Uncategorized Archives - Page 7 of 12

Feb 03

Real men play kickball

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Remember that game you played when you were in first grade with the big red rubber ball? Like softball only you boot the ball and the fielders can either try to throw you out at the bases or just wing it at you while you’re running… Well I recently discovered that it’s not just a game for first-graders anymore. My friend Benny talked me into joining his league and I gotta say this sport kicks ass (in fact our team name is the After School Specials so our cheers always involve some derivation of the word “ass”). It’s always cool to discover a whole new subculture that you never knew was there. I had no idea there was a World Association of Kickball Players. And in a weird way it’s strangely comforting to know that at any given time, somewhere in the world there is a group of grown adults playing kickball.

We had our second game last night against the Ball Maulers and so far we’re undefeated. The level of dedication people have to the game is amazing – the lights on the field went out at one point and the teams kept playing in the dark (Point Break style with a few lights from cars in the parking lot). I think kickball might become the new craze in terms of social functions. My team hit up a bar after the game and I got a chance to jump onstage to do a couple sets for an openmic. I had my iPod in my guitarcase and recorded the first one. The audio quality is poor (clearly the iTalk is intended only for talking – even with the sampling rate bumped as high as it will go it doesn’t capture the dynamic range high enough for music to sound good) but the set itself went over pretty well. I’m sure Tom Petty could never imagine that his “Free Fallin” would someday be remixed to the tune of “Now I’m Kiiiick… KickBAALLLin.”

The audio from that show here.

Jan 22

Fixing the “bad japanese movie” sound problem in Adobe Encore

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I spent the day today producing a DVD for my aunt who is an extremely talented pastel artist. She was interviewed recently by an arts program on PBS and wanted to use the piece as promotion for getting gigs at museums and art shows. I’ve done one DVD before this using Adobe Encore so it wasn’t hard to step back into it and re-acquaint myself with the interface (using an Adobe interface is about like riding a bike in terms of how it all generally comes back). One issue that popped up, though, was that my sound track was not syncing up with the video track and unfortunately it wasn’t simply off by a consistent delay, it was inconsistently off so that it was impossible to timeshift the track to fix it. It turned out that for whatever reason re-ripping the original video file as an .mpg rather than an .avi fixed the prob. I use a $30 shareware program called AVS Video Converter to rip video media and it works well. I used Encore to put the DVD together and generate the .iso file. Then I use the version of Nero that came w/ my burner (6.6 I think) to burn that image to DVD. With all the ripping, decoding, transcoding, re-encoding that went on today, it’s sure surprising they haven’t been able to make this a simpler process. It ended up taking nearly all day to get it right. From what I understand the Mac DVD burning software is idiot-proof and makes the whole thing a snap. Yet another reason I now have in order to make the switch and get one of those new Mac laptops…

Nov 16

The good guys don’t always win

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Well file this one under the Rant category (with a capital "R") – if you’re not in the mood for a solid Wed-morning rant session, definitely skip this post… People that know me are aware that I have been engaged in a battle against the City of Scottsdale and Arizona American Water Company along with a handful of other people from my neighborhood for the past year. This all started about this time last year when we were told they would be building a massive arsenic treatment facility in my backyard and constructing these enormous football-field-sized tanks that would eclipse the view our neighborhood has of Camelback mountain. I’m not going to re-hash the details of all the deception that was involved on their part in the process of pushing this project through, how it was a profit-motivated venture for a private company slid through under the guise of a public safety concern, nor will I explain the major failure on the part of our City Council to stand up for the neighborhood (my neighborhood actually created an entire web site to do just that). After exhausting all the possible avenues in the government appeal process, we were eventually driven to filing a lawsuit against the City of Scottsdale and AAWC to try and obtain a preliminary injunction to stop this madness. On a shoestring budget against a multi-billion-dollar international utility conglomerate, we managed to hold our own in court and present a compelling case (big ups to Jim Palecek of the firm Hunter & Palecek), however, in an absolute mockery of justice, the judge (having sided with us throughout the six-day trial) flipped 180deg against us in the ruling and turned down our motion.

