fouldsy.com

The last couple of days I’ve been tinkering, mainly as it had been raining solid for pretty much a week. It did finally break this morning letting us glimpse sunshine + blue sky, and the temperature is up around 60F I was chatting with Carl Andrew yesterday and he told me that the elders always say if it’s a bad summer, it will be a mild fall (autumn). Here’s hoping, as the locals can’t remember such a poor summer - I don’t think we’ve gone more than a couple of days in the past 6 weeks without rain, and one of those spells was when it somehow got to 83F!

Anyway, the tinkering has been moving some of my back-end services onto the hosted Google Apps for Your Domain offerings. I’ve used them since the start of year on another site without problems, but fouldsy.com (and it’s associated e-mail, chat, documents, etc.) is my main focus, and it was getting a tad slow with a compressed local mail file over 500Mb, and way too many saved RSS articles to search through. Both mail + RSS have moved between multiple computers and apps for 3-4 years now and it was probably time for a clear out anyway, and since Gmail provides IMAP access, I could easily transfer out any e-mails from Mail straight into Gmail. Mass deletion has brought me down to only 40Mb in Gmail now I also imported all my RSS feeds into Reader, tagged a bunch of the old articles from Vienna in del.icio.us, and setup Fox Marks to sync all bookmarks between the different systems I use. All the mail functions got themselves up + running during Wednesday evening, but some e-mails from Europe still seem a little delayed as it’s taking a while for all the MX changes to propagate. Anyone getting e-mails bounced, try sending again, sorry.

But, it’s only a few days until we head into Anchorage now. We have our bush flights booked for Monday morning (for all that means!) and I already have the number for Domino’s on speed-dial for the Monday night My dad retired today (technically…) after 40 years of teaching today, even he can’t explain how he managed it, and they’re both excited to fly out to Vancouver on Monday too before heading up to Anchorage on Tuesday. So long as the weather stays like this rather than all the rain!

Robotics is something I’ve wanted to get into for years, pretty much since Robotwars appeared on TV and the idea of creating big machines with flames coming out the top that were designed to smash other machines sounded like fun I raced various forms of remote controlled cars on + off for a number of years, but that was mainly build the cars, then set them up from race to race. But, programming a microchip and building a robot to figure it’s way through an obstacle course or similar seems like a good challenge, and then there’s stuff like the RoboGames each year (along with smaller regional gatherings) which includes events for small sumo-bots or robosoccer (check the videos!).

Anyway, Parallax caught my attention a while ago with their Boe-Bot robotics kit based off a BASIC Stamp 2 microcontroller and mine arrived today. It seems a pretty good introduction to robotics, and the BS2 chip can be used for a bunch of other things too. Parallax make all their books available on-line in PDF format, so also I’ve worked through some basics with using the BS2 chip outside of controlling the Boe-Bot. With a number of projects included with the kit and components to allow the robot to make it’s own decisions based on position, speed, contact with objects, etc. it should keep me entertained for a while. When I have the rest of the circuitry built up and programmed for something slightly more advanced than moving backwards, forwards, and rotating around itself I’ll post some photos or videos

Using it within OS X was a little harder than inserting the CD and installing the software as Parallex don’t produce their programming suite for OS X or Linux, but others have written apps available for free online which work great. For anyone trying to use the USB version under OS X, download the FTDI VCP drivers here and then install MacBS2 by Murat Konar which is the equivalent of the Parallex programming tool for Windows. For code requiring user input using DEBUGIN, goSerial from Furrysoft works great for displaying the output the same as Debug Terminal does, but also capturing your inputs and sending them to the BS2 chip which MacBS2 can’t do yet. Simply select your USB connection under the ‘Serial Port’ option in goSerial, and then choose ‘9600 bps’ for the connection speed and it should work just fine so long as you close down MacBS2 first otherwise you have both apps trying to connect to the same port concurrently.

Clicking sounds from hard drives aren’t usually a good sign, especially when it’s accompanied by your screen freezing (which is very uncommon with OS X anyways) Sure enough, rebooting the MacBook just flashed the question mark icon meaning it couldn’t find a boot device, and the recovery DVD happily shows no internal drive in Disk Utility. Managed to borrow another MacBook and swapped drives and it’s definately the hard drive knackered. At least it’s not the MacBook itself at fault and 120Gb drives can be had for $75 from OWC which is the same place I purchased the 2Gb RAM upgrade from just after I got the MacBook. Apple would probably want double that for a stock 60Gb drive!

