Craigslist

I am now the book keeper at work.  This means I have had to learn how to use QuickBooks to process bills, write checks, and create reports for the Boss.  It also means, I very recently learned, that I have to deal with some tax issues, specifically sending IRS Form 1099s to consultants.

Luckily, I found how to do it in QuickBooks, but you need to have the OFFICIAL form.  I went to Staples and found a pack of paperwork.   Once I printed a bunch of forms, I realized that I needed two more copies of one of the forms.  Staples would have forced me to buy another $25 pack of too much stuff, so I turned to Craigslist.

I posted an ad to the Morgan Hill community.  A few hours later a kind person in Oakland replied that they had the form I needed.  On Tuesday I sent a self addressed envelope, and the forms arrived today, two days later.

I don't care if this is a boring story; I'm impressed with the speed and generosity that the Internet gives us access to.  Thanks, Internet!

Windows XP SP2+ Movie Maker 2.1 Crash - RESOLVED

Whenever I launch Windows Movie Maker 2.1 on my Windows XP SP3 system with Internet Explorer 7 or 8, it crashed.  The Windows error message indicates the problem is with qedit.dll. Search Engines find lots of reports of the problem, but few solutions.  I stumbled on a Microsoft fix for some other Movie Maker problem that seems to have resolved the problems for me.  Check out http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969395/, and install that patch.

Good luck, future Googlers.  I hope this helps you.

Upgrade to FreeBSD 8.0

Last week, I upgraded my FreeBSD 7.x system to FreeBSD-8.0.

For the system binaries, I used cvsup to update my source tree, then did "make buildworld; make buildkernel; make installkernel; mergemaster; make installworld" and rebooted. The system built without complaint. My kernel config, which is a slightly modified and stipped down GENERIC, didn't work out of the box. Rather than debugging my old conf file, I copied the 8.x GENERIC and re-tweaked it to fit my needs.

I rebuilt some of my ports, but I think that was mostly me getting up to date, rather than necessary for a functional system.

One of the non-trivial stumbling blocks I ran into was getting my WiFi card up and functioning. I spent some time searching the web for help, and didn't find the magic incantations I needed. However, reading man pages and with some luck, I now have a working system again.

In order to save someone else the complete recreation of my work, I thought I'd post the relevant bits of my /etc/rc.conf here. For reference, I have an open AP on the ath0 interface, and a normal Ethernet LAN connected to fxp0; I bridge these two nets together to make printing and stuff easier. I hope this helps, and recommend a good read of ifconfig(8) and wlan(4) [which is a new interface to me].

#############################################

#
# Sample fragment from /etc/rc.conf
#

ifconfig_rl0="DHCP" # Internet

###
#
# Bridge the internal networks
#
cloned_interfaces="bridge0"

# FreeBSD 7.x
# NOTE: This didn't exactly work as desired; I couldn't figure out how
# to assign an address to the bridge and make it come up in rc.conf
# (thus the two ifconfig_bridge0 lines).
# Once the system had booted, as a workaround I had a script run:
# # ifconfig bridge0 addm fxp0 addm ath0
#
# ifconfig_bridge0="addm fxp0 addm ath0 inet 192.168.42.254 up"
# ifconfig_fxp0="up"
# ifconfig_ath0="ssid PACEHOUSE channel 11 mode 11g mediaopt hostap"
# ifconfig_bridge0="inet 192.168.42.254 up"

# FreeBSD 8.x
ifconfig_bridge0="inet 192.168.42.254 addm fxp0 addm wlan0 up"
ifconfig_fxp0="up"
wlans_ath0="wlan0"
create_args_wlan0="wlanmode hostap"
ifconfig_wlan0="ssid PACEHOUSE channel 11 mode 11g up"

#############################################

A problem that I may not have resolved yet also has to do with networking. My ISP connection is Charter Cable through rl0, which gets its info via DHCP. In FreeBSD 7.x, things worked as expected. However, with 8.0, it appears that I'm not getting an address and routing info quick enough (or ???), so boot time ntpdate and other programs that do name resolution fail. This also seems to leave DNS in a wonky state, and natd not running. As a workaround, once the system is up, I restart those services. Luckily, things are stable enough to prevent this from being a crisis. I am hopeful that this will get fixed by the time I next rebuild. If you have ideas, please let me know!

Other than these hiccups, I am not having trouble with 8.0, and it has been completely stable and reliable once running. Go ahead, give it a try.

Live from anywhere

I jail broke my iphone today, which lets me install stuff that Apple hasn't blessed. One of the cool apps that I installed is Qik, which streams a live video feed to the internet. You can access all my videos at http://qik.com/jepace. When I go live, it should post a notice to twitter from me, and it should post finished videos to my YouTube feed too.

