. Perhaps I should start a wave to discuss this.

had to move back to linux 2.6.15-51-386 because -54 didn't work with eth0. Oh well, trying to sell this old Dell.

had to move back to linux 2.6.15-51-386 because -54 didn't work with eth0. Oh well, trying to sell this old Dell.

Fast Money leads with Alcoa (AL) going having a great quarter, crediting the Chinese stimulus plan for the demand. I look at all the aluminum makers, for some reason Century Aluminum Company(Public, NASDAQ:CENX) pops today.

Visualizations are cool. I remember seeing an older version of this subway map of the internet before, but this one is based on the Tokyo subway, $50 big poster, would be neat. However it is a bit old on that .PNG, as now Alexa top sites shows FaceBook as #2, shown as #8 on this map.

Swoopo seems like an interesting site to play with, the idea of being able to buy a MacBook Pro for $173.40+219*.6=304.80 seems like a very tempting thing to try, but it is a bit like a donkey and carrot. I was watching this last night and see the result, now I didn't buy it, so can't give a real testimonial on these new entertainment shopping sites and there are many, I think the first I heard of was Woot, which I have been going back to from time to time, but Swoopo is much faster and interactive, however it is less educational then Woot. Seems to me that it speaks to the slot machine crowd. Breifly looked at PriceDip, Bidstick (3 free bids), and Pardoo.

Must go back to Santo Domingo, they now have a working Metro, wow. I need to windsurf again as well, been a while.

thx

Scott did a good talk, you got a link to the video on uStream. Need to fix that URL. I also feel that the LiLAX website kind of sucks, the Perl scripts on it are just so '90's, too time consuming for this browser enabled Ajax world.

Linus@LiLAX

http://twit.tv/floss85 Jim talks about the http://www.linuxfoundation.org
where Jim, Linus' boss is giving out his email address to the
world. For those of us who have been on this list know that in the
days of Ismet he used to send a yearly email to Linus inviting him to
talk at our group.

I have lapsed a few years, didn't know where to send the email,
however it seems that although Linus lives in Portland Oregon, he
might land at LAX someday in the future and it would be really neat if
we could ask that at such time he give a talk. Mind you he is very
reclusive and unlikely to talk to a grass roots group that he never
heard of, but has been around promoting Linux for 11 years.

Anyhow if anyone is listening, would be great if at some time we could
find out that Linus is coming to LAX and we can find a room to meet in
whatever day that is, even outside our normal 2nd Saturday 10am meeting.

Anyhow if you can travel to Portland, http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon
Sept. 21-23, Portland OR will feature Linus, so if any of you goes,
invite Linus.

<img src=http://events.linuxfoundation.org/component/registrationpro/?func=details&did=1
>

Ohio Linux Fest is also Sept 25-27

I just realized that I have been spending time booking speakers at LiLAX and UUASC, so here are the links to some uStreams for Fedora and MPEG7 talks.

42" of blue screen of death on the media center PC, definitely taking it back now. Further investigation blames it on the ATI driver, there is an update, but I am not going to play with it anymore, instead did the factory reinstall to return it.

It occurred to me that someone could write a worm that down converts the movies on DVDs and leaves them on a bit torrent, unwillingly turning millions of PCs into pirate bays, right off the DVDs they are renting and watching, really evil.

AAPL is on my rader this morning. I sold a put against my wanting to buy it, figuring that 165 wouldn't be a bad level to get in on, rather then doing a limit, I sold a put, if it goes unfilled, so be it, I made $540 on the put, if I get called on it, oh well, now I own the stock that was called away from me at 165. But what will the stock do? Seems with the tablet rummers it can't go down right now, but what if the general market crashes? Will AAPL hold up? Probably not.

Up early, thinking about how to commercialize LiLAX. After running this group for half a decade, maybe it is time to turn it into a commercial venture to better bring out value to the members. I think for a start I will compensate speakers, and charge it to the members. People want to make money, that is a given, we have been meeting for a while and know each other, most are retired, so they can be advisers, investors or just step to the sidelines and make snide comments. But some of those that left, may come back of there is a financial incentive, if they can make a living at this group. For me there is a motivation to continue if there could be a house down in the future for me. We have been talking about leaving the area, finding a house somewhere, we can just pay cash for it, but what if we can find a way to make the money to stay put in this area?

So some of the things I have been thinking about are building out a community network, something that will involve money at some point, but also requires lots of people to cooperate with the network, once the network is up we can put all kinds of services on it. I think last month's meeting about Honduras and what Eng. w/o bourders did there was a great intro to what we can do right here if we all get together in a cooperative maner like the internet when it was initially started, it was all about comunicating with each other. We can get some pretty cheap bandwidth to connect to the rest of the world.

After 3 weeks of playing with this Media Center I have to report that it isn't a keeper. I tried to get it working, and it does mostly, but there are still many little details that aren't right and I will wait to the next release to try it again. I do dig the idea of recording off ATSC HDTV on to a HD and watching it all when I have time, however it isn't a great implementation yet. I tried installing MythBuntu as well, but haven't gotten it working yet, seems it does recognize the tuner, cool, but still couldn't easily resize the NTFS partition to make space and ended up installing it on top of the NTFS partition, was fairly easy, but some of the MythTV stuff isn't yet setup, it takes about 2 hours to install/configure MythTV, plus probably another 2 hours of reading before you start. Myth is pretty neat, but it would be nice if it was HP preinstalled and supported. I think they do support it to a certain extent. I will report again when Windows 7 is on this Media Centers.

I have been trying to install Ubuntu on the new Vista machine for a while and MS makes it hard as they put some files at the end of the filesystem that you have to remove, but they are to do with some recovery features you have to turn off, it is much easier to simply install Ubuntu in the Windows partition these days, not as good performance, but there you have it, now it is in the NTFS file system and all the partition hassles go away. I just did it this way to try out.

I have been thinking about what computer to use next, which OS is another interesting question. I have a Mac Book Pro as my main machine right now and love it, but I don't travel much and want media so I got an HP Media Center, which has one big problem, Vista. I haven't warmed up to it after 3 weeks, it works, kind of but so many UI problems and just plain crashes at times make me wonder about the economy of some really great features with a pretty low price. I paid $699+tax for the machine, and can return it, I just may, just like Windows ME, Vista has its shortcomings. I don't think it is as bad as ME was, however I want to try the same hardware on Ubuntu and see what happens. Maybe MS should become a supporter of Linux and port Office to it and just forget about the kernel. OS X is certainly a great contender too as is now Open Solaris for the desktop, but Windows has it too loose. HP sells this computer with the promise of Windows 7 as a free upgrade. Should I wait? Probably not, why go through the pain of upgrading, where I have to deal with driver issues? Seems like just buying a computer later is easier, let HP deal with the driver issues.

