Bit-Shift.Net

After almost 9 years, I finally bought a new laptop as a birthday present to myself. I tried making due with an Asus Eee PC netbook, and while it was light weight and had great battery life, I kept finding myself wanting to see more on the screen.

When I friend told me about a deal with Lenovo to get employee pricing through Borders Rewards. I hopped on Lenovo's site and configured a Thinkpad T500 for myself. At my last company, all engineers were issued Thinkpads and I was really impressed with their design, quality and features. Since I was more interested in long battery life versus high end performance, I chose the 2.26GHz Centrino2, 4GB of RAM, integrated graphics and the 9-cell battery. Even with the 15.4” screen I can get upwards of 6 hours of use.

Once home, I formatted the drive and proceeded to install the 64-bit versions of Ubuntu 9.04 and Windows 7. I use Ubuntu as my main day to day use OS. It has all the utilities I need and use on a daily basis. I use Windows 7 for managing my iPhone with iTunes and some light development in Visual Studio.

I installed Ubuntu first and setup my root, home and Windows partition, following these instructions. One fact I discovered is that a hard drive can only have four primary partitions, so partition editors will suggest you make one partition an logical partition and then further divide that into extended partitions. This is all well except that Windows will not let you install to an extended partition. I discovered this after creating the linux partitions so I had to wipe the drive and start again to get Windows it's own primary partition, located after the root Ubuntu partition.

Installing Windows to it's parition will overwrite the GRUB bootloader preventing you from booting Ubuntu. You can fix that by following the instructions here. The example has the 'boot menu' option. This will make the boot menu appear each time you power on the PC. I chose to exclude that option so the PC will boot into Ubuntu by default. Note: when editing menu.lst, place the new stanza at the bottom of the file after the AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST.

Once I had Ubuntu installed and booting reliably and started installing my favorite applications. A new one that a friend told me about is Powertop (sudo apt-get install powertop). This app will poll your hardware every five seconds to determine power draw and then make suggestions on how to reduce it by turning on or off features. It shows you in near real time how disabling hardware will reduce your power draw and extend battery life. A must have for all road warriors to acheive the afore mentioned 6 hours of battery life.

The last thing I needed was a good way to access files and services on my home network. To access my desktop I had been using SSH to securly connect to the computer and then tunneling VNC traffic over that SSH connection. But what I really wanted was a VPN solution. So I bought an inexpensive PC off craigslist, put in two gigabit NIC's and installed Smoothwall, a dedicated linux based firewall package with SSL VPN. I'll post about that later as I'm still fiddling with the VPN configuration to get it working just so.

I was really impressed with how easy the Ubuntu install was. It was as easy as following the bouncing ball. No convoluted console jockying, arcane Unix commands or mumbo jumbo. And the best part is that all the hardware just worked. Even all the hot key buttons, with the exceptoin of the mute button, and the signature Thinkpad track point scroll button. But that is easily enabled following these instructions.

For many years now I've been discussing with friends our frustration with the state of the mobile phone industry in the United States. Compared to the Europe and parts of Asia, the United States is in the 3rd world. In many parts of of the world, people no longer carry wallets opting instead to use their cell phones to pay for food or buy concessions out of vending machines. The simplicity of pointing your trusty mobile device at a Point of Purchase, waiting for the amount to show on your screen and accepting the transaction is incredibly appealing. But here in America this may seem as fantastic as many things shown in Star Trek.

Here in the United States, things aren't exactly smoke signals and horse drawn carriages. There are have been some in-roads into the mobile banking space. For instance, Pay-Pal has a mobile application that allows you to check your balance, send money or buy things off eBay. There are also financial aggregation services such as Mint that allow you to view information about various banking and investment accounts, set budgets and receive alerts when you exceed those budgets. All of this available from your mobile, web-enabled, device. But these features, while making life easier, are still far from the technological utopia experienced daily in parts of Europe and Asia.

