I do life in a Scottish accent

Like waiting for a kidney transplant

2012-01-31T06:03:00.003-07:00

Ive just read that Apple has hired Dixons UK CEO, John Browett, to replace Ron Johnson. For years, even before I immigrated to the States in 1997, Dixons has been awful retail outfit, where the not a single employee understood the floppy drives and reel-to-reel tape decks that they sold. I exaggerate, but only a little.

It seems like a great time to write up 2 recent experiences in the Apple Stores here in Denver which were not up to par.

In the first one, at Park Meadows, I was looking for a Thunderbolt cable. I was all ready to use the self checkout on my iPhone. It would be my first time. The place was mobbed, as always. Of course, I didn't care, because I was gonna self checkout. I looked all over for the Thunderbolt cable, but couldn't find it. Great. Flagging down help in an Apple Store here has become the retail equivalent of waiting for a kidney transplant. Fortunately, it only took a few minutes. I told the employee what I needed. "Those are in the back," he informs me. When he goes to the back, a lady customer says, with an enormous sigh, "Oh, we've been waiting for an hour." When the blue-shirted one brings me the Thunderbolt cable, he wants to check me out, but I stop him. I'll checkout myself while he deals with the exacerbated lady.

I was left wondering what the point of the self checkout is, if there are products which only are stocked "in the back". By all means, keep the expensive computers in the back, but the little cables? Also, I did feel lucky at getting a store employee's help that soon. I've had much worse luck.

The second experience, at Aspen Grove, was not mine, but my mother's. But I have firsthand knowledge as I was called on the phone to help sort it out. My mother is a normal person, in computer terms. I would think that be the Apple Stores' core clientele.

Here's the conversation as it was relayed to me:
Apple Store greeter: "Welcome to Apple Store. How can we help you?"
My Mum: "I need a dongle for my MacBook Pro." (A term she used and had been understood on a different visit to Cherry Creek.)
ASG: "Ok, what kind of dongle?"
Mum: "I don't know. It's for my MacBook Pro."
ASG: "Well, until you know what you need, we can't help you."

Eh, hello. Some help please? Show her the MiniDisplayPort dongles for the MacBook Pros! How about an inquiring question? "What are you connecting your MacBook Pro to? A TV? A Projector?"

At this point she calls me, opens with "I'm at Aspen Grove and I may never come here again", then relays the story and I text her "MiniDisplayPort to VGA". While I'm on the line, I hear her flag down an employee, speak right words and the employee says "Oh, those are in the back."

I've been back to an Apple Store since. And I've been looking for clues. Do they only keep the smaller items or the less costly items out on the shelves? Well no, because they have an enormous and expensive digital scale out. So, a mystery it remains to me. But I don't like where this is going. The Apple Store experience used to be incredible, but recently it's started to slip. Getting help and getting checked out have become a pain. It's so bad that a friend recently quipped, "I'll go there rather than the Apple Store" when he heard about Target's plans. And with the hiring of the Dixons CEO, I wonder if Apple has lost the plot on retail.

Still waiting on the MacBook of my dreams

2012-01-29T11:44:00.001-07:00

After I posted about not being able to find a current MacBook that met all my desires, I took the consensus opinion and got both an iMac and a MacBook Air. After using this combo for nearly 4 weeks it wasn't working out. The iMac was inaccessible 23.5 hours a day and the MBA didn't have storage capacity for me to load all my data. So I returned both units.

I don't blame anyone who advised me. In fact, I should have seen it coming.

Apple doesn't make a laptop that I want to buy.

So in the interim, since I gave away my white MacBook, I am buying a used late 2010 MBA to use until the next revision comes around.

Giving Twitter money

2011-12-29T11:06:00.001-07:00

Twitter is trying to figure out how to monetize and I'm not sure I like the direction of it. Here's a short list, just off the top of my head, of what Twitter value I would be willing to pay for, depending on cost, of course.

