So, Alisa reminded me of a story, and I figured it was the perfect kind of thing to post to break up the techie stuff.
One day she and I were going somewhere and I was driving. I used to drink a lot of sodas and had a bad habit of leaving partial soda cans in the cupholders of my vehicles. This particular vehicle was a truck that I hadn't driven much in the previous three weeks or so. Alisa apparently had a headache or some similar malady that required the use of medication, if memory serves. She planned to take the pill dry, but something went horribly wrong and she ended up with it lodged in the wrong pipe. She was able to clear it, but in her haste to try to soothe her throat, she decided to grab a swig of a Mountain Dew that was in my cupholder.
Noooooooooooo! I tried to stop her, but it was too late. She took a big gulp. She then was like "what's the big deal?" I had to reply with the unfortunate truth that I was quite certain the particular can she had just drank from had been in there for over TWO WEEKS. That's right, partially spent, open, and sitting there for two weeks. And what's worse? There was nothing any more fresh than that for her to rinse her mouth with.
It was one of the more grotesque things I've witnessed. But she survived, so it couldn't have been all that bad, now could it?
Thursday, January 10, 2008
New gadgets
Okay, so I've been accused of being "too techie" on my blog. I thought about that for a while and even tried to come up with some non techie stuff. Guess what? It didn't much work.
So, my new gadget to try is the Eye-Fi card. Appears to be an SD card that will automatically publish your digital camera pictures to the web as you shoot them. Claims to work with all major photo publishing sites (including the open source package called Gallery that I use). I'll try to remember to report back on how it works.
My most recent gadget I've purchased that I like is the Cradlepoint PHS300. It's a router that lets you share your cell data connection via wifi. It's battery operated and rechargeable. When connected via USB to a Blackberry 8830 it will not only share the data connection but charge the Blackberry to boot. It also supports USB data dongles (I have a Sprint dongle for coverage where my Verizon Blackberry either has no service or doesn't have EVDO).
So, my new gadget to try is the Eye-Fi card. Appears to be an SD card that will automatically publish your digital camera pictures to the web as you shoot them. Claims to work with all major photo publishing sites (including the open source package called Gallery that I use). I'll try to remember to report back on how it works.
My most recent gadget I've purchased that I like is the Cradlepoint PHS300. It's a router that lets you share your cell data connection via wifi. It's battery operated and rechargeable. When connected via USB to a Blackberry 8830 it will not only share the data connection but charge the Blackberry to boot. It also supports USB data dongles (I have a Sprint dongle for coverage where my Verizon Blackberry either has no service or doesn't have EVDO).
Monday, January 7, 2008
Well, it appears my race season travel begins soon. In a couple weeks I'll fly to Texas for a couple days of driving instruction, and then fly from there to Daytona to take in the Rolex 24. I'm going with Jason Saini and plan to talk to some folks and attempt to find a competitive GT car to drive in the 2009 Rolex 24. It's only a couple weeks after that trip that I have to go to San Antonio for the SCCA Convention (and my associated SEB meetings). Then I'm hoping to get some seat time in the Cayman for the One Lap of America race. I already have a couple coaching days lined up in the Cayman at VIR in early March, and am currently working to get some time in the schedule at CMP (hopefully with Brian Smith as my instructor...he's a former One Lap winner and all around great race car driver).
Friday, January 4, 2008
One Lap of America
Well, it looks like I will be racing in the One Lap of America this year. I can't announce my partner yet, but it will be a championship winning pro driver. Looks likely I'll have a fairly big name in the road racing world as a sponsor, too. Yes, this is a major teaser, I know. I'll be racing in my Farnbacher prepared Cayman GTR.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
More Bluetooth
Just remembered another big possible use of bluetooth that's ignored, and that's digital cameras. I think there are a couple around now, but I really think we should be to the point that most digital cameras have it. The main reason is obviously an ability to easily share photos. No, not just with your desktop for publishing, but for people traveling together and such. We have two kids and occasionally travel with other families. It's fairly often the other folks have a picture or two we'd really like to have a copy of, but you have to remember to find a way to get it later. It would be really nice to just beam that special one over from their camera to your camera or bluetooth enabled phone (sure, for this you probably require a phone with bigger storage, such as a Blackberry or other "smartphone").
