Wed, 05 May 2010 15:11:02 -0400 http://ewall.org/ eWall.org weblog en-us http://ewall.org/images/ewall_logo_greybg.png http://ewall.org/ webmaster@ewall.org http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=378 Back in March, I was dismayed to learn that Continental Airlines was discontinuing the gluten-free menu options on all their flights. This was particularly disconcerting to me since I usually fly with them on my frequent trips to Panamá;. Long international flights are killer when you're going hungry, and not all the airports in between there and here are GF-friendly at all, either. My response was not to panic, but to focus my ire into writing a persuasive letter to the airline's CEO. Apparently, it had some effect, as just yesterday I received a response from Continental's customer service, which included the following: I understand you had some concerns about Gluten-free meals.We discontinued serving Gluten-free meals March 15, 2010; however, in response to customer feedback, we decided to start serving them again, effective May 1, 2010. Continental's website confirms that GF meals are now available again. Now, I am not suggesting that my letter alone changed their minds; rather, I'm certain it was the fact that they received many such letters from other frequent-flyers with Celiac disease like me. But what if I hadn't sent my letter, assuming that everyone else would? I'm rather glad I did! Wed, 05 May 2010 15:11:02 -0400 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=377 Tableau Software is well-known for making quality data visualizations—interactive charts, graphs, and plots—easy to do and use. You're probably seen some of their work at major news outlets including the New York Times and Washington Post websites. So recently when I discovered they have a free "Public" version of the Tableau software, I was eager to try it out. Of course, there are limitations to this version, including limited data inputs and no advanced data manipulation features—but I don't need and probably wouldn't know how to do any of them anyway. But it's fun to experiment and see that even a non-visual person like me can make the charts look solid and function well. Below you should see my handiwork, munged from an Excel worksheet which Tableau provided for their Interactive "Chart" Contest, co-sponsored by Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:18:32 -0400 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=376 Recently I finally came to the realization that I have celiac disease/gluten intolerance. I am not alone; up to 0.75% of Americans may also have it, although it frequently goes undiagnosed for years. And this way my case too... This comes at (what I hope is) the end to a long history of constant discomfort and pain, frustrating visits with doctors and specialists, days lost from work and weekends in bed, and more. Those of you who have known me well anytime in the past dozen years or so can probably recall some of the downsides of my poor health. And for much of that time Ainsley has been telling me, "it's not right for someone so young and healthy as you to be so sick all the time!" Indeed. So this weekend I went 100% gluten-free. Yeah, that's my new GF—not "girlfriend", but "gluten-free". My Sweetie & I spent a good part of Saturday afternoon sweeping the kitchen of all the foodstuffs with hidden (and unhidden) glutens, inspired by a great article at Karina's Kitchen that Ainsley found online. (Isn't she great? :) Ainsley had already done some GF shopping on Saturday, but I went ahead again tonight. Lots of fresh fruit, veggies, meat, eggs, etc.—all good stuff... but still I kind of wanted to cry (but being the Manly Man that I am, of course I did not). To complicate things, I am trying to go entirely milk-free for the first couple months, after which I will see if I can reintroduce it; this meant that I had to find viable replacements for the few milkful items I still use, notably coffee creamer and butter. This is an affront to my Swedish heritage—not only am I giving up all the marvelous breads and cookies, but butter! <sigh/> I still shudder at the thought of the new fakey margarine that is newly lurking in my fridge. Of course, there are some great benefits I expect out of this effort. First and foremost, of course, is that I expect to feel so much better. Not only will I not be destroying my digestion by "pouring Draino down my gut" (in the words of a new friend), but I will be eating unprocessed, fresh, "real" food all the time. I'll probably lose a few pounds, then gain some muscle as I can get back to regular exercise. And hopefully there will be some financial benefits too, as I no longer have the luxury of eating out willy-nilly when I don't feel like packing a lunch for work. And I'll get to spend more time at home cooking and eating with my Sweetie. Anyway, that's that I guess. Two days down, and many more to go. Stay tuned for more updates on the transition (yes, reader, I intend to post here more often ;). Now I'm off to munch some fresh cherries and cook up some BBQ pulled chicken for tomorrow's lunch. To your health! Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:31:36 -0400 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=375 For some reason, Micro$oft is giving away free one-year subscriptions to "TechNet Plus Consumer Services Professional Pilot", which includes all the usual TechNet Plus benefits including eval software and support tickets. Click the link appropriate to your location: US | Canada | UK Their servers are under high demand at the time of this posting (probably from other people signing up!), so you may have to try a few times to get in. Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:49:12 -0400 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=374 As most of you readers may already know, I have been working at a financial services company since last September—yes, just before "The Collapse"—and thus I have a renewed interest in understanding the investment markets. And now the swings of the market have a more direct impact on all of us than before, when we maybe only needed to find a place to keep our retirement funds. So here are a few things I've been reading lately that I felt were worth passing on to you./p> If you haven't already heard a reasonable explanation of what cause the U.S. economy's implosion this past autumn (I would call it "fall", but that would be too punny), there are several explanations I would recommend: This American Life and NPR teamed up for an excellent bit of radio reporting entitled "The Giant Pool of Money" For a more recent (and slightly sensationalist) write-up, check out Wired's article entitled "Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street". So, in short, it seems that the primary cause of the current financial crisis is that Wall Street figured out how to bundle a bunch of not-so-great mortgage loans into a big investment package and still get them rated 'AAA'-safe, and banks and others bought them up like Cabbage Patch Kids, thinking they were minting easy money. So where do we go from here? Obviously George W. Bush's tactic of ignoring the problem for 2 years didn't work (and now Obama's administration is saddled with the impossible task of recovery), and along with it the Republican ideal of reducing regulations placed on the market would similarly be a bad idea. But what could help prevent this kind of problem in the future, when Wall Street keeps inventing new convoluted and curious ways to invest faster than the SEC can investigate and rule on them? Recently I have read two interesting proposals that I would pass on to you: An op-ed in today's Times recommends fixing the ratings system. Wired Magazine recommends that the SEC require much more public company data be published and tagged with XBRL so any investor can dig into the accounting data to learn the truth. Both of these sound like reasonable suggestions to me. So what do you think? Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:32:34 -0400 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=373 The past few days I've been tweaking some VBScripts for Active Directory and file monitoring on Windoze systems, and I've just about had it up to here. VBScript is so painful and inefficient! ( Tell me, what other language has a default error handling option of "On Error Resume Next" that you simply must use to get anything to work?!?) This always starts and ends the same: At first, it seems like VBScript will be the easiest way to get the info. For example, the web has tons of sample code on how to query AD via VBScript that makes a good starting point. But then I start tweaking and realize that I want to pretty-print the output with simple options like sorting and filtering... and it just keeps getting more complicated, since VBScript doesn't do any of that easily. Now some of the scripts are over 150 lines long now, for doing the simplest things! In the end, I always wish that I had used a "real" programming language to do them. And I will, eventually, I hope. But at the start it seemed like editing the VBScript would be easier. In one case, I am writing a Nagios script in Python that will get info about Windows files via WMI, which can be run via winexe from a Linux box—this will be a major improvement over running Nagios-NT VBScripts. But my own perfectionism and tendency towards feature creep makes this an ever-lengthening process. In another case—some simple scripts to list AD members and such—I just haven't found any good Active Directory modules for Python yet, so the obvious answer was to use the VBScript snippets I already had. (Okay, so maybe I wasn't trying hard enough to find a Pythonic solution, but my Googling did show that there were several competing modules and no one clear winner.) This one I just need to let go. My writing teacher in college talked about how, at least for him, a poem he was writing was never "finished". I think I'm kind of that way with my small sysadmin scripts—I continue to compulsively "improve" them long after they have met the need. Sheesh. Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:02:14 -0400 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=372 One of my favorite SNL skits from a couple years ago is actually good solid financial advice: Don't Buy Stuff You Don't Need. You'll get pretty much the same advice from the likes of Dave Ramsey, albeit with less tongue-in-cheek humor. (I said less, not none.) I would highly recommend taking one of his Financial Peace University courses if you can find a nearby showing; I know it made a huge difference for Ainsley & me so we're more ready to ride out these economically unstable times. Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:31:49 -0400 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=371 If you read this blog, you probably are someone who would appreciate the online comic XKCD. Or you're my Mom. Example: if you think this is funny, then you should probably check out his site every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for more laughs. And, of course, you should keep reading here too... on the off chance that I say something funny. That includes you, Mom. Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:40:58 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=370 Recently I took a fresh-looking notepad off the top of the stack in the office supplies cabinet near my desk. Today as I was using it, I noticed there seemed to be a page out of alignment, sticking out a little bit from one side. I flipped to that page to try to straighten it and found that it was actually a full-page crossword puzzle that someone had completed—presumably they kept it hidden in the notepad for those boring meetings...? Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:14:48 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=369 This weekend a friend and I went to see the movie Doubt in the theater, and I'm so glad I did. While it's not the kind of explosions-and-effects show that is typically better on the big screen, the acting is so captivating that it's worth the extra cash simply to see the actors' faces in such detail. (And y'know, for a script that's mostly about internal action rather than external, the faces are where it's at, as the camera has little else to focus on.) Permit me to repeat myself: the acting is captivating, riveting, mermerizing... Of course, it's no surprise: everyone knows that Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman are among the best, and Amy Adams is clearly a rising star that will shine on for a long time. But put the three of them in a room and POW! BIFF! KAZAAM! (Oh yeah, I should also say that Viola Davis also holds her own, as do the young actors playing the schoolkids. But it's not so much about them now, is it?) Anyway, it's only the first week of January and I've seen what may be my favorite movie of the year. (I guess it's all downhill from here!) Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:33:12 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=368 I have nothing against gas/electric hybrid cars, really (in fact, I'd love to have one myself). But still, I'm afraid one of these days I will be killed by one. You see, I am a primarily auditory person, which means I do some things rather differently than the predominantly visual majority. One such thing is crossing the street... I often forget to look both ways, because I just listen to hear if the cars are coming. But hybrid cars, when they're driving in-town on the electric motors, are quiet. Not much louder than a bicycle. So several times on my walk to and from work I have stepped into the street only to be surprised by a hybrid vehicle zooming past me. I'm such a bad example for the children. Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:46:58 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=367 One of the Christmas presents I begged for was the DVD of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and I received it with much glee. Over Christmas we watched it as a family a couple times, and it was great on the "big screen" (rather than the laptop). The other night I watched the DVD extras, and I must say: while there's the usual not-too-exciting filler like a "Making of..." mini-documentary, the piece "Commentary: The Musical" is really laugh-out-loud funny, full of the same somewhat irreverent humor from the show itself. I'm still chuckling to myself as I think about it. Recommended! Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:35:33 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=366 Adding the simplest little bit to a Python/PyGTK app today, I ran into a strange problem where my module couldn't import os.path. Mind you, I could do this from the Python Shell or from other modules, but this one gave some interesting errors: If I told it to import os, I'd get an error saying "AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'path'". If I told it to import os.path, I'd get an error saying "ImportError: No module named path".Grr... However, I found the solution on DiveIntoPython's page on Dynamic Importing: After dynamically importing with the line os = __import__('os'), I could call os.path methods just fine. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure why this works, but I figure it has something to do with the way that os.path has to dynamically load the operating system-appropriate module ('posixpath' or Unices or 'ntpath' for Windoze). Maybe that will help someone out there who is having this same problem, since Google searches show a lot of questions about it, but few solutions. Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:57:46 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=365 My Sweetie & I have gotten into CraigsList lately, mostly for purchasing or selling used stuff. But I had never thought of all the other great things you could use the site for, until I heard about this Washington (state) bank robbery. Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:49:56 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=364 The WSJ today has an article about Russian professor Igor Panarin, who for years has been predicting that the economic and moral turpitude of the United States would cause economic crisis and civil war, leading to the disbanding of the States... in 2010. Two words: Clay Feet. Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:31:16 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=363 ...to Python. I used to be so into Perl, but no more. Those of you who program, or even enjoy comparitive languages as I do, will understand that switching programming languages is a bit of a religious conversion experience. In fact, one fellow recently parsed out which religions fit which languages, and it's quite funny. Recently, I've been reading both Python and Ruby books, and even toyed with some Rails projects. Obviously there are a lot of similarities between the two—it seems that Matz borrowed (or should I say inherited?) many of the best features from Python. But there's something about Ruby—the overuse of blocks, maybe?—that can make it all a jumble, like when Perl code goes bad. But Python is so orderly... it's so beautiful, it makes my OCD side cry. Recently, I've helped out with tweaks to a couple Open Source progects written in Python and GTK+, and found it remarkably enjoyable. Amusingly, both are similar programs which do the same thing: monitor a Zenoss server's event status from your systray (see Zapplet and ZenTrayIcon). Heck, Zenoss itself is written in Python and Zope, and has its own little Python shell for direct data access (called 'zendmd'). So now I understand what Randall Monroe (XKCD) was talking about in this cartoon. Simplicity and power go hand-in-hand. Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:47:06 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=362 This is irony: There's a huge Nor'easter storm outside right now with over a foot of snow and high winds... Three hours ago I walked a mile through through the storm to get to my office, where the A/C unit in the data center has failed... and I'm sitting here toasting (along with the servers, I'm sure) in 100 degree heat. It's 85 degrees cooler outside right now, and I think that's where I'd rather be--since it would mean I was on my way home, instead of sitting here waiting for the HVAC guys to call back. Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:04:52 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=361 The office at my new job is very open, with half-height cubicles for around 50 people. While this model facilitates communication and camaraderie, it is also fairly distracting when you need to do some serious work. However, I recently discovered a helpful little website that provides peaceful white noise/background sounds to help you focus; it's called iSerenity. I plug in the headphones, kick off The Sounds Of New York or Rain, and dig in to my work. Seriously, it may sound kind of lame, but I've found it to be quite helpful. Be productive, and enjoy! Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:46:11 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=360 My iGoogle portal this morning pointed me towards the wikiHow article How to Cook Food in a Hotel Room. I can top that. A long time ago—my freshman year of college, to be exact—my roommate and I found like 10 different ways to cook Spam using non-cooking-related appliances found in the dorm room. Sure, we used the iron—it's alright. Boiled spam, on the other hand, is a mistake. But the best non-cooking appliance for your cooking needs? Fry up your Spam in a pan held above the halogen lamp—yum! And by the way: you might find yourself needing these tips, as I have heard from multiple sources that Spam sales are on the rise during our "economic downturn". Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:45:25 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=359 I had an interesting SQL Server 2005 problem the other day, which I figured I'd share with you all, since it was kind of hard to find the appropriate solution. One of our databases that tops out at only 500mb had a transaction log of over 50gb. The t-log never truncated when doing a full backup (although it was supposed to), and there were no error messages about this in the events or maintenance logs. I searched through the open transactions and processes, but none of them had run for more than a few minutes nor were they associated with that database. And shrinking the t-log didn't/wouldn't help, since it was full of actual data. I Googled quite a bit for a solution, and finally found a forum post that suggested I had to detach then reattach the database without the bad t-log file. Sure enough, that worked... and now a week later the t-log remains at just a few kilobytes. Epilogue: in the process of reattaching the database I found that the OS said the t-log was still "in use"... The open-handles feature of Sysinternal's Process Explorer made it quick work to find the offending process. The culprit in this case was CA's XOsoft Replication, which was probably the cause of the growing transaction log in the first place. Sheesh. Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:58:32 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=358 I must admit, I'm kind of bitter about artists. Not that they as a whole have somehow personally affronted me, but because that they get away with so much more crap than the rest of us, and they get paid for it. Examples: In the windows of the art school I pass on the way to work everyday, there are several new exhibits. One is merely a bunch of individual tulips (I think) in square glass pots, arranged in a big square on the floor. Anybody could have done this while simply decorating their home! The other exhibit that irks me even more definitely took a little time and effort on the artist's part, but has little in the way of "beauty" and no valuable expression whatsoever. S/he took an old chair, set a handful of coffee cups and saucers on the seat, then covered them with wax drippings. So why couldn't I do that? I can't draw or paint worth a wad of ABC gum, but I can sculpt and assemble interesting projects, ones that are visually appealing and that, more importantly, speak something. As a kid in Junior High I made some great little humanoid sculptures out of the wire from curtain hooks. In my college dorm's annual art competition, I frequently won "Honorable Mention" or "Most Original" awards for my mixed-media sculptures. One involved a broken and disassembled steam iron pieced together with cracks running through, and was accompanied by an artist's statement about the fracturing of the family. Another noteworthy project included computer parts, a Lone Ranger mask, handcuffs, and a mirror; and spoke to the murky dangers of the Internet. But because I can't draw, I could never get into art school. And because I didn't go to art school, I could never be respected (and paid) as an artist for making crap like that. Er, I mean, for making art like that. Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:14:02 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=357 That's it, I've decided: today I'm having my last Coke. I have been a serious Coke addict for a few months ago. (Coca-Cola, that is—what were you thinking I meant?) I rarely drink any soda at all, but lately I've just been craving and shooting Coke. And it's got to stop. So right now I'm drinking my Last Coke. And blogging about it. And thinking of all the fond memories I've had while drinking Coke. And humming old Coke commercial jingles to myself. And wishing the bottle was bigger, so I could enjoy it longer. Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:44:20 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=356 There are legitimate reasons that Ainsley calls me "Captain Efficiency"... Here's an example: My new job requires me to wear a tie to work everyday. Since I am tall, the tail of the tie is rarely long enough to fit under the label on the back of the tie that could keep it from flopping about (you guys should know what I'm talking about). Now, I know some people solve this by tucking the tail of the tie inside their shirts, but I find that this leaves an unsightly bulge. Other have fancy tie clips, but I do not own one (yet—it's on the Christmas wishlist). So my solution is that when I arrive at the office, I use a tiny little piece of clear tape to affix the tie's tail to the back of the tie, where it happily stays all day long. I call it the Poor Man's Tie Clip. Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:44:21 -0500 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=355 I was frustrated this weekend to hear a friend had been totally pulled in by the McCain's campaign's smear of Obama in associating the Democratic candidate with "known terrorists"—my friend had simply assumed that it meant Obama was part of Al Queda, and therefore this would clearly lead to another 9-11 event! I tried to explain, but he wouldn't hear otherwise. So, please people, learn about Bill Ayers and the Weathermen before you judge. It's really interesting, and you can even watch the movie. Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:25:05 -0400 http://ewall.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=354 I was messing around with SharePoint Designer this morning, creating what I thought would be a simple Data View grid off of my Tasks list. However, the GUI tools for filtering the data didn't have any option to use date math—you could specify "[Current Date]" or pick an exact/permanent date, but no offsets. Grr... It took me some serious Googling to find a useful solution from the M$ SPD Team Blog: Hack the CAML query to filter for items within a date range relative to today. Of course, that article still makes it more complicated that it really needs to be: in short, you just need to locate the '<Today/>' tag in the <SharePoint::SPDataSource> bit and change it to '<Today OffsetDays='15'/>' (that is, 2 weeks ahead, in this example), and it works great. Sheesh. Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:27:48 -0400