Chrome OS may be a big contender next year as well. I am writing this in Chrome into a Google blog, so if I am using all these Google properties, perhaps getting the layer on top of the Linux Kernel from Google seems a pretty compeling choice too. MS clearly has to reinvent itself. The old Windows Office monopoly is destined to get competition, what the antitrust hasn't achived in so many years has been done by MS saving Apple when it was in dire streights by investing in them, and what a great investment it was For MS, it sure paid back, Linux and OpenOffice by creating a really good alternative that runs on the same hardware. I should probably reinstall the Mac clean now that I have a working Windows system to tide me over. Who knows what crap the Mac has accumulated over the years, not that it doesn't work great, it does.

Movies

Been watching Netflix movies and playing with the friend features as well as sub-accounts. Netflix keeps getting better. The website got me to the conference call, interesting one. I also heard about RedBox there, which is an interesting compeditor, boxes of DVDs without a shopkeeper. Free rentals available, there is one at 100w Imperial, will have to try it. Seems like Netflix is a great value too. They say that 10% of Netflix customers are on BluRay, I am. I also heard from Eric that it costs 5 cents to stream a movie, cool, shipping round trip is over 80 cents. They aren't affected by the recession, 25% growth during this period is great. I can totally see it since I canceled cable for the high costs.

In a related story ThePirateBay is being sold. However there are alternatives. Was watching the OctoMom special on Fox and give the link to the Hulu video to the WikiPedia. It is an interesting case, no wonder she gets so many paparazi. The banter between her and her monther is intersting, her mother being the voice of reason and she being the eternal optimist. Given the media attention, I have no doubt the kids will be able to be take care of themselves, by giving up privacy.

Conan blow up my clunker

So our cars don't qualify for the CARS program, wonder if I could make a good enough video to get one of them blown up by Conan? There are already some very deserving entrants with their crappy cars on the website. I might not haven a bad enough car to get that hybrid Lexus.

Vista

I started using MS Vista and it is OK, but not a great system. I keep finding little quircks with the multi monitor setup that I can't solve.

Yes

I watched Yes Man this weekend, and I am far more open to opportunites now! I also discovered 30 sec bunny films, great find on NetFlix, but they are free and they have more of them. I then talked to a friend in the DR, reserved a flight and am thinking of going Windsurfing in September there. That should be really fun, wonder where I would stay? Seems like today is going to be good wind in Salinas, wonder if I can reserve and fly today standby, hmmm, tempting. But schedules being what they are, even if I found seats, wouldn't make it there until Monday.

Hyper Local Blogger

I heard in TWIG that hyper local bloggers put thier own ads in the blog and can make 200k a year, wow, I am sure doing something way wrong as I have Google Ads and am working hard at getting to the first $100 on this blog, together with the other one, they haven't gotten there in over a year, $77.07 doesn't really sound like 200k/year, so I must be not putting enough work into this. I might try covering the city, being a reporter for real local news. I wonder if this would be of interest to someone out there. I certainly read ElSegundo.net, and he does do that. However I can't imagine that he makes that kind of money. WestLA, pretty sure he doesn't either, but then given that his Skype has gone underground, maybe he is. So I have a great camera here and a town that has pretty good internet, wonder if it is worthwhile to try this. I also have a bit of time learning how to use some of the tools. But then there are so many companies in this new/ad space, it is so crowded, yet it must be lucrative.

Free Money

Free Money 1-800-917-7319 says you can ge all kinds of money from the government just for claiming it. There are no reviews on Amazon for this book, I guess they don't really sell it. Given that I see this on late night TV, I am skeptical, the Lesco books on Amazon get bad reviews, would Kevin Troudou do any better? The disclaimer says that "Individual results may vary", hmmm, disclaimers are very informative. But it sounds tempting so tempting.

HP Media Center

I wonder if this will turn into the Media Center rant blog? There are just so many things wrong with the usability of this Microsoft product on HP that I am inclined not to use it anymore. I can't seem to change channels by simply typing in the say 4.1 as 41, like I do on the $11,*after $40 coupon, converter box, I got for the old SDTV. It seem like I should be able to switch channels, the guide is nice, but why limit this option?

I am running his machine with 2 monitors, but can't run the TV while also using the web browser on the other monitor without having all kinds of misses in video and audio and doing a pretty annoying alt-tab, and then having to jump through all kinds of hoops, why does the media center hog my mouse? MS needs to talk to some UI people, Apple seems to make things easy to use and very natural to operate, but MS doesn't get that. The reception on this $699 box is also inferior to the cheaper converter box. However it does do HDTV, and that is why I got it. Not having 2 tuners is a limitation that is bugging me, originally I was looking at an ATI dual tuner card $80, but there were many things blacked out on the package, very strange, all the boxes were the same, someone took a black Sharpie and blocked out some of the features. But it was USB and dual tuners, seemed interesting, yet I didn't get it, maybe I will try it next. Should have enough machines around here to test that too, no desktops, but should work on a laptop, wish it was Mac and Ubuntu compatible. That is how I ultimatly tried out the HP, Haupage tends to be Linux compatible. If I could install OS X on that HP, that would be sweet. After about a year on the Mac, I am addicted to OS X, Ubuntu is also great, and Windows seems to be an annoying OS, Vists is so paranoid it bugs me. But is it really paranoid when they are out to pown it?

Every so often for no good reason I get a "Video Error, Files need to display video are not installed or working correctly, please restart Windows Media Center or restart the computer."

Mint

We give in more and more to the conveniences that the net offers us, and yet some things are so dangerous, yet ultimately useful that it is always a battle. Mint is "the best ^free way to manage your money," awards from Kiplinger, Webby, PCmag, and Money make me think it must be great, Gina Trapani mentioned it on a podcast as something great, seems like a great application for abuse, hacking and getting all your most important data compromised.

Windows Media Center

Is broken on this HP, I can't get the darn thing out of a place it gets stuck half of the time, the remote definitly doesn't work right. Having used a DVR from TWC, the HD8000, it was definitly a more mature product. Although I definitly see promise in this hardware combination, currently the software is still not very usable. It needs a better UI and more stability.

