Category: Geek

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rsync redux

Completed the new backup system last Friday. Now have a perfect daily mirror of half a dozen backup locations, as well as incrementals rewinding every day for a month. The cool thing about rsync is that it doesn’t need to copy GBs of data to make a mirror – uses checksums to send diffs, so a day’s changes are updated into the reservoir in seconds. Any files destined for deletion or change are copied into a folder named for that day of the month. My script steps through an arbitrary number of backup locations, and maintains separate mirrors and incremental sets for each. Fun to be shell scripting again, rather than PHP. It’s been a while. Running as a crontab, trouble-free so far. So much sweeter than the DVD backup system we had on the old Win2K server, which required my physical presence.

Music: Embryo :: Every Day Is Okay
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Beyond Interview

Andrea “hawksmoor” Scatena interviewed me a bit ago for Beyond Magazine : “BeOS, AmigaOS, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD.” He wanted to know my thoughts about the various BeOS variants floating around today. Pulled no punches in my answers. In fact, I was so candid I half-expected them not to run it, but they did. Current issue is downloadable now (PDF).

Be had more than 100 employees and $25 million in the bank at one point. Full-time engineers and a bunch of committed commercial developers (Adamation, BeatWare, Gobe…). With all of that, BeOS barely stood a snowball’s chance in hell. Without any of that, without any hope of developing momentum — EVER — it’s all so much less than zero. It’s very hard for me to understand why there are still people hanging out in the ghost town.

and:

Look, sometimes we do things in this life for irrational reasons, for love. If you love BeOS and don’t care about the apps or the practicality, then by all means use it, be happy, it’s “all part of life’s rich pageant.” Just don’t start to think BeOS is going to have some kind of renaissance, or take over the world, or provide a means for developers or users to make money. Love is the only remaining reason to use the system. And maybe that’s reason enough.

Andrea is a good guy. His commitment and love is shining – exactly the kind of vibe that made the BeOS community unlike any technology sphere I’ve experienced before or since.

Music: Tom Jones :: Delilah
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BarbieOS

As if we didn’t have enough Linux distros floating around, now there’s one tailored to 4-11 year-old girls, allegedly the most user-friendly distribution ever made.

BarbieOS 1.0 is the result of almost a year’s worth of marketing research into what pre-adolescent girls want in a mobile Linux solution aimed at being a desktop replacement.

From what I hear of Barbie’s new technopolitics, I like her a lot more than I used to:

… If Barbie were a career-focused woman working in the IT industry in 2003, she would support open standards,” he says.  “She would be seeking out free and open-source alternatives to current proprietary solutions, saving her company tens of thousands of dollars on management headaches associated with tracking software licenses and preparing for BSA audits.  

Interesting that Mattel hasn’t yet shut this site down; the company was once extremely vigorous about threatening ISPs with customers hosting Barbie trademark violations. I did follow a Google link to another BarbieOS site that apparently had been shut down.

For years, Birdhouse has hosted Mark Napier’s Distorted Barbie, with built-in mirror (so that if necessary, I could cease and desist and the meme would live on). I have yet to receive anything from Mattel regarding the site, so they may have pulled back on their campaign a bit. Perhaps they realized they would never get the cat back in the bag, or that they were actually damaging their corporate image more than improving it, or that the line between satire and slander can be too blurry to define consistently, or…

Music: X :: Sugarlight
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Which Media Player Sucks Least?

Currently involved in a mondo thread regarding the question of whether QuickTime sucks or not, which by necessity also asks whether Real Media and/or Windows Media suck, and if so, how much? As with operating systems, I think all of them have strengths and weakness, but there are no secrets about my leanings: I think QuickTime is more flexible, has better (or at least equal) quality per bitrate, has a cleaner UI, is less big-brother-ish, and is less invasive (is less brash about stealing associations). QuickTime is also, unfortunately, the only one that nags the user till they cough up $30 — something I’m more than willing to do, though I know many/most people are not.

Not everyone shares my opinion. Thought I’d take a straw poll here on birdhouse, where the air is slightly less rarified than on the mailing list. What do you think? If all audio/video media on the web had to be in a single format, which should it be?

Which media player/platform gives the best overall user experience?

View Results

Gorgeous example of QuickTime in action.

Music: Janis Joplin :: To Love Somebody
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rsync backup

Working on new backup systems based on the tremendously flexible rsync, which ships with OS X and Server. Clever details here on utilizing hard links for incremental backups. The trick is shifting gears between contexts all the time; nose buried in man pages one moment, then helping a student discover the magic of File | Open (no kidding) the next, then lugging projectors and plugging in cables ten minutes later. Such a schizo job. Seldom build enough momentum to really sync into a task.

Music: Marvin Pontiac :: Wanna wanna
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iTunes Collection Plate

The problem isn’t downloading, it’s making sure the artists get paid. The EFF has produced a swell silent short to illustrate the point (and to solicitate your support).

