stevem.net

Snow!

I love snow, bad weather, long dramatic newscasts, and everything around it.  I was at home all day today making sure a puppy was well cared for, and was able to take some pictures of the snow up on Queen Anne in Seattle.

The wind is now blowing so hard that the light poles outside and in the Safeway parking lot across the road are making horrible noises, and the snow is blowing vertically.  I wish photos would capture the snow in the lights, but it never seems to work...

My short walk home tonight was so cold because of the wind - at points I had to stop and turn away from the wind it was so powerful and full of stinging snow.  I hope it keeps snowing and blowing so I don't have to go into work tomorrow ...

Full set of pictures is here on Flickr.

T-Mobile G2 WiFi calling and hotspot first impressions

T-Mobile released support for WiFi calling and hotspot a week or so ago.  I've been waiting for this for quite some time since the two biggest problems I've had in recent months have been cell signal coverage, and being able to use a hotspot when I'm out and about.  

I've had the update for a bit over a week, and it's working very well on both counts.

WiFi calling has been tried before using UMA, mostly for BlackBerry phones.  T-Mobile had the Hotspot @ Home service that allowed you to use your internet connection to make phone calls from your cell phone.

To setup WiFi calling is very simple.  A new app shows up called WiFi Calling, which allows you to turn the feature on.  Once it's on, and if an appropriate wifi network is available, it logs into T-Mobile's site remotely and you're done.  

I've noticed a few things when using WiFi calling: 

Normal phone network connection is disabled - this is actually a good thing for me, since several places I frequent have awesome wifi coverage, but have horrible T-Mobile coverage.  Since the normal phone radio is off, it saves a huge amount of battery.  However, when you leave a wifi coverage area, it takes a few seconds for the phone to spin up the normal radio and get back on T-Mobile's normal network.  Can be annoying too if you're in the middle of a call - oops!

Jumping wifi AP's works fine - I've been at work and jumped across a number of similar AP's, as well as onto a completely different AP, and things work great.  You can't continue a call during these times, but that's OK.  You just have to be a bit more cognizant of when you're going to go out of range of an AP as you will drop your call.  I've also noticed going from home to work to friends house doesn't require any intervention.  My G2 was joined to all of these three networks, and as soon as I'm in range, a few seconds later I'm using wifi calling.

Battery life increases - as I mentioned above, because the normal radio is off, I'm seeing a 20-50% savings in battery depending on where I happen to be during the day.  Many times I would come home at night and be near 20% battery left.  Now, I come home with 40-50% left!  Quite a big difference.  Remember, though, that my work location has no T-Mobile coverage, and so I'm on wifi for 8+ hours.

Call quality and speed excellent - people can call me and my phone rings almost immediately, instead of the 1 or 2 rings in the past that were used while the towers were searching me out.  In addition, the speed of text messages and outbound calls connecting is much faster.

I've connected my phone to a wifi system where I can take packet captures, and from what I can see, the wifi app establishes an ipsec connection to T-Mobile through the internet, and periodically updates it's status through that same connection.  I plan on doing some bandwidth profiling and other information later this coming week and will post that information here too - I'm particularly interested in how much bandwidth it takes for a phone call as well as for text messages.

The hotspot functionality is similar to the same options available on the Droid series of phones from Verizon, and the EVO on Sprint.  However, the biggest difference is the network.  Here in Seattle near my house I get almost 10Mbps download, and 4Mbps upload, with ~40ms of ping times - that's pretty fantastic from a mobile connection, and far better than the Clearwire/Sprint 4G stuff I've used before.

I hope that more phones adopt the wifi calling like feature, including from other providers.  This will allow us to use more minutes and be more connected in many places that are completely dead now - basements, work, etc.  Unfortunately, a lot of providers are resisting the shift to internet technologies for voice - even Verizon is saying their new LTE network will not support data and voice via the same technologies.  

For me, it makes the G2 and T-Mobile's network more reliable than any other provider in all of the places I frequent.  Great feature!

MacBook Air first impressions

  I've been a die-hard user of Apple's MacBook Pro since the first ones came out back in 2006. Prior to that, I used the older style G4 Powerbook. I'm a linux / command line person at heart, and I prefer Apple's approach to the operating system for many reasons.

