Having been the proud owner of a MacBook Air for a couple weeks now, I am really starting to use it for all of my everyday tasks and have only cracked open my old MacBook Pro once to do a bit of FFMpegX (I needed a render machine!). Life with the Air is good, and the portability is a godsend (if you into that type of thing). I have managed to take it to work everyday since I purchased it and use it in new and novel ways such as reading PDFs in the lounge today instead of being cloistered at my desk.
One of my projects for the year is to do more automated testing at work. After researching numerous open source solutions: SwingUnit, Instruments (Dtrace), Abbot, I decided to try and work with the industry standard SilkTest. While this was fine at work with several Windoze machines to choose from, I was dreading the thought about running a virtualized environment on the Air. This all stems from the fact that I have been using Parallels at work for about a year and it feels just like turing on that PC from about 7 years ago. Press the power button, and go make it a sandwich, it will let you know when its ready with that lovely chime. Mind you this is with 3GB of RAM and a 2.16 Core2Duo processor. How was the Air gonna stand up?
So after a bit of research I decided to try VM Fusion after about a 16 month hiatus during their beta release. Recent news on the site said that several bugs with the Air had been fixed and it was good to go, so I downloaded the .dmg and proceeded to install. Things are rolling smoothe up to this point.
I am whipping right through the installer and then it comes to the part to use the Remote Disc. I setup the Remote Disc software on my iMac at work (P.S. Apple you should have this available as a download from you site, not everyone carries around their system disks!). After double-checking the sharing permissions on both computers voilá XP SP2 disk shows up in my Air Finder. So I proceed to select in in the installer….. and no dice.
Houston we have a problem…
What to do? So I looked on the VM Fusion site, no dice, everyone seemed to suggest that you had to have the niffty $99 Superdrive. While a nice product not exactly what I was looking to do. VM Ware does a have a very nifty application to convert a previous Parallels VM to a VM Ware VM, I tried transfering the Paralles Vm to the Air via Airport and it gave me an estimate 8 hours, errrr not so happening. Then I figured the best idea would be to get a disk image of XP.
I found several sites describing ways to do this. The first site had a nice succint command line solution:
$ dd if=/dev/disk1 of=file.iso bs=2048
So I tried this after figuring out out which disk to substitute in, disk2 in my case. It took about 5 minutes to complete the copy and then I tried to mount the resulting image. Not so much. ARGHHHHH!
Then I remembered one of the most under appreciated applications in OS X, the mighty Disk Utility! I opened up Disk Utility and selected the XP volume and selected “Create Disk Image”, the key here is to use select the CD/DVD Master option. In about 4 minutes I had a shiny new .cdr disk image of Windoze XP.
Useful Tip: .cdr can be replaced with .ISO via the Get Info command with no repercussions.
While I haven’t validated this for sure, I think it a necessary change for Fusion to see the OS disk image correctly. The wireless transfer of the full XP ISO took 8 minutes instead of 8 hours now we are talking!
The rest of the installation went normal if not exceedingly fast.
The disk image route is way faster than the CD. One restart of the VM later after the automated install of the VW Ware tools and I was up and running. First impressions are “Wow VM Ware really did their homework!”, Fusion is very fast to startup and shutdown, much faster than my iMac with Parallels. The UI and Unity mode (Coherence mode in Parallels) and much easier on the eyes. I haven’t tested the graphics acceleration, which is still experimental after a year, but if the progress in this area is like the rest of the app I expect good things.
I hope this short review of the pitfalls of installing XP on the Air might help some decide between whether to use a virtualized environment on their feather-weight Macs, and to consider a VM Fusion a very well developed product. As for myself, its time to get down to some 4Test coding.
For the last 10 months since moving to California I have been working on becoming a better motorcycle rider among other things. Since then I have done the following to make that happen:
3 Trackdays (2 Thunderhill, 1 Searspoint)
Completed the California Superbike School first level
Installed a 520 chain kit with a 41 rear for better acceleration
To say the least I was feeling pretty prepared for the two day-weekend at Thunderhill Donn and I had reserved. Here is a nice video (not me )to give an idea of the course at speed:
Friday: We started to stack the odds in our favor by renting a truck instead of a trailer (much faster!), Got to Willows on Friday instead of getting up at 4am, and had time to walk several turns of the track on Friday particularly 1-5 and 11-15, as well as dropping off our bikes and staking out part of the canopy. After walking the track we went to dinner and had way too much food at a nice mexican restaurant that served gargantuan portions. We got back to the motel and tried to go to sleep. This didn’t happen to go well given my allergies and the room got quite warm. All told probably got about 4 hours of sleep!
Saturday: We both woke up before the alarm at 6:15 and started to get ready. After collecting all our equipment and we headed out to get breakfast and off to the track. Once getting to the track it was a mad dash to get everything ready: Tire pressures, Tech inspection, Riders meeting and to boot our group was up first to ride for the day! Unfortunatly Donn had forgotten his boots at the motel and had to head back to get them and I did the first session sighting laps.