Given that the MacBook has been hammered constantly for 18 months with a few thousand photos going through it, all the podcasting and two months of bouncing around in car over the sumer, it hasn’t done too bad. Would still expect drives to last longer than this, but in fairness the only problem I’ve had in close to 5 years of my Medion laptop was a hard drive failure a couple of years back and then the MacBook has been flawless until now. Maybe I’m just cursed with hard drives! Least I’m fairly religious in running SilverKeeper to back-up everything to USB drive every weekend so I’ve not lost any music, photos or documents.

But, given the mail service up here (especially with the amount we’ve been getting weathered in the last week or so!), it could be quicker to wait for Santa Claus to do his rounds in order to get the new drive

I went round to Jason’s tonight since his wife, Kimberly, headed into Bethel after school to meet her sister - we watched some boxing, playing a few games on the Playstation 2, and laughed at Koda wanting attention all the time. Was a good few hours. Came back home to see a nice pretty box from United Utilities, our phone company. The engineer in the village had obviously been told we’d signed up for DSL at home, and so had called Kat before disconnecting the phone to upgrade the line at the exchange, then dropped the DSL modem round. Very nice surprise

Couldn’t get it going on the Mac at first which was a bit annoying, especially when it worked first time under Windows XP. Figured it was because the Mac was being smarter Sure enough, it was. Double-checked the settings under OS X and there’s an option for ‘PPPoE Service Name’ under the network connections for connecting via PPPoE. This isn’t an identifier like the ‘Service Provider’ option, so after leaving it blank, the connection immeadiately came straight up. If you’re having problems configuring a PPPoE DSL connection on a Mac, I couldn’t find anything in the FAQ’s or knowledgebase on that one - just remove the service name and try connecting again.

And, just to completely reassure me that the Mac works much better, it repeatedly disconnected under Windows every couple of minutes (prompting me to fear the phone lines simply couldn’t handle a DSL connection…), yet under OS X I’ve been sat online for 20 minutes without even a little hiccup. Happy days

Since hard drive troubles seem pretty common at the moment with mam + dad, Marie and possibly Kat all having failures in the past week, I’m hoping my MacBook keeps ticking over fine! But, a cool little app for OS X to back-up your data is SilverKeeper from LaCie. I’ve used this since I got the MacBook last June and does exactly what backup software should do without any fuss. Need to provide an e-mail address before downloading, but is probably the best free backup software on the Mac.

Another cool little app I came across today whilst trying to setup a USB webcam on Marie’s replacement iBook is macam which provides support for a host of USB webcams under OS X (since a lot of manufacturers don’t provide OS X drivers). It also includes a handy plugin to sit in /Library/Quicktime which gives other video apps direct access to your USB webcam without needing to run macam itself. Worked perfectly with the Trust 120 Spacecam, so for anyone trying to get a USB webcam working under OS X, give macam a try.

Couple of fun things in the post today. Apple sent out their certificate for the Apple Certified Technical Co-Ordinator qualification having completed the OS X Server exam a month or so ago - it’s every bit as impressive as the first one for the ACHDS level, they’ve simply changed the title! Still, it’s better than nothing.

And, Insure&Go finally got around to paying out the claim on cancelling the Japan trip in September. Twiddled their thumbs for 3 months on this one. Sneaky little bastards too - cheque + covering letter were dated 6th December, but only postmarked yesterday, so had sat in outgoing mail for a week. On top, they didn’t pay out on the tax on the flights as they’re recoverable from the travel agency, although there is nothing of this in their documentation, meaning another claim and delay on that coming in, plus they don’t cover the £5 postage for the rail tickets. That one is just ridiculous, as I’m assuming they would also refuse to honour a booking fee or airport tax on flights, for example. Needless to say, I won’t use them again and would recommend anyone looking for travel insurance avoid them!

No SMS from the courier saying they’ve collected the visa though

Since Apple kindly updated my transcript profile to show the world + it’s wife my failure on the OS X Server exam last week when I know I was more than capable of passing it, re-sat the exam this afternoon. Questions were harder than the first exam, though more direct and clearly-worded, allowing me to score 81% this time and comfortably pass. As for Open Directory which gave me 5 near-identical questions in the first exam when it was clear my first answer was wrong? 9/9 this time, 100%. Also upped account management to 8/11 rather than 4/11 as this time the questions actually gave you sensible options for your answer.

You’d think I’d be more happy with passing, but I’m still a little annoyed at the whole thing, though at least it’s proven to Apple and (more importantly) myself, that I am good enough to pass. Also means I hadn’t completely wasted my time + money in the first place, though the extra exam fee + studying time wasn’t much fun.