Last night was our last ditch effort to stop this project by presenting the new evidence that came to light during the discovery phase in the litigation that clearly showed the water company had misled neighbors and City Council to obtain the permit for their facility. The end result of last night was that we were completely blown off- it was an absolute charadeof-a-hearing.. After sitting 3.5hrs through some of the most mundane beauracratic BS, listening to complaints about the nuissance of the whine from those motorized scooters, we finally were able to present our case. You wanna talk about nuissance How about a 28′ wall of steel that spans a football field in length and blocks out the sun in a historical preserve! Well we might as well have been presented to a brick wall. Half the Council members got up and went to the bathroom, one guy (Littlefield) seemed to be reading his mail and perhaps playing solitare under his desk (I kid you not, he ducked down and emerged like a minute later, maybe he took a power-nap, I dunno but I’m bummed I’m paying his salary). With the exception of one guy for whom I have the utmost respect (Ron McCullagh), we have possibly the most dense lineup of idiots running our City. At this point I can confidently say I would be more comfortable randomly selecting a handful of lobotomized monkeys to staff the Council – at least the decisions that emerged wouldn’t be marred by "protect-your-ass" political self-serving motivations.

It’s one thing to see ignorance in action but what happened tonight was a pure, sinister squelching of a legitimate cause by a group of concerned property owners that have collectively spent thousands of hours and dollars fighting this issue over the last year. While the Council members may have evaded responsibility in this instance and dodged the massive shame they deserve for their handling of the matter- I will just say "you may be able to foil the legal and governmental processes, trash justice and democracy and evade accountability for your actions/inactions, but the one thing you cannot outrun is karma." Just look at the online petition we have, read the comments and tell me how ninety homeowners can be this pissed off if you really had followed due process like you claim!! Now think back to a time when you failed to stand up to a bully on the playground when you wished you would have- well we have no regrets here: we looked this bully that is AAWC square in the eyes and made our stand. I read the response from the president of AAWC, and I used his for the only thing it was good for and responded back personally with a letter of my own. Imagine what it’s like to donate hundreds of hours of your free time to a cause you know is just only to have it ultimately trampled by the very people whose sole job it is to protect your interests- the elected idiots that realize they screwed this up and are now tryinig to minimize how bad they look publicly by sweeping things under the rug and smiling the whole time smug with the knowledge that they are safe. Well I got two words- Google PR6 yatches – though I hate to taint this space with a rant like this, this story needs to be told. Anyways, I’m done now. I would just like to give a final "tip ‘o the middle finger" to a few of the spineless bad guys that managed to get away unscathed from this whole situation. In no particular order, they are:

Paul Townsley, Rob Antoniak, John Berry, Joe Gross, Susan Bittersmith, Glen Hallman, Technical Solutions, Arizona American Water Company, City of Scottsdale, Mayor Mary Manross, Betty Drake, Wayne Ecton, Jim Lane, Robert Littlefield, and Kevin Osterman – you guys rock. NOT.

(and I promise to keep the quotient of rant-to-content minimal from now on ;-)

Oct 31

“Lojack” tracking technology for your laptop

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I recently wrote an article for Law Office Computing magazine on a piece of technology that functions as a “Lojack” for your laptop. The article is not linked on their web site but thanks to Jamie Tyo from the magazine for permission to republish the article here. The highlights of the technology are:

A very small program gets installed that dials in once each day to a secure data center to report the location of your computer.
In the event that you flag your computer as stolen, the next time it calls in, it bumps up the call frequency to every fifteen minutes and notifies their recovery team.
THEY handle the legal process of working with local law enforcement to retrieve your computer and will insure each unrecoverable machine up to $1000.
If it’s a lost cause and your computer went to Colombia with sensitive data on it, you can remotely delete the contents of the hard drive.
There are other reporting features in the administrative interface that can offer useful data for large enterprises like software compliance, hardware changes and hard drive usage.