The first couple laps were done as follow the leader under a yellow flag. This was a nice opportunity to re-aqaint myself with track riding. It felt pretty good although it was a bit cold probably about 50º. One of the things I noticed right away was after the session was the new tires warmed up real damn quick and were soft as hell! I had my suspension base-lined by Dave Moss from Catalyst suspension, since it had never been . Aparently the front and back weren’t quite doing the same thing and Dave quickly got that sorted. The second session felt pretty good and the I started testing the abilities of the tires a little more, but I just felt like was going faster but still just wandering over. This continued for the next couple sessions but it was nice to just get some track time in.
By noon, my knees were getting tired. Controlling your bike when riding at speed is done alot with your legs, it definitely time to hit the gym and do more squats! During the lunch break Donn and I stopped by GotBlueMilk to go check out our form. Ughhh, I needed to hang-off way more. Donn had talked about his helmet being close to the windscreen and then when I tried it in the nest session, it really helped clear up a couple things. I purposely had to put my butt right on the edge of the seat and kept my head down. This had the instant effect of looking through the corner better and finally dragging my knee (briefly). I had a nice “moment” when my shift linkage loosened up and as I tried to downshift for turn five I found no shifter! I headed in early and fixed it up and was back out. By the last session I was pooped! It was more about track time and then trying to relax and just get some seat time. Checking in with GotBLueMilk after the last session proved the adjusting my body position had significant effects. We headed back to the motel, picked up some supplies and here I am writing.
Looking forward to getting some sleep tonight and a nice fast day tomorrow with a focus on reference points and turn 14 and 15.
Here are some pretty flickr pics from the day mostly courtesy of GotBlueMilk:
Posted in random, personal at 1:41 am by keynesiandreamer
So I have never been the religious type, but the end of the year starts to make me reflect on what I have done this year, whare I am in my life and am I doing what I or should be doing.
Last Year this Time:
Living in DC, with alot of stress
working a job that was bumming me out
Enjoyed not living where I was living the previous winter (Brrrrrr!)
Still Pretty interested in Economics and Finance
While DC was great from a career standpoint, it was also some of the tougher years of my life that really put me to the test. I am very thankful for the people and opportunities I had there, but it was not the place for me or Haiete.
Currently:
San Francisco is great, and Haiete and I love the Hayes Valley. Really not to much more to ask for.
I have gone back to my roots:
Really got back in to computers
got back into motorcycling in a big way
bought a VW Bus, becaue I wanted one for years
spent more time doing what I have wanted to for a while
Just signed up for Twitter®
Learned alot more about Software Development, Vlurb has been an amazing opportunity to learn tons form some very smart people
Life back on the west coast has been tremendous! It just feels right to be doing the things I was doing years back with a lot more experience and wisdom. I miss my friends back east, but have made some great friends here as well.
Things I haven’t Done:
Hit the gym regularly, we bought 3 year frickin’ pass I have no excuse!
really work on my coding,since I finished my C++ class in May, I have just not focussed like should
Organize, even though things are going much smoother than most periods in my life it could be vastly improved with more planning. Maybe California has made me a bit soft, but looking towards externalities is never a good plan.
What I need to do:
Spend more time at the big ole’ KB, but in a smarter way
Hit the Gym, ahh the familliar tingle of lower back pain…
Blog more, hard to belive I am saying this, but writing (errr, uhh typing) things down makes them alot more likely to happen and provides an opportunity to reflect.
Calm Down,work should never get you riled up or not sleep, its for suckas’
Plan out my projects, between fixing up the Bus, getting ready for a season of Motorcycle Racing, et cetera, I have my time spent already
Organize, everything is possible with the right organization
I feel I slacked in some of the items that have got me to where I am now and its not so beuño. Much of this can be solved with the single most precious resource there is TIME. True its not New Years, where you start to make resolutions and such, but its always best to start now what you could have done before. Its better to resolve to do something and acknowledge than it is to lament previous decisions.
So for myself I will declare 2008 to be my “Year of Lists and Priorities”, I am hoping to get these all completed by Jan 7, 2008 at the latest ( end of French Vacation).
Posted in personal at 11:08 pm by keynesiandreamer
Lets get a couple things out of the way:
I live in San Francisco now, and very happily at that
I now work at Blurb, they are RAD!
I am listening to French Pop right now, Plastic Bertrand
I am the not so happy owner of an iPhone
email me if you are actually interested ben [at] hugemacnerd [dot] com
My plane takes off in about 5 hours for a whirlwind of getting a car rental, hitting up the zoo of finding a place in SF, and wishing Brotha Stearns a belated B-Day today.
While I am excited for all the amazing opportunities that will happen in the Bay Area, at the same time I am doign some serious soul searching when it comes to taking a position. Infact I think this is the one decision that gives me the most pause.
All three firms are great for their own reasons, and I am extremely thankful for being in the position of having 3 offers instead of grasping at straws, but none the less its mentally taxing.
