Isn't This Great

One of my favorite movie lines is from Captain Ron where Martin Short looks at his family while visiting a Caribbean island and says, "Isn't this great?" The line came to me this morning as I was busy getting things done with the help of the Internet.

I spent yesterday on the side of a freezing mountain acting as a finish referee for one of my kids' races. That sort of put me behind for the week and so I tried to make up for it by getting to work early this morning. I was up at 5:30 am to help get my kids and wife ready for a final day of racing. Then it was off to work where I could get caught up.

First on my list of things to do was reregistration for my wife's car. Thanks to our state's online program, it was just a matter of logging in and giving them a credit card number. The site then produced a PDF file to keep in the car until the license-plate sticker arrives. If it doesn't arrive before the end of the month, I just tape the lower portion of the printed page to the back window and my wife can continue driving without fear of getting a ticket.

Next on my list was paying bills. I have written before about how I do this online and so I won't go into any more details other than to say that my bank has recently improved this service. When I pay a specific bill, it now tells me the day that the payee will be paid. Sometimes it is one or two days while other times it is up to five. This is incredibly helpful when a local bill is due tomorrow but will take five days to pay online. Regular mail sometimes works better than online payments and I don't mind the price of a stamp to make sure all payments are made on-time.

Last week I mentioned that I had found the perfect gift for my oldest son. Unfortunately the place I planned to get his gift didn't have what I needed. Christmas is quickly approaching and so I needed to get it taken care of today. I fired off a quick e-mail to a local supplier and he is picking me up the gift this afternoon from the warehouse. Then he will call me as he heads down the freeway back to his home. We will meet up at a local gas station and exchange money for the gift. Furthermore, he can get it for me for about half of what it would cost in the store. And in case you are wondering, nope, it didn't fall off the back of a truck nor is it illegal.

With my personal tasks taken care of, it was time to do some real work. A quick e-mail message to a company I did some work for last week ensured my check is on its way. Another e-mail got the ball rolling on another project and it seems as if all of those things that kept me awake last night are now moving forward in the right direction.

It was a good morning and I felt I could run my college-age daughter to the library to pick up two books. She is home from school because of Christmas break and wanted to get some reading material during her relaxing vacation. She was enjoying the use of the Internet as well. She verified that the local library had the books and just needed a ride to pick them up. We got in the car and drove the short distance to the library. Unfortunately it was closed. We were too early and will have to go back later today. I laughed as we drove home because with all of the Internet usage, you would think that one of us would have checked the website to see what time the library opened.

Last Minute Gifts

Christmas is quickly approaching and I still have one gift yet to get. Then I will be done shopping and ready for the fun associated with this wintry holiday. The gift is for my oldest son who will be heading off to college next year. I have finally decided what to get my son but, it was a difficult task.

When my kids were all young, my wife and I used to go for quantity when it came to Christmas gifts. It didn't matter that most of the gifts were quickly broken and discarded. When kids are young, they just want to open gifts and lots of them. Then there came a point when we decided to shift from quantity to quality. We had one requirement: the gift needed to last for at least a year. It was tough shopping for gifts that were meaningful, useful, and long lasting. However each of my kids still have those gifts from that monumental Christmas.

Since then we have tried to get things that will mean something but also be used. My youngest daughter has gotten me some nice sweaters that I constantly wear during cold weather (I even have one on today). Sometimes we have gotten the kids ski equipment, which gets used a lot. This year, that is what my two youngest kids have gotten. They already know about them because tomorrow is the first ski race of the season and they need the new skis and boots. It will make for a somewhat anti-climactic Christmas morning, but they are fine with that.

This brings me back to my oldest son. What do I get him? He is no longer racing and so he doesn't really need anything relating to skiing. He is going off to college shortly and so anything he gets will need to be small or it might get left home.

To help pick out his gift, I leveraged the Internet. I did a search for "college packing list" and got one or two ideas. But I doubt he really wants bed sheets for Christmas. I looked into a new computer but have already decided he is getting my current laptop when I replace it sometime in June (it is a sweet MacBook that I am very reluctant to part with). In the end, I decided on something that is perfect. Unfortunately, he reads this BLOG and so I can't go into too many details. However, he will be very happy on Christmas morning.

Printing Oops

This morning I made a printing mistake. I have a 100-page document that I am in the middle of editing. In the document are 10 chapters. I like to edit a chapter at a time. When I am done with the chapter, I like to print it out as sort of a backup. That way, If my computer dies, I will at least be able to retype or scan in the hard copy. This morning I went to print a single chapter but started printing the entire document.

The moment I clicked the "print" button, I knew I had made a mistake. Unfortunately I couldn't click the "cancel" button quick enough. My mind raced as to the quickest action I could take to keep from wasting paper. I already have enough scratch paper in my office from my wife and kids.

Ideally I should have gone into the print manager on the computer and stopped the print job. It would have printed out a couple of sheets, but that is not nearly as bad as having 100 wasted pages. However panic had already set in and I wasn't thinking too clearly. Instead I jumped up, ran to the printer, and turned it off. Luckily no paper had started to feed into the printer. Otherwise I would have had a nice paper jam to fix when I turned the printer back on.

With the printer off, I could think more clearly and was able to successfully cancel the print job from the computer. I then went back and turned on the printer. The printer's self-test verified it was ready to print and I was able to get my chapter printed.

It would not have been tragic if I had printed the entire document and so I was amazed at high intensity of the panic feeling I had. It was like my brain froze and I couldn't think clearly. I wonder if novice computer users feel that way all the time?

Time to Replace a Computer

It seems like things have been breaking down a lot around my house. This morning I was putting away some of my skiing turtlenecks and noticed they are looking like they should be replaced. We also have been fighting with one of our cars that really wants to die. Most importantly there is my wife's laptop that can only run for fifteen minutes on the battery before it dies.

That got me thinking about how to know when it is time to replace your computer. I could always just buy a new battery for my wife's computer and it would continue to work for another six years. However it is SIX years old and really needs to be replaced.

I've written in the past that I try to replace one of my computers each year. This past year was my desktop and next year will be my laptop. That is probably overkill for most home computer users. My computers need to be replaced so often because I am constantly working with bleeding edge projects and sometimes those older computers don't have enough horsepower to run some of the newer software required. Besides, I put my old desktops into service as database or web servers and pass my laptops onto another member of the family.

The answer of when it is time to replace your computer really depends on how old it is and what class of machine it was when you purchased it. For instance, if you bought a $300 notebook computer, it might be time to replace it after one year. If it was a $3000 notebook, you might be able to use it for six (like my wife). It all boils down to what will run on the machine. Right now my wife's computer is so old, she can no longer update any software on it. Unfortunately that means that some of the websites she visits won't work because they require updated versions of Adobe Flash or newer versions of Microsoft Office.

Yesterday my oldest son came home from school and mentioned that a friend had recently purchased a computer from eBay for $100. His friend was excited to be getting a new machine and was showing it off to all his friends. After all it came with 128 megabytes of RAM and a 2 gigabyte hard drive. My son sort of burst his bubble when he pointed out that the friends iPhone came with more memory than the new computer at which point the friend realized he had just purchased a worthless computer. Yep, it's time to replace that one before it even arrives.

Hobbies

Last night my youngest son needed to do some Christmas shopping and wanted to go to Cabela's. It isn't too far from our house and so I agreed to take him. If you have never shopped at Cabela's it is like Disneyland for those outdoor-type people. They have all sorts of stuffed animals on display. Not the stuffed animals that you sleep with, but the kind you mount on your walls or proudly display in your den after shooting them.

I also brought my youngest daughter who had never been to Cabela's before. She was amazed at the size of the store. She also enjoyed just looking at the animals, especially the aquarium.

My first stop was in the gun section. I am not a gun fanatic and don't even own one. However I do get the chance to shoot them every time I go to Scout camp. My youngest son is actually a pretty good shot and I have been thinking about getting him a .22 rifle. It probably won't happen this year but maybe sometime in the future.

I was amazed at what I saw. They had all sorts of different types of guns. Some were new but a lot more were being sold on consignment. They even had a Winchester rifle from the 1800's. Talk about an heirloom. At about $10,000 I don't think I will be buying one anytime soon.

The Winchester rifle was not the most expensive gun at Cabela's. The most expensive one I saw was a scale replica of a Civil War-era Gatling gun. It came in at about $20,000. That is way too expensive for someone who only has a passing interest in guns. Though I wonder if they would rent it to me when my youngest daughter starts dating. I think that would be more intimidating than cleaning a shotgun when the young man comes to pick her up.

Until recently I have always thought that I have some expensive hobbies (computers being one of them). Then I started expanding my horizons and realized that it doesn't matter what you choose for your hobby. It can be as cheap or expensive as you want it to be. There is one big difference with computers though: the older your equipment is, the less it is worth. Contrast that to the Winchester rifle from the 1800's which probably appreciated quite nicely over the past century. Somehow I don't see my computer being worth more 100 years from now.

Computers and the Cold

Last night I was watching the news and they mentioned that it is so cold that people are starting to have water pipes freeze in their homes. There's nothing like a news story about water damage to make you get up at 10pm to run around and check all your pipes.

