Can You Give Me the Time of Day?

I’m a believer in both paying back and paying forward. Among
other ways, I’ve done so by donating my time, documented on these
pages, by creating mini-howtos
relating to, among other things, running Xandros Linux Deluxe
3.01, which is what I use, (this version costs $89.95USD but you
can download a free version that is crippled in some ways) in a
Netware environment and how to successfully convert from Windows.
I’ve also paid money to support other Open Source efforts like,
for example, the Mozilla Firefox browser. In addition, I’ve also
donated money to the American Red Cross and Salvation Army for
Katrina relief. Not to brag or anything, but I’ve donated close
to $3,000USD so far this year to various charitable/non-profit or
Open Source projects and have donated at least as much for at least the last three
or four years running.

Having done all that, I’ve very rarely asked for the
assistance of anyone but I’m asking for a small favor now.

I have a couple of security cameras at home that transmit
their images to a secured folder on my website. Every 30 seconds
or so a new image is transmitted from the Seto Shack to my web
host in Pittsburgh that overwrites the current one.

My cameras have built in servers that can display or transmit
images via the Internet. Although, for a time, I opened a port to
the outside world at the Seto Shack so I could access the images
directly from the camera via the Internet, I eventually decided
it wasn’t such a good idea to have a port open at home. So I
closed the web port and just have the webcams ftp utility upload
images to my website.

Given that setup, what I want to do is modify the image by
displaying on the image the date and time that the image was
taken. Knowing that fellow Daynoter Brian Bilbrey had a webcam
with time/date, I searched his site for what he was using. After
narrowing down the search to a number of hits that was usable
(using just “webcam” brought up every page with a masthead link
to his webcam! My bad.), I found that he is/was using something
called Stamp!.

So I downloaded, compiled, and installed Stamp! Although it
does add the date and time to an image (it reads the current
system and then overlays the image with this information), that’s
only part of what I want done. I want something that will
actually read the date/time of the image file itself and display
that in the image. That way, I will know when the image was
actually taken, not when Stamp! ran and checked the system
date/time (Stamp! runs periodically and is not otherwise keyed to
the taking of the image). This would be helpful to me not only
for diagnostic purposes (e.g., to check whether new images are
being uploaded correctly), but more importantly, also for
auditing/legal purposes should an image need to be used in a
court of law.

When wouldn’t the date/time match when the image was taken?
Well, almost every image would be off by as much as 29 seconds
but more worrisome is if, for some reason, the webcams should
stop transmitting, while at the same time Stamp! keeps running.
For example, should someone break into the Seto Shack, it is
possible they might disable the security system. Should that
occur, no new images would be sent, but Stamp!, running on the
webserver that powers seto.org, would continue to run. This means
the last image that was sent would continue to have it’s image
modified with the current time. Over and over again until I
turned Stamp! off. In other words, I would have an image that
perhaps was taken hours ago, but the date stamp would show the
current system time. This would probably cause some problems
should I need to use it as evidence before a court.

I tried Googling for something that would actually read the
file date/time instead of just reading the system clock but, so
far, have been unsuccessful.

In any case, if you know of anything that runs under *nix that
could do what I need done, please leave a comment or email using
the link in the right column of index page for this web site.
Thank you in advance.

[NOON UPDATE]

I’ve found a snippet of Perl code that purports to read a
file’s time stamp. The code is below:

use File::stat;
use Time::localtime;
$date_string = ctime(stat($file)->mtime);
print "file $file updated at $date_string\n";

When I created a Perl script, by adding the line
#!/usr/bin/perl and changed the
$file place holder with the real
file name of test.jpg, and then
executed the script (after setting the file permission for
execution) I got the following error:

Can’t call method “mtime” on an undefined value at ./timer.scr
line 5.

timer.scr is the name of the
executed file and line 5 points to $date_string =
ctime(stat($test.jpg)->mtime);

I know next to
nothing about Perl so I don’t know how to fix this error.

Creative Commons Fund Raiser

Speaking of asking for help, the Creative Commons (CC), the needs your
support. CC tries to bring “balance, compromise, and
moderation” to the world of copyrights. To do this, they’ve
created
a set of licenses. These licenses provide you the opportunity
to choose something between the extremes of everything is
copyrighted and nothing is.

Their goal is to raise $225,000USD by December 31, 2005. As of
last Friday, they only have $33,000. If you have $10 or $20, or
more to spare, consider donating. Mahalo

Thanks to Professor
Larry Lessig for the link and the short
answer to what problem the Creative Commons tries to
solve.

Aloha!

Problems at TypePad?

Although you never want to be in a position to provide bad
service due to, in equal parts: bad business decisions, software,
and hardware failures. If you end up there anyway, I believe it’s best to
be honest with your customers. Why? Well, it’s about trust.

Nobody trusts someone who hasn’t been honest with them. I
mean, if someone lies to you, even once, without a darned good
reason, then you probably won’t trust him or her. And if you don’t trust
someone, you probably won’t give your money to them for something
you want. By definition, this is a barrier to an open
marketplace. Where you are afraid to trade your money for a
product or service, everyone looses.

