Karma RSS

My first online ILS landing with X-Plane and VATSIM

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2008-05-10T00:53:59-04:00

This is my first ILS landing into KPHL (Philly) from KABE (Allentown) with X-Plane on the VATSIM network.... This is after I misunderstood the runway that Approach told me to land on, and then he very calmly told me to 'go around' ... hehe

All I heard him say was I was approved for runway 27 .... kphl, has a 27L and a 27R ... I went for the L when I SHOULD have heard him tell me R .... anyway, he gave me another chance (on L this time, and I made it.

Neverwinter Nights 2 on Leopard (Mac)

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2008-03-06T22:28:06-05:00

If you're thinking about buying Neverwinter Nights 2 for the Mac.... don't. I have two Macs, both Intel. Both above the minimum requirements for Neverwinter Nights 2. The game installs fine, however upon start it just crashes and sticks some debug info in the Console.app. It does this on both my Mac Pro and my Macbook Pro. I started thinking about it and decided that it must be because I have a case sensitive filesystem. I sent an email to Aspyr asking them to let me know which files I should 'rename' or 'symlink' so that I can get the game running. Oh my, look at the B.S. I got back on this one:

"We do not test our games for the ability to run in the case sensitive file format because almost all of our games are ported directly from PC versions of the game.
Getting the game to run in the case sensitive file format would require us to change parts of the PC code that we cannot change if we want the game to run in the default case-insensitive (non-case sensitive)file format. For the game to run on CS file formats, we would essentially have to release 2 versions of the game. Not to mention that we would have to alter the original PC game code which is outside of the licensing agreements we have agreed to with the original PC game developer.
OS X can not be installed on a case-sensitive drive. So that means you're still
running regular old OSX, but that some of your external discs can be
case-sensitive if for some reason you want that.
If you format a volume as Case Sensitive/Journaled and try to install Mac OS X Server on it, the Installer will tell you that you can't install on the selected volume until settings are changed.

When you need to use the Case Sensitive/Journaled file system, you should partition the server's hard disk (or use multiple hard disks). Put case sensitive items on a Case Sensitive/Journaled volume, and install Mac OS X on a volume that is not case sensitive.

With all of that said, you will need to pursue a refund from Amazon.com as we only provide refunds for damaged or defective products."

Anyone else notice the fact that they would need to make "TWO VERSIONS" of the game in order to support a case sensitive filesystem ... or that they'd have to touch a lot of "original PC game code".... I'd like someone to show me where I couldn't symlink a file to make an easy fix for this... This is just pure laziness.

In any case, I decided that I would make one last ditch effort. I created a sparse disk image with Disk Utility formated as simple old HFS+. Then I copied the entire Neverwinter Nights 2 directory over to it. OMG.... it worked! Well, for about 10 minutes. My machine would continuously go to a black screen of death that I couldn't return from. I even ssh'd into the box from another and killed the windowing server, no dice, no respawn, just dead. Oh well, I'm giving up and sending it back to Aspyr (their customer support is to be appreciated, they are giving me no issues with a return and refund directly from them).

On a side note, if you have Neverwinter Nights (the first game) and a case sensitive file system, create a sparse disk image, copy the folder over and it'll run like a charm.

Microsoft Entourage 2008 Synchronization (Syncing) DELETES ALL EVENTS

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2008-02-25T19:14:22-05:00

I've been TRYING to use Entourage 2008... I REALLY want it to work. However, so far I've wasted so much time it's absolutely amazing. I've had to rebuild my calendar from scratch so many times at this point I almost don't even need a calendar -- I've got everything memorized!

So, I used to use Snerdware's product for syncing my Exchange calendar with iCal, which definitely wasn't perfect, but was useable. I've upgraded to Leopard and some changes in Sync services has rendered their product useless. So I waited patiently for Microsoft's release of Office 2008. Man, is the joke on me or what?

First, let me say that I use more than once Mac. I have a desktop and a laptop. I use .mac (dotmac) to keep them in sync (preferences, idisk, the whole nine yards). Since Leopard I have definitely noticed some 'issues' with my iDisk not always syncing perfectly ... which has me a little tense. Tense enough to back it up regularly on my desktop, which is Time Machined. I digress. One of the things that is synced is my iCal. I have several calendars. I used Snerdware for exchange, Spanning Sync for my google calendar, some google ical feeds, and a few standalone calendars -- all of which synced with my iPhone perfectly. AND synced between my macs perfectly.

Bring in Entourage 2008.

{skip much heartache with losing data and multiple calendars being fubar, etc here, many hours wasted ... decide to start from scratch}

This brings me to the point where I have ONE iCal calendar ... called calendar on my laptop. I've synced it successfully via .mac (dotmac) to my desktop. I have entourage 2008 installed on both macs. I enable sync services for calendar ONLY (not address book or anything else) on my laptop. Entourage 2008 makes it's Entourage calendar within my iCal. It successfully syncs all of my events. Yay. I work all day on my laptop with no issues. I shut down my laptop and go home for the evening. I login to work from my desktop, use Entourage (that is NOT setup to sync to iCal ... I've already been down that path and it's ugly) to check some mail and notice that my calendar events are still intact. Good deal. I work all weekend on my desktop, accepting events, etc. Monday comes. I go to work, open up my trusty laptop start working and open up Entourage 2008. Guess what? What do you think happened? Almost ALL of the events on my calendar are gone.... from both iCal AND Entourage 2008. It wiped them off the server even (I checked via webmail)!

For your own sanity, do not use Entourage 2008 to sync your calendars. I wish wish WISH there was a better solution than to use Microsoft Office 2008 for my group calendaring! I've already given up on Power Point 2008 and Excel 2008 (omg, try using Excel with two monitors .... are you KIDDING ME??? How did this take two years, it seems like they where actually RUSHED to get it out?? --- I digress ... )

Does ANYONE have a package that will just sync Exchange to a standard caldav server??? That way I could use any caldav client I wanted!

The scary part is they just FIXED a mass delete bug in Entourage 2004 THIS MONTH!!!!! I hope it doesn't take that long to fix this one.

By the way, I've looked around on the web ... it's not just me!

Applescript for ignoring IMs from people not on your buddy list

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2008-01-02T15:53:10-05:00

(*
stolen from apple's script of the slightly same name
*)
using terms from application "iChat"
on received text invitation theText from theBuddy for theChat
set ichatService to service of theChat
if status of ichatService is connected then
-- display dialog "checking buddies "
set buds to buddies of ichatService
repeat with theBuddyCompare in buds
if status of theBuddyCompare is not unknown and id of theBuddyCompare = id of theBuddy then
accept theChat
return
end if
end repeat
end if
decline theChat
end received text invitation

on received audio invitation theText from theBuddy for theChat
if (screen sharing of theChat is none) then
accept theChat
end if
end received audio invitation

on received video invitation theText from theBuddy for theChat
if (screen sharing of theChat is none) then
accept theChat
end if
end received video invitation

on received file transfer invitation theFileTransfer
accept theFileTransfer
end received file transfer invitation

end using terms from

Applescript script to automatically start and stop Xtorrent depending on network connection

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-12-02T00:33:00-05:00

UPDATED -- I attached the zip of the applescript application here as well (and it's updated to handle quitting cleanly as well as exception catching)

I decided to write a script that would automatically quit Xtorrent if my VPN tunnel went down. I wrote it so you could use any network connection (or should be able to), but only tested it with a VPN connection. The script runs in the background and will automatically spin up the VPN of your choosing and will kick up Xtorrent for you as well. It checks every 6 seconds to determine if the network connection is down, and if it is, it quits Xtorrent and tries to bring the connection back up. Once the connection comes back up, it will restart Xtorrent. Figured I'd share the Applescript in case anyone else out there was interested in the same thing.