Antenna

I have an antenna tunned to 824-896MHz, PC826N which seems like it could get me some distance. Was looking on the FCC site to find out what is on there, WikiPedia shows
AMPS, GSM, IS-95 (CDMA), IS-136 (D-AMPS), 3G Cellular 824-849, 869-894, wonder what is on 849-869? Having a spectrum analyzer would help answer that question.

Chinese Video

I was showing my daughter some kids cartoons like 789 when I stumbled on a pretty funny Sponge Bob parody on China.

HP Pavilion Elite m9715f Desktop PC

I went to Frys and looked at some TV tuners, but I don't really have a great desktop to put it in, I had priced making one on NewEgg and decided to buy a HP Pavilion Elite m9715f Desktop PC to see how it works, since you can't really get a demo at Frys, they don't even have an antenna connected to the display unit, no internet, no way to test anything. But since the return policy gets me 100% refund if I don't get it to work, I have not downside in trying it out at home and so I did.

It is a pretty compelling system, fast prcessor 8 Gigs and 750 GB HD, ATSC Haupage card and some cool looking USB bays for drives, that are no doubt really expensive, Vista Home Premium, uck, but I can get Windows 7 later, seems like a cool system. So I connect an Akai 42" HDTV monitor to it through HDMI get the sound to go out the HDTV speakers, Skype uses the headphone jack in the front, so far so good, I can run a TV feed and talk on Skype at the same time, no problem. Now I connect a AMW VGA screen next to the HDMI connector, a very tight space, barly fits. I got 2 monitors, one on the desktop and one for video, because the 1024x1024 HDTV is sure no good for a computer monitor. Windows Media Center basically works, although it did take a bit of tweeking and bew up once. However it has problems with the mouse, I can't watch a TV program and move the mouse out of it to the desktop monitor. I don't know if others do this, but I usually run the TV in the background. It is not an Apple product and iTunes has problems, full screen goes blank. I always have some issues with figuring out where the audio goes, I would like to be able to control what audio goes where. What video goes to which screen, is also a guessing game, which I would like to be able to control.

Fast, and cool, but rough around the edges, it isn't Apple quality, however the price is much better $699+tax.

Used Autos See a Rise in Demand

WSJ says cars are rising in price due to CARS. I am considering selling my '97 Geo Prizm with 61000 miles on it, great car, but parking here is a problem. Haven't listed it yet, however would be interested in seeing what it is worth. Consumer guide gives it a 50/100 which I guess is OK, but never heard of them. Haven't used the car in 3 months very much, have to move it for street cleaning, maybe I don't need it. IAG prices it $1,752 - N/A which isn't attractive to sell, mine is in better shape them most. Maybe I just need to wax and clean it, keep on driving. Been a great car so far. Dealer is selling one for $3,995 169,295 miles, wow, it is even the same color as mine. I guess 4500 would be a great deal if it was a clunker, but it doesn't qualify. What a wasteful program that destroys value by breaking windows. People could have spent that car money on something they really wanted, instead we are taxed and the money gets used to distroy cars, we all pay for that. Yes the car companies will get to live longer, but do then need too? Maybe this is counter productive, maybe if they car companies go away, we would have progress making Tesla's.

Amazon Listing Created - NEC 1530V 15" LCD Monitor (White)

This is kind of fun, all these things sit here gathering dust. Now will someone be crazy enough to pay that? I am the only one listing this item.

Begin forwarded message:

Product Name: NEC 1530V 15" LCD Monitor (White)

Quantity remaining: 1
Total quantity sold: 0
Buyer's price: $99.00
Amazon commission (if sold): (Standard Shipping) $10.11
Standard Shipping credit (if sold): $11.99
Amazon commission (if sold): (Expedited Shipping) $11.04
Expedited Shipping credit (if sold): $21.34
Condition: Used - Very Good
Comments:
Listing ID: 0802ENRCAOM

When your listing appears, you will see it linked from the page where Amazon.com sells the same item:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000056B2J

Amazon Listing Created - Sharp 20NS100 20" MTS Stereo Color TV with Front A/V Inputs

Trying to make space for cool new stuff, and mom. Maybe not in that
order, may take me to next summer to get the space back :(

> Quantity remaining: 1
> Total quantity sold: 0
> Buyer's price: $199.00
> Amazon commission (if sold): (Standard Shipping) $20.36
> Standard Shipping credit (if sold): $34.49
> Amazon commission (if sold): (Expedited Shipping) $23.50
> Expedited Shipping credit (if sold): $65.89
> Condition: Used - Very Good
> Comments:
> Listing ID: 0801ENNZ4IA
>
> When your listing appears, you will see it linked from the page
> where Amazon.com sells the same item:
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00005O776

Time

Today the family is gone and I have some time :) Can finally listen to some old TWIT episodes I downloaded ages ago. Tried out FredFliks.

AT&T 2701HG-B 2Wire Wireless Gateway DSL Router Modem

Product Name: AT&T 2701HG-B 2Wire Wireless Gateway DSL Router Modem

Quantity remaining: 1
Total quantity sold: 0
Buyer's price: $98.00
Amazon commission (if sold): (Standard Shipping) $9.38
Standard Shipping credit (if sold): $5.49
Amazon commission (if sold): (Expedited Shipping) $9.68
Expedited Shipping credit (if sold): $8.47
Condition: Used - Like New
Comments: Will come in original shipping carton with all bits.

Sony Cybershot DSCM1 5MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom & MPEG4 Video

Buyer's price: $998.00
Amazon commission (if sold): (Standard Shipping) $81.43
Standard Shipping credit (if sold): $5.99
Amazon commission (if sold): (Expedited Shipping) $81.78
Expedited Shipping credit (if sold): $9.46
Condition: Used - Very Good
Comments: Have most parts, including all I used, don't recall if I have the manual, however all that you need to use, including a spare battery and memory stick Due PRO 256MB, charger base, USB, cables...
Listing ID: 0801ENM269G

TA-117 Casio PhoneMate Digital Answering Machine w/ Speakerphone Amazon for sales

It is pretty easy to find my product on Amazon and then give the price and condition and I am done, they charge more then eBay, but listing things is free:

Dear ralferix,

Thank you for listing your product at Amazon.com. Your listing will be available for purchase on our site within minutes. However, it may take up to 15 minutes for the listing to appear in your open listings area within Your Seller Account. Please do not re-list the product if you do not see the open listing immediately. Your listing will remain listed until it is purchased or for 60 days, whichever comes first.