I know it has been cold because my office is in my basement and it doesn't really have insulated walls. Instead I have covered the concrete with posters, flags, and other coverings to give it a warmer feel. I have a heating vent in my office but have decided it doesn't really do much. Normally my office is about 65 degrees. Lately it has been down at 61 and so I know it has been cold. This morning I came in and it was 59.

My office is great in the summer. As I mentioned before, the temperature is normally about 65 degrees and that includes during the summer. When it gets really hot outside, my office might get up to 70 degrees, but usually not much warmer. This morning it was just too cold and so I turned on an electric space heater I keep in my office for such occasions.

Those that have been to older computer installations know that they generally keep computer rooms at about 65 degrees. This is because those old computers really put out the heat and it is necessary to keep the ambient temperature relatively lower than usual or the computers would overheat.

This got me thinking about my days back in college when I was studying electrical engineering. One of the first things we learned was that electrons travel faster at colder temperatures. Following that logic, you would want to keep your computer as cold as possible so it can run faster. Unfortunately that is not the reason to keep those old computers cold. Transistors switch slower at colder temperatures. Seeing as your computer is just a bunch of electrical switches (billions of them, actually), you don't want to make your computer too cold or it starts to slow down.

Nope the real reason to keep those old computers cold is that transistors start to do funny things when they get to hot. Since computers think in terms of binary numbers or ones and zeros, zeros can become ones or visa versa if the computer gets too hot. The same thing happens when the computer gets too cold. That is why all computers come with a temperature operating range.

Realistically the chances of you using your computer outside the suggested temperature range is pretty minimal. For an Apple Mac, this is between 50 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately the same thing cannot be said about the operator. I seem to think a lot better at 70 degrees than I do at 60. Perhaps my operating temperature range is a bit more narrow than my computers'.

Digital Breadcrumbs

This morning's paper had an interesting article about how text messages have become today's equivalent of the "lipstick on the collar" as a sign of a cheating spouse. My first thought was how glad I was that I don't have to worry about that. My second thought was about how the general public is less anonymous than they realize.

Something that most people don't realize what information is tracked on the Internet. This BLOG site that I use is owned by Google and requires me to log in before I make a post. I generally don't bother to log out. That means whenever I do an Internet search on Google, they keep track of what I am looking for. I don't have anything to hide and so that doesn't bother me. Whenever I do a search for "Ham," Google could use previous search criteria to know that I am looking for information about "ham radio" and not "ham lunchmeat."

Another thing that most people don't realize is that websites have a fairly good idea of where you are physically located. I use a cable modem to log onto the Internet from home. My service provider assigns my cable modem a unique Internet protocol (IP) address. I don't pay to have a static address which means my IP address can change at any time. However it is rare to have that happen. Even then, the addresses assigned are specific to a local area. That means that websites can determine your location down to a several block area.

Again, I am not worried about a website knowing my IP address or approximately where I live. Once again, Google and other Internet search sites keep track of this information. Suppose I do a search for a seemingly innocent topic but decide to visit a questionable website. Now suppose one of my children does a similar search using a different computer in the house. My cable modem presents only a single IP address to Google. Based on my previous poor choice, there could be more questionable sites presented to my children.

If you take the time to sit down and run through a few other scenarios, it doesn't take much to figure out that it is not hard for law enforcement officials to determine who is downloading illegal copies of music or movies. Your Internet service provider also knows what content you are viewing from the false privacy of your own home. If you are like me and don't have any skeletons in your closet, then this shouldn't concern you. However if you are in the closet about how you like to look at pictures of skeletons in compromising postions, you might want to pick a new hobby. Especially if you are famous or plan on running for public office.

Time for Open Source to Grow Up

Yesterday I had a phone conversation with one of my good friends who is an avid supporter of Open Source software. He is currently working for an Open Source company but is not very happy. He is making less money than he used to and his company made him purchase his own laptop instead of buying one for him.

Today I had a phone call with another friend who I met while working for an open source company. He now works for a large organization whose software division alone could qualify as one of the top five largest software companies (they also make hardware). He just got back from a trip around the world and sounded incredibly happy.

All three of us used to work for the same software company a few years ago and it was interesting to compare the two very different conversations. My Open Source friend wants to leave his current company and start his own Open Source company. My commercial software friend is happy where he is and just closed a couple of multi-million dollar software deals (with the correspondingly fat commission checks).

I thought about my own project that I am working on. Normally I use Open Source development tools but this one is using a commercial software package. I don't have to hunt around in obscure configuration files. Instead there is a pretty user interface for everything. I admit that it sometimes gets in the way of my productivity, but it is nice to not have to know about some special trick to get things to work right.

While I usually think that Open Source software is great, today I am beginning to rethink my views. I suppose that my Open Source software friends will think I am converting to the dark side. That's not really true. There are some clear winners in Open Source software. Why pay for an office suite when Open Office.org is free and feature rich. Why pay more than the cost of a new car for Oracle or SQL Server when MySQL or PostgreSQL will work just fine for your database.

Instead I would like to see open source developers take a little more pride in their work. It isn't that difficult to add a nice graphical wizard for configuration files. While the software interface may make sense to the person writing the code, he or she should ask a few friends to see if it makes sense to them also. If not, fix it. It is time for open source to grow up. Until then, my commercial software friend is going to keep getting fat checks while my open source friend wonders where his next meal will come from.

Flow Proofs and SSIS

Yesterday I was finishing up a SQL Server Integration Studio (SSIS) project and my youngest son came into my office. He is taking Geometry and mentioned that my computer program looked like a "flow proof." I thought his comment was interesting because computer programming reminds me a lot of proofs from back when I took geometry.

In computer programming, you have a starting point and a final ending. The idea is to get from the start to the end using a limited number of simple steps. That sounds a lot like geometry proofs to me. Unfortunately nobody ever has any fond memories of geometry class. So when I explain the similarities between coding and proofs, it turns people off from wanting to be a computer programmer.

Last night when I told my son that my project was a lot like flow proofs, he laughed at me, called me a nerd, and headed up to dinner. I followed him and thought about what makes coding more rewarding than math homework. While it is nice to get paid for work, there is more to it than just money. I think there is a sense of satisfaction when you build something and computer programming gives you that chance.

I also thought about how much computer programming and math are alike. Before colleges and universities had dedicated computer programming majors, it was the electrical engineers that built the computers but the math majors that would often end up programming them. Even now, most comptuer programming majors are an extension of the math department. My own Dad was a math major and his first job out of college was as a computer programmer.

This afternoon I thought about the relationship between math and software and came to the conclusion that the guys that designed the SSIS really had fun in geometry class. However I'm not sure it is a good method to try and get the computer to do what I want.

Bad Typing

I have always considered myself a fast typist. I also think I am fairly accurate. This morning I learned that I am delusional. While I may be fast, I am not accurate at all.

One of my latest software projects is to convert a bunch of Unix cron jobs to Microsoft's SQL Server Integration Studio (SSIS). These are basically reports that query a MySQL database every day at the same time and spit the output into spreadsheets. It sounds easy enough but the queries are about half a page each and there six of them.

When I started creating the project, there was no easy way to copy and paste the database queries. Instead I had to retype them. I felt like I was accurate as I was typing but then came the true test where I ran them against the database. All six of them contained various errors. Some were as simple as using one double quote instead of two single quotes. Others were a bit more severe such as three missing lines.

I was less than pleased with my typing skills and gained a whole new appreciation for "cut and paste." When I couldn't find one particularly tricky problem, I figured out a way to make cut and paste work. Now I just wish I had gone through the effort much sooner. It would have saved me a lot of typing and debugging.

Ham Radio License

On Tuesday evening I went with my youngest son Nathan to take my Ham radio test. We both passed the technician portion and I also passed the general. That means we are both licensed Ham radio operators.

The FCC currently has three levels of licenses for amateur or Ham radio: Technician, General, and Amateur Extra. The first level is Technician and allows you to get your proverbial feet wet. The next is general and opens up several more frequency levels. Amateur Extra opens up all of the frequencies set aside for Ham radio.

The tests are fairly easy if you study the correct material. When you are done taking one test, the administrators hand you the next level test that you can take without paying any additional fees. If you pass all three, you can save yourself some money. The problem is that there is a lot to learn. I will probably study for the next two months and try to take the "Extra" test at the end of January.

My son and I came home and were very pleased that we both passed the tests. All we needed to do was wait for the FCC to enter our information in their database and assign us call signs. The government is not known for being efficient and with the Thanksgiving weekend, I didn't think we would see our call signs until next week. Even though we have passed our tests and have a radio, we can't transmit anything until our names and call signs show up in the FCC database.

Wednesday afternoon I felt optimistic and logged onto the FCC website and did a search for my name to see if my call sign was available. It wasn't. I did a bit more work and spent some time with the family. Before going to bed, I thought I would give it one more shot. Rather than searching for my name, I searched using my FCC Registration Number (FRN) that I signed up for several weeks ago. Surprisingly, I found my license and call sign properly recorded. I was amazed.

