Categories
computer

LaTeX Broken On MacPort “texlive” Update

I spent about 4 hours today troubleshooting a stupid, stupid issue with the “texlive +full” package as provided by MacPorts, which is required to run certain GUI LaTeX editors such as TeXShop. Several days ago I ran an innocuous-looking…

preston$ sudo port sync
preston$ sudo port upgrade outdated

…and amongst many things that updated, texlive was one of them. Unfortunately, running tools such as the command-line “latex” command or GUIs such as TeXShop started giving me the following error:

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.11 (TeX Live 2010/MacPorts 2010_0)
restricted \write18 enabled.
—! /opt/local/var/db/texmf/web2c/pdftex/pdflatex.fmt doesn’t match pdftex.pool
(Fatal format file error; I’m stymied)

After much fruitless searching and hair pulling, I stumbled upon this ticket that notes the solution as:

preston$ sudo fmtutil-sys –all

After running this, LaTeX seems to work properly again. Sheesh.

(Note to product developers: I would personally pay at least $50 for a simple, clean, stand-alone OS X app that does LaTeX really well. TeXShop and TextMate both do a good job, but I’d really like a 5-star “just works” editor that doesn’t install a bunch of system-level stuff like MacTeX. Just sayin’. šŸ™‚ )

Categories
business music

Video: How To Produce A Live Music Event Recording: Post-Production

To help answer the question of why it takes so long to get an event recording on disc, even for small events, I’ve put together this high-level, high definition (720p) behind-the-scenes walkthrough of the post-production editing, mixing, mastering, replication and packaging processes used for the ahCOOTstic Rock event (and others) brought to you by the Phoenix Independent Musicians’ Project (PIMPĀ Google Group)Ā and Sonic Binge Records.

Enjoy and please share this video!

If you’re in Phoenix and want to be part of hot event productions like this, join the Phoenix Independent Musicians’ Project!

Categories
personal

Kindle 3G Upgrade: Mini Review, Recommendations

The "Home", "Menu" and "Back" buttons are now to the right of the keyboard.

I’ve previously expressed my love for the Kindle family of devices, and on a whim decided to upgrade from the Kindle 2 to the new Kindle 3G with 3G and wifi. For others contemplating the upgrade, here’s what you need to know:

Pros

  • The new button layout is way better. Next/Previous button are on both sides of the screen, and Home and Menu buttons have been moved to the keyboard area, along with a new direction pad (“d-pad”) design that is easier to use, albeit different.
  • Smaller device footprint. Kindle 3 feels more compact and portable than Kindle 2.
  • The screen update time is noticibly better, but only slightly so. It’s definitely noticable and a welcome improvement, but don’t expect LCD-level performance here. It’s still e-ink.
  • Wifi! Not that on the more expensive model, you have both wifi support as well as the free 3G access.

Cons

"Next" and "Previous" buttons are now on BOTH sides of the device. A welcome change!
  • $189 for a bunch of marginal upgrades is a tough sell.
  • Keyboard is still ghetto. It feels like typing on a 1990’s scientificĀ calculator.
  • The Next/Previous buttons depress easier than before, but they’re also smaller and don’t have any nubs to identify the button by touch. This seems stupid.
  • Sharper screen. It’s a subtle improvement, but definitely feels crisper.

Recommendations

  • New users should go for it, and light readers should be perfectly fine with the Wifi-only $139 model.
  • Existing users with heavy usage patterns (at least an hour a day on average) should go for it. You’ll love the small speed improvements when highlighting and flipping pages.
  • Existing Kindle 2 owners with light usage patterns should skip this revision. Future models will certainly see further improvements and lower costs.
Categories
Uncategorized

Spring 2011 ASU Webapp Course

In Spring 2011, the College of Technology and Innovation at the ASU Polytechnic campus will again be offering CST 533/494: Database-Centric Enterprise Application Development. The calendar is not yet out, but should soon be listed as a Thursday evening class: one night per week for the Spring semester. The course will be available at both undergraduate and graduate levels for 3 credit hours.
The course essentially teaches dynamic web application architecture concepts and development processes using Ruby (w/Rails), Java (w/Spring, Eclipse, and Tomcat), SQLite, MySQL, and other industry favorite technologies as a means to the learning process.
  • New technologists: If you’re looking for training and experience in this area, definitely check out the ASU Polytechnic campus.
  • Old hats: If you are an “old hat” software engineer just looking for the credit hours, this may provide a fun, project-oriented opportunity towards working on your degree.
  • Companies: I am always on the lookout for opportunities to expose students to industry perspectives. If you’re interested in any sort of corporate sponsorship or collaboration, please contact me directly.
Categories
computer personal

Amazon Kindle Customer Service Experience

Kindle 2 with M-Edge Leather Platform Jacket and optional e-Luminator 2 book light.

About a month ago I noticed the top of my Kindle 2’s e-ink display starting to go out. Starting from the top of the screen, row-by-row slowly ceased to display “ink” until I could no longer see the battery indicator area. I could surely have lived with this, but given that the device is less than a year old I gave the Kindle support number a call.

I purchase a lot from Amazon and have used pretty much every service they offer, including long-time Prime delivery service membership and I’m fairly certain that my Amazon book purchases would put me in their 99th percentile of perfered consumers–so perhaps the call handler knew to treat me better than the average Joe–but regardless, the process was a true 5-star experience. Abbreviated transscript of the call:

Me: The screen on my Kindle 2 is going out.

Rep: I’m very sorry to hear that. <additional scripted apologies designed to make me feel better> How about we overnight you a replacement?

Me: Srsly?

Rep: Sure. It’ll be delivered tomorrow morning.

Me: Sweet!

And that was it. The replacement arrived the next morning as stated. It took me less than 5 minutes total to deal with the issue. For a unit of anything under warrantee this is the level of service I would hope for. Bravo, Amazon!

Categories
personal

TOMS Shoes

I recently won one of a thousand pairs of TOMS shoes courtesy of a joint promotion in conjunction with Gowalla and AT&T to celebrate TOMS 1 millionth “shoe drop”. (It’s basically like the “One Laptop Per Child” program, but for shoes.)

From the TOMS website:

“TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we’re all about. The TOMS mission transforms our customers into benefactors, which allows us to grow a truly sustainable business rather than depending on fundraising for support.”

Thanks to TOMS, AT&T and Gowalla for the free shoes and I wish you the best of luck in the program!

Categories
Uncategorized

MakerBot Thing-o-Matic Pre-Order

I’m super excited to have just pre-ordered a Thing-o-Matic from MakerBot Industries. It’s a fully automatic 3D printer (aka CNC rapid prototyper) that can also be outfitted with different material nosels (aka extruders) to draw in 2D, print designs for circuit board, and even dispense frosting and peanut butter. (Not joking.) Here’s a great example of what you can do with it. (Skip to 3:00 for the cool stuff.)

Here’s another video of the machine printing parts for copies of RepRap Mendel, another F/OSS CNC RP machine design:

This is a new model that won’t ship won’t ship until November 2010, unfortunately, but I’m sure it’ll take a while to get some cool designs done, anyway. The idea here is that if anyone else would like their own desktop 3D printer (RepRap, CupCake, Thing-o-Matic or other F/OSS design), you’ll be able to print about 50% of the parts for it on this original “parent” machine and order your own electronics and other assembly hardware online. Ā šŸ™‚

*Giddy with excitement.*

Categories
computer

Upgrading From Ruby 1.9.1 to Ruby 1.9.2

I’ve spent half the day so far inbeded in the furious stressful upgrade process of a handful of Ubuntu Linux 10.04 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard systems from Ruby 1.9.1 to Ruby 1.9.2. I haven’t even gotten to the Rails 3.0.0 stuff yet: just the baseline Ruby installation. I’ve gone through the upgrade process on both types of systems so far and the base issues have been the same. Here’s a common issue that many people are running into:

preston$ gem1.9

/opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/source_index.rb:68:in `installed_spec_directories’: undefined method `path’ for Gem:Module (NoMethodError)
from /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/source_index.rb:58:in `from_installed_gems’
from /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:883:in `source_index’
from /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/gem_path_searcher.rb:81:in `init_gemspecs’
from /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/gem_path_searcher.rb:13:in `initialize’
from /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:841:in `new’
from /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:841:in `block in searcher’
from <internal:prelude>:10:in `synchronize’
<…and so on…>

Assuming you’re upgrading from a previous Ruby installation, note that the “site_ruby” directories are no longer used, and will eff up your 1.9.2 installation if you fail to delete them after the install. On OS X, run:

sudo rm -rf /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/site_ruby/

On Ubuntu Linux 10.04, run:

rm -rf /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/

…to correct this issue. All note that you may see errors such as this:

root@li92-132:~# rake –version

/usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:340:in `bin_path’: can’t find executable rake for rake-0.8.7 (Gem::Exception)

from /usr/local/bin/rake:19:in `<main>’

…despite have a rake gem installed. Apparently 1.9.2 comes with a version of rake internally, but is unable to find it for some reason relating to the rake.gemspec file. Remove the file to fix this issue. On Ubuntu Linux 10.04, run:
rm /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/specifications/rake.gemspec
Notice the “1.9.1” path of the PATH. Yeah.. it’s weird. But for compatibility reasons your 1.9.2 installation will continue to use a path with 1.9.1. To quote the Ruby 1.9.2 FAQ page:
The standard library is installed in /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1
This version number is “library compatibility version”. Ruby 1.9.2 is mostly compatible with the 1.9.1, so its library is installed in the directory.
I’m sure there’s a wonderful technical reason for this, but it’s still misleading and confusing as hell. I ended up manually deleting a bunch of stuff I shouldn’t have because I thought I was innocently “cleaning up” after the old version. Whatever. Additional suggestions:
  • Just to keep things clean, you may also want to remove your old Ruby 1.8.x builds. (I recommend doing so unless you have older apps that haven’t moved to 1.9.x yet.)
  • Phusion Passenger seems to work fine on Ubuntu 10.04 with the latest version of Apache 2 as of this writing, though don’t forget to recompile, reinstall, reconfigure and restart apache2 when you do so.
  • Check if you still need rack v1.0.1 installed (for older Rails app) before nuking everything. šŸ™
I need a beer!
Categories
computer personal

Thanks, KindleTools Users!

Kindle 2 with M-Edge Leather Platform Jacket and optional e-Luminator 2 book light.

I just wanted to shout out a quick “thanks” to the thousands of Kindle fans that have used the Kindle Tools website to find the PIDs for their Kindle devices. I’m aware that the site doesn’t fully support all models and variations of Kindle hardware devices and software applications, but I am supporting the site and hope to do so one day. The public-facing portion of the site is super easy to use and I never expected it to generate the traffic that it does, especially considering it’s a “one-time use” kind of tool. It’s very encourage to periodically receive a package in the mail gifted by a grateful Kindle Tools user off my wishlist. I generally don’t reply but do get these tokens of apprecation and your support is VERY much appreciated.

Let’s all continue to support the Kindle community and Amazon.com, while simultaneously insisting on open standards, free data interchange, and the non-proprietary future of our data in the ebook domain. The last thing we want is non-interoperable ebooks, so make your voice heard!

Categories
computer

3D Desktop Ruby Applications On Linux

Over the past year I’ve put out a few working demos of how to develop full 3D, OpenGL-based OSX applications using Ruby. Most of the comments I’ve received have been positive, but I think the high learning overhead has been the prime limiting factor in addoption. I also decided to focus exclusively on Mac OS X, further limiting the potential audience.

I’m pleasing to learn that Martin “monkstone” Prout has successfully run the code contained within my Starfield.app–basically a folder of code on a OS X system that looks and behaves like an .exe does Windows–on a Kubuntu Linux system. I haven’t personally tried to replicate this myself due to a lack of time, but you can read how monkstone did it on his blog.