Miscellanea Informatica

Windows speaks your language, but only for a large fee

2011-11-27T12:11:00.003-05:00

Microsoft, what is wrong with you? We had guests visiting this weekend from abroad and they wanted to buy a laptop here. We found a great deal on a refurbished HP Pavilion dm4 (i5, 4GB, 14", 500GB for $530) at MicroCenter. THe laptop came preloaded with Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit). Once we had the machine charged and running at home, the first thing the owner wanted to do is to change the localization to Russian. Not an unreasonable thing to do, in my opinion - the guy speaks Russian and prefers to have his computer be localized to his native language. They all do that, right? I mean, look at an activation sequence of any Apple product - first question is always about the language you prefer. Linux is same, for that matter. Windows - not so much...

Imagine our surprise when we found out that this particular flavor of Windows 7 can not be localized at all! Only Windows 7 Ultimate (and Enterprise editions) are capable of downloading and applying Language Packs. This is unbelievable! Do you know how much it costs to upgrade Home Premium to Ultimate? Take a guess... Keep in mind that Apple charged $0 for next to last major OS upgrade and only $29 for the latest one. Here comes the answer - Microsoft wants $155 for the upgrade!!! Again, this is Windows 7 to Windows 7 - just changing flavors! Seriously, guys? I mean, compare that to the overall cost of the laptop!!!

So what are the poor owners of this useless Home Premium edition to do? Return the laptop and pay the restocking fee? Shell out big bucks to Microsoft just to get something that should be (and is on other OSs) so commonplace as to not even occur to ask or wonder about? Well, not without hitting Google first.

First bit of information - we're clearly not the first people asking this question. Duh! Second - here and there folks talk about attempts at circumventing this ridiculous crippleware. They look scary - regedit is prominently featured in convoluted instructions. But what do we have to loose?

The best instructions we came across are from WinCert.net. The author(s) did a very nice job by providing download links to actual language packs and decent instructions for installation/configuration. We decided to go for it. I'll spare you the details, including sneaky behavior by Windows in trying to hide the .cab file from us, etc. Suffice it to say that with a silent prayer, crossing all fingers and toes and rebooting after a particularly alarming registry change, the laptop booted up with a greeting in Russian. Whew!

What can I say - this was yet another in a long series of experiences which reaffirmed my deepest antipathy for Windows. No, other OSs are not perfect, but at least they "speak" your language!

One day with Lion

2011-07-21T10:24:00.003-04:00

Having upgraded to MacOS X 10.7 Lion the minute it became available (as one should), I collected some observations (in no particular order) during the first day with Lion. Here we go:

install from App Store - painless. Getting a semblance of an invoice from Apple - not so painless. Getting it reimbursed - we'll see about that...

natural scroll direction - first thing to get disabled (Trackpad preferences). The idea sounds good in principle, and makes sense on iPhone/iPad, but I am not feeling like going against 20 years worth of muscle memory.

new "scrollers" is the hallmark of Lion's GUI changes. While I do not miss old scrollbar arrows (good riddance!), the absence (until you begin to scroll) of an indicator of whether there's more stuff above or below the window edge is concerning...

"back" in browsers - another preference change to get back gesture-based "back" button activation. How come?

dashboard is better accessible now - that is a good thing

TimeMachine on 3rd party support broken. Awaiting a firmware update from QNAP.

Spotlight triggered a VERY long re-indexing of the drive

2GB of RAM minimum - my older Apple Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 1.83 is out of luck

dock icon badges with white outline scale down very poorly. Apple, are you kidding me???

dropped Java Runtime (though available for download automatically)

no waking up from sleep on trackpad movement? need to either click (which is weird on new trackpads) or hit a key. ANother unnecessary annoyance.

Citrix "AGAdminService" was taking up >90% of CPU resources - uninstalled here.

