RU-FI-OOOOOH!

Helpful Hints: Create an APT proxy in 3 easy steps using apt-cacher-ng

Sohail Mirza — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 04:46:28 +0000

Pre-requisites

This Helpful Hints tutorial will require a number of basic and intermediate skills. In order to complete this tutorial you should be comfortable doing the following:

Installing Ubuntu packages
Using sudo to act as the super-user
Editing a text file
Looking up your computer’s IP address

If you’re not certain how to perform some of these actions, you may find tutorials for them readily available online.

Why an APT proxy?

If you’re like me, you might have a number of Ubuntu machines at home. If this is the case, you know it can be a pain to quickly update them all since the same updates need to be downloaded to each computer. If there are a lot of updates to be downloaded, this can take a while on a slower Internet connection.

If this sounds like your situation, then you can speed things up by setting up an APT proxy on your network at home. APT is the tool your Ubuntu system uses to retrieve updates and manage the installation of programs. An APT proxy will basically allow you to designate one of the machines on your network as the update server — the one machine where all the others will get their system updates from. The idea is that the proxy will only have to download updates once, and these are then distributed to all the other Ubuntu machines on the network.

To accomplish this we can very easily setup apt-cacher-ng, a proxy tool readily available from the Ubuntu repositories. I did play around with apt-proxy first, but found that less straightforward to use.

Taking it step-by-step

So here are the three easy steps, assuming all the computers involved are running Ubuntu (the computers can be running any version of Ubuntu, even differing versions):

On the machine which will be running the APT proxy, install apt-cacher-ng. Just click the link in the last sentence, or type the following into a terminal window:
```
sudo apt-get install apt-cacher-ng
```
Now that your proxy is ready to go — yup, it was that simple — we need to instruct all the computers in your home or office to go to that proxy computer for APT updates, and not to the public update sites on the Internet. This is fairly straightforward to do as well.

As the super-user, you’ll need to edit (or create, if it doesn’t exist) the file at /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/02proxy, and add the following to the first line in that file:
```
Acquire::http { Proxy "http://ProxyComputerIPAddress:3142"; };
```
In this line you’ll need to replace “ProxyComputerIPAddress” with the proxy computer’s address on your network. It’s address may look similar to an IP address like 192.168.1.100.

You’ll need to perform this step on every computer, including the one running the APT proxy. On the computer running the proxy you can use the IP address 127.0.0.1, which is just a way for the computer to refer to itself; every computer can refer itself with the this IP address.
Now that every computer will be going through the proxy, things should magically just work! At this point you can launch the Update Manager, and check to see if there are pending updates.

Wrapping up…

That’s it folks, it’s that easy to setup an APT proxy. The result is that all Ubuntu updates should be cloned to your proxy server once, and that will now be the source of updates for all the computers on your network.

Post to the comments and let us know how it works for you.

Helpful Hints: Downloading trailers from iTunes Movie Trailers

Sohail Mirza — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:03:43 +0000

This guide works with iTunes Movie Trailers as of Jan. 14th, 2010.

What you’ll need to get things working is:

The Greasemonkey Firefox addon.
The HeaderControl Firefox addon.
My iTunes Movie Trailers Download script.

Yes, Karate Kid, I want to download you... even though Jackie Chan != Mr. Miyagi

Installing Greasemonkey

Thank goodness for Firefox documentation: just use the easy-to-follow guide on installing extensions, but install Greasemonkey instead.

What could be better than easy to follow instructions?

Installing and Configuring HeaderControl

HeaderControl is slightly more difficult to install and requires some additional configuring as well. Not to worry though, I’ve already covered it before. Please refer to the section titled “Setting up HeaderControl” in my last version of this guide. Just make sure you’ve got the User Agent string right (“Quicktime/7.6.2“).

Installing the iTunes Trailer Download script

Installing the script is as simple as visiting the script’s webpage and clicking the big green Install button:

Go ahead, cilck that big, green button.

Rock ‘n Roll

Followed all the steps? Great, now you’re ready to rock and roll. Go ahead and try it out.

That's money.

Helpful Hints – Apple Movie Trailers download using Firefox, Greasemonkey, and User Agent hack

Sohail Mirza — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:08:42 +0000

You can't stop us Apple!

Only a few days ago I was disappointed to find that Apple had once again broken movie trailer downloads for non-iTunes users. Thanks to the input of a few commentators on this blog, I think I’ve found a new workaround for Firefox/Greasemonkey users.

The workaround uses a combination of the most excellent Apple Trailer Download script by zatic (not my modified version — I’ll get to this in just a bit), and a modification to the User Agent string that Firefox uses to identify itself to websites.

