spoonyfork

Motorcycle updates: bought 2008 BMW R1200R and sold 2006 Suzuki DRZ400S

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:12:40 GMT

In March 2009 I bought a 2008 BMW R1200R motorcycle (black) from BMW Motorcycles of Detroit. This motorcycle has been a lot of fun to ride. I've put over 3,000 miles on it already. I used ebay and r1150r.net's forum to purchase BMW side cases, touring windshield, and tank bag all at half price. This BMW stuff is expensive, but worth it! I also picked up the Throttle Rocker wrist rest which is an amazing simple, cheap device that completely removes wrist strain for long distance trips (+1 hour in the saddle).

In May 2009 I sold my 2006 Suzuki DRZ400S via Craig's List. I had also placed a $50 ad on cycletrader.com where I had success quickly selling my 1983 Honda CB900C back in 2006 but I only received 1 serious nibble in three weeks of being online and in print. Contrast that with the first person on the first day who responded to the Craig's List ad ended up buying it for my minimum selling price which was fine by me. It was sad to see the DRZ go after so many fun miles especially my Around the Mitt trip last summer.

As with most bigger picture purchases there are the ancillary costs no one thinks about until after they are committed. Of course I had to get a new matching helmet and gloves but I also ended up having a new 2 car garage built to house the R1200R. How's that for associative purchases? I've done my part to stimulate the local economy. Now do yours!

Whither Weather Calendar?

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:46:33 GMT

Wunderground.com's ics calendar subscription added to Google Calendar is awesome. That is all.

Eric's Trip T-Shirts on Cafepress

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:11:02 GMT

I really wanted a t-shirt for the band Eric's Trip. I searched the Internet high and low from Sub-Pop and other random sites that carry such memorabilia. Na-da. Zip. Zero. Nothing. So what's a low-fi garage fuzz 90's Canadian post-punk music fan with above average graphics arts skills, questionable copyright compliance, and Internet commerce skills to do? Scratch that itch!
Design assignment: Create reasonably priced t-shirt of reasonable quality with a reasonable design for fav band Eric's Trip.
Result: http://www.cafepress.com/abandonwear
Tools & Resources: cafepress.com, images.google.com, Paint Shop Pro, and 2 hours of free time.
Steps to create:

Create a shop at cafepress.com.
Use source images found on Internet to create an image suitable for t-shirt designs per cafepress.com design templates.
Upload image to cafepress.com shop.
Assign image to shirts.
Buy your t-shirt.
...
Profit?

That's a good question. Do I leave the shop open for others? I can't be the only one who wants one. What if someone else buys one of my shirts designs? Can I be sued for copyright infringement? The images weren't copyrighted, or are they? How can I tell if it isn't obvious? Should I just give the band all or some of the profits? I don't want to piss anyone off, I just want an Eric's Trip t-shirt and others might want one too.

Bi-directional calendar sync between Sunbird, Google, iPhone made easier

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:03:45 GMT

With the introduction last week of Google Sync for mobile phones, Google effectively removed the need for external ActiveSync account on NuevaSync as detailed in my previous post on how to achieve bi-directional calendar synchronization with Sunbird, Google, and iPhone. Basically the update is just to remove the Microsoft Exchange NuevaSync account from the iPhone and add a Microsoft Exchange account pointing to Google's ActiveSync m.google.com. More detailed instructions for the iPhone are found here. You don't have to sync contacts if you don't want to. I wish tasks were somehow support but I'm not losing sleep over it.

Metro Detroit's Best Sandwiches and Burgers on Google Maps

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:12:07 GMT

Project description: create a Google Maps map with multiple locations displaying all addresses of the restaurants featured in the Detroit Free Press articles Metro Detroit's best sandwiches and Metro Detroit's best burgers. The purpose behind this project was to get bird's-eye overview of all restaurant locations around town and to track my progress in going through the lists. To my surprise I have not been to many of these highly rated establishments during my many years living here.

Using the excellent design aid Map Multiple Locations by Address to load a CSV list of the restaurant addresses and descriptions and generate a KML file which can be uploaded directly into a maps.google.com "My Maps", I was able to quickly create the desired shareable maps:

Metro Detroit's best burgers on Google Maps
Metro Detroit's best sandwiches on Google Maps

RAR?

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:46:27 GMT

Why are people rar-ing out torrent content? Weren't usenet rar files used like 15 years ago? I've got 7zip and all, but I'm still wondering why we even need to bother with rar after the turn of the century.

SOLVED: bi-directional calendar sync iPhone <-> Google <-> Sunbird

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:26:05 GMT

Below are the high-level steps executed to get bi-directional calendar synchronization between Mozilla Sunbird (0.9) on an XP box at home, iPhone Calendar (1st generation, 2.1), and Google Calendar. You can skip the Mozilla Sunbird stuff if you just want to sync your iPhone with Google Calendar. I'm attached to Sunbird for some unknown reason (maybe because I like things to be difficult) so I had to make it all work together. Google Calendar is the free hub and nuevasync.com is the free glue.

