FutureCrüe

oh man.  i want an android gingerbread tablet so bad i can taste it.  this reminds me of when i went crazy when netbooks first came out and bought two of them.   some of the ppl i know at goog chicago are saying they are dogfooding a tablet.  i’m thinking (from my experience working there) that this will prolly be a gingerbread tablet released in jan.  that is exactly how they did the g1 and the nexus one.  gave dogfood devices around august and then revealed them right around the holiday.

i’m sooooo excited but i just cant wait that long.  i saw archos (a company i never really liked thats been around for a loooong time) announce an android 2.2 archos 101 tablet for october yesterday.  i think i will just get it.  it looks decent and has good hardware.  might be fun to hack with.  not to compare to ipad but it has a larger screen with a better aspect ration.  i’m sure the apple lcd will be very hard to beat.  the device is a bit thinner too and noticeably lighter from what i hear.

but i dont want to hear about it!!  i want to be about it!!  i want to have it.  after all, at the ü, we dont re-post and speculate.  we have to have the electronics in our grubby hands!  so until then.  much like in life, i got nuttin.

oh yea..archos (never like them—why do i want this again?) model numbers are bullshit.  fire your marketing.  oh yea, i’m buying one cause no other offerings would be available yet.

so i will prolly get two tablets.  this one and then this one will look like shit when google releases something in january and i will have to have that one too.  now if i can only find a credit card that hasn’t been shut off.

the archos 101. no, i dont have this. nor have i seen this. looks like a bullshit image i found on google. release it already and i will buy it.

nothing like hanging out at a crap hole roadside bar in the middle of nowhere.  yup.  how did you spend your saturday?

this place is so small, there is only one worker in the whole place who tends bar and cooks the food.  the kitchen grill is right in the bar.  like behind the counter.  not in a separate room.

the winners circle in sycamore

what is it with apple lately.  everything they do is magic this and magic that.  the ipad is magical.

here’s a little regular expression for you.  s/magic/gay/g

i’m an engineer damnit.  shit is not “magical”  technology is not magic.  there is nothing magical about holding your iphone 4 in a death grip.  ouch!!

with all that being said, i went out and bought the apple magic trackpad for my imac.  i really like their bluetooth keyboard.  i’ve been through many bluetooth keyboards over the years and apple did get theirs right.  it has good battery life.  if connects quickly. and its reliable.  well here is what i’m liking so far about the trackpad.

• it has velocity for scrolling just like my mbp
• it has some useful 2, 3 and 4 finger gestures
• its bluetooth connects easily
• i prefer it to my mouse in many instances
• i’m not gonna need to reflash it with different code
• its not magical.  just useful.

its omgwtfmagical!!!

4square that is.

the python scripts are running from cron jobs so that i can perform automatic checkins.  i’m playing with checkin settings so that i don’t get rate limited.  my first attempt did a checkin every 2 minutes.  too much.  i got punished for 24 hour period where i could not get any points.

now i’m trying a checkin every 7 minutes.  my script is data driven.  i’m using a csv flat file to drive my script.  i created the csv flat file with another script that searches the foursquare api for 50 venues around a particular set of coordinates.

so how stoooopid is this?  the fun is not being the jackass that has the most mayorships or badges….its writing the code and algorithms that can get the most out of their system.  and have it automated so i don’t have to hand hold it.

here is a look at some responses to checkins so you can get an idea of the data i have to parse through.

