Category: Technology

All things geeky.

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Dual Booting Windows and Linux

Quick lesson learned while installing Edubuntu: If you install Edubuntu then Windows, Windows will eat the boot manager and Linux will not boot. Use these steps:

  1. Partition your drive for Windows, Linux and boot mgr/swap. I personally divided the bulk of the harddrive evenly with an ext3 partition and an ntfs partition. The remaining space (roughly 1.5mb) I left for the Linux installer to play with.
  2. Install Windows into the ntfs partition. Doing this first will give the Linux installer the ability to see that Windows exists and it will do two things. One, it will add a link to the desktop to allow browsing of the Windows partition from Edubuntu, and two, it will add Windows into the grub boot manager.
  3. Install Edubuntu making sure to not format the ntfs partition (manually edit the partition table when it gives you the chance!) and you are done!
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Kill a programmer – ask them a question

A little disclaimer. My wife is going to take this personally and make it about her. But it’s not about her. Or the kids. It’s about the cat that constantly tries to crawl onto my keyboard. It’s about the incessant phone calls from nasty people. It’s about my mind that wants to wander to finishing projects on the house. It is about emails and computer glitches (right now my linux server doesn’t see the network..that’s an interruption). Client emergencies and angry instant messages. Angst. Yes. It is also about the thuds on the floor. The crying. Little people learning through physics, ye ol’ school of hard knocks. It’s about life’s necessary appointments and cooking dinner. Flooded bathrooms and washing machines.

All that said, a good friend of mine use to keep a piece of paper taped to the wall of his cubicle. It read:

No success at work can compensate for failure in the home.

That said, if I fail at work, I cannot provide for my family. There must be a balance. I will continue to bound up the stairs when I hear a thud following by a painful scream. I will drop everything to answer my wife’s whims. But I must keep a balance whereby work is not hindered. The cat is on notice though. Keep watching the video to see if it continues to land on all fours as I cat-apult it from my desk.

For years I have tried to explain, without success, to various non-programmers that a small interruption costs me 15 minutes of time. "But it will only take a second of your time." That second might be for a phone call, an office joke, move the laundry from the washer to the dryer, a technical question on a non-related project…the topic does not really matter, the interruption is the problem.

Logan Koester of Skin Deep writes about Overcoming Coder’s Block with some excellent advice and references none other than Joel on Software with Just a 60 second distraction can cost a programmer 15 minutes. Once again, I connect with Joel Spolsky very well! If you have a programmer in your life as his/her employer, spouse, or friend, please read this article; it’s the last paragraphs that are important.

Here’s the simple algebra. Let’s say (as the evidence seems to suggest) that if we interrupt a programmer, even for a minute, we’re really blowing away 15 minutes of productivity. For this example, lets put two programmers, Jeff and Mutt, in open cubicles next to each other in a standard Dilbert veal-fattening farm. Mutt can’t remember the name of the Unicode version of the strcpy function. He could look it up, which takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which takes 15 seconds. Since he’s sitting right next to Jeff, he asks Jeff. Jeff gets distracted and loses 15 minutes of productivity (to save Mutt 15 seconds).

Now let’s move them into separate offices with walls and doors. Now when Mutt can’t remember the name of that function, he could look it up, which still takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which now takes 45 seconds and involves standing up (not an easy task given the average physical fitness of programmers!). So he looks it up. So now Mutt loses 30 seconds of productivity, but we save 15 minutes for Jeff.

[Source]

Every programmer has their magic equation for creative productivity. For instance, I need a warm beverage in hand, my day has to begin early, an uncluttered work environment, a computer that moves as fast as I do, minimal white noise, and a well defined goal.

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Linux is easy

Edubuntu is really impressing me! The installation was easier than Windows. The interface is pretty. The pre-installed applications are fun and intriguing; some, like the movie editor, I want to use before passing the machine onto Noah. What impressed me the most is that after the installation I rebooted and it immediately prompted me that updates were available; exactly as Windows would have done! I expected that Linux was going to be an administrative nightmare. I was wrong!

I’ve partition the harddrive so that Edubuntu will take half. Noah will use this as his primary operating system. Linux will be used for his Internet exploration, research and browser games. Linux will be used for his productivity-school reports, video projects, spreadsheets, email and so forth. Linux will be used for education except when the educational software requires Windows. The Windows partition will be used for Windows specific games that have not been ported to Linux. The Windows partition will be used for websites that require Internet Explorer. The Windows partition will be used for educational software that has not been ported for Windows. He will also use it to become familiar with the Microsoft Office Suite although OpenOffice should make him comfortable enough.

