The word "mortgage" comes from the latin root mortes meaning "death to" and gages meaning "your dreams". Remember that before buying!
Raam Dev
iCal Missing AM/PM Option? Change to 24-hour Mode!
Am I crazy or is there no way to make iCal show AM/PM when editing a calendar entry?
The AM/PM option IS there, because if I use the arrow key to move over to next field, there's a hidden AM/PM field which I can change. However, unless I know what it's already set to, I have no way of knowing what I'm changing it to. Very annoying.
My fix for this is to simply use 24-hour mode, which I already use on my main system clock anyway. (By the way, if you have trouble converting 24-hour time to 12-hour time, you might want to check out my post on Learning to Interpret Military Time.) Unfortunately, enabling the "Use a 24-hour clock" option in the Date & Time settings does not enable 24-hour clock mode in iCal. To do this, you must modify the International settings (!?).
System Preferences -> International -> Formats -> Times -> Customize
From here, you can select and delete the AM/PM option from the white field and then click the little arrow on the hour field to change it's format to 24-hour (this screen is very non-intuitive for something made by Apple). I made the changes to Short, Medium, Long, and Full time formats and then clicked OK and WHAM! iCal showed 24-hour time and made it possible to easily change the time on an entry.
Good Comedy with Tech Industry News
The news stories over at The Register, a British technology news website, are always filled with comical remarks and creative titles. I found the site many years ago and it hasn't changed much since. Scanning titles like "Smut pop-up teacher retrial stuck in delay loop" make my brain work overtime as I try to decipher the almost cryptic information and decide if the content of the article is worth reading.
Those who know me will probably tell you I'm a very factual, get-to-the-point, kind of guy. For that reason, I haven't read a full article on The Register in some time. Then today I saw a news title that caught my attention, "And so we begin the tech sector's journey into the Heart of Darkness". I read the entire article laughing out loud while I sat in a coffee shop. Then I read another one, "How to be an instant Web me-2.0 developer", and another, "Microsoft kicks Ubuntu update in the hardy herons". Maybe I've rediscovered The Register!
Mortgage Lender IndyMac Seized by the US Government
I was shocked to see news that IndyMac, the holder of the mortgage for my second property (Bowers St), had been seized by US regulators. The mortgage for that property went to foreclosure back in March (my first foreclosure), so needless to say, I contributed to their downfall.
IndyMac's fate was sealed after Senator Charles E. Schumer wrote a letter about the bank. Mr. Schumer spoke strongly about the agency:
“IndyMac’s troubles, like Countrywide’s were caused by practices that began and persisted over the last several years,” he said. “If O.T.S. had done its job as regulator and not let IndyMac’s poor and loose lending practices continue, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”
IndyMac held $32 billion in assets and its demise is being called the biggest failure in 24 years. In addition to loans, IndyMac Bank held one of the largest savings in the country. The FDIC said nearly $1 billion of the $19 billion in deposits held by IndyMac were uninsured, affecting about 10,000 people. When news got out that IndyMac was in trouble, people started taking their money out of their bank accounts, to the tune of $100 million per day. Things like this are exactly why I feel uneasy saving money at all. It feels safer to invest in things that are real, be it a car, motorcycle, boat, education, health, general experience, or yes, even real estate.
Coupled with the craziness that happened to Fannie and Freddie yesterday, the reality of what's happening in the US is finally starting to sink in. Fannie and Freddie, which own or guarantee almost half the $12 trillion of home loans in the U.S., plunged as much as 49 percent and 51 percent yesterday. [1] Think about that for a second: half of all the home loans in the U.S. This happened as investors feared failure in the market would cause the U.S. government to rescue both companies, which would wipe out the shareholders.
Sex in Space
Britain's Telegraph has an intriguing article about Sex in Space (and on other planets). At first it seemed a bit silly, but towards the end of the article I realized how incredible it is that scientists are even beginning to talk about solving such "problems". Imagine being the first human born on another planet. Or being their parent.
When it comes to booking trips…
When it comes to booking trips, I procrastinate. I missed preordering HOPE tickets & now hotels are booked. No sleep for me next weekend.
Unable to connect using Sprint U727 on Leopard – FIXED
After so many hours trying to fix the damn U727 USB Sprint card, I finally have it working again. It was working fine up until about a week ago when it mysteriously stopped working. I was getting all kinds of messages, including "Unable to connect" and several seemingly useless messages in /var/log/ppp.log: "Connect script failed", "LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests", "CCLExit: -6021 (No carrier.)", and "CCLExit: -6019 (Modem error, modem not responding.)".
I finally came across this post that included a list of steps which billio discovered fixed the problem for him. I am re-posting his steps here (I hope he doesn't mind):
1. Remove the Novatel USB device.
2. Download the latest driver package for Mac OS X from Sprint. It says it is for Tiger (10.4) but it seems to work.
3. Delete (
sudo rm -rf) all the Novatel files from/System/Library/Extentions. Reboot.4. Run the mpkg installer for the Sprint drivers.