Setting up HeaderControl

First of all, you’ll need to download this great experimental Firefox addon, HeaderControl (Disclaimer: always use caution with beta/experimental software. I’m not responsible for any harm you may cause your computer). What we’ll be using HeaderControl for is to enable a modified User Agent string for only the Apple trailer download site. Some of you may have the popular User Agent Switcher extension installed, which could work as well, but I chose HeaderControl for this workaround because it allows per-domain user-agent switching. The “per-domain” bit means I don’t have to keep switching the Firefox user agent for the trailers site, and back again.

Now, once you’ve installed HeaderControl, reboot Firefox and bring up the preferences dialog for HeaderControl.

HeaderControl Options dialog.

Clicking the “Add” button, go ahead and create a new per-domain configuration for the domain, movies.apple.com, and specify the custom user agent string “Quicktime/7.6.2“. Note that you’ll only need to choose the “Mangle HTTP ‘UserAgent’” option. You can leave alone the Referer and Language tabs.

Make sure the suffix is "movies.apple.com" and that you have the user agent correct.

Press “OK” to commit the new per-domain filter, and you’ll be good to go.

Downloading Trailers

For those of you who do not care to download the trailers but just want to watch the trailers in your browser, you should be good to go. Go ahead, hit up the trailers site and watch something special.

For those of you who want to download the trailers but don’t know how, you can refer to my original instructions, which should now work again.

Finally, if you’re amongst those who followed the steps in my previous post on the issue of Apple trailer download breakage by installing my modified Apple trailer download Greasemonkey script, then you have one more step to complete: disable my script and go back to using the original Apple Trailer Download script by zatic.

Disable my "fixed" script. It's no longer required.

Once you’ve done this you should find yourself able to download movie trailers from Apple’s site once again.

Apple Movie Trailer downloads are broken… yet again

Sohail Mirza — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:49:46 +0000

Apple sez no trailers for you.

Wow, Apple seems very determined to break Apple Movie Trailer downloads for non-iTunes users. In their latest salvo at everyone who does not own a Mac and those who choose not to use iTunes, Apple has corrected both the www hack and user agent hack outlined in my last post on the topic. This also renders my Greaseonkey script useless.

For the time being, I don’t have another workaround or fix to try, but as soon as I learn of one, I’ll be sure to share it.

Eye candy IS a critical business requirement

Sohail Mirza — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:06:57 +0000

I recently came across the presentation, Eye Candy is a Critical Business Requirement. Stephen Anderson of Poetpainter delivered this presentation at a Usability Professionals’ Association in July 2008.

As a software professional with one foot in development and one foot in design, this presentation really reasonated with me. Eye candy really IS a critical business requirement.

(Found via: Delicious Popular list)

Apple Movie Trailer downloads are broken

Sohail Mirza — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:01:41 +0000

iTunes Movie Trailers doesn't want us.

In the past I had recommended a wonderful Greasemonkey script that would allow one to directly download the trailers from Apple Movie Trailers. Who wants to watch awesome trailers in a browser window anyhow?

It now seems like Apple has intentionally broken this and other means of downloading their trailers directly, as covered by hd-trailers.net:

It looks like one of the adjustments they made was to only allow Quicktime to download the trailer. Any web browser will be automatically redirected to the Apple – Movie Trailers’ homepage.

Those great guys have a workaround though. If you’re a Linux/OS X user, you can simply use wget with the Quicktime User Agent string:

wget -U QuickTime/7.6.2 http://movies.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_h1080p.mov

If you’re on Leopard, you may not have wget. In this case you may be able to use curl -O which supposedly does the same thing, though I can’t verify that this works:

curl -A QuickTime/7.6.2 -O http://movies.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_h1080p.mov

Another workaround, one that would also be simpler for Windows users, is to try using the User Agent Switcher Firefox extension. Just make sure to use the Quicktime User Agent string in the examples above.

Windows users intent on using wget can try their luck with the GNU Utilities for Win32.

Update: Krunk from hd-trailers.net has commented that direct download will work if you just tweak the URL a bit. Where the trailer typically comes from movies.apple.com, just change that to www.apple.com. Be sure to check out their download guide.

Hmm… now to see whether we can get the Greasemonkey script updated to do this for us…

Update 2: I’ve uploaded a fixed version of zatic’s original Apple Trailer Download script to userscripts.org. I’ve simply applied the fix noted in the previous update, to the original script.

Helpful Hints – Tabbing to form fields in Firefox

Sohail Mirza — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:04:05 +0000

Ever wish you could press in Firefox and get focus on the first form field of the page, ignoring all the links? Or maybe you want to tab between all form elements with the exception of text fields? Or perhaps you want tabbing behaviour that is some combination of the above?