Recently, as no surprise to those who know my klutzy ways, I dropped my MacBook Pro 15" - I'd only had it about a year. To say "dropped" would be an understatement. I fell while coming into my office, and rather than skewer myself on some equipment, I decided to throw the MacBook and save my own life. In reality, again as no surprise to those who know me, my life was never at risk. Sure seemed like it at the time... So, the MacBook went flying, hit the hard corner of the desk several times as it flipped over and down onto some other hard surfaces, then finally the floor. The screen cracked, one corner of the unibody case was flattened from the normal curve to a sharp edge, there were two large dents in the top near the Apple logo, and there were parts inside that sounded loose.

Thankfully I had a full backup from earlier in that day, so I was safe there. So, I needed a new primary system. Timing worked out that the new MacBook Air came out about 2 weeks after the fatal accident. I placed my order for the 13" 2.13Ghz system with 4GB RAM and 256GB SSDs as soon as I could. It took a few days for it to be built and shipped, and arrived while I was on a business trip.

So far, I'm very happy with the system. I had converted my MacBook Pro to use two Intel SSD's, and had done similar conversions on all of my work machines. The speed that an SSD adds is well worth the upgrade, not to mention the heat reduction, battery life increase, and noise reduction. The "flash memory" in the MacBook Air is extremely fast, and has more than enough space for my critical data. The screen is awesome in such a small package. I can do all of my terminal sessions, remote desktop, web browsing, and email without having to jockey too much around. The speed of the system hasn't been an issue for anything other than flash based videos, which tend to send both CPU cores up to 80-90%.

Even when the system is working hard, I never notice much heat through the chassis - it has been 100% quiet - never have heard a fan of any kind, although I see one in the diagrams that are available on the 'net. The keyboard and mouse are essentially identical to the MacBook Pro with one exception - the backlighting. I was disappointed to find out that the Air doesn't have backlit keys, but so far it's not been a huge problem.

The two amazing things that I am still in awe of are the battery life and the weight. I knew it was going to be light, but it still seems so much lighter than I would expect. I can hardly tell whether it's in or out of my bag. For the computing power and convenience, it's amazing how light it is.

The battery life is what has impressed me the most. I can go a whole day of my normal computing schedule on one charge. This means at least 5 hours of usage, potentially more depending on what's going on. I used to carry the larger MacBook Pro charger with extension cable everywhere, and it always got in the way in my bag. Now I don't even carry a charger because I know I will have enough battery for everything I need.

This is the best system I've owned since the first MacBook Pro came out in 2006. I hope that the trend everyone seems to be talking about continues, and that Apple comes out with even more portable and longer running systems of similar type.

Not a lot of sailing this year...

So far this year I've only really sailed once, which was about 2 weeks ago.  Before then, I took the boat up to Seaview to have it hauled, painted, etc. but I don't count that since it was a "business trip".  

And I'm sort of worried about going out right now because of my trip 2 weeks ago.  The short story is that I think I ate something really bad.  Combine that with 3ft waves and 20-25kt winds, and me getting seasick easy, and things went south quickly.  

I ended up getting to Blake Island (north side moorings) and stopping to check some gear, when I started getting very, very sick.  That was at 2pm on a Sunday.  By 8pm I was really, really bad off.  I remember talking to some friends and feeling like I was drunk.  I was so weak and horribly sick that I couldn't even stand.  

So I stayed the night on the mooring, drank lots of water, ate nothing at all, slept very little, and left at around 7am on Monday morning.  I motored home, slept at the slip for an hour, and then went home and slept for the rest of the day.  

It still took almost a full week before I felt right.  I had to eat carefully....  I think it was food poisoning.  If you think you might want to eat something from Moveable Feast, especially their Mushroom Burrito (yes I should have known!) you might not want to...

Anyhow, the memory of that whole evening/night still haunt me every time I think about going back out.  I hope it will fade...

Parker fuel polishing system installed

A while ago I wrote about the Parker Fuel Polishing module that I found and purchased.  I finally had the time a week ago to finish my design and install it.  So far, I'm very pleased with it, although I appear to have a potential leak in one of my splices...

The whole installation took me about 3 hours, most of which was laying in odd positions and searching for tools that I had dropped or misplaced - the usual delays and challenges on any boat project.  In the picture above, you can see the pump, Racor fuel filter, and all of the fuel hose coming and going.  The fuel filter was already mounted in the current location, so it was relatively easy to install.

You can see the fuel line from the tank going into the Racor filter.  Behind the filter, a new fuel pipe connects the outflow to the inlet of the fuel polisher pump.  On the top of the pump is the new line I installed that goes back to the fuel return line (not in the picture) and into a tee that I installed into it.  The polished fuel returns to the tank via that line.  The final pipe leaving the pump heads out to the engine fuel pump.