Here are the details of your listing:

Product Name: TA-117 Casio PhoneMate Digital Answering Machine w/ Speakerphone

Quantity remaining: 1
Total quantity sold: 0
Buyer's price: $78.00
Amazon commission (if sold): (Standard Shipping) $7.68
Standard Shipping credit (if sold): $4.49
Amazon commission (if sold): (Expedited Shipping) $7.88
Expedited Shipping credit (if sold): $6.49
Condition: Used - Like New
Comments: has all parts, but no box
Listing ID: 0801ENLYPVY

When your listing appears, you will see it linked from the page where Amazon.com sells the same item:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000QNVOH4

Amazon.com will contact you by e-mail as soon as someone buys and pays for your item(s) successfully. This e-mail, commonly referred to as the "Sold - Ship Now!" e-mail, is your indication that we have processed payment from the buyer so you can get your shipment under way. You are expected to ship within two business days. You should also always check for new orders by logging into your seller account at http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-account/management/your-account.html.

Bad net

One of the great things about using VoIP is that you realize how bad your internet connection is very quickly. I have been dropping calls and also have problems on the web. ATT isn't any better then TWC was, so could I get an IP address that was routed through both? I know I can't easily, but could I convince the other company to announce that route, not really, they don't own the IP and I am getting a DHCP issued IP address anyhow.

Lets build our own network for neighborhoods ask for a block of IPs and then be free of these providers. I don't see how this would be free, however my fair city is pulling fiber rightnow and going to offer WiFi soon, I hope.... Can't make any claims about what they will do with it yet. Can we run our own network? We being the general public. Who can you trust with your data? How do you do your banking when your neighbor is the man in the middle and can sniff all your packets? How much privacy do you loose when he sees all your JPEGs? Not that he should be seeing your traffic, but he could if he operates a router you are attached too. So can a tech in the NOC, however they have so much traffic that who cares, they don't have time to see your needle in a haystack.

A pretty compeling articule about FourSquare that made me want to try it out, will do so.

iPhone OS on Palm Pre

I am listening to Leo Laporte - The Tech Guy 571 and he is saying that the Pre and the iPhone 3Gs have the same exact chip set and processor. Wonder if you can put the software of one on the other, but wait the screens are different sizes, 3.1 vs. 3.5 and the Pre has a physical keyboard, guess there are differences and the OS would have to be modified to take the differences into account, but with all the Dell Mini 9's running OS X, I wonder if we will see Pri running iPhone OS on it? Maybe someday, would be a cool hack. The iPhone is more expensive, since the 2 year contract is more then Sprint, but you get a better network on ATT, however the Pre could run on Verizon, hmmm, more hacking. iPhone OS on Pre running on Verizon's network.

The Old Town Music Hall

The Old Town Music Hall is a hidden gem in El Segundo. An unusual old music hall, theater and it isn't over run so very nice night. Feel like going back with a good camera and taking some pictures.

Last LAMPsig meeting

I have decided I am at my last LAMPsig meeting today. No WiFi,
Solomon is about the only speaker to the group lately and I really
don't care about computer security or anything computer related as I
used too. I for the first time introduced myself as someone who used
to use computers and is now into childcare, given that I am on the
computer all the time still, and learning all kinds of new things,
because I do want to go back to work in October, I see less value
these days in physically networking with people as I did when I was
new to the area and not as used to SoCal. I am also much more pressed
for time these days, yet today I have been pretty busy blogging :)
Right now only because there is no WiFi :(

The talk is actually interesting though, getting the full Nessus feed
took Solomon 15 min. at the datacenter and seeing all the exploits in
one place is rather interesting. We had a pretty good discussion
afterwards about capture the flag and legal issues.

Spent some time at the Blue Butterfly talking about tech and Havanas
talking with the owner about a friend who is out of tech and not being
able to get in easily. I feel like I am risking the same thing by
spending time with the family, hope I can find a job in October,
really want an IT Dir job at Mattel.

Google Voice Slow on Saturday

Don't get me wrong, Google Voice is a great service that allows you to manage your phone calls in a web browser and gives you very granular control over where your calls go, but this weekend it is taking up to a few minutes to place a call on it, outgoing, I assume receiving hasn't been slowed yet, which is OK. I don't much use it for outgoing.

School writing assignments

I used to hate coming back from summer vacation to that inevitable assignment to write about your vacation, I never liked writing and my adsense only at $75.82 after posts spanning back to February 2007 confirm that the internet and the computer have made writing much easier abundant spelling and grammar checked, however there are still very few good writers, sadly I am not one of them. But this is kind of easy and I rather like doing this as I go along rather then after I retire like my dad did and found just as few readers as I did, so should we forget and not record our history? Maybe these are notes of things that I would like to remember, and believe me, this blog has suppressed memories, things I won't write about, but would rather forget.

$20 Per Gallon

How the Inevitalbe Rise in the price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better (Hardcover) is a pretty interesting book, I am currently reading, one of those from the library's new book rack, where I often find things that catch my attention, usually can't finish them, because something new will come up, who has time to read, now that I have DTV and lots of family obligations. I found the part about SUV buyers being insecure, vain, nervous about their marriages, unconforable about having become parents, little confidence in thier driving ability self-absorbed and narcissistic with little interest in thier communities and neighbors coming out of Detroit's carmackers expensive market research, wow. However the book does have a good premise and spins the rise of oil to all its positive asspects, and I guess that they do exist in that pollution and globalization will deminish. The main premise of consumption expanding and production getting more expesive is very convincing, so $20 is really going to happen, probably pretty soon as it also looks like we may have inflation helping at some point.
"Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization" and "A Thousand Barrels a Second: The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World" are some other books on this issue of global change, the new economy will use more and more telecom, less moving of people and materials.

Lawn Mowers

It seems like every time I am on the phone there is a lawn mower in my ear here is the schedule so far:

Friday 12:20PM
Saturday 8:00AM
Monday 8:00AM

However there are many more.

Zune looses to DVDs

It is interesting that a rather cool sounding Zune didn't sell out for 24 hours on Woot, whereas I look less then half a day after the new Woot came out, 30 DVDs and they are sold! But I don't know how many Zunes they had, maybe an infinite number.

Google Index removal, Long Distance WiFi for Costa Rica

It is hard to find time to post, even harder to think what is something I can release that won't be bad for me in the future or lead to someone pwning me. Some people won't even use their name on the internet for fear that something they write could someday be used against them. On that subject I got a call yesterday from an old friend about removing his wife's name from Google, seems like she was associated to the Orange Team in some post at UT SW that got blogged and I have no idea why this was so bad, but so far he managed to get the blogger to remove the name, but Google had not crawled the page again yet, the last time they did was June, and since it is July he was getting very antsy about it. So after an hour of googling I found how to do it, Webpage removal request tool.