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{u'checkin': {u'created': u'Sat, 31 Jul 10 14:45:12 +0000', u'venue': {u'city': u'Streamwood', u'geolat': 42.012396600000002, u'name': u'Jewel-Osco', u'zip': u'60107', u'geolong': -88.1770712, u'id': 134269, u'phone': u'6308376015', u'state': u'IL', u'crossstreet': u'Park Ave', u'address': u'217 Irving Park Rd', u'primarycategory': {u'iconurl': u'http://foursquare.com/img/categories/shops/food_grocery.png', u'fullpathname': u'Shops:Food & Drink:Grocery / Supermarket', u'id': 79235, u'nodename': u'Grocery / Supermarket'}}, u'id': 113237828, u'specials': [], u'scores': [{u'message': u'Travel bonus: 10 stops', u'points': 10, u'icon': u'http://foursquare.com/img/scoring/3.png'}], u'message': u"OK! We've got you @ Jewel-Osco. This is your 4th checkin here!", u'mayor': {u'checkins': 21, u'message': u'Jennifer is The Mayor of Jewel-Osco.', u'type': u'nochange', u'user': {u'photo': u'http://playfoursquare.s3.amazonaws.com/userpix_thumbs/ED34ICGCMZSIM53C.jpg', u'id': 1496764, u'firstname': u'Jennifer', u'gender': u'female'}}}}
{u'checkin': {u'created': u'Sat, 31 Jul 10 14:52:12 +0000', u'venue': {u'city': u'', u'geolat': 42.014833000000003, u'name': u'Tap House Grill', u'geolong': -88.187089999999998, u'id': 3201821, u'state': u'', u'address': u'', u'primarycategory': {u'iconurl': u'http://foursquare.com/img/categories/food/burger.png', u'fullpathname': u'Food:Burgers', u'id': 79048, u'nodename': u'Burgers'}}, u'specials': [], u'scores': [{u'message': u'Travel bonus: 11 stops', u'points': 11, u'icon': u'http://foursquare.com/img/scoring/3.png'}], u'message': u"OK! We've got you @ Tap House Grill. This is your 2nd checkin here!", u'id': 113244533}}
{u'checkin': {u'created': u'Sat, 31 Jul 10 14:59:13 +0000', u'venue': {u'city': u'Streamwood', u'geolat': 42.013390899999997, u'name': u"John's Car Wash", u'zip': u'60107', u'geolong': -88.182653200000004, u'id': 867115, u'state': u'Illinois', u'address': u'14 E Irvingpark rd', u'primarycategory': {u'iconurl': u'http://foursquare.com/img/categories/shops/automotive.png', u'fullpathname': u'Shops:Automotive', u'id': 114952, u'nodename': u'Automotive'}}, u'id': 113251184, u'specials': [], u'scores': [{u'message': u'Travel bonus: 12 stops', u'points': 12, u'icon': u'http://foursquare.com/img/scoring/3.png'}], u'message': u"OK! We've got you @ John's Car Wash. This is your 2nd checkin here!", u'mayor': {u'checkins': 1, u'message': u"Mike D. is The Mayor of John's Car Wash.", u'type': u'nochange', u'user': {u'lastname': u'D.', u'gender': u'male', u'id': 328796, u'firstname': u'Mike', u'photo': u'http://playfoursquare.s3.amazonaws.com/userpix_thumbs/HKBJN24KQM1CQNKD.gif'}}}}
{u'checkin': {u'created': u'Sat, 31 Jul 10 15:06:14 +0000', u'venue': {u'city': u'Streamwood', u'geolat': 42.021840699999998, u'name': u'Streamwood Montessori', u'zip': u'60107', u'geolong': -88.183164199999993, u'id': 3037970, u'phone': u'6302338567', u'state': u'IL', u'crossstreet': u'Bartlett Rd', u'address': u'25 W Streamwood Blvd', u'primarycategory': {u'iconurl': u'http://foursquare.com/img/categories/building/default.png', u'fullpathname': u'Home / Work / Other:School', u'id': 79146, u'nodename': u'School'}}, u'id': 113258040, u'specials': [], u'scores': [{u'message': u'Travel bonus: 13 stops', u'points': 13, u'icon': u'http://foursquare.com/img/scoring/3.png'}], u'message': u"OK! We've got you @ Streamwood Montessori. This is your 2nd checkin here!", u'mayor': {u'checkins': 3, u'message': u'Maria R. is The Mayor of Streamwood Montessori.', u'type': u'nochange', u'user': {u'lastname': u'R.', u'gender': u'female', u'id': 1051549, u'firstname': u'Maria', u'photo': u'http://playfoursquare.s3.amazonaws.com/userpix_thumbs/PDQ35K5NMHQ0DGWP.jpg'}}}}

so what is next? total world domination? nay.  i want to be mayor of the most high profile buildings in chicago.  maybe spread out to new york or other parts of the world.  maybe i will just take over your house.  maybe i will go after rare and hard to get badges.  first i got addicted to foursquare….and then i got addicted to the api.

