Computer Expertise

Recently, I had my 1TB Fantom external drive go belly up. It was my old storage drive, so it was mostly filled with media and installation files, not critical stuff I need every day.

Nevertheless, I figured that it was long past time to set up the barest of redundant systems so that I would stop losing great swathes of stuff every time a drive died (because DRIVES DIE).

I elected to go with a RaidZ system using a tower I picked up from the local recycle shop. I bought the memory and three 2TB hard drives (4 would have been better, but I'm poor). In a RaidZ this will give me 4TB of storage, and there's enough room in the case for another 4 or so IDE drives, of which I have plenty laying around. I have a stack of 300GB drives, but they're full, so FIRST I need to set up the RaidZ, then move the existing contents to it, then set up another with the spare drives. With me so far?

To use ZFS (and RaidZ), BSD is the way to go. You get the latest and greatest ZFS with all the bells and whistles. I considered going with FreeNAS, but it's not as feature-rich as full BSD distributions, and I have the hardware to support more. I ended up selecting OpenIndiana, which is the most direct off-shoot of the now retired OpenSolaris.

One problem I encountered was that my motherboard isn't detecting all 4GB of RAM. This is a problem with the older BIOS that has since been fixed, but MSI currently only distributes BIOS via their Windows-only custom software. I don't have Windows on this box, I don't WANT Windows on this box, but to even *download* the latest BIOS, that's what everyone is forced to use. But this is no problem; once I have OI (OpenIndiana) up and running, I can throw XP into a virtual machine, run MSI's crazy unnecessary software, download the latest BIOS, grab the file and update the motherboard myself through DOS (booted from USB). Easy peasy.

The next problem I ran into was with installing OI. The LiveCD for the latest version doesn't even boot all the way before it starts throwing all kinds of errors and the crashes. Odd. But that's no problem, because I know there is an even more up-to-date development version in beta.

The beta version didn't throw any kinds of errors before crashing, but it was clear that it was the same problem (it was just being quiet about it). So, that didn't work, and I'm burning up DVDs for nothing. BUT, that's NO PROBLEM, because I can always install OpenSolaris and then =upgrade= to OI after everything is working. Right? Yeah! I've heard of this working.

OpenSolaris exhibited the same problem. Further investigation lead me to believe that the source of the problem with with my DVD drive (what?) or at least the way it interacts with the motherboard. Other people had the same symptoms, but could install from USB. Aha!

I happen to have a spare USB stick RIGHT HERE! So, NO PROBLEM! I download the USB image, and the program to load it on to the stick and... the program crashes. Not compatible with the latest .NET (it was built for 2.0). But that's NO PROBLEM either because the source code is available! So I download the source and go to compile it in Visual Studio and...

My Visual Studio install is borked. When did this happen? A while ago, apparently. BUT THAT'S NO PROBLEM! I got VS through Microsoft's Dreamspark program, which means that it's distributed via ISO. I can just mount that ISO, re-install Visual Studio, recompile the USB Image Writer, boot from the LiveUSB thus created, and install OpenIndia! I'll be back in business in no time! Haha! All my computer expertise at work...

Wait, where did I save that disk image again? Oh right.... my 1TB Fantom external drive.

Far Too Clever

I've been working on my thesis again, having slacked off a lot the past few months. But having slacked off for so long, it's only recently that I discovered that I have misplaced one of my notebooks. That's pretty bad. But things get worse.

Yesterday, I needed a bookmark from XP. I upgraded to Windows 7 in January and haven't really used XP much since then. But I use Zotero to manage my references, so I do all my thesis research in Firefox.

So, I browse to my Firefox profile on the XP partition. The directory is empty.

...What.

Well, empty except the profile.ini file. Which points to the Firefox directory on the old Vista partition. And that's when I remember...

See, I had been hoping back and forth between XP and Vista. I had used only Vista for about a year, since it came with my lappy, but I had some problems (especially with games and older software). So when I re-formatted my computer last year, I put XP back on and swapped back and forth. Except I really didn't all that often. XP was fine and Vista was a headache, so I really pretty much only used XP> BUT, what I had done was, I had set up the Firefox profile to be the same on both (and in Linux when I booted to that). So, no matter which OS I was in at the time, I'd have all my bookmarks and recent tabs, seamlessly.

Which I FORGOT when I put W7 on. See, by that point I wasn't using Vista at all. So, while I made a careful backup of all my XP stuff (just in case), I didn't back up the Vista stuff (because, there wasn't any). Except, there WAS, because that's where all the Firefox stuff was stored.

