rishel.org

9/16/2008

Android Ponies

I'm really liking what I've seen of Android, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have one by November. Everyone seems to have a list of the announced apps they want to use but I'd like to find replacements for the following apps I'm pretty happy with in the Windows Mobile world.

  1. SSH client. right now I use PocketPutty, but development seems to have staled, so I doubt there will be any quick port to Android. ConnectBot looks promising.
  2. Flickr uploader w/ geotagging. Shozu is pretty awesome on Windows Mobile and Symbian, and they recently came out with an iPhone app. The Android devs have a sample app called Photostream to view Flickr photostreams, but it doesn't appear to have upload capabilities.
  3. a podcatcher. I currently use Egress for Windows Mobile, which used to be my feed reader of choice as well, but I think google reader has taken over there and I just don't bother with most feeds on my phone anymore. Google reader + google gears on android will be pretty killer. but I'd still want way to grab all my podcasts.
  4. Twitter client. TinyTwitter is doing a bang-up job on windows mobile and java phones. Twitterdroid looks promising and was recently open sourced.

So, since the majority of the geeks reading this already have iPhones, what useful apps are guys using that I should hope to find ports for an Android version? (that last sentence is horrible, but you get the gist.)

Filed under: Gadgets, Geek Stuff — Jay @ 7:50 am

8/28/2008

Proliant Blade running RHEL5, you’ll need a cma.log rotation script

No one seems to have written a log rotation script for the Proliant Support Pack logs that are stored in /var/spool/compaq/cma.log, so I thought I'd throw mine up here in case someone else needs one. put this in a file called "cma" in /etc/logrotate.d/

/var/spool/compaq/cma.log {
compress
missingok
size=100M
postrotate
/sbin/service hpasm restart 2> /dev/null > /dev/null || true
endscript
}

That's it. this will be picked up by the daily cronjobs and keep things from getting messy. if you want to test your config without doing any changes, run logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf which will output the work it plans on doing. If your big log hasn't rotated in that example, run logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.conf which force the job to run. those 6 gigs of logs are now a tidy 39 megs.

Filed under: General, Linux — Jay @ 7:02 am

3/13/2008

3/1/2008

  • links for 2008-03-01:
      \n
    • \n
      I Think You\'re Fat

      \n

      An experiment in Radical Honesty. I got to the end of this and I just reallywanted to know to which operating system his wife was switching

      \n

      (tags: lying honesty article)

      \n

      • \n

    \n (0)

2/28/2008

2/13/2008

2/12/2008

2/9/2008

2/6/2008

2/5/2008

Why American Education is Failing: Not Enough MacGyver

Meg is teaching her third graders a unit on energy and needed an example scenario to test their knowledge of what happens to heated particles, namely that they expand to take up more space. She had a test question that was worded very oddly and involved how far capillary action would draw fluid up a straw if the water was cold or hot. She asked me to come up with an alternative thought experiment she could use to retest her students. My original thought was to eliminate water from the equation because of it's tricky phase change/density issues and instead ask a question involving a steel pipe and a steel ball that just barely fits through the pipe when both are at room temperature. She decided that was too complicated. The experiment she came up with involved two measuring cups with 1 cup of room temperature water in each. One is heated, but not boiled, the other cooled, but not frozen. What difference would be observed between the two measurements after this temperature change occurred? She was looking for the warm cup to measure slightly more, and the cold cup to measure slightly less. Turns out some tricky parents decided to ACTUALLY TRY THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT and found there was no change. Perhaps the water got below 4 degrees C and started down the odd shift that water has that causes ice to float, perhaps the warm cup wasn't boiling, but enough evaporated to prevent any noticeable change, perhaps there was a change but kitchen variety measuring cups aren't exactly graduated cylinders.

This is why I hate thought experiments involving water. (also: lead, uranium, neon and silicon also do some tricky things when cooled so they should remain out of the realm of third grade thought experiments) Here is my original thought experiment:

You are a secret agent and need to plant an explosive to blow up an enemy facility. Due to a mix up back at headquarters, you weren't given the normal remote controlled detonation system for your explosives. Instead, you were sent a self-lighting welding torch, 6 inches of steel pipe 1 inch in diameter, a steel ball that just barely fits inside of the pipe and a pair of barbeque tongs. Without your remote controlled detonator, the only way to set off the explosives is by pressing the half inch wide button on top of the explosives, but that doesn't give you any time to escape the explosion yourself. Using only the supplies you received how can you set off the explosives without blowing yourself up? Explain your solution in terms of adding energy to particles and what happens when a heated item cools over time.

If a parent actually helps a kid actually try the experiment they should win just for having the needed supplies.

Filed under: All Batman Wacky, Education — Jay @ 2:18 pm
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