The developers behind Firefox realized that people would want tab behaviour conforming to their personal keyboard accessibility requirements, and to this end they’ve included a very handy means of getting the behaviour you want.

Enter the accessibility.tabfocus configuration. This property allows you to specify an integer corresponding to a particular tab focusing behaviour.

From the Mozillazine Knowledgebase, the possible values for this property are:

1 – Give focus to text fields only. (The default in OS X.)
2 – Give focus to all form elements except text fields.
4 – Give focus to links (and linked images) only.

The value for accessibility.tabfocus can also be an integer like 7 (which is the default value). 7 (1+2+4) implies that Firefox will focus all field elements and links as well; its effect is the behaviour of 1, 2, and 4, combined.

You can read up a bit more to understand the different values.

For those who have forgotten how to manipulate the advanced configuration preferences in Firefox, you can do so as follows:

Open a new tab and enter “about:config” into the address bar:

Firefox's about:config disclaimer.

Accept the disclaimer that you may break Firefox if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’d advise the reader to be careful about what they do beyond this point!

Enter “tabfocus” into the Filter field to find the accessibility.tabfocus property:

The 'accessibility.tabfocus' property on the about:config page.

Now just double click the property to be prompted for a new value.

Personally, I would like to tab through all form fields while ignoring links on the page. To achieve this outcome, I used a value of 3 (1 + 2), a combination of tabbing through text fields and tabbing through other form fields.

I hope this Helpful Hint is of use to those of you who are big on keyboard accessibility.

Riding Tokyo

Sohail Mirza — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:36:03 +0000

Planning to travel Tokyo’s vast Metro system? You’d better be packing this awesome colour map of the system!

Cropped region of the Tokyo subway route map.

(Found via: http://oduinn.com/2009/03/18/directions-to-hombu-dojo-tokyo/)

MySQL: “Access denied for user ‘debian-sys-maint’@'localhost’”

Sohail Mirza — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:51:36 +0000

For all you Ubuntu/MySQL developers out there, have you ever seen the following?

neo@thematrix:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart

* Stopping MySQL database server mysqld   [fail]

* Starting MySQL database server mysqld   [ OK ]

/usr/bin/mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed

error: 'Access denied for user 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' (using password: YES)'

So, what is this “debian-sys-maint” user? Well, this MySQL user is created for the Ubuntu to be able to start/stop the database and to carry out other maintenance operations.

Sounds well enough, but then why do I keep running into the “access denied” problem for this user? Well, the issue is that with each update to MySQL, the user’s password in the database is overwritten. Ubuntu seems to go to the file /etc/mysql/debian.cnf in order to find this user’s password, but obviously the password is out of sync after the update has been applied.

As a result of this behaviour, I’ll run into the “access denied” problem every so often. Thankfully, the solution to this issue is fairly simple.

First, list the contents of the /etc/mysql/debian.cnf file:

neo@thematrix:~$ sudo cat /etc/mysql/debian.cnf

The contents of the file should look something like the following:

# Automatically generated for Debian scripts. DO NOT TOUCH!

[client]

host     = localhost

user     = debian-sys-maint

password = n4aSHUP04s1J32X5

socket   = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

[mysql_upgrade]

user     = debian-sys-maint

password = n4aSHUP04s1J32X5

socket   = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

basedir  = /usr

See that password? That’s what we’re looking for!

Next, we want to issue a command to MySQL that tells it to grant the debian-sys-maint user all necessary privileges using the new password.

neo@thematrix:~$ mysql -u root -p

Issue the GRANT command now to grant those permissions:

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'n4aSHUP04s1J32X5';

Voila! If you restart MySQL, you’ll find that you should no longer be getting the “access denied” error message.

neo@thematrix:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart

* Stopping MySQL database server mysqld   [ OK ]

* Starting MySQL database server mysqld   [ OK ]

* Checking for corrupt, not cleanly closed and upgrade needing tables.

Bear in mind, because we just switched the password, and the change hasn’t been affected yet, you may need to kill the MySQL server processes in order to get MySQL to shut down at all.

dpkg problems relating to ‘cups’ in Ubuntu

Sohail Mirza — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:10:53 +0000

Firefox 3.0.5, Mozilla’s latest security fix for the venerable browser has recently been released. Tonight it was pushed out to Ubuntu 8.10 users, and so I promptly updated my Ubuntu installation. Noticing that there were other updates as well, I applied them all.

