Dave's List
Gadgets, web and miscellany
Winning runs from Sunday’s Rally Cross
Aug 12th
So Sunday Cassie and I went out to Fountain, CO for Event #6 of the Colorado Rally Cross season. I won, but barely. I videoed all 12 runs that Cassie and I did using my iPhone 4 with a homemade mount (lots of double-sided tape and taped ports to keep the dust out). I think the footage came out pretty good. Our car, a 2002 Jetta with recently replaced engine and transmission mounts (old ones kept breaking) sprung a coolant leak, so we were filling the coolant with water every run, and it redlined on temperature every run (260° F). By the end of the day, we managed all 12 runs thanks to everybody who let us maximally separate the runs, and Eric Genack‘s supplied water (used 2 gallons). The coolant was clear instead of red by the end of day (completely diluted).
Neat optical illusion
Jan 24th
Takes a while, but quite cool. Follow the instructions…..
Cool Optical Illusion – Watch more Funny Videos
Now a BizSpark startup
Jan 20th
My company, Tall Pine Technology, is now a Microsoft BizSpark Startup. I think with this development, it’s hard not to go all-microsoft for e-mail, etc.
Stalking me for tech support
Jan 16th
Well, I have an interesting, if cautionary tale of why you might not want to help out strangers with software advice.
It started out when I posted detailed instructions on how to setup wview on Ubuntu. I posted and updated detailed instructions on how to set up a complete system, from start to finish. I maintain(ed) this very carefully, and when changes came up, I updated the article. Nonetheless, this process has become outdated, and so the procedure documented still works, but is not the easiest way to do it (techies: the developers have packaged up the install, so it’s almost a one-liner, now).
More >
Stuff I install on Windoze
Jan 3rd
This is a partial list of stuff I install on Windows Vista and newer, on nearly every machine I configure, with a short description of why I use it: More >
Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 upgrade NIGHTMARE
Dec 21st
Well, the Ubuntu team really screwed the pooch on the latest upgrade. I manage three Ubuntu machines, all with clean installs of 9.04. Well, I locally upgraded one of them, and tried to remotely upgrade the other two.
For the local upgrade I used the GUI, and for the remote systems I used do-release-upgrade as instructed.
All three upgrades failed, in various ways.
The local upgrade lost its internet connection. I had to MANUALLY select the Wired Connection 1 after upgrade.
The two remote ones failed (I had to visit the machines) on reboot, failing to mount the file system.
Then one (perhaps two) of the remote systems did an interface swap, rendering them inaccessible on the internet.
It seems this particular upgrade was not tested sufficiently prior to release, as any google search on this upgrade will show.
This was the Vista of Ubuntu upgrades for me and many others. A complete disaster, and likely to throw beginners off of Ubuntu and linux for a long time.
I was buried in command line hell for hours to get this upgrade to finish, and needed a friend to fix the network problem introduced in this release.
Galápagos
Dec 18th
Cassie and I got back from the Galápagos islands on November 24th. We took, on four cameras, 15 600 pictures over the 14 days we were in Ecuador for our (belated) honeymoon.We were on board the Tip Top IV with Galapagos Travel for 11 days, and visited 13 islands.
We distilled these pictures and videos down to ~2000 for flickr.