I ran an actual field test for the article and it worked as advertised. I fired quite a few questions at their recovery officer and he had impressive responses to all. Check out the article and if you have any questions about the test or the technology itself, feel free to post them here.

Oct 13

Life-changing realizations from working the past week in Cabo

Travels, Uncategorized 3 Comments »

I just got back to Phoenix having spent the past week down in Cabo Mexico and though I generally try to limit posts here to condensed, useful technology-related info, I gotta write about the adventures of the week and some life-changing realizations. It was an epic vacation on so many levels (my apologies to any fullasagoog.com readers- i’ve tried to get them to just syndicate my CF-specific posts). The things I learned this week:

I’ve decided I’m going to sell all my stuff and travel the world working remotely.
I really miss being immersed in a spanish-speaking culture
Phoenix is getting HUGE
Sammy Hagar has it all figured out and might be one of the coolest people alive.
Sudoku puzzles are da bomb

Realization #1 has been brewing for awhile but was crystalized this weekend. Whether it was the collective vibe of the people in Cabo or the realization from talking to a realtor that I could cash out of my house and bank a crapload of money, I realize now that the moons are finally in alignment for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to happen and I will kick myself if I fail to do it.
Realization #2 came within a day of being down there. I was raised by bi-lingual parents that met each other in the Peace Corps in Venezuela so I’ve spoken Spanish all my life as naturally as English. I don’t know what it is about chatting with natives, but it’s so great to see the expressions when you are able to step into a conversation with locals and fluidly exchange ideas in their native tongue. I really miss this experience.
Realization #3 came while flying back into PHX and seeing how much concrete there really is in this town compared to a place like Cabo. I’ve lived in Phoenix all my life and have apparently just become habituated to how monsterous this place has gotten- I can remember when you could see the perimeter of the Valley when flying in and now coming into Sky Harbor, I realize the city extends in all directions to the horizon beyond what the eye can see. Kathy Sierra talks about how we must continually strive to put ourselves in situations that purposefully blow our minds in order to stay sharp, creative and passionate. This weekend made it clear to me that I’ve been living on and off in the same city forever and really haven’t done anything to blow my own mind culturally since living down in Ecuador ten years ago and it’s long overdue to make that to happen again.
Realization #4 came as a surprise because I’ve always thought of Sammy as the weaker of the two Van Halen singers. Not so however- he put on some of the best shows I’ve seen this past week and beyond being a talented musician, he’s a really cool guy. I was unaware until now, but there is this enormous subculture of dedicated Hagar fans that visit Cabo every year at this time of year for his birthday bash at the Cabo Wabo. I had the good fortune of traveling with my friend Jeff who owns VanHalenStore.com and knows all the right people at Cabo Wabo and was able to get us in VIP four nights in a row.Sammy’s band plays every other night down here this week leading up to his birthday on October 14th and lemme tell you I have a new respect for him.- Sammy just might be my newest hero having built what I think could be the coolest bar, created one of the best-tasting tequilas anywhere and living the lifestyle he has created for himself in Cabo raising a family and rockin’ out at his bar whenever he feels like it putting on free shows for his fans. Literally hundreds of people slept in the streets to get tickets each night and then waited hours in line again the next night to get into the show. I met some of the most genuine people that had trekked thousands of miles to see Sammy play (one guy with a foot-long goatee had ridden his motorcycle all the way from Texas). I plan to try and make this trip a yearly tradition from now on.
Realization #5
I got hooked on Sudoku puzzles down there printing them out each day and taking one to the beach. WARNING: these things are _highly_ addictive. They’re not number puzzles at all really, they could just as easily be shapes, colors or characters. It’s more logic than anything. I scanned the one I did on Lover’s beach along w/ the contents of my pockets from the plane ride home today:

We pulled 750 lbs of Blue Marlin out of the Pacific yesterday. It was myself and my friend David and these five girls we met on the beach and the captain of the Edith II said in his thirty years of fishing he’s seen people come down five years in a row and fish all week and never even get one- we hooked TWO within 30secs of each other and one of them was 450lbs!! "Nunca he visto tan suerte!" he said. It took us about 40minutes to real them in and we ended up setting the big one free, unfortunately the smaller one we were unable to release because it had been hooked badly and died of stress. Other cool stuff we did- water taxi to Lover’s Beach at Land’s End, jamming on these Mariachi’s guitars at a little hidden tiki bar we found with some other americans we met, days spent on the beach at an outdoor bar called "The Office," dinner at this insanely-beautiful restaurant called "Da Giorgio" up on a cliff and hours of salsa dancing in various clubs. It was the ideal vacation in every respect.

This summer was an emotional roller coaster for me. I came out of a year-and-a-half-long serious relationship with Kristy and then immediately met another incredible girl named Tracy and had a brief but intensely-cool time with her. Aside from being supermodel-gorgeous, this girl was classy, funny and just an all around cool person to be around. Apparently I didn’t have quite the same impact on her and got scrambled in an unfortunate string of events that left me all mentally-twisted up. This Cabo trip was precisely what I needed to straighten my head out and re-prioritize things. I’ll be busting ass the next few months to get my house ready to sell and get the Grid7 infrastructure in place to support the remote collaboration of different developers on the projects I plan to seed the co-op with.

So back on realization #1 though… this is just a stream-of-consciousness ramble here but in thinking about what will be involved in plotting this international "working roadtrip," I’ve decided the goals are simple:

Re-establish communication with old friends and international acquaintances and meet up with as many people as possible
Travel for first within the US and then around the globe in one direction with no set plans beyond more than a few weeks
Document the entire journey online and make it easy for my friends to get in touch and check where I’m at
Never let the camera lense or the journaling obscure the experience itself – when in doubt, opt for soaking in the moment instead
Establish Grid7 and manage development projects from the road
Do the whole trip on one pair of flip-flops and come back in a year or whenever the money runs out

Things that come to mind that will need to be resolved-

"Roving" offsite backups – I will definitely need to have a way to deal with the worst case scenario of my laptop being either stolen or broken on the road. In talking it over with my friend Benny we came up with the concept of running mobile offsite backups by doing an incremental to 2 firewire drives and rotating FedEx’ing one of them ahead to the next destination so at any given point there’s always an "offsite" backup traveling with you not too far away and it’s relatively easy to get back in business in the event of a theft or other data catastrophe. Code will already be stored remotely on the server in source control so it’s really more for ensuring that I can get a pristine development environment back in place quickly. Unfortunately I think services like LiveVault would be too slow and bandwidth-intensive to be useful.
Making myself traceable – you want to hope for the best but plan for the worst. In the event that I were to turn up missing in some obscure foreign town, I would want to have an Onstar (or a "SeanStar" as the case may be). The method I’ve come up with is to use the Absolute.com laptop tracking software which dials in daily and give my family instructions on how they can find the last IP address it called in from in the event that something happens. I recently wrote an article for Law Office Computing on this software and it works really well. At least that would provide a physical address from which to commence a search in the event that something bad were to happen.
Locating hotspots – I just got my Canary Wireless Hotspot Detector in the mail and sadly, it just does not work as reported in all the great reviews. Hotspots are so prevalent now that it probably won’t be that big of an issue to find one but I like the idea of being able to stroll down the street and casually scan for one. Internet Cafes are very prevalent in most European and Asian and South American towns and I had no trouble getting a good connection down in Mexico. The one I used each day was a freebie to get people to eat at this restaurant and it definitely kept me coming back. There are other methods like WifiMaps and Wigle so I’m not that worried. Benny says his PSP makes a great wifi detector so that’s an option (not to mention it would be a write-off too at that point).
Phone connectivity – my Treo has the removable SIM card so I’m assuming I can swap out with one that works on the European cell network. I have no idea on the other locations but for areas where phone connectivity is non-existent I’ll probably use the Skype-forwarding method as it seemed to work pretty well this past week.
Health Insurance- I already buy my own that covers major medical but I don’t know whether it works abroad. Will need to figure something out.
Plotting location by date and overlaying locations of friends- I will probably need to develop a little web app that makes an easy way to plan all the waypoints. Yahoo just bought Upcoming.org and it seems these type of calendar/geographic mash-up apps are all the rage right now so maybe the tool I develop will even have some value beyond being helpful to me. Oddly enough I just checked on getting the domain WhereIsSean.com and unbelievably some other Sean is already doing exactly the same thing!! He’s even in Ecuador right now…how random is that?