Unfortunately, dpkg wasn’t able to complete the update of all selected packages. I wanted to review the problem, so from the command-line I brought up aptitude via:

sudo aptitude

Aptitude was nice enough to let me know that I needed to run the following command to correct the problem:

sudo dpkg --configure -a

… unfortunately it didn’t work:

$ sudo dpkg --configure -a dpkg: ../../src/packages.c:221: process_queue: Assertion `dependtry <= 4' failed. Aborted

I decided to go back into aptitude to see if any packages would be selected there for installation due to a failure to install previously. Sure enough, when I pressed ‘g’ to process all actions, it attempted to install cups, cups-bsd, and cups-client, but failed:

dpkg: error processing cups (--configure): package cups is not ready for configuration cannot configure (current status `triggers-awaited') dpkg: error processing cups-client (--configure): package cups-client is not ready for configuration cannot configure (current status `triggers-awaited') dpkg: ../../src/packages.c:221: process_queue: Assertion `dependtry <= 4' failed. E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg exited unexpectedly A package failed to install. Trying to recover: dpkg: ../../src/packages.c:221: process_queue: Assertion `dependtry <= 4' failed. Aborted

These were the packages that had failed to install successfully earlier.

What could I do to get around this? Aptitude wasn’t able to handle it for me, and nor could dpkg process the configuration of these packages. After some futzing around, I even tried downgrading the packages in aptitude, but the same dpkg errors came up:

Preconfiguring packages ... Selecting previously deselected package cups. (Reading database ... 148514 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace cups 1.3.9-2ubuntu4 (using .../cups_1.3.9-2_amd64.deb) ... * Stopping Common Unix Printing System: cupsd [ OK ] Unpacking replacement cups ... Selecting previously deselected package cups-bsd. Preparing to replace cups-bsd 1.3.9-2ubuntu4 (using .../cups-bsd_1.3.9-2_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement cups-bsd ... Selecting previously deselected package cups-client. Preparing to replace cups-client 1.3.9-2ubuntu4 (using .../cups-client_1.3.9-2_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement cups-client ... Processing triggers for doc-base ... Processing 1 changed doc-base file(s)... Registering documents with scrollkeeper... Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for ufw ... ERROR: Couldn't stat '/etc/default/ufw' dpkg: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1 E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2) A package failed to install. Trying to recover: Setting up cups-client (1.3.9-2) ...

Setting up ufw (0.23.2) ...

Setting up cups (1.3.9-2) ...

Installing new version of config file /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.cupsd ... Reloading AppArmor profiles : done. * Starting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd [ OK ]

dpkg: ../../src/packages.c:221: process_queue: Assertion `dependtry <= 4' failed. Aborted Press return to continue.

But wait, what’s that error?

Processing triggers for ufw ... ERROR: Couldn't stat '/etc/default/ufw' dpkg: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1 E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)

A-hah! It looked like the cups installation needed to process some triggers for the package ufw, and this failed. ufw is Uncomplicated FireWall package for Ubuntu, but it’s a package I’m not using.

So, maybe if I were to uninstall ufw, the cups packages would successfully install?

sudo aptitude purge ufw

If you want to keep the ufw configuration files, you can try this instead:

sudo aptitude remove ufw

Removing ufw may display some cups errors, but ufw should still successfully uninstall.

At this point, the resolution that aptitude first suggested worked as well:

sudo dpkg --configure -a

And now to install the latest version of cups instead of the downgraded versions I attempted to install.

Preconfiguring packages ... (Reading database ... 148481 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace cups 1.3.9-2 (using .../cups_1.3.9-2ubuntu4_amd64.deb) ... * Stopping Common Unix Printing System: cupsd [ OK ] Unpacking replacement cups ... Preparing to replace cups-bsd 1.3.9-2 (using .../cups-bsd_1.3.9-2ubuntu4_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement cups-bsd ... Preparing to replace cups-client 1.3.9-2 (using .../cups-client_1.3.9-2ubuntu4_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement cups-client ... Processing triggers for doc-base ... Processing 1 changed doc-base file(s)... Registering documents with scrollkeeper... Processing triggers for man-db ... Setting up cups (1.3.9-2ubuntu4) ... Installing new version of config file /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.cupsd ... Reloading AppArmor profiles : done. * Starting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd [ OK ]

Setting up cups-client (1.3.9-2ubuntu4) ...

Setting up cups-bsd (1.3.9-2ubuntu4) ...

Press return to continue.

Presto! It worked!

At this point I reinstalled ufw and all was as it should be.

Along the way I was also able to find a cool way of listing packages on one’s system that are not completely installed. From a command line terminal, you can enter the following:

sudo dpkg -l | grep -v ^ii

The first portion of this command, sudo dpkg -l, will list all the packages on your system. The second portion, grep -v ^ii, says, ‘search through that list of packages for any line that does not start with “ii“‘. The letters “ii” at the beginning of a line of the package listing indicates the package is successfully installed.