I am really tickled with this setup. I am debating doing Sarah’s the same way.

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Do the children of today need the OS of the future?

So how cruel would it be to give a 10 year old boy a computer with Edubuntu instead of Windows? Would it actually be beneficial to him? I think back to my Atari 400 and the numerous Apple ][es and DOS boxes that I came up on and I played games and created databases and understood the basics. I believe Linux will be influential in their lifes and they should be exposed to numerous significant operating systems. In part, that is why I want the children to have a modern Apple in the house. They need to know that Windows is not the only option and they need to know how to navigate each OS. But is it cruel to give a child a machine that does not play the games his brother’s computer plays?

And yes, I’m thinking dual booting the machine with Edubuntu as the default and Windows as a secondary OS.

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unlawful photography

In Tennessee, you can end up with a Class A misdemeanor for taking a photograph. Now if you disseminated to others it becomes a Class E felony. So, if you take someone’s picture in TN and put it on Flickr you could end up spending one to six years in prison and be fined up to $3000.

Class E felony
Not less than one (1) year nor more than six (6) years in prison. In addition, the jury may assess a fine not to exceed three thousand dollars ($3,000), unless otherwise provided by statute
Class A misdemeanor
not greater than eleven (11) months twenty-nine (29) days in jail or a fine not to exceed two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), or both, unless otherwise provided by statute

[Source]

According to of the Tennessee Code Title 39, Chapter 13, Part 6 "It is an offense for a person to knowingly photograph, or cause to be photographed an individual, when the individual is in a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, without the prior effective consent of the individual…" This law seems ripe for abuse. I am no lawyer but I find it difficult to accept language like "Would offend or embarrass an ordinary person if such person appeared in the photograph" as definitive. Some people are so shy you could take a picture of the back of their head and they would be embarassed. You could photograph me losing my swimsuit on a dive at the pool and I would not take offense. Two extremes and the law should apply to neither.

What happens if this law is enacted on a person?

(c) All photographs taken in violation of this section shall be confiscated and, after their use as evidence, destroyed. [Source]

I suppose if you were an elected official, or crooked law enforcement agent, and someone snapped a less than complimentary picture of you in a public place, you could enact the law and have the evidence destroyed.

I also suppose that if my daughter didn’t like her picture on Flickr, she could have her mother arrested and the picture would be destroyed.

Now, we are on camera all the time! Your bank ATM has a camera that films you picking your nose. Certainly you could expect privacy in your monetary transactions but often this camera is clearly broadcast to a television visible to patrons inside the bank. Retail store security cameras abound. I bet you are unknowingly on hundreds of cameras just walking through the mall. Our lives will become even more filmed as time goes on.

Allow me to share a not too distance future. Eventually cameras will become so small and cheap that we will have them available as "dots" on a strip of paper not unlike candy buttons. Once peeled from the paper strip the camera’s adhesive backing could be stuck anywhere..a tree, a lightpost, a backpack. The camera will seek out a nearby wireless network at communicate its network ip address to your home server from which you can start monitoring the camera. Children will be able to go to a friend’s house to play and the parents will be able to check in on their child. Video art will change. Privacy will be limited to wireless proof, privacy rooms where signals are blocked, negated, or otherwise cannot get out. Yes, the abuse potential will be huge but the opportunities such technology will create will far outweight the abuse.

Our paradigm of privacy needs to change. We should not give up our right to privacy but we should not be uptight about having our picture made when we are in public. Instead of trying to create privacy in public or define public spaces as "not really public" we should change our attitudes and accept that when we leave our houses, we will be on film like it or not. We should change ourselves and make sure we are behaving as we should in public instead of crying foul and declaring that your inappropiate behavior should not have been able to be seen on film.