Next I had to find my son's information. I tried doing a look up on his name but didn't find his record. Next I did a look up on our zip code and last name. There it was located with mine.

Before the Internet became a household utility, it would take weeks to process Ham radio licenses. It took my son and I less than 30 hours to get our licenses and be able to start using our radio. I think that is awesome and an example of one huge that the Internet has provided for our day-to-day lives.

Lose It

I just found a new free app for my iPhone. To borrow a line from Charles Dickens, "It is the worst of apps, it is the best of apps." It is called "Lose It" and is sort of an electronic weight watcher's program.

The idea behind "Lose It" is to help you record the food you eat and the exercise you do every day. When you first start the application, it asks your weight, height, and gender. It then asks you your goal weight and gives you a safe estimate of how long it should take to get there. You are then ready to start inputing the food you eat as you eat it. Since I always have my iPhone with me, I just enter the information while I am chewing. Otherwise I might forget. Today I had some left-over Cashew Chicken with rice. While it was reheating in the microwave, I found a similar recepie in the program and had it calculate the calories.

The great thing about the program is you can see your calorie count as you go through the day. I started using it on Sunday and was 7 calories under my daily budget. Yesterday I went skiing for an hour at lunch and watched an additional 500 calories get added to my alotment. I only used a portion of them and went to bed with calories to spare.

You can probably see why it is the best of apps. As for why it is the worst, I feel hungry all day long. Given the temptation of snacking, it is too much work to enter the snack in the program and so I have cut down on those extra meals. I also am more careful about what I eat. The kids all had donuts and hot chocolate this morning for breakfast. I ate a donut but had to pass on the cocoa as I didn't want to start my day with too many calories used. Instead I drank water. What fun is water and donuts?

I love to eat and it probably shows a bit too much. My hope is that I can actually get down to my goal weight by April. Several of my cycling buddies have been using the program for a couple of weeks now and they have all lost weight. I probably should thank them for showing me the app, but I'm hungry and my next meal isn't for a couple more hours. I really hate those guys.

Apollo 13

One of my favorite movies is "Apollo 13." It is an engineer's movie because they are the ones that safely get the astronauts back to earth.

One of the critical scenes has the engineers trying to figure out a way to power up the spacecraft so they don't burn too much power. Turning something on draws more power than once you get it going. The idea in the movie was to find the correct order to power up all the systems and not go over a specific number of amps. On Friday I had a problem that reminded me of "Apollo 13."

My Dad owns an advertising agency and wanted to show a new client something that he did for a previous client. Unfortunately the old information was stored on an Iomega ZIP drive. Back before flash drives, there were floppy disks or CD disks. Floppy disks were limited to 1.44 megabytes of storage. If you had a large file to give someone, you either had to burn a CD or split it up onto several different floppies. Then along came Iomega with a removable disk that could hold 100 megabytes. It was a great solution at the time and it seemed everyone had one.

As luck would have it, I still have an Iomega ZIP drive that is connected to a computer. The computer is on its last leg and so it stays turned off most of the time. It is an old Mac still running Mac OS 8.6. I powered up the dinosaur and was able to read my Dad's ZIP disk just fine. Then came the problem of getting the files from the old Mac onto something a bit more modern.

The Mac has FTP software that works pretty good. Unfortunately I don't have a computer in my office that still uses FTP. All of my servers have been locked down tight for security reasons and require secure FTP or SFTP. I tried openning up a firewall on one of them but was unsuccessful.

There were too many files to just e-mail and so that wasn't an option. The Mac has a CD ROM burner and so that was the method we decided to use to transfer the files. The only problem was that everything had to be turned on in the correct order or the machine froze. I shut down the computer, turned on the ZIP drive, and turned on the computer. Oops, I didn't eject my Dad's disk from the ZIP drive and so the machine hung. I ejected the disk and hit the reset button.

Now the computer was telling me it wasn't shut down properly and so I had to turn off all extensions and try to restart it again. I did what it told me and then restarted the machine. Oops, restart no longer works on that machine. I have to shut it down and then turn it back on manually. So I hit the reset button again and had to go through several iterations of turning on and off the computer.

Finally I got the computer to boot propery. It was time to burn the files to a CD. I identified the files to burn and clicked on the "Burn" button. The drive ejected its tray and asked for a blank disk. I inserted one only to have the computer hang. My CD burner was so old that it didn't recognize the new blank disk. Time to hit the reset button and go through several more iterations of turning off and on the machine.

I have some old re-writable CDs that came with the burner when I bought it close to a decade ago. I gave one of those a try and it finally worked. My Dad had his files from his old ZIP disk. Now that I figured out the sequence, I should try and copy all my old information off several zip disks before my system stops working completely. Judging from the hoops I had to jump through to get it to work, it probably won't be that long.

Travel Day

I am on the road again today. I woke up this morning to catch an early flight to the Bay Area and will be on a flight back home later this evening. I prefer to do a one-day trip as opposed to spending the night in a hotel. There is something very comforting about sleeping in your own bed.

I bought my ticket on Tuesday and so the cheapest airline was Southwest. Those that fly a lot know that Southwest doesn't have assigned seating. You are basically assigned an order that they use to load the plane. The sooner you check into your flight, the sooner you get to board the plane. This makes Internet check-in a very useful tool. The only rule is that you can't check into your flight earlier than 24-hours before it departs. That means if you flight is at 7am MST on Thursday, you can't check in until 7am MST on Wednesday.

I had a conference call yesterday morning when I could have been checking into my flight and so I had to wait until I was done before I could get on the Internet. I was still in the early boarding group and so I was happy with my plane boarding order. Last night when it came time to check in, I was at a Snowbird Ski Team Board meeting. I thought about using my iPhone to check in during the meeting. The only problem was that I needed my confirmation number and I didn't have it with me. I had to wait until I got home. When I finally did check in, I was stuck in the second boarding group.

This morning's flight out was not very full as there were only 60 people on the whole plane. My hope is that the flight home is equally empty. Unfortunately, I don't think that will be the case. Thursday afternoons are huge travel times. In any case, the secret to getting a good Southwest flight is to be on the Internet 24 hours before your flight leaves. And don't forgot to have your flight confirmation number with you.

Don't Sell Yourself Short

This morning I had to get up at the crack of dawn for a conference call that involved people from around the world. For the past couple of years I have been involved with a company that created software to quantify how salespeople are successful. Once you know why, you can then coach your other salespeople to be more like them. This morning's call was with our management and the management of another large company interested in buying us.

I sat in my office watching a Webex demo of our software thinking how glad I was that it was someone else giving the demo. I have watched plenty of software demos using Webex or GotoMeeting but have never had the pleasure of starting the demo. I'm sure I could figure it out, I just have never done it.

The whole experience made me think back to a spreadsheet I once saw at a friend's house. I thought I was a big Microsoft Excel user until I saw what my buddy was using to keep track of his daily bicycle rides. The spreadsheet was a work of art. There were lots of different colors with graphs showing day-over-day performance increases. I knew Excel could do all of that but had never seen anyone use all of those features.

Amazingly the person giving this morning's demo and my friend with the elaborate spreadsheet don't consider themselves as knowledgable computer users. Given the choice of rating themselves as novice, intermediate, or expert, they would both choose novice. I think they deserve better.

Anyone that uses a computer daily deserves more than a novice self score for computer proficiency. You may only use your computer for e-mail or writing a BLOG, but that gives you some experience. So if you see yourself as a computer novice but are a frequent user, then don't sell yourself short. The next time someone asks you about your computer skills, confidently reply, "I'm a BLOG reading expert."

We Learn by Doing

My first job was working at a ski shop in high school. It was a fun job where I was around something I loved. Unfortunately it didn't pay that great and so when my Dad got me a job working for a small computer software company, I jumped at the chance. Little did I know that the company would grow become one of the largest software companies in the world. The company was Oracle.

My first year at Oracle was spent doing data entry. I had taken several typing classes in school and was a fairly fast typist. By the end of that first year on the job I was typing 120 words per minute. When you spend four hours a day typing, you get to be pretty fast.

Towards the end of the first year, I was getting pretty tired of typing all day and so the company moved me into Technical Support. That meant I answered a phone all day long and helped people with their computer problems. The only issue was that I was answering questions about Oracle on Unix and I had never even used Unix.

I shared an office with another technical support guy and he would listen to my half of the conversation. Then he would give me pointers on how to help the customer. It was a system that helped me learn both Unix and the Oracle database. For my first couple of phone calls, I would repeat what my more experienced co-worker told me. He then suggested that rather than repeating, I should also try some of the commands I was passing onto the customers. I gave it a shot and was amazed at what I discovered. I could now see the answers to some of the other questions I was being asked.

This past week I was given the task of teaching a quick course on how to use a new software program. There were several people in the room and one was a complete computer novice. I had her sit in the driver's seat as I gave instructions. Experience had taught me that having her control the computer would teach her more than if I input the information. I don't think I was completely successful in my instruction, but I'm sure she learned more than if she had simply watched.

When someone shows you a neat new feature or you see one of those Windows 7 ads, you might want to experiment and play around on your own computer. As Captain Kirk once said in an episode of Star Trek, "We learn by doing." That is especially true with computers.