yea….i made it myself.  but not as in i bought it at ikea made it myself kind of making.

i wanted something different and this is something different.  its made from 1/2 frosted glass that i picked up from a local glass place.  then i have glass blocks like the kind you would get at the hardware store.  put that all together and you have a college dorm milk crate kind of a stand.  in real life, it looks kinda cool.  i have led lights that illuminate the glass.

there is some of the gear.  ps3, xbox360 with a clear case, slingox, apple tv (moded to run atv), squeezebox, directv receiver, receiver, etc.   just your basic everyday stuff.

my new glass stand. for about $120, you can make one too!!

if you are not interested in at&t uverse internet only service, you can quit reading now.  but if you are interested in this service, then read on.

at&t uverse is a dsl service based on fiber to the node.  if you have this type of service in your area, you will have seen dslams located in your neighborhood….they usually sit on a bock of concrete and have a power meter.  fiber runs to these dslams and standard twisted pair copper then runs to your house.  you can google things up and learn more if youre interested.

so how about performance?  well a little bit about me.  i live in chicago suburbs.  i ordered 24mbps line of internet only.  i was coming from a 50mbps comcast connection.  i’m using 802.11n for my speed tests.  i’ve got good equipment—if something is slow, it would not be a fault in my home network or equipment or i will figure out what it is and fix it.

the bottom line, the 24mbps connection i got from uverse definitely delivers the goods.  i can hookup 50 ssl connects to my usenet provider and essentially nail the 24mbps speed with no issues.  i have to admit that i am not using the uverse 2wire router.  i only use their box as a pass through and then route to all my networking equipment.

throughput is solid. this is over an 802.11n 5GHz connection even.

i had “comcast” back in the day when they were called @home.  does anyone remember that service?  yup.  bought cable modem at that time which switched me from ISDN 128k service…..before 56k modems were released.

ok…enough bullshit.  enough past.  the past is past.  now for the future.  this is futurecrue.  not pastcrue.

i returned all of the comcast equipment.  and cleaned up my yard and put the cable in the trash.  maybe one day, i will return to them.  who knows.  i think they would have to offer greater than 50mbps speed and also remove that 250gb cap.  but like i said, who knows.

in the meantime, i will be with internet only at&t uverse at 24mbps.  will it deliver?  stay tuned.

make sure you keep your equipment receipt that shows you returned your shit. i know somebody that got screwed and had to buy equipment

that is how much energy i’ve burned this week so far training for a marathon run.  its equal to 3537 calories.  or equal to the amount of solar radiation received by 1 square meter of earth in 15 seconds.  yea that is not impressive.  my fat ass could prolly produce more energy by sitting down on a couch and smashing a cat.  cool.

oh yea…i guess for the past 3 weeks i’m training for a marathon that i’ll be running in october.  no, i havent run a marathon before so i need to buy electronic gadgets to help.  in fact, any excuse i can come up with to get liquor, pills, hookers or electronic gadgets is kinda the theme of my life.

so i went out and bought a Polar RS300X G1 Heart Rate Monitor/GPS Black and a flowlink to hook up to my mac from the running warehouse.  i’ve been using it about a week.  its okay.  it has a gps to measure your distance and your pace in real time.  the flowlink works extremely well with my mac.  i’ll have to give a better review on the hardware later.  my first run with the gps measured my distance exactly.  but my last two runs outside had trouble tracking accurately.  maybe in a month or so, i’ll post up some data of my progress and give a better review of the hardware.

in the meantime this week (sunday->thursday), i’ve run 21.8 miles which is a mere fraction of my beer drinking calories.  with all this training, i will have to double my beer intake and see if amazon sells a britta-liver.

the goods. can you really run without a monitor and a gps? damn. i'm a gadget freak

so i put together this peggy2 kit from evilmadscience.com.  it uses an ATmega328P and can be developed for using the arduino development environment so you can write routines in c to control the device.  i’m just getting started.  its pretty cool.

oh yea….the details of the updated rig

the stuff i updated:

• i7-950 cpu
• 12 gb CORSAIR HX3X12G1600C9
• ASUS P6X58D PREMIUM motherboard
• SILVERSTONE TJ09-BW case

the stuff i had:

• 2 nvidia gtx 295 cards (quad sli)
• 1000 w silverstone power supply
• solid state and velociraptor drives
• blah blah blah

no, its not a performance system.  just a good system.  every system i put up is a good system.

the new rig brings it. like your mom.

my mac book pro has a decent bootup time.  check it out.  go get yourself one.

no, not google buzz.  everyone has already forgotten about that anyway.

i’m talking about buzzing noise on my speakers from all the computer equipment.  it sucks.  i went out and bought some krk rockit 5 and krk 10s subwoofer and dropped some serious coin on these things.

and then they hum and make noise like crazy.  it tried a few things.  moving them away from equipment.  put them on a separate line.  better cables.  arrrgh.

the solution was a small switch on the back of the subwoofer.  its lifts the ground.  and everything is absolutely quiet.  btw, i high recommend these speakers.  total awesomeness.

lifting the ground. that sounds safe. i will most likely die of electrocution from all these machines. mmmmm. electrocution.

yea right.  and i’m getting the ipad too.

the trouble with apple’s “magical” devices that they make is that they are defective by design.  so the first thing i did with apple tv when i took it out of the box was “repurpose” it.  aka….delete all traces of apple software and install my own firmware.

i mean seriously.  i want a small dedicated low power computer for the tv that can play movies, etc.  i could go get a netbook for $200 but the apple tv already has all the outputs and even comes with infrared remote control.  its a no brainer.  the hardware is worth more than the product.

so as soon as i bought this thing, i reflashed (uncrippled) it with atv flash.  i mean who seriously wants to pay money for episodes for lost.  really?  fug dat.  and whats with all the blocking of free content?  oh….you want me to pay for stuff in itunes.  yea.  good luck with that.

oh yea….the masses will buy apple products because the products are magical.  and get locked into itunes marketing model or restricted into the app store.  there is nothing magical about that.

hello boxee. apple needs to get a clue.

yea.  thats a shiny new apple tv that i just bought.  wtf!!  really?  fail.  i’m either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid.

still has the wrapper on it. why did i buy this!?!??

slingbox is not fun when all your machines run linux.

but now that i have mac in the house, i can use my sling box again.  :)  i bought the slingbox pro a few years back on the day they released it.  they did not have the hd version at that point.  its nice when i’m working i can watch and control the tv from the desktop.

now if only they would release a client for android.

the hawks never looked better on my desktop. ok....so the hawks are playing awful on a 3 game losing streak.

yea…i took a month off from blogging. all so i could write a quick java program to calculate pi to 30,000 places to celebrate pi day.  yea, this is my first step toward a recovery from excessive substance abuse and trumped up court charges.  ha!

so here is pi.  to 30,000 places using john machin’s formula from 1709.  how geek is that.  after waiting about 20 minutes for this to run on my mac….i walked off and let the computer crunch it out.

update: my host and wordpress cant seem to handle this on the screen.    here is pi to 30,000 places.

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406

so i’m downloading another ebook to read from the sony library site and BAM!!  epic fail.  the book wont download to my reader!!  omgwtf!!

well it turns out that my old ass sony prs-500 reader that i’ve had for over 3 years now is no longer supported.  well more specifically, the sony bbeb format is no longer supported by the sony ebook store.  they will now only support the very popular epub format.

well my hardware is so old that i would have to send it in for an actual hardware modification.  sony would do it for free but i decided to take them up on a offer to trade in for an upgrade.

so i head down to my local sony store and they gave me $120 (with trade) off a new reader.  i got the prs-600 for about $180 brand new.  i got a nice black one.  so far, i like it.  its faster than my old model.  the touch screen is okay although it takes away a bit from the contrast and adds some glare.

to anyone thinking about getting a kindle.  consider that they are the only current ebook reader i have seen that does not support epub.  that is scary.  what is so special about bbeb/epub??  well i found something that will save me big $$$.  it seems that my local chicago suburb libraries are allowing library books to be checked out in bbeb format.  big win for sony people (for now).  the book will remain on my reader for 3 weeks and then expire unless i renew.  all this can be done online of course.