5. Reboot.
6. Open Network Preferences; plug in the Novatel device; click “+” and add “Novatel CDMA” device.
7. Click “Advanced” button. Change vendor to Novatel and Model to CDMA.
8. Click “Connect” and it works.
And I couldn't believe it, but that actually worked! (I'm writing this post using the Sprint card right now.) You can find the Sprint drivers here (select MAC OS from the drop down and download the Sprint SmartView software).
MacBook Pro Finishing Charge
I've never seen this battery status message on a laptop before:
No truck until next week
After waiting two hours for ProTech towing from Waltham, I decided to call another towing company. They came within 30 minutes. I hitched a ride with the tow truck driver to the closest auto repair shop, Doherty's Garage. Towing costs were outrageous: it cost me $85 to be towed 4 miles (I definitely need to get AAA).
After dropping the truck off, I walked to the Lincoln train stop (literally 100 feet away) and took the 3:59 train to Boston. I got off at the Porter Square stop and took the Red Line to Central Square. Total cost to get back to the office: $7.45.
Since Doherty's is such a small garage, they're not open today (the 4th of July) nor on the weekends. So they won't even get to my truck until sometime early next week. It looks like I'll be without a truck until middle to end of next week. I guess I could always use my legs for transportation.
LiquidWeb Dedicated Server Support Rocks!
A rouge mail server started using my server to send tons of spam messages. After checking a few obvious things (rouge scripts on my server sending spam, users sending the spam, etc), I immediately submitted a ticket to the data center, LiquidWeb. Within 30 seconds, D. Walters responded to the ticket:
Hey Raam,
I'm logging into your server right now to check things out. If you're
still logged in, feel free to follow my work with this command:screen -x dwalters
Regards,
D. Walters
I was already logged into the server, so I typed screen -x dwalters and sure enough, I instantly saw what he was doing on the server (I never knew this was possible with screen). I watched as he did various things, including installing a custom script that he wrote to help handle spam on server.
After a minute or two, he started typing something in the terminal that didn't look like any command I had ever seen:
web:~ root# Hey Raam, are you there?
Since I was attached to the same terminal as him, I was able to type back. Over the next 20 minutes we spoke back and forth several times and exchanged geeky jokes. I asked him a couple of questions and he showed me example commands that I could run to glean useful information from the exim logs.
The name D. Walters was familiar to me, as he had responded to several of my LiquidWeb tickets in the past. He was familiar with my technical abilities and knew that I was Linux savvy, so he invited me to watch what he was doing. He trusted that I wouldn't foolishly try typing in the terminal thereby interrupting what he was doing.
Dealing with someone familiar is important as it brings a feeling of trust to the situation. I compare the feeling to that of my auto mechanic; he lets me stay in the garage while he works on my truck. I stay out of the way and in return I get to stand under the truck, walk around the garage, and watch as he goes about his work. I simply wouldn't be able to do that if I went to a Chevy dealership.
The response time at LiquidWeb is second to none. I can always get someone technically able on the phone, 24/7. That person is always within walking distance to my physical server on the rack. Add those things to my recent experience and I can honestly say, LiquidWeb dedicated server support rocks!
Multitasking on my Mac
Here is what my MacBook Pro desktop typically looks like while I'm working. All these programs running and I have 24% free memory and 60% free CPU. 🙂
Register.com Style Revamped
After many years, it looks like register.com finally released a new style. It looks exactly like the one I caught a glimpse of a few months ago.
Home cooked dinner: Sauteed po…
Home cooked dinner: Sauteed portobello mushrooms in yellow onion & garlic with steamed zucchini & jalapeno's over mixed brown & wild rice.
Problems Starting and Stopping MAMP in Leopard
First of all, I love MAMP (Apache, MySQL, and PHP for Mac). I use it on a regular basis for web development and it has been extremely useful since I started working on a Mac platform about a year ago. After upgrading to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), I discovered MAMP would sometimes have problems starting and stopping. The MAMP widget and control panel would both say that Apache and MySQL are running, when in fact they were not.
When attempting to stop the services, MAMP would show the progress meter for a few seconds and then do nothing (the lights stayed green). This was quite annoying to say the least.
Apparently this is a known bug. But don't fear, there is a solution! Click the Preferences button on the MAMP control panel, then click OK. MAMP will do some reinitializing and then all is well again. You're also able to start/stop MAMP from the widget.
The latest version available is 1.7.1 and it was released on 08-13-2007, almost a full year ago! I suppose that's what you can expect from a free version of their main product, MAMP Pro ($60), but slow bug fixes to their free version certainly wouldn't make me feel good paying money for MAMP Pro.