Anyways, what a week it was. I wanna end this rambling post with a cool moment I had in my mad-dash to the airport in Cabo. I missed the first shuttle (which is about an hour from town), the next one was going to put me there within 10min of when my flight left but the attitude of the shuttle ticket-taker was "ehh, tranquilo amigo- you’ll make it and if you don’t, no worries." So I forced myself to let go and be cool with the idea of missing my plane. On the way to the airport I chatted a bit with the shuttle driver and told him of my time crunch – indeed we arrived at the airport 15min before my plane was leaving (and I managed to just make it). But in exiting the taxi, the driver looked at me with a big grin and said "muy buen tiempo, si?" Now I don’t know whether he chose this ambiguous phrase purposefully or not but in Spanish this can be interpreted in three ways: a) "we made good time just now, didn’t we?" b)"did you have a good time this trip?" c)"nice weather we’re having today, eh?" I just smiled back high-fived him and said, "Si."

If you live in an interesting city somewhere and would be interested in putting up a world-traveler for a few days in the coming months, hit me back on email- legaltech at gmail.com or post a comment here.

sean

Oct 07

Working remotely from Cabo and using Skype as a phone

Nerd, Travels, Uncategorized 1 Comment »

So on my never-ending quest for total mobility and agility as an independent consultant, I’ve figured out how to cut the phone tether for working down in Mexico. Thanks to Skype’s phone bridge service, I’m in Cabo San Lucas right now conducting business as usual, taking phone calls and checking voicemail over a wifi connection on my laptop. The connection here is surprisingly quick and reliable (75kb/sec). Basically, I had some frequent flyer miles saved up and an offer from a buddy to stay at his hotel for $20/night. My laptop has a fully self-contained development environment via Virtual PC and I’ve got all the materials I need to build the extranet for AZ Behavioral Health and all the physical meetings archived as voicememos on my iPod. For a total cost of $50 a day to be able to work from a palapa, I figured I’d be an idiot not to go.

The phone setup is pretty sweet- Skype is voice chat service recently acquired by ebay and it let’s you talk to other people free over the internet. They have a service you can pay for that bridges their system to the public switched telephone network and let’s you handle inbound and outbound phonecalls. I purchased 600min of the skypein/skypeout service for $13 and I now have my Cingular Treo 650 forwarding all my calls to my skype number (a very simple thing to change yourself if you happen to have cingular). If I’m online, the phone rings through skype, I answer it and (other than a minor latency which you’d probably experience anyways on an international call) the caller has no idea I’m talking via my laptop. The call quality is excellent and what’s nice is voicemails show up as timestamped events in skype and you listen to them and can even save them as mp3’s. I did hear a rumor that it’s illegal in Mexico to circumvent their telecommunications system for voice traffic – I have no idea if there’s any truth to that and I’m sure as heck not going to ask a Federale. I could see this phone forwarding technique affording one the ability to backpack around Europe and work just as effectively from the road. Hrmm….