Set up a free account with http://www.neuvasync.com which is your standard username, password, email address stuff. Part of the process is granting neuvasync access to your Google Calendar which was pretty seamless.
Follow the steps at neuvasync.com (requires login) to enable iPhone to Google Calendar synchronization. Basically you are adding a new Microsoft Exchange account on the iPhone to use ActiveSync to sync just your iPhone calendar with neuvasync who will then in turn sync with your Google Calednar. A bit of a warning: this process will delete any calendars you already have on the iPhone. This is a "feature" of the iPhone, not neuvasync. I only selected Calendar and turned off sync of Mail and Contacts.
Add the Provider for Google Calendar plug-in (0.5.1) to Sunbird and follow the instructions at http://bfish.xaedalus.net/?p=239. Basically you're adding in the software for Sunbird to bi-directionally communicate with Google Calendar. The draw back is the events you wish to be synchronized through have to be created under the new calendar pointing to Google. The good news is you can manually change existing events to use the new calendar.

How quickly does it all synchronize back and forth? That depends on multiple factors. In Sunbird I shortened the calendar refresh time to 5 minutes under Options -> General. The Microsoft Exchange neuvasync account on the iPhone is set to use Push notification. I am unable to set or view refresh settings on Google Calendar. A new event from Sunbird to Google took roughly 3 minutes and Google to iPhone took roughly another 6 minutes to appear on the iPhone Calendar. We'll call it 10 minutes to sync from Sunbird to Google to iPhone without me refreshing anything - just sitting and watching it happen automatically. The reverse test of deleting the new event from the iPhone took only 4 minutes to disappear from Google Calendar and Sunbird. The odd thing about this test was the event in Sunbird disappeared 30 seconds before Google's did. Perhaps that was just a function of Google's AJAX refresh timing. I'm assuming this will all work offline and sync up when online as well.

In summary it works using free glue software albeit slowly. I don't need it to be instantaneous because I'm usually remote with the iPhone which is where most of my events will be scheduled from.

Additional summaries of this whole thing can be found at http://www.ianfernando.com/2008/sync-google-calendar-with-iphone-3g/ and http://itcboisestate.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/seamless-calendar-and-contacts-sync-between-iphone-google-and-thunderbird/

2008 Presidental Election Results

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:14:04 GMT

I must say it is quite a honor to be an active participant in history as it unfolds. The United States of America is an interesting place to live.

Open request for a Weather Forecast Aggregator

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:49:04 GMT

I remember reading a little while back about a project someone did to monitor 10 or so different weather forecast sources and record their forecasts along with current conditions over a period of time to determine their accuracy. I don't remember the specific results other than to say there was no one weather forecaster that was any better than the others over time. I do remember seeing some wildly different forecasts for the same time period from different sources. I can see this today by looking at weather.com and accuweather.com hourly forecasts: one will 60% chance of rain and the other will say 1% for the same time period. One or both of these predictions is way off. I did get to thinking that perhaps when viewed with a "wisdom of crowds" lens weather forecast and current condition data in the aggregate could prove to be useful in developing a better model. Myself and others have been performing this task mentally the last year or so by checking with multiple sources such as weather.com, accuweather.com, wunderground.com, and local aviation-specific forecasts and making a "best guess" as to what was going to happen that day with respect to precipitation. To my knowledge no weather forecast aggregators existed last year. Fast forward through the winter when I didn't care about weather forecasts. It is Spring 2008 and I am riding my motorcycle around again. I am revisiting this idea of a weather forecast aggregator and did some quick googling. Unfortunately I did not find my ideal site but I did some encouraging work being done.

NOAA's experimental XML feeds including National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Web Service. I imagine this would be a useful site for a weather forecast aggregator. The Current Observations RSS feed is an interesting start.
MetaWeather.com which when I first found it I had hoped it to be the answer to my request but unfortunately it is not complete and is very much a work in progress. The list of cities is limited and most appear to be only fed by weather.com. However this site looks to have a lot of promise and I will be checking in frequently for signs of progress.
Weather Bonk appears to be more finished mashup but it only has weather.com, weather bug, and the National Weather Service. Also there is no hourly precipitation forecast. I will make a request for more features and will be watching this space as well.

I can't be the only one that would find this kind service useful. Frankly I would be shocked if Google didn't already have a project like this in development. If anyone knows of a weather forecast aggregator site or similar work, please let me know in the comments. Until then, below is my open letter to the internet producers of content requesting such a service. Perhaps this is your chance to get bought by someone like Google.

Dear Internets,

Please use whatever Web 2.0, SOAP, RSS, mashup, whatever technology necessary and available to create a weather forecast aggregator website that has my home-town and my work-town and hourly (or even multi-hour) precipitation forecasts so that I can make a more informed choice about motorcycle riding. Thanks!

OLPC

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 06:53:15 GMT

While I was in Hawaii for Jill and Dave's wedding (a topic for another post) my OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) XO laptop came in the mail. I opened it up today and played around for a couple hours. After a couple hacks I was able to get it running on my wireless network with WPA2 security. This thing is cute! I ordered it through the Give One Get One program that is in effect until the end of 2007. I attended a talk given by Ivan Krstić at 11/13/2007 MUG meeting and was very impressed with the technology that went into designing and building the small laptop. It runs Linux and has the Mozilla browser but other than the software is somewhat unique. The interface called Sugar is a bit different than what I've used in the past. Collaboration and sharing is built into most programs. Did I mention it is open source? The unique and innovative hardware features are numerous but you can read about it here. My favorite is the mesh networking. What an opportunity for learning by sharing! So far no one else around me has an XO but interestingly enough there are some other mesh networks around my home but have nothing visible on them. Now to try writing an Activity (OLPC parlance for program) myself...

