Wallpaper
It should be illegal to sell a house with wallpaper. And the punishment should be double for those who wallpaper the ceiling too.
Wallpaper Should Be Outlawed
It should be illegal to sell a house with wallpaper. And the punishment should double for those who wallpaper the ceiling too.
Long Time No Post
I know. I know. It’s been a very long time since my last blog posting. I have never gone this long between posting since starting this blog back in March 2002. The longest delay between postings until now was back when I made the move from NYC to Salem. The delay was almost 2 months, but this most recent delay has been just over 4 months. Way too long to go without a posting, especially considering all that has happened in the last 4 months. Needless to say, though, with all that has happened over the last 4 months my schedule has been unusually busy which is why I haven’t had time to post. Staying in hotels without Internet access hasn’t helped either.
So the 2 biggest events that have happened are:
1) My wife and I are expecting a baby boy at the end of March!!!! I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about this. Already it seems like I discovery something new about being a daddy-to-be on an almost daily basis. For instance, just the other day I could see the baby moving around in my wife’s belly. I heard this was possible and I thought it would be freaky, like watching Aliens or something. But it turned out to be really cool. And the movements seems to be more frequent and more visible each day. I’ll be posting more about being a daddy-to-be / new dad. Meanwhile, check out our baby blog.
2) We bought a house! Yep, after living most of my life in rental property and all of my adult life in rentals, I can finally say I’m a home owner. I still don’t think owning a home is a wise financial investment, but I can say I love the idea behind owning a home. There’s nothing quiet like it. The freedom to do what you want such as paint, remodel, etc, to make the place your own is awesome.
And on the business front, White Peak Software continues to grow. Yes, I know I have fallen behind on release the next Killink CSV and SMTP Diagnostics updates and for that I apologize. But it has been very important to me to put certain “ducks in a row” so I can focus on time on these products in 2008.
So that’s it for now.
Long Time No Post
Since starting this blog back in March 2002, I have never gone this long without a post. The longest time before now was when I made the move from New York City to Salem Mass, which was about a month between postings. This time around it has been nearly 2 full months between postings. Needless to say, I have been extremely busy in through 2 months.
First of all, I have taken on new customer work to help pay the bills while I continue working on the product side of White Peak Software. While this has helped financially, it is taking it toll on my available time. The main reason is I am now traveling weekly. Combine this with my already busy travel schedule and I’m left with very little time.
Another activity keeping me busy is the purchase of a new house. Melanie and I have never owned a house before so the process is totally new for us. We found the house we really like and plan to close in December. I can’t tell you how excited we are about owning our own house and how anxious I am to be done with the buying process. It’s almost like a full time job shopping for mortgage and dealing with all the other tasks that go into buying a house. And add to that my travel schedule…
But wait. There’s more. The new house is not the only thing we are excited about. Melanie and I will soon be parents. Yep, that’s right. I’m finally going to be a daddy.
MP3 Ringtones on Sprint RAZR V3m
My new Sprint RAZR V3m phone can play MP3 music files, so it seems only logical to me that I should be able to use MP3 files as ringtones on the phone. It turns out you can but it involves a few steps.
The steps below are for MacBook Pro users. Windows users can probably use a similar approach but I don’t really know for sure. So please no questions about how to do this using Windows.
First you will need an MP3 file. A ringtone only play for 30 seconds so I suggest you edit the music file down to a maximum duration of 30 seconds. I used GarageBand to edit the MP3 file down to the desired duration and to contain the sound bit I wanted as a ringtone.
Once you are done editing the track in GarageBand, select Share > Send Song to iTunes from the GarageBand menu bar. The song will be mixed, copied to your iTunes library, and iTunes will be launched. In iTunes, select the new song, which is probably playing in iTunes, and select Advanced > Convert Selection to MP3.
Congratulations. You now have an MP3 file ready to use as a ringtone.
The next step is to copy your newly created MP3 ringtone to your Sprint RAZR V3m phone. Using Bluetooth, pair your MacBook Pro with your phone. Select Browse Device… from the Bluetooth menulet. Select your phone in the list of devices and click the Browse button. Make sure your phone has Bluetooth turned on and that you grant access to your computer.
Assuming all is right up to this point, you should see the Browse window displayed on your computer.
Way to Go Brenna!
Brenna Davis, my sister-in-law, isn’t joining my wife’s family this week for the Davis clan’s annual family vacation. Instead Brenna is representing the USOC at a sport festival in Turkey. What an awesome opportunity for Brenna.
How To Access a Windows 2003 File Share From Mac OS X
I love my MacBook Pro. It’s an awesome machine and OS X is a great operating system. However, I have encountered 2 problems when dealing with my Windows-base network. First problem is accessing Windows 2003 file shares and the other problem is resolving machine names on the local network.
I still haven’t solved the second problem but today I came across the solution for the first. This blog posting by Drew McLellan gives the step by step instructions for accessing Windows 2003 file shares from Mac OS X. Thanks Drew!
Cannot Resolve Machine Name From Mac OS X
After resolving the Windows Server 2003 file share access problem I turned my attention to fixing the DNS issue I’m having. I’m able to ping the IP address of machines on my Local Area Network but I’m not able to resolve the machine names. I have a local DNS running on Windows Server 2003 but for some odd reason OS X is not using it to resolve names. So I decided to use a stop-gap approach for the time being.
I modified the /etc/hosts file to include the address of the machines with a static IP address. After all, these are the only machines I need access to from OS X. Here are the steps I followed:<ul>
<li>Sign in as an administrator (or an account belonging to the sudousers group)</li>
<li>Launch a terminal shell (Applications > Utilities > Terminal if you are using Finder or type terminal in Spotlight)</li>
<li>Run the command sudo vi /etc/hosts</li>
<li>Scroll to the end of the file</li>
<li>Type i to enter insert mode</li>
<li>Press the enter key to start a new line (my vi skills are weak as it has been years since I have used it - there is probably a better way to append to the end of a file)</li>
<li>Enter the IP address, press the tab key, then enter the name machine</li>
<li>Press the esc key to get out of insert mode</li>
<li>Press :wq to save the changes and quit vi</li>
</ul>That’s is. The machine name will now resolve to the IP.
Making iSync Work With Sprint RAZR V3m
I mentioned earlier today that I had to do a little tweaking to get iSync, running on my MacBook Pro, to work with my Motorola RAZR V3m from Sprint. Here are the steps I followed to get it working:<ul>
<li>Download and install latest software updates on the RAZR (Settings > Phone Info > Update Phone SW).</li>
<li>Download latest Motorola RAZR V3m iSync Plug-in.</li>
<li>Created the directory ~/Library/PhonePlugins.</li>
<li>Extracted the iSync Plug-in to the ~/Library/PhonePlugins directory.</li>
<li>Launched iSync.</li>
<li>Followed the iSync instructions for adding the new device.</li>
</ul>That was it. It was all goodness for me after that.
Major Technology Upgrade
Those that know me well know I tend to hold on to and use older technologies (i.e., computers, mobile phones, iPod, etc) longer then I should. Once a piece of technology is working for me I don’t see much reason to upgrade. But every few years I must go through a major technology upgrade, which is what I have done over the last week.
I replaced my aging mobile phone with a sleek Motorola RAZR V3m. I admit I’m addicted to this phone. While I was able to do Internet and text messaging on my old phone, my new phone makes it easier and allows me to do more such as check email and watch live TV. The built-in Bluetooth is awesome too. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.
The new mobile phone required I get a new headset. I prefer hands-free talking especially on longer calls. My wired headset is incompatible with the RAZR so I bought a new Bluetooth enabled headset, the Motorola H700C. Of course I look like I have joined the collective when I wear the headset, but fashion aside this is a really nice headset. It works well with the RAZR phone. Calls are clear, and according to those I’ve called there is no problem hearing me talk.
A major technology upgrade is not complete without a new computer. I mentioned the other day that I bought a MacBook Pro. It arrived yesterday and after spending a few hours with it I can’t image going back to a Windows only machine. I’ve tried various favors of Linux over the last couple of years but I always encountered some type of problem. This made me a bit concerned about switching to Mac OSX, but I now know I had no reasons for concern. Everything just works. Some tweaking was needed in certain cases but in general everything work.
One area that required a little tweak was adding iSync support for my RAZR phone. Apparently the latest OSX updates from Apple support the RAZR V3m but not the Sprint version, which is what I have. Luckily I learned about ClockSkew and his iSync plug-ins for the RAZR phones. Now, using Bluetooth - gotta love that technology, I’m able to sync my calendar and address book between my phone and MacBook Pro. Awesome stuff, I tell you.
Speaking of Bluetooth, I decided to go with the wireless Bluetooth keyboard for Macs. Once again it just works.
To continue working with Windows, which I must do, I installed VMware Fusion. This product is awesome too. I find my virtual machines run much better under OSX as the host operating system compared to Windows or even Linux. Of course having 4GB of RAM doesn’t hurt either.
So new phone, new headset, new laptop…what else? That’s it for the moment but I do plan to buy a new SLR digital camera within the next couple of weeks. I wonder if digital SLR camera come with Bluetooth to transfer pictures?