TechTool Pro 5 seems to take too much CPU as well - disabled it

Adium's Skype plugin does not work - disabled. By the way, tried new iChat with Yahoo Messenger capability - nice, but I am too used to Twitter feed in my Adium, so will stick with that

new scrollbars do not always get well-positioned in older software - NetNewsWire's left-most panel

Finder preference - new windows default to "All My Files" - I do not think so!

so there is no more ~/Library? Yawza! My Mac is morphing into an iPad right in front of my eyes! Option+Go in Finder to get to ~/Library...

three candy widgets at top left are no longer candy. Too small - ever heard of Fitts's law? And .-+ edge-to-edge on mouseover look ugly! Will try going to Appearance = Blue to get the candy back.

New GrowlMail v1.3 is available.

Mail.app - letterbox is finally native! Nice organization of reply threads. Favorite bar - Microsoft Entourage idea?

dialog boxes pop up a bit too aggressively

WTF did they do with Address Book GUI? Apple, where is your legendary simplicity?

native whole-disk encryption

E-books: converting among common formats and generating Stanza catalogs

2010-06-18T23:44:00.003-04:00

Today's post is about e-books - more specifically, getting them from my Mac into my iPhone to be read with Stanza. Here is how:

Download e-books from the Internet. If you like books in Russian, check out WebReading. Please note that books there are in a format called fb2 - these need to be converted into epub - a format recognized by many e-book readers, including iPhone's Stanza.

To organize the books on your Mac I suggest the popular Calibre - a free and open source e-book library management application. The interface is a bit unorthodox, but it does the job nicely. Calibre is capable of converting an e-book into a variety of formats, including PDF for reading right on your computer. For my purposes, I converted my e-books to epub.

Next, I wanted to store my e-book collection online so that I can access and download them into Stanza app on my iPhone. I found a free Java-based application that makes that very easy - calibre2opds. This utility scans the Calibre library and generates a catalog that Stanza requires. Resulting files are saved into the same directory as the Calibre library. All that is left to do is to upload the entire directory to a webserver.

Get Stanza app here.

Once your e-book library is online, launch Stanza on your iPhone, click on "Get Books" at the bottom, then "Shared" at the top and finally "Edit." Click "Add Book Source" and use the following URL format: http://www.your-web-server.com/your-calibre-library-directory/_catalog/catalog.xml

Enjoy your e-book collection on your iPhone!

Connect to Remote Desktop Services as Admin on a Mac

2010-04-12T13:14:00.000-04:00

So there's an option to connect to a Windows box as administrator with

mstsc /admin

On a Mac using Remote Desktop Connect, type

host_name /console

in "Computer:" filed of new connection window to get the same effect.

Thanks to Remote Desktop Services - Frequently Asked Questions - Administration

VirtualBox Shared Folders with Ubuntu

2010-03-18T22:15:00.000-04:00

Basically:


mkdir MOUNTED_FOLDER
id
sudo mount -t vboxsf -o uid=USER_ID SHARED_FOLDER_NAME MOUNTED_FOLDER

from: valibuk.net Accessing Mac OS X harddrive from Ubuntu in VirtualBox via shared folders

Home Network Topology, March 2010

2010-03-07T18:21:00.006-05:00

Home Network Topology, March 2010
Originally uploaded by matveyp

I came across a number of questions about home network topology, and decided to diagram mine and share. I am by no means an expert in networking, so if you have a suggestion or two on optimizing this layout, I would be most grateful.

Internet connectivity is provided by Verion FiOS and they installed Actiontec MI424WR in my basement. I have no objections to it as a router (able to control the firewall, no problems with outbound VPN, etc.), but its wireless is limited to 802.11g and didn't cover the entire house. So I looked for a wireless Access Point and settled on TRENDnet TEW-637AP (that was a over a year ago; I am sure there are other worthy products available now). I turned off Actiontech's wireless and TRENDnet took over - it's been exceptionally stable and I am very happy with it. It is set to 802.11n only.

TRENDnet was wired directly into Actiontech. A bit later it dawned on me that my network was limited to 100GB and I bought an unmanaged Gigabit switch (D-Link DGS 2208) and inserted it between my Actiontech and TRENDnet. I then wired the rest of the network to this switch.