So, all I have now is a profile.ini that points to a partition that no longer exists, and my most recent other backup is from 2008 (before I started on this current thesis). All because I was too clever for my own good. Sweet.

I'm having, like, the *BEST* week you guys!

Friends with Lauren Hudson

I was on Facebook today, and noticed that I had a friend request from Lauren Hudson (from April 8th, if that gives you an idea of how often I check Facebook. Which is never, actually, I was only on because I noticed a friend request from Ken). So, who is Lauren Hudson?

I'm not sure.

BUT, I saw that I had 15 mutual friends with her. So, I looked at that list, and they were predominantly people from the CEB, or people associated with people from the CEB. Unfortunately, I couldn't see Lauren's full profile unless we were friends. So I accepted a friend request from someone I didn't know (this is the first time I've intentionally done that).

Well, only the single photo (the profile picture), sparse Info (18 year old bisexual interested in friendship, dating, and networking), and that's pretty much it. She has close to 900 friends though. And the messages on her wall...

Justin Abel eracvm,lorjktgopaejlpvjporjktgv,pckpt5ojkvopaetjkoijolgvji,lijghiovj,wrvojirtwoicvj,oij

Drew Scott

Hey hey, we use Earth languages here!

Justin Abel

Is this girl even an earthling?

Justin Abel Kommunikation ist der Schlüssel! who are you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

Tyson Cox Has Lauren responded to anyone?? I sent her a message but haven't heard back from her..

Timothy Dane Lawrence

no response at all.

Allie Friese Are you a real person?

Isaac Kuula

i second that...

Michael Fuller What up how are you who are you

Justin Abel Ms. Hudson, have we spoke?

Washington Leifi i dont know you.... but hey thanks for the add..... we should get to know eachother.....

Adam Ovenell WHO YOU!

Daniel Pierce

Yuuuuppppp!...lol

Phillip Rabideau And you are?

Bryan Dunn

I'm smelling a bot.... 600 friends and no other activity...

And (I assume) so on. Most of the wall posts are like that. So, this is the future we live in, where bots pretend to be 18 year old bisexuals in order to gain our friendship. Oh robot, you know me so well.

Does anyone else remember when Facebook was an actually great, functional site? It's a shame that great, functional, helpful sites don't make as much money as spam-filled social crapfests.

Magic

Content-Aware Fill is making the rounds. Here is yet another example video: Show/Hide


Mwahaha


And stunningly, it turns out that the basic technology (texture synthesis) has been around FOR A DECADE. That's right, nerds in the know were running magic in GIMP ten years before Adobe posted their sneak peak at CS5. The upcoming Photoshop with this magic isn't yet available, but the GIMP version is right now (resynthesizer and heal selection), so I thought I'd run it through its paces. I couldn't find the original hi-res photos anywhere (0 results on TinEye), so I had to make-due with screencaps from the original video.

(rollover for originals)



In the first picture, everything except the sky was an easy Heal Selection. The sky didn't turn out right, and I ended up using clone-stamp to cover up the weirdness, and then Heal Selection over that.




For the desert, again I had to clone-stamp part of the scrub-brush over the road first, and then Heal Selection over that.




Finally, for the panorama (which was actually the first image I tried), I didn't use anything except Heal Selection, BUT I had to do the picture in steps (first one corner, then the next, etc).

So what did I find? Well, although the Resynthesizer tool 'works', it's not nearly as easy to use as what is shown in the CS5 preview video. And some of the results were a little wonky. But it's fairly quick and easy, and the output will usually pass a quick glance (but not intense scrutiny).

What you'd need to do this yourself:
GIMP itself
Updated Resynthesizer (compiled for windows, sorry)
The patched Heal Selection script
Other References:
Another guy Resynthesizing the photos
Another guy testing it out last October
Other handy GIMP tips/tools:
Tweaking GIMP to replace Photoshop (sorta)
The Liquid Rescale plugin
The do-everything G'MIC plugin, although its predecessor GREYCstoration has better examples
The FX Foundry is a good collection of scripts
(Gimp Guru used to have good tutorials, but then they switched to WordPress and lost all the graphics)

Social Butterfly

This is a recent screenshot of my Gmail tab. Yes, that is five chat windows open at the bottom. I can't see enough of the screen to reply to the e-mails I'm getting.

SO, if you send me a chat and I don't respond right away, don't take it personally. There may be a line ahead of you.

Removed

Here's another reason (of many) that I like Google:

If they block some results, for any reason, they will TELL YOU.



