Thanks to the wonders of handwriting recognition software, my iPAQ PDA running Linux and wireless networking I am bringing you this entry of my blog from the small screen via pen based entry. For a PalmOS user this natural handwriting entry takes a little getting used to – I keep trying to use Palm-style Grafiti form. The more I write though, the easier it is becoming – even though I am on this tiny screen that requires me to keep adjusting the scroll-bars.

The purpose of tonight’s entry was to see if my Linux PDA’s little browser could handle this process (and whether I could cope with the handwritng scheme). It has done admirably well so far, so my next PDA entry will probably be from a wireless hotspot out and about.

On that subject, McDonalds has actually gone live here in the SF Bay area with 75 hotspots – I wonder if you can “super-size” your internet access along with your fries?

–> Cleaned up a little- seems that the small screen also makes it really hard to see the places where the recognition s/w got ‘o’ instead of ‘a’ and where there are two spaces instead of just one.

My final posting for the day… a warning for those living in the SF bay area, though perhaps it applies in other places where AMC operate movie theatres.

Last night, Kitty and I went to see Charlie’s Angels – Full Throttle at the AMC 1000 on Van Ness in San Francisco. When we arrived we found that the 8:10pm showing we were aiming for was sold out, so we decided to go for the 10:20pm showing, and have dinner before the movie.

After the movie, we tried to pay for the parking at the automated machine (seems that the cashier’s office is no longer staffed on a Saturday night). The machine wanted $17 for parking though, so we hunted around for somebody who could help. Other people were also having trouble getting the machine to register the validation, so we thought it was just a problem with the validation process.

Eventually, we gave up on the lobby and headed down to the car. As you can imagine with nobody using the pre-pay machines, the lines to get out of the parking garage were long. By the time we arrived at the exit we’d been in the parking garage for 4 hours and 35 minutes. The attendant there, between drags on his cigarette, told us it was $17 because we were over 4 hours and the validation doesn’t apply after 4 hours.

So, warning to all: avoid this theatre, with its poor concessions inside, and extortionate parking rates. Others in the area, notably those run by Century Theatres have just as good an experience and guaranteed free parking, even if you have to wait for the second showing because the first is sold out.

I’ve written to the CEO of AMC Entertainment about this, and would strongly urge anybody else who has been similarly ripped off to do so. His address is:

Peter Brown,
Chairman and CEO
AMC Entertainment Inc.
920 Main Street
Kansas City
M) 64105-2017

Let’s make sure he knows that his competitors don’t rip off their customers this way. $19 for two movie tickets is bad already, but adding an additional $17 makes this a very expensive way to see a movie. For just $20 a month I get access to the NetFlix service where I can see many more movies, and without all the ads beforehand, or lines for overpriced drinks and snacks.

Another article from The Register points out that inkjet printer ink is now more expensive than vintage Dom Perignon champagne!

Further evidence that perhaps I should be using OFoto.com or Shutterfly.com for my photo printing. The results are better than my inkjet can manage, and, as long as I print enough in each batch, I’d guess that the cost might be lower too.

Alternatively, I might try out CostCo‘s in-warehouse digital photo printing service. Kitty’s brother, Wing, used it for some photos taken with his Sony digital camera and the results were good (better in fact than the film prints Kitty had made at the same time using Kodak’s new Perfect Touch system, which gave some photos a digital grain appearance).

A long weekend this weekend, and a hot one here in the bay area too. Yesterday (July 4th) we went to a couple of BBQs, and took Celina and Caitlyn with us (two of Kitty’s nieces). I took the camera, but it spent the whole day in my backpack so I don’t have any photos at all.

Today has been a slower day, but I have done some more work on getting Opie to compile on my Mandrake Linux box. I am fed up with the battery applet telling me that the power level is critical when the battery level reaches 50% and I wanted to fix that. I also want to see if I can fix the existing wireless network control panel, or write a new tool/applet, to allow me to select wireless networks more easily.

So far though it has been an uphill battle to get the thing to even compile. Assuming I get it to the point where it works, I will try to add something to my TWiki system explaining the setup I used. I did find another page on Thursday that documents the steps somebody else took to make this work, though they appear to be using a Debian system, and at least on the steps makes use of Debian packages.

It seems to me, given the number of people having trouble making this work, that there is a way to go before this is really ready for mass software development (or there’s an opportunity here for somebody to put together a good SDK).

Just a short note this time to leave you a link to Jason Anderson’s web site. Jason used to work for Wind River too, but is now working on his MBA. He is going to be writing up his experiences as an intern at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners this summer – could be interesting reading for those of us on the other side of the table trying to get funding.