Quite an eventful application of system updates! I love Ubuntu for its simplicity, and the fact that upgrades and installations are usually hassle-free. But, even when there’s a problem, the power inherent in Linux allows you to quickly and effectively resolve the issue.

NB: Sorry about the poor formatting of this post, WordPress is simply not co-operating.

Star Trek beams onto Apple Movie Trailers

Sohail Mirza — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:01:35 +0000

May 8th, 2009, a date which previously had no meaning to me, is now a date marked on my calendar.

What’s up on that auspicious day? Star Trek is up, that’s what:

Mr. Abrams, I presume?

This isn’t going to be just another run-of-the-mill Star Trek, but rather J.J. Abrams‘ interpretation of it. I’d known for some time that a new Star Trek was coming in 2009, and that J.J. was at the helm, but for some reason it had slipped to the back of my mind. I suppose the “blah” aftertaste of the last few Trek film outings left me a little jaded. Well, it’s right and proper back at the top of my to-watch list.

Yes, Mr. Abrams, you've caught my attention.

Who is J.J. Abrams? The mastermind behind Lost and Cloverfield, that’s who.

Abrams seems to really hit and miss with viewers though. Lost and Cloverfield are two of his productions that I believe are brilliant, but there are others who find them to be without appeal. My hope is that the same does not happen with Star Trek, though it seems to be inevitable due to the departure from established Star Trek canon.

Showing you the money

The Apple Trailers site is hosting the latest trailer for Star Trek, in HD resolutions of course. By now, you should all know how to download the HD trailers.

For those who can’t download the trailer, or can’t watch it right way, I’m happy to provide a smörgåsbord of screenshots, presented by James Tiberius Kirk himself:

"James Tiberius Kirk here, and more dashing than ever. But, wait, what am I looking at?"

"Ah yes, the the beauty of the Enterprise is a thing to behold!"

"Spock, my good friend, there are you are! Glad to see you're along for the ride as well!"

"Why yes, we do look dashing. What, me with this menacing look, and you with the same stoic expression..."

"The only thing I like more than debating logic with Spock is speed. Warp speed."

"When I'm off-ship, sub-light speeds will have to do."

SPEEEEEEEEEEED!

"It won't just be Spock and I speeding around space. Expect plenty of explosions as well!"

"So where are you going to be come May 8th? That's right, watching me be dashing. With your support, I can be dashing for many more sequels to come."

"Thanks for tuning in. Kirk out."

Geek fanboys ruin everything

"Bwaahai! Everyone knows the Enterprise was built in space and not on Earth. The energy required for a ship of that size to escape Earth's gravity is clearly more than could be produced by the rudimentary anti-matter reactors of the time!"

Good grief, I hope the Star Trek fanboys don’t ruin this for me. I’ve already had to listen to a co-worker dump on the trailer, pointing out every single deviation from Star Trek canon.

Following that, I had an extremely uncanny experience in the elevator the very next day. There, I was subject to one geek telling the other that the movie will be a disappointment because of it’s canonical rejection.

I’ve always considered myself a huge Star Trek fan. Though I cannot recall the design specs for LCARS from memory, I did own the Star Trek Techical Manual. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), I am willing to give a reboot of the series a chance, and moreover, I’m willing to give J.J. Abrams a chance. He deserves at least that from the Trekkies.

See you on May 8th

After the reveal of this trailer, I find myself really looking forward to this new take on Star Trek. J.J. Abrams is the right man for the job of breathing new life into the long-running franchise.

Though the film looks to distinguish itself from estabished lore, I think Gene Roddenberry would’ve been proud.

The Disappearing Male

Sohail Mirza — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:40:45 +0000

Earlier in November, the CBC broadcast an investigative news piece titled The Disappearing Male on Doc Zone. I’ve now read or seen a number of pieces on the issue covered in the report, that of relatively a sharp drop in the number of males of most animal species.

The documentary goes into the details of this phenomenon and discusses how human sexual function and sexual development are experiencing impairment due to the potpourri of man-made chemicals and materials that are present in our natural environment. This impairment is somehow resulting in a reduction in the male to female birth ratio.

In a nutshell, we are experiencing the feminization of the human race.

The long term impact of this such an imbalance in males to females would result in large-scale social imbalances. With a greater number of females, this means fewer females getting married. This would likely negatively impact the already shrinking birth-rate in developed nations resulting in an even larger elderly care problem. This is not even to speak of the social unrest associated with a large population of unmarried individuals, or of the genetic impact this may have on future generations.

