I like modern art. But after reading the new multi-gallery show of Damien-no-more-spot-painting-hirst's news, I have to make this small contribution. Click on the image below to see:
mysql installation on ubuntu failed
We often use wordpress as the CMS for our application's public site. That means we have to install mysql on our rackspace servers. Today the installation process failed several times, with this error message in syslog.
Error:
[shell]
ERROR: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'ALTER TABLE user ADD column Show_view_priv enum\('N','Y') CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT ' at line 1
[/shell]
I first try to uninstall and reinstall sqlserver but it will not uninstall cleanly. Finally I have to both use apt-get and manually remove some directories to get back to a clean install:
[shell] apt-get purge mysql-server apt-get purge mysql-common rm -rf /var/log/mysql rm -rf /var/log/mysql.* rm -rf /var/lib/mysql rm -rf /etc/mysql # and then: apt-get install mysql-server --fix-missing --fix-broken [/shell]
Then I get a clean (re)install of mysql and it started up.
Kindle Touch Review, from an iPad2 User
Executive Summary
- If you are a serious reader, even if you own an iPad2, buy the Touch.
- If you have a child who loves to read, buy the Touch.
Background
I own an Amazon Kindle 1, aka the White Wedge. I used it quite a bit until the battery stop holding it's charge, and I got an iPad2. I do almost all of my book reading on the iPad2 using the Kindle App (how ironic). However the weight and the glare makes the reading experience sub par. One cool thing that I can do however is to flip between the Kindle App and iThought HD (a mindmapping app) to make notes while I read.
I pre-ordered the Kindle Touch when it was announced and it arrived yesterday. Charged it up in about an hour, and it is ready for use.
Likes
- It is small and light, something that you can "throw" in your bag and have your books with you anywhere, bonus: much lighter than the iPad2
- Page turn delay, which is always an issue with e-ink display, is not bad. Check out the video review I made, basically it is quick enough not to be bothersome.
- The on screen virtual keyboard is also very responsive, meaning you can make notes easily right on the device
Dislikes
These are all minor issues:
- The charging port, which is a micro-USB port, feels loose. I hope it does not break in the future
- The feel of the plastic body is not great. I cannot tell why, but it just does not feel nice, especially compare to Apple products
- Similarly, I which it comes in a sharper color, but then that's what cases and covers are for
- no landscape viewing mode (at least for now) -- I do not find this to be a big problem, but people using the Kindle for reading personal PDF may find that an issue
- When you click a "button", it does not "flash" -- so there is no visual feedback of a button being pressed. This is something that, say Apple, will never let go. They should either turn the button dark for a moment or have audible feedback, considering there will likely be a delay until the action is taken. (Note: The keyboard has this "flash/dark" feature. Only buttons in dialog boxes do not.
For Video Review click here to see my video on Amazon.
More Tips and Issue
Amazon Account Management
We use the Kindles within the entire family. One question is whether to use one single Amazon account for all content? Or split them up into adults vs kids accounts. This is a problem that would be solved if Amazon allows a easy transfer of content between accounts, but they do not. This is how the "book" metaphor breaks down. We are not allowed to give our books away. Since we may want to read each other's books, we choose to use a single amazon account. As a result, we need to:
- disable auto-syncing so that two people can read the same book at different speeds without all devices automatically jumping to the furthermost point
- use collections to organize a larger than necessary set of books
Listening to Music from iTunes
I am a Mac user and all my music are stored within the iTunes / Apple ecosystem, as DRM free Apple Lossless format files. the Kindle only support MP3s. So I need to convert any music that I want on the Kindle into MP3 files. iTunes has this feature but it may not be obvious.
Kindle Touch for Kids
The Kindle Touch is a great device for kids who read.
Final Thoughts
Summarizing the bigger points regarding the e-book and digital living marketplace:
- Amazon should allow ownership transfer of e-books. This is solved in the music world by the removal of DRM in music files.
