Programming Classroom is the result of this effort.

Rex is well known throughout the programming community, especially in the standards world. He is also highly regarded for his live programming seminars where he teaches classes in C, C++, C# and more.

We thought it would be a great service to offer the seminars that Rex uses in his live classroom teachings to the general public in electronic format. These are the exact same materials from documentation to example source code. It is just that it is at a much lower cost than a classroom setting because it is self-paced learning. You will find seminars on C#, C++, Java, Visual Basic, and C. You will also find some freebies like sample chapters and tips.

So check out ProgrammingClassroom.com and let us know what you think. Needless to say, I am very excited while very nervous at the same time.

I am looking for full body support to help keep my back as pain free as possible. My sciatic nerve is really irritating me. I am willing to spend a pretty fair amount for a chair that will keep me comfortable and pain free.

Some others I am considering are:

The Kneelsit

The Mirra

The Aeron

Any recommendations?

Thanks!

My original post on installing a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) server with WordPress seems to have helped at least a few people.

I have since come up with a few more random, but I think helpful, tidbits since writing that post. I will list them here.

Basic Commands

‘ls -alR’ for a recursive look at all owners and groups, etc.

Transferring your Blog to WordPress.org

If you are importing your blog from somewhere else and the upload doesn’t seem to be working (e.g., when you click the “Import” button you see no screen changes and/or you the browser is just “spinning”):

• create uploads directory in wp-content
• you may have to set wp-content to chmod 777 permissions for import
  - first try 755 on uploads. If it doesn’t work, then
  - then try 777 on uploads. If it doesn’t work, then
  - then try 777 on wp-content
• revert everything back to 755, or what you had it before

If you are moving from wordpress.com to wordpress.org and you need your blogroll, you need to export this separately (it is not included as part of the normal export from wordpress.com). You go to http://your-wordpressDOTcom-domain.com/wp-links-opml.php and save the XML you see and then import via the blogroll/import capability (or you can just enter the link to the opml I mentioned before right in the blogroll import). Note the export only seems to work in Firefox and IE. Safari gave me a blank page.

SSL

If you want SSL for Apache – sudo a2enmod SSL (see article)

If you want SSL for your WordPress administration areas, enable SSL for wp-admin (See documentation)

For SSL resolution — if you are only using SSL on one site and you have other sites, see this forum post.

Final Setup Steps for WordPress

Make sure www-data has write access to the following — Do a ‘chmod -R g+w’ on wp-content/themes,wp-content/uploads

For final permissions:

• find public -type d | xargs chmod 0755
• find public -type f | xargs chmod 0644 (files)
• find public -type d | xargs chown username:www-data
• find public -type f | xargs chown username:www-data

It was actually a tough choice. I was weighing many options. Do I just go with the well-known leaders (by customer base), such as Mozy or Carbonite? Do I go with a provider that offers me a finite quantity of backup space per subscription, but allows me to backup unlimited computers, such as SpiderOak?

Obviously, the answers to these questions were “No”; so here is why I went with Backblaze:

• Good communication – Backblaze communicated with me via Twitter and answered my pre-sales questions via email. SpiderOak was also very good in its email communication with me. Carbonite, iDrive, Mozy, Safecopy also communicated with me satisfactorily as well.
• Let me into the Mac beta trial — While very late into the party (they publicly released for the Mac a week later), Backblaze gave me an invitation to try their Mac service before it went public.
• Ease of Use / Function Offering Ratio Balance — It was very easy to set up the client on my MacBook Pro and get to backing up. An icon sits in my menu bar and allows me quick access to see what and how much is being backed up. But just because it is easy to use, doesn’t mean they skimped on the functionality. I can throttle my backup bandwidth; choose file types and folders to exclude; set my own encryption key; and set basic scheduling options.
• Price — My choice came down to BackBlaze and SpiderOak. At retail, SpiderOak would have cost me $100/yr. Backblaze $50/yr. Like many people, I am doing my best to try to conserve some money, make appropriate purchase decisions. And while I really believe SpiderOak is a player in this space, a lot of my decision, maybe sadly, was based upon cost. Backblaze is a legitimate player and the cost was right — especially after the 10% Chris Pirillo discount, which sealed the deal for me. (To be fair, you can find 10% discounts for SpiderOak and there are even some 20% discounts out there if you are resourceful)
• Allows me to backup external drives — As I write this, I am backing up content on an external firewire drive connected to my MacBook Pro. This drive is partitioned 3 ways, holding my Time Machine backups, SuperDuper backups and data that I just didn’t want taking up space on my primary 120GB MacBook Pro drive (e.g., videos). Backblaze does not allow you to backup your Time Machine data (seems reasonable), but I am backing up about 42 GB of data. I am 7GB into that process, which, probably expectedly, is taking just a tad longer than the primary hard drive.
• Backup speed — The throttling mechanism is very useful and seems to work. With various degrees of throttling used in the 8 days, average 12 hours/day time it took me to backup 42.5 GB of data on my MacBook Pro, I average about 0.45 GB (450 MB) per hour. That seems pretty good to me.
• Restore — I tested restore just a little bit. Seemed straightforward and easy. You log into the website. Enter your private encryption key if you decided to use it. Choose what directories/files you want. Then click Restore. An email comes to you really quickly saying a zip file with all the files you chose is ready to be downloaded. If you need a bunch of your stuff urgently, and can’t wait for download, you can also order, at extra cost, an overnight shipped DVD or USB drive of your data (see below why this could be an issue, though).

All that said, I do not believe Backblaze is perfect. Here are some items I think need improvement:

• Multiple Computer Support — Backblaze would be near perfect if it allowed multiple computer support on one subscription a la SpiderOak and others. While 95% of my time is spent on my MacBook Pro (because I can run both OS X and Windows), I do have another HP laptop. It would be nice if I could just add that computer to current subscription. But, while I can add the HP to my current Backblaze account, I would have to pay another $50/yr. So instead, if I want to backup items from that machine, I use an intermediary like DropBox or SpiderOak (which both offers 2GB of space free) and then access those items from my MacBook Pro to be backed up on BackBlaze.
• Unencrypted Data on Their Media Restore — Sort of a good cop, bad cop here. It is actually very cool that Backblaze offers the option to get your data on hard media, overnight. But the problem is that your data comes to you *unencrypted*. Me, I would be a little bit apprehensive of FedEx having a drive that has all my data readily accessible. I believe BackBlaze is working on a solution to alleviate this issue, but nothing has been announced publicly. That said, most providers don’t offer this capability anyway, so it is a nice-to-have feature. And most people restore their data through download anyway.

So in summary, I believe Backblaze, while imperfect and a relatively new service (especially on the Mac support front) provides a great service. It offers great functionality at a very good price. And I have seen no major issues with the service thus far. And, they seem willing to communicate with you if needed. I have signed up for a year commitment. SpiderOak was a very close second, and, in the end, primarily came down to financials as to why I chose Backblaze over them. I think they are pretty even on all other aspects as for what I require in an online backup provider.

Now I just hope that I am a paid user and they have lured me in, they still won’t mind the occasional Tweet every now and then

However, this past week I had my MacBook Pro out and about around the house way more than usual. I would use the computer on battery a bit, then recharge it when I was done. Stuff like that. But, most of the time, even this week, I would still use the MacBook Pro connected to a power adapter.

So, yesterday (4 April 2009), I used iStatPro (highly recommended widget) to check the health of my battery. It was at around 96% after about 20 cycles. I didn’t think this was too bad. Before I went to bed, I noticed my batter was down to about 35% as I had been using it untethered to my power adapter. So I shutdown the computer, plug it into the power adapter and then went to bed.

This morning (5 April 2009) I woke up to the strangest thing. I noticed the light to my power adapter was *off*. No green light to mean the battery was charged. No red (or is it orange?) light to mean that the battery was charging. Nothing. So I removed the adapter from the MacBook Pro and plugged it back in; then the light went on as to indicate it was charging.

When I booted the computer up, I noticed the battery still had only 35% charge. What the heck? I had it plugged in all night. So I brought up iStatPro again, and here is what I found (except replace the 100% with a 35% because I just took this snapshot right now)

69% health after only 21 cycles!!!!! No way that is normal.

Then I opened up System Profiler and found corroborating evidence.