Mac Danzig is a Vegan
I just found out that Mac Denzig is a vegan and has been since 1999! If you don't know who he is, you might have heard about the place he fights (and has won 18 times): the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). The MMA Digest has a post about his vegan diet and he also personally wrote about his diet after receiving endless questions by fans. In his write up, he references a page by Mike Mahler where Mike writes about Making the Vegan Diet Work.
San Luis Reservoir, Route 99, and San Francisco
As I left Mojave, CA (where I comfortably spent the night in Motel6 with free WiFi for $40) and drove along route 58, I found myself surrounded by windmills. California is one of the top states for renewable energy sources and it showed.
Right after the section of hills and windmills, I went through the small flat town of Tehachapi. The most stunning sight going through this town was a group of very tall pine trees sticking up out of the ground like giant blades of grass. As I left the flat plains, the landscape quickly became hilly again, but now with a twist: the landscape was littered with stunted trees.
Route 99 was mostly surrounded by fields, the occasional section of giant trees taller than anything else in view, and flowery bushes dividing the the highway itself. I stopped in Visalia, CA to get lunch at Panera Bread and use their free WiFi. The town, like many of the towns I went through, looked like it sprang up from out of the dry desert. People flocked to the new stores (Starbucks, Target, and Lowes are visible in the pictures) with their kids, many dressed in what looked like local farming clothes. It was easy to differentiate between long-time residents and the new people.
Going through Los Banos on route 152, huge winding canals carried water and looked like paved roads of their own. The San Luis Reservoir appeared out of no where and route 152 snaked around half the reservoir, climbing up the hills and opening up to amazing views. As I came down the other side of the hills, the landscape became thickly forested for a short while, no doubt fed by the water from the reservoir.
Entering the San Francisco area on route 101, the weather turned extremely cold; 55 °F! I had spent the past two days driving in 100+ °F weather and the change was a huge shock. The pine trees in Mountain View (considered part of Silicon Valley, home of Google, Microsoft, and others) made it clear that I was no longer in the desert. Many parts felt eerily similar to New England, except that everything was extremely clean and lots of people had hybrids and rode their bikes.
I then drove into San Francisco, a very hilly and foggy city. Much of the city smelled like burning firewood from the forest fires. I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and took the first scenic stop on the right. I'm sure the views would have been even more incredible if it wasn't so cloudy.
There is a huge section of trails to the West, but I didn't have enough time to explore further. I headed back to the airport, returned the rental, and waited for the plane (it was delayed one hour). The plane left at 12:30am. Being a flight to Boston, MA, they offered Dunkin Donuts coffee on the flight. I hoped to get some sleep on the way, however the flight was very turbulent. I'm talking 30+ minutes of non-stop turbulence. People were vomiting, and even I was starting to feel sick (I don't get motion sickness very easily). The pilot tried going around it, but couldn't. Never the less, we landed safely in Boston at 8:30am and I took public transportation back to Central Square for $1.70. It took 35 minutes and we passed a $3.50 toll along the way. It was amazing how small everything looked when I got back; the rivers, the roads, the buildings, everything looked smaller.
California was an amazing place of diversity and I really look forward to going back. I'd like to live there at some point in the future.
Total miles driven: ~420
A very cool map of the Interne…
A very cool map of the Internet's undersea world: http://tinyurl.com/2n4mz6
What the hell is up with all t…
What the hell is up with all these idiot drivers today?
Mojave Desert and Death Valley
I don't know what it is, but I love the desert. Endless roads, warm air (115°F), wind (it's hard to tell but in the picture above the wind is blowing 30+ mph), flat land that seems to go on forever, and of course, very few people.
Crossing the the border between Nevada and California, a desert mirage looked like a giant lake. A few minutes later, I spent about an hour covering 10 miles of I-15 due to a truck that turned over going through Mountain Pass. I entered the Mojave Desert from the North through Cima, CA. The US Post Office for Cima looked more like a shack in the middle of the desert until I saw the original Post Office:
I tried driving up a dirt road, but turned around half way when I realized there was a chance I could get stuck (I had a Toyota Camry). So much for my sense of adventure.
Driving on I-40 the views were incredible (and so was the heat).
Before entering Death Valley, I thought of filling my gas tank. I decided to skip it when I saw the gas price was 4.91. Later, in Shoshone, CA, I ended up buying gas for 5.39 a gal. The sun was setting fast (and the smoke from the forest fires didn't help) and I wanted to get through Death Valley before the sunset.
The mountains and roadside were more barren than ever going through Death Valley. I read signs that said to be aware of the extreme heat and along a particular stretch of road there were "radiator water tanks" every few miles. I was passing through around 7PM and it was still 115 degrees, so I can't imagine how hot it must have been during the day.