VPNXtorrent.app

My father's retirement in the Ft Stockton Pioneer!

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-09-10T22:59:37-04:00

iClip not so great an OSX app ... for support or stability

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-07-13T16:41:14-04:00

Jay Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 1:05 AM
To: support2007@inventive.us
Hello,
I use iClip as a replacement for cuteclips as cuteclips has some issues on intel now for whatever reason. I like iClip except for some performance issues that I've noticed. When something very large (text mainly, haven't really tried other large things) iClip becomes very unstable and has even crashed. It also is IMPOSSIBLE to clear just the bin that the large text is in (this is where I've seen it crash actually). I use iClip primarily as a clipboard buffer so everything I copy ends up getting buffered in iClip....

I've also noticed that iClip does not always paste what I ask it to (specifically in Java applications, such as eclipse's IDE and Intellij). It will generally paste what my latest clipboard contains and then when I try and paste the wanted material AGAIN, it will actually paste what I want it to... pretty annoying really.

Another thing that would be nice is for something in the buffer that has been pasted to move to the top of the 'stack' so that if something is often pasted id won't roll off, but also won't take an additional space (so trade where it was in place with the object at the top of the stack).

Summary:
1) large text crashes iclip and/or makes it unstable -- would like this fixed, or a setting that I can say text larger than x bytes does not get buffered
2) Java pasting doesn't work the first time - would like to see this fixed
3) Pasted content going to top of stack as an option

Sincerely,
Jay

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 1:16 PM
To: Jay
Hi Mr.,

In regards to your first issue, are you saying that iClip crashes if
you try to delete the clipping bin containing the text item? Do you get
an error message when it crashes? What kind of content is the text
(vector or some proprietary format?)

Is it possible that the java app you're pasting from is not immediately
pasting data to the clipboard? Have you tried pasting into another app
to see if the clipboard contains that data? If there's a delay when the
java app hands the data to the clipboard, that would explain why iClip
pastes the old clipboard content first. I'm not sure why else this
would happen since the clipboard can only contain one item at a time
and i
Clip is just grabbing what's there.

Thanks for the feature request. I'll pass that on to development.

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 9:32 PM
To: Inventive Support
The main (first) issue is that if I copy, say, 512MB-1GB of text (not vector/proprietary) into my clipboard iClip becomes unusable. And I can't even get it to be usable by trying to clear the copy/paste bins because it will hang and eventually crash. I would like a way for a 'max' iClip size so that iClip doesn't try to take it from the clipboard in these cases unless there is a better way to handle it. I copy huge logs around quite a bit which makes this very annoying... and then once it's in the cache, I end up having to delete my preferences for iClip in order to get iClip to even start without issues.

For the second problem, please see the attached movie of the exact bug.... completely reproducible.

j

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 8:32 AM
To: Inventive Support
any updates on this?

Thanks,
j

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 7:15 PM
To: Inventive Support
Again, any updates on this? I have, at this point, had to abandon using iClip, but would like to use it again if the below problems are/will be fixed. Any word?

Sincerely,
J

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 11:42 PM
To: Jay
Hi Mr.,

We're working on a fix for the crash related to large text clippings. Unfortunately, I can't give you a timeframe on when it will be available. It should be incorporated into the next release. I'll notify you if a fix becomes available before then.

As far as the java pasting issue is concerned, there's nothing we can do to control the behavior of other applications that delay transferral of data into clipboard. iClip collects what is on the clipboard. If the other app is not immediately pasting data to the clipboard, iClip cannot immediately retrieve it. Have you contacted the java app developers to see if they know of any issue that would cause a pasting delay from within their app?

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 11:53 PM
To: Inventive Support
did you see the video i sent? the clip IS available within iclip, iclip just doesn't paste the right one.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 1:56 PM
To: Jay
Hi Mr.,

Yes, I watched the video and I forwarded it to engineering as well. Please try the following suggestion from our engineer to see if we can identify the cause of the issue.

"Click a paste button in iClip, then click outside the app (like to make the Finder active), then click to make it active again. If that makes it work, then the only way around this issue is to have the app developer modify its behavior so that it always reads the current Clipboard data when trying to paste. Otherwise, our hands are tied."

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 2:19 PM
To: Inventive Support
I'm using JumpCut (sourceforge) and have not had this issue, so I find it hard to believe that '[your] hands are tied'. This is not just with one application, it's any Java application that I use. (Intellij, eclipse, smartsvn, etc, etc).

j

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 4:32 PM
To: Inventive Support
crickets?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 6:15 PM
To: Jay
In my last email to you I asked you to perform a test so we can identify the cause of the issue. Have you performed the test? If so, what were the results? Here it is again:

"Click a paste button in iClip, then click outside the app (like to make the Finder active), then click to make it active again. If that makes it work, then the only way around this issue is to have the app developer modify its behavior so that it always reads the current Clipboard data when trying to paste. Otherwise, our hands are tied."

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 7:29 PM
To: Inventive Support
Did you watch the video that I sent of the issue?

Jay

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 8:48 PM
To: Jay
Yes, I did. It doesn't provide the information I need to identify the issue. It only illustrates the problem. If you're not willing to perform the test the developer recommended, there is absolutely nothing I can do to help you.

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 9:48 PM
To: Inventive Support
This is an easily reproducible problem with iClip, with ALL java applications (that I've tried), which another product (JumpCut) doesn't seem to have an issue with. I have even gone as far as giving you a VIDEO of the problem. Let me repeat, a problem that JUMPCUT DOESN'T HAVE (which means to me that if this actually where an independent Application issue, yes I would be contacting the developer to see if I could help debug the issue). I think I've gone above and beyond in trying to report an issue that you don't seem to think is an issue. I have UNINSTALLED your application because it doesn't work for me (even though I purchased it). I don't plan on reinstalling it to do this:

"Click a paste button in iClip, then click outside the app (like to make the Finder active), then click to make it active again."

Which is at BEST a vague description of what I should be doing to placate you and your support team. I don't even understand what it is you are asking me to do. Should I be trying to paste before and after? When should I actually do a copy? Beside the point. If Inventive doesn't plan on following up with this (am I truly the ONLY person who has reported that your application doesn't perform within Eclipse and IntelliJ?) and actually replicate the problem itself (after I've given EXTENSIVE information on the issue -- and even pointed to an OPEN SOURCE application that works just fine), it amazes me that you keep customers with this type of zealous energy (facetious) emanating from the support team.

Please let me know if you actually plan on trying to figure out the issue, I promise I won't bug you anymore either way.