Solving Problems

Today was one of those days where everything seemed to go wrong with my computer projects. Some of the problems were real and reared their ugly heads today, while others were just old problems that I put off solving until now. By the end of the day, I got tired of researching problems and just wanted to get one solved.

One can only take so much lack of progress before it is time to sell the computer and start entering pie eating contests. I grabbed my screwdriver and headed to my wife's sewing room. She has a light that hasn't worked in a year or so and so I was determined to fix it.

I unscrewed a few bolts and removed the light fixture from the ceiling. It took about a minute to figure out the problem. Moisture had gotten into the wiring causing excessive corrosion. Eventually it built up enough oxidation to stop working. I had a spare light fixture from remodelling my kitchen last year and replaced the old one. Ten minutes after I started, my wife's light was working correctly.

There is a certain satisfaction that comes from solving a problem. It pulls you out of that frustration caused by too many dead-ends and reminds you that you are not a moron. It also makes it easier to go back and attack those nasty problems.

If you find yourself getting frustrated with your computer, push the keyboard away and see if there is another problem you can quickly solve. Sometimes I will clean my desk or take the dog for a walk. Then sometimes it seems cold fusion has a simpler solution than the problem I am trying to solve.

A Good Notebook

Recently I was cleaning out my office and found a bunch of notebooks from college. In the engineering program, each class has you purchase a notebook with graph paper sewn in. Each page is supposed to be numbered. If you wanted to spend a bit of money, you could buy the notebooks with the numbers already printed at the top of each page. I didn't mind writing the numbers myself and saved some cash.

In school, the professors wanted you to keep detailed notes of everything you did. We were supposed to write everything down and part of the class grade was based on your notebook. If you tried an experiment and it didn't work, make a note of it and try again. If things did work the first time then there was a lot less writing. When I was done with school, I continued keeping notebooks. It was, and still is, a great way to keep track of information.

While cleaning out my basement, I also found a bunch of 3-ring binders from school. I immediately threw out the insides and put the binder in my "for the kids" pile. Sometimes I will need a binder and pull from the pile as well.

When I started my latest project, I decided to use on of the 3-ring binders instead of a notebook. I am such a perfectionist that I have grown tired of printing out important e-mails, trimming the margins in the paper cutter, and gluing them into my notebook. I thought it would be much easier to print out the e-mail, 3-hole punch it, and put it in my binder. It turns out, I am saving an incredible amount of time. The downside is that I might be putting too much information in the notebook now.

Today my notebook has helped me tremendously and here is why. If you have a problem once, it is important to write down the steps used to help solve it. Chances are that you will have the problem again and don't want to recreate the solution. Then keep your notebook by the computer so you don't have to go looking for it. A problem I had solved earlier came up again today. All I had to do was look at my notes and I had the solution in a matter of minutes.

Big Monitors

I had a friend come over last night and I gave him a quick tour of my home office. He was surprised by how many computer monitors I have on my desk. I have five but they only go to three different computers. As someone who sits in front of a computer all day long, I need to keep track of a lot of different things. Most home computer users can survive with a single monitor.

This morning I am working on a software development project that requires a lot of screen real estate. As fate would have it, I am using the smallest monitor for this task. So what can I do to change that?

Two of the computers on my desk have dual monitors. The third computer is my laptop and the machine I am using to work on this morning's project. Most laptops have an external monitor connection. It is generally added to laptops in case you need to give a presentation and need to connect to a projector. So all I need to do is connect my laptop to one of the monitors on my desk and I will have more space.

That will actually work well in theory because one of my computers is off right now and so I can borrow a screen to share with my laptop. When I am done, I can reconnect it with the computer where it originated. Unfortunately the extra monitor is on the other side of my desk and I really can't see it from my laptop. I already have trouble figuring out which keyboard goes with which monitor and this would make it worse.

My two primary monitors actually have two inputs each. One is an HDMI (the same as a high definition TV) and the other is a standard VGA as found on most older computers. Instead of moving monitors around for today's project, I can actually run a second cable from the monitor to my laptop. I can then use the switch on the monitor to change inputs. When I want to see my desktop screen, I use the HDMI input. When I want to see the laptop screen, I use the VGA input.

My first computer came with a ten-inch monochrome display that was 80 characters wide by 24 down. Now I have desk full of monitors that are vastly superior. However I pretty much do the same thing now as I did back then.

New Software Installation

On November 24th I will be taking the test to get my Ham radio license. While it is no longer required, I thought it would be fun to learn a little Morse code. I figure there have to be some software programs out there to help teach it. Then when I see someone use Morse code in a movie, I will be able to understand what they are saying. Perhaps it will match up with what the message is supposed to be or be an encoded message like, "these actors are morons."

I have three different types of computers that I use: Linux, Windows, and Mac. My Windows machine is at another desk in my office and I really don't use it much. Unfortunately most of the searches for Morse code tutorials turned up software for Windows machines. So I refined my search to look for tutorials on Linux. There were a bunch of them.

Normally you install software on the Red Had flavors of Linux using a program called "yum." If you want to install the QT user interface framework library, you simply run the following command:

yum install qt

The computer automatically finds the software on the Internet and automatically installs it. If you already have QT installed, it says, "it is already installed and is the latest version." You don't have to download anything nor do you have to answer very many questions related to the installation.

You'll notice that I used the word "Normally." Not all software for Linux is so easily installed. A lot of people write software for Linux but not everybody packages up their software so neatly. None of the Morse code tutorials were and that made my life a bit more difficult.

I downloaded the first tutorial. It was a bz2 tar file. What is a "bz2 tar file?" It is just a bunch of files packages into a single "tar" file and then compressed using the "bz2" algorithm. It is similar to a .ZIP file. I uncompressed and broke the files out so I could see what was included. There were some instructions on how to do the installation. I followed them only to get an error. It seems I was missing some important files. So I tried "yum" but it couldn't find them either. It was time to throw this tutorial away and try another one.

I downloaded the second tutorial. It had similar issues to the first one. There were a whole page of tutorials and so I had no problem throwing it away and moving down the list. The third tutorial said I just needed to run the program and didn't need to install anything. It lied. Once again I was missing some important file or library and it wouldn't run.

I was beginning to think that Windows may be the platform of choice for Morse code tutorials when I found a program called "morse." I downloaded it and was happy to see it run. I immediately figured out how to recognize the letters G, Z, and U. Once you master those, it adds one letter at a time until you have them all memorized.

Last night I could agree with Windows users thinking that Linux is just too difficult to use. It is rare that software doesn't install smoothly on Windows or Mac computers. Hopefully Linux developers will take note and make it easier to install their software.

Hammers and Tools

A few years ago everyone started using the phrase, "If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat all your problems like nails." It made a lot of sense and people started re-evaluating what tools they were using for any type of job, not just home improvement projects.

At around this same time, my boss where I was working coined the phrase, "You can't build a skyscraper with a hammer." I was working for a company that had a really expensive software development tool that let small groups of programmers build really complex applications in a relatively short amount of time. The hammer and skyscraper metaphor made a lot of sense and opened several doors for the company.

Anyone who has ever worked on a seemingly simple home improvement project knows that the right tool can help keep the job simple. Not having the right tool can make it unbearably complex.

This past Friday I was working on a software project and was trying to build a skyscraper with a hammer. This meant I was going to be stuck writing a lot of code and I didn't ever think I was going to finish. Then I stumbled across several tools that made quick work of the project. Something that I expected to take a week took less than half an hour to complete and I could move on to other tasks.

So as you are working on your computer and seem to be running into a brick wall, remember to check your proverbial toolbox and see if you don't have a better tool to help with your task. If that doesn't work, you can always borrow a brick out of the wall you seem to be running into and smash your computer to bits. While it may not accomplish much, it can be very therapeutic.

Sneakernet

Yesterday I had both of the computers on my desk going at the same time and it was great. One of my computers has two monitors and so I hardly ever run out of screen real-estate making it a rarity that I actually need to use both computers. However yesterday was one of those unique times where I actually needed both machines.

My primary desktop is a Linux machine and is good for about 90% of the work I do. That other 10% is relegated to my MacBook laptop due to software being unavailable for Linux or for when I am traveling. Yesterday I was using Remote Desktop Connection on my Mac to work on a Windows machine located in San Francisco. I was putting together some documentation that required me to take some screen shots and include them in a technical paper. Since I like to do all of my image editing on Linux but word processing on the Mac, it required a lot of transferring of files.

To complicate things, My Mac was using Juniper Networks software to create a virtual private network (VPN) with the office in the Bay Area. Sometimes that means I can't access any of the computers in my home office without turning off the VPN. Since that slows things down a lot, I decided to resort to an tried and true method of networking: sneakernet.

Sneakernet is basically copying files to a removable medium and walking to the computer where you wish to copy that file. When sneakernet first got its name, people used floppy disks to transfer data. Now we use flash drives, CDs, or DVDs. If anyone ever needs to sneakernet data from here to Hawaii, I'm more than willing to be the one carrying the data.

