We had a bit of fun this last weekend and carved out some Jack-O’-Lanterns to spice up the neighborhood. Here are a few pictures our handiwork:
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Monthly Archive for October, 2007
In case anyone is trying to understand open source licenses and how to use them, I found the following links to be helpful:
- Open Source Inititive - Custodians of the Open Source Definition (OSD) and various open source licenses. A good starting point.
- Open Source & Free Software Licensing - You can buy the book from O’Reilly or download each of the chapters as a PDF for free. This is an excellent source of information as it does a great job of breaking down and helping one understand the legalities of each type of license.
- Open Source Licenses - A comparison chart of open source licenses. This chart is not complete, however, and could be expanded.
- Open Source Licenses Are Not All the Same - Provides insight as well as some examples on how you might use open source licenses.
Read a great article about bookmarklets earlier in the week by LifeHacker. I have since added them as a folder to my Firefox bookmarks menu:
Very handy! Only thing missing is the ability to launch these in a new tab via a pop up menu rather than a bookmark. Hmm, a new plug-in perhaps?
One critical application that is missing from the iPhone is a proper to do list. Fortunately, there are a bunch of web applications that somewhat solve this issue. The one I have been using recently is Ta-Da List provided by 37 Signals. The service is free and easy to setup. Here are a couple screen shots of the web application running within my Firefox browser:
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The first image is a view of all my lists and the second image is a view of my buy list. The interface changes slightly when viewed via the Safari web browser on my iPhone:
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The first image is a view of all my lists, the second image is a view of my buy list, and the third image is a view of buy list item being edited. As you can see the interface changes slightly but not by much. The design is simple and the features are basic but that is all I am shooting for at the moment.
While the Ta-Da List web application is not optimal it will get me by until more interesting apps come along like Mail 3.0 and OmniFocus.
Tip: A web application is essentially worthless when you loose internet connectivity. I recommend loading up information from each of your favorite web applications on a separate Safari page on your iPhone before leaving an area where you have connectivity. Later you can view the information from cache (memory) without needing an internet connection.
In case you were an early adopter and bought a Mac recently, you can upgrade for $9.95 using Apple’s up-to-date program. You just need your original sales receipt and the serial number of your machine. If you bought directly from the online Apple Store it is even easier. Just fill out this online form and checkout.
Introduction
The following showcases some of the best features, in my opinion, of the Airport Extreme in case you are in the market for upgrading your network.
Feature Highlights
- Supports 802.11n WiFi technology.
- Has one WAN port and three LAN ports.
- Has one USB port that can be used to connect a USB Hub, printer, or external hard drive.
- Plays nicely with the iPhone by easily switching from the EDGE network to your WiFi network upon detection.
- Compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.
Setup
Setup is a breeze as you only need to install the AirPort Utility software (discussed further below) and follow the wizard prompts. Afterwards you can enter manual mode to access the advanced features of your AirPort.
AirPort Utility
The AirPort Extreme comes with an easy to use software application called: AirPort Utility. Below is a screenshot of the application running on my Windows machine:
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This application has all the advanced features necessary for setting up your wired and wireless network. For example: WEP, WPA, and WPA2 (personal and enterprise) security, port mapping, MAC address filtering, IP pass through, remote WAN access, etc. The thing I like the most is the ability to attach multiple USB devices to the AirPort. For example:
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Notice, in the diagram above, that there is a USB hub which then has a USB printer and external hard drive attached to it. By keeping these devices connected to the AirPort it then becomes much easier for all computers on the network to access these devices 24/7 without requiring a dedicated computer to be always running and sharing the devices.
Tips & Notes
- A good USB hub to use with the AirPort is the D-Link 4-port USB 2.0 Hub. No software drivers required (if drivers are required then you are buying the wrong hardware).
- In order access a printer connected to the AirPort you will need software drivers that support Bonjour networking and are compatible with the various operating systems on your network.
- Bonjour networking not only allows you to easily connect to USB hard drives and printers but you can apply password projection on your hard drives and even allow remote access via the internet to your USB devices. Install the AirPort Disk Utility software on each machine to make this happen.
- It is a shame that the AirPort Extreme does not support the eSATA interface because USB 2.0 starts to suck when dealing with large amounts of data on the network.
Just got back from attending a Refresh Denver meeting held at the Illegal Grounds Coffee House. Met some interesting people (mostly web developers) who live in the Denver area. I was the only radical that came from Colorado Springs. Here are a few quick notes that I captured from the meeting:
- Technology: Microformats
- Speaker: Scott Reynen
- Related Technologies: RDF, OWL, GRDDL.
- The W3C is not necessarily in sync with Microformats.
- Operator - A Firefox plug-in that supports microformats.
- HTML 4.0 supports microformats.
- The WordPress Sandbox Theme uses microformats.
- NetNewsWire - A feed reader for the Mac that supports microformats.
It was a learning experience for me and I really enjoyed meeting everyone that attended. Would have liked to have spent more time with everyone and that might be possible in the future. It sounds like this type of event just got off the ground during May of this year (for Denver that is). I am looking forward to more events like this and would even be up for hosting something like this in the Colorado Springs area. If anyone is interested just leave a comment, otherwise try to attend the next Refresh Denver meeting.
I recently went shopping for an iPhone armband and ended up buying the Belkin Sport Armband for the iPhone. After jogging on the first day of using the armband I discovered that the entire side of the armband that holds the iPhone was split at the seam! Here are a couple pictures to help illustrate:
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I am just glad that the phone didn’t slip out and break on a rock. Needless to say, you probably should mark this product off your shopping list. Luckily for me, Belkin customer service was kind enough to refund my money.
Originally, when I wrote this post, I was bashing AT&T because I had incorrectly misread the details of my service plan. I thought that my rollover minutes were only good for one month. It turns out I was wrong. They are, in fact, good for a whole year as noted on the AT&T F.A.Q. page:
“Rollover Minutes are unused, accumulated, Anytime Minutes that roll over from month to month for up to 12 billing periods. The benefits include the ability to keep unused Anytime Minutes and use them when they are needed. Additionally, you can avoid paying Additional Minute charges by using accumulated Rollover Minutes (also known as your Current Rollover Balance).”
To shed some light on this, here is a snap shot of my latest phone bill (with rollover minutes highlighted in yellow):
This means that out of the 450 day-time minutes I was able to use last month, I only used 144 minutes. The remaining 306 minutes get rolled over into next month which equates to 756 minutes total (450 + 306). Should I accrue more minutes or not use up the 306 minutes rolled over from last month, I will keep accruing minutes until year’s end (year’s end of when I signed my contract, that is).
Obviously, this is a sweet deal and even though I wish the rollover minutes could accrue, unlimited, until I canceled my service contract, I have to admit that having a year to use all rollover minutes is very handy.
I was writing some Java code this weekend that did some manipulation on my MP3 collection. During the course of my research, I stumbled upon a few libraries that might be of use to others:
- Java ID3 Tag Library - Licensing: LGPL. A related project for image extraction is: MP3 Image Tag Extractor.
- Jens Vonderheide MP3 Java Library - Licensing: LGPL.
- Java Zoom MP3SPI - A service provider interface for MP3 streaming. The JavaZoom has other media related libraries worth checking out. Licensing: LGPL.
I ended up using the first library mentioned: Java ID3 Tag Library. Doesn’t do everything I need but comes fairly close.