There is no auto-logout feature of ssh. You just have to set the $TMOUT variable in your shell. To set the terminal to automatically logout after 20 seconds of inactivity, type the following:
1: $ export TMOUT=20
Your terminal session should be logged out after 20 seconds of inactivity.
Vonage is raising their rates for the most inexpensive calling plan.
On December 9th, I received an email informing me:
"At Vonage, we're committed to providing exceptional phone service at a great value you can rely on. On December 1, 2008, the price of our Residential Basic 500 Minute Plan increased from $14.99 to $17.991. The new price will be reflected in your February 2009 bill. We're proud that we remain one of the most competitive choices among home phone providers."
When you add the junk fees and taxes, the 14.99 price is actually more than $23 per month. So, this price would push the total well above $26.
For existing customers, the price won't be shown on your February bill (which is actually a bill for January), which means the price will change in January.
I called to cancel and was immediately offered a $4 per month calling plan (@ $.03 per min). I took the $4 plan, but I am probably going to cancel that and switch to Skype ($30 per year) or Unlimited WIFI calling (UMA) on my cell phone ($10 per month).
My rough guesstimate tells me that for each customer that does not cancel, Vonage makes an additional $3 revenue per month (not counting the slightly increased junk fees on the back side). However, for each customer that cancels, Vonage looses $18 (new price). So, for each customer that Vonage looses, it has to retain six customers (or acquire six new ones) at that price to break even.
Meanwhile, the company is still loosing money-- according to the latest 10-Q, Vonage lost $7.8 Million last quarter. I'm guessing that they are trying to push the low end customers to the next more expensive service tier, in spite of the fact that most customers are looking to reduce their expenditures in this economy.
I'll be watching to see if this works because it seems contrary to what little business training I've had -- surprising customers by raising rates in a time of softening demand.
Labels: Tech
This happened to me today.
I bricked my BlackBerry by applying a recommended firmware update, when I followed the installation instructions. The blackberry update utility failed with an error, and the Curve wouldn't show any signs of life except for a periodic red LED flashing. Further, the BlackBerry software will not recognize the BlackBerry.
Obviously, I'm not the only one who has suffered at the hands of bad software. The NVRAM boot code is still there, but you will have to re-flash the device over USB. The problem is, the BlackBerry manager doesn't have a way for you to do this easily.
To recover:
At this point you will be tempted to follow the instructions again. Go ahead and try. When you get tired, run a console (cmd.exe) and type the following to bring up the loader manually.
cd "\Program Files\Common Files\Research In Motion\AppLoader" loader.exe /nojvm
Now you should run the wizard. Check off the software you want to install no the device and you shouldn't have anymore problems. Of course, I did. I received the following error:
Unable to complete the loading operation: Unable to reconnect to the device during a multi-stage load operation.
Awesome.
A search of the Internet showed that there is a utility that will allow you to wipe the BlackBerry, namely, JL_Cmdr. Use this utility to wipe the device. Unplug, take out and reinstall the battery, and plug the device back in. At this point, the USB driver should install/detect. Next, manually run the loader (see above) and the device will be erased, flashed, and the updated software will be installed.
NOTE: Do not select any additional packages when running the application loader the first time. I had to go through this process several times before I was successful. The first the device kept spinning for over two hours on one of the files. I interrupted it and restarted without checking any extra packages and the installation went fine.
With some overseas travel planned, I started looking at universal chargers to replace a tangled mass of chargers for my Palm, BlackBerry, MBP, iPod, and rechargeable batteries. After some consideration I decided to leverage my MBP as a universal charger -- and use USB as the conduit to charge everything -- at home, at the office, on the road and in the air.
The thought of lugging several travel chargers and a tangle of cables across the world wasn't appealing to me, so I started to investigate my options for consolidating my power needs on to a universal charging solution. Previously, I had owned an iGo Everywhere that worked flawlessly with my old laptop and faithfully charged my portable devices. Unfortunately, it died long ago.
First off all, there are no universal power chargers that offer a MagSafe tip to charge a MacBook or MacBook Pro. Apple has forbidden any third party from manufacturing or selling the patented the MagSafe tip, due to the extraordinary markup on the chargers. The workarounds are:
I was ready to build my own, but to be honest, I'm simply too cheap to do it.
An iGo Everywhere130 is roughly $150. Add to that the cost of a new Apple charger is another $80. On top of that, I would need to purchase tips for various devices for about $10 each. After the expense and effort, I would end up with a solution that was far more expensive, heavier, and with more cables and parts to keep up with. That just doesn't make sense for me.
Clearly, there has to be a better way. There is -- forget the charging bricks and standardize on USB as a charging platform. As a bonus, you can use auto or wall adapters to charge your USB devices.
Charging Batteries over USB
I have switched over entirely to rechargeable batteries. While I'm not sure that purchasing rechargeable batteries is entirely cost effective for most people (including me), my Bose noise canceling headset eats enough AAA batteries (1 or 2 per week) to makes it seem worthwhile for me. Better yet, I no longer have to make trips to the store or search for batteries -- I simply pop the drained batteries into the charger for a few hours and back into the device.
The only problem with this strategy is that most battery chargers tend to be bulky and take a long time charge. Additionally, they usually come with their own power bricks and most don't work in the car without a power inverter.
I have found one solution -- the Energizer Duo USB Charger. The $14 device comes with two energizer AAA batteries, the charger, and an AC USB adapter. Also -- you can use AC USB charger to power other USB devices straight from the AC outlet (USB wall chargers tend to be around $14 by themselves). Likewise, if you have an auto USB adapter, you can charge your AA and AAA batteries in the car.
Cutting Clutter with Retractable Cables
My BlackBerry Curve, camera, and a few other devices use a mini USB connector. For less than $15, I purchased a retractable USB to mini USB cable that is wound around a spring-tensioned spool. The cable retracts to put an end to the clutter. This covers my BlackBerry Curve, Camera, and USB disk drive. I was also able to find a retractable USB charging/synch cable for my trusty Palm E2 for $9 plus shipping.
At a fraction of the cost, size, and weight this seems like a much better way to go over a universal power brick.
Labels: business travel, Nerdy, Tech, Travel Gear
Right now I am compiling KDE under Gentoo (Linux), listening to iTunes (on Mac OS X), while writing this on Microsoft Live Writer (under Windows Vista SP1)... simultaneously on my MacBook Pro.
I achieved a software development trifecta -- I now have a laptop where I can simultaneously develop applications (without rebooting) for Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, and Linux, which can also compile code for Palm, BlackBerry, iPod/iPhone, Microsoft Mobile, and Linux (PC, PPC, arm, and MIPS) targets.
I have finally retired my monstrous, heavy 17" desktop replacement laptop; it was far too big for most laptop bags (even the 17" bags), and impossible to use when seated in a coach airline seat. The notebook also weighed in at nearly ten (10) pounds, not counting the weight of the power brick.
After several years, I had enough and started slowly looking for a replacement that would be my primary development system that I would take with me from home, to work, and on the road. That being said, when I figured out how much I anticipated using the system, budget became less of a factor than features and capabilities.
Which led to the question: what should I get and how should I use it?
After looking at the specs for various laptop models, I ended purchasing a MacBook Pro (MBP) at the local Apple store. The 14 day return policy closed the deal, and so far I've had the laptop for one week.
The first night was taken up by installing VMWare Fusion, Office, QuickBooks, Firefox, Skype, Eclipse, XCode, and otherwise tweaking the setup. Next, I installed Vista SP1, expecting to be disgusted. Surprisingly, I found that even operating in a virtual machine that Vista SP1 has been much improved and it is actually usable. Next was Office, Visio, Live Writer, Visual Studio 2008, and VMWare tools.
I now hit CTRL-<RIGHT ARROW> and open up VMWare and run Vista in full screen mode on that "space." I can now hit CTRL combined with the right or left arrow keys to jump between Vista and Mac OS X.
I then started working on setting up and installing Gentoo Linux. I started with a minimal install, then emerged fluxbox. After getting that to work, I started to emerge KDE and some of my favorite development packages.
Hammering the drive, installing three different operating systems under VMWare Fusion, Office, the system was responsive. The only flaw I have found is that the MBP gets hot-- when hammering the drive (compiling qt and KDE takes a while), and flipping between VMs, the laptop gets hot enough to make me uncomfortable. The can be solved with installing a utility like SMC Fan Control to turn the minimum fan speed up.
Labels: business travel, Nerdy, Tech
Until now, my implementation approach can be summed up succinctly as: "scan forward." I picked a date out of the air and started scanning (or throwing away) any piece of paper my hands come in contact with.
Today, I started the second phase of my paperless office implementation. I installed Subversion on a server and started getting serious about scanning in my existing records: tax returns, invoices, notes, corporate filings, corporate minutes, and assorted detritus cast off by a small business. Since this morning, I have filled up a 50 gallon trash can with shredded documents; I'm still working on filling up another one.
I can honestly say that the process of emptying out a 5 foot tall metal filing cabinet is very cathartic.
The work flow is pretty simple:
First, try to cull the documents before you scan. First go through your documents and try to discard as much as you can. Just ask yourself, questions like "will I need this in an audit? Will I ever need to retrieve this? Why am I saving this?" Sure, disk space is cheap, but looking back a year from now, will you really need a magazine clipping or old electricity bill?
Next, scan the documents, and rename them if they are important enough. The scanning software will automatically create a generic file name with an incremented number appended. For things like bills and statements from previous years, I just take them as they are, and drag them to the appropriate filing cabinet folder.
The question is, how should you organize your virtual filing cabinet? The choice is yours, but I settled on a scheme that organizes files by category, year, and subcategory. For example, a receipt for a $20 item would be placed in the receipts folder in the following directory hierarchy:
Biz --> FilingCabinet --> Accounting --> 2007 --> receipts
This is convenient primarily because my business uses the calendar year for accounting purposes. Should I get audited (or if my accountant has questions), I could just copy everything from 2007 downwards and give it to the auditor on a USB drive or CDR.
Next, of the documents you scan, decide what to through out, what to file away, and what to shred. Any personal information should go into the shredder, while any contracts or leases should go back into the filing cabinet. The rest should just be tossed or recycled.
Lastly, for each batch I will add the files and commit the changes to my subversion repository.
Here are my recommendations/observations/tips:
I have moved my corporate email to Google domains and am solely using Google's email servers. Once I started trusting Gmail, I forwarded my other email accounts to it and haven't looked back since.
I can access my email from home over the web, at a client's site, and if necessary, on my T-mobile dash. While traveling overseas, I can pop into an Internet cafe and check my email quickly.
However, sharing email from multiple email clients got tricky. While Google mail provides POP3 access so you can easily read your Gmail messages offline in Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird or any other email client, the problem is that Gmail cannot synchronize with Outlook. Messages marked as read in Outlook remained "unread" in your Gmail Inbox. Likewise, if you deleted an email in Outlook, it would still exist in your Gmail account.
Clearly there had to be a better way.
Enter IMAP. Google has introduced IMAP support for Gmail and Google domain apps. When you synchronize your Outlook client with Gmail, you can see the following:
To use this feature, you will have to enable IMAP through the POP/IMAP and Forwarding settings of your Gmail account. Follow the link with the instructions and don't forget to setup the correct port numbers.
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Labels: Tech
tar -xzf apr-1.2.8.tar.gz
cd apr-1.2.8
./configure --prefix=$HOME
make
make install
tar -xzf apr-1.2.8.tar.gz
cd apr-1.2.8
./configure --prefix=$HOME --with-apr=$HOME
make
make install
tar -xjf subversionr-1.4.3.tar.bz2
cd subversion-1.4.3
./configure --prefix=$HOME --without-berkely-db --with-zlib --with-ssl --with-apr=$HOME --with-apr-util=$HOME
make
make install
ln -s /usr/lib/libexpat.la /usr/local/lib/libexpat.la
ln -s /usr/lib/libexpat.so /usr/local/lib/libexpat.so
# rpm -qa | grep svn
# rpm -e svn-x.x.x
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PARENT_PROXY: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
PARENT_PROXY_PORT:80
NT_DOMAIN: YOUR_NT_DOMAIN
USER: your windows="" username=""
#PASSWORD:your_nt_password
[root@localhost ntlmaps-0.9.9]# ./main.py
NTLM authorization Proxy Server v0.9.9
Copyright (C) 2001-2004 by Dmitry Rozmanov and others.
------------------------
Your NT password to be used: (enter your windows password)
Now listening at localhost.localdomain on port 5865
$ vi ~/.wgetrc
http_proxy=http://localhost:5865/
ftp_proxy=http://localhost:5865/
use_proxy=on
wait=15
$ wget www.yahoo.com
-- 15:50:43—http://www.yahoo.com/index.html.1
Resolving localhost… 127.0.0.1
Connecting to localhost | 127.0.0.1|:5865… connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
[ ==== ] 106,746 76.40K/s
15:50:45 (76.34 KB/s) – ‘index.html.1’ saved [106746]
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Labels: Tech
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