The rest should be fairly self-expanatory. Upper left part of the picture shows my office setup. Note that I use Airport Express in wired mode to stream iTunes to my Logitech speakers (love sound quality!). I have a Network Attached Storage (NAS) box - Hammer Storage myshare. It's a fine NAS box, the only thing that bothers me is that the vendor promised a software upgrade with additional features, including iTunes server, and never delivered. On the plus side, it includes a decent print server and turns my super-cheap HP LaserWriter 1020 into a network printer (1020 is not Mac-compatible according to HP, and they are correct - I make it work but it takes a lot of weird contortions).

Did you notice my Newton Message Pad 2100? Very much alive and well!

Lower right is my AV setup - especially proud of my Mac mini - it is running Boxee and works great. Sound system (Bose LifeStyle 35) is not shown here because it is not on the network.

Not to forget my Slingbox - this amazing little gadget lets me watch my own cabe TV on my computer whenever and wherever I want, and I find myself using it frequently. Two thumbs up!

Also not shown are a bunch of assorted computers that are either not hooked up at all or are rarely used.

Lastly, my iPhone 3G is out of luck because I disabled 802.11g. 3G signal is good around here and I am not finding WiFi connectivity for iPhone all that necessary at home.

What's your home network like?

iPad thoughts

2010-01-28T13:39:00.002-05:00

Before reading any media reactions, wanted to jot down some of my thoughts after watching Steve's announcement

A Mac for couch potato. Hinges on new MacBook Pros do not keep the screen up when trying to use the laptop in the most ergonomic position anyway, so the tablet should be a perfect substitute
I see it as a "stay home device" - save for using it as a portable video player or a game platform
Appears perfect for consuming information (text-based, video); likely has similar limitations as iPhone re: data entry
Communication - without a user-facing camera falls short. Various chats require typing; video-conferencing is far better
Cons to applications in healthcare - bulky, fragile, limited data entry, though 30-pin connector allows for peripherals
Mobility factor - seems good to carry around the house, up-to-date WiFi built-in. Larger version of iPod Touch, but at home there's no need for it to fit into a jeans pocket.
Furthers cloud-based computing - would make sense to keep most if not all data (calendar, address book, bookmarks, RSS subscriptions, video content) in the cloud and sync
Con - iPhone OS instead of Mac "desktop" OS - introduces limits; encourages more spending at the App Store
Con - needs a user-facing camera
If something like Boxee can be built for iPad, I wonder if it could be a contender to a big-screen TV

There is only one 192.168.1.1

2009-12-30T21:23:00.002-05:00

My parents' laptop was marooned in one room of their house, chained by a wired connection to the DSL modem. I decided that adding a wireless router (Linksys WRT160N in this case) would be great to untether the machine. I expected the installation to be limited to daisy-chaining the new router between the DSL modem and the laptop, setting up a few things (admin password, SSID, wireless security and band options) and enjoying wireless connection in 5 minutes. And to do it all from 400 miles away. Piece of cake!

This could be a long blog post because my projected 5 minutes rapidly expanded into 5 hours, but I'll keep it short. Trouble manifested itself when after several failed attempts we reverted to old wired setup (new router not connected) and I noticed the laptop reporting being connected to a gateway at 192.168.1.1 - weird! Did I mention that the laptop runs Vista and I wanted to mock around with it as little as possible? So why would a DSL modem be at 192.168.1.1??? As usual, an extended Googling session brought clarity to this murky issue. Verizon's DSL modem - Westell 6100F in our case - turns out to be a router/modem combo! This box was acting as a router and the modem, and when new Linksys entered the picture, we had two devices - both routers! - competing for 192.168.1.1 address. No wonder things weren't working right.

I found excellent instructions on how to turn Westell's router functionality off, placing it in "bridged" mode, and effectively making it into dumb modem. Scary thoughts crossed my mind; "bridging" sounded eerily similar to "bricking," and being 400 miles away, last thing I wanted was a bricked Verizon's box! Nonetheless, after some deep breathing, we carried out the instructions. A few tense moments ensued when Westell in its new bridged mode was not connecting to the Internet. Turns out my parents particular flavor of Verizon's DSL uses PPPoE and newly dumbed-down Westell was no longer providing the necessary authentication information. Luckily, at this point configuration of Linksys proceeded smoothly and it was all too happy to take over the necessary PPPoE duties and we were online in no time.

