I put up these rolls of transparency-like material on all the walls in my office. The result: you can write on the walls — it’s like having a whiteboard on every wall. While it’s not perfect (i’d like to be able to write “anywhere” and not just on the sheets, it’s very very useful.

When we scope projects in my office, or I want to explain how a project will work, we’ll draw all over the walls, and then when we’re done, I sit down at my desk, and can easily look up and either code it up (or write it up more formally).

It’s also great for todo lists (your own, or others dropping by to put stuff on your list) and really great for just brainstorming. I love it!

My good friend Bart’s mashup snags top honors at MashupCamp! Way to go Bart!

It’s called TrainCheck.

The mashup tracks the real-time schedules of trains–you type in a code (such as embr for Embarcadero on the San Francisco BART system), and TrainCheck sends an SMS or email message to your cell phone. It’s free for the cost your carrier charges for messages. It’s just a side job and not affiliated with the newspaper, the two founders said, and they don’t plan to monetize it. “We are trying to expand it and raise awareness among public transit authorities across the country,” said Solowiej. “It’s a new way to make their information accessible to the general public.”

ZDNet Article: MashupCamp Day 2: The mashups
CNET Article: Podbop nets big prize at MashupCamp

Very cool Bart!

It’s true I don’t post too many pictures… or updates about things in my life — besides all that techno-babble. So here’s a picture for you to enjoy. My doggy, Jameson, climbing over her sister, Paris:

And I’m doing well, myself.

Also: I’m proud of Jodi, having just finished project managing another major renovation and doing a superb job. She’s got a knack for the details, and is super efficient. She’s got an update on her blog, along with some photos.

I came across an article on the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts mailing list that was linked from the AJC on how Ga. Tech embraces ‘new face of computing’.

A lot of the hard-core techies and ex-alums who’ve commented on these changes have negative feelings and responses. I actually think this new perspective on the Computer Science curriculum could be A Good Thing, but am quite nervous. I naturally have to want Tech to remain competitive and be a good school. An easy way to do this to make it difficult/challenging/hard. It makes my degree there continue to be valuable. But part of me really sees this as a pretty cool initiative.

(more…)

I have lots of audio and video on my mythtv box (a big ole fedora box stuffed in the closet) that I want to share with friends (and myself when I’m on my laptop in the office). I also just got a lot of new audio (indie and electronic) from my pal Tung.

I’ve already got the mDNSResponder and mt-daapd to serve up the “share” to iTunes. So the Powerbook in the kitchen is playing it over the whole-house using the AirTunes Express, but i’m in the office, and I didn’t put any in-wall or ceiling speakers in here. Plus, I’m on my gentoo laptop, and have some headphones on.

Have no fear, NFS is tried and true. And no problem to setup:

edit /etc/exports (here’s mine):

/var/audio 192.168.0.6/255.255.255.0(rw,sync)
/var/video 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0(rw,sync)

Now let’s edit /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny to allow everyone who jumps on my network:
hosts.allow:

portmap: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
lockd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
rquotad: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
mountd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
statd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0

hosts.deny:

portmap: ALL
lockd: ALL
rquotad: ALL
mountd: ALL
statd: ALL

OK, let’s start it: /etc/init.d/nfs start and add to boot: chkconfig –add nfs && chkconfig nfs on

Now on the client (my gentoo laptop):

# mount mythtv-server:/var/audio /mnt/audio

Now, that was just too easy.

see http://nfs.sourceforge.net/nfs-howto/ for more help.

We’re renovating our new place — a sweet little loft condo in Atlanta (near lil’5). It’s done really well, even won some awards for the concrete pours. It is really a great space — not like one of those “let’s expose the duct work and call it a loft!” lofts…. It’s quite fabulous, but as usual, we’re going to be taking it up about 10 notches to make it uber-fabulous.

Jodi’s pulling out all the tricks: a new Poliform kitchen with ovengold wood, a sub-zero fridge, coffee system, dishwasher, cooktop, hood, oven, etc. — all the works. We’re putting in a massive shower upstairs–dual head, all-new faucets, new closets, refinishing the floors, knocking down a lot of walls and re-doing everything, as usual!

So naturally, while these walls are down, I’m trying to cram as many wires as I can in them. Here’s my plan so far:

(more…)

I’m just keeping y’all posted:

My MacBook Pro ships March, now.

Why the MacBook Pro, you ask? Well, Apple just can’t go wrong these days. Their sleek designs and underlying cool technology (OS X based on *nix/bsd) is a techno-phile’s dream. The fact that the new iMacs and MacBook Pros are now running on Intel processors is, yes, very cool too. And while the old iBooks, PowerBooks and iMacs were no stranger to Linux — it was just linux on ppc — the code-bases will merge, and now there will be no need to have a seperate linux stack on PPC, but rather a kernel on intel dual core using EFI to boot, and now you’ve got the Mac OS X, and Linux running side by side!

It’s not pretty, but today, I started writing my own Object Relational Mapper in .NET (C#).

After using Ruby and the Rails framework including the ORM framework that is ActiveRecord, it just seems so cludgy to write:

string strInsertCommand = "INSERT INTO [table]([col1, col2, ...)
    VALUES(@col1, @col2, ...);"
// ... and repeat ...

I know, too spoiled to write my own SQL. Well, what I’m not telling is that I’m using some Stored Procedures, which don’t really translate all that well into the ORM world. That, and my ORM is really nasty since it goes out and queries the table first for the columns, then builds INSERTS based on that. Makes me wonder how ActiveRecord really does it….

Today, I officially turn 25. At the rate I’m going, this is probably the half-way point.

I’m only half kidding.

Good thing I’ve still got that young, buxom, babe of a fiance (who by the way splurged on bought me the top-of-the-line MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM).

Jodi’s birthday card (along with the present) included birthday wishes, and of course ragging on me for getting older, but the main theme was: “use this present to make me some money.”

Done and done. Thanks hun!