I spent four dollars on Halloween makeup at Wal-Mart, and the best thing that I could come up with was to go vampire. Does anyone else think I look like one of the dudes from the rock band KISS? Happy Halloween.
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Review of the Meraki Mini.
The meraki mini is a compact, low power, and above all low cost 802.11b/g compatible solution with a twist.
Traditional wireless networks work by having each client associate itself with a wireless access point. The wireless access point is then usually hard wired to some type of internet connection. All traffic to the internet passes directly from the client to the access point, thus creating a series of point to point connections, and a single point of failure. The meraki nodes operate under a different network architecture called a mesh network.
Integrating asterisk with the rest of the house; part 1. (OS X Address Book + Asterisk)
Last weekend I decided to try my own hand at using asterisk to create a click to call integration with the os x address book, and I am going to tell you how I got everything working. These instructions assume that you already have both an asterisk, and apache install up and running (on the same machine), and that you are using the asterisk install to power the phone system at your location.
We moved.
We moved into a new apartment. Its bigger, nicer, and has a spare room. The neighboors let me borrow some 802.11g goodness, and the meraki nodes are working flawlessly.
Could I start a wireless isp?
Yes. Especially with hardware from Meraki Networks. They produce a small $49 USD, low power unit that can act as an 802.11x mesh node. That means that I can provide 802.11x access via a shared trunk, multiple trunks, or any mixture thereof. They also have integrated management via their website. I think I will order ten.
90 Days of MythTV
What can I say; it works. My wife is used enough to it that she whines when I have to do kernel updates and restart. My only complaint has more to do with the ivtv kernel module then it does with MythTV. There is no closed caption support under the pvr 500 as of late. We are still using the IR keyboard as a remote because I never did go out and get a learning remote. It took me about a week of tweaking the key codes to get more consistency across modules. Right now half a terrabyte is not enough so I will have to add more drives to the raid on the backend. And does anyone know how I could set it up to encode ripped dvd’s as mpeg4 w/ h.264 by default? I’ll google it sometime. She used to complain about a bug that would surface if you left mythtv up for a while with no activity, but that seems to be fine now.
Were are moving.
We found a nice 3 bedroom apartment near the Albany free school for $1100.00 a month. It has a washer/ dryer hookup, hardwood floors, and a small yard. Now we have to get some furniture. We are looking at IKEA, EQ3, and Amisco. I am also looking to buy one of those new fangled washer/ dryer all in one units from compactappliance.com. Has any one ever tried one of those before?
How I got beagle working under gentoo.
After compiling everything twice because of a dead hard drive, here is the short and sweet story on getting the latest and greatest beagle (0.2.1) working on your gentoo installation.
Apple is transitioning to the x86 architecture.
I am beyond words with this one guys. I have been at different times, a member of both camps of the x86 vs ppc debate. I can remember signing an online petition to make OS X available for x86, namely Intel manufactured hardware. Then, as I matured, I came to see the beauty of the PowerPC architecture. I even wrote some articles about what I had learned. I finally saved all my pennies, and got a brand spankin new ibook last month. OS X is a dream. After installing gentoo for OS X, darwinports (bsd ports modified to compile under OS X), and MS Office on the same machine (face it openoffice just doesn’t hit it), that was it for me. I’m in love. I compile my own software, when I want, with the CFLAGS I want, and as they say all of the things the wife has to ask me how to do under linux, just work. Marketing hype aside PPC was nice while it lasted but development was just moving too slowly. IBM was like look Steve, I know we made a promise but you didn’t say anyting about it needing to go into one of that artsy laptops. Intel was like if you think the dothan rocked, wait’ll we start hiring college grads. And the ppc arch in workstations, just like that, is dead. I for one don’t give a damn anymore, I thought I would but I don’t. I simly want to continue to drink Apple flavoured kool aid. If they want to sell me an uber quiet SPARC box that runs OS X, I’ll buy. That is, as long as dsniff compiles.
We went to Boston.
We went to Boston. It was a nice trip maybe a 2 hour drive and we stayed in a nice hotel “Doubletree” I believe was the name. 821 Washington St., which is smack dab in the middle of chinatown. The part of Boston our hotel was in was basically a mecca for old asian women. Every block was littered with them, damn they walk slowly, I was pushing a stroller like MOVE PEOPLE! Boston overall is a really nice town, they have a well developed bay area with an aquarium, and above all for geeks like me, an IMAX theatre. The boy pretty much slept the entire time. We walked along the docks, he slept. We went to the aquarium, he slept. We went to Legal Seafood (legendary seafood resturaunt), he slept. I only have two things to bitch about and both are about the hotel, not the town.
1. WiFi (you know this is a big one for me), they advertised wireless internet access and granted they didn’t say it was free $10 a day is OK for one day but what if I had stayed a week. $70 just so I can have something that is essential to my work would have really pissed me off, and in fact I would have probably just chosen a hotel that advertised free wireless internet access even if the the per night cost balanced it out. For me it’s the principal. It’s 2005, thats like not taking credit cards, fine for some slumlord, but a decent hotel c’mon.
2. Checkout is at noon, while checkin is at 4:00 pm. This may be industry standard but what WTF? Made up scenario:
I fly from N.Y.C. to L.A., and get to L.A. at noon. I now have to wait in the lobby for four hours until 4:00 pm after I just took a six hour flight. Then in the morning I have to be out of there by noon, or pay for another night. So I pay for 24 hours, and I get 20, nice. Somethings wrong here.