I tried resetting the SMC, but that didn’t help.

So what is going on here? I must be doing something wrong, right?

Will calibrating the battery help me or am I just screwed and going to have to bring the battery back to the Apple Store again for replacement?

OnLive, in a nutshell, is a “cloud” video game service. In other words, all video games live on their servers and you subscribe to the ones that you want to play. But you don’t download the games to your machine and play them locally. You play them on *their* servers, and they push content back and forth to you through your web browser via your broadband connection. In other words, your computer now becomes a glorified dumb internet terminal that receives the images of the actions you perform in the video game; the OnLive servers do all of the heavy lifting of graphics processing.

So, the theory is that you can have a NetBook or an old Centrino laptop and you can play Crysis!! Crysis on a NetBook?!? I don’t effing believe it. But that is their vision, and with the way the video game companies are signing up in droves to be a part of this service (can you say EA?), this vision may actually have legs.

And if it has legs, oh my, how that changes things for companies like:

Intel, AMD: Video games are the most processor intensive applications in the world. If OnLive is successful, that opens the flood gates for more processor-intensive subscription-type markets. People can buy less powerful machines, but still get top quality functionality. That could eat heavily into the Intel and AMD profit margins — although, Intel and AMD should hope that OnLive buys their processors for the OnLive servers.

Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo: Well, this is simple. The video game console becomes obsolete. As Paul Thurrott alluded to in Windows Weekly – ‘Microsoft just wasted $5 billion in their XBox investment’

Now, of course, broadband would need to be plentiful. Quality of Service would need to be guaranteed. As they alluded in the Windows Weekly show – hey, Comcast, are you listening? And, there are other hurdles to overcome. They were talking about Amazon buying this service being a good play. I am not 100% convinced right now of that being a smart move; but if this does what I think it might do, then yes, any company should buy OnLive if they had the resources.

This is definitely something I will be keeping tabs on because this could be a “game changer” (pun absolutely intended). And I don’t say that often.

So I was watching 60 Minutes last night (I can still hear that tick, tick, tick, tick, tick of the clock….and I am still amazed that Andy Rooney is still around!).

Their lead story was regarding internet viruses, particularly the Conficker virus that is supposedly just sitting dormant on many, many hosts waiting to be triggered.

There are rumors that this virus is going to be triggered on April 1st — of course, April Fool’s Day. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen. But it got me thinking……

Should Mac users be concerned?

From what Leslie Stahl was reporting on 60 minutes last night, all internet users should be freaking out about this virus. Maybe that is the case. I don’t know, really. I thought this was primarily a Windows virus. But a Symantec VP in the 60 minutes piece thinks that Norton will be able to help all users.

So, are you Mac users running out and buying Norton AntiVirus for the Mac? Do you still think that Mac users don’t need to be worried about anti-virus software?

I have a feeling I know where most people fall on this debate

[Update 3: After tweeting Backblaze about me not being able to use their service because of no Mac support -- I get a reply inviting me to their private beta. Thanks Backblaze! But now my decision is that much harder ]

[Update 2: I just realized that Backblaze does not currently have a publicly available Mac version. That rules them out, for now]

[Update: I have received two more candidate possibilities from Twitter of all places. ScottBourne of Mac fame recommended BackJack which looks interesting, but maybe a bit overkill for me. SpiderOak_Inc must have seen my posts and recommended SpiderOak, and, while I was wary and had never heard of them, their service is quite compelling, especially the zero knowledge policy. And here I thought I had almost made my decision].

Back in December, I wrote about my desire to choose an online backup service. Since then, I am still without a true service (I am doing some hodgepodge things right now to give me some semblance of offsite backup; but nothing very formal).

The desire to choose one is still there; and for whatever reason, I really wanting to choose one like right now.

I have narrowed my choices down to 4:

• Carbonite (they finally have a Mac client; plus I can support Leo Laporte and TWiT since Carbonite sponsors Leo’s awesome and free podcasts)
• Backblaze (they are less known, but get great reviews; plus their front page “ad” is kinda cool —- Mac version currently closed to public, but I have beta invite)
• SafeCopy (I believe they are quite new, but people have given them thumbs up; but are they too new??)
• DropBox (There free service is actually quite compelling; I use it….but I think they are the costliest of the bunch here when it comes to getting more storage)

[Mozy -- you are out because you still cannot handle encrypted files from what I understand -- prove me wrong!]