So, the next time I'm at a city council meeting, you can join me! (Until the battery dies..)

R2-D2

Who wouldn't want this?

Phone

I left the phone in the windows of my car while we were at Costco today, and the car got mighty warm. When I got back, I hit the On button, and (magically) the phone turned on.

It is rebooting every half hour, but it was doing that before the pool incident.

Aqua Treo 650

I dropped my phone in the pool yesterday. I've been having lots of trouble keeping my phone functioning, but dropping it in the pool seems really bad. I hope once it dries out, it'll take a battery charge and start working again.

I've got another month on my contract.

Some might ask if I'm sabotaging it so I can get a new, cheaper iPhone. I don't think so, but who knows how the mind works?

Paypal Mobile

If you are ever out, and you end up owing someone for dinner or something and you don't have cash, you can use PayPal Mobile to text message money to them. How cool is that?

So I haven't actually tried it yet, but it seems like a very cool thing. First commenter gets a $1 sent to their phone...

Princess Battle

Wired just added a blog called GeekDad which has fun posts about things to do with kids that use some geek skills. One of the posts was about stop motion movies.

(Another was learning how to say your name backwards, which I'm working on.)

Person to Person

We spend a lot of time driving. Sometimes, we have intersting discussions.

Recently, we were talking about the telephone system from days of yore. Dad mentioned a concept that is completely alien to me: The person to person call.

Here's how it works. I call the operator and tell her I want to talk to RKCP at a given number. She would call the number and ask for RKCP. If she was there, I'd be connected and pay a higher rate. If she wasn't there, I'd pay nothing.

I will leave it to the reader to determine if this was an interesting conversation or not.

Hey, you can still do this! Why can you still do this? When would you use it?

The charge for a person-to-person call to another state is $1.15 a minute with a $12.50 operator service charge.

For your reference, here's what you do:

• Dial '00.'
• Enter the 10-digit number you're calling, starting with the area code. (It is not necessary to enter 1 or 0 before the area code.)
• You will then hear prompts telling you to say "person-to-person."
• The operator will come on the line to assist you in reaching the specific person or department.

Science has murdered sleep

This article shows a future where sleep becomes more and more irrelevant. The world the kids are growing up to is going to be so different, with their jetpacks and flying cars.

iRobot II: This Time It's Personal

Our Roomba has been acting up recently. It would move about slowly and jerkily. For a bit of research on the net, it was getting clogged up. I did my best to clean it with canned air and at a tire fillling station, but it still moved crazily.

Since we had bought it at Costco, which has the greatest return policy, I returned it today. I've had it for a month and a half and they didn't bat an eye to give me a full refund. I love Costco. Then I went into the store and bought a new one.

Which brings us to the contest: Name that robot!

We're looking for a name for the new robot. The first was called "Roomba." A little family discussion yielded "Cinderella", "Snow White" (but the robot is not white), "Rosie" (from the Jetsons), or "Alice" (from the Brady Bunch).

Leave comments with your votes or suggestions. The kids will probably be the final say. Thanks for the help.

Google Rocks

I've got a Palm Treo 650 and it's pretty handy. Being able to access my contacts and calendar is invaluable, and being able to surf the web and play backgammon is nice.

Today, the device became a lot more useful for my job. Google release Google Maps for Treo which give you real time access to maps and driving directions and traffic and aerial photos. If you have a Palm (and a good data package with your phone provider), you need this. Check it out.

Amazing Phone Tricks

Everyone must play with GrandCentral.com. This is the coolest bunch of phone tricks.

You sign up for a free account, and pick a new phone number in your area code. Then you configure your other phone numbers, such as cell and office and home. Then people call you at the new number and the appropriate phones ring.

The ultra cool stuff includes recording the calls, and listening to the person leave voicemail. Just like screening with an answering machine, you hear what they are saying to your vmail, and can jump in if you decide to talk to them. You can have different ring sounds based on who is calling.

Play with it. Love it.

Swab the Decks!

It was at Costco. So, of course we had to get it. (I wanted the Kirkland Vodka, but some people just don't believe in the miracle of Costco and its brands like I do.)

We now have an electronic slave scrubbing our floors for us. That's right, we're the proud owners of a Roomba. And it is awesome. It is picking up tons of cat hair (a truly frightening amount of cat hair) and other detritus that is filling our house. One might think the Roomba was just a toy, but it really does clean up, and leave the nice vacuum lines on the carpet (in a completely random order).

It is driving the cats nuts. Especially Garbanzo -- He tries stalking it, but flees at the slightest provocation. I hope he adapts to our new friend.

It's Broken

Hey, I can't access my blog!