Moral of the story? There can be only one 192.168.1.1! One for each private network, that is.

Raw Burgers and Future of Clinical Decision Making: A Ramble

2009-12-21T12:00:00.002-05:00

The inspiration for this post was the final episode of "The Next Iron Chef". I was definitely psyched to see Jose Garces win. There was a moment in the show when the other finalist, Chef Mehta, served the judges a dish featuring a pork burger, and they commented that the pork was undercooked or even raw. This got me thinking - here are highly trained professionals, experienced practitioners of the art of cooking, and they are making such basic mistakes? In this day and age of advanced technologies, can't we come up with some gizmo to stick inside that burger patty, take its temperature and figure out - definitively - its state of doneness? Why rely on these rules of thumb (or rather the thenar eminence) - pun intended - by touching the meat to gauge whether it will still moo when I cut into it? Why am I talking about this? Well, think intravenous lines placement by highly trained professionals, experienced practitioners of the art of medicine. How are these lines placed? Essentially, by blindly poking around until you find the right blood vessel! Why not use the fancy technology? There are portable ultrasound thingies that help to visualize the needle and the vessel. Yes, they are far from perfect, but nothing new will be developed unless there is a demand for it, and there will be no demand until we stop thinking that relying on technology somehow makes doctors less cool.

Of course, same goes for information technologies. In his blog entry "Health IT: What’s the Future?" Steve Downs of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recaps themes from a recent "Discovery and Innovation in Health IT" workshop. One presenter focused "on the need for cognitive support, showing a hockey stick graph of the number of facts that will be relevant to a given clinical decision over time (this theme reappeared several times over the two days). The number is expected to reach 1000 by 2020, while the number of facts that a human can contemplate while making a decision remains stuck at um, five." Healthcare practitioners need clinical decision support (CDS). I am surprised that such a statement could still be considered controversial...

Just like those ultrasound vein visualizing gizmos, CDS technologies are far from perfect. Thus far the CDS efforts are targeted at individual systems. The challenges are to figure out how to get/represent/manage/update/share clinical care guidelines logic that drives CDS recommendations, how to surface these recommendations to clinicians at the right place and time in a workflow-aware fashion so that they do not dismiss them outright, how to make these recommendations "actionable" to facilitate carrying out an order should a clinician decide to follow a recommendation. Necessarily, these efforts are hard - if not impossible - to generalize. These systems tend to be tightly bound to their initial implementation environments and are therefore non-interoperable in any meaningful way.

Ken Mandl and Zak Kohane proposed an idea of a plugin-friendly platform instead of a typical monolithic EHR. For this to work, the underlying clinical data must be handled in a way that abstracts it from individual applications. Alternatively, leave your monolithic applications alone and pool your data into a near-real-time repository that is application-agnostic. Ether way, if data can be separated from applications (how's that for a radical idea?), there is hope for the kind of interoperability that would result in scalable CDS. Automated processes are needed to abstract and represent domain knowledge encoded in clinical guidelines so that it can be machine-processable (consider baby-steps like HQMF); and it will probably take a miracle to figure out how to deliver CDS recommendations to practicing clinicians in such a way that they are useful. But despite these challenges, if the right incentives are in place to ensure a healthy demand for CDS technologies, we will see progress. The end-goal is the realization of the potential of healthcare IT - safe, appropriate, timely, high-quality care.

Newton MessagePad 2100 is back

2009-12-12T08:41:00.003-05:00

Apple Newton MessagePad 2100
Originally uploaded by matveyp

No, Apple is not resurrecting the Newton, but my very own Newton MessagePad 2100 is making a comeback. It is running an NPDS webserver software and is available online! Come visit and leave a note on my Whiteboard if you'd like.

I owned this Newton since 1997 and early in its life it served as my primary computer - I did my wordprocessing, printing, e-mail, Telnet, etc. on this machine and it was fantastic. Since about 2002 I tried on and off to keep it up and running as a webserver. You can learn more about its setup when you visit. In short, the Newton is connected to my home network via Ethernet by way of a PCMCIA card.