Since my desktop and laptop are within easy reach of eachother, using sneakernet to transfer files didn't involve using my sneakers at all. I could copy from one computer to the other without even getting out of my chair. I transfered files all afternoon and was thinking I had an elegant solution and was rather smug. I didn't quite dislocate my shoulder patting myself on the back, but probably came close.

At the end of the day I decided to try a little experiment. I had been using sneakernet because I though the VPN would make it impossible for my Mac to see my Linux desktop. I thought I would give the network connection a try anyways. I assumed it was going to give me an error and wanted to know what that looked like in case anybody ever asked me, "What does this error mean?" Much to my surprise it actually worked. It turns out that both myself and the office in San Francisco had configured our networks in such a way that computer IP addresses remained unique.

My smugness quickly disappeared and I regretted not making the simple test earlier in the day. Now I know and can put away my sneakernet until the next time it is needed.

Technical Books

Lately I have been working on a new software project that involves SQL Server Integration Services or SSIS as it is more commonly known. While I have extensive experience using Oracle and PostgreSQL databases, my SQL Server knowledge is somewhat shallow.

Yesterday I decided to make a quick run to the bookstore to see if there was a book or two that I could use to help me with one or two details on SSIS. I drove down and found two books. One was 400 pages and the other was 700. The difference in price was only $5.00 and so I did a quick scan of the index. I'm not sure if the larger book had a more comprehensive index or if it truly contained that much more material, but it seemed to be the better purchase. I was then back home with the entire roundtrip taking less than 30 minutes.

I got home and used the index to find the component of SSIS that I was working with and eagerly read. The book was a disappointment. It had no more information that I could figure out on my own by looking at the computer screen. There were no tips or tricks on how to get the tool to do more than what I was already doing. I was sad.

I used to love going to the bookstore and pick up technical books. In my office, I have three floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with computer-related books. Some I have even chapters chapters or been the technical editor. One I even wrote myself that was published by SAMS.

Yesterday was my first time back at the bookstore in quite a while and my experience with the SSIS book helped me understand why. Now that the Internet and World Wide Web have grown in size, it is generally where I go when I want to learn something new. With a few quick searches at Google or Bing, I can almost always find out what I need to know. When I couldn't find what I was looking for in the SSIS book, I did a quick search and found an example of what I was trying to accomplish.

Books are still a great place to get technical information. They are easy to carry and don't require an Internet connection to read. However, I think it is tough to compete with automated searches and up-to-date web sites. I still have my receipt so I think I will see if I can't get my money back on this SSIS book.

If Engineers Ran the World

I often joke with my wife about writing a book with a title along the lines of "What if Engineers Ran the World." Unlike politicians, engineers look at problems and try to come up with the most elegant solution without regard to emotion or who will be offended. We recognize the complexities of certain situations but also understand when some arguments can be ignored.

Unfortunately this straightforwardness makes it impossible for engineers to get elected to any major public office. When a constituent asks about a special project the benefits a minor segment of the population, the what-a-waste-of-time-and-money answer alienates more than just the person posing the question. Then there is that whole pocket-protector and nerdy glasses image that doesn't help either.

One example engineers and politicians using different approaches is healthcare. I think everyone can agree that healthcare has gotten incredibly expensive and something needs to be done. Politicians feel that by spreading out the costs of healthcare, it will lessen the impact for those that are truly sick. An engineer looks at the problem and wonders why healthcare costs are so high to begin with. Maybe we should attack those problems such as the spiraling cost of malpractice insurance and significant tort reform. Besides, if someone is going to streamline our healthcare system, I don't think it is going to be the government. "Federal Government" and "efficient" are generally never heard in the same sentence without the word "not."

Another example is the economy. Politicians seem to think that deficit government spending was what rescued us from the Great Depression. What they don't realize was that money went to infrastructure programs that helped ignite the economy and build our country into what it is today. An engineer would look to emulate this spark for the economy instead of paying overinflated bonuses to bankers, airline executives, and automobile manufacturers that have already proven they are incompetent.

Yesterday was election day and I exercised my right to vote. I used it to give my current city council the proverbial finger. You see, my property taxes increased 70% this year to help cover the budget shortfall due to a down economy. Judging from the election results, I wasn't the only one upset by the tax increase. Now if we could only get more engineers to run for public office.

Professional Computer Problems

This morning I met with a major computer company with an online service that anyone can use to back up their home computer. My meeting took a back seat to a problem they were having. It seems that one of their servers was experiencing a hardware problem. It was a non-critical system but had a ripple effect on the rest of the service. It got me thinking about what happens when even the professionals have problems.

Previously I wrote about how I don't trust computers to help me keep my daily journal. However you can't always print everything and so you have to rely on some way of keeping your computer data safe.

There are many different options. You could back it up to CD or DVD disks. However I have used them in the past only to try to retrieve data and discover that the files were corrupted and the important information was lost.

You could use one of those flash drives that are becoming more popular at the same time they are increasing in size. So far I have yet to lose any data on one of those. However there is always a first time and I am sure they have a finite shelf life.

Then there are the online services like the one I was visiting this morning. However they are not imune from problems either. While they provide money-back guarantees, can you really put a price on your family vacation photos?

I still maintain that paper is the best way to go. If that isn't possible, then might I suggest a multi-prong approach. The online services really are fairly reliable and so would definitely try to incorporate one into your backup strategy. I would just be sure to include another medium as well. Then hope you never have to use it.

A Tale of Two iPods

A little while ago I had a very good contact at Apple Computer. He was my counterpart while I was working for one of their software partners and was a very nice guy. Every time I would visit him, he would take me to the employee store and tell me I could get anything I wanted using his significant discount. Most of the time I didn't want to impose upon his generosity and so I left empty handed. However once I felt it would be good for company relations if I made a token purchase. I decided on a top-of-the-line iPod.

I had always wanted an iPod even though I had an MP3 player. I opened the box on the flight home and inspected my new toy. It was really quite the bargain but still wasn't in the family budget. I couldn't expense it even though I only purchased the gadget as a goodwill gesture between Apple and my company at the time. I decided that the best tactic was to tell my wife I got it for her. If she didn't want it, then I had a new toy.

Little did I know that my wife had wanted a new iPod as well and was happy with the gift. She put her music on the device and left me the task of making it fit in the family budget. With a little creativity, things worked out and I didn't have to sell one of the children.

Then my wife got a new Samsung mobile phone that doubled as an MP3 player. She thought this would be great because she could put all her music on her phone for those jogs with the dog. My oldest son saw this as an opportunity to get a free iPod. As soon as my wife started using her phone, he promptly wiped out my wife's music and loaded it up with his own. I had my iPhone at this point and my son knew I wouldn't try to take it.

Unfortunately the Samsung phone isn't nearly as convenient as an iPod. My wife would buy songs from iTunes but not be able to convert them to MP3 files so she could load them on her phone. After several months, she had had enough and wanted her iPod back. Naturally my son felt victimized because he was loosing his music player. He resisted and resisted but finally decided that there were too many privileges he enjoys and doesn't want any of them revoked.

My son has the same phone as my wife and decided he would try to use that. Unfortunately the iPod has a 60 GB capacity while his phone only holds 1. His PSP can also play music and it has 4 GB of memory. Since he only has about 3 and a half gigs of music, the PSP would actually work for him. The only problem is that his battery is old and lasts about 10 minutes before dying. So he started looking at getting new battery for the PSP.

Saturday I get a call from my son who was at the local Kmart. "Dad," he said, "Kmart has the best prices on PSP batteries but it is still $30." I suggested that he look at the price for a new memory card for his phone. It might be cheaper. A half hour later he walks in the door and shows me his new memory card. Not only was it 4 GB, but it also came with a mini USB adapter so he can plug it directly into any computer's USB port to load it up with songs. It was half as expensive as the battery and so my son was happy.

As for that little problem about not being able to play songs purchased on iTunes, my son figured out a way around that. It involves creating a CD with purchased songs for use in a regular CD player and then converting the songs to MP3s. Leave it to a teenage kid to figure out how to make everything work.

Following Footsteps

We have gotten more snow in the mountains and two of my kids were out of school today. So my oldest and I headed up to Alta for another day of hiking to make some turns.

Hiking up the ski hill is a lot of work. I would prefer to ride the lift but that's the price you pay to be able to ski before the resorts open. It also is a great form of exercise.

Unfortunately my son is in much better shape than I am and so he took the lead. Every once and a while he would stop and wait for his old man to catch up. As for me, I just looked down in the snow and followed his tracks. On occasion I would look up the hill to see how much farther to go but mostly I looked down and kept putting one foot in front of the other.

In the past I have been the one at the front of the line and responsible for creating the trail. Today it was nice to follow in the footsteps of someone else. Computers are similar. It is always easier to follow the path created by someone else. My hope is that this BLOG serves as a path for others. So if there is computer problem you are trying to solve, drop me an e-mail at mbennett@privateersoftware.com and I will see if I can't help.

HAM Radio

I recently mentioned that I am studying to get my HAM license. Today I spent a couple of minutes on the Internet trying to look at how much a HAM radio will cost. Like any piece of electronics, the range varies greatly. You can pick up a small hand-held unit for around $100 or shell out over $10,000 for a top-of-the-line unit. And I thought computers were expensive.