In addition to the pump installation, I also purchased the Programmable Controller that allows for very detailed scheduling of fuel polishing - far more granularity than I needed.  I ended up running four cycles of 2 hours every day, giving me 8 hours of polishing.  This might be overkill on a 10 gallon tank of diesel, but I suppose it's not really doing any harm - it's not like it would wear the fuel out!

The controller is mounted quite a ways away from the pump, and it has a really watertight glass and machined aluminum cover (not on in the picture) that will keep it very safe and dry.

So far, the polisher has been running for a few days - I've checked on it several times to make sure there aren't any major leaks.  I can hear the fuel being returned into the main tank so I know it's working.  We'll see if this will end up solving some of the fuel problems I had in the past - I believe it will.  I also think it will require that I change the Racor filter more often, but that's OK too - I'd rather have good quality fuel.

The one concern is that the tee I used to connect into the existing fuel return line might be leaking.  Per my research, I used teflon pipe tape on all of my brass/bronze fittings.   For the tee, I used a bronze fitting, and then three 3/8" brass pipe connectors and clamps.  All three of the connectors have teflon tape around their threads - only one layer - I read that more than that can cause leaks/problems.   Nevertheless, I can see the edge of some of the pipe tape on one of the connections, and it appears to be soaking up diesel fuel.  I have not seen any leaks or anything else, but if the diesel has miscolored the teflon, I would imagine over time it is going to leak.

Should I have used something other than this quite large hunk of metal parts as a tee?  I looked high and low for a one part tee for a fuel line, and couldn't find anything.  I did a bunch of research, and came up with my current solution.  I'll keep an eye on it, but if anyone has suggestions, they would be appreciated.

I'll follow up in a while on how the polishing is going.

Test post

This is a test post - a bunch of folks have let me know that my link to Google Reader (provided by FeedBurner) isn't working.  I'm trying to test that out ...

Permits gone wrong

For the last 2+ years I have been trying to get permits to repair the bulkhead out at our Vashon Island place.  It's been an exercise in futility at just about every step.

When I first started, I was trying to do it all on my own without any help.  I figured it couldn't be too much harder than applying for a grading permit.  Boy was I wrong.  Because we were repairing a bulkhead, and it was on a beach, we were screwed.

Besides the county, 6 other government agencies wanted my money and for me to fill out reams of paperwork.  Here in Washington, they've at least consolidated it to a process called JARPA for Joint Aquatic Resource Permit Application.  Unfortunately, it's hundreds of pages of detail, much of which I couldn't figure out.  On top of that, contacting any of these agencies referred you to the others in an endless circle of bureaucracy.

I've worked with various permit agencies before, and I realize that there are regulations and reasons for what they do.  In many cases, they were very stringent with what their requirements and processes were for.  I completely understood, or at least understood where they were coming from.

That's not the case here.  I cannot believe the stupidity and sheer red tape that is in place that makes a homeowner completely unable to repair a failing system that is putting their property and neighbors at risk.  I'm not asking to build a huge wall - I love the environment and do as much as I can to protect it.  I want to replace some damaged boards, and fix what I and everyone else has considered a hazardous situation.

I finally resorted to hiring someone who specializes in the permit process.  Since then, things have gone better, but the stupidity continues.

At one point, someone in the process said that there were bald eagles nearby, so we might have to pay to have an endangered species survey.  I'm not sure how replacing boards in a bulkhead would really change what bald eagles are doing, but I'm sure it's another way for the state to make money.

At another point, we were advised we'd have to get insurance for any inspector coming on site to our location.  That way if they hurt themselves, the state didn't have to pay L&I for them - our insurance would!  This almost made me lose it!  I eventually argued with them and they backed down.

Now, we're being told we have to grow specific plants and grasses across a large portion of our yard since we're near a marine area.  I really don't understand how we can suddenly be required to do this when no one else for miles around on the beach has the same requirements.  This proposal would take a significant amount of our land away and obscure our view.

People on the island told me I should just fix it and deal with it afterwards.  We've already missed our construction window (again - 3rd year in a row!) and there's no end in sight.  It feels like the right thing to do is to just do it and deal with the consequences afterwards.  I think we'll end up spending $5,000 on permits and fees for a job that will cost about the same.

It really truly believe that the State of Washington and King County are doing a disservice to us, the people who live here.  They're making it harder to maintain and improve property that they continually raise the taxes on.  At some point, people will just do what they need to do, or go find another place to live where they aren't so stupid.