What is different this time around? First, I did not want to rely on pre-MacOS X operating system (namely System 9) to connect to the Newton for synchronization, software uploads and backups. But I ran into a catch-22: Newton connection tools (NCX) available for MacOS X require a piece of software to be installed on the Newton. My solution was to fire up Classic mode on my old and trusty PowerBook G4, download and install original Apple's Newton Connection Utility, and use that to install the required package on the Newton. That worked flawlessly. And now I can connect to my Newton right from my MacBook Pro!

I also needed to take care of what is known as the Y2010 bug - read more about it here.

Lastly, I wanted to make sure that Newton's clock is accurate. For that I ended up using NewtSync.

There is a community of Newton enthusiasts who continue to use this incredible machine to do wonderful things. For example, this tracker shows which Newtons are online at any given moment. I am grateful to folks who continue to work on maintaining existing capabilities and developing new ones. I hope that by keeping my Newton online I am participating in some small measure in ensuring that innovations represented by this platform are recognized and appreciated.

Image files to PowerPoint slides Automatically

2009-11-12T15:07:00.003-05:00

Imagine that you (a Mac user, of course) have a bunch of image files (say, screenshots) that you need to get into a PowerPoint presentation. How do you do it? Well, in PowerPoint you would create a new slide, go under Insert menu, pick "Picture…", in the subsequent dialog box navigate to where your image files are, pick one, hit "Insert" and then repeat the process as many times are there images to include. The question is - aren't computers supposed to make your life easier??? I encounter this scenario quite frequently, and so I figured that investing a bit of time into trying to figure out how to do this right was worth it. The solution is based on Apple Automator and uses Snow Leopard revamped Services (if you are not using Snow Leopard, this is still imminently doable with Automator). Here we go.

Launch Automator and choose "Service" on initial prompt

Set the selectors in the upper right gray bar as shown on below

Find the poorly named but highly useful "Create PowerPoint Picture Slide Shows" action and drag it in:

File > Save

I named my service "Add to PowerPoint Presentation"

You're done!

To test, select some image files in Finder, then go Finder > Services > Add to PowerPoint Presentation. Viola!

Next time you find yourself with a heap of images that need to go into PowerPoint (or any other repetitive kind of task), right when your mind starts to get numb just imagining what you are about to start doing, ask yourself - won't it be better to have my computer do this for me? Then take a little time, figure out a cool solution, and write about it so I can find it!

Paste unformatted text in Word 2008 for Mac via keyboard shortcut

2009-11-10T12:11:00.000-05:00

I often need to paste text into Word 2008 for Mac but frequently need to make sure the formatting does not clash with existing document. The only way Word lets you do it is to go Edit > Paste Special… then manually select Unformatted Text and hit OK. Way, way too many steps and keyboard/mouse switches for a simple and frequently used action. Ideally I want to accomplish this with a keyboard shortcut. Older versions of MS Office for Mac supported VB scripting, and there was an easy native solution; as you know, Office 2008 dropped that support. So people who know turned to Apple Script. And I turned to Google to find those people… The solution:

In AppleScript Editor, open a new document and paste this in:

try
 set theClip to Unicode text of (the clipboard as record)
 tell application 'Microsoft Word' to tell selection to type text text theClip
end try

Save as Script; name it "Paste Plain Text\omV.scpt" and place it into ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Word Script Menu Items

Now, when you need to paste unformatted text, hit Option+Command+V and - viola! - magic happens.

Enjoy!