Removing ads and featured/sponsored tweets
Clients
Third party client API access
API access to all my tweets ever (not just 3200)
Direct messages to those who do not follow me (a la carte)

The MacBook of my dreams

2011-12-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at buying a new MacBook for months. But no matter how long I stare at apple.com, it doesn't change the fact that Apple doesn't make a laptop that I want to buy. Right now, I have a 3 year old white MacBook with 4GB RAM, capacity for 6 GB. It's a Core 2 Duo (64 bit) and runs Lion. It runs well so if I'm gonna spend up to $2500 on a new machine, it better be a significant leap forward.

Here are some examples of what I'd like to buy:

A 13" MacBook Pro with discrete graphics and a higher resolution display (like the MacBook Air display)
A 13" MacBook Air with greater than 4GB RAM capacity
A 15" MacBook Pro that won't inflict a shoulder injury

Alternative ideas I'm considering:

A 13" MacBook Pro plus a Thunderbolt display
A 15" MacBook Pro with the 1680x1050 display and I'll just deal with carrying it
A 13" MacBook Air for coding on the go plus an iMac at home for the big computing needs.
Waiting for the next round of laptops.

I'd love to hear suggestions. Am I missing something?

My favorite iPod improvements and fixes in iOS 4

2010-06-24T15:34:00.000-06:00

The new iOS 4 update has brought a couple of great new improvements and fixes to the iPod app.

First and most important to me, you can edit an existing playlist not just create an on-the-go playlist.
When downloading new podcast episodes, the episode list is refreshed automatically. Before 4.0 you had to refresh the episode list manually by navigating back to the podcast list and then back into a given podcast.
I'm still checking on this one, but it would seem that shuffling large playlists is fixed. I have one playlist with 374 songs in it. Previous to 4.0, I would hear the same short list of songs when listening to this list on shuffle. Now I'm hearing songs I haven't heard in years.
In iPhone 3.1.3, my music would skip when a text message was received. In 4.0 the music no longer skips but fades and plays the text message notification as it should.

Understanding Colorado's cell phone ban

2009-12-01T13:08:00.004-07:00

I've been pouring over the text of Colorado's cell phone ban, House Bill 1094, to see what's allowed and what's not. I'm not a lawyer, by the way, so you can't take anything I say here as a legal opinion that would stand up in court. Here are the highlights from the act:

16 and 17 year olds are completely banned from the use of a wireless telephone. Nothing, zilch, nada.
For those of us 18 and older, no "use [of] a wireless telephone for the purpose of engaging in text messaging or other similar forms of manual data entry or transmission while operating a motor vehicle." So, no texting, tweeting, email, facebook status posting or anything of the sort.
The bill contains an exemption for use during a life-threatening emergency or to contact "a public safety entity" to report a crime or an accident, for example. This mostly applies to 16 and 17 years old, to permit calling 911 as 18s and over can call anyone.
Operation is permitted while parked, but not while stopped at a light or stuck in traffic.
The bill explicitly does not authorize seizure of your cell phone.
The original bill, as introduced, also required the use of a hands free device for talking. This provision is not in the final draft.
Interestingly, also gone in the final draft, are bans directed at operators of school buses and "motor vehicle carriers regulated by the public utilities commission".

I love Christmas

2009-11-28T09:41:00.006-07:00

Around this time of year I get really grumpy, and I mean 'get off my lawn' grumpy. My wife thinks I hate Christmas, but that's not it at all. I hate what this season has become: a celebration not of peace, joy and love, but of taking, getting, stress and self-indulgence.

I love Christmas. What I hate, is that we've lost it.

Just think about how we kick off, the 'Christmas' season here in America: Black Friday. We're no longer thankful, that was sooo Thursday. It's a rush to save money you don't have on bigger and bigger TVs that look as out of place in your living room those urban fortresses look in old neighborhoods. Last year, someone died in a Walmart while others complained outside about not being able to get in. Fortunately that didn't repeat itself this year (as far as I know) but what level of selfishness does it take to start Christmas shopping with an experience that can only be likened to a minor brawl. Around this time of year, I often make a bad joke, that replaces the word 'mall' with the word 'maul'.

Deep breath.