Music struggles

I've been trying for a while to get back into the music mind-set at home.  I spent a bunch of time gathering all of my gear together, bought a professional workstation to put it all on, spun up my iMac i7 27" with Logic Pro, and figured out all of the millions of cables and connections I would need. 

So far I haven't done much other than play along with some songs I like, and plunk out a few songs that haven't really gone anywhere.  Part of my challenge is that I want to do more than just piano solos, which is what I've traditionally recorded in the past.  

I have Logic Pro, a fast enough Mac, and Apogee Ensemble firewire interface for all of the equipment, as well as a bunch of high quality boards and sound modules.  Now I just have to figure out how to use the tools I have, and which ones to use, to start adding additional instruments and loops.

Right now it's not so much figuring out the tool to use, it's which tool should I try and stick with.  I have a Korg M3 which has great stuff in the Karma features for accompaniments.  The other boards and modules don't have anything close to the realism that has.  But I'm leaning more towards using loops and samples in Logic Pro, as the M3 is horrible for loading samples (takes forever!) but then I'd likely lose the ability to use Karma for anything unless I recorded it into Logic, etc.

I ended up getting an hour of One-to-One time with the local Apple Store, and I wanted to spend it on some Logic Pro advanced stuff.  First, I have to get through all of the usual getting started courses and online stuff, so I at least know the basics.  The last time I did that it was with Logic Pro 7.x and I only skimmed them.

Hopefully I'll have time in the next few weeks to dig deeper into this so I can start recording more!  

Moved to new blog software

After a few days of investigation, I've moved to TypePad for my blog.  I've been using Wordpress since I started, and while it is definitely the most popular choice, it's a bit harder to maintain and use.  I had been using it on a linux machine I maintained myself, which required a lot more work to keep it running, as well as it cost a lot more per month.

Wordpress does, of course, have their hosted option, but it requires that you point your domain, if you want to continue to use your custom domain name, at their DNS servers, and let them be authoritative for your domain.  That scares me.  Wordpress is fine at running blogs, but how do I know their DNS servers are good enough to ensure my mail is being delivered, other sites are still being served out, etc.  Only recently they added the ability to add custom records in DNS for things other than Google Apps.  

TypePad and Blogger both allow you to continue to maintain control over your own DNS and use CNAMEs to handle hosted domains.  This is a much safer approach in my opinion.  

So, here I am on TypePad.  I have to say that their themes and control are deeper and nicer, but it is a bit harder to find things than on Wordpress.  I think I've moved everything successfully, but I'm sure I'll have to tweak some things. 

One thing I know that didn't make the move was my permalinks - Wordpress does them slightly differently, and TypePad doesn't allow you to customize them to the same level so I could maintain them.  So, if you see a broken link somewhere in an older post, that's why.  I'll try to fix as many of them as possible. 

Back to customizing and playing with some of the new features in TypePad!

Wordpress on Mac OSX Server

I finally got around to moving my Wordpress installation off of a hosted server to my Mac Mini Server at home.  This entailed making sure I had a static IP from Comcast, and getting all of the firewall pieces in place.  Once that was done, I had to learn the quirks of doing web hosting on Mac OSX Server. Thankfully, most of the hacks needed in the past are now checkboxes in the Web configuration portion of the Server Administrator.  Don't get me wrong - I don't generally like the simple approach - I like having all of the bells and whistles available to me from the command line.  But with Mac OSX Server, I know that whatever I hack at the CLI might get overriden in an upgrade. From my experience, it requires no hacks to get Wordpress working on OSX 10.6.x.  There are many articles out there showing the necessary parts of moving the SQL database and web files into place. The biggest mystery was getting mod_rewrite to work correctly so that I could maintain my nice URLs.  This was documented many places on the web where you had to change configuration files in /private/etc/apache2, but nothing for hosted sites.  I found those config files in /private/etc/apache2/sites, but still didn't want to manually change them for fear they would get overwritten when I edited something in Server Admin later, or during an upgrade. After a bit of poking around, I found the "Allow All Overrides" option in the Server Admin -> Web -> Sites -> Options area.  Once you have this enabled, your .htaccess file in the root of your Wordpress directory will be read and rewrites will work appropriately. Some of the realtime stats for the web server are nice compared to the other solutions I've used.  It's interesting to see requests and throughput for the whole server, as well as be able to quickly change log levels and locations for troubleshooting. So far it's been a painless migration, and things are working very well.