Let me give you my current thought process:

Use the free version of DropBox to share files between my Windows laptop and my MacBook Pro, and then use Carbonite to backup offsite. I would need DropBox because Carbonite and many others only allow you to register one computer for backup, so I would use DropBox to move files I want backed up from my Windows computer over to the Mac (which will be my primary, registered computer). But, something like a SafeCopy would allow me to have unlimited computers registered because their pricing is based on storage.

So help me out. I would appreciate it. I would especially appreciate any representatives from the above companies coming by and selling me on their service.

Thanks!

At least I thought it was harmless.

I have two brand of CD-Rs, let’s just call them Brand A and Brand B in order to protect the presumed innocent.

Brand A: Premature Ejection (and I did use this term purposely to see what “personal problem” jokes I could get )

When I insert Brand A, the slot drive spins and whines for a few seconds and then the slot drive just spits the CD-R out. No message box, no questions, and definitely no answers.

Brand B: Laser Power Levels

When I insert Brand B, the slot drive teases me and actually allows the CD-R to remain inside. I then try to burn my playlist and it actually starts to go through the process. However, my glee is short lived because as soon as the process starts, it ends and I get this wonderful message.

The slot drive will read/play already “burnt” CDs just fine. It will read DVDs when I install software. So initially I thought it was the brand of CD I was using. Other people thought the same thing. Take a look at some of these threads:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=333966

http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-31974.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=233×5280

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7540512

There was also this strange fix that worked for some people:

http://bura-bura.com/blog/archives/2005/07/11/a-fix-for-my-superdrive-problems/ (initial post from this person: http://bura-bura.com/blog/archives/2005/07/05/uh-oh-superdrive-problems/)

(It didn’t work for me)

I am not convinced it is the media. I think it is hardware related. The downside of a slot drive I guess.

So I have an appointment with the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store this weekend. I have AppleCare for my MacBook Pro, and assuming I am right that my slot drive is all messed up, it will be replaced at no cost.

Anyone else have this problem???

Check out this quote from the article:

Kaminsky froze. This was far more serious than anything he could have imagined. It was the ultimate hack. He was looking at an error coded into the heart of the Internet’s infrastructure. This was not a security hole in Windows or a software bug in a Cisco router. This would allow him to reassign any Web address, reroute anyone’s email, take over banking sites, or simply scramble the entire global system. The question was: Should he try it?

The vulnerability gave him the power to transfer millions out of bank accounts worldwide. He lived in a barren one-bedroom apartment and owned almost nothing. He rented the bed he was lying on as well as the couch and table in the living room. The walls were bare. His refrigerator generally contained little more than a few forgotten slices of processed cheese and a couple of Rockstar energy drinks. Maybe it was time to upgrade his lifestyle.

Or, for the sheer geeky joy of it, he could reroute all of .com into his laptop, the digital equivalent of channeling the Mississippi into a bathtub. It was a moment hackers around the world dream of—a tool that could give them unimaginable power. But maybe it was best simply to close his laptop and forget it. He could pretend he hadn’t just stumbled over a skeleton key to the Net. Life would certainly be less complicated. If he stole money, he’d risk prison. If he told the world, he’d be the messenger of doom, potentially triggering a collapse of Web-based commerce.

Can you imagine if he decided to actually go to the black market with this thing?!?! Unfathomable, really.

Luckily a patch was implemented, although not a foolproof one.

Though the Redmond group had agreed to act in concert, the patch—called the source port randomization solution—didn’t satisfy everyone. It was only a short-term fix, turning what had been a 1-in-65,536 chance of success into a 1-in-4 billion shot.

Still, a hacker could use an automated system to flood a server with an endless stream of guesses. With a high-speed connection, a week of nonstop attacking would likely succeed. Observant network operators would see the spike in traffic and could easily block it. But, if overlooked, the attack could still work. The patch only papered over the fundamental flaw that Kaminsky had exposed.

I guess 1:4 billion is better than it was pre-patch