Aside from the endless possibilities there, the other reason I'd love to see more bluetooth used is for GPS location. The JPEG standard (the file format most digital cameras use) has metadata stored in each file. Cameras will often store information like what lens settings and light source was used when a given picture was taken. They will also store the time the image was taken in the file (which is a much better method than the timestamp of the file save itself, since that can get lost by many software packages as you move the file from place to place). Another data field pictures have is GPS coordinates. Very few cameras do anything with this, though a few have GPS input options (hardwire) or even have their own GPS receivers built in. But almost all cellphones have a built in GPS, and many have bluetooth already. If cameras had bluetooth, it wouldn't be very hard for them to get GPS info as pictures were taken and store that in the picture.
Now, this kind of thing will happen over time. When it does, be ready. Huh? Ready for what? Ready to decide if you want people to know where your pictures are taken. I definitely do not want the GPS coordinates of every picture I might post to the web to be available to everyone else. That can be solved in your publishing method or by whether you have the camera store that information at all.
Another good use for bluetooth in a digital camera is to keep the time set on the camera accurately. A lot of people post their pictures, and a quick scan of the EXIF data (this is the metadata stored in a JPEG) to see the time will often reveal a time that's obviously wrong because the camera was never set properly or never reset after suffering a dead battery. The time and date a picture was taken is an important piece of data, but it isn't often realized to be very important until you are researching something much later, and it's only then you find that your time and date stamps are wrong and there's nothing you can do about it.
These are all things that bluetooth can do as a technology, but it won't until we start beating on the consumer electronics companies to provide us with it. Use suggestion email forms and cards on your devices and let them know. Once bluetooth is standard in devices, it's a simple matter of software from there to open up a whole world of possibilites. Imagine being able to email that really neat shot of your kids at Disney to grandma with ONE TOUCH right from your digital camera (assuming you have a bluetooth enabled camera and cellphone). It's possible, we just need to ask for it.
Aside from the endless possibilities there, the other reason I'd love to see more bluetooth used is for GPS location. The JPEG standard (the file format most digital cameras use) has metadata stored in each file. Cameras will often store information like what lens settings and light source was used when a given picture was taken. They will also store the time the image was taken in the file (which is a much better method than the timestamp of the file save itself, since that can get lost by many software packages as you move the file from place to place). Another data field pictures have is GPS coordinates. Very few cameras do anything with this, though a few have GPS input options (hardwire) or even have their own GPS receivers built in. But almost all cellphones have a built in GPS, and many have bluetooth already. If cameras had bluetooth, it wouldn't be very hard for them to get GPS info as pictures were taken and store that in the picture.
Now, this kind of thing will happen over time. When it does, be ready. Huh? Ready for what? Ready to decide if you want people to know where your pictures are taken. I definitely do not want the GPS coordinates of every picture I might post to the web to be available to everyone else. That can be solved in your publishing method or by whether you have the camera store that information at all.
Another good use for bluetooth in a digital camera is to keep the time set on the camera accurately. A lot of people post their pictures, and a quick scan of the EXIF data (this is the metadata stored in a JPEG) to see the time will often reveal a time that's obviously wrong because the camera was never set properly or never reset after suffering a dead battery. The time and date a picture was taken is an important piece of data, but it isn't often realized to be very important until you are researching something much later, and it's only then you find that your time and date stamps are wrong and there's nothing you can do about it.
These are all things that bluetooth can do as a technology, but it won't until we start beating on the consumer electronics companies to provide us with it. Use suggestion email forms and cards on your devices and let them know. Once bluetooth is standard in devices, it's a simple matter of software from there to open up a whole world of possibilites. Imagine being able to email that really neat shot of your kids at Disney to grandma with ONE TOUCH right from your digital camera (assuming you have a bluetooth enabled camera and cellphone). It's possible, we just need to ask for it.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Why Linux will never make it big on the desktop...
I can't believe I've been using Linux for over 15 years now. I simply can't believe it. Time has flown by so fast. If you had told me 14 years ago that I'd still be using Linux as my main desktop operating system, I would have assumed it was because something big had happened, and would have probably even gone so far as to say Linux must have grown into a force in that time.