Right there at the bottom of the page. Not in tiny text either. They practically bold it and surround it by flashing lights.

Yahoo didn't. Bing didn't. And I couldn't find any results that they were showing that Google wasn't (because maybe they weren't asked under the DMCA to remove any results), but Google also shows more results on the first page (15 vs 10@Yahoo vs 14@Bing).

Threeway

Love that search engine.

So, someone recommended Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture to me recently. It sounded interesting, so I decided to check the Spokane County Library page to see if they had it.

I threw the title into the search engine, but forgot to set it as Title and it searched as Words or Phrase.

The first result was Threeway sex, whose only result was Triangles (Interpersonal relations), whose only result was a Vampire Diaries book.

Not... exactly what I was looking for.

Google Voice

Google Voice lets me invite other people now? A couple invitations showed up in my inbox today.

Speaking of Google Voice, here's something I've been meaning to post for months now but kept forgetting. It's about sending texts from Google Voice:

Television Piracy

Here's why I don't think that downloading TV shows off the Interwebs is a real threat to broadcasters:

I can get better quality picture and sound for FREE over the air with a simple antenna. Plus, I can get THAT faster than I can download it (often before it is even available for download).

Downloading has some advantages, I guess, but I have a DVR to capture off the air, which gives me most of them anyway.

And yes, for quality one can download the hi-res versions of a show, but a single episode of House is about as big as every episode of Important Things with Demetri Martin combined.

Just an observation.

(Also, if you ARE a downloader, and you have a fast enough connection, check out Hulu. Some of their streams are faster and higher-quality than your average cap, and the commercials are shorter than over-the-air)

Motion Portrait

Big deal, right? Just another picture of Phoenix in a wig. Or... is it?

Actually, it's a Motion Portrait.

I uploaded a picture of myself, and it did the rest. Really, a static image just doesn't convey the effect, because on the site I'm looking around, smiling, blinking, etc. It's like the pictures in Harry Potter.



You can change the wig or facial hair and save a snapshot, although the snapshots they generate always put your face back to neutral (meaning, the same as the uploaded photo) instead of whichever way you're looking at the time. Oh well.

Some tips on the photo you upload:

• Straight-on head shot. Don't turn your head even a little. This affects EVERYTHING.
• Close-cropped or tied-down hair, otherwise it will poke out through the wigs/hats.
• No facial hair. It has trouble finding your chin through that forrest.
• No background. It needs to know where your head ends.

You can get a pretty interesting (if a bit creepy) effect. It's not quite as good as real-life (especially when it blinks), but it's getting closer.

Work Neato-ness

Cleaned out the ol' cubicle today. Felt like I was moving out of my apartment. I might have had too much stuff here.

Got all nostalgic, running across a bunch of keepsakes and reminders of the past two years. A lot of good times.

Right now, I'm done except for a backup of my work on this computer. Brought in my external, installed Terracopy (if you use Windows...), selected the required folders and let it run.

It says it will take about ... well, why don't I just show you?



Yes. 52 days, 22 hours 58 minutes 42 seconds remaining.

I may be here for quite some time.

UPDATE:



Neato.

UPDATE AGAIN:

Also I'm very hungry, and my painkillers are wearing off.

NEATO.

UPDATE AGAIN AGAIN:

I just realized that I still have the Linux partition to do after this.

NEAT. OH.

More Snow Leopard Coolness

Bluetooth is (at the moment) working again in 10.6.1 and I found a sort-of workaround for the previously mentioned remote control problems.

The workaround is to have Quicktime open somewhere. Not in use, just open. Because, hey, what's a little resource waster, eh? (The previous trick was to have iTunes open on a store page, but that takes even MORE resources)

Anyway, with the QT player open, the remote once again works with other programs like it SHOULD. (actually, it doesn't. updated below)

As biskitwheels said:

I believe there are a few issues stemming from one problem. One of many problems with Apple's growing desire to control your user experience.

The solution is to allow us to manage iTunes keyboard shortcuts. Turn them off, re-map the keyboard, whatever it is we happen to want to do, we should have the ability to do it, especially for a matter so trivial of a feature yet such an annoyance to us. Additionally, it is so obviously contrived to push their software on us it makes me a bit sick to my stomach.

Now we have such a egregious fail on Apple's part, this auto-launch with no turn off switch, it is getting bad enough that people are speaking out. I hope it opens up a discussion about users making our own decision to use itunes or not. Seems as if Apple thinks we need iTunes in order to breathe, which WE DO NOT.

