Got an interesting day planned. More later.
More later
Got an interesting day planned. More later.
Me
A “T”, a “T”, my kingdom for a keyboard wiht a working “”.
You don’t realize how often you type the letter “T” until the key stops working.
The “T” key on my laptop is acting strange. There is a noticeable delay between when you press the key and when the “t” actually is processed. I can type over 100 wpm, so this is really irritating. To type this, I have to either slow down or press the delete key a lot because the “T” came through at the wrong time. It even sometimes comes through multiple times.
Now, allow me to retype the above at normal speed with no corrections.
The “T” key on my laptop is acting srange. there is a noticeable delay between when you press he key and when hte “t” actually is processed. I can type over 100 wpm, so this is really irritating. o ypte his, I have to eiher slow down or press he delee key a lo because he “” came hrough a he wrong imte. I teven someimes comes hrough muliple imes.
*sigh*
Going o disassemble he machine and see if i migh jus be a diryt contact or some such. If not, a leas i’s sill under AppleCare (tho only a few more monhts lef in i).
Updaetd: the disassembly guides at iFixIt were helpful, but it didn’ tpan out. Did all he usual hings oo, like PRAM zapping and so on. Blew air under he keys, nohting. Se tup a call wiht AppleCare, went htrough a few phone htings, and now I have a Genius Bar appoinmen se tup. We shall see wha comes of i.
Amazing ho how you can sill read and undersatnd all of htis… a leas, so I hope. 😉
Updated 2: Took the computer to the Genius Bar at the local Apple Store. Confirmed keyboard problem. They don’t have one in stock so it has to be ordered and they’ll call me when it comes in. Meantime, I have an external keyboard hooked up and will get by with that for now.
Working on a smaller machine
As a software developer I appreciate having good hardware. In fact, I appreciate having lots of good hardware as that best facilitates getting work done in a day.
Over my career I have evolved what I prefer to have for optimal work. I like to have a laptop on which I do “communication” work. So the laptop does email, web browsing, instant messaging, and whatever other administrata or time wasting I wish to do. Having it on a laptop is good because often such tasks require portability. I do set up the machine to also do development work, but it is not meant to be a primary dev machine.
I then like to have a very beefy machine for dev work. For instance, these days something like an 8-core Mac Pro with 10 GB of RAM and multiple internal hard drives works very nice. I also like to have multiple monitors attached to the machine because lots of screen real estate is good. Furthermore, it works better to have multiple monitors instead of one big monitor because there is often different logic that can be done based upon “screen 1” or “screen 2”, especially when doing things like debugging and needing to cope with the menubar and screen redraws.
Finally, I like having extra machines for whatever needs. These are often sandbox machines of various configurations that I can nuke and pave and do what I need to to help test, reproduce bugs, and so on.
So as you can see, I’ve found surrounding myself with a lot of machines is a daily necessity for getting my job done.
What happens when I’m forced to use a little machine for everything?
I’ve been temporarily reassigned to another group in the company that needs some help with their projects. Due to the nature of the products and the fact I like to keep very clean machines (sorry Unsanity; no Input Manager hacks here), plus given the nature of the work may require working in other locations, I requested they provide me with a laptop for dedicated use for this work.
I received one. A recent MacBook Pro.
15″.
Man, that’s small. Well, to me at least. 🙂
Compounding that is Apple changed some things in Snow Leopard to make stuff bigger. For instance, the default font in Xcode is Menlo Regular 11, instead of old Monaco 9 or 10. I played with it some trying to pick other fonts or make things smaller, but I have to say, after I got over the initial shock my eyes do like the Menlo 11 better. But with bigger font means less content on the already smaller scren.
Then when I need to run Xcode for dev work, TextWrangler for notes and other things, Firefox to get into the bug database, and a few other apps… gah. Too many windows on that little screen. Sure I love Exposé and use it all the time, but it’s still a lot for that little screen.
So I started to use Spaces.
I toyed with Spaces before, but I just haven’t had a compelling need for it. I think it’s neat. I’m glad Mac OS X has it. But I haven’t been able to successfully put it into my workflow…. until today.
Turned it on, 4 spaces. Xcode on the main, TextWrangler “below”, Firefox “to the right” and since I prefer to use the keyboard I know the shortcuts to navigate around. Man… everything worked pretty slick. A few things were annoying, such as being on the non-Xcode space and then Xcode’s build window popping open on that space; it makes sense in a way, but it’s not what I want… I want to keep that app’s windows on that space. I wonder if there’s a way to force that.
I don’t know if I’d need to use Spaces on my big dev machine with the 2 monitors and lots of screen space. But on the little machine yeah, what a help it was.
Finally Upgraded to Snow Leopard
Finally was able to upgrade all of my Macs to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6).
You see, as a software developer I can’t always jump on the latest bandwagon. Sure I might have new OS versions running on partitions of other machines, maybe even pre-release versions. But I can’t primarily change things around because we might be in the middle of something. If I’m working on a release, to change things like the OS or the toolset could bring about big delays or other troubles. The rule is to settle on the toolset and environment, make the release, then you can upgrade stuff. And so finally I can upgrade, tho I have been using Snow Leopard in various capacities for some time.
I am enjoying the little refinements in the OS. I’m glad Apple took the approach they did with this OS and working on refining what they already have instead of having to cram a gazillion new features in. Make what you have really good.
One thing I got the most kick out of was seeing a lot of disk space reappear. My MacBook Pro was down to only a couple GB free and I was starting to look at buying a bigger replacement hard drive. After installing Snow Leopard, I regained almost 20 GB of disk space. Of course, I know exactly why this change came about, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful. 🙂
Quiet
Yeah… quiet today, at least so far. Been in meetings all morning and lots of scrambling to deal with this afternoon.
I love Texas
Why do I love Texas? Because people are friendly.
I had to ship two packages this morning. The first was returning an MTAC holster. Yes, Comp-Tac (located in Spring, Texas) didn’t get my holster order fulfilled to my satisfaction. The kydex slide shell wasn’t formed quite right: didn’t cover the magazine release button properly; was shorter than the “same” slide shell on my other MTAC, and that coupled with a slightly deformed “channel” at the top would cause the front sight post to snag on draw (not good); a couple other minor issues in the Kydex forming. Put all those little problems together and I just can’t accept it. Contacted Comp-Tac, they issued an RMA, and it’s on its way back. If it all gets corrected to my satisfaction, that’s fine. A bummer that it happened, but folks are human, shit happens, they’re working to make it right. I’ve been generally satisfied with Comp-Tac’s products and service, so I have no reason to believe I things won’t turn out right.
Speaking of which, the combo magazine/flashlight pouch/holster has been working great. Very pleased with it.
Second package was shipping my Smith & Wesson 442 off for some smithing. Upon the recommendation of Tom Hogel, I’m sending the snub to Verne Trester (not in Texas, but we’ll forgive him). Going to have the trigger/action jeweled, ensure the timing is sound, and getting a red ramp insert on the front sight base. Whenever I get it back and get to the range, we’ll see how it goes.
What was fun about it was going into the FedEx Office location (same one I used when I shipped an XD-9 to Springer Precision). No one that worked flinched about shipping a gun (tho I did notice one guy in there that was trying to figure out where a package went did seem to step a bit further away from me once I declared I had a firearm). Even better, struck up a conversation with the manager of the location. Talked about guns. He’s got a CHL (from a different state, but with reciprocity). Had a grand old time.
Texas… full of friendly folk. 🙂
Updated: Looky here… apparently there’s nice folks some of those other lesser states too. 😉
Now you see me
I’ve never been one to hide my identity. I’m John C. Daub, millionaire; I own a mansion and a yacht.
I admit in my early online days I was a bit more reluctant about sharing my identity because hey… there are crazies out there. But while I may not have been as forthright with my identity, I didn’t lie or hide or refuse. If someone wanted to know who was behind the moniker, it wasn’t hard to find out either by searching or just asking me.
The advantage of “Hsoi”? Well, plug it into Google and apart from some acronyms and foreign words, Hsoi equals me. It’s nice to have a globally unique identifier, because there are other John Daub’s out there.. There are disadvantages to being unique, a discussion for another time.
The one thing I have still been reluctant to do is post my picture online. Oh sure, there are some pictures of me online, but usually my face wasn’t directly visible. I’ve had some bad experiences in the past with posting pictures online, mostly because there are assholes in this world and I have better ways to spend my time and energy.
Nevertheless, a friend of mine who is really into social media made a good point. Your avatar is who you are online. It makes a big impact and impression. I recall meeting lots of people in real life that didn’t ring a bell until I was able to put their email address with their name and face. That was kinda weird to know them more by their email address than anything else, but yes it’s a unique identifier. I’d rather know people by their faces. Call me old school that way, but it’s far more personal to be able to associate a name/blog/email address/twitter account/username/etc. with a face.
So, I finally hooked into Gravatar and put my face back online. We’ll see how it goes.
Interview with Forrest Morgan, part 2
Ikigai has posted part 2 of the Forrest Morgan interview.
When I was reading part 1 of the interview, a lot of it hit home. Again, Mr. Morgan’s answers to questions in part 2 hit home.
Getting a little nostalgic
Wandering around YouTube last night I stumble upon this video:
The song they are singing is Arirang (아리랑), the most popular Korean folk song.
I remember growing up and hearing my mother and other relatives singing this song. Even in watching the video, seeing Halabugi (the grandpa, the “old man” in the video)… wearing that white tank top, and I thought of my own Halabugi and how he’d often just be wearing a white tank top.
It’s hard to explain… but just watching the video made me smile, made me remember my grandparents, and brought a bit of a tear to my eye both a sad one and a happy one.
Interview with Forrest Morgan
There are lots of books on martial arts, most being “how to” and not always worth a darn. While I certainly do read some of those books, what I find myself more drawn too are martial arts books on a more esoteric or philosophical level. Good books in that realm are harder to find. One of them is Living the Martial Way: A Manual for the Way a Modern Warrior Should Think by Forrest Morgan.
Ikigai has an interview with Mr. Morgan. Part 1 is up. It contains some background information, and I found a few things striking a chord with me. It sounds so much like my own relationship with Kuk Sool Won.
Stuff From Hsoi 