I have lots of great memories of Christmas. I love midnight services on Christmas Eve and the acapella singing of Silent Night in a candle lit sanctuary. I love exchanging Christmas greetings at the stroke of midnight with my best friends. I love the old hymns. I even love that our hymnal had instructions for which verses to sing on Christmas Day - "Yea, Lord we greet thee, born this happy morning". I love beautiful cards with wonderful art that tell the Christmas story.

So, a few thoughts from the Scripture on how to stay grounded and focused on the important things while the world gets stuff.

Give, without expectation of getting anything in return - Matt 2:11 - Just the magi, give generously to others
Remember that Christmas is what separates Christianity from other religions - Matt 1:23 "they will call him Immanuel—which means, 'God with us.'". - God, who is holy and other, came near.
Go out of your way to worship Jesus - Matt 2:1-2. - Take every opportunity to worship. Speaking of, how can the church truly celebrate Christmas if we don't meet to worship on it?
Go where you need to - Luke 2:1-4 - Joseph and Mary go to register in the census. (Or so they think. Really, it's to fulfill the prophecy from Micah 5:2) Go to your family home. Take with time to visit with the people important to you.
Help someone else - This is not in the Scriptural account of Jesus birth per se. But someone must have given use of the stable to Mary and Joseph. Much later, Jesus would teach us to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Tell others - Luke 2:17,18,20 - Share the love and message of Christmas.
Don't make a public scene - Matt 1:19 "Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace". No fighting in malls, or if you must, remove the fish from your car before going to the mall.

Configuring Kanaka with a shell script

2009-01-29T09:59:00.002-07:00

Kanaka is a product that connects Macs to Novell storage. Here is how it can be configured at the command line.

# defaults write /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/Kanaka "Kanaka Options" -dict-add "File URL" https://server.me.com:8009/KANANA/HTTP_GetClientFile
# defaults write /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/Kanaka "Kanaka Options" -dict-add "Kanaka Servers" '(https://server.me.com:8009)'

# dscl /Search append / CSPSearchPath /Kanaka/Auth

# searchPolicyAuth=`(dscl /Search -read / | grep SearchPolicy: | awk ‘{print $2}’)`

# dscl /Search -change / SearchPolicy $searchPolicyAuth CSPSearchPath

# killall DirectoryService

It just keeps making more sense

2008-12-10T12:43:00.004-07:00

This morning I went a company wide meeting at my employer. I fully expected to be bored with the content as I'm involved in many of the initiatives being announced. Instead I found revelation about my personal financial life.

Just to give some background, my wife and I have become students of Dave Ramsey. We've been reading his books, watching his show and trying his principals to better our financial situation. It's early days, but it's helping.

The topic of the economy is on folks' minds and our CEO addressed it directly. Here is a selection of what he had that to say that directly affected employees:

No layoffs - in fact, a modest 2% growth in staff
Merit raise in April as normal
Company will absorb the increase in health insurance premium
No benefit cuts - including no cuts in 401k
A new computer on every desk in 2009
The existing computers will be given away to employees
Bonuses should continue
And oh yeah, we're going to reduce prices by 10%. (That's on top of last year's 15% reduction.)

So, how the heck do you do all this in an economy like the present one? It hit me - this company has managed finances well for over 20 years and as a result has no debt and big reserves. The economic conditions may be awful, but the good management or stewardship of your finances can prepare you for those times.

While they may not be following Dave's baby steps to the letter, my employer has followed them in principal - spend wisely, pay down debt, build savings, invest conservatively.

It all showed me what could be done once you get your financial house in order.

Adding iTunes-style search to your Core Data application

2008-11-27T11:46:00.001-07:00

Cocoa is my Girlfriend posted my article on Adding iTunes-style search to your Core Data application

Leopard Server Time Machine Restore experience

2008-08-20T08:08:00.004-06:00

I've been setting a Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Server at the office and yesterday I ran into some issues setting up Open Directory that I couldn't fix.

At first I thought I'd have to rebuild until I remembered that I had set up Time Machine on the server. So I popped in the Leopard Server DVD and booted to it. I chose the Restore option from the Utilities menu. I restored from the backup made about 4 hours previous, in order to ensure it was from a time before I had messed anything up.

