Whistling in the Dark

A couple of days ago Christian Martick released a new version of his wonderful Mac Jaiku client Juhu. There was a small problem though; he compiled it as an Intel only app. It was a mistake and he plans on recompiling and rereleasing it but until then me, and anyone else with a PPC Mac was out of luck.

Thankfully Christian has licensed Juhu under the MIT license and released the source code so I was able to recompile it as a universal binary. If you’re running an Intel Mac then just use the official version. If you’re on a PPC mac you can either wait for Christian to get a chance to fix the official version or download my build here. I changed absolutely nothing other than the build options. Please don’t ask me to fix anything as I’m not a programmer, just a bored geek who can fumble his way around xcode. Also, if there are bugs in this build please don’t bug Christian about them because this isn’t his offical build.

Update: Christian has released 0.9.9 which fixes the PPC bug as well as a Growl bug.

When I got my S5 I picked up a small camera bag that had enough room for the camera, flash, and a couple of SD cards. Then I picked up a 58mm adapter and a lens hood. With those attached the bag started to get tight. When I decided to always carry an emergency set of batteries it got really tight. Then my brother gave me a polarizer which was the last thing I could possibly fit in the bag without bursting a seam.

Well, I was innocently browsing eBay the other day (cough) when I stumbled across a set of 2x and 3x filters for cheap. There is no way they would fit in my bag so I had to pick up a new one tonight. It’s about 50% bigger with enough room for my current kit plus a little left over for a few more filters. I got this one because, first, it’s big enough for what I need without being so big that I feel the need to fill it and second, it was only $15.

One of these days I’ll need to borrow a camera and get a shot of my complete kit. Hopefully I do this before I outgrow the new bag.

Every April my .Mac account comes do and every year I try like mad to find a way not to have to resubscribe. .Mac is Apple’s service that offers email, web space, remote storage, remote desktop, and calendar, todo, address book, mail syncing between Macs. Syncing is the only part I really use and it’s indispensable. The question I struggle with every year is if it’s $79 indispensable (through Amazon, $99 from Apple). On one hand that’s a real chunk of change to just sync. On the other hand I have yet to find something that works as painlessly. Rsyc gets confused by binary files and manually trying to merge the files is a quick path to a drinking problem. I’m still looking for a solution but I get the feeling that I’ll once again be gritting my teeth and rolling pennies to re-up again this year.

On Wednesday Dani and I went to go see Jonathan Coulton at World Cafe Live in Philly. I had never been to that venue before but it was nice. It’s big enough that it feels like a concert and not just a bar gig but small enough that it feels intimate. My only gripe about the place is that the food is over priced but that’s par for course.

I had never heard of the opening band, Paul and Storm, but they were good and funny. Dani and I have both become fans. One member, Paul, is a local boy so I hope to be able to catch more of their shows.

Jonathan was great, as expected. The set list can be found here. One of the best parts was when we caused him to lose it during Still Alive by waving our cell phones (I’m one of the amorphous blobs on the lower middle of that vid). My only regret is that I didn’t bring a real camera. The tickets said no cameras but I think we were the only ones to actually listen to it. I did get a picture of Jonathan and I after the show with my BlackBerry but it is painfully bad. Next time I’m at least bringing a pocket point and shoot. Jonathan really is a nice guy and I was honored to have had a chance to shake his hand, get his autograph, and that picture. I hope he comes back to Philly soon.

Ars Technica has posted a great, easy to understand article on filesystems today.

As you can see by the badge on the right I use Jaiku. It’s a microblogging service, which means that you can post your thoughts in 140 character bits. There are other services like it, such as Twitter and Pownce, but I like Jaiku most because it has the best community.

That being said there are some things that are really starting to piss me off with Jaiku:

• Invite only: Ever since Jaiku was assimilated by the Borg  bought by Google they’ve switched from open to all to invite only. I know why they switched (It was starting to buckle under the load) but at the same time by not allowing everyone and anyone to sign up the other services are getting more popular while Jaiku is staying static.
• Mobile client: There’s an official client for Nokia S60 phones but everyone else is pretty much out of luck. While there is a client for the BlackBerry it is painfully bad and from what I understand it’s pretty much the same on other mobile platforms.
• API go boom: Most clients, desktop and mobile, connect to Jaiku through an API server. Unfortunately that server has been down far too much over the last few weeks so if I want to post something or check my friends posts and replies I’ve got to go to the web site.
• SMS posting: Jaiku has finally gotten a SMS short code (a phone number, such as 1234, that you can send text messages to) for the US. The problem is it doesn’t work with my carrier, T-Mobile. I don’t know who’s to blame for that. I just want the damned thing to work.
• Silence from on high: Back before Google bought them the Jaiku guys would pop in now and then and post about ideas and problems. Now a days they’re mostly silent.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Jaiku and am not about to jump ship but these problems are starting to get on my nerves.

Some day I’ll create a page with details for all the systems. Until then this will do

Now that I’ve moved muad-dib.us over to Go Daddy I’ve been thinking of what to do with my home server (which used to host my domain). I’ve decided to turn it into a NAS as well as a development/play box for things that I’d eventually like to add to this site. I had been planning to upgrade the hardware sometime soonish anyway so I just need to change the required specs.

• CPU/Motherboard: Before I wanted a fast CPU to handle a ton of SQL queries without breaking a sweat but is not super important any more. Now the important thing will be a lot of SATA connectors and possibly 1000baseT networking (could be added via PCIe card)
• RAM: 2GB. It’s so cheap that it just makes sense. I could add more but I’m not sure it would be needed.
• Hard Drives: I’m going to want at very least 1TB of space (if not much more) in a RAID5 set up. Hardware RAID would be preferable but good RAID cards that work with Linux (or *BSD, I’m not married into using Linux) are very expensive so I’ll probably go with softraid (lvm2 or whatever *BSD uses).
• Case: Prettiness is not important but cooling and space are.
• Backup: Here’s the hard part. How the hell do you back up that much data without going broke? An extra set of drives that are rsynced over nightly? I know I’ll have RAID5 but that is not a back up. It’s times like this that I miss when you could back up a whole system onto CD.
• Switches: Right now my network is 100baseT. Because the wiring itself is CAT5e it should handle gigabit speeds. I just need to swap the switches out.

Jonathan Coulton, the musician responsible for such songs as Code Monkey and Skullcrusher Mountain is coming to World Cafe Live on April 2nd. I’m only telling the world now because I already secured a couple of tickets for myself .