So, it's a beautiful day-before-Thanksgiving here in Virginia, and I desperately needed to get out on my mountain bike, "Hank"*, for some pre-turkey exercise. The autumn foliage is just a bit past its prime, but it's still spectacularly beautiful. And on top of that, it was sunny all day and the temperature got up to about 24C (that's about 74F) -- just fabulous. Nice enough for riding in short pants and t-shirt, even. Perhaps global warming doesn't suck too bad (so far).

As luck would have it, our friend Lisa was here to help with some Thanksgiving prep and she wanted to borrow my camera to capture a bit of our autumnal beauty outside. She offered to get an action shot of me and "Hank", so I quickly took her up on the offer. (I don't think I have any shots of me on my bike.) Here's a couple shots from a sequence she took on one of my favorite nearby hills.

Trails are for those who follow them



It's far more gratifying to blaze your own trail

Sure, it's not exactly the Alpe d'Huez, and Lance's 7 Tour victories are still quite safe and sound, but it is a fun hill to ride. I often hit it after a 23-25km ride on really nice days. I didn't go that far today, but the weather sure was beckoning me to ride on.

* You might wonder why I call my bike "Hank". Well, it's a Canondale Jekyll 1000 that I bought off of eBay a couple years back (and then did a few modifications). I have a silly habit of naming things, so I figured Jekyll... Well, Doctor Jekyll's first name, according to the book, is Henry. So, Hank just seemed like the right name. (Aren't you glad you read this footnote now?)

Cheers,

Ken

Some of you may remember my "Pigs can fly!" posting here where I explained why I've finally gone and gotten myself a Macintosh (Macbook Pro 15"). Well, it's been well over a year now of Mac bliss. I remain absolutely convinced that Macs are the right choice for me, and in fact are right for a whole heck of a lot of people. I'm certain that Apple's growth is representative of a renaissance in computing -- a new age of enlightenment. Strong words, but they're not without meaning.

In my 1.25 years of Mac-dom, I've found several pieces of software that I consider to be essential to me. Things that I really wouldn't want to be without. I thought I'd share those here, for what they're worth. Mind you, I've installed quite a bit of software on my Mac, but the list below will focus on the things that I use daily and that (by and large) are in my system dock.

My list of essential Mac software (other than the basics that come with the system), in no particular order:

• Firefox with no-script. Let me first say that I really like Apple's Safari browser. I'd be using it now except for one little thing -- control over JavaScript. In my opinion, JavaScript, is responsible for the vast majority of web-related security bad things. I need to have control over what sites I want running JavaScript on my computer. Mozilla's Firefox, combined with the No-Script plug-in give me exactly that. No-Script starts off disallowing all JavaScript, but you can add sites one at a time into a "whitelist" of sorts. That way, you can turn on JS for the sites that you want running it, and all the rest can't run scripting at all. Not perfect, but it's a LOT more control than I had under Safari.
• Newsfire. I read a lot of news sites on a daily basis, from tech news to Mac stuff, wireless stuff, and even world events. Oh, and news from the wine/culinary world as well. My only hope of keeping up with all this information is RSS. I was introduced a while back to Newsfire, which is an absolutely splendid RSS reader. Now, I should note that I'm currently experimenting with Apple's own Mail program's RSS reading capabilities -- which is a new feature of Leopard. But I still have my Newsfire and may well go back to it if/when Mail fails me. It's commercial, but not particularly expensive.
• Parallels. I was a VMWare user way back in the day, and I loved it. When I moved to the Mac, I needed a way to occasionally run another OS. So, a few months ago, I added Parallels to my list of apps. I now run a Windows XP box in a virtual machine. It's great for the training I do. I can load up XP, install stuff on it, hurt it, make it beg for mercy, cry like a baby, or whatever -- and then go back to the pristine XP configuration at the click of a mouse. And it's quite fast, too. Absolutely fantastic for my needs. It's commercial, but isn't very expensive -- look for it on Amazon for a discount.
• Callwave SMS widget. I do a lot of text messaging. Although my phone plan includes a huge bucket of messages for U.S. numbers, international SMSs are still quite expensive (in the quantities I send). This little SMS widget provides me with free messages. There's a daily limit, but I rarely hit it. Great stuff, and it's really easy to use. Oh, and it's free.
• Rapid Weaver. This one is my newest addition to my must-have list. But I've come to really like Rapid Weaver. What a great tool for building and maintaining web sites like this one! It is commercial, but not very expensive, and there are some coupon codes floating around the net that can get you a few dollars off the retail price.
• MacGourmet. Another inexpensive and highly worthwhile commercial tool, I've come to really like MacGourmet for organizing my favorite recipes. (I'll be putting at least several of my recipes on this site in MacGourmet format shortly, by the way.)
• Missing Sync for Blackberry. I used a Blackberry years ago, and now I'm back. I love the email comms, and my provider (T-Mobile USA) has a great all-you-can-eat data plan and an all-you-can-eat international roaming data plan that are fabulous. This essential (and commercial, but cheap) app enables me to sync my Blackberry data over to my Mac. For various reasons, the iPhone isn't yet ready for me, but the Blackberry serves my needs very well. Without Missing Sync, I'd be sunk.
• Spanning Sync. As a small business owner, I don't have a calendaring/groupware server for my company. I have an email and file server hosted externally, but not a calendar server (yet). Google Calendar came along and helped me with that enormously. Spanning Sync takes Google Calendar to the next level -- it syncs bi-directionally with my Apple Calendar data. Awesome add-on! It's sold on an annual service subscription basis, but is way cheaper than a calendar server. Finally, Caren and I can share a calendar.
• Chicken of the VNC. I use Virtual Network Computer a lot for administering the computers on my internal net. Chicken of the VNC is a great and free VNC client for the Mac.
• Macports. One of the things I like so much about Apple's OS X operating system is its UNIX underbelly. I've been a UNIX guy for over 2 decades, and I'm just more comfortable there than I ever was on MS-DOS (or its derivatives). Macports is a collection of (mostly) BSD-UNIX derived applications that have been ported to the Mac. All open source, free, and excellent!
• TiVo Desktop. I love my TiVo. I love my Mac. A few months back, we upgraded our old Series-1 TiVo to a Series-2, thanks to TiVo's offer of transferring our lifetime service subscription over. Now, my TiVo is finally on my data network, and I can move things back and forth between the computers and the TiVo. TiVo Desktop is the piece that enables me to share movies, shows, etc., from my Mac over and play them on the TiVo. Absolutely essential, and it's free from the wonderful folks at TiVo.
• TiVo Download Manager. I still love my TiVo. This enormously useful piece of free software allows me to download files from my TiVo onto my Mac -- and convert them into MPEG-2 format at the same time. It's actually a front-end to curl and TiVo Decoder, but it puts everything in one easy-to-use bundle. I can now grab anything from my TiVo and put it on a big honkin hard drive on my Mac, and then watch it whenever I choose to, without taking up valuable space on the TiVo itself. Great stuff.
• iWork '08. As you might expect, I require the ability to read/write MS-Word, Powerpoint, and Excel formatted files quite frequently in my work. I've been a fan of Apple's iWork for some time now. When '08 came out a few months ago, I grabbed a "family pack" (with 5 legal installations available) for about $100 on Amazon. That's $20 per seat, and it's some of the best money I've spent. I still keep MS-Office around, but I find myself using iWork more and more instead of Office. Keynote (the Powerpoint equivalent) alone is worth the price of admission. I build presentations with it that look worlds better than any I've ever seen in Powerpoint.

There they are. Great stuff, each and every one. I run all of these (as noted) on Leopard, which I'm absolutely thrilled with. Nothing I ever experienced in PC- or Linux-land ever came close for me. I'm a believer.

It is the age of enlightenment.

Cheers,

Ken

The first "Internet" application I ever used was email, circa 1983. Seeing computers used to communicate (and not just solve scientific equations) was an epiphany to me. But, I was shattered to later learn that email isn't secure. In fact, it is about as far from secure as anything we know in the electronic world.