I also got a call from Costa Rica about getting satillite internet, seems lame so I asked how far from wired internet, 4 Km, hmmm... NanoStation2 was my answer to that one. I then went to look for my content in http://socalwifi.net/ and found it down :( Seems there are attacks on the server and the admin is trying to resolve the DOS. Intel has an interesting claim of more then 60 miles on WiFi. But a Loco is probably enough for 4 miles, so why keep looking.

So I skype this all back to Mark, but he has been MIA since I tried to get this info back to him, geez:
This guys are pretty awsome: http://www.wlanparts.com/ they used to have monthly meetings about WiFi.

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/MUM_2006_USA/Long_range

We're going to try something new tonight, and plan on streaming this
presentation live. Thanks to Israel's kind offer to attempt this
previously unheard of technological feat, if you really can't make it
to OC you should be able to watch this presentation on
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/uuasc . Since this is our first attempt
at this, you should probably attend in person if possible. If you
watch it on the stream, please post some feedback to the mailing list,
especially if you'd like to see us continue to do this.


Tonight's meeting in Orange County will feature two individuals from
Engineers Without Borders: Orange County Professionals (EWB-OC);
Israel Lopez & Chris Healy will be speaking to us about their recent
trip to Honduras where they are setting up a wireless network for an
educational system called "Olancho Aid". They will give an overview of
the project and explain how they will be using 802.11a/g to distribute
the internet access to two other schools, how Linux is involved in the
management of the network, and how Linux might be used on the student
desktop. Also, they have implemented a small Asterisk server to save
the school communication costs between buildings, a real savings of
over $200 USD a month, where the average salary is $400 USD.

They intend to use their experience with Olancho Aid as a sustainable
technology model that can be 'copied-and-pasted' to other education
systems in Honduras. Once a successful implementation is in place,
they hope to build up the local community's technology skill-set as a
way to uplift the community out of poverty.

Israel Lopez owns a small webhosting business; Sandbox IT Solutions
LLC, he also is the Vice President of Internal Affairs for EWB-OC, and
is the Technology Lead for the Honduras project.
RalfX
Pending
I didn't make it to the talk but http://vimeo.com/5587796
RalfX
Pending
Thank you for attending the meeting tonight online & in person. I have to apologize for the online broadcast, the technology & setup was there, the bandwidth was not. So we could use some more suggestions on how to get better bandwidth & UUASC-OC next time. We hope to continue these broadcasts, as we will be getting better and better at putting them on.

As promised tonight the slides are available here: http://ilopez.com/temp/UUASC-Talk.pdf
Including a video short summary that was missed in the presentation: http://vimeo.com/5587796. I will have the whole presentation uploaded to Vimeo soon, it is being transcoded from AVCHD into WMV HD (720p). Hope to get that converted successfully and uploaded soon.

I hope everyone had a great time, hope to give you guys an update after we get back in December!

Again our website is http://ewb-oc.org/olancho and if you have any questions feel free to email me directly.

up all night

I got awoken a bit late last night and been up since. I guess not having dinner, late lunch made me restless, or is it the heat? Had some video conferences with a chap I met in Dublin, and he sends me a night camera link, lol. I could have turned on the light, but was playing with Stikcam which is pretty cool, albeit very slow, but hey maybe there were just many of me up all night.

Was looking at moving to Costa Rica, the happiest country on earth according to the Happy Planet Index. US way at the bottom, geez, what a mistake to move here. However reading the fine print shows us that

The nations that top the Index aren’t the happiest places in the world, but the nations that score well show that achieving, long, happy lives without over-stretching the planet’s resources is possible.

So maybe this place is just over-stretching the planet's resources. Which I guess will get corrected in this depression. So perhaps this isn't hell after all, just the center of global warming, but if oil can be expensive enough, maybe it can freeze over. Anyhow I have been looking at alternatives to all the mindless consumption here, last night I tried to turn off all electronic equipment, but that didn't last very long. I did however write on paper for the first time in a long time, my handwriting sucks. Trying very hard to get an IT Manager job at Mattel 2 miles from home, which would be great for my time and pollution. Been trying to cut down on diapers and stuff at home, so I don't need a bigger place. I even used to separate trash and compost when it made sense, but here I can't use the green stuff.

Yet I live in this industrial complex that may kill us all, the refinery just released loads of ammonia gas and the airport and sewage plant can't be good for my health either. I really am thinking of moving somewhere else.

Follow me, MythTV, COS

So I now follow my own blog, funny, but I wanted to see how this works and maybe not have 0 followers, I can remove myself someday, meanwhile you can follow me on the left, just like on Twitter. Not sure what it gets you, but I am following some blogs myself and decided to see if I got followers.

So I also setup Mythbuntu with a pcHDTV HD-3000 to watch ATSC TV on my computer, well, I have a 42" screen that I want to have a tuner for and a PVR would be great as well. It works, after weeks of tweeking, it works, but is still unwatchable, now I need a faster PC to use this on.

So every time Google does something that encroaches on the Windows turf, people get excited that some major company might finally bring Linux to the desktop, or the netbook. A Google NetBook would serve them well, and we don't need to pay the MS tax to get online :)

where the shit meets the water

I got some pictures of how sewage used to go into the water around where we live. Kind of sad how they would dump all this water in the ocean, when you think about it, filtering it through land would have cleaned it before hitting the water table, or spreading it on land would have fertilized, but dumping it in the ocean, sucks.

free time :)

I didn't say this directly to anyone in the company, but I was under the distinct impression that I was given a verbal offer that was higher then a written offer, which I didn't sign, but all the same, I didn't bring the discrepancy up in a timely manner and brought it up late, my job offer was rescinded. Given that I was so late to point it out, I would say that I tacitly accepted the lower offer, but hey, I am happy to stay home, lots of family business to take care of. Besides, I really want to work at Mattel or El Segundo, both waking distance.

Bing

Was reading Slashdot and it seems Bing gives a censured result for sex in India, so I of course looked up that term in Bing and saw interesting results, like this YouTube sex video. Safe to watch at work, not really that explicit, however I didn't look at all the results, some might be. Wonder what they censer in China?

Meanwhile Ballmer is talking about moving Microsoft employees offshore, because of US tax law changes, interesting read.