We have most of the place packed up, and Steve was so kind as to bring a great bottle of champagne to celebrate our Haiete’s and I new life out west. I will really miss Steve and Asri, they made DC a much more tolerable place especially during the summer.
Well I am babbling and Creamsickle is clawing at the the keyboard, later …… must sleep….
Posted in personal at 12:06 am by keynesiandreamer
This was written about 10 days ago, will post for posterity
That was meant to be sung the the Beastie Boys rhythm. In any case I am off to many exciting interviews Thursday in SF and since the French and I are moving, it has been non-stop work!
So I am trying to cobble all the knowledge about Perl I can for the interview Friday, and things look good for Thursday.
In the hopes of showing Haiete pics of apartments Mr. Stearns suggested using ShoZu (man that iPhone can’t come soon enough). I am Curious to see how it works myself and will post about it soon as I have more info. On another note regarding the iPhone the agent I spoke to said that it will cost $44.99 a month for the data plan [spendy! ].
So to all my CA peeps, I look forward to seeing you soon, and dear Science am I tired!
Posted in personal, Apple at 11:52 pm by keynesiandreamer
There is sooooo much to post about, but it 12:15 and I have to goto DC jury duty much like Pauli Shore in era before.
During my time there I am hoping to work on my OS X Server Study Guide, and hope that either Pixar, or Apple decides to write back tomorrow about my resume.
In other news, I just got a letter that actually says I will be graduating, was a bit easier than I thought??? and I received my Apple Certified Technical Coordinator certificate in the mail.
Tomorrow I hope to post on several random subjects while the wheels and cogs of legality turn.
I will try to be a good blogger and keep you posted….
So I am waiting for a nice long File Maker Query and happend to see and interesting bit of code while troubleshooting a printer driver installer that decided not to work:
if(”$OS_VERSION” < 1030) then
### Jaguar ###
set IsQuiet = 0
while ($IsQuiet == 0)
set PROCESS = (`ps ax | grep ‘Print Center.app’ | grep -v grep`)
if ($#PROCESS == 0) then
set IsQuiet = 1
else
kill -9 “$PROCESS[1]”
endif
end
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.print.PrintCenter.*.plist
else
### Panther ###
set IsQuiet = 0
while ($IsQuiet == 0)
set PROCESS = (`ps ax | grep ‘Printer Setup Utility.app’ | grep -v grep`)
if ($#PROCESS == 0) then
set IsQuiet = 1
else
kill -9 “$PROCESS[1]”
endif
end
rm -f /Users/*/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.print.Cache.*.plist
rm -f /var/root/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.print.Cache.*.plist
endif
set EXTENSION_MODULES = (`egrep ‘/System/Library/Extensions’ “$0:h”‘/BundleVersions.plist’` )
if($#EXTENSION_MODULES) then
rm -f ‘/System/Library/Extensions.kextcache’
rm -f ‘/System/Library/Extensions.mkext’
egrep ‘/System/Library/Extensions/BJUSBLoad.kext’ “$0:h”‘/BundleVersions.plist’ >& /dev/null
if ($status == 0) then
kextload /System/Library/Extensions/BJUSBLoad.kext
sleep 3
endif
endif
While for others this may not be interesting, it showed some of the fundamental changes in OS X, namely between 10.2 and 10.3, which it looks like 10.4 is complicit with. This was written as shell script in the tcsh (thats the “T-Shell” right?). In any maybe someone else will find in interesting as well. Here is the file in its entirety to view in the ext editor of your choice.
Posted in personal at 10:13 pm by keynesiandreamer
So with much of the house in disarray, there is pretty good news today,
I attended my last class of my undergraduate studies
I finally passed the OS X Server Essentials Exam
Its hard to believe after ten years I have finished my undergraduate degree. After Starting out taking a computer science course I never finished, then moving to physics engineering and finally finishing up in Macro Economics, I will be all “graduamacated” on May 12. I even decided to attend my CS course today discussing Pointers, I am pretty sure I was the only one interested.
For those OS X enthusiasts, I actually passed my OS X Server exam today. Which I am glad to be done with and look forward to having a year to wait for the OS X 10.5 Server Essentials to come out.
So with all these items in hand, I think it will be time to take some time to myself and start to work on Python, and pick up some more physical activities. I still plan to write up the study guide and the practice exam. Other peeps should not have to pass such a poorly phrased test without some insight.
So tonite I decided that Beer, Ice cream and South Park, were in order.
Posted in Apple, OS X at 9:59 pm by keynesiandreamer
So I rescheduled the exam for April the 24th and started working on the OS X Server Essentials Exam Study Guide, I am hoping to put that up by Wednesday, C++ final permitting.
As well I am going to try and post a sample test form page with graded results, so that you might try your luck at taking a faux OS X Server Essentials exam, and see where you might want to practice. Since I will have taken it twice I figure I should be well versed in it by that point.
For right now though, I am done for the evening and its time to watch “Da Ali G Show”.
)to give an idea of the course at speed:
