New neighbors are moving in… I live near Tufts university so a lot of it is college students. This time we have a new kind of neighbor. Someone moved in with a rooster. They don’t just make noise at dawn, they make noise basically up until 11:00 when it’s overcast outside.

The area is pretty dense, so they must be keeping it under a porch or in their house - there’s no space outside for an animal. Here’s the layout:

Update: Based on us walking around and listening, we think it’s in the garage directly under our bedroom window.  Unfortunately through my searches online I’ve yet to find some reasoning to use in asking them to remove the rooster.  Any ideas?

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I just finished 1 month of running Ubuntu Linux as my primary laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad T60) operating system.  I shrunk my OEM Microsoft Windows XP partition down to 20GB via Ubuntu Gparted and installed Ubuntu.  Here’s how it turned out:

Since it’s been a couple years since I ran Linux on the desktop, I forgot how many options you have in configuring your desktop with Linux distributions.  I tried out KDE, XFCE, and Gnome via apt-get.  It feels like they are all in perpetual beta - where I encounter problems, look up bugs, and Google for workarounds.

The hardware required a few tweaks that I found via Google research.  Specifically, ATI doesn’t open-source their drivers and the driver that I got from them doesn’t work well at all.  Thanks for nothing ATI.  The problem with their driver wouldn’t allow me to suspend or hibernate the computer.  Unrelated to ATI, after hibernation, all sound stops working.  Also, if you start the computer with the external monitor disconnected you will not be able to connect it and use it - you need to actually reboot Linux to get the external monitor to work.  I forgot that I rebooted my computer just before going to a presentation - that was an awkward experience.
My job required the use of Microsoft Excel - through plugins, compatibility with pivots, and external data access.  Excel 2003 does not run through Wine and the commercial solutions to help with that were not very elegant if they worked at all.  The front-runner, Crossover Office stated poor compatibility.
I decided to use VMware for my copy of Windows XP so that everything worked correctly.  Using the VMware Converter tool it was a simple task.  I can’t imagine it being any easier.  I wound up after a few hours with a working VMware image of my original OEM Windows partition.  Of course, because the ram, video, and cpu changed at the same time, I needed to re-activate Windows XP and Office 2003.  It required that I call the hotline to do it - I was greeted by a very thick Indian accent from someone who gave me an activation key after lots of repeating the numbers.  That was the toughest part - now I had Windows running under VMware.  It is surprisingly fast for the applications that I need.  The key, of course, is that the laptop has 3GB of physical memory, and thus I was able to dedicate enough memory to the virtual machine to keep it off the disk for most processing.

Unfortunately, moving files back and fourth from the VMware Windows to/from Linux was a pain in the butt.

Wireless networking in Gnome is unreliable and not straight-forward.  It requires that I use my root pw (sudo) to unlock the keyring and reconnect to my wireless router every time I come home with my laptop.  In addition I found that many hotel wireless networks were not found via the wireless networking widget in gnome and I would need to boot back into Windows to connect to them.

Connecting to Samba shares through Nautilus in Gnome or KDE’s Konqueror were unreliable compared to using Explorer in Windows - this actually surprised me considering how unhappy I was the the unreliability of Explorer - but I found myself using the VMware Windows copy to get files from Samba shares.

Looking back, I think I was expecting an experience like using my Apple computers at home when I tried this out.  The Apple computers have a greatly simplified UI that doesn’t tempt you with changing colors, toolbars, etc. and a bash shell / posix environment that allows me to get my more technical work done throughout the day.  I guess my best bet is really to install Ubuntu under VMware with MS-Windows as the host operating system, as much as it kills me to say it.

Of course, one would argue I should move to the Apple platform, but my corporate standard is currently Windows and Linux - and being part of IT, I need to use the platform that my users/clients here are using… otherwise I would be using an Apple.

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WebEx was acquired by Cisco. So, before they do their re-branding I’d like to offer an overview of their services:

• Service outages don’t happen often, only a few times per month!
• Customer support doesn’t speak English, so if you speak their language you’re in luck, you have a native speaker!
• If you like surprises you are in luck! Upgrades are completely unannounced!
• Intel Macs are not supported as a presenter so if you’re a Mac user you don’t have to worry about people asking you to present!
• The meeting invitation times are USUALLY correct… so you don’t usually have to tell people to ignore the WebEx stated time and use another time.

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I have one of those jobs that is just a blast. Have you had one of those jobs where you actually feel fulfilled, your work is taken seriously, and you get to have fun? If you’ve been in tech as long as I have, I guess you’d say no. Here, the people are good, the company’s mission is good, and I have a position where I enjoy what I am responsible to do. What’s the point of me droning on about a cool place to work? We have lots of openings throughout the company as we are growing… The company is Black Duck Software. If you like open source, or just want to sell a cool product you should check out what we do. Here is a link to the job openings page.

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My family was very pleased with Vonage’s phone service. It was the lip-service we didn’t appreciate when we called to cancel the account. First it was a guy from India who took FOREVER to figure out that we were canceling and and stop trying to convince us not to cancel. After he gave up he said he couldn’t cancel it and I had to call back during business hours. Plus, I was still within my first year of service so I would be issues a cancellation charge if I cancelled today, so call back on the 16th and there will be no cancellation charge. I called back on the 16th to wait on hold answer a million questions, and be transferred. Unfortunately the Indian guy was not good at adding dates, as they said I needed to call them Monday in three days. Ok, called back in three days. Third call is with a gentleman who said it’s fine that we’re canceling but I’d have to pay the 13th billing period of the account to complete a year because the first month was free. Evidently they don’t include that first month free as part of your service or billing period. I already spent an hour trying to cancel over the 40$ cancellation charge, so I just maintained that he should cancel me because I completed the 12 months. He put me on hold, asked of there was anything else he could do… and I’m sure I’ll receive another email asking for another 30$ from them again… good thing I took a tip from an article I read about canceling their service and just removed the card from my account so they can’t bill me anymore.

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I live in Medford, Massachusetts. There is a parking regulation to help facilitate snow removal which allows cars only on one side of the street, alternating sides each year. The effected dates are Dec to April. This December was unusually warm at over 70 degrees on some days. It was a really great treat for those of us who are getting tired of New England winters.

The town of Medford decided to use the snow-based parking ban to gather some funds by issuing half of us parked on the street with snow-ban tickets. The temperature was 70 degrees, but they still issues snow-ban tickets anyway. Amazingly there was one kind sole who noticed that the tickets were issued with an incorrect date, a two days before the issue of the ticket. That individual delivered hand-written notes to each of the cars with tickets explaining that fact and suggesting that we all go to contest the tickets based on the fact they were void due to incorrect information.

I went to appeal the ticket and was told not to bother by the parking clerk, an old woman in the town hall. I said I’d still like to contest it because the date is incorrect.

A few days later I was delivered a schedule for my appeal. Included in the envelope was a letter addressed to me telling me not to bother coming to fight it. I’ve taken a picture of the letter and typed it out here get some feedback. It feels to me like it’s a bully-tactic. What do you think? Here it is:

NOTICE REGARDING ODD/EVEN PARKING VIOLATION APPEALS

YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO APPEAL THE PARKING TICKET GIVEN TO YOU FOR AN ODD/EVEN PARKING VIOLATION. A HEARING DATE WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU IF YOU WANT ONE.

HOWEVER, PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THE ODD/EVEN REGULATION HAS BEEN IN FORCE WITHIN THE CITY OF MEDFORD FOR APPROXIMATELY THE PAST TWENTY (20) YEARS. ON-STREET PARKING ROTATES FROM THE EVEN SIDE TO THE ODD SIDE FROM ONE YEAR TO THE NEXT.

FOR EXAMPLE, FROM DECEMBER 1, 2004 TO APRIL 1, 2005, PARKING IS ALLOWED ONLY ON THE EVEN SIDE OF THE STREET BECAUSE 2004 IS AN EVEN-NUMBERED YEAR. ON DECEMBER 1, 2005, PARKING WILL SHIFT TO THE ODD SIDE OF THE STREET BECAUSE 2005 IS AN ODD-NUMBERED YEAR.

THIS REGULATION APPLIES ONLY TO THE PUBLIC WAYS AND DOES NOT APPLY TO PRIVATE WAYS.

THE CITY MAKES THIS INFORMATION KNOWN BY POSTING IN THE LOCAL PRESS, THE CITY’S COMMUNITY ACCESS CABLE CHANNEL 16 AND ON THE MEDFORD POLICE WEB SITE. THE CITY DOES NOT POST SIGNS ABOUT THIS REGULATION AS IT IS NOT REQUIRED TO DO SO.

IF THE BASIS OF YOUR APPEAL IS THAT YOU WERE SIMPLY “NOT AWARE” OF THE ODD/EVEN REGULATION, YOU MAY WANT TO SAVE YOURSELF THE TIME OF COMING TO A HEARING BECAUSE THE TICKET WILL BE UPHELD AND YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY THE TICKET. YOU MAY STILL ATTEND THE HEARING IF YOU SO CHOOSE.

IF YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE A VERY UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCE THAT WOULD FAVOR DISMISSAL OF THE TICKET YOU ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND THE HEARING.

IF YOU CHOOSE TO PAY THE TICKET AND NOT ATTEND THE HEARING PLEASE CALL MY OFFICE (781-393-2470) SO THAT YOUR NAME CAN BE TAKEN OFF THE LIST.

ANTHONY M. SANTORO
HEARING OFFICER
1/27/05

click here to see the actual document (2mb jpg)

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I love Windows. I love it in that way like someone who was kidnapped has a strange connection to their captor. Microsoft’s new marketing campaign for Windows is:

“The Wow Starts Now”

- as in -

“Wow, I thought this software was annoying before but now I really found a new hatred for it.”

The joy of my last few days? This error message:

It only appears when I really need to use the computer. Even then, it doesn’t completely cripple my system - it just makes things like FTP not function. So, I can still do normal browsing, salesforce.com, sugarcrm, wordpress, email, excel, word, powerpoint, etc.

Unfortunately when you close the dialog it hangs the system and you are not able to do a normal shutdown and then lots of other things stop working.
The solution? Don’t close it. Seriously. I just drag it off the side of the screen like so:

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I’m constantly looking for business ideas online. There are a number of good sites focused on business ideas but they are typically in blog format. There are a few forums out there, but the good ones are invite-only… so, I thought there was a good opportunity to have a really simple, accessible format for a site focused on business ideas. I’ll be updating this site at least weekly while I try to figure out the marketing aspect. Then, it’ll likely be daily publishes on the front-page.

URL: kashflow.org

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I purchased the T-Mobile Dash (aka HTC Excalibur). It’s a swell phone with a QWERTY keyboard running Windows Mobile 5. I was going to get a new BlackBerry but I had two requirements that BlackBerry couldn’t fulfill together:

1. QWERTY Keyboard

…plus…

2. Camera

They have phones that do one or the other, not the same together. It seems like a good move so far. The joystick is WAY better than the jog-wheel on the BlackBerry! Now, when in a grid, instead of using two keys, or using the jog-wheel like crazy, I just press the directional pad “down”. It truely is a revolutionary idea. WTF.

The must-have applications for the phone???

1. Google Maps (even though the j2me on this phone crashes and makes me reboot the damn thing)

2. Google Email (ditto)

3. Skype - Needs WIFI though. Lag? 1 second.
4. Windows Live Search Mobile - works like google, but by microsoft. No faster or slower. Just different.
Oh, and the manufacturer has a wiki for their product. That’s nice: Here.

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Xbox Tetris.

It’s the most addictive game I’ve played since Grand Theft Auto Vice City.

Doubt it?  Play and you will see.  After 10 hours or so of game-play you get into a groove where you don’t even see the blocks and your fingers just move and guide the block into the right place.  The fun part is really that there’s basically un-ending levels of the game.  You can play basically forever (just like GTA) but it’s - I think - the most downloaded game to date on cell phones.  No wonder.

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