Recently I had the chance to help provide radio support for the Salt Flats 100 Endurance Run. My radio buddy and I got to our assignment at aid station 13 just after 8pm as the sun was setting. The road we traveled was more of a nasty Jeep trail that was impassable in any vehicle without high ground clearance. We'd been given this spot as we had such a vehicle that was more than capable to get to such a remote destination. Even though most of the race is held in the Salt Flats of Utah, this particular checkpoint was actually in Nevada.
My buddy and I arrived and met the helpers at the station before setting up our radio equipment. Once we turned on the radio, we started getting reports from station 12 which straddled the Utah/Nevada border. As is the fad these days, they were using their mobile phones to provide the times that the runners arrived and departed. Unfortunately the close proximity to the Mountain and Pacific timezones was wreaking havoc on their information. One runner would come in at 11:20 pm and then leave at 12:30am, but was only stopped for 10 minutes. Worse was when someone would come in at 12:30am and then leave at 11:40pm. Eventually they figured out what was going wrong and radioed the correct times to the start/finish crew.
We didn't have that problem at aid station 13 as we were so remote, we didn't get mobile phone service. To keep my battery from running down, I just turned off my phone. When it came time to provide times for the runners, I just used my wrist watch. It may not have been as accurate as the time kept by my phone, but when you are measuring times in hours, a few seconds difference is no big deal.
For the record, the winning time was 17 hours 59 minutes and 30 seconds. His next closest competitor came in at 19:13:36. I'm fatigued from the event and I had the luxury of riding around in a Jeep. I can only imagine how tired they are.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Time To Upgrade Linux
I found a new program to help me program my VHF ham radio and tried to install it on my Linux system at home this week. The flavor of Linux I like to run at home is Fedora and I was still on Fedora Core 10. The latest version right now is Fedora 18. That represents a significant difference. When I tried to install my ham radio software called Chirp, I needed to upgrade a bunch of different libraries. Instead of just upgrading the libraries, I decided to update the whole operating system.
Right now there are two major releases of Linux that most people consider: Fedora or Ubuntu. We are moving to Ubuntu at work and so I will be updating my computer there from CentOS, which is very similar to Fedora. As I will have computer running Ubuntu, I figured I would keep my home desktop on Fedora. That way I can compare both systems and find out for myself which flavor of Linux is really better.
Before deciding on the upgrade, I researched both Linux distributions thoroughly. You had the usual religious battles between both groups combined with a bunch of "impartial" comparisons claiming it is a tie between the two. We will see how much truth there is to that.
Unfortunately the Linux upgrade did not go as smoothly as I had planned. I made sure to back up all of my data and directories. Then I backed up my e-mail. When I tried to restore my e-mail, none of my messages appeared on the new system. Fortunately there is a way to import raw mail files into my e-mail program (Evolution) and so I just had to restore each e-mail folder one at a time. It was fairly painless once I figured out how to do it. Now it is just a matter of loading up all of the programs I normally use.
One nice thing about upgrading Linux versions is that I can now access my Windows partition, not that I have missed it. When I installed Fedora Core 10, I saved a part of my hard disk for Windows, but was never able to access it. Now it has started working again. So if I need it, it is available. I sure hope I don't need it though. I hate Windows.
Right now there are two major releases of Linux that most people consider: Fedora or Ubuntu. We are moving to Ubuntu at work and so I will be updating my computer there from CentOS, which is very similar to Fedora. As I will have computer running Ubuntu, I figured I would keep my home desktop on Fedora. That way I can compare both systems and find out for myself which flavor of Linux is really better.
Before deciding on the upgrade, I researched both Linux distributions thoroughly. You had the usual religious battles between both groups combined with a bunch of "impartial" comparisons claiming it is a tie between the two. We will see how much truth there is to that.
Unfortunately the Linux upgrade did not go as smoothly as I had planned. I made sure to back up all of my data and directories. Then I backed up my e-mail. When I tried to restore my e-mail, none of my messages appeared on the new system. Fortunately there is a way to import raw mail files into my e-mail program (Evolution) and so I just had to restore each e-mail folder one at a time. It was fairly painless once I figured out how to do it. Now it is just a matter of loading up all of the programs I normally use.