I personally feel this issue is huge and warrants greater attention and more research.

Health Canada has recently taken some strong steps towards restricting the presence of the chemical Bisphenol A on the Canadian market. Bisphenol A is considered to be a potential hazard to young children, and as such it’s use in baby bottles is now prohibited. Unfortunately we may only find out the long-term health consequences of these chemicals once it’s too late to reverse the trend, but certainly reducing the exposure of young children to such chemicals is a positive development.

If you haven’t seen The Disappearing Male yet, you can now watch it on Google Video:

Shiny, new failure

Sohail Mirza — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:32:41 +0000

As we come upon another new year, I thought I should dust off the cobwebs on this blog. While I’m at it, why not a new blog design as well? I’ve been in the mood for something a little more open, a little more minimalistic.

Though I celebrate neither Christmas or the New Year, this season has always had an air of change about it. Of course, part of it has to do with the carpet-bombing of Christmas shopping advertisement, but beyond that, there are a number of birthdays in the month of December of close family members.

Historically, I’ve been horrible about birthdays close family and friends. I never remember the birthdays and when I do, I haven’t made much of an effort to get a really thoughtful gift. This year though, I’ve got to change that.

A good friend of mine had his birthday in October, so for his birthday I organized a golf outing with a few mutual friends of ours. We all really had a tremendous blast.

Now, my sister’s birthday is coming up in early December, so I’m thinking, I have to do something really special for her. What speaks of brotherly love better than a brand new laptop?

I’ve always hated laptops for a number of reasons. As someone who has always built his own machines from scratch and relies on the interchangeability of standardized parts, laptops really annoy me. They’re expensive, costly to maintain, come with Windows Vista, and can’t run games at 1920 x 1200. That said, I know my sister would really like one to browse the Internet in any room of the house and get her office work done remotely.

Yesterday I took a trip to Future Shop here in Canada and settled on a Toshiba L300 (PSLB8C-04P01X) featuring an Intel T5800 Core 2 Duo:

The Toshiba L300 at Future Shop

The fact that I was able to find a Toshiba with decent specs and a decent price tag as well went a ways toward making me feel better. I have an impression that Toshiba laptops are built more solidly than other brands.

As well, I have to admit that my hate quickly fades with new technology, laptop or not.

Except when the experience of using it is awful. As was the case with the Toshiba L300.

For starters, from the moment I turned on the laptop to the moment I could actually use Windows, 1 hour and 45 minutes had elapsed. The laptop rebooted approximately 5 times during this process, 2 of which happened at points where Windows had become momentarily usable, making you think it was ready for use. Uber Fail #1. What was the laptop doing in all that time? Completing the Vista installation, and ensuring I’d be encumbered by software offers that I didn’t want. Fail #2. What would it take to get a clean Vista installation on the laptop? An act of God given that laptop manufacturers no longer include the O/S on disc. Fail #3. Forget Vista, what about XP? Not supported (no drivers). Fail #4. Fine, the hell with XP. What about Vista drivers so I can re-install in case I get a copy of Vista at a later date? No dice. The laptop is a model built exclusively for Future Shop, so there are no drivers available online at all, let alone any other support materials for the model on the Toshiba website. Fail #5!

"Get lost! We don't have any of your precious drivers here!"

By the end of Fail #1 I had already had enough, let alone the other 4 points of frustration. Imagine I had given the laptop to my sister without having opened it. She would’ve been furious at having to wait so long for the system to become usable.

The other point of extreme frustration that deserves mention is the fact that laptop manufacturers do not include a clean Vista disc with laptops anymore. They’ve instead gotten into the habit of including a recovery partition on the hard drive. This is to ensure that: 1) You have to spend your own time and money to burn a recovery disc that has an O/S on it, and 2) You’ll never, ever be rid of their annoying software offers since they’ve been backed up onto the recovery disc as well.

Needless to say, the whole experience was an epic failure, and the laptop was promptly returned today. If there’s one thing to be said about Future Shop, it’s that they took back the laptop without any hassles. I was slightly taken aback by that!

I have a decent amount of respect for Microsoft as a company, and Windows XP as an operating system. Even XP took time to mature, but it was never as horrible as Vista. None of the problems I’ve described here are Vista problems per se (not to say Vista itself didn’t annoy me), but they have to be judged as part of the Microsoft/Vista experience. This experience is so horrific that one has no choice but to conclude that OS X, Ubuntu, and even Windows XP are an excellent respite. I’m just sad to say I had to give up on Vista.

By comparison, the simplicity of OS X is a thing to marvel, and the malleability of Linux is empowering. Neither can be said about Vista or the Microsoft experience. Instead, I was held powerless and left to marvel at the absurdity of it all.