Sincerely,
Jay

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Fri, Jul 13, 2007 at 3:56 PM
To: Jay
Mr.,

It's unfortunate that you've chosen not to work with us to resolve this issue. If another customer ever reports a similar issue and is willing to provide us with the necessary data to pinpoint the cause of the problem, I'll let you know our results.

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

Post a commentAlert Admin

iClip ReviewiClip is not all it's cracked up to be; slow and doesn't work correctly with Java Applications - Version: 4, 7/13/2007 01:33PM PST

jcolson (Kwazee LLC)
iClip crashes and hands your system if you copy large blocks of text (100's of megabytes will easily reproduce the issues -- all I want is for iClip to IGNORE anything that big!). The only way to clean it up us to delete your iClip cache in the Preferences directory.

iClip does not work correctly with Java Applications (particularly Eclipse and IntelliJ). I have reproduced the issue, made a VIDEO of how to reproduce the issue and sent it to Inventive for them to investigate, and they have no desire to help. Instead they asked me to basically re-install their buggy application (that I've paid for by the way) and do their debugging for them.

Here is the email chain (removed personal information and names):

Jay Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 1:05 AM
To: support2007@inventive.us
Hello,
I use iClip as a replacement for cuteclips as cuteclips has some issues on intel now for whatever reason. I like iClip except for some performance issues that I've noticed. When something very large (text mainly, haven't really tried other large things) iClip becomes very unstable and has even crashed. It also is IMPOSSIBLE to clear just the bin that the large text is in (this is where I've seen it crash actually). I use iClip primarily as a clipboard buffer so everything I copy ends up getting buffered in iClip....

I've also noticed that iClip does not always paste what I ask it to (specifically in Java applications, such as eclipse's IDE and Intellij). It will generally paste what my latest clipboard contains and then when I try and paste the wanted material AGAIN, it will actually paste what I want it to... pretty annoying really.

Another thing that would be nice is for something in the buffer that has been pasted to move to the top of the 'stack' so that if something is often pasted id won't roll off, but also won't take an additional space (so trade where it was in place with the object at the top of the stack).

Summary:
1) large text crashes iclip and/or makes it unstable -- would like this fixed, or a setting that I can say text larger than x bytes does not get buffered
2) Java pasting doesn't work the first time - would like to see this fixed
3) Pasted content going to top of stack as an option

Sincerely,
Jay

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 1:16 PM
To: Jay
Hi Mr.,

In regards to your first issue, are you saying that iClip crashes if
you try to delete the clipping bin containing the text item? Do you get
an error message when it crashes? What kind of content is the text
(vector or some proprietary format?)

Is it possible that the java app you're pasting from is not immediately
pasting data to the clipboard? Have you tried pasting into another app
to see if the clipboard contains that data? If there's a delay when the
java app hands the data to the clipboard, that would explain why iClip
pastes the old clipboard content first. I'm not sure why else this
would happen since the clipboard can only contain one item at a time
and i
Clip is just grabbing what's there.

Thanks for the feature request. I'll pass that on to development.

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 9:32 PM
To: Inventive Support
The main (first) issue is that if I copy, say, 512MB-1GB of text (not vector/proprietary) into my clipboard iClip becomes unusable. And I can't even get it to be usable by trying to clear the copy/paste bins because it will hang and eventually crash. I would like a way for a 'max' iClip size so that iClip doesn't try to take it from the clipboard in these cases unless there is a better way to handle it. I copy huge logs around quite a bit which makes this very annoying... and then once it's in the cache, I end up having to delete my preferences for iClip in order to get iClip to even start without issues.

For the second problem, please see the attached movie of the exact bug.... completely reproducible.

j

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 8:32 AM
To: Inventive Support
any updates on this?

Thanks,
j

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 7:15 PM
To: Inventive Support
Again, any updates on this? I have, at this point, had to abandon using iClip, but would like to use it again if the below problems are/will be fixed. Any word?

Sincerely,
J

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 11:42 PM
To: Jay
Hi Mr.,

We're working on a fix for the crash related to large text clippings. Unfortunately, I can't give you a timeframe on when it will be available. It should be incorporated into the next release. I'll notify you if a fix becomes available before then.

As far as the java pasting issue is concerned, there's nothing we can do to control the behavior of other applications that delay transferral of data into clipboard. iClip collects what is on the clipboard. If the other app is not immediately pasting data to the clipboard, iClip cannot immediately retrieve it. Have you contacted the java app developers to see if they know of any issue that would cause a pasting delay from within their app?

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 11:53 PM
To: Inventive Support
did you see the video i sent? the clip IS available within iclip, iclip just doesn't paste the right one.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 1:56 PM
To: Jay
Hi Mr.,

Yes, I watched the video and I forwarded it to engineering as well. Please try the following suggestion from our engineer to see if we can identify the cause of the issue.

"Click a paste button in iClip, then click outside the app (like to make the Finder active), then click to make it active again. If that makes it work, then the only way around this issue is to have the app developer modify its behavior so that it always reads the current Clipboard data when trying to paste. Otherwise, our hands are tied."

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 2:19 PM
To: Inventive Support
I'm using JumpCut (sourceforge) and have not had this issue, so I find it hard to believe that '[your] hands are tied'. This is not just with one application, it's any Java application that I use. (Intellij, eclipse, smartsvn, etc, etc).

j

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 4:32 PM
To: Inventive Support
crickets?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 6:15 PM
To: Jay
In my last email to you I asked you to perform a test so we can identify the cause of the issue. Have you performed the test? If so, what were the results? Here it is again:

"Click a paste button in iClip, then click outside the app (like to make the Finder active), then click to make it active again. If that makes it work, then the only way around this issue is to have the app developer modify its behavior so that it always reads the current Clipboard data when trying to paste. Otherwise, our hands are tied."

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 7:29 PM
To: Inventive Support
Did you watch the video that I sent of the issue?

Jay

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 8:48 PM
To: Jay
Yes, I did. It doesn't provide the information I need to identify the issue. It only illustrates the problem. If you're not willing to perform the test the developer recommended, there is absolutely nothing I can do to help you.

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 9:48 PM
To: Inventive Support
This is an easily reproducible problem with iClip, with ALL java applications (that I've tried), which another product (JumpCut) doesn't seem to have an issue with. I have even gone as far as giving you a VIDEO of the problem. Let me repeat, a problem that JUMPCUT DOESN'T HAVE (which means to me that if this actually where an independent Application issue, yes I would be contacting the developer to see if I could help debug the issue). I think I've gone above and beyond in trying to report an issue that you don't seem to think is an issue. I have UNINSTALLED your application because it doesn't work for me (even though I purchased it). I don't plan on reinstalling it to do this:

"Click a paste button in iClip, then click outside the app (like to make the Finder active), then click to make it active again."

Which is at BEST a vague description of what I should be doing to placate you and your support team. I don't even understand what it is you are asking me to do. Should I be trying to paste before and after? When should I actually do a copy? Beside the point. If Inventive doesn't plan on following up with this (am I truly the ONLY person who has reported that your application doesn't perform within Eclipse and IntelliJ?) and actually replicate the problem itself (after I've given EXTENSIVE information on the issue -- and even pointed to an OPEN SOURCE application that works just fine), it amazes me that you keep customers with this type of zealous energy (facetious) emanating from the support team.

