Mostly Irrelevant … but not entirely

NEW 06/17/2011 – Now based on XXJVP (Android 2.3.4)

Want to update you Bell or Virgin Samsung Galaxy S (I9000M) to the latest and greatest version of Android – 2.3 aka Gingerbread?

I’ve created a custom ROM for your upgrading pleasure that makes it as easy as possible to get the update and keep full compatibility with the Canadian cell phone networks.

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Here are the features:

• Based on the latest Android 2.3.4 (XXJVP)
• Latest CF-Root kernel (3.7), with ext4 (lagfix) support
• Includes the latest Bell modem driver (KC1), so it’s fully compatible with the Canadian networks like Bell/Virgin/Rogers/Fido/Telus (1900/850 3G bands)
• Visuals from the stock Android OS – AOSP lock screen, overscroll glow, CRT off animation and Gingerbread theme (credit to ock)
• Extended power menu for easy reboots
• NEW! GPS fix for faster lock times, better accuracy (credit to RJLM)

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If you want an easy way to setup jailed SFTP users on CentOS 5.x, this is hands down the fastest way to get there. What is a “jailed SFTP user” you ask? Well let’s say you want to give a client access to their hosted files on your VPS hosting account. By default, if you give a user SFTP access they can browse the entire file system when they connect – not just their own site content. Not good. You need to be able to limit (“jail”) them to a certain directory so they only see their own files.

There are a lot of guides out there that set out to achieve this – most of them also include allowing SSH access (which in most cases you don’t need), and they’re fairly complicated. I spent a lot of time trying to find a solution that just worked and didn’t involve me trying to compile things from sources, change a huge amount of configuration files, etc.

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Well, I just ditched my Blackberry Storm for a shiny new Samsung Galaxy S, which is of course an Android phone. I have to say that I didn’t really get the whole Android/iPhone/apps hype before, but now that I have one I can see why they’re so popular.

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As you may or may not know, Windows Server 2008 makes a great workstation OS. Version R2, which is based on Windows 7, is even better. But there are some things that need to be done in order to make the default install more desktop friendly.

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I honestly can’t remember the last “great” film I’ve watched. Sure there have been a couple standouts this year – Zombieland was entertaining (if a bit shallow), The Hangover was mildly funny (if that sort of thing is your bag), etc. District 9 was, and I seem to be in the minority here, by far the most overrated film of the year. I understand the novel visuals and plot, but honestly it made little sense and the characters were forgettable. Just read any of the thoughtful reviews out there to get the gist of what I’m saying.

Anyway the point here is not to deride the garbage that Hollywood so reliably produces, but to remind you that there are some great movies out there that you may not have heard of. Case in point is “The Last Ride” an Australian made film by director Glendyn Ivin. My wife and I watched this at the Whistler Film Festival this weekend, and we both came away impressed.

More than any movie I remember, The Last Ride has that elusive quality that draws you in and makes you forget you’re watching a movie. The cinematography is maybe the best I’ve ever seen – it’s a gorgeous film. The characters are real, complex and brilliantly developed. This movie makes you feel a wide range of emotions, and even though you might think you know where it’s headed, the tension is masterfully crafted.

We did overhear some comments after the show that it was too dark, too depressing. And to be fair, it is definitely not a “happy ending” kind of movie. That fact will probably relegate it to the film festival section of local video stores - and I’d doubt it will see a wide release. Which is a shame really, because it’s the first really “great” movie I’ve seen in a long time and the first movie that made me feel something more than just regret at wasting the last hour and a half of my life. You should see this movie if you get a chance.

Visit the site: http://www.lastridemovie.com/

Funny story on TechCrunch today. Seems like Bing’s popularity is on the decline now, just a few days after its launch and short lived run at #2 search engine. Looking at the StatCounter chart, it’s interesting to see how Bing’s big influx of users seemed to have come from (and now apparently returned to) Google.