Least it gives me another title to add to the resume now - Apple Certified Technical Co-Ordinator

Thought the Microsoft exams were bad at times, but this OS X Server one was terrible - failed with 63% when the passing score was 65%. Got 5 identical questions, just worded differently, on OpenDirectory passwords and fine, I answered it wrong the first time, but with it being an adaptive test it fired 5 questions all the same. At least 10 questions were hazy where there were technically 2 right answers - at least with the Microsoft exams there’s the ‘real world’ answer and the ‘Microsoft’ answer, so you go with the Microsoft answer that’s outlined in their training courses and books, which is one of the problems with the Microsoft certs - you simply learn the answer required for an exam, even though it’s not what you’d actually do in the workplace. Here, there was no distinction as I’d gone through the Apple training course and didn’t point one way or the other, so it was 50/50 on some questions which defies the point of the exam if you’re just guessing.

Ended up with 4/9 on OpenDirectory meaning apart from those 5 identical questions, I was spot on, and 4/11 on account management, as pretty much every account management one was hazy. Asking whether you’d see a logon greeting from an AFP server when ‘logging onto the server’ or ‘connecting to the server’ (other two answers completely wrong) was an example - by definition you’d need to logon in order to connect and could argue either was correct. A lot came down to wording like that, not testing your actual knowledge of OS X Server - I don’t mind the questions that give a load of irrelevant information to make you read right through it to understand it, as that’s to make sure you’ll always pay full attention when solving problems and not jump to conclusions, but this wasn’t one of those occasions.

Network services, gateway services, authentication + authorisation, print services + deploment solutions all 100% correct. Apart from the OpenDirectory and Account Management topics, I only had 7 wrong questions in total on all 7 other topics so would have passed comfortably.

Pretty disappointed would be a polite way of expressing things, as I basically got one wrong question on OpenDirectory which I now know the correct answer to, and could go back over the chapter on account management to try and figure out if Apple lean towards a particular answer, but other than that I’m going to have to fork out an additional £80 for an exam I’ve scored 81% on all but 2 topics on. Might sound nice giving 25% off the exam in the first, but the cynical side point at the need for a retest and ending up making an extra £60.

Honestly, I’m probably not going to pay the £80 for a resit and jump through Apple’s hoops. I’ve never looked at certifications as the be-all and end-all, just as a way to backup claims of my knowledge and experience to any potential PR-bods that don’t actually understand anything but qualifications. I know perfectly well my knowledge of OS X Server is more than adequate to manage them on a daily basis, and am more annoyed that dirty/stupid tricks long the bane of Microsoft exams have presented themselves from Apple, a company I used to quite admire.

Admitedly, I’ve been a little slack in keeping up the studying for the OS X Server exam after passing the OS X Support Essentials exam 5/6 weeks ago, but I got round to going over all my course notes today and booked in for the exam on Tuesday afternoon.

Feeling pretty confident again as there’s not been anything too tricky on the review questions in the course materials or from Apple’s website. It is more challenging than the Support Essentials exam as there’s more new content to take in, but nothing new in terms of functionality I wasn’t already managing on the Windows networks I’ve ran.

But, as a nice little bonus for being part of the Apple Certification Alliance since passing the first exam, you get provided with a voucher code for 25% off further Apple exams, which brought the price down to a more reasonable £60. From what I gather, upon passing the Server Essentials exam, another voucher code is sent for the next exam, meaning all future Apple exams are discounted. Nice touch - certainly makes you want to keep going, and comes off nicely for Apple as they have an increase in the number of certified professionals managing their systems, thus keeping the end-customer happy.

Will see how the exam goes on Tuesday!

With a break in the weather yesterday afternoon, I went for a wander to try out the Nike+ iPod Nano gear. I was taking the iPod anyways with going for a walk, and thought it would be cool to give the Nike+ kit a try too. Just set it up to go for 10 minutes (although I forgot to stop it and let it run a bit longer since I was enjoying the Danko Jones track!), then got home and plugged it into iTunes to see what happens. Zips you off to register at nikeplus.com (though it is optional), then brings up a very flash website to display all the data:

Granted it was only 10 minutes on + off (I ain’t built for running’!) so covered about 1.37km, but for more serious runners this would be pretty serious piece of kit. Even just in terms of their website and how it handles the data was pretty impressive from a coding + design point of view (see, there’s the real me - none of this running malarkey!).

It maps out your pace, timings, distances travelled, etc. so you can clearly see in the screenshot where I was jogging for a minute, walking for a minute, jogging for a minute, walking for a minute, etc. Doesn’t seem to play nice with Firefox for setting up goals, but you’re meant to be able to define what you’d like to achieve, and it then compares your workouts against what you should be achieving at intervals to reach your goal which could be fun. It’s a neat piece of kit, and might encourage me to start jogging, but even just as a way to track my walks it’s cool, and sure Kat will find more of a use for it since she’s into her running (though maybe not in Alaska…).