Please let me know if you actually plan on trying to figure out the issue, I promise I won't bug you anymore either way.

Sincerely,
Jay

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventive Support Fri, Jul 13, 2007 at 3:56 PM
To: Jay
Mr.,

It's unfortunate that you've chosen not to work with us to resolve this issue. If another customer ever reports a similar issue and is willing to provide us with the necessary data to pinpoint the cause of the problem, I'll let you know our results.

Support Guy
Inventive, Inc.

Synchronoss CEO on FastMoney

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-07-02T22:44:42-04:00

My company's (Synchronoss/SNCR) CEO (Steve Waldis) on the CNBC show "Fast Money".
Here it is.

Updated the ssh tunnel manager with intel ssh binary

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-06-08T11:24:03-04:00

A visitor to the site (Frankie - post here) mentioned that I never replaced the ssh binary within the SSH Tunnel Manager in order to take advantage of the intel binary! Doh!
So, without further ado, it's now recompiled with the intel version of ssh.
Download here. (this is a thinkfree office link, once you go to the page, use the menu in the upper right to download the file)
Thanks Frankie!

Too Funny! How vi would look if it was written by Microsoft

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-03-09T01:20:05-05:00

Found this one on DIGG, original content from: http://blogs.sun.com/marigan/entry/how_the_vi_editor_would

How to setup sendmail to use port 587/tls and gmail as your smarthost

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-02-26T23:06:43-05:00

Note: I happen to be using Sendmail version 8.13 and CentOS with a 2.6.9 kernel, so as long as you're pretty close, this should work for you.

I definitely can't take very much credit here, as I got most of what I needed from Thought Bucket, however he was missing the high port which is needed by most of us humble ISP users (as our ISP's generally block port 25 going anywhere but their mail server).

Step 1: Edit your sendmail.mc
Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.mc and add the following lines toward the bottom of the file (right BEFORE the MAILER(smtp) line (see bolded below)):

define(`RELAY_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')
define(`ESMTP_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')
define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.gmail.com')
define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')
FEATURE(`authinfo',`hash /etc/mail/auth/client-info')
define(`CERT_DIR', `MAIL_SETTINGS_DIR`'certs')
define(`confCACERT_PATH', `CERT_DIR')
define(`confCACERT', `CERT_DIR/CAcert.pem')
define(`confSERVER_CERT', `CERT_DIR/mycert.pem')
define(`confSERVER_KEY', `CERT_DIR/mykey.pem')
define(`confCLIENT_CERT', `CERT_DIR/mycert.pem')
define(`confCLIENT_KEY', `CERT_DIR/mykey.pem')
MAILER(smtp)dnl
MAILER(procmail)dnl

Step 2: Create client-info with your gmail username/password
[root@asterisk /etc/mail] mkdir /etc/mail/auth

The contents of /etc/mail/auth/client-info is a single line. Replace GMAILUSER with your gmail username and PASSWORD with your gmail password. Note that you are storing your gmail password in clear text, so please take the necessary precautions:
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/auth]# echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com \"U:root\" \"I:GMAILUSER@gmail.com\" \"P:PASSWORD\" > client-info

This should spit back what you just created
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/auth]# cat client-info
AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com "U:root" "I:GMAILUSER@gmail.com" "P:PASSWORD"

To create the client-info hash, run the following:
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/auth] makemap hash client-info < client-info

Finish this step by fixing the ownership and permission on your files (sendmail is picky about this):

[root@asterisk /etc/mail/auth] chown -R root:wheel /etc/mail/auth
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/auth] chmod 700 /etc/mail/auth
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/auth] chmod 600 /etc/mail/auth/*

Step 3: Creating SSL certs
The OpenBSD starttls(8) manpage has an excellent walkthrough for creating an SSL certs. Following is just a repeat of the relevant bits of the manpage.
[root@asterisk /etc/mail] mkdir /etc/mail/certs
[root@asterisk /etc/mail] cd certs
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/certs] openssl dsaparam 1024 -out dsa1024.pem
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/certs] openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -newkey dsa:dsa1024.pem -out /etc/mail/certs/mycert.pem -keyout /etc/mail/certs/mykey.pem
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/certs] ln -s /etc/mail/certs/mycert.pem /etc/mail/certs/CAcert.pem
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/certs] openssl req -x509 -new -days 3650 -key /etc/mail/certs/mykey.pem -out /etc/mail/certs/mycert.pem

Remove temporary files and fix ownership and permissions:
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/certs] rm dsa1024.pem
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/certs] chown -R root:wheel .
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/certs] chmod 700 .
[root@asterisk /etc/mail/certs] chmod 600 *

Step 4: Create new sendmail.cf
[root@asterisk /etc/mail] make; make install
[root@asterisk /etc/mail] /etc/rc.d/sendmail stop
[root@asterisk /etc/mail] /etc/rc.d/sendmail start

Watch /var/log/maillog for errors when sendmail is restarted.

Step 5: send test email
[jay@asterisk ~] echo 'this is a test' | mail -s 'test' some+email@example.com

Watch /var/log/maillog for errors. That's all folks!

Service Electric Cable (PenTeleData) bows to the MPAA and BayTSP; leaving customers out to dry

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-02-20T15:50:56-05:00

First off I'd like to reiterate that my name is Jay, NOT Joseph. However it seems that Service Electric Cable's data center provider, PenTeleData has decided to cut my broadband cable modem service off due to Joseph's tendancy to download copyrighted movies.

Continue reading to see letters sent from PenTeleData to me and letters sent from BayTSP, Inc. to PenTeleData in regards to the downloading of copyrighted material via BitTorrent.

Please find below (and here) the letter that I received from PenTeleData in regards to shutting my service off ... but addressed to Joseph (removed demographic details as to protect his identity), whom I don't have the pleasure of knowing.

I contacted PenTeleData to find out why/who had downloaded copyrighted material and they stated that they 're-ran the trace' (whatever that means) and that the copyrighted movies had definitely been downloaded by my cable modem (they looked up that the IP address matched my cable modem's MAC address during the times indicated in the reports). After letting them know that I had not downloaded any of the movies that they stated I did (found in the BayTSP documents, here, here and here) and was confused as to why they thought I did, the young lady that I was speaking to asked me if I had a wireless access point attached to my network. I stated I did. I keep a wireless access point that is protected behind my firewall for family use and one that is unprotected outside my firewall (for friends that come over and use my wireless every once in a while). She stated that someone probably used my unprotected access point to download the movies (like a neighbor or something) and that there was nothing she could do. They where bound and determined to cancel my cable modem access, so I give up. (They happen to be just one of four broadband providers that service my locale.)

So, it is very interesting that a cable company that claims "We're more than just a company that builds and maintains high speed networks, we're good neighbors in business and the community" (call 800-804-5783 to hear), actually isn't a good neighbor at all in business or the community. I'm also not convinced that the downloads even came from my cable modem, as the name and address on the letter I received isn't even me! Either way, I am happy to no longer be a customer of PenTeleData and hope that succeed in their dream of becoming the smallest broadband provider possible (by wrongfully canceling their subscribers!).

