Rain?!

Ah, fall in Toronto... Where it will be -12 and snowy one week and 13 and constantly rainy the next.
I prefer the snow. This constant rain is bringing me down.

Ill wireless

Man oh man...

I have a headache the size up Gibraltar. But my sinuses are clear for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I am not sore all over anymore.
A nice change.

Well, I rebuilt the wireless network yesterday. Adios, ovislink hub... you were loud, fickle and I never liked you anyway. As for the combo router-802.11b WAP... you had to yield to G hardware.

Yeah... it's good, quiet, reliable wireless... with a decent (well for consumer wireless) security mechanism. And I can finally get a reliable signal in the kitchen while I'm making brekky.

Google Base

Damn. This is the only thing able to challenge Wikipedia as the closest thing we have to the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

And I had to edit the link in the post below... that was just plain fugly. I would even go so far as to say fue asqueroso.

O'Reilly had an article earlier this month on the Korg OASYS. I said damn, that's a sweet piece of gear. Cojonudo, even.

Heh

Priceless. I love wikipedia. In any language.

[English Wikipedia article on Canadian slang]

A quick thought on Conrad Black's citizenship plea

So... when you're all hot to become a peer of the realm in England, your Canadian citizenship is an "impediment".
Yet, when facing fraud charges in the US, suddenly the prospect of spending your sentence in a Canadian jail is considerably more appealing.
OK, so you brush off your birthright but come running back to it to avoid a US correctional facility, so we can pay the costs of your incarceration?
Get bent. You made your bed, lie in it.

A decade of geek life

In a few short weeks, I will have been in the punk rock IT biz (at one level or another) for ten years.
Wow.
Ten years man! Ten years!

I remember when a 1 GB hard disk was something special. I remember the web dev station we installed at the coop at Laurier; Pentium MMX 200 MHz. It was a screaming fast box for the time, with 128 MB of RAM making Windows NT4 SP3 supa-dupa responsive.

I think most modern BlackBerry handhelds have faster processors. I'm positive most PalmOne devices do.

I now carry 1 GB of solid state memory around with me in a form factor so small I constantly fear losing it. Did I say one? I meant two... I forgot about the iPod shuffle I am currently listening to.

Upcoming gaming consoles (*cough* PS3 *cough*) will support dual layer blu-ray optical media, with a capacity of up to 50 GB per disc.
So much, so fast... it doesn't bug me unless I look back on it.

Here's my bit of "grumpy old man" after ten years: the current media hoopla over converged devices (which has been going on for years, but seems to be picking up speed again of late).
Seven years ago a group of 6 3rd and 4th year business students at Laurier sat down around a pitcher in Wilf's pub to figure out what their research project would be for their MIS class.
A small faction of us pitched convergence. We were shot down as it was a "pie in the sky" idea.

Hah.

Yeah, listen: I get my email (work and personal) delivered to my phone handset, my work email comes in on an encrypted connection. I can check my outstanding tickets on this handset as well, over a 3DES encrypted wireless connection back into the office network.
Oh yeah... it's a phone too.
I haven't needed to power on a laptop to communicate with the office when I am away or off site in years. I know guys in UNIX shops who run SSH clients off of their handhelds when they have to quickly make an adjustment to a server, or verify that a process is still running.

So yeah... the past decade of geek life has seen concepts that were once dismissed as "nice, but..." become daily reality.

I am not sure what the next step is, though Robert X. Cringley has something to say about that (eh, I can't find the link).

All I know is that consulting life beats the hell out of the helpdesk.

Snow!

Well, we had a few moments of serious flurry here in the TDot.
To think it was 17 degrees just two weeks back (that's celcius; for you metric-impaired types that's ~66 Fahrenheit).
And now sun... after the last two days of clouds, wind and rain I for one welcome the sight.

OK, Fable: the Lost Chapters... Huge props, this is a great re-release, finished what was the core plot of the original XBox release last night and to my surprise... there's more. A lot more based on appearances.
Puzzles that are actually challenging.
Opponents that I won't necessarily be able to chop through like a hot knife through butter.
More missions.
Cool plot.

Back to work...

...and a quick thought on the Sony/BMG rootkit

Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it.

Quote attributed to Thomas Hesse, president Global Digital Business Division, SonyBMG.

Nice job buddy. Thanks to that kind of thinking now everyone has heard of rootkits.
Not only that, but this intrusive software has created backdoors in thousands of networks across the planet, but people are taking advantage of it to bypass the World of Warcraft Warden software and effectively defrauding Blizzard.

IANAL, but the last time I checked, buying a CD from a label did not give them the right to root my machine.

To appease the peanut gallery

Damn your hides... I'll post when I bloody well feel like it, not before.

Ah... I think I will have to become a Wacom tablet user. A decade in the IT biz in one way, shape or form or another is taking it's toll on my arm joints.

November... this has been a socially hectic month. I know far too many Scorpios.
Birthday greetings to (in no particular order) Brad, Graham, Sara, Josh and Stefan.
Those of you listed who have just turned (or are about to turn) 30: my silence can be purchased for a moderate fee. Email me at the usual address to discuss payment details.

Well, my bike got stolen a while back. To any bike thieves reading: you are all fucking bastards.

Let me tell you how I really feel.

My next bike will have a security system with an electroshock component. Not powerful enough to cause any lasting physical harm, but just enough so you shitheel thieves will lose control of your bowels when attempting to steal bicycles.

So, I am planning to get a new ride built. Here's the skinny on the new bike project:
I have a late 70s Gitane frame - I need to take this to Bicycle Specialties for a new French threaded lower bracket and a crank, likely a TA crank.
As for the rest of the gear, I have but one word: Campagnolo. Vintage if I can find it.
I'll need at least 2 locks to keep this safe in this town, but hell, I'll probably never need to buy another bike.

This is going to be fun...