Categories
computer

Bargain Of The Month: Apple + Adobe + HP + Crucial

If you qualify for an educator/student discounts from the Apple store and want a new machine, check out this crazy deal which I just did at OpenRain…

 

  1. MacBook 2.4GHz White: $1300 – $100 .edu discount = $1200.
  2. iPod Touch 8GB: $300 – $300 MIR == $0.
  3. HP Photosmart C4480 All-In-One Scanner/Printer/Copier: $100 – $100 MIR = $0.
  4. Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium: $1600 – $1300 IR = $300. (OMGWTFBYOB!!!)
  5. Crucial 2 x 2GB SODIMM RAM: $100

 

Total: $1600 + taxes and express shipping ~= $1800. That’s one helluva bargain for a great midrange laptop (w/4GB RAM mind you) and the powerhouse of Adobe CS3 alone. The iPod and scanner just add to the sweetness! Rock on!

 

 

 

 

Categories
computer

Parallels Server Pricing: Redux

After a few grumpy emails between myself and our Account Manager, I’m happy to report that we have purchased the GA release and it’s working well. If you are using Parallels Server for internal development purposes and not for hosting, they will extend a more reasonable price per machine: $200 + $50/year maintenance. I think that’s a very reasonable price point for our usage, and am happy to pay it.

This likely has more to do with meeting end-of-Q2 sales quotas than attracting my dinky business, but regardless, a win is a win! Thanks!

 

Categories
computer personal

Switching To Dvorak: Seven Months Later

Today marks exactly seven months from the day I switched to the Dvorak keyboard layout.

Key Observations

  1. 72, 81 and 77 words per minute, clocked with three different one-minute tests on TypingTest.com.
  2. In home-row-only tests I took several months ago, I was already consistently over 100 WPM. The many common home-row-only words (those spelled with A, O, E, U, I, D, H, T, N and S) are remarkably comfortable and fast to type.
  3. It’s all about muscle memory. I can type my thoughts just as well as the next guy without looking at the keyboard, but can’t recite you the upper or lower row keys by memory. Interesting, huh?
  4. The pain in my left-hand little finger tendon is gone! More of this is likely due, however, to also switching my Command and Caps Lock keys in software.

Other Conclusions

  • I’m much, much better at hunt-and pecking in Dvorak–that is, staring at a QWERTY keyboard set to Dvorak in software and “sensing” where the right key are with my pointer finger alone. (Useful when typing a few words on someone else’s box.) This is hard because of #3 above, but learnable.
  • I can now hunt-and-peck suitably on my iPhone (QWERTY only) keyboard.
  • Typing QWERTY on a Dvorak keyboard is a lost cause. I have to stare at a secondary QWERTY keyboard to do so, because my muscles and mind have totally forgotten. (Again, see #3.)
  • Typing on a laptop keyboard feels better on your finger tendons, but just as uncomfortable on your wrists.
  • Sharing windows machines with others is awkward and frustrating. Let me know if you have a good system tray applet for quick-switching the whole system to Dvorak, because team-admining a windows machine requires a hellish amount of clicks to set the system-wide keyboard layout.
  • Apple is absolutely horrid at designing with ergonomics in mind. (In their defense, they obviously aren’t trying.)
  • I haven’t discovered the mental gymnastics that allows you to type in QWERTY when necessary. I can type my name and common passwords in QWERTY, but that’s about it, sorry. No hablo QWERTY.
  • Stuff that now sucks because they are built for a QWERTY layout: emacs, vi, <your_favorite_editor>, Aperture, some Java apps. All games now require new key bindings off-the-bat too.
Categories
computer

Parallels Server for Mac Pricing

Fresh from my inbox..

Parallels Server for Mac will be available soon. As a thank you to all participating Parallels Server for Mac Beta users, Parallels is offering an exclusive discount on a single Parallels Server for Mac license. Purchase this new software for only $700* – a 30% savings.

Hmm… well, the product has been working fairly well for us at OpenRain, but I’m not sure $700 per major version is going to be worth it as opposed to buying another cheap Dell machine and running VMWare Server on Linux for free, which we already do in some of our hosted environments. Here’s the kicker in tiny font at the bottom of the email explaining the asterisk after “$700”..

* The limited-time discount offer is limited to a single server from May 30 – June 30, 2008. Annual maintenance is required at the time of purchase, starting at an additional $249.75 per year. For academic pricing and volume licensing, register now or contact Parallels Sales at +1 (425) 282-6400.

So that’s $950 for the first year of our first system alone. Hmmmm… 

Categories
computer

Netgear FVS114 – Worst POS SOHO Router Ever

Some of the worst infrastructural issues OpenRain has had since inception has been border hardware. We’ve been through all typical COTS models you’d find at Best Buy, but all have had issues with at least one of..

  • Dropping inbound traffic due to some stupid “DDoS Protection” feature we couldn’t disable.
  • Not passing VPN traffic though to an internal server.
  • Crashing.

But this latest POS–the Netgear FVS114–really takes the cake. Check it..

  1. Log in to http://www.workingwithrails.com
  2. Visit http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/new
  3. Listen for the sound of everyone simultaneously screaming “WTF!? The ‘net’s down!”

We’ve reproduced this issue with FireFox and Safari from multiple machines inside the network. Way to go, Netgear! (Might want to get on this one.) I’ll be buying some real hardware online in about 15 minutes.

 

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Leopard Server: Bonjour-Based DNS A Performance No-No

Prior to moving into the new OpenRain office (announcement coming in June), we used OS X’s magical .local addressing to find all our servers. This allowed us to keep almost everything on DHCP, which is trivial to set up and administer. Little did we know, however, that this was being the root cause of many internal issues.

  • General network I/O performance (file server access, OpenLDAP-based logins etc.) sucked. Simply using Server Admin or Workgroup Manager across the network would often take 5+ seconds to log in.
  • Portable Home Directory (PHD) syncing, VPN and firewall services never seemed to work right, possibly due to nonequivalences between “server.example.com” and “server.local” in SSL and SSH. I’m not completely sure, but stuff broke in more ways than one.

Case in point: do not use bonjour-based DNS for your core network services. Use a proper DNS server from the start. DNS is a cornerstone dependency of all the other services provided by your Leopard server, so any performance issues you introduce at this level will carry through to your entire infrastructure.

Categories
computer

Five Major Apple Design Irritants

Apple,

My software development firm–OpenRain in Arizona–spends buckets of money on your products. Stuff works pretty well in general, but you really need to address these issues. Really.

  1. PowerBook, MacBook and MacBook Pro power supply cables invariably rip. Not only that, but it’s always at the same freaking places. The MackBook/Pro power supplies are better than the PowerBook ones, but still don’t last more than a couple years of real-world use. The issue is at the endpoints of the laptop end of the cable that get bent constantly from travel and being wrapped sharply when the electric outlet is on the wrong side of the laptop. I really love the small and agile design, but the cables need to last at least 4 years without tearing.
  2. Laptops still run hot. Phoenix summer get hotter than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and I have gotten physically burned by the MacBook Pros when wearing shorts. Product such as the iLap are amusing, but should not be necessary. Getting physically hurt by a computer is a problem.
  3. Keyboard are not ergonomic. The latest iteration of post-modern laptop-style bluetooth keyboards are great to look at, but absolutely horrid on the wrists. No one at the office really likes them in practice, and we’ve had to revert to the Microsoft Natural series of keyboards when have been around f-o-r-e-v-a-r but Apple hasn’t responded to. I’m 100% confident you could build a swanky, highly usable bluetooth keyboard that puts the Naturals to shame.
  4. iPhone copy/paste support. It’ll be an awesome design accomplishment when we no longer need this, but you haven’t gotten there yet, sorry, and everyone else agrees. Add copy/paste support (if only in key areas) to iPhone.
  5. iPhone needs to support dvorak. Yeah yeah…. I know I’m in the minority on this and am sneaking it in, but I spend a lot of money with you guys, and having to use QWERTY just for the iPhone is driving me insane. Add the freaking layout please.

 

 

Categories
personal photography

Pictures: Cape Cod

I was over in the Boston/Cape Cod area earlier this month. Only got to site see for a couple hours but still thought I’d share the few shots I have. What I learned while visiting..
  • My grandma once used Jackie O’s toilet.
  • I’m about 2 megadollars short of being able to live there.
  • Every photo you take would be perfect for a viagra ad.
Categories
Uncategorized

Pictures: Costa Rican Landscapes

I recently returned from a week-long trip from Costa Rica. These are best frames from the trip and are intended for large format viewing. Flickr royally sucks at that (everything is shown low-res by default), but you can nab higher-def shots with a few clicks if you have a 24″+ monitor and would like to fill your screen.

Contact me privately if you’d like copies of the highest resolution RAW sources. (JPEG == Yucky.)

Costa Rica 2008 Flickr Set

 

Categories
photography

Book Review: Digital Astrophotography, by Stefan Seip

Rocky Nook — a digital photography book publisher in California — sent me a review copy of Digital Astrophotography: A Guide to Capturing the Cosmos for review, which I read over the last few months.

Pros

 

  • A good overview of the techniques used in astrophotography.
  • Well illustrated.
  • Inexpensive.
  • Largely easy to follow for the casual reader.
  • Covers the entire process, from equipment to post-processing. I’m very well oriented with “typical” production and post-production photography methods, but was unaware of the additional complexities and tools involved with astrophotography.  

 

Cons

 

  • Casual SLR/DSLR and point-and-shoot users will not be able to suddenly get stunning frames of the night sky. It turns out that the equipment required to get decent shots requires a level of financial commitment to the niche you aren’t likely to make unless you have a professional need or really, really, REALLY like looking at celestial bodies. You’ll probably need a special mount for your camera, or build a jig yourself. I did not want to invest a significant amount of money, so I have been unable to try many of the techniques described.
  • If you’re bad at math, you may find some of the technical setup difficult to follow.  
  • The tools covered are Windows applications. Bah. 

 

Recommendation

Buy if..

 

  1. You’re serious about becoming astrophotography and have the cash to pony up for specialty hardware, or…
  2. You are not planning on trying it for yourself but nevertheless have $20 of curiousity.