The site Linked Things will accumulate information about products that are connected via the internet or local networks and can be controlled, combined and programmed.

Currently I’m aiming for one new post per week, but if you’ve got links or ideas please use the contact form on the page to send me your messages so I can gather as much data as possible about the internet of things and up the volume of posts with your help.

And please spread the word!

First and foremost: Get out of San José as quickly as possible

Since the capital possesses the only international Airport, this is the place you’ll most likely end up arriving. The problem is: it’s inland. So compared to the coast its weather is much cooler and it is more likely to rain. The other thing is, in contrast to the rest of the country, there is a relatively high crime rate and as soon as the “ticos” find out you’re a tourist (which is relatively hard to hide if you’re a blonde, white, middle european looking person like me), they try to rip you off every chance they get. Adding to that it is loud, crowded, dirty and generally not worth of staying very long, in my opinion.

As soon as you get out of the city though, the weather gets warmer and sunny quickly, the people get really nice and the country spreads out it’s beautiful, diverse landscape for you to explore.

The Pacific coast, southern end of Peninsula Nicoya

So after two days in San José I headed out for the west coast, since the rainy season had already started on the Caribbean side, and settled for a stay near Tambor in the southern part of Costa Rica’s peninsula Nicoya. I checked into a quiet resort for a week and did nothing but relaxing in a hammock under the palm trees and finishing 4 books on my Kindle (the 4-Hour Workweek being one of them). My daily routine also consisted of a run on the beach in the morning, followed by a general full body workout, using whatever was available. I can tell you, you’ll get really weird looks if you start doing bench presses, squats and curls using driftwood, pull-ups on palm trees and inclined push-ups on beach rocks. But it was a lot of fun!

Places you should definitely check out around the southern end of Nicoya:

• Montezuma – a sleepy little town with a very “hippie feeling” to it. My special tip is to get a table (preferably the one where you’re sitting on the floor – japanese style – right at the beach front) at the superb “Playa De Los Artistas” and watch the sunset, while having one of their delicious meals from the daily changing, handwritten menu.
• Santa Teresa/Mal Pais – a never ending beach with various different breaks suited for long-boarders, short-boarders, beginners & experts alike. I watched the “Reef Classic Costa Rica 2012″ surf competition there and had a lot of fun seeing those guys master the waves. Also if you’re there, be sure to stick around for the breathtaking sunset.
• Tambor – for the best typical “tico food” and a cheap place to sleep, check out “Restaurante Cristina”. I had the freshest, delicious red snapper there, served on the patio in front of the house.

One word of caution: if you think about renting a car to get around in that area, definitely get a 4×4, because only a minority of the “streets” are paved. Most of them are just dirt roads and really, really dusty (so keep your windows closed).

Playa Grande

This little gem is located a bit further up the west coast, right next to the town of Tamarindo, but conveniently separated from that noisy, crowded (very, very) touristy place by a small estuary which you can cross for one dollar on one of the boats that are always waiting there. Turning away from Tamarindo you are presented with a quiet, miles long beach with wonderful waves and surprisingly few people. About 100% of the folks in the water are on a surf board, starting in the early morning until the sun sinks directly into the water. I had the pleasure of checking off one of my life goals here by surfing while the sunset dispersed it’s deep red color on the waves. This is real soul surfing!

The accompanying town seems to be primarily inhabited by american ex-tourists, who just stayed there, because it’s such an awesome, laid back place to live. I settled in a nice little hostel called “Playa Grande Inn” which had surf boards & bikes for rent and the nicest, most welcoming crew I’ve ever experienced in all of my journeys. I immediately felt as part of the big Playa Grande family and had lots of fun on several evenings, drinking at the hostels own bar with Herman “the best bar keeper in Costa Rica” (the words of another guest) and enjoying their homemade pizzas and fresh seafood.

Another one of Playa Grande’s attractions are the big leatherback turtles that lay their eggs on the beach during “arribadas” (turtle nesting season). Hatching season is from October to May and must surely be a sight to see. In 1990 the whole beach was incorporated into “Marino Las Baulas National Park”, which is why you can’t build houses at the beachfront any more, or have lights shining in that direction. Some people that bought lots of land facing the beach are really pissed off because of that fact, but it secures the whole area from ending up like Tamarindo with all it’s gift shops and cafes.

I really liked staying in Playa Grande and plan on returning there in the future, I hope it will keep it’s charm and quiet beauty.

General Costa Rica tips & findings

I really don’t know why, but tico’s don’t seem to be night owls. Nearly everywhere I went 10pm was about as long as the evening lasted. At 11pm at the latest everyone was at home, in their beds and sleeping. I reluctantly adapted (staying awake well after 2am most of the time while at home), but I guess it had it’s advantages, as I was wide awake and full of energy every morning at 7am and could head out for the first surf of the day before having breakfast.

Your cell phone will be useless because CR’s cell network apparently was built by some Chinese company that uses totally different frequencies than most (?) of the rest of the world. Having a phone with WiFi pays off, as that’s what’s available for free nearly everywhere in the inhabited areas. Be prepared for frequent power outages though, that can last for hours!

Ticos don’t have street addresses. So if you’re staying in a hotel somewhere be sure to pick up one of those little cards with a description on how to get there, otherwise you’ll be stuck trying to explain to a cab driver that you want to go to that place around the corner from the supermarket, near the neon sign right down that one big street…
Their “addresses” literally look like this: In the district of Papas, turn left at the big Coca Cola sign, 100 meters south, 50 meters west, that building there, in San José.  I really wouldn’t want to be the postman over there!

Get friendly with the local wildlife. You’ll encounter every species from geckos to spiders, monkeys and colorful birds everywhere inside and outside your room.

Know how to speak Spanish. Even though a good amount of Costa Rica’s GDP must derive from tourism, very little of the people know how to speak English. I even encountered one tourist agency, where I called for a shuttle bus ticket, that had English brochures and websites but had to put me through three times until I reached someone who was able to understand my request.
If your Spanish is sub-par don’t despair though, only learn one phrase that can mean everything from “hello”, “good bye”, “how are you” to “everything’s ok” and conveniently sums up the whole Costa Rica experience:

Pura Vida!

I guess we’ve had this a long time coming, but now it’s official: Plazes.com will go out of service.

I’ve received this email today:

Hi Azathoth,

Thanks for being part of Plazes. We hope you enjoyed the journey, past or present.

The time has come to say farewell, and next week, Plazes will go out of service.

From next week, you can go to Plazes.com and move your history to Nokia Maps. Your plazes will become favourites on Nokia Maps for your PC or Mac. Shortly after next week, you’ll also be able to sync your favourites with Nokia Maps on your phone.

If you like, you’ll also be able to download and save a history file containing all your activities and plazes.

With Nokia Maps, you can search for interesting places and find your way there with walking, driving and public transport directions. And if you find somewhere new on your travels, you can add it to the map, write reviews, post a rating and add photos.

If you have any questions, please contact Nokia Support.

Kind regards

Your Plazes Team

For those who don’t know; Plazes.com was a very early (I’ve became a member in early 2005) geosocial network developed in Berlin, Germany, that worked off your internet connection’s router Mac address as a location identifier. GPS or WiFi location weren’t available then. Later you could also check in via text message from your (pre-smart) phone.

Other then the technicalities it was pretty similar to what foursquare is today (minus most of the gamification features). It was fun! I can remember one time, when I chased down Singapore Airport during a 30 minute stopover, just to reach the smokers lounge at the other end and connect my iBook to the free WiFi so I can score another checkin.

When Nokia bought the company in 2008 I had the feeling, that development of the service pretty much stopped and eventually I too stopped using it. My last checkin was 2 years ago and that’s probably also the last time I logged on to their site. This Email today just reminded me of my account and I enjoyed looking through previous travel endavours of my former self.

Thank you & R.I.P. Plazes.com 

I recently upgraded the whole media consumption set-up in my apartment. This post describes all of the different aspects, hardware and software components in use.

Hardware

• Mac Mini – this is the main hub of the whole operation. It sits in my living room, connected to sound system and projector.
  Specs: 2.3GHz i5, 2GB RAM, 500GB HD, Intel HD 3000 Graphics.
• Apple TV – the new 1080p one. Connected to the LCD TV in my room.
• iPad – also the new one.
• Projector - still the same old one that won’t die. Only 720p, but I refuse to replace it before it has reached the end of it’s lifetime.
• Logitech Harmony - universal remote to control the cable box, sound system, projector and XBMC (via Mac Mini’s infra red port) in the living room.
• 2TB harddisk - connected to Mac Mini via USB.
• 2x AirPort Express – connected to speakers in the kitchen and bathroom.

Software on Mac Mini

• XBMC – with it’s recent Eden release and a few configuration tweaks the perfect, easy to use frontend for all my movies & TV shows.
• Transmission – Torrent client with a nice web based remote frontend.
• Catch – to automatically download new TV show episodes.
• Air Media Server – serves media to iOS devices.
• AirServer – receives AirPlay streams from iOS devices.

Software on iOS

• Air Media Center – plays movies and music from Mac Mini via Air Media Server.
• TouchPad – substitutes mouse and keyboard for Mac Mini.
• Mocha VNC Lite – remote desktop software.
• Apples Remote App – controls Apple TV or iTunes music on Mac Mini.

Outline

Mac Mini is my always-on media server. It serves it’s video signal, running XBMC, to the projector. XBMC periodically scans all the appropriate directories on the external harddisk for new movies and TV show episodes.

iTunes is running with a copy of all of my music and Home Sharing turned on. That way I can listen to music on my iPad, iPhone or Apple TV whenever I’m at home and also stream it to AirPlay receivers in the living room (AirServer), my room (Apple TV), kitchen (AirPort Express) & bathroom (AirPort Express).

Further Mac Mini checks the showRSS website via Catch for my subscribed TV shows and downloads new episodes via Transmission. The finished episodes are sorted into the correct directories on the external harddisk. I can also add new downloads via Transmission’s web frontend that’s accessible from the outside and very usable even on small smartphone screens. That way, whenever I turn on the projector in the living room, I get greeted by XBMC with all new and unwatched content in my library.

To tie in all iOS devices, I am running Air Media Server and AirServer.
The first serving the same media as XBMC’s library to iOS devices connecting via Air Media Center iOS App. This also works remotely since Air Media Center automatically configures port forwarding on my Time Capsule. AirServer enables me to send media via AirPlay from my iPad or iPhone to the projector’s output in the living room. AirServer also supports AirPlay mirroring in it’s latest version, which is really awesome for games like Real Racing 2 HD which I can now play on the big screen.

If I want to watch a movie or TV show in my room, I just fire up Air Media Center on my iPad and send it’s video output via AirPlay to the Apple TV.

With all those devices interconnected and relying, as much as possible, on Apple’s protocols, there is a myriad of different possibilities: from having different music playing on varying combinations of speakers throughout the apartment, to streaming movies to my tiny iPhone screen over 3G while riding the subway to work and everything in between. I think I’m quite happy with the way it’s all working together now, I think this might finally be a system sustainable a bit longer than all the previous hacked together arrangements.

If an object is converted to an array, the result is an array whose elements are the object‘s properties. The keys are the member variable names, with a few notable exceptions: private variables have the class name prepended to the variable name; protected variables have a ‘*’ prepended to the variable name. These prepended values have null bytes on either side. This can result in some unexpected behaviour.

Source: http://www.php.net/manual/de/language.types.array.php#language.types.array.casting

No kidding? This must be one of the most stupid decisions ever in the whole language of PHP. Why pad some array keys with NULL BYTES? I mean, how can anyone ever be expected to find that out, by looking at the data the script writes out? This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Just spent around an hour hunting this down!

I hope this post will save someone else the amount of hassle this has caused me.

I have to admit, it is kind of fun to see your own scores progress over the weeks. I couldn’t say if this is actually a deterministic way to tell if somebody is a person you should listen to (at least for the topics he’s listed as influencer on Klout), or if this is just another way beyond follower-/friends-counts to stroke ones ego, but it provides some nice  insights about the topics you converse about online.

Klout features two more interesting things I’d like to point out:

• Topics: Pages about different topics, who talks about them and who are the top influencers in that field.
• Perks: Depending on your score, you can get gifts or discounts from numerous companies around the world. Now that’s what I call motivation to communicate online

Detailed walkthrough

• add some additional directories to PATH
• reference .bash_ps1 (see the file below)
• set grep and ls to display some fancy colors
• two aliases to often used commands
  • order top by CPU usage
  • display more human readable directory listing output
• Set Textmate’s “mate” command as the default editor
• Ignore duplicates in history. E. g. if I issue “ls” multiple times, it only occurs once when I press the cursor up key, to cycle through my last commands.
• Export DISPLAY environment variable if it’s not already set. This helps with X-forwarding from remote systems.
• SSH host completion lets me type the first few characters of any host I already connected to successfully and completes it just like normal shell commands or files after pressing TAB.
• The “myip” function lets me look up my external IP.
• “git_stats” spits out detailed infos about any git repository you issue this command in.

.bash_profile

export PATH=$PATH:~/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/git/bin

# set fancy prompt
if [ -f "$HOME/.bash_ps1" ]; then
    . "$HOME/.bash_ps1"
fi

# some settings to be more colorful
export GREP_OPTIONS='--color=auto' GREP_COLOR='1;32'
export CLICOLOR=true
export LSCOLORS=ExGxFxdxCxDxDxBxBxExEx

# handy aliases
alias top='top -o cpu'
alias ll='ls -lh'

# use Textmate as default editor
export EDITOR="mate"

# no duplicates in bash history
export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups

# export DISPLAY if it's not set yet
[[ -z $DISPLAY ]] && export DISPLAY=":0.0"

# ssh host tab completion
complete -W "$(echo `cat ~/.ssh/known_hosts | cut -f 1 -d ' ' | sed -e s/,.*//g | uniq | grep -v "\["`;)" ssh

################################################
# bash functions
################################################
function myip {
  res=$(curl -s checkip.dyndns.org | grep -Eo '[0-9\.]+')
  echo "$res"
}

function git_stats {
# awesome work from https://github.com/esc/git-stats
# including some modifications
if [ -n "$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2> /dev/null)" ]; then
    echo "Number of commits per author:"
    git --no-pager shortlog -sn --all
    AUTHORS=$( git shortlog -sn --all | cut -f2 | cut -f1 -d' ')
    LOGOPTS=""
    if [ "$1" == '-w' ]; then
        LOGOPTS="$LOGOPTS -w"
        shift
    fi
    if [ "$1" == '-M' ]; then
        LOGOPTS="$LOGOPTS -M"
        shift
    fi
    if [ "$1" == '-C' ]; then
        LOGOPTS="$LOGOPTS -C --find-copies-harder"
        shift
    fi
    for a in $AUTHORS
    do
        echo '-------------------'
        echo "Statistics for: $a"
        echo -n "Number of files changed: "
        git log $LOGOPTS --all --numstat --format="%n" --author=$a | cut -f3 | sort -iu | wc -l
        echo -n "Number of lines added: "
        git log $LOGOPTS --all --numstat --format="%n" --author=$a | cut -f1 | awk '{s+=$1} END {print s}'
        echo -n "Number of lines deleted: "
        git log $LOGOPTS --all --numstat --format="%n" --author=$a | cut -f2 | awk '{s+=$1} END {print s}'
        echo -n "Number of merges: "
        git log $LOGOPTS --all --merges --author=$a | grep -c '^commit'
    done
else
    echo "you're currently not in a git repository"
fi
}

.bash_ps

############################################
# Modified from emilis bash prompt script
# from https://github.com/emilis/emilis-config/blob/master/.bash_ps1
###########################################
fill="--- "
reset_style='\[\033[00m\]'
status_style=$reset_style'\[\033[0;90m\]' # gray color; use 0;37m for lighter color
prompt_style=$reset_style
command_style=$reset_style'\[\033[1;29m\]' # bold black
PS1="$status_style"'$fill \t\n'"$prompt_style"'${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[0;32m\]::>'"$command_style "
# this is invoked every time before a command is executed
trap 'echo -ne "\033[00m"' DEBUG

function prompt_command {
    let fillsize=${COLUMNS}-9
    fill=""
    while [ "$fillsize" -gt "0" ]
        do
            fill="-${fill}" # fill with underscores to work on
            let fillsize=${fillsize}-1
        done
}
export PROMPT_COMMAND=prompt_command

Click here to see the ifttt tasks

Click here to see the Mail Rule

This is kind of a stripped down version of Read It Later or Instapaper, but functions perfectly for my workflow.

Requirements

• Apple Mail
• Apple Safari (with Reading List Support)
• ifttt Account

First I’ve set up actions in ifttt that forward Links I favorite in Twitter or Google Reader, to my personal Email and prepend the subject with “#ReadLater”. Next I constructed a Mail Rule that acts on all messages who’s subjects begin with said keyword. The Mail Rule will invoke the following Applescript, mark the message as read and move it to the trash.

using terms from application "Mail"
	on perform mail action with messages theSelectedMessages
		tell application "Mail"
			repeat with eachMessage in theSelectedMessages
				set mailbody to content of eachMessage
				set theUrl to paragraph 1 of mailbody
				tell application "Safari"
					add reading list item theUrl
				end tell
			end repeat
		end tell
	end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

Use cases

• Read newsfeeds on iPhone. Save longer or interesting articles for later by clicking the favorite star.
• Interesting item pops up on twitter, but you don’t have time now to read the containing link right now.
•  While walking in the street you see a URL you want to remember, just mail it to yourself with the appropriate keyword in the subject.

Let me elaborate on this rather strong statement by going back in history a bit.
I can still remember, when I got my first Mac, it was a 12″ iBook G4 with OS X Panther. Being a rather curious person, I started tweaking the user interface and tested out all available options, until I was satisfied with the speed and metaphors of my personal set up. On thing that I started using very frequently almost immediately was Exposé (now extinct due to Lion’s Mission Control). I had several hot corners set up, so windows would fly out of the way and reveal the Desktop whenever I moved my mouse in the lower left corner of the screen or reveal all opened windows when I moved to the lower right corner. This method of interacting with my programs quickly became very natural to me. Going so far, that I started moving my mouse into corners on Windows systems several times in vain, until I realized that I had to use the taskbar for those similar tasks. This wasn’t more than a little annoyance to me. I just found out that OS X permitted me to work faster than what I’d be able to achieve in the rare cases, where I’d need to use another system.

But the problem also ran in the other direction. People not used to Mac systems and their concept of hot corners seemed to have a much more clumsy way of moving their mouse around on the screen. Thus they inadvertently triggered the “Show Desktop” or “Show all windows” functions all of the time and were completely irritated by windows flying around all of the sudden. I merely laughed about that fact back then, but from my point of view today, that’s where the gap began to widen. I was used to a UI paradigm, that wasn’t logical at all for users not familiar with OS X.

Skip a few years forward and now we’ve got OS X 10.7 Lion with many more ways of interaction, that are nowhere near to be seen on any other platform. Take gestures for instance: they save a lot of time and clicks when used properly, but setting ones muscle memory further apart from the rest of computer users, who don’t have or use gestures. Now this isn’t a very big problem, because gestures need special hardware to be applicable and add new ways of interaction that don’t overrule the way of using a computer you got used to before. A much bigger problem could be the way Apple changed the scrolling direction in Lion. They call it “natural scrolling” and if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense and there isn’t much of a learning curve, once you’ve wrapped your head around it. But think of the ramifications that arise when others happen to sit in front of your computer or if you want to use another persons system.

If I think about a typical day at work, there are several times when a colleague  might sit down at my Mac to look something up, load some spreadsheet or notes about what we are just discussing, or similar examples. In the past this was no big deal, they might only be annoyed by triggering hot-corners or when they searched for the “close window” button on the wrong side of a window’s title bar. But now there is also the reversal of scrolling, which not only is new and “weird” to them, but is completely contradictory to how the same metaphor worked for them over the last decades.

Don’t be mistaken, I’m not against the new “natural scrolling”. I’m getting used to it rather quickly and enjoy how I can now interact with content more logically. But on the other hand it will make it more difficult for me, whenever I have to use a Windows or Linux Desktop and now even when I use an older OS X system. At the same time other users will find it more irritating and difficult to use my machine. It will be interesting where this will take us in the future. Will the gap grow even more? Or will operating system manufacturers decide on a common ground for user interactions?
I don’t mind adapting to the new principles Apple comes up with, as long as they make sense for me and help me interact with my computer in a more efficient way. But this also means I’m separating myself further from the herd (aka millions of Windows users), which might not be entirely bad in itself

SELECT table_schema "Data Base Name", sum( data_length + index_length ) / 1024 / 1024 "Data Base Size in MB" FROM information_schema.TABLES GROUP BY table_schema ;