Rather than doing a compare and copying the files with differences (which is how Time Machine create backups), the restore wiped my hard drive and copied the entire fileset from backup.

Once rebooted though, the Software Update service failed to start automatically. I tried to start it in the Server Admin console and got a CANNOT_START_SERVICE_ERR message. I also noticed, in Server Admin, that Software Update had no logs files. That piece of information made me wonder about what Time Machine was not backing up, and therefore what had not been restored.

I found this piece by Devin Lane on Time Machine exclusions, and yes, /var/log is an standard exclusion.

Once I recreated the /var/log/swupd directory, where Software Update stores logs, Software Update started normally and recreated it's log files.

Also, even although I restored from 4 hours ago, Time Machine did not remove the backups made less than 4 hours ago, and the resulting 1st backup set was a whooping 15GB.

BlackBerry GPS Navigation options (part 2)

2008-08-08T18:12:00.004-06:00

Garmin Mobile for BlackBerry 4.0.1

Garmin, one of the biggest players in the dedicated GPS market, has 2 products for the BlackBerry. The first, for BlackBerries with built-in GPS, sports at $99 one time fee. The catch: if you buy a new BlackBerry you must purchase the Garmin Mobile software again. The other product, is for BlackBerries that lack built-in GPS but have Bluetooth. That product is $149 per year and includes a Bluetooth GPS receiver. Since I'm using a BlackBerry 8800 with built-in GPS, I'll be reviewing the first product. Garmin offers a 7 day trial and I put this through it's paces on our week long trip to Texas.

I started by downloading (http://getmobile.garmin.com/trial) the trial software directly onto the phone. It took about 10 minutes but I only had 1 or 2 bars of coverage at the time.

Once the Garmin software was launched, I was struck by how much it looked and behaved like a Garmin nuvi GPS device. This might seem obvious so I'll restate it a different way. Garmin Mobile for BlackBerry doesn't behave like a BlackBerry application. In fact the BlackBerry menu button is completely disabled throughout the entire application.

The Garmin gets right down to the navigation business with the first option being "Where to?". It allows you to enter addresses, cities, intersections, airports or search from over 6 millions points of interest. It had no trouble finding any of the addresses we gave it, including one rural address. After setting out the Garmin will offer voice turn-by-turn directions and does speak street names, although the speaker on the 8800 seemed the limit their usefulness. In fact, my wife uttered the question, "what did it say?", on more than one occasion. The Garmin also displayed a tendency to over-navigate by directing you to stay on the same road at major intersections.

I spoke to a Garmin support representative to gather information for this review, and he confirmed what I already suspected. Garmin Mobile for BlackBerry will try to download information about your entire route when you enter the destination at the start of your journey. This makes it far less likely to lose your map because you hit a cellphone deadzone. In fact, I drove the entire way from Denver to Dallas/Fort Worth without losing the map.

The map, however, is a little spartan. Since Garmin Mobile downloads so much information about the route, and there's very little need for side streets off the highway or minor intersections, information for these locations is not downloaded or displayed. When you do get on city streets, however, the map becomes more detailed. In the map view, it also shows the distance to next instruction, ETA at destination, and compass direction.

Other Notes:

Garmin Mobile has many different vehicle types that it will optimize routes for. Car, Pedestrian, Bicycle, Bus, Truck and Taxi. We only used the car setting.
By default, it will avoid U-turns but you may also avoid toll roads, highways, traffic jams, unpaved roads and the like.
Garmin Mobile automatically switches to "night" colors which are darker. The darker scheme worked much better after dusk. We only used it once at night and the automatic switch happened at 8:10pm. I have no idea how it worked out that time.
Speaking of driving at night, it was very useful to see the road curving on the map before I could see the actual road. Made my driving smoother.
Although I had a car charger, I was able to use Garmin Mobile for 6 hours while on battery and since have some charge left.