An afterthought: is it really a good idea for you to subscribe to a service that records all your comings and goings on the internet and determines what you are allowed to do and not to do? Why would an ISP keep these records around other than to try and incriminate a customer of something? I suggest that if you are a current subscriber of PenTeleData that you look for service from another company that doesn't log your every move.

4/25/06

JOSEPH X XXXXXXXXX
XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXX XX
XXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX XX XXXXX
XXX/XXX-XXXX

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for your response in regards to the copyrighted material violation. We appreciate your
cooperation in removing this material from your system.

Please be advised that a 2nd report of copyright violation traced to your account will result in permanent
account termination. Copyright owners and their agents are searching the Internet for alleged copyright
violators. This is an industry-wide issue and copyright owners are requiring that all Internet service
providers including PenTeleData enforce these laws.

For more information, you may wish to consult the following:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/disted/

PenTeleData's acceptable use policy: http://www.ptd.net/POLICIES-RES.html

If you have any further questions regarding this issue, please contact PenTeleData Customer Service by
either replying to this email or calling 800-804-5783 ext 7722.

Thank you for your business and continued support.

Sincerely,

Pamela Walker
ProLog Customer Service
800-804-5783, ext. 7722
Mon - Fri 8 am till 10 pm

BEA Console Mode Install (for those Mac OSX people)

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-02-12T11:11:44-05:00

java -Dos.name=unix -jar server921_generic.jar -mode=console

I know a wrote a snippet on how to do this previously, but for some reason I think it disappeared. Just open up a Terminal.app and type the above in (after downloading the generic Weblogic installer from BEA).

The -Dos.name option gets around the 'insufficient disk space' erroneous error that the installer gives.

Haven't updated in a while....

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-02-06T00:32:20-05:00

I haven't updated the site in a while, been a bit busy. However, I came across the Seven Deadly Sins Combined illustration and just HAD to link it from here! Enjoy.

The iPhone has bumped Synchronoss stock a bit

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2007-01-11T09:38:53-05:00

It looks like the iPhone announcement and then the Synchronoss press release that followed has helped bump our stock up quite a bit! Here's to hoping it keeps going!

High Tech Santa Tracker!

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-12-24T19:12:47-05:00

I was talking to Denise and reminiscing about the 'old days' when we used to stay up late and watch one of the news channels on TV 'track santa' across the globe..... when she asked me "isn't there an 'on-line' Santa Tracker somewhere?".

Sure enough.... we've spent a good portion of Christmas Eve tracking Santa in Google Earth! With the Santa Tracker! Great stuff!!! Connor LOVES it.

Connor got his Yellow Belt in Tae Kwon Do tonight!

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-12-20T21:31:24-05:00

Connor has been working really hard at learning his first basic form (1), and tonight he tested for his yellow belt and did fantastic! Here is some video.

Connor doing his Basic Form (1)

Connor receiving his Yellow Belt

Mail server has moved...

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-11-23T09:50:32-05:00

I've successfully moved the mail server over to google now. If you had your email at karma.net, you can now get to your email from the new tab (KarMail) above, which should redirect you to the google site. If that tab doesn't work, come back to this page and hold your 'shift' key and click on the reload button in your browser, and THEN click on the KarMail tab (this will refresh your browser's local cache).

You can also get to the google hosted email server by clicking on this link.

Uncle Chad was over entertaining the kids

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-11-19T10:55:35-05:00

Good picture of Uncle Chad's good side ...

At Chucky Cheese

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-11-18T12:58:17-05:00

Here are all the kids and me at Chucky Cheese.... how do ya like the 'Comic Book' look? :-)

Denise got a promotion!

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-11-16T14:58:51-05:00

Well folks! Big news! Denise got a promotion at T-Mobile and now she's a 'big-cheese' manager type person ;-) For the occasion I created this little PDF and sent it to her at work. It's inevitable, I'll be a stay-at-home dad soon, I just KNOW it!

CONGRATULATIONS BEAUTIFUL!

Apple Picking

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-10-08T19:16:02-04:00

Connor, Riley and Jordyn did all their chores all week and as a reward (besides the quarters that they get for doing their chores at the end of the week) we went "Apple Picking" at Strawberry Acres. It was a fun trip and, as you'll see in my "professionally shot video" (hehe) of the event, the ride through the orchard was very interesting (convertible school busses).

Download the video here --> Podcast

Better late than never

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-10-08T00:51:04-04:00

I finally got around to encoding my directing and filming attempt during a 'snow day' this past winter (after Christmas in 2006). I've beautified it within iMovie and made it much smaller (but it's still pretty hefty at ~150 MB). Feel free to download it and tell me what you think of my 'transitions' :-)

Click Here To Download --> Podcast

My first 5k!

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-09-30T11:00:47-04:00

My coworker and friend Tony Pags convinced me to run a 5k this morning. It was the first time I've run over 3 miles at one time!

Here are the results of my Nike+ run statistics (there where a lot of hills).

Software Development

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-08-19T19:54:11-04:00

Came across this image on the net after not seeing it for many years, so I HAD to share it again with all.

Enjoy!

Also found a fantastic document on how to write unmaintainable code to ensure job security! Too funny.

Enjoy as well!

More runnin' !

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-08-17T14:00:05-04:00

Just wanted to get an update out in regards to my continued running. I, today, ran over two miles in under 18'30"! Average pace of 9'04"!! Woohoo! Nike+ for the win, it has really been a great motivator to have little competitions with others that you know.

Here's a picture of my last run:

Runnin' ...

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-07-14T15:14:04-04:00

I decided around New Years that I was overweight and needed to start getting to the gym again on a regular basis. So a couple of colleagues and I have been going to the gym and running (them outside, me on a treadmill for the most part). I really enjoy the feeling after a good run, but getting to the gym is still sometimes a chore with work commitments (we try to go over lunch).

I think I found my 'carrot', so to speak! I just got the new Nike+ device for my iPod Nano. SUPER COOL. :-) You can setup challenges with other people you know for distance runs, times, number of runs, etc, etc. It really makes it 'rewarding' (beside the fact that it's already rewarding personally) to force myself to go to the gym! Today was my first run with it and the lady's voice telling me that I've made it to .5 miles, and then 1 and then 1.5 and then 2 miles was really nice! I didn't feel like I had to look at the treadmill HUD at all! I definitely recommend this for others! I also recommend, upon getting one, that you should calibrate it. During my calibration I ran .25 miles and my iPod had thought I'd only run .19 miles.... that would add up!

Here's a sweet pic of my first run with Nike+ (from their website). Notice, me being a noob, didn't turn off the run during my cooldown!

img2icns - recompiled as Universal Binary

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-06-15T10:17:24-04:00

I recompiled img2icns as a universal binary. Should be available here.
img2icns.app

Thank you Matteo Rattotti for a great little utility!

Change your Windows Domain password from OSX

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-06-15T07:47:15-04:00

I didn't spend a lot of time researching this, there actually may be better, more eligent solutions, however this is a tried and true one! I've always used smbpasswd to change my credentials from my Linux environments, so I checked and smbpasswd is installed on my MacBook Pro! Tried it out, and voila! Works like a champ.
You can of course do all kinds of nifty things like making Applescripts and stuff, but the basics are:
Open up Terminal.app and type something like:
MACNAME:~ macuserid$ smbpasswd -r -U
Everything after the '$' is what you would type, where is a domain controller on your windows domain and is your user name.
Have fun and happy mac'ing!

