Umbral Echoes Blog

And the built-in photos app is just too cool.  Check out the demo here (Photos is the third one down, my favorite bit is about 2:40 in).

Really the big feature is the 3G connection though. I’ve found this useful enough for work that even if they hadn’t got me one, knowing what I know now I’d have bought one myself.

I’m deciding between the iPhone 4 and the HTC EVO.  I’ve wanted to try out an Android phone, but I’m really on the fence here. So I’m rounding up the benefits of each that are important to me (so I’m not including things like how the iPhone 4 supports wireless-N, or how the EVO has a 1.3mp front-facing camera as opposed to the 640×480 one on the iPhone 4, or how the iPhone 4 has a higher-resolution display).

iPhone

• Better battery life. The first iPhone and the 3G models had pretty crappy battery life, but this seems to get better with each iteration. All reports of the EVO say that its battery life is horrendous.
• I’m already used to the interface. This is a minor quibble, but I already know how things work on the iPhone.
• More refined user experience. Even with the modified version of Android that the EVO runs, the interface on the iPhone is more refined.
• I’m already with AT&T.  I’m really not a huge fan of them, but neither do I hate them. Familiar devil, I suppose.
• Better video chat.  The EVO has the front-facing camera, but the only real video chats supported are through Fring and Qik, and that doesn’t seem to work too well. Then again, realistically I’m not likely to use video chat a whole lot anyway.

HTC EVO

• Not a closed system. Anyone can make Android apps.
• Integrated kickstand.  Yes this is lame, but could definitely come in useful, especially with video chat.
• Better alert system.  It’s not limited to one alert message at a time like the iPhone. I suspect since this is a big flaw in the iPhone future updates might fix this though.
• About $20/mo cheaper. That’s almost $250 per year, $500 over the life of a 2-year contract.
• Tighter Google integration. You can actually have an app for Google Voice, and the built-in navigation system uses Google Street View, which is rather awesome.
• Supports Flash. This can be a big one for web browsing. Apple, get the fuck off your high horse; HTML 5 is not going to replace Flash.

One big features I didn’t include with the EVO is that it’s 4G.  Frankly, I don’t care.  3G is fast enough for everything I want to do with my phone — if I’m going to stream HD video, I’m going to do it on my iPad.  Plus from all accounts I’ve seen, using 4G sucks the battery life out of the camera like a nympho just out of solitary.

My friend Eddy Webb at White Wolf just got himself an EVO, and posted about it if you’re interested in reading his take.

So far I’m leaning toward the iPhone. I’ve got 3 days to decide.

Work got me an iPad 3G, since a lot of our customers are likely to use one, and it would behoove us to have some on-hand to look at issues ourselves. It arrived Tuesday, and I’ve been putting it through its paces since then. Short version is, the more I use it, the more I like it. I’m sort of on the fence right now as to whether I’d actually buy it if work didn’t get it for me, but currently leaning toward “no.”

The Good

• Interface – Nothing notably new here if you’re used to the iPhone/iPod Touch interface. Apple is really, really good at designing user interfaces. However, being on a bigger screen, all the apps feel like grown-up versions. The music player is more like the full iTunes, email is a lot more usable.
• Speed – It’s fast. Notably faster than my iPhone 3G. Very responsive; it loads up apps quickly, and there’s very little delay in rotating the screen when you change orientations.
• Music Player – Very close to the full iTunes experience, thanks to the extra room.
• Battery Life – This seems to be pretty darn good, though maybe I’m biased because the iPhone has such crappy battery live. More testing will be required, but after a couple of days of moderate use (I’d say maybe 5-6 hours total) it was down to about 60%.
• No Contract 3G Service – $30/mo for unlimited wireless Internet, $15/mo for 250 MB, and you can change that up or cancel it any time you want. Not exactly cheap, but not an arm and a leg either, and no contract.
• Speedy Push Notifications – Though sometimes it’s about even, my iPad usually gets push and email notifications notably faster than my iPhone. E.g. when I get a new email via Gmail, my iPad usually knows even before my desktop web browser does, and maybe 10-15 seconds before
• Full GPS – The 3G model has a full GPS chip. I’ve heard reviews that have said it seems to take a little longer to lock on than the iPhone 3GS, but that once it does it seems to hold the signal better. I’ve only used this a little, but it seems to work very well. I could definitely see using this as a replacement for a car stereo and GPS.

The Bad

Too much blank space between icons

Most of these things are really more “annoying” than bad. But I wanted to use the good, the bad, and the ugly as my headlines, so shut the frack up.

• Weight – Its heavier than I thought it would be. Wihch isn’t to say it’s a brick, but it’s definitely solid. I can see this causing a bit of arm fatigue if you’re trying to hold it up for more than a minute or two.
• Whitespace – One area where the interface doesn’t shine. The homescreen seems to have lots of empty space. The app icons should either be closer together, or larger, or some combination of the two. See picture.
• Fingerprints – Like the iPhone, this thing is bad at collecting fingerprints.
• Recharge Time – Probably due to having a bigger/better battery, the recharge time is a lot longre on this than I’d expected.

The Ugly

• Audiobook Transfer – This is really odd and unintuitive to someone who’s used an iPhone. Instead of transferring audiobooks with your normal audio files, you transfer them as you do eBooks. When I first tried transferring, I noticed that the audiobook playlist I had didn’t even show up as an option for syncing. I added a non-audiobook file to it and it showed up, but when I synced the playlist it only transferred that one music file, not the audiobooks. Only after some searching the web did I find that you have to use the Books tab from iTunes on your computer, scroll down, and select audiobooks there.
• Can’t Recharge From Computer – When I connect the iPad to my computer via USB, it lists “Not Charging.” Apparently you can only charge your iPad from either a wall outlet, or from a Mac. PC users are out of luck. This is a pretty bad issue.

I was supposed to be in… well, Paris right now. We had scheduled a work trip to London, Paris, Toulouse, and Madrid from the 15th through the 24th. However, the volcano gods of Iceland had different plans. By the way, have you seen some of these pictures? They’re surreal.

Because London was shut down, I had them reroute me to France, but the next available flight there wasn’t until the next day. So I got stuck in Chicago overnight, but that was actually sort of fun since I got to see a couple of friends that I’d not seen since GenCon, Alix and Mark, and got to meet both Alix’s husband John and her good friend Dave. Alix and John were nice enough to put me up for the night, and there was much drinking of beer and geeky revelry (my favorite kind!). I even helped Alix play Magic, which I haven’t touched in… man, probably about 8 years now.

Anyway, this might work out for the better anyway; we’re attempting to reschedule for June, so the weather will be much better. In the previous trip, half of it was screwed up due to mis-schedulings, and we can avoid that this time around. Also, my Hotwire-fu failed and we ended up getting a hotel in London that was a mile from the tube — definitely suboptimal. I’m not even sure if we’ll hit London the next time around, since that was a somewhat last-minute change to hit a wargaming convention anyway (which we learned was actually the next weekend). I hope we’ll be able hit it next time, and on a Saturday since there’s apparently some great goth club action in London on Saturday nights.

On the downside, American Airlines lost track of my luggage. There were some expensive articles of clothing in there, the total value of everything in the four-digit range. I can’t really blame them too much, since the cancelled European flights caused all sorts of chaos. On the upside, as of today they finally found the luggage and it’s on its way back to me.

This is a post for the MySQL geeks out there, and also for anyone who had a similar problem and might be searching for a solution.

I was trying to copy our testing server’s database to my local machine, so I can do some local development (I’ve set up a web server and database on my personal computer, so that I can test things out before moving them to the development server). I’m using WAMP for that, which is a very simple way to set up a local webserver on Windows.

Well, when I tried to import the database I got the following error:

Error Code: 1005 - Can't create table 'whatever' (errno: 121)

So I edited my.ini, and increased max_allowed_packet, like so:

[mysqld]
max_allowed_packet=32M

I’ve heard that some other people have also had to increase wait_timeout to something like 45 seconds to fix this error.

Today I am proud to call this neighborhood my home.

Image from Hal Bergman Photography

This morning I had to take Kayla to the veterinary surgeon for a follow-up.  On my way home, Lauren calls me telling me someone knocked on the door, that she didn’t answer because she was still in bed, and then she heard some weird sounds. I was about 15 minutes from home at this point, so I told her I’d be right there. Thought maybe it was just some kids fucking around.

I pull into my subdivision to see 3 cop cars near my house, and some neighbors out in the cul de sac gathered with baseball bats.  Apparently someone had tried to break into my house while I was gone. Two someones, in fact. But mine wasn’t the first house they went to. They had gone to my neighbor on the left before that, knocked on the door, and he said that when he answered they seemed surprised, then asked if he needed his lawn mowed. They obviously had no lawn mower, so he was suspicious. Then they came to my house, knocked on the door, and when no one answered, they went to the door attached to the garage and proceeded to attempt to kick it in.

I say “attempt” because they didn’t manage to get it open — it broke part of the frame but caught on the door jamb, since the frame was solid wood (as opposed to compressed wood, which most more recent houses use). Meanwhile, my neighbor Devon is calling the cops, and then coming out to ask the guys what the hell they’re doing, along with another neighbor from the other side of my house, who is wielding a baseball bat. The would-be thieves, predictably, get the hell out of dodge. Or try to.

Apparently, my neighborhood doesn’t take well to thieves, because my neighbors gave chase. Before long, several people in the neighborhood were attempting to corral these jerks, and within a couple of minutes the cops were there. Living within 2 miles of a police station has some benefits. The neighbors and cops coordinated, and the cops took the thieves into custody.

Yes, you read correctly. The police were called and actually caught the criminals. That never happens.

These fuckers are now behind bars. I will have to replace the door, but I was considering doing that anyway (it’s in a bad spot that gets a lot of moisture and was in crappy condition). Nothing was stolen, no one was hurt. I will be following up with the police to make sure that these bastards get what’s coming to them. You do not scare my girl, or fuck with my house. You certainly do not do both.

So, fair warning to all would-be thieves: choose another neighborhood. The only thing you will find here is epic fail.

In late April (edit: Yes, April — I originally said August, but it is April), my boss is going to Europe to talk to some European publishers. I will be coming with him to answer tech questions.

The plan is to fly into London, take a train to Paris, train to Toulouse, train to Madrid, then fly back home. The trip will last about 10 days total, and with nearly 5 days of that being taken up with flying/trains, that doesn’t leave much time to spare for fun stuff and sightseeing. But, we will do our best to squeeze some in, and I will post pictures as I can.

I found this somewhere, but I cannot remember where, and since Google is unable to find it now, I cannot attribute it. If you know who wrote it originally, please let me know. Also since Google is unable to find it, I feel the need to put it back on the Interwebz.

This is done in the style of The Very Secret Diaries of the Lord of the Rings characters, except it’s done as Selene from Underworld.

The Very Secret Diary of Selene

August 4, 1648

Woken from scrummy dream about ponies to discover strange man in my room wearing silly dress and covered in blood. Told me my family had been eaten by monsters and I should put on leather pants and go live with him forever. Agreed instantly.

Looking back, was a tad suspicious.

Google Buzz, and before it Google Wave, seemed to have great potential. I played with both when they came out.  But my interest quickly waned, and from what I can tell I’m very much not alone in that.

Part of the reason is that I think Google jumped the gun. In marketing, you have to be careful about when you create a buzz (pun intended). And especially with products like these, they’re only useful if everyone is using them. In both of these cases, I think Google was directing the general tech populace to use products that were incomplete.

With Wave, they should have had permissions from the get-go, so that you could invite people to see, but not edit, a Wave. They have that now, which is nice, but it’s a bit late in the game — comparatively few people regularly use Wave any more. There are a lot of other things they did wrong with Wave, too: it was much buggier than I’d expect from a Google beta, slow as molasses, and too broad in scope. That last one is really what killed it, I think. People generally want a clear path for using a product; they want a sexy sports car, not a bunch of parts that they have to figure out how to best put together to build a sports car that suits their needs.

With Buzz, they went the other way. It’s too damn simple. I have lots of friends. Some I’m closer to than others. Some I want to pay more attention to than others. So maybe I’d like to be able to easily see a Buzz stream from only certain groups, instead of everybody. Maybe once I start or participate in a discussion, I’d like to select whether I get emails specifically for that discussion. (And while I’m at it, hey Facebook! How about being able to turn off receiving emails just because I thumbed-up a post that 50,000 other people feel the need to comment on?) Maybe I would like to have my Twitter posts show up in some decent timeframe, instead of the next day if I’m lucky.

Overall, I love the things Google does. Chrome is amazing, and broke the web browser mold when it came out. Gmail has been my email client of choice for years now. Their search engine revolutionized the web.

Then again, not every hit can be a home run. I like that they’re trying new things! I just think that a lot of these things have great potential, but were executed poorly. And that makes me sad.

Two tools I really didn’t think I’d need for building a system: needle-nosed pliers, and a file. Where the hard drive went in, there was a retaining bracket that was preventing a hard drive screw from passing, so I had to bend it. And when I replaced the case fans with better and quieter ones, the size on the front one was off by a fraction of a millimeter, which required filing off the plastic around where it went in.

However, this time no blood was spilled. I think that might be a first. So, I consider it a success!

I also remembered how annoying it can be to build a system. I got a power source that can handle 2 video cards (“Crossfire capable” they call it, for ATI cards), but the kind I got took both of the power connectors. So I can’t actually use 2 without upgrading my power source. Talking to NewEgg about that, but so far no luck asking for an exchange.

Also, I remembered a little hack for installing Windows clean, using an upgrade disc. You can use an upgrade version as the full version in one of two ways when installing it fresh (i.e. wiping whatever is already on there, if anything: install it fresh and then install it over itself, or (the quicker, easier way) do a simple registry edit.

Something else I realized: I have a Logitech Performance MX wireless mouse (no, I did not just realize this, shut up). It is pretty awesome, but my only complaint has been that it will randomly stick, and for 30 seconds or so it stutters and jumps around the screen when I try to move it. Today I tried something that seems obvious: I moved the damn wireless receiver to a USB port closer to the mouse. Guess what? No issues since then. I know, I’m a frackin’ genius.

Okay, so how does the shiny new system work, you ask?

It’s fast. Very fast. I attribute almost all of that to the SSD. That’s a solid-state drive; a hard drive with no moving parts. They are expensive, for much less space than you will get with a normal hard drive, but they are about twice as fast, 1/4 the size overall, use far less power, make no noise, and emit almost no heat. For laptops, they are about the most awesome thing you can have. For desktops, still quite awesome.

One not-fast bit is logging into Windows. It gets to the login screen, I enter the password, then… it sits there for 20 seconds before continuing. I’m not sure why this is, and I don’t think it initially did it. But it doesn’t happen when I’m waking the computer from sleep or hibernate, and I almost never have cause to do a full power-off or reset, so that’s not really a big deal.

The only other pet peeve I have is that, even though there is a connector for it, the case has no hard drive activity indicator light. And since the SSD is even more silent than a ball-gagged ninja, there’s no way for me to know when lots of hard drive access is going on. I mainly look at this when the system seems to be randomly crunching/slow though, and since that hasn’t yet happened… I can live with it for now.

My work-oriented stuff is very fast as well. We use Subversion, a system that lets multiple people work on the same code at the same time without stepping on each other’s toes, and it also retains a complete history of every change ever made to the code, so that you can roll back if you screw something up. Performing updates and commits with this is very notably faster than it was on my old system (also a quad-core system, with 5 GB of RAM).