But, over time, if you’ve built a relationship with your
customers based on trust, telling them the truth about your
problems will strengthen that trust. I know it sounds a bit
paradoxical that letting your customers know about your problems
actually increases the probability that they will stay your
customers but there you are. By telling them the truth, you
increase the probability that they will trade with you.

Of course, you need to lay out a plan that has a reasonable
expectation of correcting the problems. But assuming that is the
case, being honest with your customers empowers them. It gives
them the information they need to make informed decisions. Having
done that, they will usually reward you by continuing to trade
with you.

Hence, I have nothing but praise for Six Apart’s Mena and Ben
Trott for writing
about their data center problems relating to their TypePad
service. I should note that I use their MovablType (MT)
application to run my blog. And though it is not perfect, I
gave them money to support its development even though the
personal version I use is free.

For those that don’t want the hassle of installing MT, and are
willing to pay a fee, Trott’s TypePad service is
an option. For as little as $4.95USD per month, you can be up and
blogging in no time.

It is their TypePad service that has been having problems over
the last few weeks or so. From what Ben says, due to the
exceptional growth of the service, and the one-time software/hardware problems, they must move to a bigger
data center to handle the three terabytes of data being pumped
out by their customers every day. Once the move is completed, I
trust that the exceptional service people have come to expect
from TypePad will be restored.

For what it’s worth, I trust Ben and Mena. Even though I’ve
been a critic of MT when I felt there were problems. But SixApart
has made an effort to address those problems. So if you are a
current customer, hang in there because help is on the way.
Conversely, if you are looking for such a service, you can’t do
better than TypePad.

These are honest people. I can’t give anyone better praise
then that.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone -
Aloha!

Happy Hump Day

Sorry, not much going on around here in the Seto Shack. Maybe
something tomorrow. Until then, have a good one.

Aloha!

Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 Mini-Review

My new
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 just came in. As
you might expect, given there isn’t a keyboard driver for Linux,
none of the specialized keys work. Hence, I’m not going to spend
anytime on what the keys are intended to do. In addition, the
raison d’être for this keyboard is ergonomics.
Therefore, my mini-review will concentrate on the feel of this
human input device.

With the said, the most noticeable thing about the keyboard is
that it has a negative angle. That is, the edge nearest to the
user is higher than the edge farther away. I’ve often wondered
why keyboards weren’t angled this way because, it seems to me,
that it releases some of the tension on the wrists and even the
shoulders and neck. If you don’t like this angle, you may remove
the rather flimsily attached plastic spacer and use the keyboard
in a more common angle. In any case, score one for MS.

The next thing I noticed is that the key layout quickly rises
towards the center where you will find the 7, t, y, g, h,n, and to a
lesser extent the b key caps being substantially larger than the
other keys. I can already see that this layout is going to take
awhile to get used to. The key placements are just
different enough from the Natural Keyboard Pro that I was using
that I am constantly hitting the wrong keys. I assume I will get
over this but, at best, I have to give a neutral mark on
this.

The feel of the key travel is similar to my previous keyboard
- that is, mushy and without much tactile or auditory feedback. I
know I am showing my age when I say it but I really liked the
original IBM AT type keys. They provided terrific feedback and
felt like you could hit them with a baseball bat without worrying
about it breaking them. These keys have such a soft feel that I
have found that I’m getting double letters because I usually rest
my fingers on the keys and these are so sensitive that a key
press is being registered. So, for me, I give the 4000 a negative
on feel although your may feel otherwise [pun not intended
-ed].

The 4000 also includes a padded, integral wrist rest that
seems pretty comfortable. I don’t know how it will feel after
hours of use but I think it’s better than the hard plastic I had
before. A plus on this feature.

One thing lacking that was present in my earlier keyboard is a
USB hub. The Natural Pro included a two-port hub that came in
handy since the location of the ports were more accessible than
the back or front of the CPU case. In addition, the 4000 is a USB
keyboard and, in at least my case, did not come with a USB to PS2
port adapter. I happen to have a couple of those adapter laying
around but if your motherboard doesn’t support USB keyboards you
may need to purchase such an adapter. I guess, given most modern
motherboards and operating systems will not have problem. Still,
I will also grade this as a neutral.

Finally, a word about esthetics. This keyboard is
predominately matte black with accents in silver/gray and
polished black. To my eye, it makes for an attractive product and
was one of the key selling points (since it matches the color of
my Dell GX260 at work). For me, this is a plus.

The bottom line is is a net positive. But as in almost all
cases, this score may be different for you depending on your
personal likes and dislikes. Still, I grade this as a step up
from the previous keyboards and look forward to many years of
happy keyboarding.

Aloha!

Jell-O(r) Scale Model of San Francisco

Okay, I know you’ve been waiting for this … San Francisco in

Jell-O(r). No, not EssEff covered in Jell-o. I mean
a model of SF made of Jell-O.

Aloha!

OpenOffice 2.0 Goes Gold

OpenOffice version 2.0 was
released yesterday. You can read the OpenOffice
2.0 press release and see what’s new. A few of the highlights
are found in the OO
v2 feature guide and, of course, you can download
OO v2 for free here.

Seven Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

Over the average lifetime, the US Department of Labor’s Bureau
of Labor Statistics says many people of the baby boomer
generation hold an average of 10
different jobs. The reasons for moving to another job are
many, but this list of
Seven Questions Employees Should Ask Before Joining a Startup
is a good start at keeping you from making a serious mistake when
you decide you need a change. The list attempts to balance the
upside of moving to a startup (energized work atmosphere, little
bureaucracy, an opportunity to make a significant contribution to
the company and make a significant amount of money, etc.) with
the significant risks. That is not to say you shouldn’t switch
jobs. Far from it. Sometimes you have to take a risk. But, I
think, you need to carefully weight the benefits versus the risks
and not make a hasty decision. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

Back To the Moon

My wallpaper for the week
comes courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It’s
an
artist’s rendering of what the new moon lander could look
like. Maybe. Someday. But I wonder if it will be in my
lifetime.

Apollo 17 landed on the moon on 11 December 1972.
Seventy-five hours later, on 14 December at 22:54:37 UT, man left
the moon and has not returned since. It is too soon to predict
whether it is NASA, China,
or a private agency that first makes it back. But I can say for
sure that if someone doesn’t at least try, we never will.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone -
Aloha!

Reading UDF CD-RW in Xandros Linux

I wrote earlier
about problems with the Linux UDF driver. This driver is used
to access DVD-RWs and CD-RWs that are formated in Windows using,
for example, Roxio or Adaptec’s UDF drivers for multiple
read/write operations. In other words, the disc has been formated
in Windows to operate like a very, very large floppy. So, you can
read, write, add, delete, edit and just about do everything you
could do with a floppy disc.

At first, I thought I had to either re-compile the kernel,
upgrade to the 2.6.11-1x kernel (see more below), or just forget
about ever accessing the gigabytes of backed up data that I
created while using Windows and wrote to CD-RW discs. But this is
not the case.

By reading the CD-ROM
How-To and especially the linux.faqts
article on Linux: UDF: Windows Roxio I am now able to at
least read my CD-RW backup discs. I can’t write to them, but I
can at least read them.

Here’s what I had to do in Xandros Linux. I emphasize that the
commands below may be specific to Xandros and you may need to use
something else.

First, I needed to create a directory to mount the CD-RW to.
To do this, I began by opening a console window to get to the
command line. Note, you could do a lot of what needs to be done
from within KDE or Gnome but it’s easier to go to the command
line. You need to be root when issuing these changes so you may
was well as type in, su, hit the
enter key, and then type in the password for root (if you didn’t
log in as root, which as a security precaution you shouldn’t be
doing) now. Then type in mkdir
/mnt/cdrw and hit the enter key. Note, what you
call the directory you are creating is up to you, as long as it
isn’t already being used or is a system reserved word. Otherwise,
you can call it whatever you want.

The second thing to do is load the UDF driver. You do this by
typing modprobe udf and hitting the
enter key. To confirm whether the driver loaded, you can type in
cat /proc/filesystems and hit enter.
This should list a load of drivers, one of which should be
udf.

Lastly, you need to mount the CD-RW by typing in
mount -t udf -o ro /dev/cdrom
/mnt/cdrw and hit the enter key. If all went well,
you can now change to the directory /mnt/cdrw and browse the
files on your CD. Note, the part of the command -o
ro sets the system to read only. You can change it
to -o rw but so far, when I do, I get
the following message:mount: block device /dev/cdrom is
write protected, mounting read-only. I need to figure
out why this is happening and what, if anything, I can do about
it. The how-tos are kind of vague about this and say you may or
may not be able to get this to work.

Before removing the disc, you should probably unmount it by
typing the command umount -a -t
udf.Once unmounted, feel free to eject the
disc.

In any case, I now have read access to the data, even if it’s
not as functional as in Windows. Oh, one other thing, Windows
long file names may be displayed as a truncated 8.3 name. There
is apparently a way of enabling long file name support but I
haven’t found out how to do that yet.

Now, in my earlier post, I had talked about upgrading to the
2.6.11 kernel. I thought I would have to download the more than
30MBs of source code and compile it myself. This was based on my
search of the Xandros Network repository using the search term
kernel. This search turned up only
the source code. Little did I know I needed to search on
xandros-kernel to find the 2.6.11
kernel image. Once I found that, installing the new kernel was
just a matter of clicking on the install link and Bob’s your
Uncle, I had the 2.6.11 kernel installed. How cool is that?

Now if I could only get write access to the drive…YMMV.
Use at your own risk. Insert disclaimer here.

[UPDATE] I need to add instructions for DVDs. As you might
expect, they are very simialr to CD-RW so I won’t go into an
explanation:

mkdir /mnt/dvdrw
modprobe udf
mount -t udf -o ro /dev/dvd
/mnt/dvdrw
umount -a -t
udf

Aloha!