Some pix at JavaOne

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-05-19T21:53:44-04:00

Make sure to check out my mobile blog (right side of page... the pictures). I've put a few pictures that I've been snapping throughout JavaOne up there and I'll be adding more as I get the chance to upload them!

JavaOne

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-05-16T21:43:22-04:00

I'm out at JavaOne this week. Biggest let down is that Borland is no longer around! The Borland party was a legend at this thing. Oh well. I think Tangosol and BEA invited me to a shindig tonight.... so maybe that will make up for it. And Sun is supposed to have their Developer's bash tomorrow night. With any luck I'll meet some great people and get really liquored up.

Wish me luck!

Connor rides bike sans training wheels!

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-05-08T16:45:10-04:00

This video has been up for a week or so, but I figured I'd put a link to it here so it would be easier for folks to find it! Connor is now riding his bike without training wheels!

Two Saturdays ago he decided that he didn't want them (training wheels) on anymore and told me to take them off of both of his bikes :-) So I did. By the end of that Saturday he was riding his bike (with no help from me, mind you, he wouldn't let me!).

Here is the link.

Another installment ... New Years 2006

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-05-05T01:53:49-04:00

This installment is of a fondly remembered debate on the definition of a sport.

Thank you Eric and friends for a drunken, entertaining evening.

See the RSS Feed for the podcast! Or for the podcast challenged a smaller .mov .

Enjoy!

New Apple Ads

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-05-02T15:27:50-04:00

These new Apple ads are fantastic!!

Check them out!

Pat Vs. The Machine ... New Years 2006

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-04-27T00:28:32-04:00

This last New Years, we had a lot of fun at our yearly shindig. We had several people that helped video tape the night, and I just RECENTLY got everything I needed to suck the DVD video from the 3 inch DVDs that my video camera burns to out to DV format so I could play with it in iMovie.

The podcast here is a good friend of mine that was Green Machine challenged that night. You remember the old Green Machine from growing up? Well I got my son one and after a few (maybe more) we took it for a test-ride.

If the above podcast link doesn't work for you, here is a link for the iTunes Challenged of us.

Enjoy!

Universal Binary build of SSH Tunnel Manager

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-04-25T15:14:04-04:00

I like the Tynsoe projects "SSH Tunnel Manager" application, and have been using it since I found it. However there was no Universal Binary yet, so I decided to compile it.

I linked it off of my ThinkFree office account:
SSH_Tunnel_Manager_2.0b3_Universal_Binary.dmg

The original project is available at it's home website! Thank you Yann (I think that's the author's name)!

My Replacement MacBook Pro and the 1.0.1 Firmware Update

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-04-24T20:45:45-04:00

Just got my new replacement MacBook Pro and used SuperDuper! to restore my previous MacBook Pro to it. Everything worked like a champ! Yay SuperDuper! I've noticed that my new MacBook Pro seems to get MUCH hotter than my previous 2.16, the reason I noticed was that my fan turns on now.... just idling... Which on my previous one never really happened. Now, I'm truly not sure if it's the new laptop or the fact that I installed the 1.0.1 firmware update, as my previous laptop only had the 1.0.0 update. I wonder if a fix for the heat/fan was introduced.... maybe my previous MacBook was just melting away the whole time :-).
I really hope I don't have any more issues, as I LOVE LOVE LOVE this machine.
If you're looking for the new firmware update just goto support.apple.com and search for 'macbook firmware' and click on the downloads tab in the results, it will be right there for your installation goodness.

Got the need....

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-01-24T15:09:22-05:00

Well, I've finally given in to the simplistic nature of a 'blog'. It's a great way to easily dump the brain every once in a while, so I think I'll try it out and see how it goes.

Little about me:
I'm a software engineer and have been writing code since my parents first purchased me a VIC-20 instead of an Atari, umpteen years ago. I had wanted an Atari game console ("all my friends have one!") and my mother and father decided it was in my best interest to learn how to "make" the games, not just play them.

So from the VIC-20, to the C-64, to the Amiga, to the IBM XT, to the IBM AT, to Novell, to Solaris, to Windows 3.1(.1), to Windows 95, to NT 3.5.1(and 4), to HP/UX, to Linux, to OSX.... It's been a fun ride so far! And I don't plan on quittin!

If you notice, you've caught me in the year 2006.... when the Apple Intel Mac (MacTel) became available to the public. I purchased a PowerBook last year (2005) as the lure of BSD with a gorgeous UI was just too much for me to stand. I instantly fell in love with the PowerBook and would have never looked at another OS again had it not been just too slow for me. Compiling large enterprise size projects would take four times as long on my PowerBook as it would on my Gentoo P4 box. I finally gave in and currently use my Gentoo boxes (laptop and desktop) for all the day to day 'work' that I do (coding/etc). And I use my PowerBook to play with new 'code' ideas. (I've recently been playing a bit with Xcode....)

However, 2006 is here. And I ordered a new MacBook Pro!!! It has a dual core processor, oh my!! I am completely stoked. My ship date is recorded on my order as February 15th. Actual delivery date is expected to be around February 23rd (man, where you think these things are coming from??!!). I expect once I have my new MacBook Pro and all the things I 'need' in Universal Binary I'll be dropping my two linux distro boxes on their heads, and can't WAIT!

In the future, I will be blogging articles in how the MacBook Pro will be working out for me in my 'developer space', so feel free to come and check out the, ahem, "progress".

Later,
J

Spent a day figuring out OO PHP...

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-01-28T15:08:27-05:00

I'm back for a rant. I just spent a day figuring out a little bit about OO PHP. I must first comment that I did this for selfish reasons (was too lazy to write an entire java servlet or jsp inside a container or .... you understand). It's admittedly nice that I can pump out a little php and use it on an 'almost' plain-jane apache installation. That being said, my experience with OO PHP was not as grand as I'd had hoped.

I needed a simple graph, something to pull data from a file and stick it into a png/jpeg/whatever line-graph for me. There are several PHP 'pay for' type products that do this, however it wasn't so important that I needed to 'pay for' it, so I of course found an opensource graphing tool. Graphpite, which, by the way, has been merged with Image_Graph now. However, because of the sourceforge front page (not saying anything about such a merge) I was hacking away at the Graphpite library for half a day before I started looking for 'bug reports' for it. This is the point at which I finally made the discovery and switched over to Image_Graph (which wasn't too bad of a migration, considering I had only 100 lines of code). The big noticable difference in the two libraries is the use of a 'factory' within Image_Graph in order to create objects. The factory accepts 'special codewords' in order to create the correct object, so that is a little time consuming looking through the code to determine which 'codeword' I needed to pass to generate the appropriate object. The other minor annoyance with Image_Graph was the immediate need to download two other packages. Image_Color and Image_Somethingelse (can't remember as of this writing what it was).

