More on Syncing.

I just don't know why this is hard for everyone to do. Companies like PALM have been doing it forever between Outlook and the in PALM databases. Why is this hard for everyone else?

I carry one VISTA notebook. Sometimes I boot it into Ubuntu (I'd love to live here but...). I have a desktop machine at home in an office, and my wife has one in the living room. I carry a Windows Mobile device (this one is very, very bad, but it does work with email).

All of these locations need access to my calendar. I have tried everything and it does not take long and duplicates start to show up. I finally had to kill scheduleworld and funambol from all my machines. It started great, but soon duplicates started to show up.

Now I'm trying to tie my world together with Plaxo. We'll see. They offer a $49.95/year service that does such amazing things as "removes duplicates". Why is this an extra feature? I'm going to try it without paying for that feature. Why? I'm a teacher, I do not have $49.95/year to blow on this.

Common folks, can't someone write a client/server solution to tie together and online calendar like google calender, and offline calender like outlook, and a carry it around calendar like WinMobile. Google should be all over this.

I'll let you know how plaxo works. It looks very close, but the price for the extra is just too much.

SNMP make work for you

Just because you are small doesn't mean you don't need to know about your servers, switches and key desktops. You do!

That's why years and years ago someone wrote SNMP or Simple Network Management Protocol. For who and when ... go Google it. Or go here: Net-SNMP

I just wanted to tell you how I use it on small networks to monitor key stuff. There are two basic parts. One is the part that runs on the client machines. That's your servers, switches and stuff. The other part is a monitor software that will grab all this snmp info and tell you about it. Here is a list of clients I use:

Windows

• built-in. Go to add/remove Programs, then Add/Remove Windows components then Management and Monitoring tools and then SNMP.
• For great Windows instructions go here: Windows Link

Linux

• really depends on the flavour. Most likely you have snmp already and just have to turn it on

Mac

• Ahh. I forgot

Hardware Devices

• You'll have to mess around with your device to see, but basically look for a box to check by snmp. You might have to define the community, default will be public (more later).
• In general good managed routers and switches will do snmp. Cheap non-managed ones will not.
  

Then the fun begins. There are a ridiculus number of network monitoring tools out there. All are free. Here are a few I've tried and like

• OpManager (runs on either Linux or Windows)
• Cacti (runs under Linux)
• Good setup instructions
  
• MRTG (runs on either Linux or Windows)
• setup instructions
  
• Zenoss (runs in it's own vmplayer)
• Setup instructions
  

Wildpackets - free net tools for windows

So if you've ever been forced to switch from linux or mac to pc one of the first things you'll miss are all the network tools. Where's the ping scan stuff? Where's the trace route stuff?

Ok, MS does provide much of that if you dig around but I still was not satisfied. Hit Google and search and you're likely to find lots of spyware and crap. So .... check out WildPackts.

They offer a collection of free network tools to scan and even test through-put. Check them out. They are at: http://www.wildpackets.com/products/free_utilities/overview

Gmail goes IMAP

Ok, so that's like a month or two old, yet I somehow missed it. Turns out gmail now has imap support. This rocks. Now all my computers and handhelds see the same mail and folders.

The way it works is gmail uses labels in their interface, but they show up as folders in outlook or other email clients. Finally, my email life has grown up! Thanks Google is there anything you can't do ...

(actually I'm getting scared of Google. They're too big now.)

Sync everything

So I live in too many places and have too much technology. It is at the point where I can hardly keep everything straight. To that end I decided to find a way to get everything syncing with everything else. So far this is the place to go:

http://www.scheduleworld.com


This let's me have my cell, Outlook, and Google Calendar in sync. A change anywhere is reflected everywhere. Too cool.

I did have some Vista headaches, but I've finally put those to rest (actually had to install and configure on an XP box, then export and import funambol's registry values!).

If you are a road warrior you should try this!

At a good conference ADELTA

So I'm down in Edmonton for a few days at a distributed learning conference. It's going very well. The current speaker: George Siemens (http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/) is doing a great job bringing us into the "Know" of technology and how this is changing.