Itunes Music Match Resource Usage
My main music library is on my 2011 Mac Mini, 2.3GHz 8G ram Core i5 CPU. Right now it is half way matching my 9000+ songs. Looking at the activity monitor, it is using up one entire CPU, with 35 threads and about 500 Meg of real memory. I assume the matching process is some sort of checksum computation and then a network query, which is why it is CPU intensive but not network intensive.
Memorializing 11/11/11 using Apple Products
At 10:59 this morning my kids decided they want to do something special at 11:11:11 11/11/11. 12 minutes later a non cropped version of this picture showed up on our facebook wall. How do I do it?
- Find a free clock app for the iPad and install it
- switch on our Apple TV feeding into our main TV
- run the Clock app and turn on AirPlay Mirroring
- get the kids positioned
- take a few pictures using the iPhone4S
- Once we have the right picture,
- go to the iPad photo stream which has already pulled down the picture from the iPhone
- do a quick crop and enhancement (our loft is too sunny and it messes up the contrast)
- run the Facebook app on the iPad to post the picture
All in 12 minutes. Thank you Steve!
iPhone Day Light Savings Bug strikes again November 2011
If you have your phone's date and time settings set to "automatic", meaning it will automatically determine your time zone, you would be one hour early to your appointments today! For some reason, if you set your timezone yourself then the phone gets the day light savings change correctly. See the two screenshots I took flipping the automatic switch back and forth.
Jabra Supreme Bluetooth Headset Review
I have been eagerly awaiting the Jabra Supreme bluetooth headset. I always find boom based headset sounds better. While the Jabra is a bit larger then, say the Jawbone, I find that it is still small and comfortable to wear.
I like the flip boom design, where it switches on and off as you flip the boom open and close. Very natural. When the boom is folded in, the headset is smaller but still pretty thick. I wish for $99, Jabra ship the headset with a case.
Out of the Box Experience
The out of the box experience is pretty good, with the standard exception of needing to charge the unit up before first use. It is very nice that it comes with both a charger with a fixed cable, and an additoinal USB to micro USB cable so that you can use your computer to charge it up. It took just over an hour to get the headset fully charge.
Initial Pairing
Because the Supreme has "Voice Guidance", it will literally talk you thru the initial pairing. You can see this video of the voice guidance in action. I suppose you are expected to wear the headset to listen to the instruction, but I thought (wrongly) that I have to press some buttons, so I had the headset off. The voice guidance is loud enough that I can hear it anyway.
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg3KirLo3fI[/embed]
Comfort
The headset is really light. To be fair most of the new generation headsets are light. 18 grams. You really would not notice it. I wear eyeglasses, and it still fit over my very thin eyeglasses frame without problem. If anything I find that it is a little lose. I don't think I can jog in it.
Sound Quality
I say the sound quality is fair, which is good for a bluetooth headset. The noise cancelling works very well. I place a test call with the radio blasting in the office and much of that is muted out.
Voice Control and Guidance
Of course the Jabra is no Siri! But the voice system works surprisingly well. In fact if I do not have an iPhone with Siri, I would be really impressed. You can say "what can I say" and the headset will read you a list of available commands. One that is particularly useful is "phone commands". When you say "phone commands" it passes you thru to the phone. Since I have Siri activated on the iPhone, it starts Siri up for me. However, currently the Jabra Supreme firmware does not work with Siri. I can hear Siri, but Siri cannot hear me. Jabra promised a fix really soon.
Pros
- boom design for initiative on/off
- long battery life (5+ hours)
- comes with a charger and an extra cable for computer charging
- voice guidance and commands
Cons
- Does not work with IOS5, no SIRI, no Skype. Jabra promise a fix real soon, check their support page to see when it is available.
- Does not come with a case
Links
- Main product page at Jabra
- More Pictures of the package
How to use siri and Reminder effectively
We all love Siri, and scheduling reminders verbally, right? But you are not getting the most out of it unless you do the following, if you are a iCloud user with other devices and macs:
- Delete your local Reminder list in Reminder, leaving the iCloud reminder list
- On your Mac(s) calendar program, go to View / Show Reminders
- (optionally) on your iPhone change Settings/Sound for reminders so that you know a reminder has gone off as oppose to other events.