I'm the kind of guy who likes to take quick peeks of sample code and then bookmark a reference page (such as PHP.NET) and then GO! So it took me a little while to figure out the = and the =& in PHP, but it's pretty evident after playing for a day that one is a copy and one is a reference! I did find myself in loops (foreach, while, etc) where I was passing references into another method, however at the end of the loop the method's underlying object only had several of the same references? I had to change the loop to actually pass a reference to the underlying object (it was in an array, so something like &$someNamedArray[$someName]. Instead of passing a reference like &$someNamedArrayValue which was actually declared by: $someNamedArrayValue =& $someNamedArray[$someName]. Strange, huh?

The end result of a day: I think my PHP knowledge helps me understand the reasoning for PHP existance :-) I think I could have done pretty much the same thing in Perl, much quicker (understandedly because I already know a little Perl), but the OO and simplistic nature of PHP was cool. I do have a PHP script to show for myself! This script basically reads in a data file and plots a graph, yay! I'll upload it to this article when I get a chance (it's on another machine right now).

If anyone can give me a little insight into my reference array issue above, please feel free to email/contact me.

Kids and Skiing

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-01-29T15:08:01-05:00

I decided that it was time for my oldest daughter and son (Jordyn and Connor) to learn how to ski a couple of weeks ago, so committed to taking them about once a week to a local ski slope (Blue Mountain). The first afternoon/night we went we where lucky enough to get two personal trainers (one for each of them), and I just hung out on the bunny slope (as it's been a few years since I've skied myself, so that wasn't such a bad idea anyway). Jordyn had picked up the basics before the end of the first day and was asking me when we where going on the 'big mountain'. Since it's just myself and the two kids, I can't commit to going on the lifts until BOTH of them are ready. Connor amazed me as well. On the first day he was skiing very well. He needs to work on his turning and stopping, and by the end of the day his poor legs where so tired that he was just constantly falling down.
The second trip was definitely a different experience. The ski-school was evidentally too busy to accomodate us with two teachers, so instead we just headed directly out to the bunny slopes ourselves. Jordyn picked right up where she left off; and was constantly asking to go on the lift :-) Connor took about an hour before he got his ski-legs back, and then when he did, he did VERY WELL. He didn't fall once on the small lift that brings skiers up the bunny slope! That was awesome. By the end of the night, his turns where looking good and his stops where looking a little better. For some reason he can not 'get' snowplowing. So instead he either cuts to a stop or falls to a stop! Oie!
We're planning the third outing for this coming Wednesday or Thursday. I have GOT to remember to bring my brand new video camera!! I forgot it TWICE already. Grrrr. Anyway, hopefully I'll have some footage for my next ski adventure blog!

MacBook Pro Ship Date DELAY - updated

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-02-14T15:06:29-05:00

Oh brother. It's a sad day. I was expecting my shiny new MacBook Pro to be shipped tomorrow (Feb 15th), however I just got word via an email from Apple that it's not gonna happen. The new shipping information according to the email and their website:

Bummer.

However, the bright side is that Apple also informed me that my 1.86 Ghz processor is being upgraded to a new 2.0 Ghz processor at no cost to me :-) Yay!

There is also another brand new processor available for the MacBook Pro, the 2.16 Ghz.... However, if I want to upgrade to that it's another 300 clams + 3 MORE weeks (on top of that February 28th 'estimated' ship date.

Here's to anticipation.

---update---

My MacBook Pro order now shows the upgrade to the 2.0Ghz processor as seen below:

Verizon Rant

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-02-14T15:05:44-05:00

Unbelievable.
Once again Verizon has proven that they are completely incompetent and deserve absolutely NO customer base whatsoever.
Last Friday I came home to enjoy my weekend (which generally means spending time with my beautiful family and a little computer/surfing time as well). To my dismay I had NO internet service! I checked my router, it was having trouble PPoEing. So I check my DSL modem and find that the 'data' light is not solid, this is a bad sign. I call Verizon and they say that my account is inactive. INACTIVE! What?? You are kidding me right? No, the Verizon representative was not kidding. She couldn't give me any details and said that I should call back MONDAY. Great!
No internet access all weekend (except via Bluetooth DUN to my Samsung i730, but I'm not in an EVDO area so it's absolutely PAINFUL).
Needless to say, Monday morning I spent 2+ hours on the phone with various Verizon representatives getting transferred back and forth. Finally it comes out that they screwed up my billing (I use PayTrust and they sent my bill to the wrong place two times). I had three SEPERATE bills for some reason. One with a credit of over $200 and the other two bills had balances of about the same. Verizon had shut my service off because of the two bills with balances (instead of transferring the credit to the other bills and 'fixing' the billing problem).
The best part is coming. I asked how soon I could get my DSL turned back on. Five to seven business days is the answer. FIVE TO SEVEN BUSINESS DAYS?? Is this a joke? I immediately asked the representative why I shouldn't just order cable modem and get it sooner. Guess what her response was? "That's not a bad idea, you probably will get it sooner..." No kidding! I asked to speak with her boss and she immediately transferred me to "Sales". What a complete nightmare. After getting transferred back and speaking with her boss, he could really care less about the fact that his employees are sending customers away.

I'm fine with all this, the only reason I had ever gone back to Verizon was because my wife wanted a 'real' phone. I'm sorry, but a real phone is just not worth it. Truly, it's not.

I have already ordered cable modem service through Service Electric Cable and expect it this Thursday. 7 megabit too! Woohoo!

As for phone service (yes, I disconnected EVERYTHING Verizon had coming to my home) I'll be reactivating my Ericson f251M over T-Mobile again. Only reason we switched was because the T-Mobile coverage wasn't very good at our house. I just checked this morning and all our T-Mobile phones look like they are getting 3 bars or better! That, of course, could be because of the winter and no trees blocking signals, but I'm willing to give it another shot. If it doesn't work out I'll switch over to Vonage.

Wish me luck! And if you have Verizon, get RID OF THEM!

Apple Order Status Widget

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-02-15T15:05:04-05:00

While awaiting my new MacBook Pro, and checking the status on the order status page so often, I found a neat little OSX Widget for monitoring Apple order status!

How cool is that little widget! Written by Mike Piontek, and available here.

Couldn't stand it... had to get a 2.16!

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-02-19T15:04:04-05:00

I simply couldn't stand it! I ordered the top of the line MacBook Pro (1.83Ghz) and had been emailed by Apple stating that they where automatically upgrading me to the 2.0 Ghz, but they ALSO had a shiny new 2.16 Ghz CPU. I was OK with the fact that I was getting a free upgrade to the 2.0 for several days, but it just kept eating at me; I was getting a laptop that was already outdated by the 2.16!

It's agonizing because if I order the 2.16, I won't get my new MacBook for ANOTHER 2-4 weeks on top of my current shipping date (according to Apple reps - I've made several phone calls).

Well, as my title indicates, I couldn't stand it. I cancelled my 2.0 Ghz order and ordered the 2.16 Ghz box. I did this after noticing in the Apple support forums that people that had ordered the 2.16 Ghz MacBook Pros where actually already getting shipped!!!

So here is my new order widget. :-( I'm REALLY REALLY REALLY hoping that Apple ships it earliest than this!!

Notice it still says 2.0 -- however in the order details it actually notes that it is a 2.16, Apple just hasn't updated the name of the product yet.

MacBook Pro is still not here, PEAP wireless issues.