My only experience with HAM radios before this past summer was when I was sailing from Hawaii to Los Angeles. We used a marine single-side-band (SSB) radio to send and receive daily e-mails as well as check in with other boats sailing roughly our same course. It was great to be so far from land yet still be in communication with family and friends.

After looking at the $10,000 HAM radio, I had to ask myself why anyone would pay that kind of money for something that can be done on the Internet for a fraction of the price. I can understand having a radio on a sailboat because it is tough to get an Internet connection in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. However the SSB we used to exchange e-mails was significantly less than the $10,000 radio.

On Sunday evening I was involved in a radio drill that simulated a major earthquake. While most phones continue to work even during a power outage, the Internet is questionable. Throw in a major disaster and it could take a while to get through to loved ones with conventional communication methods. Just ask anyone trying to get in touch with family or friends in any of the recent natural disasters.

Sunday night's drill was very interesting to watch. We had five or six different radios all listening to the various traffic going on. One radio was listening to neighborhoods communicate with eachother while another was tuned to local emergency services. The idea is that if help is needed in the neighborhood, a HAM radio operator can take down the important information and relay it to emergency services. There were other relays we listened to as well. This helps keep people from talking all over eachother on the same frequency.

That is what brings us back to that $10,000 radio. The $100 HAM unit is limited in the number of frequencies available. It can also only listen to one channel at a time. The more expensive radio has a much larger number of frequencies it can use. It also can listen to multiple channels at the same time. That would have been very helpful for our drill.

It was fun to look at the various types of radios and compare the differences. When the time comes to get my own HAM radio I still am not sure which one I want to get. However it probably won't be the $10,000.

Remote Desktop Connection

On Monday I installed a really neat piece of software on my Mac laptop. It is called "Remote Desktop Connection" and allows me to use my Mac to log into a Windows Server machine. The latest software project I am working on is with Microsoft SQL Server and that means I need to have access to a Windows machine.

The latest version of the Mac operating system has a feature called "Open Spaces." This basically allows me to have four virtual displays on one screen. It is very useful to keep from having a lot of programs cluttering up your screen at the same time. You can start your e-mail in one display and then go to another virtual display to run your web browser. Once you have all your programs running, you can easily switch between them using the "command" and the "tab" keys. Linux has had this feature for a while and I am glad to see it moving into other operating systems.

So I started my browser in screen one and Remote Desktop Connection in screen two. Then my younger son came down to my office to visit. I showed him that I was running Windows in one screen and Mac OS X in another. He thought that was pretty cool.

My older son came down later and saw me working in Windows and thought I had erased my Mac OS and replaced it with Windows (something I wouldn't recommend). When I showed him I was actually running both at the same time, he was relieved. He will probably be taking my Mac laptop to college and favors the Max OS over Windows.

Remote Desktop Connection really is an elegant little program. Without it I would have been forced to load a bunch of software on one of my Windows computers and that would have taken a lot of time. Instead I was able to take a few minutes and instantly become productive with the help of an already configured server. Now I need to get back to work.

Paper or Electronic Journals

Yesterday was a long day. I got to the airport last night to catch my flight home only to discover it was delayed a half hour. The pilot did a good job making up some lost time but we still got in late. Then I had to take the shuttle bus to long-term parking so I could find my car. I think we circled the airport two or three times before we started dropping people off. I had been up since 5am and it was close to midnight before I got home.

I tried to be quiet as I came in the house so as not to wake anyone. The dog was kind enough to greet me with her silent tail in motion rather than her usual noisy bark. I quickly dropped off my laptop in my office and then headed off to bed.

Ever since December 16, 1987 I have kept a daily journal without missing a single day. I think I have written somewhere between eight and nine thousand pages. I don't have just one journal, I have a bookshelf full of them. So before going to bed, I sat down to write in my journal.

My wife was surprised I didn't write on the plane. Sometimes I will bring my journal with me on a day trip to San Francisco and write in it on the way home. I thought about doing that on this trip but I only have seven more pages to go before I start another volume and didn't want to run the risk of loosing six exciting months of my life.

So why don't I keep my journal on my computer? After all, I generally have my laptop with me on most trips. Wouldn't it be easier to type out a page every day instead of writing it by hand? Probably. However my experience with computers leads me not to trust them. I have lost too many things on the computer and so I use the method that has stood the test of time: writing in a book. I used to keep important papers on floppy disks. Now I don't have a single computer with a floppy drive. I have put important software code on CDROMs only to have them be unreadable now. I have stored priceless photographs on hard drives only to have the disk crash and the photographs lost forever.

If you look in my bookshelf, I have a first edition original copy of Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October" pulished in 1984. I also have a journal compiled my one of my ancestors from the American Civil War. If I want to read them, I just have to open the book. I don't need to try to find a civil-war era device nor do I need to pull it of an old 8-inch floppy disk.

So if you want something you have written to last forever, make sure it is printed on paper and put someplace safe where it won't get lost. Otherwise it will get lost.

Importance of Checking E-mail

Yesterday I woke up thinking I had a relaxing beginning of the week. Foolish me. Right now I am in San Francisco working on a new project. I am glad to be here and this is going to be a great assignment. However I think it is funny how I got here.

The day started out pretty normal for a Sunday. Then it got exciting. At noon I was asked to help out with a local HAM Radio emergency response system. The idea is that if there is a monumental disaster and usual forms of communication (like phones) don't work, there is a HAM radio operator in the neighborhood that people can leverage to get help. Of course this will require me to get my HAM license, but my background in Electrical Engineering helps make that a fairly trivial task.

I didn't think much of the invitation and decided to catch up on some sleep with a bit of a nap. That didn't last long as I was given a call and told about a HAM emergency drill that would be taking place at 9pm last night. I didn't really have a pen to write information down and so I told the caller to send me the details in e-mail and I would attend. Then I went back to my nap.

At about 5:30, I wandered down to my office and checked e-mail. In addition to the HAM meeting, I also had a request from my old friend Wister to come to San Francisco. He wants to start this project immediately and wondered if I could be there in less than 24 hours. He would even pick up my airfare. I let my wife know about the meeting and she told me to go. I booked my last-minute flight arrangements on Southwest who had the lowest-cost flight.

This morning I was up at 5am so I could get ready for my 7:30am flight. I picked up another hour of sleep on the flight and was in downtown San Francisco by 9:30am.

I'm glad I checked my e-mail on Sunday. Otherwise I would have gone into my office this morning and it would have been too late to make my meeting.

Time to Clean the Office

Monday I will be starting a new project and so I get to spend today cleaning my office in preparation. The problem is that I am not really sure what to do with some hardware I received from an old project. I need to find space for it so I am not constantly working around it.

Last year I developed some kiosk software for the home improvement industry. I now have a kiosk at my house. The thing is huge! There are sample pieces of cabinetry in my garage with the computer part sitting in my office. The computer has two screens. One is a touch-screen that the customer uses to provide input while the other screen shows video of the manufacturing process for the products being sold.

The problem is that my office is already filled with computer equipment and I don't have room for two screens. Do I build a shelf above the laser printer and stack the color ink-jet on top of it? Nope that won't work because the color printer is also my scanner and that makes the scanner too difficult to use. Maybe I should move one of the two Playstation2's? Nope that won't work because there still won't be enough room. Besides, how will my sons be able to play video games against eachother if one of the Playstations is taken down.

I could try and find a storage place for the kiosk computer but I am still doing active development with it. Part of the purpose of actually having a kiosk is so I can see how the software runs on it. I guess I will just have to make room for it somewhere. I think if I swap locations with the touch screen and the paper cutter, everything fits. Yep that just might work. I guess I can't put this off any longer.

The Green Office

I just got back from making a deposit in the bank. This gave me the opportunity to look at the mileage on my car. My car turns 9 in a couple of days but only has 39,000 miles on it. That is still a relatively brand-new car. At the time I opted for something practical that could comfortably seat 5. Now I wish I had gotten the Ferrari. With a Ferrari I could probably sell it for about the same price I paid for it.

The reason my car has so few miles is because I don't go anywhere. Most people drive to and from work every day and that has a tendency to rack up the miles. Instead I work from home. I am a third-generation telecommuter. My Grandfather who still practices law works from home. My Dad who runs and advertising agency also works from home. This has me wondering why more people don't work from home.

Right now it is stylish to be "green." What is more green: a guy who owns a Toyota Prius but drives to work 20 miles round trip every day, or a guy who works out of his basement? Even a 5th grader would answer that someone working from home is "greener."

I don't believe offices will ever disappear completely but I do think they need to be updated. When I used to work at Oracle, they would send out surveys to their employees asking how they were being "green." This was an attempt to get people to carpool or utilize mass transit. It also had the effect of getting managers to allow employees to work from home several days a week. If you are not in the office every day, then you don't need a permanent office or a cubicle. Fewer offices save the company a huge amount of money.

With the Internet it is easy to have all your calls forwarded to your home office. With services like Skype, you can even do inexpensive home video conferencing. Technology really has the potential to help makes our lives easier.