Minute Clinic

2009-10-30T14:13:00.000-04:00

Minute Clinic at CVS rules! I went in today for a flu shot and was very pleasantly surprised. Actually, it reminded me of my visit to another Minute Clinic location 2 years ago - I also went in for a flu shot and also walked out smiling and surprised at how nice and effortless and well thought-out the entire process was. It's an experience that is entirely different from all other healthcare-related interactions you would typically deal with. Little to no wait. Smiling, likable, nice personnel. In-and-out - exactly how I like my interactions with healthcare system to be, if I must interact with it. Also, on the geeky side - their IT is very impressively done. You register at a kiosk outside - touch-screen PC with good (not excellent, but good) interface walks you through a few screens of demographics and typical questionnaire about your allergies, etc. Quick and painless. There's a question about whether you like to get access to your records and you need to provide your e-mail address if that is what you want. One I got home, there was an e-mail waiting with instructions to click on a link to verify my identity. Another nice touch - I had to enter a code found on my paper visit receipt which I was given upon leaving the clinic - this way the system was able to not only verify my ownership of the e-mail, but also verify my identify, but in a completely unobtrusive and seamless way! Once I completed the simple registration process online, I saw the records from both of my visits to Minute Clinic - complete with all information, even including vaccine lot numbers! In addition, there were two buttons - one for exporting my records into Google Health and another for Microsoft HealthVault. As easy as clicking a button - literally! Pleasant, simple, transparent - overall two thumbs up. If only they had H1N1 vaccine there...

Russification of Macintosh

2009-10-22T16:03:00.008-04:00

My venerable Russification of Macintosh site has not been updated in a while, mostly due to the fact that the free hosting provider has been ignoring my pleas to restore access to the files. There've been some recent developments and I wanted to make sure that my fellow Russian-speaking computer users have uninterrupted access to the wisdom and goodness that is the Russian phonetic keyboard layout. Hence this update in my blog.

If you are a Mac user, things have gotten substantially easier since I originally started providing information about getting your Mac to "type" in Russian. Macs come with all the necessary pieces in place - fonts, keyboard layouts, applications that are ready to deal with Cyrillic alphabets right out of the box. One crucial thing is still missing, however - if you are not familiar with key layout in a standard Russian typewriter, you will find it difficult to use Apple-supplied Russian keyboard layouts. This is where my phonetic keyboard layout comes in - it makes it to super-easy to type in Russian because majority of letters are arranged in such a way as to correspond phonetically with latin keys on your keyboard. Here's what my keyboard layout looks like:

There are two things that prompted me to make this update in my blog - first, keyboard layout files are no longer available for download from the original website; and second - MacOS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" finally did away with old way of specifying keyboard layouts in favor of newfangled XML-based files. I made a quick version of my layout in the new format and have been testing it for a while; it is now ready for wider audience.

Dear users, please enjoy!

Keyboard Layout for MacOS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and above

Download this file: ruskbd106.zip

Unzip it by double-clicking on it

Place contents into either /Library/Keyboard Layouts or ~/Library/Keyboards folder

Go to System Preferences -> Language & Text -> Input Sources tab and enable the new layout - it is called "Russification"

Log out and log back in

Switch to this layout to type in Russian; switch back to your default layout when you're done

Option key accesses certain letters not present in regular layout

Apostrophe is in the upper left instead of "~" (tilde) key - this feature is unique in Snow Leopard version

If you use this layout, consider making a donation to support availability and continued development!

Keyboard Layout for MacOS X 10.2 "Jaguar" to 10.5 "Leopard"

Download this file: ruskbdx2.zip

Unzip it by double-clicking on it

Place contents into either /Library/Keyboard Layouts or ~/Library/Keyboards folder

Log out and log back in

Go to System Preferences -> International -> Input Menu tab and enable the new layouts (you truly need only one - "Русская - AppleStd")

CapsLock toggles between Latin and Cyrillic layout:

CapsLock up -> Latin
CapsLock down -> Cyrillic

Shift key functions normally in both configurations, producing capital letters.

Option key accesses certain letters not present in regular layout

If you use this layout, consider making a donation to support availability and continued development!

Keyboard Layout for Windows

Now you can have the same easy-to-use phonetic keyboard layout you came to trust on your Mac when using Windows. I understand that you would rather be using your Mac, but sometimes we simply have no control over these things. So while you have to put up with Windows, at least you do not have to put up with a typewriter-style keyboard layout!

Should be compatible with Windows 2000 and XP (limited testing performed on XP only)

Instructions

Download this file: RU-MBP.zip

Unzip

Double-click "RU-MBP" to install

Configure XP

Start->Settings->Control Panel->Regional and Language

Languages Tab, in "Text services and input languages," click

"Details..."

Under "Installed services," click "Add..."

Under "Input language:" select Russian

Check "Keyboard layout/IME:"

Choose "Russian Phonetic Student Keyboard Layout," click "OK"

There are now 2 Russian keyboard layouts; remove the one named "Russian"

One the same window under "Preferences" click "Language Bar..."

Check "Show the Language bar on the desktop" and click "OK"

A few more "OK" to dismiss the remaining windows

Now, use Left Alt + Shift to activate the new layout you just installed!

If you use this layout, consider making a donation to support availability and continued development!

What's the difference between a "disc" and a "disk?"

2009-10-21T23:32:00.000-04:00

Did you ever wonder about the difference between a "disc" and a "disk?" Find out by reading a recent Apple's KnowledgeBase article.

Create custom keyboard layouts with Ukelele | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

2009-10-07T23:20:00.000-04:00

MacFixIt has a writeup on using Ukelele utility to create your own keyboard layouts for the Mac: Create custom keyboard layouts with Ukelele | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

Configure built-in VPN client in Snow Leopard

2009-09-16T22:56:00.003-04:00

MacOS X 10.6 Snow Leopard comes with built-in VPN client. Snow Leopard did break my Cisco VPN client, so learning how to set up the native client makes me very happy. Steps are:

System Preferences > Network
Click "+" and pick "VPN" under Interface
Choose "Cisco IPSec" as VPN Type
Enter a name of your choosing as Service Name
Click "Create"
Server Address - value of Host from your .pcf file
Account name - your user name
Password - leave blank and you will be prompted upon establishing a connection
click Authentication Settings
Shared Secret - either value of GroupPwd from .pcf file; if blank, take value of enc_GroupPwd and decrypt it at http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~massar/bin/cisco-decode
Group Name - value of GroupName from .pcf file

Upgrading to Snow Leopard

2009-09-04T23:56:00.003-04:00

Despite the warning of incompatibilities with software I use at work (see below), I went ahead with Snow Leopard upgrade. Picked up the install disk at Harvard Technology Services, hoping to save on sales tax. No such luck, but even at a bit over $30, I was a happy camper and looking forward to playing with the new OS.

The install went very smoothly and took under 1 hour. I recommend looking under "Customize" and at the very least choosing to add Rosetta - I understand Apple's desire to forget the PowerPC legacy as soon as possible, but chances are, you still have some old apps that require Rosetta. If you don't install it, you can always add it later.

First order of business - Juniper's VPN over SSL issues. As others described, I did the following:

sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/juniper/nc/[version number]/

sudo mkdir /Applications/Network\ Connect.app/Contents/Frameworks

and that did the trick - my VPN over SSL is functional and I can connect to a PC in my office using RDC any time I want.

Growl - as expected, not compatible. Got the beta - it is indispensable. Of course, it still does not work with Mail (so I am back to my AppleScript-based hack) nor does it work with growliChat (replaced that with Chax alpha). Growl's system-wide notifications are brilliant and once you start using them, you'll be hooked.

iStat menus failed to load - turned out I had an old version. I love how tasteful and unobtrusive theythose menus are, and came to rely on CPU load and temperature and network load indicators. New version is compatible and runs great.

Highly anticipated feature - automatic text replacement. I type "THanks" and it magically converts to "Thanks" - in my opinion, that is what computers are for!!! I know that Microsoft products already do that, and there are commercial programs, but having such feature be a part of the OS makes all the sense in the world. So add your desired replacements in System Preferences > Language and Text > Text and then go to Mail (or other apps, I guess), right-click in the body of a new message and choose Substitutions > Text Replacement. You are good to go!

Major issue of the day - freezing Address Book and Mail applications. Very disturbing, as you can imagine. Lots of Force Quits, restarts, etc. to no avail. More Googling and - bingo! - the problem is with a Smart Group I had in my Address Book which used a negation in one antecedents. Solution was inspired by this post - sort your /Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Metadata folder by Kind and look for "Smart" something or other. I then used QuickLook to figure out which Smart Group the file was for and trashed the offending ones. Problem was solved!!! Belatedly, saw a mention of it in more visible places... Apple definitely needs to fix this one soon.

And now - the pièce de résistance - enabling Exchange 2007 integration. I was very pleasantly surprised by how easy it was - even easier then iPhone! I put in my e-mail address and a password and my Mac figured that it was an Exchange account, set up Mail and downloaded all my mail, set up iCal and populated a new calendar, and set up Address Book. Everything happened extremely fast and with no hiccups. I immediately proceeded to drag Entourage off my Dock and hope not to have to use it ever again. Looking forward to trying Mail/iCal/Address Book combo as the only destination for all my "personal information managment" needs.

To wrap up, Snow Leopard looks good and my Mac feels pretty snappy running it. Clearly not without issues, but worth the upgrade anyway, in my opinion.

Is your network fast enough? | Business Center | Working Mac | Macworld

2009-08-26T20:59:00.000-04:00

This is something I am certainly going to try: Is your network fast enough?

My Photo in Schmap Boston Guide

2009-08-15T05:58:00.000-04:00

A picture I took with my iPhone and uploaded to Flickr was chosen to be included in a 2009 edition of "Schmap Boston Guide." The picture was taken in Boston Common and shows the gilded dome of the state capitol - the Massachusetts State House - over the green foliage of the park. Here it is on the pages of the Schmap Guide: Boston - Historical Background.

Acton is great

2009-07-24T22:32:00.000-04:00

Acton, MA is #16 on Money Magazine's "Best Places to Live" in 2009:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2009/snapshots/CS2500380.html

http://www.wickedlocal.com/acton/news/x540127961/Acton-16th-in-country-on-Best-Places-to-Live-list

Cool!

Safari Microformats plugin | Download

2009-06-17T13:13:00.000-04:00

New version of Safari Microformats plugin is compatible with latest release of Safari version 4.

Growl Beta

2009-05-19T09:44:00.000-04:00

Growl Beta 1.1.5 b1 is available and it fixes the Mail.app + Safari 4 beta crash

Front Row plugin launches Boxee

2009-03-25T11:25:00.000-04:00

So you have your Mac hooked up to your TV and you have Boxee installed. How do you launch it - with a keyboard or a mouse? That is so old-school! Install this - Front Row Boxee - and wielding your Apple remote go to Front Row. Behold - launch Boxee from Front Row - no getting from sofa required!

Social networking meets home appliances

2009-03-18T12:50:00.002-04:00

I am a fan of "This Old House" and on a recent show they were talking about the latest trend in hot water heaters - tankless water heater. They are apparently very popular in Europe and are making inroads here. The idea is that instead of heating water and storing it in a tank, you install a high-capacity heater "inline" and it runs on-demand only. Supposedly, you can have 3 showers running at the same time and it will meet the demand. Sounds very cool. But that's not all - and this gets even more fascinating. When you open the faucet, the heater senses the pressure change and comes on, but you have to wait until all the cold water that is sitting between the heater and your faucet runs out before you get the hot water. No big deal, the same thing happens in system with tanks. But with this system, it can be addressed! Imagine installing a recirculating pump between the tankless heater and the faucets. It can draw that cold water and pre-heat it. he question is - when do you turn on the recirc pump? Why, put a motion detector in the bathroom, of course!!! It sees you come in, assumes (rightly so in most cases) that you will be needing some hot water, and turns on the recirc pump. That, in turn, gets the water heater going and when you open a faucet in a little while - viola! - hot water.

Why am I so excited about it besides the fact that it is simply cool? Well, a few years back I would say that it is an example of a context-aware system. It can perform a function based on an generic input (no motion detector or demand from a faucet without an associated sensor), but it can also perform that function based on some specific information - a person walked into a restroom. Obviously, the range of contextual information can increase and so can the usefulness and efficiency of the system.

These days, this invokes a social networking analogy. Imagine that the motion sensor is Tweeting about your presence. Or better yet, imagine that this sensor is just one element in a larger network of devices that are gathering the stream of information you generate as you interact with your real as well as virtual environment! And this information can be consumed as a feed by your friends, by various devices around you, and processed to find interesting related streams generated by others, and so on...

The cool tankless water heater plus a recirc pump setup is a good illustration of an entire ecosystem of "social" interactions, real and virtual.