I say its funny because that’s pretty much what I did… When Bing launched I changed my default search engine from Google because, at first glance, Bing seemed kind of cool. A lot of searches were producing good quality results, sometimes besting Google in what I considrered most relevant. And hey look, it even ranked my Zune on Windows 2003 post #1, versus #4 on Google – so it must be a great search engine, right?! Well it is pretty good…

But here’s the thing… When you’re not using Google, you start to feel like you’re missing out on the “full” internet. It’s almost, in fact, like Google is the internet. It’s nothing new really, I mean the name is synonymous with the web; but truly the scope of what Google knows does seem (even if it is mostly psychological) to be the “definitive guide” to what’s out there. On every search I’d do Bing first and then use Google just to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything. And since in most cases the Bing results would appear somewhere in the list of Google results, I just usually ended up going from there. So in the end searching Google first and bypassing Bing altogether would be the most efficient workflow.

The difference became especially apparent during the course of my work day where I’d be looking for a lot of more obscure IT/programming topics. The more unpopular the topic, the more Google proved it’s worth. For example I’m doing some PDF work with Ghostscript and encoutering some errors. If I search Google for “ghostscript error codes” I get the official ghostscript documentation page as the first result. That doesn’t even appear on the first page of Bing results – which contain a lot of irrelevant forum topics.

In the end, Bing is still a good tool and no doubt it’ll occupy the second slot on my search list. But if this little experience proves anything, it’s that any new search engine is going to have serious challenges matching Google’s usefulness and grabbing their market share in the long term. It will be interesting to see what happens when the “real” semantic web takes hold, but I have little doubt that Google’s already well ahead of the competition there, too.

A quick Google search turned up nothing – yet something foul is afoot with soy lattes at Starbucks in Canada. The soy milk has changed. And if my hunch is correct, they’re now using the same garbage soy milk that they use in the US in Canadian stores (I was told this by the manager, but I’ve yet to confirm it).

What’s wrong with the US soy milk? It actually contains more than twice the amount of sugar as the “So Good” stuff that Canada was previous getting.  For a grande soy latte, that’s 17g vs only 8g of sugar before. That’s wayyy to much by my standards. If this is in fact what’s going on then Starbucks has definitely lost this customer (I always chose other cafes when I can anyway, but it just so happens that Starbucks is the only thing close to my work).

I suppose it was inevitable, especially now amidst the financial meltdown, that Starbucks would try everything to maximize margins. So, lucky us Canadians, we now get the “made for Starbucks” soy that’s been making Americans fatter for years. Fantastic.

This is probably irrelevant to 99% of the population, but on the off chance that anyone else out there is trying to get their Zune to do wireless (wifi) sync with their Windows 2003 machine, this post will help you do just that.

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In a previous post I criticized TransLink decisions to use Google Transit while forgoing any kind of proper mobile application for looking up schedules. Now, thanks to Google and the latest release of Google Maps for Mobile, I have one less thing to complain about with TransLink.

That’s right: Google’s mobile mapping application now supports transit routing. And it works really well, too. Just pick a starting point (or if you’re device has GPS, you can use current location), pick a destination point, and you get a transit plan that gets you were you want to go. Just like the full version of Google transit, you can choose between multiple routes and you get step by step directions for transfers and what not, if you need them. Conveniently, you can also switch between driving and transit directions in case you want to compare times.

On the bus on my way to work this morning there was a piece in the “24 Hours” daily in which the reporter asked both men and women how easy it was to meet other people in the city. (I forget the exact wording, but you get the idea.)

Among the small group sampled, the consensus goes something like this: People you meet on the street (and I’m casting a broad, poorly sewn net here) are just generally not that outwardly friendly. In Montreal, according to one woman from the article, strangers you pass on the sidewalk are much more likely to make eye contact and smile. In Vancouver, chances are they’ll look the other way.

Now I don’t know if this is a recent thing or if I’ve only recently noticed it, but I think she’s right. Not only downtown, but in the suburbs too, the more I look for the friendly smile from passer-bys, the harder it is to find. Upon returning from a recent trip to a Midwest US state, the effect was more pronounced. People down there seemed “friendlier” and strangers on the street were at least more likely to acknowledge that you actually existed.

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