One valid criticism of working from home is that there are the potential for more distractions while working from home. This is especially true if you have a family with small children. I used to work in an office and so when I started working at home, I discovered the importance of a door. You know that big flat thing found near the entrance to your study or office. When the door is closed, Daddy is at work. When it is open, Daddy is at home. It takes about 5 minutes to train even the most stubborn child. Amazingly I found that I get more work done at home than I ever did in the office thanks to the use of a door.

Every year I wonder when corporations will figure out that they can save huge amounts of money by not having large offices. Unfortunately I keep waiting.

Linux Flavors

Yesterday my oldest son came into my office and started telling me how his day was. The topic of Red Hat Linux came up and he expressed a desire to have a copy. This started a whole discussion on the different flavors of Linux.

When I first installed Linux on one of my office machines over ten years ago, I went down to a local book store and bought a book about Linux. In the back of the book was a CD that came with a copy of the operating system. It was Slackware Linux and seemed to work just fine. I played around a bit but couldn't get the graphical user interface (GUI) working with my hardware. So I went to a computer store and bought a copy of Red Hat Linux. I think it was version 2. I was able to get the X windowing environment (Linux's GUI) running. Since then I have always been a fan of Red Hat Linux.

I purchased several more copies of Red Hat Linux before they decided to concentrate on becoming a server-centric operating system provider. Most of the work I do is for other people and they have their own servers. That means I don't really need a server-specific version of Linux. Not to worry, Red Hat created Fedora Core for people like me. It is freely downloadable from the Internet and so I don't have to get in my car and drive to the local computer store to get it.

About a year ago, one of my clients asked me to put together a staging server at my office. A staging server is used to test changes in software before they are moved into the production environment. This is very helpful if you want to upgrade your database software but need to ensure it will work before you make the change. Simply upgrade the staging server and run through a bunch of tests. Once you are satisfied the upgrade won't break anything, you can roll out the new database software to the production system.

My client is barely above water financially and so I wanted to save them a bit of money. The production servers run Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server but that costs about $2,500 per server (if I remember correctly . . . I just tried to look it up but you now have to purchase it from a reseller . . . what a pain). Since I really don't care about technical support for the staging server, I decided to load it with CentOS. CentOS basically looks like Red Hat Enterprise Linux but is free. That means if there are any problems you have to figure them out yourself. I wouldn't recommend it for a production environment unless you have one or two Linux experts on staff who are used to figuring things out for themselves. So far it has worked perfectly for my client's staging server. I told my son that if he really wants to give Red Hat Enterprise Linux a try, he should just use CentOS.

There are many different flavors of Linux and these only represent a handful of distributions available. I have a good friend who works for Cannonical who are the guys behind Ubuntu Linux. He keeps trying to get me to switch to his distribution. I am reluctant to do so because I am so familiar with what I am already using. Oh well, I would probably make a bad customer anyways because I try to avoid paying for anything.

Saving Money

If someone came to me today and said they were looking for a way to save their company money, my response would be to ditch Microsoft Office and move to OpenOffice.org. Unfortunately there would be no immediate savings because most companies have already made that purchase. However if someone was starting a company or new group, they could save a lot of start-up costs by going with OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office.

A good question to ask is: "How much money will it save my company?" That is an excellent question that needs a bit of a background.

OpenOffice.org is free. Microsoft Office comes in four different flavors, each with a different price. Unfortunately a commercial company cannot use the "Home and Student" edition which only costs $149.99. The next lowest cost version comes in at $399.95 and is the "Standard" edition. This version also comes with Outlook which is Microsoft's e-mail client. If your company has standardized on Outlook for your e-mail, then there is a whole other area where you can save money but outside the scope of this discussion. The "Small Office" and "Professional" versions are $50 and $100 more, respectively. They both include Publisher and the Professional version includes the Access database.

The latest version of OpenOffice.org actually compares to the Microsoft Office Professional version in that it contains most of the features included in Publisher and Access. The only missing piece is Outlook, but that functionality can be replaced with Thunderbird which is a free e-mail client from the people that brought you the Firefox web browser. However my experience is that most employees really only use the features found in the Standard edition of office and so we will use $399.95 as the standard cost savings.

Once you have purchased Microsoft Office, you can use it forever. However, some people feel it necessary to upgrade to the latest version. When Microsoft switched from the ubiquitous .DOC file format to the .DOCX, they provided a conversion utility so you didn't have to upgrade. A lot of people still did and that cost them $239.95. That still seems like a lot of money especially during these trying economic times.

One feature I use extensively in OpenOffice.org is the ability to create PDF files. This is not something that comes with the Standard version of Office but is part of Publisher. The nice thing about PDF documents is that nobody can modify them once you send them out. Also since the Acrobat reader from Adobe is free on all platforms, almost all computers can read PDF files. There is no need to worry about recipients having the "correct" version of software to read your document.

So let's assume you work for a company with 100 employees and almost everyone already has a purchased copy of Microsoft Office. The next time a new version of Office is released by Microsoft, you will save your company roughly $24,000 by switching to OpenOffice.org.

Let's assume you have decided to branch out on your own and start a company. You may only have 5 employees but will save yourself $2,000 in start-up costs. That is a significant amount of money if you are bootstrapping the company yourself.

Now let's assume that you work for a company that has 100 employees but only have purchased a single copy of Microsoft Office. All it takes is one honest employee to find out that you are stealing software. You will then be forced to buy $40,000 worth of licenses plus another $60,000 in punitive damages. OpenOffice.org should look pretty cheap for anyone in this scenario.

Good to be Home

Last night I got back home after a busy week of travel. I visited ten states over a five-day period. Now I am ready for a relaxing week at home. However I may be heading to the San Francisco area shortly. I just hope I have time to rest up a bit before getting back on an airplane.

Last week was incredibly busy. I did half of my travel on airplanes and the other half in a car. It was a great chance to give my mobile office a really thorough workout. I brought my MacBook computer and iPhone. In all honesty I probably could have left my laptop at home as I used my iPhone 95% of the time. In the end, the only real need for the laptop was for its USB port so I could charge my iPhone. Still it was nice to have the laptop just in case I needed the real keyboard. As I said in a previous post, the iPhone keyboard is not nearly as easy to use as a full-sized one.

The iPhone was great for travel in the car. I brought my wife's Subaru Outback Sport as it gets the best gas mileage of the three cars I own (averaging about 30 mpg). It is less than two years old and has an iPod adapter in the center console arm rest. The iPod adapter works with the iPhone with some minor deficiencies. You only have access to the MP3-player features and so if the phone rings, you have to disconnect it from the car and answer it by hand. It would be great if I could hit a button on the steering wheel like many blue tooth equiped vehicles. The only other deficiency is that the adapter will charge an iPod but not an iPhone. That really wasn't an issue because I spent a whole day in the car listening to music and still had plenty of battery power when I pulled into my driveway.

I think the biggest success of the trip was that I spent over 20 hours in the car and never listened to the same song twice. The music capacity of most MP3 players is amazing. When I was a teenager doing road trips, I used to have to carry a box full of cassette tapes. Most tapes were good for between an hour to an hour and a half. Furthermore you often got stuck listening to songs that were just "OK" instead of favorites. Over the past couple of days I was able to listen to all of my favorites and that made the ride go that much quicker.

The second biggest success of the trip was that fact that I drove close to two thousand miles and didn't get a single speeding ticket. Yea, it was a good trip.

Keep Your Batteries Charged

Yesterday was a very long day of travel. I didn't get home until after 1am last night due to a number of circumstances beyond my control. Now I am headed to Seattle for a Postgres Conference. I'm just glad I didn't have to spend the night at some airport.

I was happy to get on the earlier flight home but it turned out to be a false hope. I finished writing my BLOG entry and boarded the plane. They were just getting ready to close the door when the pilot came on and informed everyone that we had a flat tire. We all had to get off the plane so they could fix it. I thought that was weird because I have been on a plane while they fixed a flat in the past. As we started to go, we were told to bring all our personal belongings. That was my plan anyways but I was disheartened when they brought me my gate-checked bag and told me the plane wasn't going anywhere.

We got off the aircraft and were directed to one of two lines to rebook our travel plans. Naturally I was at the end of the line. They then opened a third line and I jumped at the chance to move up. I went from the very back to fourth. The only problem was that the first person in my line took a complete hour to rebook his flight. In the mean time the rest of us were wondering what we could do to help things move along. I decided to give the airline a call on my mobile phone.

When I completed my BLOG yesterday I had about half my battery left on my iPhone. While I plugged my phone in to charge it the previous night, I also turned off the lights in my hotel room. The wall socket I used was connected to the light switch for the hotel and so by turning off the lights, I turned off the charge to my phone. "No Problem," I thought in the morning, "my iPhone can last several days without needing to be recharged." That was before a busy day on the road.