So, for about the past 2 years, I've been slowly -- but increasingly loudly -- advocating secure email. I've been a PGP user since it was introduced to the public in 1992, and more recently, I've been an S/MIME user. I started digitally signing all of my outgoing emails as of about 2 years back. It was an experiment, and one that hasn't entirely succeeded, I should add.

Then, about a year or so ago, I learned about Thawte's free email certificate program. They use a certificate signing mechanism not entirely unlike PGP's web of trust. When you get a free (!) Thawte email certificate, you start by only being able to include your email address in the certificate. Then, you get your identity verified by Thawte notaries, who are community volunteers who help the effort. Once you've gotten sufficient (50) points, you can include your real name in your (still free) email certificates.

This seemed like an interesting and novel approach to me, so I went ahead and took the plunge. In the last couple months, I've gotten not just the 50 points I needed to have my real name in my certificate, but the 100 points needed to become a Thawte notary. I decided to put my money where my mouth is and be part of a solution and not just whine about all the problems.

In order to notarize a Thawte certificate, the notary must meet the certificate holder in person and verify her identity via two forms of national identification (e.g., passport and driver's license).

I am now a Thawte notary. If any of you are interested in this free (!) and useful service, start by going out to the Thawte web site and getting yourself a freemail certificate. Most modern emailers and browsers can handle X.509 certificates just fine. Follow Thawte's instructions (admittedly, their web site isn't entirely intuitive) and start using your certificate. Then, go out and find a couple notaries in your area, again via the Thawte web site. It only takes a few notarizations and then you'll be up and running with a free X.509 certificate.

I'm happy to notarize any of you who want to make use of this -- after following the proper procedure, of course.

Big deal, eh? Well, the big deal is that now you can send email that your recipients can validate with a high degree of confidence came from you. Believe it or not, that is a big deal. If you want to be able to trust the email you receive, then this little bit of infrastructure is essential.

Cheers,

Ken

Ok, I just know this is going to come up, so I'm going to try to pre-empt it...

Did I match the new site theme to the shirt I'm wearing on my main page? Of course not! I'm an engineer. I'd be more likely to be able to cite the spark plug firing sequence on a V-12 Ferrari than to do something like that. Seriously.

Call it dumb luck. Call it serendipity. But please oh please do not call it coordinated. To do so would be to insult millions of engineers.

Cheers,

Ken

Ok, so I've finally made the leap and picked up a copy of a really nice web editor called Rapid Weaver. Apart from being really easy to use (on a Mac, of course), it has enabled me to do some neat things with my personal and my business web sites. Although I'd like to see a little more functionality, I'm real happy with it overall. Perhaps the functionality I seek is there, but I just haven't figured it out yet. Give it time...

In any case, I'm still moving some stuff over from my old site, but most of the important things are over here already. Still to come: culinary adventures (does anyone read these?), cool links, etc.

Ideas and suggestions are always appreciated.

Oh yeah, here in the journal (NOT blog!), you can navigate to archived postings by date or category over on the right hand side of the page.

Cheers,

Ken

I've found the most significant danger on the road or trail.

I'm a mountain biker. I try to ride pretty much every day when I'm not traveling, and generally end up going between 20-25 kilometers over some pretty hilly roads and trails here in the Alexandria, Virginia area.

Living just a couple miles outside the DC beltway, things tend to be pretty crowded on the roads as well as the trails. There are cars everywhere, joggers, other bicycles, and parents walking kids, just to name a few.

I've always been really careful around the cars, as they seem to be the most serious threat to the cyclist, but lately I've come to realize there's something even worse. Pedestrians with music players (generally iPods and other MP3 players).

That's right, these people are far more dangerous to the cyclist (and to themselves) than anything else I've found.

Cars generally stick to some semblance of traffic rules. I keep a safe distance from them and we all get along fine. Pedestrians with iPods, however, are another matter.

I try my best to be respectful and courteous to pedestrians. I always say hello. I always give them the right-of-way -- often going well into the grass to give them safe passage. When approaching them from behind, I always call out "passing" from a safe distance. All the things that you'd hope for from a cyclist sharing the road with pedestrians.