"You know you want me. I actually work."

Based on this experience I’ve decied that if I’m to get my sister a new laptop, it will almost certainly be a sparkling MacBook. It comes at a premium, but the hassle-free experience is worth it.

I can haz more jigabites?

Sohail Mirza — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:38:00 +0000

I’m not sure whether the same is true for others, but my Gmail account just surpassed the 7GB mark in available mailbox space.

7000MB and counting...

Of course, Yahoo offers unlimited space, but 7GB is plenty for me! I still maintain that Gmail has the best interface of any mail client (desktop clients included).

Is Faster Access to the Internet Needed?

Sohail Mirza — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:56:09 +0000

Vishesh Kumar of the Wall Street Journal writes:

When it comes to Internet access, is there such a thing as too fast? That’s a question U.S. Internet providers are grappling with as they place strategic bets on whether or not to upgrade their networks to offer high-priced, superhigh-speed Web connections.

There have been plenty of comparisons between Internet access speeds and money. Can one ever have enough money? I’m sure none of us is at a loss when it comes to thinking of ways to spend money.

But more important than the money analogy is the importance of faster Internet access to media and technological innovation.

Since the advent of broadband connections we’ve seen the rise to ubiquity of YouTube, the advent of Internet applications that rival their desktop counterparts in functionality, and even the feasibility of cloud computing. More than this, we’ve seen unprecedented democratization of information and the absolute ease of its dissemination.

This progress has all be thanks to the rise in Internet speeds.

Now imagine what we can do with 100Mbps or 400Mbps connections. Just think of the possibilities.

Superhigh-speed broadband connections has the potential to make ubiquitous high-resolution videos, real-time video broadcast, and much, much more. Most exciting is the prospect of engaging, entertaining, useful and indispensible applications of these superhigh-speed connections that we haven’t even thought of yet.

We don’t normally think of money as enabling us to contribute to society on the grand scale, and so comparisons of bandwidth-wealth to monetary-wealth fall short. Bandwidth-wealth will usher in the next generation of rich media and communications access.

The important questions to ask no longer pertain to the need for faster internet access, but rather to the issues around time to deployment and ease of access.

I’d like my superhigh-speed access now, please, and I’ll take it in the 400Mbps variety, thank you very much!

(From Digg)

The Canadian People vs. Bell & Rogers: An open letter to Jim Prentice

Sohail Mirza — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:23:22 +0000

It looks like the net neutrality debate is finally picking up in Canada. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve been way overdue for such a debate. Rogers Canada’s traffic shaping practice, and now Bell’s, has gone on long enough. South of the border, Comcast has buckled to consumer outrage and Congressional pressure. Canadians need to let Rogers and Bell know how disappointed we are as well.

In the fight against big media, I believe we need the government to support the Canadian people against the unfair advantage these telecoms have. They own all the infrastructure and obviously have an interest in ensuring the Internet cannot threaten their significant investments into competing distribution channels (digital cable or satellite service).

To this end, I’ve written to Jim Prentice, the Minister of Industry.

Read on…

Dear Mr. Prentice:

As a very concerned Canadian citizen, I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with your ministry’s policy of remaining uninvolved in the case of The Canadian People vs. Bell & Rogers in the issue of net neutrality.

In response to Charlie Angus’ question about your ministry’s involvement in this fight, the Globe and Mail quotes you as saying:

“At this point in time we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and Internet service providers on the other”

I was extremely disappointed to read that you are leaving the Canadian people to fight an unfair battle, one in which the opponent holds the upper hand and all the bargaining power.

What power do I as a consumer have? If today Rogers and Bell are suppressing technologies like BitTorrent, which help to enable media distribution over the Internet, what alternatives do I have? BitTorrent and other Internet distribution technologies are the future of content distribution. These technologies are also a direct threat to Rogers’ digital cable and Bell’s satellite service offerings. Is it any surprise that we now find Bell is also traffic shaping and reducing the quality of the service offered by the wholesale service providers (an act that is also plainly anti-competitive)?

I would love for you to tell me what options I have, and what I can do to encourage Rogers or Bell to change their policy and keep the Internet open and fair. Tell me which provider I can switch to, or how I can vote with my dollar. Either that or tell me why I should trust such a critical public resource as the Internet to the likes of Bell or Rogers.

While you’re at it, also tell me how you’re securing the future of net neutrality and net innovation in Canada, and ensuring that we don’t end up becoming the laughing stock of the developed world.

Bell & Rogers have no will to concede to the Canadian people, and we have nowhere else to take our dollars without going back to stone-age Internet access.

