Month: September 2002

Apple’s iSync public beta released today

Matchmaker Bluetooth: No-cable connection excels at pairing handhelds

Even as recently as last spring, Bluetooth was hard to find and required a lot of hand-holding to operate in most operating systems. In April, Apple Computer launched a Bluetooth technology preview for OS X, then delivered the final code as part of OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) a month ago.

Apple also plans to add specific synchronization features with its free iSync software that will work with Bluetooth. (iSync had been scheduled to ship this month but has been pushed back.)

Microsoft promises Bluetooth support this fall as an add-on to Windows XP.

iSync public beta was released today: find it here.

The image above shows a couple of Bluetooth hardware devices, USB and serial/parallel.

I’m thinking of iSync’s immediate promise of being able to sync up calendars on machines here on my home network, but the allure of hardhelds (ah, once more I drink from the bitter cup of the Newton’s unfulfilled promise) is hard to resist.

good news for Apple java development

Developer – Frequently Asked Questions

Q: When will Apple have an implementation of J2SE 1.4 available?

A: We’re now providing an early version of our 1.4 implementation, the Java 1.4 Developer Preview, to all seeded ADC members. This pre-release has only been qualified against the WWDC Jaguar seed, and has not been qualified against any other seeds/builds. The product development cycle includes plans to seed a prerelease version of the J2SE v1.4.1 to developers. Specific dates for further releases have not been determined and are in part dependent upon Sun’s release schedule.

Looks like Apple is starting to close the gap between it’s java implementation and all the others.

attack of the clowns?

CNN.com – Record labels seek OK for P2P sabotage – Sep. 27, 2002

But some lawmakers worried that overzealous copyright enforcement measures could end up targeting innocent computer users, and said they did not want to encourage a high-tech game of cat and mouse that could easily get out of hand.

“What are the implications for the Internet’s functionality when the inevitable arms race develops?” asked Virginia Democratic Rep. Rick Boucher.

Boucher noted that overzealous copyright enforcers have already mistaken a photo entitled “Portrait of mrs harrison williams 1943” for a song by former Beatle George Harrison, and demanded that Internet provider UUNet terminate the account of a customer who posted a book report on Harry Potter.

Just what we need: more script-kiddies launching clumsy attacks on random systems/networks.

If the people lead, the leaders will follow

The Seattle Times: Monorail idea wins wide applause, but many say cost outweighs benefit

Even though a majority of Seattle voters would not be frequent riders, they want to build a city monorail.
[ . . . . ]
As with school and housing levies, Seattleites appear willing to pay for amenities they consider a general public benefit.

Imagine where things would stand if the past 40 years had seen a progressive expansion of the monorail: it might have been extended as far as the old Interurban route, permitting car-free transportation from Everett to Tukwila. It’s interesting to speculate what might might have happened had this come to pass. Perhaps Microsoft would have chosen someplace on the monorail corridor for its headquarters and eliminated the dreaded crosslake commute. I can see monorail stations at the two downtown sports stadiums, taking fans to the top of the seats. A station at Colman Dock would unite the Mosquito Fleet of the 19th and early 20the centuries with the 21st.

maybe this helps explain the crash

A friend writes: because i never finished my degree, the state will pay for tuition as i
continue to collect unemployment [ . . . ] it seems that about half of the people in
my classes this quarter are former tech workers who were laid off from
local startups.

I have always believed the key reason to look for a college degree on a resume is to see if the applicant can set a long-range goal and deliver on it. I don’t care what it’s in: the material you learned may be irrelevant 5 years into your career, but the skills you develop in learning new things and achieving the necessary milestones are what really count.

My correspondent was not one of those who thought he’d strike gold in the boom years — it was a job with the possibility of some financial freedom and the certainty of interesting challenges, no more than that — but I know there were plenty of self-taught “rock stars” who were too cool for school.

POLA violation?

since I upgraded the snmp daemon on one of my boxes a few days ago as part of a portupgrade run, snmpd hasn’t been running. It seems someone “improved” the rc script for snmpd to check in /etc/rc.conf for snmpd to be enabled.

case “$1” in
start)
case “${net_snmpd_enable}” in
[Yy][Ee][Ss])
echo -n ‘ snmpd starting’
${net_snmpd_program:-${PREFIX}/sbin/snmpd} ${net_snmpd_flags}
;;
esac

<grumble>

Turns out, the maintainer mentions this in pkg-message, but I’m not likely to see that when I upgrade a bunch of ports: perhaps some kind of email or logfile would be useful for changes like this.

<UPDATE> The maintainer suggested I look for “heads up” messages in the logfile, which makes sense except for the fact there isn’t one unless you specify it. So one more step to the process: export DATE=`date “+%m-%d-%Y”` && portupgrade -aP -l /var/tmp/portupgrade.log.$DATE

Evolving Amazon

Amazon.com–Earth’s Biggest Selection

So the Gold Box is now holding 15 items, all as unappealing as the five we started with. I see the Gold Box as the moral equivalent of the impulse items at the checkout: a $1,300 film scanner is not an impulse buy. The prices have to get a lot better before I can get excited about any of this stuff. I like the fact that on the Internet, you can change to be whoever you think your customers want you to be. The new shipping deal — free shipping on orders of $25 or more — is great. I just can’t see buying a film scanner (and having it shipped) or a cabinet door jig from Amazon. Perhaps I haven’t evolved: I still think of them as a books and music store.

But on the upside, my associates link has netted me $.43 so far. (Thanks, John.)

you can draw your own lessons

The Seattle Times: Lou cuts loose in M’s win

With little else to play for, Lou Piniella showed last night that pride and passion are still part of his game in the dying days of this long-gone pennant race.

Following his own call to win as many as possible, the Mariners’ manager went berserk when first-base umpire C.B. Bucknor blew a close third-out call on Ben Davis at first base that ended the ninth inning and cost Seattle a win in regulation.

A week or so back, Lou Piniella put on quite a show, protesting a blown call that cost his team the game. It provoked this response:

I’m certain Lou was provoked by the umpire. I’m certain he was and does get frustrated. I’m also certain that he, like all other concerned parents, would like his children to respond with a apology for less than “sportsman-like conduct,” rather than the excuse that he was provoked.

Another lesson you can draw is that a leader stands up for his guys, and if he loses his temper, so be it. Sports at that level is not a passionless exercise. It’s not like he took a bat to the umpire: he vented his energy on inanimate objects (though the first base bag flying into right field might not count as inanimate).

I sometimes wonder if Seattle isn’t too concerned about appearing emotional, rather than displaying a bit of passion and drive.