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-03-11T15:01:39-05:00

I have no good news on my MacBook Pro shipping unfortunately, it's still scheduled to be shipped on March 21st! And I hope it DOES ship by then as I'm visiting family the last week of March and I would hate for it to get delivered while I'm away (how crushing would that be??!!).

That being said, my buddy's 2.0 MacBook Pro arrived about two weeks ago, so I've been able to live vicariously through him for the time being. We've found an issue with the wireless drivers however. We use PEAP at work and the MacBook Pro simply will NOT acquire an IP address through DHCP. My PowerBook works fine, it authenticates, validates against our company certificate (in my keystore) and then gets an IP address from DHCP. The MacBook Pro gets as far as authenticated, but never gets an IP address. There is a thread on discussions.apple.com about the issue as well and it seems that folks are having many different issues with the drivers for wireless. I sure hope a patch is put out quickly for this as it's pretty impacting at work.

I just got an email from Apple asking to help them out with some diagnostics type information, so that is promising.

Email from Apple:

Greetings Jay,

Mark C. from Apple Discussions here. I am an Apple Discussions host.

Our AirPort engineers are interested in a discussion thread in which you posted that you were having problems with PEAP. discussions thread.

We are wondering if you would perform a few Terminal commands, and run a Data Capture application. The information obtained would be used solely for analyzing the issues you are having with PEAP. If you are willing to provide us the information the engineers would like to analyze, please reply to this email and I will send you the Terminal commands and the application.

Thank you for any consideration.

Mark C.
Apple Discussions

Samsung A920 and switching back to Sprint PCS.

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-03-14T15:01:06-05:00

I've had NO luck with my Samsung i730 on Verizon Wireless. It's been nothing but a nightmare. The Verizon Sync application is a pain and never works correctly. It requires a client side application, which (for me) constantly hangs. The phone itself would just constantly and randomly lock up. When it wasn't locked, it just wouldn't receive phone calls; so by the end of the day I have 10 messages waiting for me to review on my drive home. It was a cool toy (WiFi/Bluetooth/EVDO/etc/etc), but not worth the trouble. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: Verizon gimped the phone by disabling several features that it supported before they got their hands on it (like having WiFi and the Phone actually both on at the same time). There where some clever individuals that hacked the phone and distributed said hack to get it to work, but WHY should I need this? WHY don't they just support the phone without breaking functionality??

So, as the title says, I've switched. I am BACK to Sprint PCS (was with them previously with my Treo 600), and have chosen to go for a straight phone. Not a SUPER device. The Samsung A920. It may look like a simple phone, but it's truly cool. I have the unlimited unteathered data plan through them, and my Powerbook can now be connected to the phone via Bluetooth and surfing the internet at EVDO speeds! This is the coolest feature ever, nevermind that the phone has real-time TV on it! I've only had it for the weekend, but so far I am COMPLETELY impressed.

Will post more later on the subject if it warrants it :-)

MacBook Pro 2.16 Shipped!

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-03-16T14:58:38-05:00

I'm like a kid waiting for Christmas! My MacBook Pro finally shipped today!!!

Now, let's hope it gets here before the weekend! My wife will be sooooo happy.... hehe.

Anyone need a 1.5 Ghz G4 PowerBook?

Java IDE's and my new MacBook Pro

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-03-21T14:57:44-05:00

I got it! My MacBook Pro arrived, and it is awesome! A project that I used to compile on my old trusty PowerBook would take upwards of 3 minutes now compiles in 25 seconds! That is a massive improvement in javac compile times (and it's only using one of the cores, oh yeah!). I have the 2.16 and a buddy of mine has the 2.0 ghz MacBook, his compiles the project in 30 seconds.... so the .16 IS noticible! Ha! My wait was worth it ;-)

I've attempted to use several IDE's since I got the unit. My first attempt to use NetBeans since about one and a half years ago was not the success I had hoped for. After a long night (loooong night) of hacking out a replacement for Quartz (that's another story, man is it a poor implementation of a good idea), I came to the conclusion that 'losing' my cursor within the IDE is NOT amenable to writing and debugging code quickly. NetBeans would CONSTANTLY loose my cursor (it just disappears) and would require me to quit the IDE and relaunch it in order to get it back! I must have launched NetBeans close to 20-30 times that night. Other than that (huge issue) the IDE ran very nice, and I can see how someone could get hooked on it.

My next IDE is Eclipse, which I am very comfortable with, as I have been using it for the past two years or so. Eclipse has a Universal Binary version (required due to SWT) released in their 3.2 stream, so it's not a 'production ready' build and I've seen a few glitches here and there, but it doesn't seem to be anything 'MacBook' related. I plan on continuing to try to use it.

And of course, the old standby, JDeveloper. Oracle has really worked hard on this IDE and it works beautifully on my MacBook Pro. I have no complaints, well, almost no complaints. It's kind of nitpicky really. JDeveloper is ugly. The IDE is very unappealing. With that being said, it IS functional and does most of what any developer would need.
I don't use many bells and whistles in the IDEs that I use. I mostly just use them for the editing features, so I can't really comment on J2EE server integration, Notation implementations, etc, etc. I am strictly a descripter, build.xml (ant) type developer. This is mainly due to my current environment where the builds of my projects are actually done by our data center during a deployment - so it is necessary that they be able to build the applications without having some spiffy IDE to do it for them. Don't ask me why we don't deliver binaries - that would just start me on a different rant.

I'll comment more on the different IDE's in the coming weeks. That's all for now.

IDL in a PDF? WTF!

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-03-23T14:43:09-05:00

OK. This is something that has been bugging me for a while, and I just havn't written about it; so here goes. Who in their RIGHT MIND would publish IDL in PDF format? This is amazing to me. It actually takes extra effort to do this. And how, may I ask, should someone extract IDL from a PDF cleanly? I'll tell you: you can't. It's a painstaking process of converting to text, removing page numbers, headers, footers, adjusting the IDL manually so that it is actually parseable and then saving it.

It is absolutely amazing to me that this is done, but it is. I've gotten IDL for implementation of CORBA interfaces in PDF format, not just once, but many times! For instance, Verizon East. Their preorder interface. All IDL in a PDF. And when asked specifically for a plain jane text file, the response is: sorry we don't have the IDL in that format. Are you kidding me??? How did you get it into a PDF in the first place??

MacBook Pro Pixel Issue

jay+blog@javasource.net — 2006-04-21T14:39:54-04:00

Yesterday I finally found that I wasn't going insane. Every once in a while when playing a game (WoW) or while my MacBook Pro was displaying a screen saver I would see a vertical line on the left half of my screen from top to bottom. I had pretty much ignored the issue hoping it was a figment of my imagination. Well, it wasn't. I got a new wallpaper on my desktop which had a particular shade of blue in it. With this new wallpaper the vertical line was 'always on', and easy to see that there was actually a screen defect.

I called Apple and explained the issue, and they didn't hesitate to ship out a box for me to return my favorite laptop for repair. However, I decided that I can't be without it, as my Sager (linux) is also out for repair right now! Ouch! So I called Apple up and explained the situation. They gave me an RMA number and told me to purchase another one. So, I did! Once I get the new one, I'll transfer my current backup (using SuperDuper!, which btw is a fantastic proggie!) to it and then ship back my current laptop.

Apple has been fantastic!