Both are correct, but neither has anything to do with the desktop. Linux is big. I would even say Linux is now a force in the computing marketplace. Unfortunately, it's still only on the server side. Linux continues to grow some on the desktop, but my anecdotal evidence seems to say that it is really only growing significantly in embedded type desktops. I'm talking about corporate controlled environments where applications are limited and control is being kept in the IT department. Or on college campuses where Linux installs are available to integrate with the campus Unix environment. Or even on specialized products like Asus Eee PC, which was intended to be absolutely as cheap as possible yet still powerful enough to be an enjoyable machine to surf the web and do email (and it is, BTW, though I still can't believe Asus didn't put Bluetooth in it...wait, I already did a bluetooth rant today).
Linux will continue great success on the server side, and I believe this is mostly due to the open source model. Server applications are vertical in nature, and by that I mean you typically install one server to do one thing (ie. be a web server). Even when you have it do multiple things on the same server (ie. web, email, file sharing, etc), those things aren't generally highly connected. They also need the same general resource set...disk, RAM, and network. When you combine that with the open source model, you find you have so many people with exactly the same set of needs that invariably enough of them will have the skills to make those applications work so well that we find ourselves where we are today...Linux is a really good server platform.
You might think "well, if that's the case on the server side, just imagine how good it can be on the desktop since there are a lot more people using desktops than hacking on servers!" Wrong. I used to think that way, but have since come to realize this will never happen. Sure, Linux will achieve some success on the desktop, but the fact of the matter is that the Linux desktop community will always remain far too fragmented. There are too many people with too many divergent needs on the desktop. When you combine that with the fact that desktop applications need a LOT more in the way of resources (you need the same stuff a server needs plus things like high end graphics, many more input devices, layers of communications, etc) and you end up with a much larger matrix of things to support. Combine that with the ever changing PC hardware landscape, and you end up with an unsupportable nightmare of building blocks for an end application vendor.
Sure, some application vendors have done it. Sure, some application vendors never will and in many cases the open source world has stepped up with an amazing application of their own (we have very good office suites, email, web browsing, etc). But in far too many cases we see people with applications that they could likely never support on Linux. There remain far too many different distributions that it becomes impossible to even figure out which one(s) to target. The resources that an application need to rely on are constantly being improved, but that means constant change. That change scares many vendors because of the support issue.
Basically, to me, what it boils down to is that the best thing about open source, the ability to rapidly improve it, is the thing that will keep Linux on the fringe of desktop acceptance. I thought that about ten years ago but honestly thought things would eventually come together in many ways, become more stable, and allow Linux to see application vendors support it more. Over the last couple years I've come to realize that I may always need a Windows or Mac on my desk for some things (or at least an emulator running some other OS), and I am no longer confident there's an end to that in sight.
To the folks who continue to work on the Linux desktop, please take this as a challenge. I implore you.
Both are correct, but neither has anything to do with the desktop. Linux is big. I would even say Linux is now a force in the computing marketplace. Unfortunately, it's still only on the server side. Linux continues to grow some on the desktop, but my anecdotal evidence seems to say that it is really only growing significantly in embedded type desktops. I'm talking about corporate controlled environments where applications are limited and control is being kept in the IT department. Or on college campuses where Linux installs are available to integrate with the campus Unix environment. Or even on specialized products like Asus Eee PC, which was intended to be absolutely as cheap as possible yet still powerful enough to be an enjoyable machine to surf the web and do email (and it is, BTW, though I still can't believe Asus didn't put Bluetooth in it...wait, I already did a bluetooth rant today).
Linux will continue great success on the server side, and I believe this is mostly due to the open source model. Server applications are vertical in nature, and by that I mean you typically install one server to do one thing (ie. be a web server). Even when you have it do multiple things on the same server (ie. web, email, file sharing, etc), those things aren't generally highly connected. They also need the same general resource set...disk, RAM, and network. When you combine that with the open source model, you find you have so many people with exactly the same set of needs that invariably enough of them will have the skills to make those applications work so well that we find ourselves where we are today...Linux is a really good server platform.