so i’m really excited with my purchase and look forward to using my library in the new capacity.

there is no substitute for an e-ink screen. the battery life is several *hundred* hours

netbooks seemed like a great idea.  and lots of folks ran out to snap up the small computers at cheap prices only to realize that sometimes you get what you pay for.

as a gadget freak, i gotta say that i went out and bought two netbooks and a all-in-one nettop.  and they are not the kind of computer that you would want to use as a primary machine.

but now what do you do with all the leftover netbooks??  freakin re-purpose them.  for my netbooks, i’ve installed linux.  one is running the radio station that runs on this site.  its very low power so i can stream audio all day long from it on the cheap.  on the other netbook, i installed rsync and a usb 2tb external hard drive that works as my nas backup.  so now all the workstations in my house are backed up over the network every night automatically with super efficient and well proven rsync.  all open source.  all on the cheap.

what are you doing with your old netbooks?

two netbooks provide a streaming radio station and a nightly network backup. also in the pic are 2TB external drive, cable modem and wireless router.

this was really cool.  i was searching for feat and the google search results for some terms seem to be including live twitter feeds.

kinda cool.  check it out.

some google search coolness

lets encrypt our data.  its easy, fun and fustrates people spying on your traffic!!

why a vpn? it does two things for you.  first, it encrypts your data between two points so that you cannot be directly spied on.  next, it hides your identity another layer of protection on the internet.  all our steps around the internet use our ip address.  your internet provider can tie the ip address and date to your real identity.  so everywhere you visit on the internet (with a normal ip) you can be identified with.  a vpn will mask your ip address with another layer.  you can even make yourself appear to be coming from other areas of the world.

whats it cost? in a short word…there are “free” providers you’re gonna get what you pay for.  usual costs are $5-$30/mo for consumer level vpns depending on features.

find a provider. just use google.  search for vpn providers.  get what makes sense.  i recommend a place where you can use a standard pptp or l2tp client.  that way, you need no extra software on your computer.

whats the drawbacks? bandwidth can be a problem.  you might not get your 30mbit connection through a vpn.  you can still get good speeds but there will be some slowdown / latency.  luckily you can choose to use the vpn when you need to.

traveling. if you travel to another country, accessing your favorite websites can be a pain.  but if you vpn into the home country, it will be like your are there!

restrictive firewalls. live in a restrictive country or work environment?  a vpn can help you get out of it and do what you need to do.

netflix is not available in your country. netflix is looking at your location before the page begins to load.

get ready to start typing google.us because google.com will take you to where your vpn is. in this case, france.

hey, these are not the featured videos for my country!!

its wicked awesome that all kinds of ebook readers are coming out and getting cheaper.  color screens are just around the corner and prices are sure to drop.  technology is awesome and will change the way we read forever.  but with all these choices, are ebook readers all the same?

i bought my sony reader in 2006 so i’ve been using it a few years.  and with my recent mac purchase, i wanted to see how it worked with osx.

first off, if youre thinking about buying a reader, not all readers are the same.  lets start with the screens.  they are actually all made by the same company (e ink).  if you’ve never seen a e ink screen, they are really stunning.  the contrast and view angles really makes it look like paper and less like a screen.  touch screen ones kinda suck….it greatly reduces the impressiveness of the e ink display.  sony’s prs-700 is really unimpressive.  its like there are extra layers of stuff on top of the screen that just make it suck.

the biggest difference in readers is the formats they support.  drm runs rampant on books and there are many different standards.  here is a real good comparison of some formats.  notice that amazon uses azw/topaz and that is not really supported by other readers.  adobe adept seems to be popular on many 3rd party ebook sites.  also, reading pdf files does not quite work as well as you would hope.  its best if the book is in the native format of the reader.

software for the mac? because i have an old sony prs-500, i have to run sony’s software through a windows virtual machine.  some awesome software that you have to check out is calibre.  its open source and can manage your books, download news to the device and convert between formats!!  it supports windows, mac and linux and quite a few readers.  it is worth checking out.

my 3+ year old sony reader. a good purchase that i've used alot and still use.