Bing and the glory days of Detroit

I rediscovered Cranky Geeks today. I actually managed to get away from my job this weekend, the one that goes on for more then 40hours a week, what a time drain. Anyhow I clicked on the Bing article in PC Mag and well written as it is the web version of PC mag with all its ads and ad links is very annoying, however some articles are good so I guess we tolerate it, until we read blogs, where you don't have as much junk. But who am I to complain, I ended up trying ads on my blogs, not that they produce, I have lots to learn. Still haven't fixed the Digg problem with this blog, my best article is still misdirected on Digg, which surely doesn't help me get diggs.

I used to hate writing stuff in school, I guess now that I have spell check and typing 2 things that I wasn't good at are not a problem anymore. However I still lack some more inspiration, but meanwhile I have gotten pretty familiar with the technology and am trying to get my dad to do his memoirs using some form of online distribution because it is free, fast and easy, however he insists on printing them on paper and mailing them, at a big expense. Seems rather silly to me, when you could actually make money blogging, mind you not much, however currently he spends money to print and mail these books out using Word, seems so 90s, this century blogging I was told is so 2006, twitting is in. Yet how do you get them to change their ways? I bet you he would hate it if he had to wait a year for my thing to get printed and mailed to him :P I have to wonder if this upcoming generation is even going to read books, schools may decide that the Kindle or OLPC is more cost effective.

I am reading Ripped this week, on paper, been a long time since I read on paper, other then the crap that fills my mailbox. Most everything is on screen now.

Cool video from the 1939 worlds fair on making a Chrysler.



After watching this video and some of the cool features of a '37 Plymouth, want to test drive one.


Interesting videos from a time when cars were interesting, now they are just a problem for us, we can't get cheap oil anymore and need something new, like maybe 240 Miles range all electric car that Build Your Dreams is making not in Detroit but China.

But these old videos are rather interesting to watch. Streamlining a car from the '30s.

SMS

Digg can difinitly find you cool stuff:
ProviderFormat
Sprint phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Verizon phonenumber@vtext.com
T-Mobile phonenumber@tmomail.com
AT&T phonenumber@txt.att.net
AIM +1phonenumber
Thanks Popular Mechanics for this article. I do find it useful to send SMS from email.

I has been great to have 3 days off, unfortunately some of that was spent on taxes, they don't just cost money, they really do drain lots of time too.

Cartoonist wants work

Alberto is looking for work and asked me about this ad he is sending the ad agencies he is applying at. I keep wanting to start some start up with him, that is probably a good environment for him. Our first idea was DVD Exchange, but we didn't complete that one and 2 competitors sprung up. Anyhow if you need something call him before corporate America snaps him up.

This clock widget caught my eye on MrBagel, seems cool.

Apple tools

I have been using a Mac Book Pro for the past half a year, I thought cool when I got it, these are sure pretty, they don't crash as much as PCs do and are slick, pretty and expensive, so I was so happy when one fell into my lap a few jobs ago.  It has changed my OS and increased my ability to work anywhere.  They open and are ready for you, the are there you can really get hooked on these slick machines.  I got up really early today worried about a tax issue I have to resolve today, no good solution for it, but it does keep me awake to irritate the heck out of me that my time goes into this accounting BS, but I don't have people, I got to find people, people that can help me do things, and hopefully make my time more valuable doing other core functions, like a well paid job.  I did get a job offer today, a day late, but hey who cares, I really don't want to start anytime soon, but June 8 is my start day, I figure I will be taking this job, what do I have to loose.  It is a permanent position with benefits and a 401k, should make the wife happy, I was happy working for the startup doing clouds, but hey, you don't always get what yo want, especially when you enter in partnerships.

Meanwhile had to finished watching Glee, which is a real tear jerker and finally have a moment to myself where I can blog, but honestly, blogging is something I can't afford to do anymore, yet years later, it will be interesting to look back on this, if Google is still around and hasn't deleted my account.  I have ads to help them, I know it hardly helps me to have a blog, the income is still 0, couldn't reach the first $100 to get paid yet and I am not allowed to ask you my loyal readers to click on them, unless you really find them interesting, actually I am really not allowed to talk about this at all. After all, click fraud is a bad thing for Google's advertisers that pay real money for the ads, and me being a shareholder, I guess I do care about the reputation of the company I own, I didn't start this blog to make money on ads, lucky for me, because that model only works if you have some really good content and lots of viewers, which I clearly don't. I am only at 12,062 page impressions.

So I snuck away 2 paragraphs about personal stuff, when I was really trying to talk about Apple, geez.  My motivation when I started this post turned into personal dribble.

5.0 EarthQuake

Sure felt it, shaking with 1 after shock.

Apex AD-600A

Today I spent some time goofing off looking at all the hacking going on with DVD player Time magazine reports it was a mistake, but I am interested in this player because it is region less and someone was offering to sell it used. However I will probably pass on buying this used, would rather make my own with an old PC and Gentoo, I am mostly done with this, just got a power supply to put in there from Stephen during his moving out give away. It is a rather tall tower, with a bad processor, but if I am to leave this monster running 24/7, maybe not so bad it is not the fastest most power hungry machine out there. After all it can add $10/month to my electric bill not to turn a modern computer off, there is wake on Ethernet, but I have not played with that, I used to run a PII all the time at home as a mail server, and I am guessing that I could try that again. Gmail failed the other day, but not really the issue for me, just haven't played with my own server in a while. I am getting a TV tuner card, so that would be another reason to leave a computer on all the time so it can record shows at certain times and then play them back to me.

I have been thinking of building a media center/email PC for a while, only time keeps me from not doing it, now back to taxes. Amazon has one for a ridiculous price.

DSL sucks

So far I am not happy with the ATT DSL, seems it fails every so often, maybe more then the cable modem did, I may just return this during the first 30 days, I think they at least have a money back guarantee. I may however be enticed to keep the lower speed at $10/month, who cares if it fails sometimes, at that low speed, it doesn't matter I guess, but then again, maybe these days are just bad, I haven't called to ask about outages. I have to say that at the office it was 99.9% reliable, pretty good there, but at home, not.

I should setup a ping to find out exactly how often my service fails.
Raw bandwidth is usually OK, but it keeps failing for minutes at a time. However at

Connection Speed:
• Incoming: 3008 kbps
• Outgoing: 512 kbps

raw bandwidth is also less then advertised, I am possibly quitting, in the first 30 days.

To kill a mocking bird

I have been up since 3, not so much by the mockingbird, but by the noise it otherwise generated at home, I can ignore a bird singing, even if it is a loud song. I have been considering strapping the baby monitor to the tree. It is a little device that plays a heartbeat when it hears the baby cry, hope the mocking bird sound triggers it, however it may have some sort of voice recognition and ignore that sound.