Portal is made of AWESOME

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 18:42:58 GMT

Portal from Valve (the same people that brought us the amazing Half-Life 2) while being a short duration game is one of the most innovative puzzle solving first-person, uh, portaler I've played to date. The premise is cute and fits into the whole Half-Life genre. You are a test participant with Aperture Laboratories where you are subjected to tests using portal technology culminating in the form of a hand-held portal device where you can create two linked portals to move creatively through ever increasingly challenging puzzles all while the entity conducting the tests instructs, helps, and taunts you. The ending is full of win. Most games have you thinking in 3 dimensions with a time aspect. Newer games have a sophisticated physics model. Portal takes it a couple steps further where you have to think beyond 3 dimensions using portals and more advanced physics such as conservation of momentum. Double and triple flings are fun! Properly educated minds will finish the game in a day but the game is well worth the US$20. It is hard to overstate my satisfaction with this game. Check out the trailer on youtube.

An open letter to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW)

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 19:04:26 GMT

My flight to Reagan National airport from Detroit Metro airport was leaving in 45 minutes. I had parked my car at an offsite lot and took their shuttle to the Northwest World Gateway terminal. I was heading to DC for a long weekend to meet up with some friends that were already out there. I packed light: my MacBook in a small brainbag and a backpack with some casual clothes and toiletries. With my preprinted eticket in hand I queued up to go through security to enter the terminal gates. The line moved quickly. I did the shoe removal and laptop in separate container ritual. I personally went through with no issue and as I waited for my stuff I saw a guy come over with my backpack.
"Is this your backpack sir?"
"Yes."
"May I search it?"
As soon as he said that I realized what was wrong. I packed my toiletries bag with the explicit intention of removing anything resembling a liquid or gel. What I didn't remove was my pocket knife. I even remembered moving it out of the way to take out my little shampoo bottle.
"Go ahead."
The TSA agent opened my backpack and went right for the toiletry bag and the pocket knife therein. My face must have gone white. The pit of my stomach dropped.
"You can't take this on the plane sir."
"Yes, yes I know. I forgot that was in there."
"Is there anyone in the terminal you could give it to?"
"No. There is no one."
"You could go back through security and check your bag or perhaps you could put it in your car."
By now I'm running my hand through my hair, nervous with frustration. The line to checkin was massive. Could I wait in line or take the shuttle back to the car park and make it back in time for my flight that leaves in 30 minutes? No, probably not. Is it worth missing my flight to go through the hassle of getting on another flight for more money? Now a million things are running through my mind like what it means to own something, and who ends up owning who, you or your possessions? Should I get all buddhist about it and just let it go?
"I don't think I have enough time. Is there a way I could send it to myself like how I read about other airports doing?"
"No, we don't have that here."
"This sucks, I've had that swiss army knife since I was 7."
Another TSA agent joined the conversation as the original one opened the knife sheath.
"Wow, it's in good condition."
I could see the look in his eyes, it was Knife Day at security gate bravo.
"I can't miss my flight. Forget about it."
As I walked away feeling sick to my stomach I was seriously distraught at having to make such an important decision about this knife. I decided to get zen buddhist about it and let it go. Leaving the knife in my bag was totally my fault. However it would have been nice to have had the opportunity to mail it back to myself. I would have paid $10 or $20 cash on the spot to mail it to myself.

The story behind the knife was that I won it via a gift certificate drawing at a camping supply store in Seattle. It was 1980something and I was less than 10 years old. I saw the fishbowl with little cards for name, address, and phone number. I thought it was silly to just put one card in so I sat there for 20 minutes while my parents shopped filling out cards. I must have put 40 in the bowl. A week or two later we get a phone call that I won! It was for a $50 gift certificate to use at the store. My dad was already fantasizing about what he could spend the money on, perhaps a new backpack or a new stove. My mom, bless her heart, made sure that I got to spend some of the money on something I wanted. The first thing I went for was the bright red backpackers version swiss army knife with leather sheath. I was so proud of that knife that I won. I carried it with me on every camping trip there after up to every overseas trip I went on up until 9/11. So you can imagine the attachment to my lucky knife for sentimental reasons.

What goes around comes around. A couple weeks later I stopped to fill up gas up north with my dad and as I got out of the car I practically tripped over an old school Leatherman in its original leather sheath. I looked around for an owner but we were the only ones at the gas station. I opened it up to make sure it was real and not a knock-off. My dad admired my find.
"That's quite a find", he said.
"Yes, yes it is."

Red Robin

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:47:01 GMT

Since we moved into the house on Oakshire some wild animals have made our yard their home. Or rather our yard is in their home. Either way, a family of rabbits have lived behind our shed and under our deck since day one. Every spring coincidentally around Easter I can count on a rabbit showing up in the backyard looking for a salad. Every spring birds of several varieties will fly up under the living room window awning or under the porch roof looking for a place to build a nest. They never have until this year a robin made one seemingly overnight above the porch in perfect view of our kitchen breakfast nook table. I was delighted to have the opportunity to witness the cycle of life. I was reminded of my childhood when I got to see a robin nest and blue eggs in a tree in our yard.

