Jason’s Blog

IMAX Theater On Our Street?

Tue, 2 Dec 2008 22:16:27 -0500

A few weeks ago the The Daily Collegian reported that an IMAX Theater might be coming to State College. And if so it would be about 6 blocks down the road from our house! Cool beans! My first memories of IMAX technology are from the Museum of Science in Boston which has an IMAX Dome theater. It was awesome! It totally fills your peripheral vision and was very immersive. I remember a bit of footage shot from a helicopter which is flying along and then stops to hover and then starts tilting forward and down. I really felt like I was going to fall! It’s that good!

Back then I assumed that all IMAX theaters were domes, but alas it’s not true. A number of years later for our first anniversary Deeanne and I visited Niagara Falls and while there we went to the local IMAX theater. It was just a really big rectangular screen which I discovered is actually the norm. That’s cool, but not as impressive as a dome. I hope that we end up with an IMAX Dome theater at the Fraser Centre in State College!

Fireproof Your Marriage

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:42:19 -0500

One thing Deeanne and I like to do together is watch movies (or TV on DVD). Usually we use our Blockbuster Online membership to rent movies to watch. But about once every year or two we go to an actual movie theater to take in a new movie. Today was one of those special days! Thanks to our friends Jeff & Amber who babysat our children, we got to go out and see the movie Fireproof. It was fantastic!

Fireproof is about a fireman whose marriage is going down in flames and with the help of his father he chooses to fight for his wife's heart in order to save their marriage. A couple things that were neat about it were the clear and "real" presentation of Jesus Christ as the real solution to the fireman's problems. Another element of Fireproof that sets it apart from most movies is that it identified Internet pornography as a bad thing that was actively contributing to the demise of the fireman's marriage. I bet the typical Hollywood crowd isn't real thrilled about either of those themes! I highly recommend the movie, and don't forget your tissues as you may find your eyes tearing up at times.

A Father-Son Hike

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:16:00 -0500

This morning I decided to burn off some hard-earned Thanksgiving calories by making my second ever trek up nearby Mount Nittany with my oldest son Isaac. The first time I hiked that popular trail with him he was just a little pip squeak in a backpack and the weather was warm. This time Isaac hiked up all by himself on an icy trail! He did great and it was a real treasure to have that time with him as he grows up and heads toward manhood.

As we came down the mountain and neared our car Isaac shared with me that he had been a little scared when we first arrived, but he was really glad we did the hike and he had loved it. He said that his two favorite parts about it were:
Taking his first photo using a real camera (a great one of me with State College in the background on his very first try!)
"Ice skating" on the way down - it was pretty icy and we really slid around, but fortunately God protected us as we had asked him to and there were no injuries.

What a special way to spend a morning!

Apple iChat Screen Sharing

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:10:36 -0400

I’m happy.

I just tried using the iChat screen sharing feature to help my mom fix a problem on her Mac right from the comfort of my own home. And it worked! Marvelously! That was very handy because Deeanne is out grocery shopping now and I’m responsible for our children so I couldn’t leave to help my mom a couple miles away.

Using the feature requires that the computer on either end is a Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard”. Fortunately my mom’s latest computer is a cute little Mac Mini at my recommendation and so far it’s been working out pretty well. Being able to fix it remotely so easily is a “real nice feature”.

Switching to Thunderbird

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:13:39 -0400

I recently changed email programs. That’s a big deal because I had used my previous email program for almost 14 years! So you could say that I had gotten a little used to it. :) What was I using? Pine! What am I using now? Apple’s Mail.app on our iMac at home, or Mozilla Thunderbird on my Linux machines at home and my office. I’m using the two different programs mostly for the fun of learning more stuff and so I can better help people using either one. I access my mail via IMAP so it’s shared between the programs (as long as only one program is accessing it at a time).

Here is a collection of tips & extensions I’ve used to make Thunderbird function more like I want it to, with some tips about making it happily coexist with Apple Mail:

Point Thunderbird at the Apple Mail trash folder (Instructions), and at the Apple Mail sent folder (via Account Settings) and make sure Thunderbird isn’t Subscribed to the new trash folder.
Use the FreeLDAP.org service to provide a shared addressbook between Thunderbird and Apple (not for the faint of heart).
Get a decent quote header in Thunderbird (I used option 2 and commented out the second block of preferences).
Setup multiple Identities in Thunderbird using the Account Settings if you want to send mail from more than one email address.
Install a Thunderbird theme named “ACE CuteBird (Blue)” to mimic the Apple Mail interface.
Install the Mail Redirect extension to allow a better forward type function when sending things to Deeanne or the DM issue tracker when I don’t want it to appear to be from me.
Install the Image Zoom extension to make it easier to view huge images that are emailed to me.
Install the Rewrap Toolbar Button extension to make it easier to reformat text when I’m replying to mail.
Install the Signature Switch extension to make it easy to switch between email signatures and turn them on and off as I write mail.
Install the Nostalgy extension to make it easy and fast to file mail using the keyboard. I’ve got it setup so that ