Month: August 2004

Took the final exam in my shell programming class last night – very weird to do a test like that with pencil and paper rather than into a shell, but the instructor wanted the test to be black screen, closed book. The offline approach was actually very effective, since you can’t experiment until you get it right – you have to know the material cold to be able to write scripts on paper that actually work when plugged in. Still need to write a final project script – will expand some customer provisioning I’ve done for birdhouse hosting, automate a few more housekeeping tasks.

To blow off steam, needed to do something non-shell, non-class related. Piles of misc images floating around that never get used, so decided to write an image rotator in PHP and plop some of them into the sidelines. Fun, but now that it’s there, I’m not sure I like it. We’ll see. Image is rotated once per hour, so save your reload-clicking finger. Also finally canned the calendar module – does anybody ever use those? If you think the image rotator is stupid, let me know.

Several good panels today. Berkeley took the Gold in the Sauter Awards for their Minimum Security Standards for Networked Devices (now I have policy to back up my goal of shutting down vanilla FTP for good). Saw a great demo of using video polycom devices in combination with IP-based desktop control software to deal with overcrowded classrooms, letting one instructor teach in two or more classrooms at once. Got to see up-close just how complex the campus WiFi networks really are (holy crap!). But the highlight of the day was the after-lunch tour of UC Riverside’s underground steam tunnels (phonecam image). Berkeley has these too, but I never thought I’d get to voyage through them. A trip to see the antique and the new side by side — steam for heating, briney chilled condensation on the return trip for cooling, and sparkling new harnesses of fiber optic cable snaking alongside.

In balmy Orange County for the next few days, attending the UC-wide Computing Services Conference. Shocked on arrival, expecting to pick up a quick shuttle from the airport to UC Riverside, only to discover the cheapest ride I could find was a $70 shuttle! No trains in the land where automobiles rule, and a series of buses would not have gotten me there in time. Hoping to find people to ride-share on the way back.

Drove miles through a desert pocked with strip malls and auto-body specialists, then suddenly we’re in the middle of an oasis. Downtown Riverside is really sweet, centered around the old mission. The Mission Inn is stunningly beautiful. Opening night at the California Museum of Photography, original pieces by Harold Edgerton, William Wegman, William Eggleston, many more. Largest archive of turn-of-century stereoscopic images in the world, and an immense collection of period cameras and related gear. Watched the sun set upside down from the dark innards of a camera obscura.

Tomorrow, the geekery begins.