Concerns:

Garmin say they will "work with you" if your BlackBerry is lost or damaged. No guarantees that they won't try to extract another $99.
We had one trouble spot with the maps. A road closure due to a bridge being replaced was not known and Garmin Mobile kept trying to navigate us over the non-existent bridge. We had directions from a local resident and knew how to get around it. Garmin Support's answer wasn't all that great, merely telling me that if Garmin didn't know about the closure, neither would anyone else. In other words, we're just as bad at this as everyone else.
Garmin Mobile doesn't have "Find along route", like some Garmin nuvi devices. In other words, it can't tell how close the next gas station is on your route. It can tell where the closest gas stations are, but they are in every direction.
So far it's only supported in the US & Canada.

Overall, I found Garmin Mobile to be a pleasing experience and while it will take you through places that locals wouldn't go via, it does get you to your destination.

BlackBerry GPS Navigation options (part 1)

2008-07-31T09:21:00.003-06:00

One of my criteria for the perfect mobile device is having a functioning GPS navigation system included. I've been evaluating some of the options for the BlackBerry. All of these options were tested on a BlackBerry 8800 from T-Mobile. The 8800 has a built in GPS chip, although all of the apps tested work with external Bluetooth GPS devices as well. I have an unlimited data plan, and as you'll see, you should have that before using your BlackBerry as a GPS. For proper use in a vehicle, I got a windshield mount and a car charger as well.

Google Maps 2.2

A review of Google Maps as a GPS navigation tool can be written as a single word: worthless.

While it's a free download, the app lacks map rotation and doesn't disable display sleep so everything goes dark after 30 seconds (system default) and now you can't tell where you are on the map.

Google Maps still has it's uses and works with cell-tower triangulation if you don't have a GPS. But as a navigational tool, don't even try.

BlackBerry Maps 1.1

BlackBerry Maps is perhaps the most surprising app I looked at. It's also a free download, but sports basic navigation features. The interface is very uncluttered. Aside from the map, it shows 4 other items in a surprising small amount of screen real estate: the street you are on, the number of GPS satellites connected, your speed and the direction of travel.

It can plot directions from your current location, but doesn't offer turn-by-turn voice directions. This is actually quite pleasant. If you wander off course, you never have a snotty English lady telling you to turnaround or making you feel that this car is too good for you. It was very nice, on one of my tests, to take 8th Ave instead 6th Ave and not be given any correction.

BlackBerry Maps does not come with any built-in maps, and all map data is downloaded using your BlackBerry's data connection. Downloads seem "light" and do not hog the data connection. Map data is downloaded before it is needed based on your direction of travel. I didn't have the chance to take the 8800 out of town and into the mountains but I'm very sure that a lack of cell signal would result in no map.

Interestingly, this lack of built-in maps brings up a possibility. Many "normal", that is dedicated GPS devices, ship with a fixed set of maps for say, the US and Canada. For certain models, additional maps can be purchased. However, with BlackBerry Maps all map data is stored online. Updates to that data should be immediately available to everyone. Furthermore, I had no trouble downloading street maps for Scotland or France, even although I wasn't in either country. So, you should be able to take a BlackBerry internationally and use BlackBerry Maps for navigation, although you may want to unlock your BlackBerry and get a local SIM card as international data roaming is very, very expensive. Like start selling your organs to pay the bill, expensive.

Additionally, BlackBerry Maps can use the street addresses in your Address Book as destinations and perform local searches for locations such as restaurants, libraries, etc

I do have a couple of concerns.

On a few occasions, BlackBerry Maps seemed to stall. The speedometer and compass functions continued to work but the map and my position on it did not update. (It was not related to a lack a of cell coverage.)
The map does not zoom to an appropriate level. Let me give you an example. If you turn onto a side street, and your current zoom level doesn't show side streets, the map doesn't zoom and it's looks (on screen at least) that you are driving off road.
While I didn't take BlackBerry Maps out of town, it would be nice to have some sort of Download Maps for Route function that downloaded maps based on your driving directions ahead of time. This would make cell phone deadzones much less of an issue.