Finally invoiced my last client, I am now going to work on personal projects. However may consider engagements closer to home. Commuting 2 hours a day is out.

Time at last

I am going to take some time to spend with family :)

Movies on my HD

Today Blockbuster offers me to download movies to my hard drive, sounds tempting but I shutter to think of the DRM and how it restricts me. DRM is too complicated and there is so much content out there without it, that why bother, costs Blockbuster to implement and me to use, wish we didn't have it. However I like the idea better then streaming how Netflix does it as I often got stuck in the middle of a movie. I just don't see it winning over the convenience of free content out there, encombered content is so much less usefull.

Top of the week

I can't believe how busy I have become lately, trying to juggle my job with staying home and telecommuting, have lost touch with friends that I used to dream about doing a startup with, then came a death threat and advice that I shouldn't be mixing with someone who was that competitive, oh well, TWIT 192 had Jason on, from Mahalo, wow, what a great episode, would make me want to do a startup now, he is great about sharing.

Yesterday BarCampLA7 was nice, to meet lots of people, didn't spend much time in the talks, however the command line talk, was about typing to the GUI, bad name, however learned about Launchy for XP which allows me to do something that Mac has on Apple-Space, Spotlight on Windows, great, SpotLight is great, but missing in Windows. Quicksilver which came before Spotlight was of course mentioned and I would like to use it on Gnome as well and Beagle (GNOME) does that too. The talk about the iPhone was great in that he was showing how to find the hidden APIs, says that you pretty much need them to make any cool apps.

I have been itching to put some stuff on a wiki that I can't reach, funny so what the heck, I can post everything here first. I have been working on cloud computing these days, EC2 is what we are targeting, however I will spend time as well looking at other clouds like Mosso, RackSpace, GoGrid, and Eucalyptus. Eric Hammond didn't think the last one fit the first ones, but I think they are all in the same space, just a question of how much work you do yourself and what you pay someone to do for you. Eucalyptus is probably cheaper and you can save money, but have to do much more work. I also am listening as I write this to FLOSS Weekly 67: Xen, which is at the core of many of these cloud computing platforms. Yesterday I want to TV's "cloud" talk, which he started out by saying that he didn't believe in clouds, that it was all hype, but clouds go beyond virtualization, it is Xen+Eucalyptus if you need some open source implementaitons to show you that there is more too it then VMware.

Got my own DSL now and loving it, since I haven't paid the first bill yet, I wanted to get work to pay for it, but haven't told them yet, oh well, at least as a telecommuter it is a tax deduction. So far this morning managed to stay away from family, and got to post a blogpost, but sun is up now and getting hungry.

CNBC on air

I got one of those coupon converter boxes, and am really pleased with the results, many more channels some of them are actually neat, then what I was getting on analog. I hate having another box taking space and using electricity 24/7, although sometimes I will cut power to all that area to protect the little fingers from exploring the wires in the area.

I sometimes watch Mad Money on iTunes, but it occurs to me that GE should put it on the air, since cable companies, that they have no skin in are universally hated in this area. Not sure why, anyhow, I bet lots of people would watch it and invest, which would help turn the market. They would get more advertising revenue since more would watch. Probably time to work on building out our own network, and kick TWC out of town, I just got DSL, since I can't get the cable company to give me a stable signal.

Yesterday my neighbor moved out, far away, kind of sad to say goodbye.

View Larger Map

PoolParty doc push

Wednesday we went to ISI to meet with the PoolParty devs, but mainly to learn how to install it as we are evaluating it vs RightScale.  They just released 1.1 this month and seem to be pushing to get 1.2 done with VMware support which is a plus for our infrastructure.  If you need to manage your cloud, start by apt-get or yum install git or get a DMG for your Mac then 

git clone git://github.com/auser/poolparty.git

gets you a local copy of the repo.  

$ git clone git://github.com/auser/poolparty.git

Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/ralf/poolparty/.git/

remote: Counting objects: 26692, done.

remote: Compressing objects: 100% (6554/6554), done.

remote: Total 26692 (delta 19138), reused 26122 (delta 18718)

Receiving objects: 100% (26692/26692), 106.27 MiB | 251 KiB/s, done.

Resolving deltas: 100% (19138/19138), done.

So some white boarding was done with the architecture and how to get started

You may want an IRC client, Colloquy seems popular on the mac, MIRC on Windows and Pidgeon on Ubuntu. Then join Freenode.org#poolpartyrc.

As cool as PoolParty seems, it will take more time for me to implement at this point it it seems I should spend time on clearer procedures as to what we are installing and worry about automation later.

FreshBooks seems like a pretty cool invoicing website, free if your 3 people.

CloudComputing and Conficker

Up way too early, this week is fun, maybe because it is the last full week I get to work in the office on cloud computing and we have a PoolParty meeting on Wednesday at ISI in Marina del Rey. This area is at the beading edge, I keep reading things that are just published and getting to play with them. The tide has definitely turned from colo to cloud.

Meanwhile I am listening to podcasts again and they have been great, Flossing with Bacon was cool but having Security Now call: "Windows is a steaming pile of crap" was really neat. He did some research on Conficker and found it a very interesting

At the office early, regretting chickening out of AMR yesterday, at least I didn't get rid of the whole position. So trying to buy C at 2.5 today and sell the rest of AMR at 5.5, while buying it back cheaper.

Shopping for internet

Seems like I may be working from home next month, can't go into office anymore, so I am looking for a better internet connection. Got better later in the day, but I think I need more reliability, time to run copper.

EC2 vs Colo

I have been reading up and considering the financial implications of EC2 vs. colo. Seems like there are lots of articles about this these days: The Weakness of Commodity Server to Cloud Server Cost Comparisons, Amazon EC2 Reserved Instance: The Good, Bad and the Ugly

LiLAX

We moved the meeting to 530 8th last minute, not to confuse our speaker, but being that he was late and then later because he didn't have my number, guess I will have to give that out to speakers in the future. This could be one of the last meetings downtown, we may move to El Segundo again.