You might think "well, if that's the case on the server side, just imagine how good it can be on the desktop since there are a lot more people using desktops than hacking on servers!" Wrong. I used to think that way, but have since come to realize this will never happen. Sure, Linux will achieve some success on the desktop, but the fact of the matter is that the Linux desktop community will always remain far too fragmented. There are too many people with too many divergent needs on the desktop. When you combine that with the fact that desktop applications need a LOT more in the way of resources (you need the same stuff a server needs plus things like high end graphics, many more input devices, layers of communications, etc) and you end up with a much larger matrix of things to support. Combine that with the ever changing PC hardware landscape, and you end up with an unsupportable nightmare of building blocks for an end application vendor.
Sure, some application vendors have done it. Sure, some application vendors never will and in many cases the open source world has stepped up with an amazing application of their own (we have very good office suites, email, web browsing, etc). But in far too many cases we see people with applications that they could likely never support on Linux. There remain far too many different distributions that it becomes impossible to even figure out which one(s) to target. The resources that an application need to rely on are constantly being improved, but that means constant change. That change scares many vendors because of the support issue.
Basically, to me, what it boils down to is that the best thing about open source, the ability to rapidly improve it, is the thing that will keep Linux on the fringe of desktop acceptance. I thought that about ten years ago but honestly thought things would eventually come together in many ways, become more stable, and allow Linux to see application vendors support it more. Over the last couple years I've come to realize that I may always need a Windows or Mac on my desk for some things (or at least an emulator running some other OS), and I am no longer confident there's an end to that in sight.
To the folks who continue to work on the Linux desktop, please take this as a challenge. I implore you.
Bluetooth still not there?
Okay, for those who have been using bluetooth headsets and other bluetooth cellphone connectivity kits for a few years now, you probably think it's great. Folks using the Nintendo Wii may not even know they are using bluetooth for the Wiimote to talk to the Wii. Bluetooth is low power and relatively fast these days. So how could it still not be "there"?
Many folks may not realize this, but the bluetooth standard has been around for well over ten years now. The original whitepaper referenced several "cool" things you could do with it. One of these perfect applications was opening your garage door. Yet, in all this time, we still can't open our garage doors with bluetooth! Sure, some googling results in some talk of garage door bluetooth projects, and the fact is the adventurous among us can use bluetooth to open our garage doors. But the fact of the matter is there's no off the shelf product to do it. You won't find any add-on kits at Home Depot or Lowes, nor will you find a new garage door opener mechanism that works with bluetooth.
To me, this is a perfect application of bluetooth. In fact, you should be able to control a bluetooth garage door opener not just with a cellphone, but with that bluetooth enabled car stereo you may have. What else is missing? I would love to be able to remotely turn on or off my home alarm system with a bluetooth device. If automotive key fobs were bluetooth, we could get some amount of control to have ONE keyfob that could let you start any of the cars you own. Remotely, in fact.
I'm constantly amazed at just how little acceptance we've seen with bluetooth given just how long it's been out there in the wild. (And yes, I do also find it strange myself that my third blog post here has two of the three heavily about garages.)
Many folks may not realize this, but the bluetooth standard has been around for well over ten years now. The original whitepaper referenced several "cool" things you could do with it. One of these perfect applications was opening your garage door. Yet, in all this time, we still can't open our garage doors with bluetooth! Sure, some googling results in some talk of garage door bluetooth projects, and the fact is the adventurous among us can use bluetooth to open our garage doors. But the fact of the matter is there's no off the shelf product to do it. You won't find any add-on kits at Home Depot or Lowes, nor will you find a new garage door opener mechanism that works with bluetooth.
To me, this is a perfect application of bluetooth. In fact, you should be able to control a bluetooth garage door opener not just with a cellphone, but with that bluetooth enabled car stereo you may have. What else is missing? I would love to be able to remotely turn on or off my home alarm system with a bluetooth device. If automotive key fobs were bluetooth, we could get some amount of control to have ONE keyfob that could let you start any of the cars you own. Remotely, in fact.
I'm constantly amazed at just how little acceptance we've seen with bluetooth given just how long it's been out there in the wild. (And yes, I do also find it strange myself that my third blog post here has two of the three heavily about garages.)
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