Apple, don't just disappear your most recent error, stand up and correct it by allowing us the ability to shape our user experience, even in the most basic of ways.

And while you're at it, throw in FLAC for us, ok?

My reasons to stick with this OS are dwindling fast.

(His line about Apple disappearing their error is in reference to the threads in the Apple support forum that have been closed/deleted/marked-as-solved when the problem very much still exists)

Anyway, the New Coolness is that SMB sharing doesn't work with XP anymore. So, now that I have the remote working, I can watch all jack-squat because I can't connect to the file server because it's on XP.

DUMB.

Once again, something that worked FINE in Leopard that is BROKEN in Snow Leopard. Do I wait for a fix? Or do I reformat and reinstall EVERYTHING.

Note for future use: Time Machine is good for you, and you should use it. (If I had a Time Machine backup of my Leopard system, I could downgrade)

UPDATE:
SMB sharing still doesn't work when I try to connect via Finder, BUT it DOES work if I connect via Plex. BUT! The Quicktime and iTunes tricks for getting the remote working, which work for VLC, DON'T work for Plex!

Apple, why you so stoopid?

UPDATE AGAIN:
Alright, it might not be malicious douchebaggery on Apple's part. It may instead be an actual bug. But I notice that they didn't fix it in 10.6.1, so...

Misunderstanding Markup

Ran across this interesting explanation of what XHTML 2 is (and is not).



You can read the full comic here.

(via)

Snow Leopard

I recently updated my mac mini with Snow Leopard (which btw you can get from Amazon for $25).

So how is it?

It killed my mini.

Well, that's not quite true. SL is an improvement over Leopard in a number of small ways (size and speed for example), but it does introduce a couple of showstopper bugs.

1) The Apple Remote.
Previously, I used my mini (which is connected to my living room TV) as a media PC. All the software to that end (VLC, Plex, etc), I controlled with the standard Apple remote.

Well, Apple didn't like that one bit. NOW, no matter which program is active, the remote launches Front Row or iTunes. The mini is basically unusable as a media PC until this is fixed.

That's not the real showstopper.

2) Bluetooth is broken.
Bluetooth works fine until you restart your Mac after upgrading. By which I mean, you can upgrade, and run for DAYS and everything will be GREAT. And then if you restart, BAM, Bluetooth goes bye bye.

And I only have a Bluetooth keyboard.

Boy, let me tell you how frustrating THAT is!

The mouse has completely stopped working, but I recently switched to a trackball (RF, so still wireless, but not Bluetooth). The keyboard does work sometimes (maybe 1 out of 20 restarts). Somewhat random though.

Now, I originally thought this was a problem with Little Snitch (a 1-sided firewall), because it didn't show up until after I had to reboot after installing LS. But a trip to the Apple support forums tells the real story.

HUNDREDS (thousands?) of people are having the exact same problem I am. Install Snow Leopard, reboot, Bluetooth stops (and sometimes Airport, but if I can get the keyboard working that works too, so wtf?).

Crazy frustrating. BUT, if I didn't rely on a Bluetooth keyboard, would I even notice? NO! I'd be happy with the leaner, meaner Snow Leopard. Programs are snappier, the whole thing takes GIGABYTES less space on the hard drive, and there are a bunch of little UI improvements. If I didn't have that keyboard, SL would be a huge success.

I hope it gets resolved soon, as I am unable to work on my final school project on any other computer. In the meantime, I guess I'll look for a USB keyboard and a LOOONG extender cable.

Fun with GVoice FINAL

Yesterday's message was:

hey dad it's when you pick up credit problems she's for dinner but i wonder if you get this before you get here i guess whenever you get here okay bye

The answer to yesterday's message: Show/Hide
PHOENIX! Uh, we need you to pick up grated parmesan cheese for dinner but I wonder if you'll get this before you get here. Um, I guess we'll find out when you get here. Okay, bye.


How close were you?

So, what have we learned?

Well despite my mother's concern that computers are monitoring everything we say on the phone, I don't think we have much to worry about in that regard right now. In retrospect, you can see where the computer went wrong sometimes (credit problems she's = grated parmesan cheese). Speech recognition remains one of those HARD PROBLEMS in computer science.

Still, Google Voice is a very cool service. ^_^

Fun with GVoice 3

Yesterday's message was:

hey it's i missed your call from you know the restaurant scout again hello my name here and i hope this you night here on the way and not like on your way back gimme a call thanks

The answer to yesterday's message: Show/Hide
Hey, I saw I missed two calls from you. Um, the restaurant was kinda loud I guess. I dunno why I didn't hear them. I hope this, you not answering means you're on the way and not, like, on your way back. Gimme a call, thanks.