All that said, I can strongly recommend BlackBerry Maps for basic GPS navigation functions, especially for city driving. If you want a more feature rich experience you'll have to spend money.

Next up, I'll be evaluating Garmin's offering for BlackBerries.

Cocoaheads Silicon Valley Videos

2008-06-30T10:15:00.004-06:00

I'm hosting the torrent tracker for these two Cocoaheads Silicon Valley videos.

Enjoy!

UI Design Essentials

Best of Both Worlds/Intro to Cocoa in HD

Baby does Riverdance

2008-03-30T11:13:00.002-06:00

Liz found this on YouTube. It cracked us up.

English town votes to be in Scotland

2008-02-19T11:28:00.003-07:00

Even the English want to be Scottish now!

TV poll backs Berwick border move

PHP Oracle slides

2008-02-14T14:04:00.014-07:00

Here are the slides from my PHP and Oracle talk at RMOUG Training Days 2008. It was a lot of fun and a good learning experience. The room was almost full and the attendees seemed to be interested. We gave away an Oracle/PHP book, an elephpant and a whole load of Pinnacol swag. Good times.

For ease, I've pulled the useful links out of my slides and listed them below.

Installing:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.php

http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/notes/technote_php_instant.html

PDO:
http://www.php.net/pdo

PECL is a repository for PHP Extensions
http://pecl.php.net/

PEAR is a framework and distribution system for reusable PHP components.
http://pear.php.net/

Editors/IDEs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PHP_editors

http://www.activestate.com/Products/komodo_edit/

http://macromates.com

http://eclipse.org/pdt

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/sql_developer

Resources:

http://www.php.net/oci8

http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/php

http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/php/pdf/underground-php-oracle-manual.pdf

http://podcast.phparch.com/ - PHP Architect PHP Podcast (P3 for short)

http://devzone.zend.com/tag/PHP_Abstract - PHP Abstract Podcast

http://www.php.net/links.php

Priorities

2007-12-10T11:26:00.001-07:00

So Toyota has created a robot that plays the violin. The robot's been getting a lot of attention from the geek press.

However, I think the best comment I've heard was from my wife -

How about an SUV that gets more than 30 mpg?

Chicken lorry crash causes chaos

2007-10-11T10:43:00.003-06:00

This made me laugh. Sounds like a scene from the Muppets - 3000 chickens make a jailbreak on their way to the slaughter house.

Chicken lorry crash causes chaos

Scotland the Bear

2007-09-16T15:34:00.002-06:00

When Nathan turned one recently Liz and I bought him a bagpiper bear. We decided to name him "Scotland the Bear" after the pipe tune "Scotland the Brave".

I thought that Scotland the Bear should have his own song too, and so here are words to Scotland the Bear, set to the tune of Scotland the Brave.

There is a bear that I know
Wears just the kilt down below
Bagpipes and drums are
His favourite thing
This bear is very special
Plays the pipes in any weather
You never have to wonder whether
This bear’s a Scot

Glasgow or Aberdeen,
There’s no place he has nae been
Wherever he goes
You will hear the pipes being played
Even in the crummy weather,
Scotland is his hame forever,
Chasing haggis through the heather,
Scotland the Bear

Top 10 Things that British Expats Miss About Home

2007-08-28T19:56:00.001-06:00

This just about sums it up.

Top 10 Things that British Expats Miss About Home

Celebrity gives child 'normal' name

2007-07-27T11:08:00.001-06:00

Say it isn't so. Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber have had a boy and named him Alexander.
Yawn.

What ever happened to just picking a fruit name?

Actress Watts gives birth to boy

Philippine jailhouse rocks to Thriller

2007-07-26T09:52:00.001-06:00

I think this great. But I can't help thinking about 13 going on 30.

Philippine jailhouse rocks to Thriller

Nathan is British

2006-09-29T23:36:00.001-06:00

I just found this out... it's too cool not to share

From Wikipedia:
A child born outside the UK on or after 1 January 1983 will automatically acquire British citizenship by descent if either parent is a British citizen otherwise than by descent at the time of the birth.
British_nationality_law

God Save the Queen

Fraser (British Dad)