Entries by Jon

If you own your own domain name, you can have Google Apps for your domain. Basically, what this means is you get all the standard Google applications like Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Gtalk, but under your own domain name. It really isn't terribly complicated to setup and for only a few small time users, it is free. Personally, I think it is great because I like Gmail overall but I'd rather have my own email address than an @gmail.com one. So I use Google Apps for several domains, including my main email/account @ snowulf.com.

Everything about it works well in my book except for the fact that new features for Gmail tend to lag on deployment to Google Apps. As such, Buzz has been out for over a month now and I still can't use it on my account. They said (don't they always) that it would be coming to Apps 'shortly after launch' (or something to that effect). Anyways, I can accept several weeks delay, even a month, but that has come and gone and still no Buzz.

I know there were a lot of issues with Buzz's launch (not every product launch is smooth ::cough::Assassins Creed 2::cough::), but I still think it has potential. Google will work out the bugs and patch in some new features (like a shiny API) and life will be good. Good as long AS THE GOOGLE APPS USERS CAN HAVE BUZZ TOO, PLEASE.

I complain about Apple products a lot, mainly in how they dumb everything down. It isn't the internet that is making people stupid, it is Apple devices like the iPhone and OSX. Last time I was complaining about the Macs need for hibernation, this time it about their need to NOT sleep. It is one of those fascinating dumb downs of Macs, you will use this device how the designers made it and you don't have a choice in the matter. Either the Mac is on or off. If it is on and you close the lid, it is going to sleep. This is so universal that even my mother knows it.

Turns out, someone wrote some software to fix this issue. Really depressing that 3rd party software is needed, but what do you expect, it is the IdiotBook. It is really simple:

• Go to the InsomniaX homepage
  
• Download InsomniaX (Direct DL Link)
  
• Install & Execute
  
• You'll see a new blue icon in the top tray, click on it
  
• Click "Enable Insomnia"
  
• Close your screen and relish in the fact that your mac hasn't gone to sleep

I can think of about a hundred reasons why you'd want to do this. For me the major push was to play music at Christmas. But you might want to leave your computer running for a long download (For example). The only word of caution I have, at least on the MacBook Air, it doesn't turn off the screen. So I turn it off with the screen brightness settings (F1/F2) before I close it. Annoying, but better than nothing.

As you may well know (perhaps from our earlier entry), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 came out last week. I've devoted most of my game playing time since then to playing the game and thought it was about time to do a review. Now some of this review of Bad Company 2 (BC2) will be a comparison to how it stands up against Modern Warfare 2 (MW2). It isn't that I believe the games are in anyway the exact same kettle of fish, but MW2 is the undeniable "big shooter" of the moment, so it is that which all other new shooters will be compared against (until something undeniably better comes out).

Let me give you the ultra short version: It is definitely an improvement over Bad Company 1. My major complaints for BC1 single player were addressed in BC2. The single player campaign of BC2 isn't long, but it is enjoyable and longer than MW2 was. The online multiplayer is also quite enjoyable and mostly major bug free (so far that I've seen). BC2's multiplayer is much different than MW2 and personally I prefer BC2. If you enjoy shooters in general and haven't bought BC2, you're missing out.

Now we get on to the long version of the review. First I'm going to cover the single player game and then I'll get into the online play. Continue reading "Review: Battlefield: Bad Company 2" »

I've noticed that even on the nice summer days when there are lots of bikes out, you rarely hear them honk. I asked myself, "why is this? Why don't motorcyclists honk much?" I've come up with a few reasons and I thought I'd share.

1. Stock motorcycle horns suck - Let's be realistic, taking one of those canned air horns that people use at sports games and duct taping it to your bike would be a LOT louder than the motorcycle horn. I'm not really sure why all makers skimp so much on this, but it is basically universally accepted. It isn't like there aren't very loud and powerful horns that are small enough for bikes, on the contrary, there are plenty of aftermarket horns you can buy.
   