How close were you?

Let's try one last time.

Our final message is from Thomas (and is one of my favorites ^_^):

hey dad it's when you pick up credit problems she's for dinner but i wonder if you get this before you get here i guess whenever you get here okay bye

Answer in tomorrow's post.

Fun with GVoice 2

Yesterday's message was:

hello it's just it's terry spelling call me back

The answer to yesterday's message: Show/Hide
HELLOOO! It's your sister. You should probably call me back.

I have no sisters named Terry Spelling (that I know if; it's a pretty complicated family, so...)

How close were you?

Let's try again.

Today's message is from Emily:

hey it's i missed your call from you know the restaurant scout again hello my name here and i hope this you night here on the way and not like on your way back gimme a call thanks

Answer in tomorrow's post.

Fun with GVoice 1

Google Voice (an awesome service, btw) has an interesting feature wherein it attempts to transcribe voice mails into text and send them to you as e-mails.

My mom confessed to me that she's afraid they are using this to listen in on ALL phone calls everyone makes.

So now we're going to play a game. I'll give you one of these transcribed messages, and you get to try and guess the original message.

EXAMPLE:
What Google heard:

hey jane it's irene i was just calling to get directions i'm here in G V my phone number here gimme gimme a call back

What was actually said: Show/Hide
Hey Phoenix, it's Eileen. I was just calling to get directions. I'm here in Cheney. Um, I found your number. Yay me! Uh, gimme a call back.

We'll start off with an easy one. Our first message is from one of my sisters:

hello it's just it's terry spelling call me back

Answer in tomorrow's post.

iGoogle aGain

Google has updated the iGoogle page for the UK.

You probably don't remember this, but I first ran into the new iGoogle last year, while trying out Chrome. I hated it right off the bat.

Then that became the standard iGoogle for the US. I really tried to like it (thinking I was stuck with it) but in addition to WASTING SCREEN REAL ESTATE it breaks functionality. Sure, it introduces some new functionality, but it's all for things I don't care about (like being able to send an e-mail from the home page, I'LL JUST USE GMAIL KTHX). [Actually, two of the old functions that were missing from the new iGoogle (dragging gadgets to tabs and minimizing gadgets) have been re-added, but it now takes twice as many clicks to minimize/expand]

I found that if I used the UK iGoogle, it was the older, better version. I changed my homepage to http://www.google.co.uk/ig?hl=en

Well, today the iGoogle crapfection has reached the British isles. Dammit, Google!

Complaining won't work either. There are *THOUSANDS* of complaints in the forums. Google doesn't care. They aren't going to go back.

From the forums:

FINALLY! - I found an official response from Google on the iGoogle Tabs issue!!!

From http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web_Search_Help-Personalizing/browse_thread/thread/4339c958abd05ce9/ace24bc4865066dc#ace24bc4865066dc

On Oct.22, 2008 : A user asks "Can you respond to the tabs-on-the left issue?"

Google (Paul) answers: With my bold'ing of relevant text.

     Hi there,

     I don't think I've answered this question since last Thursday, but I'm
     happy to again. The left-side navigation is an key part of the support
     for canvas view, and canvas view is an important new feature of
     iGoogle. We're planning on continuing to develop and support the new
     features (as well as add more new features into the area on the left
     in the coming weeks and months), and have no plans to include a toggle
     between tabs-on-top and tabs-on-the-left.

     -Paul
     iGoogle Guide

So, there you have it!

Google's current silence on the request for a Tabs-on-Top option is simply a polite phrasing of f... off.

Well, I guess it is just IMPOSSIBLE to both use canvas view AND not waste screen space. Oh wait: There is a Firefox addon to give me my space back. *THIS* is what Google should have done.

I'm not giving in yet though. I've found that http://www.google.com/ig?hl=all takes me back to the older, better iGoogle (for now).

Tron It

I'm just going to assume that we've all seen the trailer for the new Tron movie, AND knows about the Wizard of Oz + Dark Side of the Moon mashup and jump right in.

And I know a lot of the 'coincidences of timing' we spot in these things are a product of A) our own pattern-matching brains and B) the fact that a lot of entertainment follows certain rhythms. BUT, in the words of a Slashdot poster:

Somebody already mashed this trailer up with Michael Jackson's "Beat It" - it works disturbingly well.
--Ryv

Without further ado: Show/Hide