Frankly, I felt somewhat honored that a robin chose my porch as a safe place to raise its young. It was comforting in an odd way. I was home alone for a month and Mrs. Robin was there every morning when I left for work and every evening when I came home. She only freaked out on me once and that was when I went to sit in the Adirondack chair which was probably too close for comfort. Other than that she sat on her eggs and occasionally went out for food. A week or two later the chicks started to hatch and four hungry mouths were chirping between the steady delivery of worms and insects by Mrs. Bird and what I presumed to be Mr. Bird. We did see one dangerous encounter as a morning dove flew up to the nest and started pecking at the chicks. Mrs. Bird flew in from a nearby tree and fended off the dove. No one appeared to be injured. As the chicks got bigger the nest seemed more and more overcrowded. One day there were only three chicks. They were much larger so I assumed one flew away. The next morning while drinking coffee and reading the paper we saw another larger chick stand up on the edge of the nest, stretch out their wings, then suddenly leap into the air and take off flying. I got to see a young bird take its first flight! He flew through the porch and Mrs. Bird took off after him chirping away.

We didn't see the next two chicks fly away but the last and fourth took his sweet time. Mrs. Bird kept coming back to the nest over the next couple of days feeding Fourth and even sheltering him during a particularly nasty thunderstorm. About the third day after his siblings had taken off, Fourth finally decided to head out. He stood up on the edge of the nest, stretched his wings, looked up a ledge above the nest and jumped... except he didn't make it. He plummeted to the porch floor in a flutter of wings and loud chirps. He landed rather ungracefully but still looked alive and uninjured. He proceeded to spend the next couple of hours jumping around the porch perched on the Adirondack chair. He must have expunged his bowels nearly ten times before he finally flew away. Perhaps he was overloaded with weight. It was a nasty mess to clean up but I'm glad they all survived. I don't know what to do about the nest. I've left it there for the time being. Maybe they'll come back again next year.

Two Wheel Fun

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:17:03 GMT

Old School, School, New Wheels

A couple years ago I bought a 1982 Honda CB900C that had a major electrical issue that my brother and I could not resolve. I enjoyed riding around for a summer and it only cost me a couple hundred dollars. I sold it the next summer and didn't think much about motorcycles for a while. In the oppressive heat of a July weekend last summer I completed the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's weekend boot camp with three co-workers. We all passed and received our CY endorsements. One of them already had a motorcycle and the other two bought one that summer. I told my coworkers if I still had a job next spring I would get a motorcycle. The spring came I still had my job so true to my word I bought a used 2006 Suzuki DR-Z 400S in very good condition with 3,200 miles. The DR-Z is a dual sport or enduro motorcycle designed more for trail riding but is street legal. I wanted a cheap reliable motorcycle that I could drive to work on and zip around on the DNR trails up north near the family cottage. Besides, the condition of some of the roads in metro Detroit are worse than some dirt roads I've been on.

Green Machine

I have put over 2000 miles on it in the two months mostly riding back and forth to work about 30 miles a day. I've calculated an average of 60 miles per gallon which in this era of $3.25 to $3.50 per gallon has saved me a lot of money and lowered my carbon emissions greatly. Whenever there isn't a lot of rain in the forecast I'm riding it to work and long trips for lunch with two of the co-workers who ride theirs.

Neighborhood Contrasts

I must say it is a lot of fun zipping around on the DR-Z! I get a lot of speed and power out of the low gears but the top speed for me is a windy 70 MPH. Since I'm sitting higher up with no wind shield I catch more of an unsteady breeze. This type of motorcycle isn't designed for high speed highway driving which is fine for me. With all the construction on two of the major south bound arteries, highway driving really isn't a viable option even in a car. I've taken this opportunity to explore the roads to and through the northern Detroit. The differences crossing 8 Mile is even more staggering from the view of the neighborhoods. The driving style is even different. For example most of the major roads are one and a half lanes wide in each direction with the occasional parked car. Drivers will take it upon themselves to pass one another in the half lane regardless of how fast the car in front of them is going. Drivers making left turns from the center lane or from a side street give themselves the right of way by just blocking the road until they can cross rather than waiting for a break in the traffic. I haven't had anything resembling a close call but I have seen potentially dangerous situations from far back and have taken preemptive action to avoid them. The onus is on the motorcyclist to pay attention to everything coming up in their path. Regardless of whether you are north or south of 8 Mile assume that no one sees you. If they do see you, assume they are out to kill you.

The Runway

Since I've started riding I've noticed a subset of behavior in humanity new to me. The only way I can describe is that people treat a motorcyclist as someone who is making a public statement and that they must respond to it. For example, unsolicited I have people judge my motorcycle and judge my decision for riding it. Other drivers seem to want to test themselves against me. They don't want to be "beaten" off the line let alone passed. They want to race or pass you in a dangerous way. The attitudes of some other motorcyclists is one of competition. If you aren't riding what their favorite or most respected make and model then you're riding a piece of shit. And oh my god is it a fashion show. I have had numerous people tell me their opinions of the style of bike and helmet without even asking. Why is that do you suppose? Recently I went on a group ride charity event at work. As expected I had the lowest end bike so I expected to take some shit for it. Fortunately everyone was cool to my face. It was a fun ride, the longest I've done since going to the northern shore of Lake Eire.