I was only half-way through Death Valley when it got dark. A big section of route 190 was through the mountain with roads that curved left and right a thousand times. Many of the corners had no guard rails and whenever I dared to take my eyes off the road and look down, all I could see was pitch black. It was definitely nerve racking going around each corner not being sure if there was a big rock lying in the middle of the road (plenty of signs warned me of that possibility). I saw dozens of snakes crossing the road during the night, but decided not to get a closer look and risk being stung in the middle of no where.
As I exited Death Valley and approached 395, I could see the mountains to the West glowing orange. I quickly realized they were forest fires and pulled over to take some pictures (timer, 30 sec exposure, the roof of the car, and the camera strap for balance). After taking the pictures I drove South on 395 and ended up going through all the smoke from the forest fires. Driving on the highway at 75 MPH in 110 degree weather, white ash started falling like snow. Animals that were running to escape the fire were on the left and right side of the highway. As I approached them, they would look up at me; their blue, gray, and green eyes shining through the thick smoke. It was very surreal.
Total miles driven: ~580
Vegas, Lake Mead, Valley of Fire, and Hoover Dam
Friday night Sanjay dropped me off in front of the Bellagio on his way to the airport. The Strip was crowded as hell. I noticed everyone was looking out towards the Bellagio and realized they were waiting for the fountains to start. I found a good place to steady my camera and when it started I took some photos of the fountain.
Then I looked for the fastest, cheapest way out of there! It had only been about 20 minutes and I was already sick of the place. I took the monorail back to the Hilton for $5 and then caught a cab to the Plaza Hotel, which was North of The Strip. $12 including tip.
The Plaza Hotel was crap. I got a smoking room (they didn't ask me what I wanted), the TV was broken (it turned on and off randomly), and when I fell asleep with the TV on, a security guard opened my hotel room door, woke me up and asked me to turn down the TV... at 2:30 in the morning.
The next morning I needed to find a way to the airport to pick up my rental car. The person at the front desk said the shuttle to the airport arrives every 1.5 hrs and that a cab costs about $25 to the airport.
After having a coffee and waiting around a bit inside, I decided to get some fresh air and sit outside (the ceiling of the place was covered in bulbs). When I asked the security guard about the shuttle, she said it arrives every 30 minutes, but that it will most likely be full because it requires that you reserve a spot. She also said it has lots of stops and that it will take awhile to get to the airport. She said a cab is about $40 and that I should take the city bus; it comes every 30 minutes and is a lot cheaper. However it's a long 1 hour ride to airport because it makes lots of stops.
So I walked half a block and waited for city bus. When it arrived, I realized I only had a $1 dollar bill and a $20 bill (fare was $1.25). The driver said he has no change and that I should go find change elsewhere. As soon as the bus drove away, I realized I had 25 cents in my LEFT pocket (normally I only put money and change in my right pocket).
So I decided to wait for shuttle and ask the driver if there was room. He came 10 minutes later, I paid him 8 bucks. I was the only one on the shuttle, and he went straight to the airport in 15 minutes.
There was a single building for all the car rentals and the place looked like a mini airport! There were about 100 people in line for the shuttle back to the airport.
When I purchased something at the concession stand, the persona at the register said, "Have the best day!" instead of, "Have a good day!". I later realized a lot of people in Nevada said "Have the best day".
The car I rented was a Toyota Camry. It was rated at 35 MPG (I later tested my real fuel economy and discovered I was getting 37 MPG). The rental for three days was a bit expensive, but since I knew I would be doing around 1,000 miles and with gas prices where they were (between 4.50 and 5.80 a gal out West), having good fuel economy would definitely be worth the extra cost (I ended up doing 1,241 miles over the three days).
After picking up the rental, I drove towards Lake Mead on E Lake Mead Pkwy and then realized a better route would be to come down through the Valley of Fire. So I went back, took I-515 North to I-15 North, and came down route 167 through Logandale and Overtron.
Finally, I took route 147 to 166, and then onto 93 where I visited Hoover Dam. They were rebuilding the 93 highway with a new bridge that goes across the dam. I can see why. The current roads are very narrow and easily create a bottleneck in the flow of traffic.
I stopped briefly in Boulder City (which was beautiful) and then found a place to stay in Henderson, NV called Hawthorne Inn. This room was much, much nicer than the Plaza Hotel and it only cost me $50!
I will let the pictures and the map do the rest of the talking. Keep in mind that I took the majority of the pictures while driving. I just held my DSLR in one hand, and stuck it out the window over the passengers seat (yes, I kept a hand, and my eyes, on the road). Keeping the camera level was difficult and I had to learn how to judge where I was pointing the camera without actually looking through the viewfinder. With the amount of driving I was planning on doing, I couldn't afford to stop and take pictures!
Total miles driven: ~240