What allows the current students to participate now? In this technological society? So many schools are blocking these tools instead of embracing. Full presentation here: (http://www.slideshare.net/gsiemens/living-learning-communicating-in-an-immediate-world)

Ok, but some immediately cool things I'm checking out are:

Sketchcast.com

SlideShare

http://iclicker.com/ (more for traditional classrooms but cool looking)

Vineserver has a place

So being cursed with the Vista notebook has really put a crimp in my ability to control and fix mac clients. Remote Desktop was so good for me when I had a mac, but dropped vnc connections constantly when I would connect from a PC. Vineserver fixes all that.

It is much faster than Remote Desktop over general Internet. I use Ultra VNC on the PC, and Vineserver on the Mac. They connect beautifully and I can now be effective again. I also configure the Vine server to use a different port than VNC on Remote Desktop. That way there is no conflicts (also set vine server to start on system reboot.

Anyway, very cool. Links here:

Vine server: http://www.redstonesoftware.com/products/vine/server/index.html

UltraVNC: http://www.uvnc.com/

Forced to run Vista

Too many of us are here. Being forced to run Vista for work. Here are a few tips I've had to work out lately.

If you would like a simple way of picking up Podcasts use Juice at:

http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

Then make these adjustments:

http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/02/10/how-to-make-juice-22-work-in-windows-vista/

If you have and old PALM like me (LifeDrive) try these instructions for syncing:

http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2007/08/how-to-sync-lif.html

If you wish to run Windows 2003 server admin tools do the following:

http://briandesmond.com/blog/archive/2006/11/21/How-to-get-the-Windows-2003-Admin-Tools-Working-on-Vista.aspx

All of these have worked for me! Still, I'm secretly getting Ubuntu to work with Wine for all of our coporate software. Once that is up, bye bye Vista!

Ahh LifeDrive, how I loved thee ...

Well PALM still has not derived a new OS. What a shame. That platform rocked and was miles ahead of everyone else. Then, well I'm not really sure what happened next but the bottom line is no innovation for years (Aside from treo models)

I just wanted to post one last time about my favorite model of PALM; the LifeDrive. Cool gadget. Everyone goes on about the beauty of the iPhone, well I've had everything but the phone part for a couple of years now. The LD has a speedy 416 Mhz proc and lots of storage. Mine is configured to automatically grab my recent photos, songs or pod casts from iTunes, and I use an SD card to grab Xvid or Divx movies for trips. They play on the beautiful 320x480 large screen without resizing or formatting with tcpmp (best player ever!). However it was hampered by the 4GB Hitachi HD and little real RAM.

Well that is easily fixed. For about $40.00 and a half an hour of time, the HD can be swapped out with a Compact Flash card. That makes the unit how it should have been, fast and reliable. (Instructions here, and benchmarks here)

Seriously with wifi and bluetooth, cheap 2 gb SD cards ($20.00), and 4 GBs built right, this hand held does it all. Still does it all!

My only remaining beef is the web browser. Blazer is ok, but not great. Too bad Optera or Firefox did not write one for PALM. Oh, and while I'm dreaming why didn't Skype come to PALM? Anyway this was an amazing machine. I regularly stun people with all it can do, and have yet to see a better device in someone's hand. Still this year my work will buy me a Windows Mobile since it ties in better with Exchange. Smaller screen, and I'll lose all my old programs, but I guess it has a phone ....

LifeDrive, you'll be missed.

WriteBoard. The easiest online collabartion starter yet!

Want to collaborate online with your coworkers or students, but everything looks too complicated?

Well, try WriteBoard. It is fast, easy, and free. Where do these guys come up with this stuff? A few years ago I had to spend hours building websites and trying to get students to email me material. Now, in a minute I can setup a writeboard, and tell my students it's URL. They have no problem accessing it, and contributing.

Amazing stuff, what next eh? :)

Anyway, go try this. Now!

http://www.writeboard.com/

Finally! Dashboard widget fixed!