And there in lies the rub. I come up behind pedestrians and look for earphones now because I know they're more than likely to not hear my "passing" notice. Worse yet, they're apt to change "lanes" without notice. They're apt to panic when they eventually see me, often getting into more danger than they would have been otherwise.

I haven't hit one (yet), but I know it's a matter of time. For now, when I see earphones, I slow down and go *way* out of my way to avoid them. They're deadly.

So, way back on 9 May 2005, I posted an entry here saying that I'd gotten and was very happy with SunRocket's Voice over IP (VoIP) service. Last week, while I was traveling on business in Mexico, I saw a headline saing that SunRocket was going out of business. I immediately signed up with one of their competitors (Vonage) and, as of today, my account is active and my old number has been transferred over.

Here's the thing. Well, maybe more than one thing... As a very (!) small business owner, I have grown to rely on VoIP for my business phone line. They're relatively cheap, easy to work with, and overall very good. My opinion on that has not swayed, despite this bad experience with SunRocket. I wouldn't advise many/most people to get VoIP as their ONLY phone service at home, however. But, as a second number, they're fabulous.

Well, they're as good as your broadband is. I'm fortunate to be in an area where my cable modem speed is superb -- I regularly measure 20 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload. VoIP has NO problems with that.

And I can sympathize with SunRocket's circumstances. They were heavily VC-backed, and their VC investors were unwilling to put any more money into the company. I've been there, done that. But wow, they sure handled the situation in a horrific manner. The fact that I learned of their demise from a magazine headline is inexcusable. The fact that I had to turn to another provider and make arrangements myself to transfer my service is inexcusable. I really wish I hadn't given them any of my business, but that's water under the bridge.

I do hope that their actions haven't tainted the entire VoIP community, though, but I think the damage has been done.

As anyone who actually reads this web site knows, I travel quite a bit, both on business as well as for pleasure (whenever possible). What's more, for various reasons (primarily convenience), I tend to fly mostly on one airline -- United.

Now, United isn't the best airline -- or the worst -- without a doubt. They have more than their share of warts. But, as an "elite" (1K) flyer on them, when something goes wrong, I tend to get it resolved pretty quickly and easily. Usually.

But I just got back from a trip to Rome yesterday. (See this link for some pix.) My customer tried to pinch a few pennies and I ended up on US Airways instead of United. Mistake #1.

I left Washington Reagan airport on the day after a northeastern US snow and ice storm. Not surprisingly, things were delayed. I'm completely understanding of the situation at this point.

But US Airways had, I'm told and have verified via news reports, recently upgraded one of its main computer systems. Not sure what went wrong behind the scenes, but at the front counter, it was pandemonium. The check-in line at DCA was hundreds of yards long. No kidding.

After a couple hours in line and nearly giving up, a couple US Air employees came through and grabbed those of us who might still make today's flight. I was among the lucky. Got to Philly just fine, but ended up missing the Rome flight.

Then -- and I have to give due credit here -- a couple of wonderful US Airways employees in the US Air Club helped me re-route my trip via Munich. Looks like I made it. But more delays...

I ended up in Rome without my bags and had to go to my customer site in smelly, dirty jeans/rugby without a change of clothes. Bags finally arrived late Monday.

But that still wouldn't get them into my Never Again Club (NAC).

On my return from Rome yesterday, I picked up my bags in Philly. Everything was on time. Two hours in Philly to catch my connection to DCA. No problem. Get to DCA and, you guessed it, no bags.

In fact, not only were my bags lost, but about 2/3 of the people on my flight were stranded without their bags as well. We waited pathetically at the baggage carousel only to have about 10 bags come out from our flight and then the carousel shut down. No more bags.

I just can't believe this. How could an airline be so blatantly mis-managed to make this kind of mistake over and over? It just boggles my mind and forces me to spotlight them here, for all that's worth ;-\, in my Never Again Club, with honors.

Oh, and I'm typing this the morning after I arrived home. No bags yet, and I'm waiting for my ride back to the airport to leave on yet another business trip (on United!). I've had to pull together a replacement dop kit and such, but I'll make it. And I'm confident that United will live up to my expectations, but who knows.