Now when you schedule a reminder with siri, it will automatically synced to your macs and ipads, and it will show up on all devices!
siri is amazing
There, I said it. Siri really is amazing. People who think it is just voice recognition software need to try it before passing judgement.
This is BETA according to Apple, learning a trick from Google. That just means they are going to tweak it with user data. Some of these things are not working (yet):
- It does not work with third party app. "Play Norah Jones" only work if you have her music on your music library. We need it to work with Rdio or Spotify, like Dragon Go does.
- It does not take multiple calendars into account. I have 25 appointments next week according to "check my schedule", what I really want is "check my work schedule"
- You would think you can send tweets from siri, with all the twitter integration, but you cannot. You can say "text twitter" if you have twitter setup as an account with code 40404, the standard twitter SMS interface. You will be using your SMS credits though.
- It will be nice if it interface with either the calculator app or something more streamlined for basic calculation, and then read back the result instead of showing me a wolfram alpha page.
iPhone 4s preordered
iPhone 4s preordered, a photo by pkshiu on Flickr.In honor of Steve Jobs.
This is an example post
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Life, Taste and Personal Conviction
2011-10-05 is a special day for me personally, *before* I learned of Steve Job's death. I also spent the day in court. In fact I spent every workday of the last two weeks in court, as a juror. Life and death has been on my mind for two weeks. My own birthday is around this time, so I celebrated a birthday with 11 new found friends in a locked room, discussion the lives and death of other individuals is a sobering experience that not many people will have. One saving grace was the thought of next week, I will head down to the Apple store early in the morning, and line up to pick up a new iPhone 4S, as I did two years ago, at a whim, for my then new iPhone 3GS. I always thought Apple, because of Steve Jobs, was a great company building great products. I remember my old boss, when I was quitting my job to become a freelancer back in 1988, asked me who were my heros. I named Steve Jobs as one of them. I followed his career. I attended the NeXT computer launch in Boston's Symphony Hall. I guess that was the closest I got to Mr. Jobs. I debated to try to get an autograph from him on the NeXT poster that we received. In kept that poster for almost 20 years even without a signature. You could say that I was a fan, even though in the corporate world and the software world I was working with Microsoft products and PCs.
During my first start-up in 2000, I had his creativity and connection quote printed and pined up on my office wall. Most people think Apple is irrelevant. I purchased Apple stocks. That was my best investments ever made, probably never to be repeated in my lifetime.
Borrowing Kindle Books from the Boston Public Library
Amazon now offer books to borrow at many public library systems, including the Boston Public Library. The user experience needs some fine tuning, mostly due to the BPL website being a bit clunky. But it works great. You will need a Kindle, and/or Kindle reader applications on your iPad or Mac or PC. I use a first generation Kindle as well as the Kindle reader on my iPad2. NOTE: When you click on one of the images below, you are seeing just a picture of the example. Click the back button to get back to this article!
1. Log into the Boston Public Library Website
But surprise? There is no digital content on this website. That is correct. The current site only shows physical books and other materials. You need to click on the download menu to go over to the digital content side.
2. Use the digital site to search for Books
This is the no so nice part. The BPL search screens are not as friendly as the Amazon screens, for example. You can also use the Advanced Search feature to help locate only Kindle books.
3. See What Format is Available
Once you click down to a book's page, you can see the different formats available. Assuming we want a Kindle book, click on the "Add to Cart" link. In the screen shot, because I already borrowed this book, the "add to cart" link now shows "Place a Hold", but you get the idea.
4. Download Book from Amazon
When you click on the Add to Cart link, you first gets to the "Cart" page. Then if you click on the "Get for Kindle" button, you will be sent to Amazon to download the book.
If you have a Kindle that has wi-fi (the newer ones do) you can have it send to your Kindle automatically. I have a first generation kindle so it requires an extra step. Or if you want to also send the book to your iPad, click on the "Manage your Kindle" link.