One nice thing about upgrading Linux versions is that I can now access my Windows partition, not that I have missed it. When I installed Fedora Core 10, I saved a part of my hard disk for Windows, but was never able to access it. Now it has started working again. So if I need it, it is available. I sure hope I don't need it though. I hate Windows.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Non-Technical Solutions
I seem to have developed some allergies after living in Utah for the last 20 or so years. I flew in from the Bay Area on Friday evening only to have a rough night sleeping. It didn't get any better on Saturday night after a busy day of skiing and taking care of chores around the house. I'm sure it wasn't a picnic for my wife as she said I snored like a chainsaw both nights. I know from experience that when I snore loudly, I will continually wake myself up in the middle of the night and not get the rest I need.
Last night I didn't resort to anything extraordinary to get a good night's rest. I could have taken any number of medications but didn't. Instead I just applied one of those Breathe Right strips to my nose and slept very soundly. My wife informed me I wasn't completely silent last night, but much better than the past two. It is amazing what a piece of tape stuck to a stiff wire can do to help get through allergy season. While the Breathe Right people would have you believe they provide a technical solution, it is much less complicated than those provided by the pharmaceutical companies.
Non-technical solutions are sometimes the best solutions. I once worked on a reporting system where we were required to provide daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly reports. The reports were fairly complex and required a significant amount of time to create. When it came time to write the yearly report, it was determined that an administrative assistant could take the monthly reports, add up the numbers, and assemble the yearly report more quickly than it would take to write it using the existing report writing tools.
Unfortunately non-technical solutions don't work all the time and should be used only when appropriate. Otherwise we wouldn't have created computers in the first place.
Last night I didn't resort to anything extraordinary to get a good night's rest. I could have taken any number of medications but didn't. Instead I just applied one of those Breathe Right strips to my nose and slept very soundly. My wife informed me I wasn't completely silent last night, but much better than the past two. It is amazing what a piece of tape stuck to a stiff wire can do to help get through allergy season. While the Breathe Right people would have you believe they provide a technical solution, it is much less complicated than those provided by the pharmaceutical companies.
Non-technical solutions are sometimes the best solutions. I once worked on a reporting system where we were required to provide daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly reports. The reports were fairly complex and required a significant amount of time to create. When it came time to write the yearly report, it was determined that an administrative assistant could take the monthly reports, add up the numbers, and assemble the yearly report more quickly than it would take to write it using the existing report writing tools.
Unfortunately non-technical solutions don't work all the time and should be used only when appropriate. Otherwise we wouldn't have created computers in the first place.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Office Move
Today was my last day in the office space I have occupied over the last 3 years. On Monday, I will go to my new office and unpack everything I have spent the last week packing in preparation for the company move. It has been a bit hectic over the past couple of days and I doubt the next week will be much better.
One difficult thing about the move is that I have a responsibility to monitor our production databases and systems. We also have a network operations center (NOC) that also monitors things 24x7 and so there is a nice backup when I am not around. I got into the office this morning and discovered a quick problem that needed fixing and was able to get it taken care of before the NOC was alerted. I finished packing the rest of my office but kept my computers running until the last minute. Everyone around me had their computers turned off and disassembled. It reminded me of those poor souls on the Ice Planet Hoth in the movie "The Empire Strikes Back" who had to stick around and carry out their duties while everyone else got an early jump on leaving the doomed planet.
Fortunately my company's move does not take us to the far reaches of the galaxy nor did I have to blast my way out of the old office in the Millennium Falcon. We will be moving less than a mile away from our current office. While my office will be smaller, our new campus had much better facilities. We are also a lot closer to a number of restaurants in addition to an in-house cafeteria that will be a welcome change for lunch. I have yet to see our new office space and so Monday is going to be a big surprise. I hope I am not disappointed.
One difficult thing about the move is that I have a responsibility to monitor our production databases and systems. We also have a network operations center (NOC) that also monitors things 24x7 and so there is a nice backup when I am not around. I got into the office this morning and discovered a quick problem that needed fixing and was able to get it taken care of before the NOC was alerted. I finished packing the rest of my office but kept my computers running until the last minute. Everyone around me had their computers turned off and disassembled. It reminded me of those poor souls on the Ice Planet Hoth in the movie "The Empire Strikes Back" who had to stick around and carry out their duties while everyone else got an early jump on leaving the doomed planet.
Fortunately my company's move does not take us to the far reaches of the galaxy nor did I have to blast my way out of the old office in the Millennium Falcon. We will be moving less than a mile away from our current office. While my office will be smaller, our new campus had much better facilities. We are also a lot closer to a number of restaurants in addition to an in-house cafeteria that will be a welcome change for lunch. I have yet to see our new office space and so Monday is going to be a big surprise. I hope I am not disappointed.
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