I had to lookup "unlawful photography" after reading about a peeping tom arrested in TN who "hid a camera inside a binder and targeted women." When I was a teenager, I had this really cool camera lense that took picture at a 90 degree angle to the actual camera. I could be on a balcony and look like I was taking a picture of the ocean while I was really taking a picture of the bikini babe sunning at the pool below. (Yes, I thought it but never had the guts to try it. I was certain they would see the mirror.) I suppose my lense could have landed me in prison! I was too embarassed to photograph people so all my pictures before the age of 20 or so are of buildings and scenes with no people. Maybe our peeping tom was took embarassed to openingly point a camera at people in a public place but really wanted to capture a sample of life at the mall, er, but only the pretty women. Yes, I doubt his innocence. See some interesting comments at the Nashville Scene.

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Bad customer service begets bad service

So one of my clients call Friday, "Doug, our network is down!" So I drop everything and rush over there as quickly as possible to spend the afternoon tracing through knotted cables resembling a plate of spaghetti and a cluster of switches and routers with extra routers thrown in as leftovers from the previous technician’s troubleshooting attempts. See, everyone always wants to pull in the lowest dollar solution first because any upstart techie is going to say, "sure, I can do that." which has this rippling effect of rising costs and client doubts. When the lowest dollar solution fails, they call in the next higher yet lowest dollar solution who now has to not only solve the original problem but fix any problems created by the previous low dollar solution. The result is that the higher lower dollar solution has to bill more than if they were the first on the job. If that person fails and another person has to be called in, the costs only escalate.

I still have moments when I will tell a client "I’m not the right person for the job." My father-in-law cringed recently as he overheard a phone call in which I did just that. That said, I also subscribe to the philosophy of "never turn away a sale." The two statements are in obvious conflict. The way to keep the sale and do the right thing for the client is to say "I’m not the right developer but let me run project through someone I trust." That is not always plausible but gives you a billable while knowing that your client will be taken care correctly since you will be managing the work.

After resolving Friday’s network issues, the client sent their company’s financial computer with me to get a new version of Peachtree installed. After spending the better part of the weekend removing spyware, malware, and viruses, I proceeded with the upgrade only to find it consistently failing. My first round with Peachtree technical support sent me retracing my steps through possible solutions already researched via Blingo. Slowly I began to think I had a bad compact disc.

I have visited one of the plants that mass produces cds. A cd is created much the same way an LP record is produced. A mold is created. Little plastic pellets are melted into gooey platter. And the data is pressed into the plastic. Yes. I said, "the data is pressed into the plastic." That sounds weird and inconsistent with the cd burners you have in your home computer. A cd writer uses a chemical process. Mass produced cds use a physical process which includes creating pits and lands that reflect the light from the laser differently. When the cd reader detects a change from pit to land or land to pit it tells the computer that a 1 was read. If there is no change, say pit to pit or land to land, it tells the computer a 0 was read. Your cd burner at home removes some the dye in the cd and causes light to reflect or not reflect thus emulating a pit or land. This chemical is prone age which is why a "burned" cd has a shelf life.

You’ll note the reflective metal (aluminum or gold) of the CD is on the top, under a thin layer of acrylic which is just under the label. The bottom of the cd has 1.2mm of polycarbonate plastic. This is why I cringe when I see someone lay a CD down upside down to "protect it from scratches." The laser focuses beyond the surface of the bottom of the CD and minor scratches on the bottom have no effect while a minor scratch on the top can destroy the reflective surface. Scratches on the bottom can be buffed out while scratches on the top cannot be repaired.

The odds of getting bad pressed CD are pretty slim. The Peachtree installation disc was just that. Because the odds are so slim, technical support is alway hesistant to send replacement CDs. It took some doing but they finally gave in. There was only 1 file I could not copy from the CD. They would not give in and put that file online for download. That I consider bad customer service. My client understands what has happened but it does not negate the fact that I told them they would have their machine before business opened Monday morning and I still have it on Wednesday.

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The errors in my life

Errors I have been fighting all weekend

  • Error -1607: Unable to Install InstallShield Scripting Runtime
  • Error 1305.Error reading from file C:\Program Files\Peachtree\Pchapp32.dll. Verify that the file exists and that you can access it.
    Installer stalls at 37% for C:\Program Files\Peachtree\Pchapp32.dll

Rid machines of viruses and malware can be very difficult and time consuming. Plus it demands just enough attention that you can’t really focus on something serious so multitasking for productivity is kind of out of the question. So, what gets sacrificed? Estimates and sales.