One of the new features I've been noticing at ATM's lately is the removal of deposit envelopes. Now when you wish to deposit several check or cash, all you need to do is enter the amount you are depositing and then place your cash or checks inside a drawer in the ATM. The ATM is equipped with scanners that read the check amounts and verify they match with what you entered then, after processing the deposit, print a receipt with an image of the check(s) you deposited.

Enter the next phase of check processing. It's incredibly rare to find a mobile device without a built in camera these days. A new application being proposed by the United Services Automobile Association (USAA), called Deposit@Mobile, will allow users to log into their banking site, then snap a picture of the front and back of checks and process the deposit right there, negating the need to visit a bank branch or ATM.

There are many security and fraud issues that need to be addressed, like stealing someones purse and writing yourself a large check, for example. But the prospect of removing the ATM/bank branch from the deposit equation is very exciting to me. There have been several instances where I carried checks around in my wallet for days or even a week because I kept forgetting or didn't have time to stop at the bank and deposit them. With innovations like this, I'm excited to see where the mobile banking space will be in the next 2-3 years.

For my first real vacation, I spent 3 weeks traveling around the South American country of Chile with my girlfriend, Natalia, and her mother. I spoke hardly any Spanish but, luckily, Natalia and her mother are both fluent Speakers of “Chilean”. For those who may not know, Chilean is very different from other forms of Spanish. Ask anyone from Spain, Mexico, Cuba or any other Spanish speaking country and they will tell you that Chilean’s talk very fast and use lots of metaphors in their dialog. Combine this fact with not speaking much Spanish to begin with, and it all sounded like gibberish. Thank goodness I had two translators with me!

Since this was my first time travelling internationally (I don’t think Canada counts as international), I received lots of advice, warnings and generally good tips from various people who have travelled extensively on what to expect and how to protect myself from travelling woes. Most of it was common sense, but it came in handy anyway.

Before I left, I had several pre-conceived notions about Chile from things Natalia told me. Most of them were true, the others I never had the misfortune to find out about. By and large, Chile was a very friendly country (especially towards Americans) with some very beautiful areas. The food is outstanding, and I ate a lot of it, even from the street side carts (despite being warned about such behavior from the US State Departments website).

I’ve posted several pictures to my flickr account showing off some of the areas I visited, I highly recommend you check them out.

I was reading Fox news this evening and saw an article about a recent volcano eruption in Chile. This immediately caught my attention because my girlfriend, Natalia, is from Chile and still has family there. I have to admit that my geographic knowledge of Chile is still lacking so I wanted to know how close the volcano had erupted from the town Natalia is from. This prompted me to load up Google Earth and navigate to the place of the eruption.

Relieved the eruption was at least 2 monitor screens away (probably a few hundred miles at that scale) I decided to check out the worlds largest swimming pool, also in Chile. No matter how many times I see the pictures, I still can't get over how massive that body of water is (on a side note, I'm planning on visiting that location this December, WooHoo!).

Since I had Google Earth loaded, I went wandering around the globe and ended up in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. I visited my parents house (still under construction from the fire), a large park near my parents house, downtown and finally my house. I noted that the date of the imagery was July 12, which happened to be a Thursday. That got me thinking, where was I?

At the time I was still working at Corillian Corporation on the corporate security team. So I scooted over to that location. Since it was July, I would have been riding my motorcycle. Would I be able to see it from this high up I wondered. Compared to most vehicles, my bike is small and I wondered if I'd be able to find it in the parking lot.

Didn't take much searching, my bright red bike was very visible from that high up, and parked right where I thought it would be. In the front parking lot second spot from the right, where the CEO usually parked his 7 series BMW (much to his chagrin I'm told).

Every once in a while I would notice certain web sites taking a long time to load. I had blamed it on network congestion and my

less than optimal Internet connection. But a short while ago I upgraded my Internet connection to Verizon's FIOS. Having previously had FIOS I knew I shouldn't have any more issues with network congestion.

