It just works!

is what I used to hear Jobs say at the keynote, but alas I got a Thinkpad with W7 on it and I hear I will get a Blackberry, wow, why would I learn old tech?  I think I have to research if I can put Outlook on Ubuntu and maybe bring my own phone to work, just use the GSM chip in another phone, but wait, the phone will be very expensive, since the free Blackberry will have used up the subsidy, rats.

I have found some great hosts in the Bay Area for all my trips, it is less polluted then El Segundo, so maybe I will have to rename this blog again, as I an not Sleepless in Palo Alto.

Radio Shack

I bought a Virgin Mobile Motorola Triumph in Mountain View CA almost a month ago, after having 2 defective ones, I tried a 3rd one and I thought the 3rd one would be a charm, it was mostly, until I started to get reboots during navigation and white screens when I would wake it up.  Given that I don't have warranty and I was at 29 days I decided to return it.  It took 3 hours, with 3 different Radio Shack Stores to do this return, the first Radio Shack on Hawthorne and El Segundo is the worst.  I hear they are the best performer in sales, but they treat the customers badly when it comes to returns.  First I was told they will not accept an item for a return that wasn't bought in their store, then that they wanted a 15% restocking fee, so I said I would exchange the phone for the same model, they balked at that too, and wanted $21 more for the phone.  I left after they tried to talk me into some contract carrier or another phone I didn't like.  So great, Radio Shack on 1908 Sepulveda, said its computer was broken, and also tried to up sell me and show me other phones, problem is Virgin doesn't really have anything like the Triumph, so again contract carriers for far more then the $25/month I have now, didn't want them either.  TheShack #3 at 15126 Hawthorne Blvd, Johnny didn't have any in stock, but had no problem processing my return, with no restocking fee.  Interesting....  not all Radio Shack stores are alike.

Cloud9

I figured out that the procedure I was using to flash the 4Gb uSD card works great, on a working uSD card, I guess the freebie I got at the trade show has a problem, no brand junk. The Cloud9 interface is really nice and looking forward to playing with node.js.

BeagleBone

I got a BeagleBone playing SCALE poker, gave a talk about it at LiLAX.net which met at SpaceX, thanks Jok.  I have spent countless hours trying to learn how to do simple things like "screen /dev/beaglebone 115200" so I can even login to it, then I made the mistake of doing an opkg upgrade on the thing and messed up the Linux on it and got to spend some more time learning how the init system works on AngStrom Linux. Today I got the idea of maybe putting Gentoo on it and saying the hell with it, however I just realized that my only Gentoo system is quite old now and so is no doubt my knowledge of Gentoo. Gentoo Prefix sounds like an interesting idea:

The youngest member of Gentoo/Alt is the Gentoo Prefix project. It emerged from the Gentoo for Mac OS X project, which suffered from multiple practical problems initially. The core principle of Gentoo Prefix is that installation of packages by Portage are done in an offset, thereby leaving the host OS unmodified. As a side effect, administrative privileges are not required.

However I don't know if it is mature enough to try it, but it might be a fun diversion. I briefly considered maybe switching from OS X to Gentoo on the Mac, after all this hardware is getting slow, but reinstalling this OS X wouldn't be so easy :( without an install disk. Although maybe I could make a block copy to a USB drive, then install it from there, but wouldn't it make more sense to leave OS X where it is and install the Gentoo on the USB drive? That way the month or so I would no doubt spend getting things to work and learning how to do it, I would still have a working Mac.  However Gentoo might more happily live on one of those Windows laptops I have laying around.

BeagleBone opkg update upgrade

Took it out of the box, plugged in an eithernet cable and USB to the computer, where I can
This weekend after coming back from interviewing in the Bay Area I finally have time to play with the BeagleBone I won at SCALE10x, it is an awesome device.  I am turning it into a NAS, web server and who knows what else.  First the basics, I finally found a way to upgrade the Ångström Linux.

root@beaglebone:~# opkg update
Downloading http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/core/ipk/eglibc/armv7a/base/Packages.gz.
Inflating http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/core/ipk/eglibc/armv7a/base/Packages.gz.

...

root@beaglebone:~# opkg upgrade

Upgrading kernel-module-rt2x00usb on root from 3.1-r2a+gitr1d84d8853fa30cf3db2571a5aec572accca4e29d to 3.1-r2l+gitr1d84d8853fa30cf3db2571a5aec572accca4e29d...

Downloading http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/core/ipk/eglibc/armv7a/machine/beaglebone/kernel-module-rt2x00usb_3.1-r2l+gitr1d84d8853fa30cf3db2571a5aec572accca4e29d_beaglebone.ipk.

Upgrading perl-module-cgi-pretty on root from 5.14.2-r0 to 5.14.2-r2...

Downloading http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/core/ipk/eglibc/armv7a/perl/perl-module-cgi-pretty_5.14.2-r2_armv7a.ipk.

Upgrading perl-module-mime on root from 5.14.2-r0 to 5.14.2-r2...

Downloading http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/core/ipk/eglibc/armv7a/perl/perl-module-mime_5.14.2-r2_armv7a.ipk.

Upgrading kernel-module-bcm3510 on root from 3.1-r2a+gitr1d84d8853fa30cf3db2571a5aec572accca4e29d to 3.1-r2l+gitr1d84d8853fa30cf3db2571a5aec572accca4e29d...

Downloading http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/core/ipk/eglibc/armv7a/machine/beaglebone/kernel-module-bcm3510_3.1-r2l+gitr1d84d8853fa30cf3db2571a5aec572accca4e29d_beaglebone.ipk.

...

Upgrade took 4 hours, made the mistake of not setting up a screen session so I could disconnect for a while. Missed seeing

Downloading http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/core/ipk/eglibc/all/gateone_0.9-r15_all.ipk.

wget: short write

...

Configuring kernel-module-zl10353.

/usr/share/opkg/intercept/depmod: line 4: echo: write error: No space left on de

write error: No space left on device


Got to spend some more time hacking at this BeagleBoard for Saturday, presenting at LiLAX.net

Akai PDP4273m

I have a burned out 42" plasma HDTV monitor in the living room.  It was kind of out of focus for a little then popped and went black, hasn't worked since.  The remote still works and it lights up a power LED, but nothing on the screen.  Trying to figure out what to do with this thing.

Xmas

For all of you who I didn't send a Christmas card this year, don't feel bad, no one got one, happy festivus.  Although I feel bad about it as I have started to get some Christmas cards myself. Note to self, start earlier next year, make a good picture to put on it, then stuff envelops, or at least email them out like I do every year, sometime between Christmas and new years, wait I have time. Too bad I don't have PhotoShop on this Mac :(