Phase 2

I've already decided that I want more out of a motorcycle, specifically higher top speed and more stability at higher speeds. I like the concept of dual sport but I haven't hit a trail yet so I'll reserve judgment until then. I did order a Michigan ORV license and soon I will be heading up north to the trails. My vision of the future is the DR-Z up north for zipping around the back roads and trails. Down south at home is a touring sport standard style 650 or larger in a new garage. I've already started looking at local contractors for the project. Stay tuned!

Digital video camcorder - Canon ZR850

Mon, 21 May 2007 03:48:57 GMT

A couple weeks ago I bought a digital video camcorder to record some family events like my niece's dance recitals and my horrible golf swing. I did some research and decided the Canon ZR850 would be the most bang for my buck. What I really wanted was a camcorder that could have high quality wide screen on solid state media like SD cards but those are still expensive and the capacity is still lacking. The ZR850 is wide screen and records on MiniDV tapes which can be sent to my MacBook via a firewire 400 cable. The video transfer is pretty quick and painless but iMovie is more like Microsoft Paint than Adobe Photoshop. I tested the camcorder out by taping myself assembling an IKEA dresser. I sped up the footage and added a soundtrack to make it more compelling. Naturally I uploaded it to YouTube.

The bizarre thing is people have watched this video, left comments, and even added it to their favorites! Check it out on YouTube.

Video of plane landing at Reagan National Airport - updated!

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 02:10:34 GMT

During my most recent trip the Washington D.C. area I went to the park on GW Parkway immediately north of the Reagan National Airport runways where one can watch the plans come in lower over the Potomac then bank right for a quick landing. There are a series of picnic tables where one can lay on to watch the plans fly right overhead. The sound can be tremendous. I took a couple videos and this one turned out best. ~~Warning, it is 26MB in size.~~ Now with YouTube goodness!

Most of the plans are so low it seems like you could touch them. The larger planes almost seem to be slowly floating as they come in... graceful yet noisy.

Babel

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 01:37:19 GMT

While waiting for a table at our favorite Berkley breakfast spot I overheard the cutest story. A woman told the couple she was waiting with that her sister's family had spent a month touring parts of Europe on vacation. The family traveled with two young children, a boy 2 and a daughter 4. The family was in the toy business in some capacity. While on vacation they had spent time arranging business deals to import and sell some creative toys from the Czech Republic. The young daughter couldn't understand anyone speaking Czech so she had decided to stop speaking English and would only speak cat. When asked what she'd like to eat or to do the daughter would only reply with a series of meows. Apparently this was the daughter's way of dealing with the frustration of a language she didn't understand. Thinking it was cute, the parents let it go for a couple days.

When it was time to leave the Czech Republic the mother decided to take the daughter aside. She asked, "Before we get on the train to Germany, you're going to have to stop talking like a cat. It is time to leave that behind. Can you do that for me?" The daughter thought for a minute, looked up at her mother and said, "Ribbit?"

Vonage call quality - fixed!

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 18:19:23 GMT

Since installing and using the Vonage Motorola VT2142 voice over IP (VOIP) device on my home network for making phone calls, I've had complains from some callers that my voice is not coming through clearly. The call quality was not symmetrical because while they had a hard time hearing me, I had no trouble hearing them. This issue appeared to be occurring when I am doing something else on the internet such as a large bittorrent download. When the download was paused the call quality would return to normal. Rather than manually pause downloads whenever the phone rang, I decided to mitigate the issue with a slight change in my Linksys WRT54G v6 router's Quality of Service (QoS) settings. Below are the steps I took enable QoS.

For no specific reason other than having the latest firmware before starting, I downloaded the latest firmware update v1.02.0 from Linksys and applied it to the WRT54G v6 router with no issues.
Opened the WRT54G administration website -> Applications & Gaming -> QoS.
Toggled radio button from Disable to Enable.
Under "Ehternet [sic] Port Priority" changed Priority of Port 2 (Motorola VT2142) from Low to High and left everything else as default.
Saved the settings and prepared for a test.

An unscientific subjective test was conducted after setting the QoS. A call was placed with no other network traffic. A baseline of expected quality was established. I then initiated small to medium bandwidth downloads/uploads of around 10+ KB/s. No apparent call quality loss was detected by either party. However I did notice that other network operations on my desktop computer such as browsing websites and trying to establish a bittorrent download slowed way down. It would appear that the QoS change had a positive affect on VOIP call quality and an expected negative effect on non-VOIP network traffic. Hard numbers might prove the true effect but if the call actually sounds better I don't care what the numbers are.

The Motorola VT2142 does not show up in my WRT54G DHCP client table and I did not specify a static IP during setup. Because of this I am not convinced that a MAC address QoS specification will work. I opted for a port specific QoS rather than futz with MAC addresses or IP port numbers. I'm not sure what differences might be but if the port specific QoS does not result in consistently improved outbound voice quality then I'll research the options more. In the interim I will just have to remember to revisit this setting if I move wired connections around on the router.

If you don't have VOIP devices on your network you still might want to consider using QoS for network traffic such as video chatting/conferencing or games whether they are PC or console like an Xbox.

You can read more about QoS and network speed testing at the below URLs:
http://vonage.nmhoy.net/qos.html
http://www.dslreports.com/stest
http://www.testmyvoip.com

Incidentally, while researching this issue I found typo on the WRT54G QoS page section label "Ehternet Port Priority". The typo was submitted to Linksys tech support (070331-001819).