Well, it's a little buggy, but at aleast it works. If you use mac, run over to:

http://dl.google.com/macwidgets/Blogger.wdgt.zip

Download the new dashboard widget and start blogging easily.

Try Skype again

Ok, if you are reading this, you already use Skype. But in the off chance you don't, you should. I used it off and on a few years back and it was ok, but not amazing. Now, it's even better. The video chat between Windows and Mac worked flawlessly.

That has always been a challenge. Till now I was using iChat on the Mac and Trillian PRO(AIM) on Windows. Worked, but not well. It often dropped and I had to open a bunch of ports on my routers to make it work.

With Skype there was nothing to configure and it was totally free on both ends (As opposed to Trillian Pro which costs.) So, in case you haven't in a few months. Go get Skype (at Skype.com)

Camino 1.5 Released

There are far better websites than this that review Camino and why it's good. I just wanted to remind the Mac community that it's out there and it's a great browser. If you run a Mac lab this is better than FireFox since Camino listens to the MCX setting of default homepage and proxy settings. This means you can guarantee that students will see your homepage, and use your proxy for surfing (well guarantee might be too strong, but at least they should be using it).

Here is a good summary of it's new features: http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/1866/206/

Here is the actual site where you can download it: http://www.caminobrowser.org/

Free Geekery posts excellent blog adding software to Ubuntu 7.04

Free Geekery posted a fantastic blog about adding some excellent software to the default Ubuntu 7.04 install. Check it out:

http://www.rewardprograms.org/thefreegeek/features/17_musthave_free_apps_for_new_ubuntu_users.html

NeoOffice How did I miss this one?

Well everyone knows about OpenOffice. A great, open source, office package. In case you have not and, you own a Linux or MS box, you should visit this site, download the software and be amazed at the quality of the product.

What has always burned me a bit was the less than easy X11 port for Mac users. From time to time I have installed it and tried it. However, in the end, I just would not keep using it since it took more resources to run and ultimately suffered from not being Aqua. Now I find out there is a mature and robust OpenOffice for Mac designed for Aqua. It's called NeoOffice. Apparently it's been around for years, and has a great user base. So I downloaded it. WOW. Truly amazing. If you need an office package get this. Get it now! Usable for home, business or school. The only thing left to answer is why did I not hear of this earlier?

URL: http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

Great SIM game on PALM

Words can explain how happy I am to find a real SIM game for my PALM! Great programmers have brought Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe to the PALM. Check out: http://www.esoftinteractive.com/openttd.html

Here is a quote from their website:
"Now you may play Transport Tycoon Deluxe on the go! Experience the greatest of tycoon games on the palm of your hand, available for both Pocket PC and Palm OS 5."

You must have the commercial game to run this, but it is available cheap online so that makes this a real bargain. Sure, my blog has not mentioned games before, but this is just to sweep a waiting room killer not to mention. Go get this!

Sites of Interest:

http://www.esoftinteractive.com/openttd.html
http://www.openttd.org/

It's simple, so why is it so hard ...

I've run school computer labs for 10 years now. To do so efficiently I need to have three tools in place. One, easy start-and-walk-away setup of computer clients. Two, easy remote install/uninstall of software. Three control over who does what when and where.

On Macs I do one with Netboot/Netrestore, two with Remote Desktop, and three with Open Directory and MCX settings. On windows I can do one with RIS, two with MSI packaging, and three with Active Directory and GPOs.

So why is this hard to do on Linux? I've heard of custom stuff, but why is it not just easy and simple. Why do these tools not come with Edubuntu? Any help?

Spanning Sync goes online

I'm sure you've heard, but if not, go and get this app. It does what it claims to do. Now my PALM, iCal, and Google calendar all read and write to the same set of calendars. Very good, reasonable cost.

http://www.spanningsync.com/

SpanningSync a must for Mac Goole users

If you use Google and a Mac grab this app. Sure, it's beta. Sure it has bugs, but Google calendar rocks, and now you can sync with iCal and from their to PALM.

This is way cool. I can't wait till they work the bugs out and sell this beauty. Here is the link:
http://blog.spanningsync.com/

A thought is sneaking in here .... is Google slowly taking over my life ....