5. Send the book to multiple Devices
On this screen, you can send the book to your iPad Kindle reader, or your PC/Mac reader! Click on the "Action" button and you will get a manage devices choice. Then just click on send to Kindle and pick your device(s).
Enjoy Reading!
That is it. Quite a few steps, but it works well.
Of course, if you do not have a Kindle, now you have a reason to get one.
How to Change Colors for ls command in xterm
I like to us a dark background on my ssh terminal. On WebFaction, their terminal environment is setup to output colors on commands like "ls". That is great except the default directory names ended up in blue, which is impossible to read on a black background.
There is a easy way to fix this:
- copy the system default color settings from /etc/DIR_COLORS into your home directory and name it .dir_colors
- edit your copy of .dir_colors file to change the colors.
- For example, I change it to white:
[code]
cp /etc/DIR_COLORS ~/.dir_colors
# than change this line from DIR 01;34 to: DIR 01;37 # directory
[/code]
Original Screen:
Modifier keys not working in Lion for External Keyboard
Lion Tip of the Day:
As a emacs user, I always change the caps lock key on my Mac keyboards to "Control". This is in fact a nice built in feature since Leopard. However today I docked my new MacBook Pro for the first time and the Caps Lock key on my external aluminum keyboard (USB) does not send the new modifier key.
Turned out this is a feature. In Lion, you can select different modifier key actions for different keyboards. There is a new dropdown at the top. Select external keyboard and update the modifier key.
Why I Love libraries
Of course I am bias. I am on our local library's friends group board, FOSEL. But on top of that, here we are on vacation in Maine, middle of nowhere. A couple of work emergencies came up via iPhone email running at Edge speed. I have to get online for just an hour. Where should I go?
The Bingham public library of course! A little small schoolhouse type library. Friendly librarians. And I got all my work done in an hour.
City of Boston, Do not Trust Us, and No Refund
Update to my property tax overpayment issue. Read the first part here. Here is a quick summary of the situation:
Executive Summary
After some back and forth with the city, I found out that my South End Condo is classified as a mixed residential and commercial property. Therefore I have been paying more property tax for the last 7+ years. The city said:
- - I should have noticed that the little "C" on my tax bill means I have been paying commercial tax (30+% instead of 12+%).
- - I should have applied for reclassification 7 years ago
- - Now they will not, by law, refund all the overpayment over the years, totalling more than $10,000
In short, Do not trust us, and we do not refund money collected in error
Do not trust Us
Give the city credit, the city people has been nice and helpful in communication. The chairperson of the assessment department review board called me to explain the situation to me after I contacted the Mayor's Hotline on the web. She even screen printed and emailed me all the documentation. However, during the 30 minutes phone conversation, the following exchange summarized the situation really well:
Me: Nobody would know to look at the "C" on the tax bill and question the property classification.
Chairperson: "You do check your credit card statement each month to see, if a waiter put on a $100 tip would you? You should have checked your tax bills too."
A city official is telling me I should treat my government like a bad waiter, and check everything?
Really? I cannot trust my local government for not doing their job correct? Looking at all the city services that I use, I cannot trust them? It is my job to question everything? This is sounding like a bad episode of the X-Files.
- My children play in city parks. (How ironic, I am even on the board of the Friends of Peters Park). They drink from the water fountain. Should I now have the water quality checked periodically?
- I drive in the city. When I reach a junction, should I get out of the car and make sure the traffic like in the other direction is red before moving forward?
- Should I start shadowing our Mayor to every meeting and question every decisions the city makes? Where does it start? Where does it end? A bit absurd?
No Refund
If I find a problem, do not expect the city to fix it? I wonder, if the tax error was not in the city's favor, but in mine, would they also not come after me, by law? If I run a restaurant assessed at 2 million dolllars for 7 years and I have been paying residential only tax on the property. Once they found out, would they tell me "oh don't worry, we won't ask for the extra, say 2 million dollars assessment times 18% tax difference times 7 years = 252,000.? Really?
How you can Help
- If you have access to news organization, tell them do a story.
- If you are a city official that can help, let me know ( p k @ p k s h i u . c o m )