I used the phone to find directions to our meeting (people are amazed to find out that the GPS and map feature with directions on the iPhone is free . . . I wonder if it costs on other phones). I then used the map feature to find a place to find a specific store in Louisville. I then used the map to help us get back to the airport as I was the navigator for the driver. Now I was using it for its primary purpose: to call people. The airline wasn't able to help me on the phone but I was taken care of anyways. The moment my existing flight was cancelled, the computer immediately rebooked me on my original itinerary. Then I had to make arrangements to get a ride home from the airport. When I finally got home last night after 1am, I had a small sliver of battery life. So I guess an iPhone's battery is good for about one day of constant use. That is good to know and a better reason to keep the thing charged.

Travel Today

I am at the airport in Louisville, Kentucky. I thought I would see how tough it is to make today's entry on my iPhone. It is about what I expected. That means it is going to be a very short message. I could probably pull out my laptop, pay $10, and have a much easier time. However what would I learn? I just hope my battery lasts.

Today was a great day and I was able to see a demo of my software with real customers. The only problem is all the time it took to get here. It is nice that I get to travel home on an earlier flight though. My associates are stuck on the original flight. Being a frequent traveler has its advantages.

Man this small keyboard is tough to type with.

iPhone Not Perfect

Yesterday I had my first real glitch with my iPhone. The phone is over a year old and I had heard about others having problems with it but thought I had a perfect phone. As it turns out, I was wrong.

I had to give somebody a call and reached for my phone. Normally the screen is blank when I pull it out of its holster but this time it wasn't. When I tried to slide my finger across the bottom to unlock it, the screen remained frozen with the usual background being displayed.

Luckily I was at home and so I could log onto the Internet and do a quick search. Had I been on the road, there would have been no way to figure out how to reset the phone. It turns out you just have to hold the only two buttons on the iPhone to cause it to reboot. You have to hold them both down together for four seconds when the screen will blank out. You continue holding the buttons until the Apple logo appears. That was it. The phone works again.

I wish I knew what caused the problem so I could tell Apple. I really hate it when my phone doesn't work and I'm sure it is going to cause someone else a problem in the future.

DOC vs DOCX

There should be a special place in Hell reserved for Microsoft developers. Anybody who has received a DOCX file from someone using a newer version of Mirosoft Word will probably agree with me.

My daughter just came home from school with an electronic version of a document she needs to edit. She tried to edit it using the family computer and was surprised when she got an error relating to not being able to read the file. She erroneously thought that because the file was created on an old computer at school, she needed to find an older version of Microsoft Word to read it. So I emerged from my office listening to my daughter yell about how her teacher is an idiot for giving her an old file that none of our newer computers could read.

I asked my daughter to explain the problem because I knew I could help her. I have every copy of Word since it was originally called "Word For Windows 1.1." She handed over her thumb drive and started talking crazy. I couldn't really understand what she was saying other than she hates her teacher and thinks that anyone who would assign such homework should die spitting blood. I made sure to keep my distance as I tried to help.

I plugged the drive into my trusty MacBook and immediately saw the problem. The Mac Mini that my kids use at home has an old version of Microsoft Office that doesn't read DOCX files. Instead it only understands DOC files. I have a newer version of Office on my computer and could easily read the file. I then saved it to her thumb drive in the DOC format.

My daughter thought she needed an older version of software when she really needed the newer version. This leads one to ask, "Why would Microsoft take one of the most ubiquitous file formats in the world and change it?" The answer is actually quite simple. The DOC file format has been around since the late 80's and has had so many things added to it that nobody really understands how to decode it anymore. In fact, Microsoft embeds an older version of Word in their new version simply to read old DOC formats. Once old documents are read into memory, they are internally converted to the new format. If you try to save the edits in the old DOC format, it tries to save it using the old version of Word. If you just happen to use a new feature not available in the older version, it throws away part of your document.

How do I know that? I actually prefer to use OpenOffice.org which looks an aweful lot like Microsoft Office. When someone from Microsoft was asked to comment on a new version of OpenOffice.org and how it can read DOC files, the Microsoft employee explained how they couldn't reliably read old DOC files so how could anybody else. He then went on to explain what I just explained above.

Doesn't that instill a sense of confidence in Microsoft products? Maybe that is why I prefer Linux. Now I just need to secretly install the newer version of Microsoft Office on the kids' computer to avoid any future outbursts.

Geocaching

Tonight I am headed on a Scout camping trip without my boys. This evening is a District camp out that my troop elected to miss. Next week we will be doing our annual trip to Southern Utah and visiting Goblin Valley State Park instead. Since I am part of the District leadership, I will be going tonight to help make sure everything runs smoothly.

The theme of this year's district camp out is Geocaching. We will be setting up something similar to a map and compass course. The difference is that the Scouts will be using global positioning service (GPS) devices to locate hidden prizes. The idea is to provide a list of coordinates and then let the Scouts go wild. It should be a lot of fun.

If you think this sounds like a great activity, there are close to a million different geocaches all over the world. The best place to start is at Geocaching.com. You can sign up for a free account and then get a listing of geocaches in your area. When you find one, the idea is to sign the log, take one of the souvenir's, and then add a souvenir of your own to the cache.

When we were putting together this activity there was the question about enough people owning GPS devices. Fortunately most mobile phones are now made with the GPS chip built into the device. My iPhone uses the GPS to help provide directions. You can also download several application from the AppStore that turn it into a fully featured GPS. Similar programs exist for many of the other all-in-one phones.

Knowing how to use a GPS is an important skill to have. Once I tried to find a safe harbor for my sailboat during a massive snowstorm using my GPS. Unfortunately I didn't have much experience with the device. The snow was coming down so hard, it was impossible to see the bow of the sailboat. It was pure luck that I found the entrance and didn't run aground. Since then I have made it a point to learn how to use my GPS and games like Geocaching are one way to do that. Now if I can just remember where I put my winter sleeping bag, I'll be ready for tonight.

Friendly Recommendations

Last night was my monthly Board of Directors meeting for the Snowbird Sports Education Foundation. During the meeting we talked about attracting more members and the topic of online media came up. One of the board members had just attended a seminar on viral marketing and using sites like Facebook and MySpace to increase memebership.

I sat there quietly listening. I actually am in the process of getting a patent for some software I wrote that is used for viral marketing. I understand the lure of low-cost marketing methods and can see why organizations would want to embrace them. However I also understand the difference between theory and reality. It is one thing to talk about success cases but quite another to actually implement one.

The idea behind viral marketing is that people are more likely to purchase something based on a friend's recommendation than an ad seen on TV (unless it is after 9pm and you see a fast-food commercial . . . they make me hungry). For example, if a friend goes to see the latest action movie and comes back with a glowing recommendation about how exciting it was, I am more likely to go see the movie than if I read a review.

The problem is how to get people talking about the movie and recommending it to their friends. Unless someone asks me what I did over the weekend or if I have seen a specific movie, I am reluctant to share my thoughts about it. I am also careful about what movies I recommend to whom. I was once on a business trip with one of our salesmen. We arrived at our hotel and saw that there was a movie theater across the parking lot. We quickly checked in and ran to see if we could catch a late showing of a newly released movie. We made it and had a great time watching the film. But it was a "guy" film and most of the women in the audience came away thinking less of their dates. Naturally I would never recommend that film to anyone but guys. Furthermore I would recommend they see it with other guys and not their wives or girlfriends.

How does a company leverage "friend's recommendations" to sell product or, in our case, increase ski team participants? With the ski team, you want the current kids to have a great experience and talk about it to their friends. I think that is already happening as shown by the number of team members that live close together. The real trick is getting outside the existing circle of influence. If all your friends are on the ski team, there really isn't anyone else to recommend.

I guess my only advice with viral marketing is to proceed with caution. Some strategies work while others just sound good on paper. As for me, I'm just trying to figure out how to get more people to read my BLOG.

First Snow

The mountains behind my house now have a fresh coat of paint. I guess you could say that Utah really is a two-season state: Summer and Winter. On September 29th, it was over 80 degrees at my house. Then a cold front moved in and we had snow in the mountains. Over the next couple of days it continued to snow and so I decided to see if there was enough to ski.

On Monday I took my youngest son with me up to Alta (pictured above). It is only ten miles away but 4,000 feet higher than my house. We drove up the narrow canyon and watched as rain turned to snow and then started to accumulate. When we got to the Alta Ski Resort parking lot, it was full of cars. It seems others had the same idea.

There was more than enough snow to ski and so we put on our boots and slung our skis over our shoulders. The lifts were not running and won't start for another month. That means if you want to ski, you have to do it the old fashioned way and hike up the hill. It took us about an hour to climb to our usual starting point. I pulled out my iPhone and took my son's picture to prove that there was snow at the beginning of October. Furthermore you can see that the snow is coming down pretty good.

Our run down only took a couple of minutes but it was a lot of fun. We stopped along the way and took a few more pictures. My son even insisted on taking a picture of me. Since I am always the one behind the camera, it is nice to have a picture or two.

So what does this have to do with computers and technology? Absolutely nothing. I thought about mentioning how my phone has a camera and so I find myself capturing events that would normally be missed. However that is a bit of a stretch. I could have talked about how it also plays music which made my hike seem to go quicker. However I took this chance to talk with my son as we walked up the steep mountain. That also made the hike go quickly. I guess all I can say is that sometimes you don't need technology to have a good day.