Real Programming Real Simple with REALbasic!

I'm not sure if you have had the joy of teaching under-motivated high school students programming. If you haven't, let me assure you, it's not easy. To that end I have tried various gimmics and tricks to pour C++, JAVA, or Basic code into their emerging mindsets. All with some difficulty. There are many free compilers out there in cyberspace that students can use, but they all suffer from a lack of ease-of-use. The "for pay" RADs (rapid application development), like Microsoft VB Studio are good tools, but only run in Windows, and cost money.

Well, now enter RealBasic. This programming GUI and RAD has been around for some time. I've used it with great success in our schools running on Macs for years. It was a good day when they came over to Windows too, just because most of my students have Win boxes at home. Now they offer an up-to-date Linux version that is easy to use and is currently FREE. That's right, FREE!

If you teach programming, and use Linux, run, not walk, over to http://realbasic.com/download and grab a copy. This program is worth paying for and I recommend it for all platforms, but I can't say enough if you are using Linux. Get it today and then grab their released curriculum and start enjoying teaching programming again!

GIMPShop I love you ...

It's a secret wish of mine that all software should be free for education. Ok, not secret, but still a wish. It bothers me to no end that our schools have to pour limited resources into software, just to train users who will go out and buy that companies software. It's not right. I'm not a graphic shop. I do not use Adobe Photoshop for anything I sell or make money from.

Some companies have realized this and now give their software to schools. Kudos to Simply Accounting and QuickBooks who do that in Canada. Some of the big offenders however are Adobe and Microsoft.

Enter programs like GIMP. GIMP is great on Linux, and I can use it for most of what I need to do with images. However, students often get lost in the interface. But now there is GIMPShop. I haven't used it lots, but it seems to answer most of the interface problems I've had. This will also mean I can still use the Photoshop tutorials we have in teaching it. Looks like a great win for Education. More like this please !!

http://www.gimpshop.net/

Quicksilver ?

What?! What is this .... cool, kind of like apple script ... kind of like Automator on steroids with easy of use .... Hmmm needs more research.

http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/

MAMP is cooler than I thought

So the power of MAMP isn't that it quikly installs and sets up Apache, MySQL and PHP (although it does that), it's that it does so in a box. Well, not a box, but all to itself. This allows you to run these tools for a specific website your working on, without affecting the rest of you machine.

Ok, that's still not right. What I mean is, I can use MAMP to install a website I'm building onto my little Powerbook. I can test it out locally, then upload it. I can also install multiple instances of MAMP (with a little tweaking) to test out different websites I'm building. In addition, the shutdown or restart of MAMP does not affect the running of apache, php or mysql from there default locations, so my other websites on my Powerbook are not affected. Get it? I didn't till I started using it. So, if you develop websites on mac, go get this program and see what I mean!

http://www.mamp.info/en/index.php

LAMP on Mac or MAMP

I've installed Apache, MySQL and PHP individually on mac. Now, why do it that way? The good people at "living-e" just created MAMP, which is LAMP for mac. Here is how they advertise it:

" Server environment on your Mac:
The MAMP Apache, PHP and MySQL under OS X!

Frequently demanded, and not yet available in this form anywhere in the world, with MAMP you install a complete server environment on your Mac OS X computer in a matter of seconds, whether PowerBook or iMac. In the same way as similar packages from the Windows and Linux worlds, this program is also free of charge.
more Information"

Anyway, I installed it without issue on my Powerbook G4 and all works as billed. If you've been itching to work with these tools, but it looked to difficult to install. Go and try this. You might even find you'd like to buy the Pro version.

Backup and RAID for small Mac servers

I believe there should be two systems in place to preserve up-time for small Mac servers. One is to RAID 1 (mirror) both data and OS drives, the other is to use an external Firewire drive to backup the OS. Here are the steps I would recommend to have in place for this to happen.