A stroll down gaming lane

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 17:27:47 GMT

In my 30+ years on this planet I have played a number of arcade and computer games. However there have been one or two every few years that really stand out and perhaps are genre defining. Those are the games that I spent quite a lot of time playing. Below is a list in pseudo-chronological order of the games that stood out as innovative, important, and really entertaining to me.

1980s
Adventure - I believe it was the University of Washington that made terminals available at the Seattle Science Center where one could pay an hourly rate to sit and play computer games. I believe it was a quarter for a half hour. Ah, pockets full of quarters foretelling a future.
Joust - I pretty much played all of the classic arcade games but Joust stood out for me as the most entertaining. Perhaps it was two player environment where one could work together... or not.
Dragon's Lair - As an up and coming D&D nerd, Dragon's Lair was a perfect combination of genre, storyline, and animation that I craved. While one did not directly control Dirk's every move, it was still entertaining to play and quite a breakthrough in game design and visual presentation.
Bruce Lee - I didn't own a Commodore 64 but one of my friends did. We used to take turns playing this game for hours and hours. The graphics were not anything special but it was the first one I had seen with an Asian theme and game play - with ninjas! I can still hear the 5.25" drives grinding away to load the next level. Interested in a Windows version?
The Ancient Art of War - My friend nevik_roc had one of the original Apple Macintosh home computers with some games. We spent many enjoyable hours playing and designing AAoW battle grounds. I believe this was the first real time strategy game that I played. Sun Tzu rocks!
Super Mario Bros. - A lot of us had Nintendo gaming consoles at home and we all spent a lot of time playing the various games on them. I spent a lot of time playing SMB in the arcade and at home. Into the early 1990s I also enjoyed SMB 2 and SMB 3 probably the most.
The Legend of Zelda - The original LoZ and next two iterations, specifically A Link to the Past, were a huge time sink for me. The game was so well thought out and so large one could get lost in it. A true joy to play.
T&C Surf Designs: Wood & Water Rage - An infinitely more playable skateboard video game than 720 degrees. You could also spend time surfing when bored with the street. I would turn the cheesy game music down and crank up the late 80's punk on my cassette deck. Skate or die!
Gauntlet - One of the first minorly multiplayer arcade games, with friends like nevik_roc we would pump quarter after quarter into this game to reach the end. "Absorb Andy, absorb!"

1990s
Night Hawk: F117-A Stealth Fighter - Another friend's family had a new 286 where we would spend hours and hours flying missions around Europe and the prophetic Persian Gulf.
Street Fighter 2 - When I think of playing arcade games during university, I first think of the Street Fighter series. I think we spent most of our time on version 2. Yoga noggie!
Samurai Shodown - Like Street Fighter with swords, SS had creative characters with distinct and enjoyable fighting styles to watch and master: Kyoshiro Senryo the kabuki actor, chittering Genan Shiranui and his claws, and the brooding effete Ukyo Tachibana.
MUDs - Short for MultiUser Domain, I spent a lot of time at university playing and designing DikuMUDs. MUDs are text based Dungeons and Dragons like games played over the public Internet in "real time" with many players around the world. Again, nevik_roc was my introduction to this wonderful world. I was one of those guys that got in trouble for using university resources for such activities. Of course now they offer degrees in game development. From 1991 to about 2000 I could be found on the original Nilgiri, Copper, Shine, and Nilgiri again. I learned so much about computer and networking technology playing and working on MUDs that I doubt I'd have the job I have today if I hadn't played.
Doom 2 - is where I cut my teeth on first person shooters. I found myself playing version 2 more than any of the other variants. The chainsaw is particularly choice.
Quake 2 - I also found myself playing version 2 more than the other variants. I used to play this at work in the late 1990s on the closed network and on the public Internet. I spent countless hours playing capture the flag online.
Marathon series - Along with Quake 2, this was the game of choice at work during the heady late 1990s. At 5PM every night a 6+ person battle would ensue. Even our boss played with us.
Command and Conquer series - I played all of the real time strategy games like Starcraft and Warcraft but in my opinion the first that really put a good package together that was playable over time was C&C.

2000s
Homeworld series - I thoroughly enjoyed playing the single player version of this realtime space strategy game. The story, graphics, and game play are phenomenal.
Grand Theft Auto 3 - I was introduced to this game at ogden_tbsa 's house one day and I couldn't stop playing. I was so entranced with the open-ended game play and sheer outrageousness. I actually bought a Playstation 2 just to play this game at home. I did end up playing Vice City and San Andreas but 3 still has a warm place in my heart.
Halo - From our beloved Bungie that brought us Marathon, they also brought us Halo for the Xbox. Rather than buy an Xbox I opted for the PC version. The single player mode of the game was boring as all hell but public Internet multiplayer game was fun as all get out. I used to come home from stressful days at work and spend a couple hours blowing everything up. This was the first game where you wouldn't think twice about jumping into the gunner turret of a Puma with a 13 year old at the wheel. No matter what was going to happen, it was going to be fun.
America's Army - AA was the first game I played where I paid attention to the strategy aspect - even on the simplest of maneuvers. The realism of the game with regards to how much damage your avatar could withstand forced you to think things through and work as a team. The only real draw back is communication. Programs like Teamspeak help but aren't synced up with the game.
Magic the Gathering Online - nevik_roc and I played the early free beta version which really helped out in learning the finer points of MtG rules minutiae. Years later, I started back up again mostly playing multiplayer chaos games. What I like about this game is that the full rules engine of the card game is in the computer game. Everything is enforced so there is no cheating or forgetting to do anything. The servers crash a lot and the game is expensive albeit 1/3 less than the cardboard version.
Half-Life 2 - HL2 is clearly the best game play experience I've encountered thus far. You can see the influences from other first person shooters like Deus Ex but the entire package is here. The gravity gun is probably the funnest game "weapon" ever. The physics engine is top notch. The story is great. The game play is great. The attention to detail through the theme of eastern bloc post war cities is overwhelming. HL2 has raised the bar.