Posting frequency here is perhaps not what I’d originally planned, but then again do you care what I had for breakfast (oh, I don’t do breakfast, so I guess that’s not a good example), or what the traffic was like on the bridge in the morning (usually better than the traffic at midnight on my way home again).

So, instead here’s a collection of sites that came to my attention this week – in no particular order:

• The Linux Bootable Business Card project, or LNX-BBC for short, creates a business card sized CD-ROM image that can be used to boot any X86 PC. Useful for those that might need to recover data from a crashed system, or for those that might have forgotten the root password to their linux box.

  It can also be burnt onto a standard CD-ROM for those that either don’t have access to a supply of business card sized blanks, or who have drives that make using them awkard (slot loading, or vertically mounted ones for example).

• On a very different note, how about a potentially tax-deductible training course crossed with a cruise vacation. That’s what Geek Cruises offers. Most of their cruises are on Holland-America ships, and go to Alaska or the Caribbean. They are 7 day trips, and for the days at sea you get to attend classes on the topic of choice for the cruise (examples incude Digital Camera workshops, Linux, Java, Photoshop and MacOS). On the days in port, there are no classes.

  The tours are on regular cruise ships, and claim to have around 25 people in each class, so plenty of access to the experts. Those experts include Linus Torvalds for the Linux ones, and Bert Monroy for the photoshop class, and Steve Wozniak for the Mac classes so well known people in each field.

• Finally, for this set at least, check out this web site promoting a digital animation movie created by the couple that generated the original Jimmy Neutron test. They work in their spare bedroom at this, and have produced a full DVD movie all of their own called WonderLens. Check out the trailers and other clips on their site – the clips are much more fun than the trailer!

If I find more of these amusing little things I’ll place them here, so keep watching for more tech, and perhaps even non-tech goodies.

Today marks the first day of my return to work. My four and a half months off were good (and I wish I could afford to do my own thing every day), but I received an offer that was really too good to turn down.

My new employer is a small startup company about 20 miles from Alameda (so not ideal in terms of a commute – have to cross the bay bridge and then drive to a place called Brisbane, just south of San Francisco). The office is right beside the bay, on the peninsula side. I was thinking about getting a boat to commute with since my apartment is by the bay as well – that would make for an unconventional commute at the very least, and it would certainly avoid the traffic problems of the bridge.

Anyway, the company’s name is Instant802 Networks, and they are working on wireless networking software and embedded Linux. Check out the web site for a little more information, and to check out an open source product that the company released a while back.

Following a letter from my apartment complex management about the fact that I had my DishNetwork satellite dish mounted on my balcony railing (though not screwed to it so as not to damage it), I was forced to re-mount the dish.

The solution, after much web searching, was to create myself a base with a 1 5/8th inch metal pole sticking out of it. I also took the opportunity to buy some flat RG-6 cables in the hope that I could close the balcony door completely.

Here’s what I did:

1. Obtain the parts. Here’s what I got:
   • 6 foot long, 1 5/8 inch diameter metal fence pole
   • 5 gallon plastic bucket
   • 80 lbs of concrete mix
2. Cut the pole to the desired length (in my case I took off about 13 inches). Getting a shorter pole would be good if you can find one, but the shortest one at the Lowes store I went to was the 6′).
3. Mount the pole vertically in the bucket (check that it is vertical using a level, and make sure the thing is in the location you’re finally going to place it – my balcony slopes slightly down).
4. Mix the concrete and pour in. I cheated a little here and mixed it in the bucket as I went. Read the instructions on the concrete bag for information about the amount of water you should add – in particular notice the maximum amount).
5. Once set (I left it for the full 48 hours recommended on the bag, which was probably not necessary given that it has been hot here all week), mount the dish on top and repeat the alignment process. You should then have working satellite TV again.

Here are some photos of the dish support:

Finally, a short note on the flat cables. These are about 8″ long cables with female connectors on both ends so they neatly fit between the two cables that make up each feed. Unfortunately, in my case the sliding balcony door has a built in draft excluding system that prevents it from passing over these cables so they are only marginally better than my previous solution of simply running the the standard round cables through the doorway. Moral, check for spaces around the doorway you’ll be using.

Here’s a photo of the cables so you can see what they look like:

Sunday afternoon in San Francisco and we’re in the Botanical Gardens in the Golden Gate Park. Here’s a few photos from that visit:

While there we also stopped off at an art show, and bumped into an friend who used to work at Wind River, Michael Shiloh who is working at a company with a really cool name: Making Things.