First, backup the system now with a Firewire drive. This is cheap and easy. OS drives or partitions are usually very small, so any extra drive you may have will do. Put it in an external Firewire case, plug it in and use Disk utility to format it. Then use Mike Bombich's Carbon Copy Cloner (http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html) to clone the OS drive or partition onto the Firewire drive. There, you're done! If your OS fails you replace it, boot from Firewire, then reverse the clone and reboot from the new perfect drive. Or, if you do not have 20 min. You can just boot from the Firewire drive and run the server from that until you do have the time!

The second system is to have a RAID setup. Here is how I would go about putting this in place for a small school.
Step One RAID 1 (mirror) setup

• Enclosure: Use two disk eSATA box.
• Link: http://www.startech.com/Product/ItemDetail.aspx?productid=ESATCASE2&c=CA
• Reason: inexpensive, easy to move to other machines if needed. (est. street price $99.00 CND)
  
• Options: consider buying extra trays. (est. street price $27.00 / ea CND)
• Sata Adapter: Use onboard SATA if G5 if not purchase card
• If G5 use simple bracket to bring internal port to external of machine (purchase 2!)
  
• Link: http://www.startech.com/Product/ItemDetail.aspx?productid=ESATAPLATE1&c=CA
• Reason: works, and plain cheap! (est. street price $9.25/ea CND)
  
• If G4 you will need to purchase a sata adapter card
• Link: http://www.nextwarehouse.com/item/?329570
• Reason: well, um G4s do not have SATA :) (est. street price $99.00 CND)
  
• Two eSATA cables: buy two where every you find them
• Link: http://www.startech.com/Product/ItemDetail.aspx?productid=ESATA3&c=CA
• Note: I'm sure you can find eSATA cables cheaper than this, so hunt for them.
• Disks: Get two of the same model at the same time. Look for specials
• Link:http://www.geeks.com/pix/2007/FREECASE17Jan07.html?cpc=HPM

Step Two RAID software

• Only one choice here: Softraid
• Link: http://www.softraid.com/
• Reason: I have been using this software forever. It works, the tech support is the best I've ever used. Period.

The easiest way to go from a single or double non-raid drive setup to using RAID is to install Softraid on the existing drives. Then setup the external RAID box. Use the Softraid to RAID both drives together in RAID 1 (mirror). Then partition the RAID container into two logical drives; one for OS (no larger than 20 GB), and the other for DATA. Now use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the existing drives over. Shutdown, disconnect the old drives, and reboot to the new external RAID box. Hey, I just thought of something. Why not use the original drives as your external Firewire backup drives! Cool eh!

Just a note. This is for the small shop that can't afford dedicated RAID 5 or 10 boxes, or NASs and the like. This is software RAID, which is reliable but not fast. If you have lots of users you'll need to go to Hardware RAID, which will need dedicated cards, boxes and more drives. However, I use this kind of RAID for our school of 450 students and 35 staff. We throw Gigs around and haven't lost one yet!

Where is PALM going?

I've written about this before, but I find it very frustrating. PALM is a great PDA. For years it enjoyed being the top kid on the block. However, a while ago the Microsoft behemoth swept in and has really taken over. Why? I'm not qualified to give the complete answer, but it seems to me that PALM has staggered from a loss of direction an innovation. It took them too long to get Wifi, SMS, and fast processors. Tying in to corporate email servers with push technology also too slow to emerge.
Having said all that, these pieces are in place. Why is PALM not picking up steam again? Perhaps it is a lack of support for developers and a clear picture of how linux and the Access group will work out. Also, why is this transition taking so long? If they are moving to linux, why is not out already? Why can we not upgrade our devices to this new linux?

There is a great community for PALM still out there, but it feels like it's slimming down. We need new machines, and some new development from PALM source, and we need it now!

If you are looking to develop for PALM on Mac it's getting harder too. I found this great site devoted to helping use PRC-Tools on Mac, but it's discontinued. Anyway, the fellow there is nice, check it out. Zenonez

Also, here is the developer who finally got SMS working as it should on PALM. They also wrote a program for helping the LifeDrive run smoother. If you have a LifeDrive, you must go here and purchase SharkCache. This developer is a really great PALM ally. Ludus