Speaking of making sure the artist gets paid… iTunes for Windows is out (Apple’s homepage read “Hell Froze Over” and introduced “The best Windows app ever”).

At work I use an OS X (primary) and Win2K machines side by side. Installed the Win version of iTunes and was impressed at how the two mirrored each other pretty much feature-for-feature. The Rendezvous sharing is awesome – enable music sharing on the Mac and the Win machine sees and plays the entire library and all playlists.

Of course the only reason Apple does this is the runaway financial success of the iTunes Music Store, which is now available to a vastly larger audience. For a while, the sexy integration of iPod and iTunes was the draw so compelling people would supposedly quit Windows for the Mac. Then it was the draw of the amazing music store. Suddenly the strategy changes – people aren’t going to come to church, so why not bring the collection plate to their doorsteps?

Music: Cocteau Twins :: Little Spacey
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Double Your Yuan

Just went to register domains for the China and the Internet class, who wanted both .org and .cn domains. To my amazement, the totals showed dotster charging 2.5x more for .cn domains than for “standard” TLDs. Well blow me down. Bopped over to the well-loathed Verisign, and found they won’t even sell you a .cn. Checked several other registrars and found the same — either they won’t do it or they charge a wad. Wonder what the hang is. It’s a line in a database, how can one take more effort than another?

Music: David Thomas & the Pedestrians :: Sound of the Sand
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Curious George at the Apple Store

The repair permissions trick ultimately didn’t work (I knew it wouldn’t), so back to the Apple Store to drop off the box for repair. Irks me no end that Apple will not give you a SuperDrive to install yourself. Ten minutes and problem could be solved, but no, they want the whole machine, want to ship it to Infinite Loop or wherever their repair monkeys live, and ship it back. I can appreciate that they want to “control the experience,” top to bottom, reduce injection of foreign objects into the hardware, but shoot, I’d be willing to sign a waiver. It’s both insulting and a waste of time.

Anyway. Took Miles with me. When he was there a week ago, we showed him the Curious George game on one of the eMacs, and he seemed to enjoy, even though he’s too young even for the preschool levels. This time he started pointing and grunting as soon as we got in the store. Persisted until I put him down. He ran across the store and plopped himself down in front of Curious George. Started whacking at the keyboard, smiling ear to ear, squealing. Uh-oh.

And I’m computerless for a week, stealing time on Amy’s machine after hours.

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Fix It Right The First Time

Sometimes things work, but are neverthelesss not the right solution. This is a philosophical problem of approach to problem solving that has come up repeatedly at work over the past few weeks. Group A wants to do things the most effective way. Wants solutions. Now. Likes to do a lot with a little. Likes simpler solutions. Likes not putting energy where it will be wasted. Group B wants to do things the right way. Never mind the cost. Straight to the top. All the time, no matter what. Assumes that amount of money spent always equates to amount of quality in the solution. There’s a lot to be said for that, but note that Group B even has trouble believing that open source / free software products can be high quality too.

One might think that questions of technology have right answers, but in the end, neither approach is necessarily more correct. One is more idealistic, one more realistic. One is only more right than the other depending on assumptions, contexts, budgets (time and money), immediacy, difficulty, etc.

Results count too. Related but unrelated: My SuperDrive has been failing intermittently — not recognizing CDs in iTunes. Burning coasters or having buffer underruns. Finally took machine in to the Apple store. I have AppleCare, but they won’t replace the drive until they’ve tried alt.solutions in the store. One of the Apple Geniuses recommended running Repair Permissions from Disk Utility. This made no intuitive sense to me — it’s an intermittent failure, how can perms on a kernel extension make the difference? (Note: You must boot from CD or external FW if you want Repair Permissions to be fully effective – some perms must be skipped on the boot drive).

And yet… we repaired permissions and sure enough, a test disc I brought that previously would not mount now mounted, and we were able to burn a test CD. Freaky deaky. And yet… something inside me told me this was not the right solution, that there was some fluke involved. Sure enough, days later I’m experiencing the same difficulties and need to bring the box back for a drive replacement. Ultimately, they wasted my time and theirs with a “solution” that I knew was not the correct solution and now I have to go spend more of my time and theirs to get it done right for reals.

Music: Link Wray :: Rumble
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Jerry Mander’s Aphorisms

Rinchen forwards Jerry Mander’s Aphorisms, a set of succinct provocations engaged against technology worship.

0. Since most of what we are told about new technology comes from its proponents, be deeply skeptical of all claims.

and:

8. Do not accept the homily that “once the genie is out of the bottle, you cannot put it back”, or that rejecting technology is impossible. Such attitudes induce passivity and confirm victimization.

Bruce Sterling writes for MIT’s Enterprise Technology Review, Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die. Some items on his list, such as the internal combustion engine and land mines, are not surprising. His inclusion of prisons and DVDs on the list is more provocative.

Music: Talking Heads :: I Zimbra