The evolution of computer gaming has been interesting to watch and experience. I am excited for what the future holds as I no doubt believe that I will be playing computer games well into old age... assuming I can keep up with the kids!

Keyboard Cleansing

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 22:49:26 GMT

I don't have germophobia but after a recent bout of the flu and nice dovetail into Spring, I decided to give my living spaces a thorough cleaning. I remembered an article on CNN I read late last year about how people's keyboards are now Germ Central because of the increased amount of time people are spending at them including the time when eating. I decided to give my three year old home desktop computer's keyboard its first cleanup.

I pulled off all of the keys and let them soak in hot water and dish soap. Under the keys was a nasty menagerie of food particles, hair, and other stuff. YUCK! After several minutes and a pile of used disgusting Q-tips later, the underside of the keyboard was good enough. I cleaned each key by hand and let dry. Putting they keys back on was easier with the aid of a "before" snapshot.

When all was said and done, cleaning the keyboard took a lot longer than I thought it would. I certainly don't feel like the underside is 100% clean and I'm not exactly sure how to get it there without soap and water on the keyboard itself. Perhaps a trip through the dishwasher? This led me to the conclusion that it would be cheaper and healthier (but not necessarily environmentally friendly) to purchase a brand new keyboard and discard the filthy one.

Lesson learned: stop eating at the computer.

Most Convoluted Application Installation Ever

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 01:33:26 GMT

So I want to do my taxes on my new MacBook. The Federal 1040 PDF forms allow you save a copy with entered form data so I download Adobe's Acrobat Reader. Well, that's what I thought I did. Here's a triptych of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to get Acrobat installed on OSX:

Hit up www.adobe.com
Click obvious button "Get Adobe Reader" (what happened to Acrobat??)
Click obvious button "Download Adobe Reader"
Save "AdbeRdr80_DLM_en_US_i386.dmg" to Desktop (pretty smooth sailing so far, nothing out of the ordinary)
Double-clicky on "AdbeRdr80_DLM_en_US_i386.dmg" to mount it up
Double-clicky on contained file "DownloadReader.pkg" (wait, didn't I already download it?)
Step through "Adobe Reader Download Manager Installer" (I thought I was installing Adobe ~~Acrobat~~ Reader...)
Step 7 completes and triggers the download of "AdbeRdr80_en_US_i386.dmg" (why didn't I just get this from step 4? Wow 23MB, someone needs to call Jenny)
"AdbeRdr80_en_US_i386.dmg" is automatically mounted for me, double-clicky on contained "Adobe Reader 8 Installer" (finally! the goods)
During the installation Adobe Updater fires up and does... nothing?
Unmount the two .dmg's and DISCO!

Methinks it should have gone like this:

Hit up www.adobe.com
Click obvious button "Get Adobe Reader"
Save "AdbeRdr80_en_US_i386.dmg" to Desktop
Double-clicky "AdbeRdr80_en_US_i386.dmg"
Drag "Adobe Reader 8" to Applications folder
Unmount "AdbeRdr80_en_US_i386.dmg" and DISCO!

secure your wireless

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 03:16:06 GMT

Still using WEP for security on your wireless network? Switch to WPA2 (TKIP+AES) and save a bundle in worry minutes.

Fedora no more

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:08:54 GMT

This was supposed to be the first in a series of postings detailing all of the issues I ran into configuring Fedora Core 6. The purpose was to share information on what out-of-the-box issues I encountered and how I overcame them. As of last Friday I've given up on Fedora Core 6. I had just gotten tomcat5 to install and run (except on localhost) when the software updater started bugging me about available updates. I clicked on the thing to have the updates install but it would just crash out. I didn't think anything of it until I went to try to install some more software from the DVD and the software installer started crashing. I logged out, logged back in and it still crashed. I rebooted, still crashed with odd messages like it was already running. Frustrated that I could no longer install/update software I decided to quit trying to force Fedora Core 6 to work. Below is list of issues I encountered out of the box.

Vnc - I had to manually add my user's vncserver entry to /etc/sysconfig/vncservices. I also had to manually edit /home/spoonyfork/.vnc/xstartup to use something other than (welcome to 1995) twm as the window manager. Is it such a stretch that someone installing vnc out of the box would want to use the window manager they are running by default, like, oh.. gnome or kde?

auto mounting reiserfs partitions - Even with proper fstab entries I still couldn't get FC6 to auto mount reiserfs partitions. After much searching I discovered that I was running SELinux and I had to manually add entries to some conf file to allow FC6 to auto mount reiserfs partitions. I wasted about an hour of my life trying to get this to work only to find out I had to modify a text file by hand. Shouldn't the partition tool recognize that I'm using SELinux and give me the option to allow it? Out of frustration and wonderment as to what else SELinux was messing up in my life I disabling SELinux to get this to work.

