YWGAV

Every so often, one of my buddies will tell me about some “killer” app that I just have to try. Sometimes they’re right – the app truly is killer and I’m glad they had me try it. Other times I try it and simply feel “meh” about it.

The Past

That’s how I initially felt about 1Password, from Agile Web Solutions. Perhaps it was because I was extremely tired and under a fair amount of stress – I’m not sure – but I simply did not give the app the time and attention it deserved for a truly fair assessment.   

And so it was – 1Password sat on my mac for a long time without really being used much. I knew – in the back of my mind – that it had potential and that I really should dig into it and see what it could do for me. For months, I avoided doing so.   

1Password Touch came out for the iPhone and I dutifully downloaded it, but again it mostly sat unused (though it was synced with my mac, which I tested and thought was neat).   

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A few weeks ago I was visiting a friend who had been trying to convince me to jailbreak my iPhone for quite a while. I had not done so because I really didn’t feel compelled to. My phone could do everything I wanted it to do, and did so pretty damn well.

While visiting my friend, he finally wore me down and I let him jailbreak my phone. This gave me the ability to change how the UI looked, to some extent. Beyond that, it also severely decreased system performance and stability, causing my phone to run slow when doing simple things like, say, opening my sms messaging app.   

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Yesterday the world was introduced to the wonderfulness that is the iPhone 3.0 software update. I know around my office nearly every geek in sight was hunched in front of his or her workstation furiously foaming at the mouth waiting for the update to finish downloading and install.

The update provides some wonderful new features (searching, cut and paste to name a few) with a few promised to be “on the horizon”. What it doesn’t offer, for those on AT&T anyways, is MMS and Tethering, two of the most sought after features. Two that SHOULD be there, but aren’t because AT&T seriously dropped the ball.

For those who are adventurous, it IS possible to enable tethering on the iPhone on AT&T. While I do vouch for these instructions working, I do not know what – if any – repercussions may come from following them. You do so at your own risk, and I will not be held accountable for YOUR actions.

Having said that – here’s how to enable it (if you’re using Mac OS X)

• First, download This File to your desktop
• Next, connect your iphone to your computer. If it syncs when you first connect it, wait until it finishes syncing.
• Then, run the following in a terminal: defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE
• finally, go to the device summary for your iPhone within iTunes, while holding down the Option key, press “Restore”. in the window that opens locate the ipcc file you downloaded in the first step, select it and click ok.

NOTE: If for some reason the ipcc file is grayed out, re-run the command in the terminal. I had to run it twice for it to work.

Now, tethering is enabled on your phone, to turn it on go to Settings -> General -> Network, you’ll see a new option there to enable Tethering. Click that button and follow instructions.

There you have it – you can do what you want with this information, but you do it at your own risk

Enjoy!

[Update]: my buddy Brian points out that if you download the file linked above, directly onto the iPhone, it goes into effect immediately. shaving off three steps.  Thanks Brian!

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I’ve recently made some changes to my network topology at home which included re-IP’ing my network.  Since I do my IP addressing via DHCP this isn’t normally a big deal and I thought nothing of it.   Then I realized that my security camera through FrontPoint (and Alarm.com) no longer worked.

Since the instructions for the camera don’t give any guidance on how to reset the camera, and I could find nothing quickly in a google search, I thought I’d post a quick set of instructions on here.

Since my camera now could no longer talk to Alarm.com, I couldn’t access it via their servers to change IP information.   Instead I had to reset the camera and perform the “initial camera setup” steps all over again.

To reset the camera, take a paperclip or similarly sized object and press the reset button located in a recessed area on the back of the camera.  I held that for approximately 15-20 seconds before releasing.    The blue and orange led’s on the front of the camera flashed a few times and it rebooted (twice, I think).  Do this WITH power connected.

After that I followed the instructions for initial setup of the camera and all was fine.

Simple.  The way I like it.

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I’ve written many times here about the alarm system I’ve installed in my house.  I’m a geek, and wasn’t satisfied with an ordinary alarm system from companies like ADT, Sonitrol, Brinks, etc.   I wanted something with more interactivity, expandability, and ability to fit into the smart home I’ve been building out.
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It’s been a while since I posted anything on this site, partially due to the run-up to my recent wedding, and partially because I’ve been too busy with work and my new job to really do anything with my computer lab at home.

The wedding is now over, and the honeymoon taken, so it’s time to get back to work.  Part of that means getting back to work on my blogs and other things that have languished in the past few months as my attention has been directed elsewhere.
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So, on my work laptop I am using PGP to perform whole disk encryption.  It’s a Macbook Pro,  and being a mobile machine we needed to encrypt it’s drive.

For some reason my Macbook Pro locked up during the encryption process (I can say positively that it’s an unrelated issue – the encryption itself is not the cause of the lockup, it was happening before encryption was introduced and Ive yet to identify the cause).

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I wrote earlier about one of my XServes that had problems with a kernel panic on boot. While I still have NO idea what the underlying cause happens to be, it seems to have corrected itself.

Earlier today, on a hunch, I went and booted the server. I figured the worst that would happen is another Kernel Panic. This time, instead of the expected text output informing me the kernel had a mental breakdown I was greeted with, after a short delay, the login prompt.

My best guess, and it’s just a guess nothing more, is that this is a temperature issue. It was VERY cold last night, to the tune of about 0 degrees. Also note that, at the time this started, the garage door had been left open (and yes, my server rack is in my garage). My best guess – at this point – is that the server had a difficult time booting at such temperatures. Once things warmed up a bit during the day the problems disappeared.

This is, however, just a guess. The machine could crap out and start kernel panic’ing again at any time for all I know. I sincerely hope it does not.

I have not cut my network over to start using it as the gateway again yet. That is a project for either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on the stability of the system.

I’ll update here as more information becomes available.

[Update]: The issue was temperature.  The temperature around the rack was approximately -3 degrees F.  For those that happent to have read the specs on XServe operating temperatures,   the low end of it is about 53 degrees warmer than my rack was.    Oops.   Apparently you CAN get a computer too cold .   Helluva problem to have, though.

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So I’ve written here before about my home network. It’s more advanced than most because I enjoy playing with technology and making it work for me. Some people watch TV or play video games constantly, I play with servers and networks. Just like sometimes an XBox 360 will give the red-ring of death, my servers aren’t always healthy. Or working at all.

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