oh yea, last weekend i went out and got one of those new imac 27″ quad core i5 macs and had them bump it up it up to 8GB RAM.  its not my fault.  i was watching the bears over at ram brewery and those awesome 22 oz big red ipas had me in a good mood.  so after using this computer for a week, its awesome.  i’ve had macs before (been using them on and off since 1989…does anyone want to remember system 6?)

so i had to re-arrange my computer space.  two computers.  two monitors.  before it was just a mess of monitors.  check it out below.  with them sitting side by side….its hard not to compare ubuntu vs mac.

my current setup. i need some speakers for the mac.

ubuntu (orange) has a nicer, higher res 30" monitor than the imac. they dont have to fight though. they get along very well together.

more info on chicago 4g service.

train ride:

it worked awesome.  i lost connection completely once where i had to use the clear connection manager to manually reestablish it.  what was interesting was it was occasionally “reconnecting”.  i’m guessing it does not hand off smoothly between towers.  i will see if i’m getting new ip address or it affects ssh sessions.  i’m still getting used to “windows”.

at the office:

i prefer it over the wireless lan.  below is the speed that i tested at work.  again, quite happy with the speed.  this is in the west loop on my desktop in the middle of a business day.  awesome.

better than the companies wlan

its been a while since i posted.  i had to lay low to shake a deal with some bad drug money and unreasonable hookers.  or maybe there was nothing fun to post about until now.

until 4g.  yea…the verizon and at&t 3g commercials are funny but it time to grow up and quit fighting.  also time to quit using 3g.  i mean really.

4g in chicago?  yes.  and there has never been a better time.  well prolly because it wasnt really available before.  what are the options?  oh its so confusing.  4g.  lte.  wimax.  arrgh!

so i hate speculating about technology.  how this is better than that or wutever.  instead, i’ll focus on what i’m using right now in chicago and how it performs.  share info…not speculation

i just picked up the sweet ass wimax usb modem usbw 25100.  this modem only does 4g wimax.  it does not fall back to 3g.  i also picked it up at the clear store that is located in ogilvie station in chicago.  this store just opened earlier this month

it costed me $35 for activation.  the modem was $49.99.  the service is $44.99/mo and i dont have a contract.  service is unlimited.  sprint also offers wimax in chicago but they have a 5gb cap.  clear is saying “no cap” which is why i chose them.

here is what i like:

• speed….its freakin fast!!! i’m getting over 5m-bit downloads.
• month to month contract.  does anyone like contracts?
• price.  for like $120 or something, i was out the door.  and it’s only $45/mo.  my verizon card is like $70/mo.  and its only slow ass 3g.  and i’m gonna trash it.

what i dont like:

• couldn’t get it to work with ubuntu 9.10.  i’m not a beginner with linux.  i’ve used countless aircards with linux for years and unlocked phone tethering.  i have not found how to get this usb modem to work.  level of difficulty will be high here.  good luck.
• size.  its HUGE.
• windows.  i dont even run windows.  i do now (for now)
• did not work out of box.  took calls to tech support to get past “you have a message” being shown in my browser window.  i type google.com for url and i get a http 302 redirect to clear.com and this message that i have to view some message.  tech support fixed my provisioning/profile after a lengthy phone call.

how about some pics!!!

usbw 25100. its HUGE! (thats what she said) comparing it to my old 3g verizon pc express card.

connected to the laptop. there are these angle things you can connect. what shit. make it smaller!! the thingie on the far left is the install software. no cd. they install from a usb key.

clears connection manager running on windows vista. good signal at my house.

this is the part i like. fast as hell. speakeasy speed test. sorry i dont know a better way to test on windows. just giving an idea of the speed. the upload is shite here. i was seeing 750k earlier in the day.

are free trials ever really free?  get a free trial to the paper, or to hbo or so other thing.  but if you don’t remember to call them up and cancel they will start charging you.  if it’s a free trial, why do you need my credit card number??

well there are some things you can try for free.  like search engines.  and if you’re like me, then over the years you’ve tried alot of them.  does anyone remember when altavista was king?  now google dominates, at least in the usa–they struggle in other areas like china.  over the years i’ve tried lots of them…ask, yahoo, lycos, msn, clusty, dogpile, a9, baidu and more.

i’ll cut to the chase.  give bing a serious try.  when i heard microsoft was renaming their engine i tried it right away.  i couldn’t stop laughing my ass off.  it was like the same old crap with a face lift.  but they have been working hard and its worth a second look.

so do this NOW!!  try bing for a week like i’m doing.  there are some things that after one day i’m really impressed with:

• it found what i was looking for.  i was searching for “selenium regular expressions” on google and getting no where.  i crafted many different searches and consider myself better than average at google data mining.  when i tried bing, it found many more relavant search results and what i needed immediately.  that alone is reason i will keep coming back.  google frustrated me for 15 minutes of “re-crafting” searches and bing nailed it.  i went from frustrated to ‘oh hell yeah!!’ in 2 seconds.
• blackhawks.  i love the team.  when i search it on google, it gives me the score and next game.  cool.  searching the same thing on bing….well they show way way more.  see the graphics below.
• travel.  i’m pretty good with expedia, orbitz, cheaptickets, hotwire, travelocity, etc and find some cheep flights.  when i search chicago to san francisco, bing brought back some sweet ass shit with prediction of prices.  i don’t know how good it is, but on my next trip, i will make sure i hit it up.  google just redirects me to one of the popular booking services.  no value add there.
• images.  try bing.  its just better.  hands down.  or stick with whatever you use and good luck to you.
• clustered results.  i was searching on a laptop and it grouped the results into drivers, manuals, parts, supporet, specs.  that is kinda cool.  it grouped my blackhawks search as well.  that is kind cool.

give it a try, will ya?  i really like some of the things they are adding.  google should get their ass in gear.

two things. bing includes more info and linked games. and notice the categories to the left for jerseys, roster, etc.

flights on bing present lots of info. dont know if its good info, but next time i book a trip, i will be returning here to check it out more. it just looks helpful.

arrrgh.  i updated my google analytics for wordpress plugin and that deactivated it.  i use google analytics to analyse the traffic on this site and its kinda cool.  when i upgraded the plugin to version 3.2.2 it deactivated itself.

see a little more about the plugin here and some more about google analytics here.

a little more about the site.  this whole thing is hosted under dreamhost and uses their very easy 1-click-installs and costs $10/month.  they are an excellent hosting company and they give you awesome unix shells if your a unix freak like me.

so while i was at defcon, i had a chance to use pcap to capture 10GB worth of network traffic on what i’ve heard described as the most hostile network environment on the planet.

i’m getting started in my analysis of those captures. a handy utility i found that splits large capture files into smaller fragments is pcap-util.pl

the network overall at defcon has quite a bit of traffic.  here is a chart showing the packets per second over a 760 second period.  in the next segment, i’m going to analysing this data in more detail.

like you can read this chart. the number on the side is 2500 packets/sec. so we averaged just under 3500 packets/sec during this trace.

ubuntu 9.04 looks awesome and i wanted to do a quick video that shows it off a little bit since linux is really very slick.  so i wanted to record all the desktop effects (compiz) and share the video on a common site like youtube or facebook.

so i started searching.  it took about 60 seconds and i found recordmydesktop.  you can install it on ubuntu doing this:

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sudo apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop

then when youre done with that you will have an ogv formated file. who the hell uses that. well somebody the hell must but it wont work with youtube video uploader. so to convert to a popular format like avi you can use a command like this

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mencoder -idx out-2.ogv -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -o ubuntu.avi

if you dont have menconder, just sudo apt-get that as well.

ok…here is the final result off youtube.  cool desktop huh?

something that i’ve been wanting to play with for a while is doing some working with atmel avrs.  so i dont know what i will do yet but its time to get started so i got this usb avr programmer that works with ubuntu and i’m gonna plug it in and watch the smoke come out.  i’m a EE so ive smoked my fair share of projects.  there is no meat to this post.  i just need to get started and see what i can do.

atmel avr programmer compatible with linux

easy as hell and connects faster than any other os ive used. 1 second connect times are not unrealistic with this card on ubuntu.

oh by the way, im using the verizon v740 and i did have to use windows to activate the card and do all the updates to it.

anyway….get the dialer

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sudo apt-get install wvdial

and then do the conf by editing /etc/wvdial.conf to make it look like this:

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[Dialer Defaults]
Phone = #777
Username = blank@vzw3g.com
Password = vzw
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 921600
Init = ATZ
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Stupid mode = on

note on modem, for your system, look in /var/log/messages when you plug the card in and see what modem device your card gets mapped to.

finally start the connect like this:

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sudo wvdial

oh and for this entire article, i configured the card and also writing this on the train. i know aircards are nothing new, i just wanted to show how easy it can be working with ubuntu.

i use 100% ubuntu 8.10 x64 and i’ve wanted to get a drawing table for photo editing.  the trouble is, those damn wacom tablets are like one million dollars.  i’ve always wanted to try one of those cheaper tablets that i see at frys but i was always afraid they would be total pieces of shit.

well fear no more.  i bought the apitek st12 slim tablet at frys and i’m running it on ubuntu 8.10 intrepid x64 with gimp and it works GREAT.  the pressure sensitivity was the thing i feared the most but it works incredibly well.  way beyond my expectations.  what do i like about this tablet???

• its cheap ($129.99 at frys, cheaper online)
• its big.  9×12 size for that price.  no lousy 4×6 size (wacom) for >$200.  bigger is just nicer.
• its freaking thin.  stack two quarters on a table.  thats how thin.
• its common.  seems like its being rebranded under several names.  thats always fun.
• easy to install in ubuntu (follow these directions)
• it uses the wacom driver so it prolly has the same hardware/chips for a fraction of the price.
• its incredible.  had it for two weeks and i’m doing photo work and i can’t believe how well it works and the results i’m getting.  in fact, i think i might start doing this work professionally thanks to this tablet.

maybe you get what you pay for but honestly, i’ve always thought the wacom shit was WAY overpriced.  maybe it is the best but hey, i’m not making a living on this.  i’m just an enthusiast and this is one great tablet.

aiptek st12 next to mbp and logitech dinovo edge

what is hdr? well it stands for high dynamic range and it’s a method of using bracketed exposures and tone mapping to increase the dynamic range of photos.  what options are available in the open source world?  some very good ones as i’m finding out.  i was playing around with qtpfsgui on my intrepid x86 workstation and found it to be impressive.

you can install everything you need with something like this. and while youre at it, get hugin which is an excellent panorama photo stitcher.

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sudo apt-get install qtpfsgui
sudo apt-get install hugin hugin-tools

so after 30 minutes of playing around, here were the results of a un-tripoded bracketed set i took off a bridge on the chicago river near work.

a quick bracketed exposure hdr pic i took today and created with qtpfsgui

and a screenshot showing some of the many tone mapping options in this tool.  and best of all its opensource and better than some of the commercial tools i’ve tried

a bewildering array of tone mapping settings

finally had a chance to check out backtrack 4 beta.  just playing around with the vmware image and they have 2 new tools that look interesting.  maltego and autoscan look very interesting.  i think i will throw this on the laptop and try it out but its a little to cold to do any wardriving at the moment.  oh and my favorite part is the mortal kombat sounds that they added.  the right amount of cheese!

vmware running the provided bt4 image from remote exploit

do i have to go to frys everyday? yes. i went back to visit with the vaio p they have on display and in between get bombarded with directv salesmen offering me promotional rates, i managed to snap so pics.

the screen resolution is crazy as you can see but the processor is just awful.  i ran a test on vista’s performance tools and the box comes in at a 2.7.  not the best benchmark tool but at least something to show how sluggish the box is.  i think for this price, while the box is slick, you’d be better getting the acer aspire.

the viao p at frys. notice the high resoluion screen. some may hate it but i like it.

not a computer you would want to use for long periods unless you tolerate slower machines. wonder how it would behave with linux and xfce wm? better than vista.

i got 22/5 on ultra finally.  and this dude comcaststeve did it for me.  totally awesome.  heres a little bandwidth chart showing the hot new speeds.  notice the the crazy speedburst.

oh yeah...2.9Mbytes/sec!!!