Samba - How hard should this be? Not hard at all. A default samba installation should have a usable smb.conf with [homes] shared out that just works. At a minimum all I should have to do is add an smb user (which I did do). After the first boot, the homes shares would show up in my xp's network neighborhood but I could not map any drives. I would get the error of no network path to host. WTF. It turns out that I had to set browseable = yes, writeable = yes manually in smb.conf. To stop CUPS from filling up my log files I had to disable all printing and CUPS items as well. Samba's [homes] should have worked out of the box.

Encoded DVDs - Out of the box totem would not play encoded movie DVDs. I read the explanation but I still don't get it. Xp plays them. OSX plays them. Why can't FC6? I ended up having to so some command line yum trickery to get a version of xine with a libdvdcss or somesuch module to get it to play. Why couldn't this have been included in the distribution by default? Is it outrageous that a home desktop user would want to play a DVD movie?

Apache httpd - I never completely figured this out. I installed FC6 with apache included. The first boot after install, let me repeat, THE FIRST BOOT AFTER INSTALL httpd did not work. For the life of me I cannot understand why it didn't. Thinking there was still some configuration magic that needed to happen I ran the GUI apache configuration tool which should produce a valid httpd.conf but it still wouldn't start. When I tried to run httpd manually I was given an error that port 80 was alread in use. I scanned the process list, no httpd, no apache, no "80". I ran netstat and nothing bound to port 80. If I tried http://localhost in firefox I would get a no server message. There was content in the html folder. I searched google for hours reading other posts on the same issue. Responses ranged from you already have it running, there is a different process using port 80, SELinux is messing you up, your install is borked try again. I already had disabled SELinux, I tried reinstalling but had the same affect. I decided to configure httpd run on port 81 instead of 80. It started! But now here's where it gets weird. http://localhost:81 returned my custom index.html. I tried http://localhost:80 and it ALSO returned my custom index.html. FTW. WTF. After a couple hours on this issue I gave up thinking at least I have it running.

Apache tomcat5 - I spent a couple hours trying to get this run. Issues included tomcat5 wanting a JRE_HOME that was not set and host not found errors referencing my own workstation name. I had to manually add a janky entry to /etc/hosts to have my hostname bound to my static IP in order for tomcat to run. Don't even ask about trying to get mod_jk2 installed and running.

It felt like I was fighting Fedora Core 6 every step of the way and that is 100% not what I want out of an OS. On Friday at about 10PM I decided to go back to SuSE and installed openSUSE 10.2. I am much happier now. Everything worked out of the box (except a little issue with my EG1032 that I'm still working on).

Fedora Core 6 - part 1

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 04:00:46 GMT

A couple hardware upgrades recently forced me to upgrade my home linux server OS. I could not play DVDs on a new drive (yes, I tried all kinds of software and library installations). A new Linksys gigabit ethernet card driver would not load because of a bug in kernel 2.6.11. Those two things plus I've been waiting for an opportunity to break away from from the now disappointing Novell/SuSE so I decided to give good ol' RedHat a go again. I have fond memories of RedHat 8 running flawlessly on a venerable Dell Inspiron 3500 notebook computer. The free community flavor of RedHat is now the Fedora Project. I downloaded and burned (on my MacBook no less) the Fedora Core 6 DVD. The installation took minutes but the configuration took days. Linux truly is free if your time has no value.

I do not want to only rant on the pain points of the installation so I will list here the things that went so well that I was pleasantly surprised.

Janky ATI video card - zero configuration, default resolution and color depth for LCD monitor came up first try.

Linksys gigabit ethernet NIC (EG1032 v3) - zero configuration save for TCP/IP addresses.

onboard sound - I don't use sound but it was recognized with no errors.

Tune in next week for my first hair-pulling experience: ~~VNC~~!

Linksys WRT54G wireless-g broadband router

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:08:35 GMT

For Christmas I received a Linksys WRT54G v6 wireless-g broadband router. It replaced an older Linksys BEFW11S4 v2 wireless-b broadband router. I performed benchmarks for b and g service and found the difference to be substantial (700 KB/s vs 2.7 MB/s average). Most notably was the signal strength in 802.11g mode. My only complaint is the included 4 port switch did not include gigabit ethernet support.

Set up of the unit was painless. I made detailed notes of the BEFW11S4's settings and replicated them on the WRT54G after updating to the latest firmware. The only confusing portion of the setup was the SecureEasySetup one-touch button for magically transmitting wireless security settings to connected wireless devices. This so did not do anything. Since I was able to configure WEP to mirror my old settings, no remote device reconfiguration was needed. My new MacBook casually switched over to 802.11g on its next boot. My only complaint there was no way to obviously tell which mode (b or g) I was connected at other than by running network speed benchmarks in both modes.

Overall I'm very pleased with the upgrade so far.

P.S. If I could have fastforwarded into the future, I would rather have obtained Apple's AirPort Extreme but it doesn't come out until February. The nice feature there is the USB port for use as a print server or a hard drive for network storage. Am I becoming an Apple fanboy?