After the upgrade I set about doing the usual network performance tests. Once satisfied I was getting the bandwidth I had purchased I set about my normal routine. But even with the upgraded Internet connection I was still noticing some lagginess on certain web sites. It was tolerable so I didn't pay much attention to it.

A few days ago, LifeHacker blog, ran an article about a new feature in Windows Vista called Auto-Tuning. The idea behind this feature is that in the days of old, modems and network equipment could only handle receiving a certain amount of data before they became overwhelmed, this is referred to as the receive window. Newer networking equipment is able to handle receiving considerable larger amounts of information without becoming overwhelmed.

According to the Windows Core Networking blog, the Auto-Tuning feature takes certain conditions into account like bandwidth, network delay and application delay and automatically adjusts this window to maximize performance. The problem lies in that older firewalls & routers can't properly handle the automatic resizing of the receiving window and cause considerable slow downs or application crashes.

To correct the problem, there are a number of steps you can take:

If your connection from a Vista machine appears slow or hung, here are some steps to isolate the cause:

• First, make sure that your firewall and router can support window scaling. Some devices from Linksys, Cisco, NetApp, SonicWall, Netgear, Checkpoint, D-Link were reported as having problems with window scaling. (Some of the incompatible devices are given here. You can check with the manufacturer or run the connectivity diagnostic suite (especially, TCP High Performance Test) provided by Microsoft to determine your gateway device’s compliance.
• Second, check with the manufacturer if a firmware update has been issued for your device that can fix the problem. Replace the problematic device or update the firmware as suggested by the manufacturer. If the router cannot be replaced or if it the device is remote (e.g., a firewall of your ISP or corporation)
• Third, If the problem still persists, you can restrict autotuning by running “netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=restricted” from the command prompt. We have found that restricted mode will often allow some of the benefits of autotuning with a number of problematic devices.
• Lastly, if all else fails, in order to disable this feature, run "netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled".
• (In order to re-enable autotuning, run “netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal”.)

You'll have to run the "netsh" commands from a command prompt with elevated privileges. To do so, open the start menu and type "cmd" into the search bar. Then right-click on the cmd program and select Run as Administrator.

It seems every where you turn these days you are encouraged to click. "Click here to apply", "click through to save", "click on the monkey to win an iPod". Since its introduction, the computer mouse has been firmly entrenched in our minds. The mouse has even become a metaphor for the incredibly simple, "setting up the firewall was as easy as point and click."

While this may not even occur to members of the younger generation, I grew up with the tried and true CLI (that's command line interface for you youngin's out there). The only impedance to progress what how fast you could type and how fast the computer could process input. It was natural, efficient. Although with applications like computer games and web browsers, the mouse is indispensable. But some days despite all the utility it provides, some days I don't want to be bothered with pointing and clicking.

For those that feel the same, the IE team has posted on their blog a list of keyboard shortcuts for navigating around in IE6 and IE7. The post lists shortcuts for all the common navigation tasks like going back a page, scrolling, stopping the current request and closing the window. The post also lists a few power user tips, like focusing on the navigation bar and opening the right-click 'context' menu. A handy reference to have around when your feeling not so handy.

A short while ago I was debating on whether to purchase a HP MediaSmart Server running Windows Home Server or build a new workstation for doing development at home. I chose to build a new workstation and I'm glad I did. Microsoft announced recently that they have reproduced a defect in Windows Home Server where using certain programs to access media stored on your server may result in unrecoverable file corruption.

From the KB article:

When certain programs are used to edit or transfer files that are stored on a Windows Home Server-based computer that has more than one hard drive, the files may become corrupted. Microsoft is aware of only a very small percentage of users who have confirmed instances of this issue and believes that most users are unlikely to be affected. Microsoft has established that this issue may occur when one of the following programs is used to edit, transfer, and save files to the home server:

•	Windows Vista Photo Gallery
•	Windows Live Photo Gallery
•	Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
•	Microsoft Office OneNote 2003
•	Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
•	Microsoft Money 2007
•	SyncToy 2.0 Beta
•	Intuit QuickBooks
•	uTorrent

Apparently this flaw only affects people who have more than one drive in their media server, which includes any self-respecting geek. The problem lies in the way that Windows Home Server handles transfering and balancing files across multiple drives. Microsoft reports that a fix is in development and will is planned for release in July 2008. Until then, all you media server guys just sit tight and use Windows Explorer or XCopy to move files to and fro.

This past April I took the plunge that so many young people anticipate, dread and dream about all at the same time. I bought a house. It's a 3 story town house with a single car garage. Not the Taj Mahal by any stretch but my car and bike fit in the garage, I have a place to sit while I eat my meals and I'm totally in love with my next door neighbor (yes she knows and the feelings are mutual). And, the house came pre-wired with CAT5E. Most rooms have two ports, while the others only have one. In total, there are 11 ports throughout the house.

When I first moved in and saw a patch panel in the closest in one of the master bedrooms, the computer geek in my instantly though, "I need a wiring closet!". Unfortunately when you buy a house, you also have to furnish a house. When I moved in I had a bed and dresser to my name (I moved all my worldly possession in under 3 hours and most of that was driving).  But the idea never wandered far from my mind and a few weeks ago I finally got all the necessary hardware together.

For handling all the network connections I chose the Netgear GS116 desktop gigabit switch. It was fairly inexpensive after rebates from Netgear and Paypal, had enough ports to handle the job and had the mounting holes I needed to secure it to the metal plate that covers the patch panel. The router, a D-Link DIR-625,  I have had for almost a year. I bought this router after my Linksys died and my friend Greg gave it a fairly glowing review and I must say I'm 100% satisfied with it.

Up till I finished the install, my wiring closet would probably garner a top ten spot in a worst installation contest. I had the cover of the patch panel off and power cords and CAT5 running up to a shelf where my wireless router sat routing my packets, blissfully unaware of the squalor conditions in which it lived. Every time I walked into my office, I saw the eye sore that was my network installation which motivated me all the more to finish the installation.

Now being an engineer, I couldn't just throw everything together with chewing gum and bailing wire, I needed a plan or a template rather. My plan was to mount the switch and router to the metal plate that covers the patch panel and run the CAT5 wires through the plate to the patch panel. The next major hurdle was how could I layout where everything would be mounted and where the wires would be run in a fashion so that everything would look great and I would drill 50 holes unnecessarily trying to get everything lined up. Back in high school, I took a class on drafting using AutoCAD and thinking back, that seemed like the best option for creating my template as it would allow me to draw with the precision I needed when laying out where all the holes would be drilled.

After about a month of tweaking the templates so that everything lined up just how I wanted it I was ready to drill the holes and mount the hardware. To make sure that all the CAT5 cable lined up in an aesthetically pleasing way, I used zip ties to secure the wires, which meant I had a lot of holes to drill. After drilling, I used a metal file to ground down the rough spots and got the plate ready to install the grommets that will protect all the wiring from sharp edges.

As I suspected, the hardware mounted right up with a minimal amount of coercion. The next time consuming chore was crimping all the CAT5. I had the 11 ports from the switch to the patch panel, a cable connecting the switch to the router and then a final cable connecting the router to the world. Amazingly enough, I only had to re-do one cable. With all the wires run and the hardware mounted, I re-attached the plate to the patch panel and proceeded to surf. I have yet to run any bandwidth tests as I only have one gigabit enabled computer.

So there you have it. I have gigabit running through my home which will come in very handy when I build my home theater PC or buy an Xbox 360, which ever I decide to do. And as an added bonus, since I run a home based business, I can write the switch off as a business expense.