2. We're generally not stuck - One of the biggest reasons cars honk is because they are stuck behind someone who is going slow or not moving or generally being stupid. It is very rare that a motorcycling is truly stuck. We can get around almost anything and lane split where necessary (and of course only when it is legal to do so).
   
3. We're too busy - Someone tried to merge into my lane the other night; I would have honked, but I was simply too busy. Think about it. I've got my right hand grabbing the front breaks, right foot hitting the rear breaks, left hand pulling the clutch in, left foot down shifting and using my body to swerve away. While I could physically have hit my horn during this, I've got too many other things I need to do. By the time I've freed up enough brain power to honk at you, it is too late.
   
4. You cagers are idiots - For those that don't know, "cager" (As in stuck in a cage) is one of many terms used to describe those in 4 wheels vehicles. I basically assume that every single one of you is out to kill me because you aren't paying attention. Most of the time I see your stupidity (and attempts to kill me) coming and GTFO before you get there.

This all being said, I do honk from time to time. Though mostly on city streets and intersections rather than the highways. All too many times when making left turns have I watched idiots think they can make that right turn before I'll get there. NO! BAD CAGER. I am faster than you think, wait your damn turn.

In the old days of running Linux, I used to change timezone of a machine by running time --set= at the command line and simply including the timezone code (PST). These days, Debian, Ubuntu, and the other similar derivatives have made life so much easier. If you want to change the timezone, all you need to do is run (as root):

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

It will pop up a little config screen, asking you where you are and will summarily set your timezone. These is much easier than the old way since you don't even have to know your own timezone code (though... who wouldn't?).

Both John and myself have gone ahead and pre-ordered Battlefield: Bad Company 2 even though we originally had no intention of doing so. I've been seeing advertisements for the game for the last month and said "meh" to it. I had enough games to play, not enough free time, and Modern Warfare 2 has been satisfying my multiplayer needs (not that I normally multiplayer much). This was up until we actually got around to playing the demo the last week before it was shut down.

So what changed? Well first off in my research on BF:BC2, I saw a video which was showing off PC dedicated servers and game play, but more importantly their test server was named "Server of DOOM and cake". This is a server name I fully approve of. I mean, who doesn't love doom and cake? I know I do. Beyond devs with a good sense of humor, there was a demo that was enjoyable to play.
Continue reading "Why we bought Battlefield: Bad Company 2" »

Sometimes I feel like all I do in my job and personal life is shuffle data around from one location to another. Last week it was re-installing Windows 7 on my two daily-use machines. This last weekend it was completing a server migration. Of course, I had just completed a migration 4 months ago.

To clarify, at the beginning of December I received an email from my hosting company letting me know that my VPS host was to be moved. At that point in time we were heavy into our project and I summarily ignored it. Not too long after that I got an email saying that my VPS had been replicated over to a new location and to check it out since I only had 3 days before they shut down the old server. Fun times, migrate all the data changes, make sure everything is functioning properly and then change the DNS. Not really a big deal but of course we were busier than hell with work.

A few weeks ago I warmed up a VPS with a new hosting provider. I wanted to play with Gallery 3 beta and the old VPS was running Ubuntu 8.04 with an old, old, old version of PHP. I had heard good things about this new company, and they offered Ubuntu 9.04, so I tried it out. In the end, I decided against using Gallery 3 and went over to SmugMug to host Snowulf Photography, but kept this new VPS. So I did yet another server migration (it feels like I do one every week) to this new setup.

All the sites I host have been moved and so far everything is working out. Really the only troublesome portion of a migration is dealing with MySQL. I exported everything from the old host which was running 5.0 (I believe) and the new one is running 5.1. They changed some of the setup in the `mysql` database, especially the `users` table which has caused some issues. In the end it got scraped and rebuilt by hand.

In the move I did some upgrades, like the blog software (Serendipity) and other minor fixes. So if you see something funny, odd, strange or generally broken, please let me know.