Lots of interesting things were talked about.

tcpkill
tcpnice
fragroute
ettercap
ssh tuneling

Layer 5
dnspoof
sshmitm
webmitm
filesnarf
mailsnarf
msgsnarf
urlsnarf
webspy
sshow
driftnet

Injecting Network Traffic
scapy
hping3
nemesis
isic

Gizmo5 Skype calls

Today I got a cool email from Gizmo telling me that we can now make and receive calls with Skype, neat video showing it on an N95. But I have Fring loaded on my N95 and have been pretty happy with it for a long time. Either way it is cool that things are starting to interoperate. I bet in time everyone will know what Skype is, and Gizmo is a second to that right now, unfortunate as it supports standard SIP, but given how unstable the software is, has hurt it. Still it is a pretty cool platform. Things are also interesting on the Skype side as they have released a very cool app for the iPhone. I haven't tried it yet, but hear that it works great from Jacques. It is however limited to the WiFi for the free calls and does work on the Touch. So it makes the Belkin Skype phone obsolete for him.

Spring cleaning

Today I started spring cleaning, need to find a home for that 2000-01 MSDN, 50 pounds of CDs, books, computers, laptops and all the other things that might be turned into something easier to store, money. Some can be free I guess, why bother. I bought a cheap, used bar code reader at the TRW swap meet, sweet, should be helpfull in getting stuff out of here on Amazon and SwapTree which I signed up on today. I should figure out now how to get my inventory on my blog, since I figure that I might meet in person with some of you making exchange easy.

Eucalyptus

Today I want to play with Eucalyptus, the free Amazon API implementation that is developed at UCSB and there even is integration with RightScale going on right now as well as an annoucement at NY Cloud Computing Expo by RightScale. I am told Eucalyptus is based on Karmic Koala, or Ubuntu 9.10, this seems strange, since it was only announced Feb 20 by Mark ShuttleWorth. Ubuntu 9.04 includes Eucalyptus, sweet. Perhaps autoinst can be used to automate host config, but I am still leaning towards RightScale. There is some cool info coming from its CTO soon, not at liberty to disclose, but been asking for it. Karmic Koala is the 9.10 Ubuntu release in the works.

Blogger

My experience with Blogger has been very positive so far, the interface is great and it basically works. Much easier then setting up your own. Adsense integration is easy as well, but I don't have much revenue. I have experienced problems uploading large movies, they don't make it clear what the size your video is and sometimes things just hang, because your are sending a file that is over 100 Meg. Sometimes it pays to paste into the HTML window, seems like it can drag lots of junk with a copy an paste into the compose tab, as I noticed with I copied:

Your blog can have up to 100 readers.

Which is what I am playing with now, I have a closed blog, that has subscribers, seems like a cool thing to play with, so I closed a blog, invited readers, although I have to say that the adoption rate has been pretty low. The blog has 5 authors, 4 subscribers and 12 open invitations, pretty poor performance, compared to the old numbers. Seems like you have an option to continue as a guest that lets you see the content, without affecting the numbers.

You'll need to sign in with a Google Account to confirm the invitation. If you don't have a Google Account yet, we'll show you how to get one in minutes, or you can view the blog as a guest for up to 30 days.

I will have to see if it gets any better after 30 days, probably not, I guess this is one more hurdle, that will diminish readership way below the numbers it used to get.

Lost bag

Neat little quote from 1837 I found on Crawling Road:

What has been, what ever must be, the consequence of such a sudden and prodigious inflation of the currency? Business stimulated to the most unhealthy activity; a vast amount of over production in the mechanick arts; a vast amount of speculation in property of every kind and name, at fictitious values; and finally, a vast and terrifick crash, when the treacherous and unsubstantial basis crumbles beneath the stupendous fabrick of credit, and the structure falls to the ground, burying in its ruins thousands who exulted in the fancied security of their elevation. Men, now-a-days, go to bed deeming themselves rich, and wake in the morning to find themselves stripped of even the little they really had. They count, deluded creatures! on the continued liberality of the banks, whose persuasive entreaties seduced them into the slippery paths of speculation. But they have now to learn that the banks cannot help them if they would, and would not if they could. They were free enough to lend their aid when assistance was not needed; but now, when it is indispensable to carry out the projects which would not have been undertaken but for the temptations they held forth, no further resources can be supplied. The banks must take care of themselves. “Charity begins at home.” The course of trade is turning against the country. We have purchased more commodities abroad than our products will pay for, and the balance will soon be called for in specie. The banks, which lately vied with one another in effusing their notes, are now as eager competitors in withdrawing them from circulation, and preparing for the anticipated shock. They have no time to listen to the prayers of the deluded men whom their deceitful lures seduced so far upon the treacherous sea of credit. They cast them adrift without remorse and leave them to encounter, unaided and unprepared, the fury of the gathering tempest. Or should, perchance, some tender hearted moneychanger relent, and consent to tow a few victims into harbour, is it unreasonable that he should charge wrecker’s fees for the service—half the cargo and twenty per cent commissions on the remainder? The cashiers of some of our banks can tell you that these are but the usual rates.

William Legget

December 10, 1837

So I guess we are in for inflation next, bugs me, what to buy? A house? Gold? Money can't be worth this much, it will loose value.

So I spent some time trying to contact lost baggage at United for Dan who left a camera on the plane, I didn't feel really qualified for this, but he was convinced that someone had to go to the terminal 7 at LAX and talk to the guy directly, I am sure that the reason they weren't getting back to him is they are too busy. In the end, I get an email from Dan telling me that it is all resolved, they did get back to him and asked for a FedEx account to ship his camera back to him, cool, I didn't have to go to the airport after all :) I thought that was a fools errand.

Skirball AAII

This morning rather rashly I decided to go to the AAII meting at the
Skirball, is an interesting talk well attended by many retired
individuals where they talk investing. The speakers was pretty
bullish on the housing market bouncing and the idea that we may have
reached a bottom. I tend to agree, I think our way out is inflation,
this means get rid of your money, buy something, a house, stocks or
gold. Second speaker talks about energy independence and taxes on gas
to get the price up to $4 again, very disruptive to the economy.

GPS

I am going to take he Tomtom GO 720 with me today on a walk, don't
know how to use it yet, but I see that http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/THE%20LoW/traces/192562
did a trace on it, so it must be possible. I also updated the
firmware on it, can't update the maps, seems they charge 48/year on
it, hmmm...

My answer, is here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/TomTom I have to
install something, will research further.

Obama

Last night we went to the Ruby meeting at AT&T Interactive, good location and good hacking session, although I didn't get much Ruby done. On the way there we saw the Obama motorcade coming south on the 110 on its way to Long Beach Airport. Amazing how much it takes to move a president, as the 3 of us were piled into a carpool.

Just heard there is a new Dominican movie, Sanky-Panky, got to watch.