Do you call this a fair fight, sir?

I urge you and our other representatives to take some action to ensure fair, responsible access to the Internet, such that innovation and choice — the lifeblood of the Internet — will be preserved.

Thank you for your time.

Sohail Mirza

If you’d like to contribute to the discussion, then be sure to share your opinion with Jim Prentice at prentice.j AT parl.gc.ca (please be civil), or get in touch with your local MP. Oh, and do get involved with the Campaign for Democratic Media. It’s about time a consumer-rights organization got involved in the fight.

New sterling designs

Sohail Mirza — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:17:38 +0000

The Royal Mint has unveiled new designs for the 1 pence through £1 coins. The new designs incorporate the Royal Arms and are absolutely brilliant in my opinion. They were conceived by Matthew Dent, a 26-year old graphic designer.

Brilliant!

(Via kottke)

Canadian Telecoms need to see our anger

Sohail Mirza — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:09:30 +0000

Yesterday, Arstechnica reported that Bell Canada had started throttling P2P traffic not only across its own network, but even on the services being resold or redistributed by other DSL ISPs.

Throttling and other anti-P2P practises appear to gaining prevelance amongst the Canadian ISPs for some reason. Meanwhile, south of the border, the American public is in an uproar over the anti-P2P practices of Rogers‘ counterpart, Comcast. All the while, Rogers has been engaging in anti-P2P practices — in fact, anti-net neutrality practices — far worse than what Comcast has been charged with; while Comcast may be resetting P2P connections at certain times of the day or in certain areas, Rogers throttles ALL encrypted traffic wholesale.

My question is, why aren’t Canadians as concerned about Net censorship and the impaired quality of broadband offerings here? American ISPs can hardly get away with anything without Congressional hearings being arranged, and up here Rogers is making a complete mockery of the concept of net neutrality.

Canadians, it’s time to wake up and hold the telecom giants’ feet to the fire.

Someone please tell me where I can sign up to express my anger, and hopefully in a manner that might drive legislative change barring what Rogers, and now Bell, are up to. I’m angry, dangnabbit!

(Via digg)

Who loves them some robot?

Sohail Mirza — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:25 +0000

Oh my Lord.

Yep, the age of robotic companionship is upon us. Given advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and not to mention expanded definitions of marriage, it seems inevitable.

Robot spouses are hardly going to become the norm — indeed they remain an anomaly at the moment (unless you know something I don’t!) — but I can certainly see the allure for a certain category of people. Perhaps those who may find it difficult to relate to other people, or find the prospect of real human relationships too risky.

Frankly, I’m somewhat disturbed by Zoltan’s story. It speaks to me of someone who finds real emotional contact with a human being too difficult. As well, this is damning indictment of society at large in that we’ve been unable to help those who are emotionally repressed or fragile.

I’m sure there are those that would readily disagree with my opinion here. After all, why shouldn’t everyone be able to do what they want and what they’re comfortable with?

I have to think that human beings gain the most satisfaction from accomplishment, and especially emotional accomplishment. There is nothing more emotionally satisfying than a fantastic relationship, and especially with one’s spouse.

I’m sure this is going to become a more contentious and fascinating issue as technology advances, so feel free to sound off in the comments with your own opinion.

(Via digg)

Jericho cancelled, yet again

Sohail Mirza — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:14:38 +0000

Over at ReadWriteWeb, Josh Catone comments that internet fandom is not ready for primetime. This commentary follows the news that the CBS TV series Jericho was cancelled again.

Josh asks:

What do you think? Are there any other reasons why strong online numbers haven’t translated well to the TV? Do you think Internet fandom will ever be ready for primetime?

In the comments, David Dworsky replies with an excellent statement. He essentially asks when the differentiation made between TV and the Internet will cease.

I actually wholeheartedly agree with David. As an example, I barely watch TV shows on my television anymore. In fact, for the last few years, I’ve not even had a television, preferring to either watch shows with the TV tuner on my computer, or better yet, preferring to download the TV shows so that I could watch them at my leisure.

This is hardly a new concept to this Internet generation, but people are more and more expecting to be able to consume media on the devices of their choosing, at the time of their choosing, and via the medium of their choosing.

I believe this fact has really impressed upon on the TV industry.

Unfortunately, the industry still relies on old-world metrics that appear to have dealt Jericho a fatal blow. It’s really too bad since the show is genuinely entertaining, and obviously has a large following.

My hope is that Jericho is only the first of such shows, and that eventually shows with large online followings are realized to be as worthy of investment as major network shows like Lost or House. In fact I’d like to see us more rapidly advance to a point of being medium-agnostic when it comes to content distribution and consumption.