Some references:

Update: I have cleared all temp areas on the harddrive, have checked for bad sectors on the harddisk, have uninstalled the old remenants of the program being upgraded, have uninstalled and reinstalled the InstallShield engine, and jumped through many suggestions found on Google, and still at 37-40% of the way into the installation, it fails. So I tried on another computer and at 40% it failed with "Error 1305.Error reading from file C:\Program File\Peachtree\Pchapp32.dll. Verify that the file exists and that you can access it." So I wised up and decided to try to eliminate the cdrom from the equation. I can copy every file from the CD except d:\peachw\install\Data1.cab. When I try to copy that file I get "Cannot copy Data1:Data error (cyclic redundancy check)" from any machine.

Update: Peachtree agrees the disc is bad but won’t let me download Data1.cab. They are sending a new disc in the mail.

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Don’t work for free

I have this standing rule that I break all too often: Don’t work for free. I had this bad habit of giving too much and asking too little. I like seeing people happy; that is why the stage is so appealing to me. On the stage, you instantly know if the audience is happy and, if they are not responding well, you can change the show on the fly to fit the audience. In the business world, not asking for your worth is a guarantee that you will not survive. The customer is temporarily happy but because you undercharged or over delivered their expectation will not be realistic. For future work, you will either not be around to service them because you went out of business due to not making your expenses, or the future work will appear exorbitantly high since they received so much for so litle from you in their previous experience.

I entertained a phone interview recently. The recruiter had explained that if the interview went well, the company would ask me to write a sample webpage. At the time, I thought this made sense. All creative types should keep a portfolio to demonstrate your worthiness. However, when you start running at the pace that I keep there is little time to manage a portfolio; simply pointing to work you have done is no good because other hands change it. For example, if my job was to paint a mural by the interstate, overnight my artwork could turn into a mess of graffiti. The Internet is very similar. You might make a wonderful site that validates and is Section 508 compliant but the minute your influence is gone from the company you cannot expect that website to stay compliant.

Section 508 requires that electronic and information technology developed, procured, used, or maintained by all agencies and departments of the Federal Government be accessible both to Federal employees with disabilities and to members of the public with disabilities, and that these two groups have equal use of such technologies as federal employees and members of the public that do not have disabilities. [Source]

Doing a sample website could show my skills that portfolio, pages due to time or lack of budget, may not reflect. Like I said, seemed like a good idea at the time. I did have the wherewithal to ask the recruiter if I would have an hourly rate for the sample project…no. When the interviewer got to that part of the phone interview, I was graced with the sample project. "Could you set aside 5 days?" My jaw dropped!

I have a checks and balances when it comes to estimating projects. I have dollar figures defined for lengths of commitments to clients. I do my estimate based on the specification but then I check my standards to see if my estimate is accurate. That means if a client says they need me for a day the estimate should be between $a and $b; if they need me for a week, the estimate should be between $m and $n; and if they need me for a month, the estimate should be between $x and $y. A week generally looks like $dddd.dd.

I mentioned in a chatroom, with ambiguity for client confidentiality, the request to write a sample website and asked if that was common. The online community of chatters responded with outrage stating that a portfolio should be sufficient or that questions in an interview should easily ferret out the developer’s skills. The people speaking are big names in my industry; I could walk through Borders and point to several books written by them. Frankly, they suggested I not consider the company and asked, "if this their expectation in an interview, what will their expectations be as an employer?" They implored me not to do the sample project and reinforced that such a trend could be bad for our industry.

Now in all fairness, I interpret 5 days as "we are giving you five days so that you can show us you can meet a deadline and we understand you have other work to do." The interviewer said that it really shouldn’t be a day’s worth of work (that would look like $ddd.dd). I hope he is right that it doesn’t need the full 5 days otherwise I have already blown the job possibility. This week I also had a small project that turned out to be somewhat painful. Additionally, a client was holding payment while I worked out a bug in an application so that had my focus. I have 3 people waiting on estimates (estimates are the hardest part of my job and they pay $0). I got the go ahead on the next phase of a client’s project. Another client said I could begin working on his project because he is certain the end client will give the go ahead on Monday. And a maintenance client needed me for half a day because their network went down; they also need me to upgrade their accounting software this weekend. Sounds equitable right? Maybe in a perfect world but if you read it again you’ll see that almost none of that pays until down the road (if at all).

I suppose I could have ignored everything except the sample project on the premise that I will nail this job. That would have shown a huge lack of ethics toward my existing clients plus I have assured them that if I step out of consulting or take a long term committed project that I will give them sufficient notice and make sure their work is uninterrupted. This potential job is with a company that I admire. And, if this sample project is indicative of how they organize their actual projects, working with them will be an absolute pleasure. However, I must manage my risk and assume that the job will not come through. I know the interviewer is a big blog reader so I am certain this post will appear in their feed reader. Hopefully it is not read negatively.

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Word Combinations That Don’t Work (and some that do)

Words that should never be used in the same thought process: spray-on……penis…..vulcanization

On the other hand, fun and betty seem to just roll off the tongue.

Update: The sun-sentinel apparently archives their articles making the vulcanization link useless. Russ McBee comes to the rescue with his recent Tweet about the spray-on condom.

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John McCain to shutdown blogosphere

The trees thus spoke to the mother wolf, "mother wolf, you must teach your cubs not to be prey." Mother wolf replied to the trees, "But it is your forest, I shall implore the king lion to rule that the trees shall be punished if they do not watch over their own land." The king lion came to the trees, "I have heard mother wolf’s request. I have seen one man do a bad thing therefore I must assume that around every corner lurks a bad man. Mother wolf is too busy napping to watch over her cubs. Since you permit so many bad men to walk your forest, I must make you responsible for her cubs. Every time you let a bad man into your forest, I shall cut down a tree until you are a forest no more."

And John McCain thus spoke for in the name of fear and the safety of the children, any law shall be passed and any law shall be broken. McCain grew tall and his voice boomed, "I need only invoke the words child pornography or terrorism and I become a god!"

  • Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000."
  • Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face "even stiffer penalties" than ISPs.
  • Social networking sites will be forced to take "effective measures" — such as deleting user profiles — to remove any website that is "associated" with a sex offender. Sites may include not only Facebook and MySpace, but also Amazon.com, which permits author profiles and personal lists, and blogs like DailyKos, which allows users to sign up for personal diaries.

[Source]

A crafty man so decided to pursue the American dream and thus spent his life savings on a building downtown from where he could deal his trade. Government propaganda encouraged him by describing "The American Way" only to take his profits with fees, penalties, and unusual taxes; and to overwhelm him with paperwork and legalities. Over time he came in earlier and left later. His family supported him but suffered and his trade turned from pleasure to torment. Vandals started painting graffiti on his building. The government explained that these vandals must be registered, and the business owner must file a report whenever a sex offender paints his building. One day the proprietor overslept. That night the vandals had painted his building with obscenities. On the way to work, the government employee saw the vandalism and took everything the proprietor owned then locked him in prison. The judge explained that the proprietor should have taken down the wall. If we give people the opportunity, certainly they will make the crime. We cannot possibly expect people to be responsible for their own actions under such circumstances!

When he introduced his legislation to the Senate, McCain offered no evidence that children are being victimized by people who post comments on blogs. [Source]

I am greatly bothered by how we are evolving into such a prude society.

Update: Apparently I am about 8 hours behind on this story. See comments here.

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Why do we need a moonbase?

Nasa claims we need a moonbase to launch missions to Mars. This makes sense and would be a good staging place to initiate long range space travel. The tourist possibilities are great also.

Slate says we do not have a need for a moonbase and are going to build it then decide what to do with it.

Coming under a presidency whose slogan might be “No Price Too High To Accomplish Nothing,” the idea of a permanent, crewed moon base nevertheless takes the cake for preposterousness. [Source]

Frankly I think the real reason for the moonbase is military. No one will say that because the public would cry foul. With China planning to orbit the moon…er, in 2006 and India planning on landing on the moon by 2020, it becomes self-evident that one of the countries is going to lay a claim to the moon. Whichever country establishes a base on the moon first will control the moon because nothing else will be able to be built on the moon after that without the first country’s consent. Just imagine you have built a base on the moon, learned your lessons about decompression, managing gravity, fueling, supplying and so forth. You have a presence and a small contingent of armed soldiers. Now someone else tries to build a base from scratch. They could not possibly defend their efforts from a well trained group of soldiers intent on demolition and learn the lessons to successfully build their base. Also, current military based satellites can easily be disabled or destroyed. A moonbase would be more difficult to attack and would make a far more stable launching platform for earthbound missiles.

In 1968, Stanley Kubrick had the right vision for a moonbase.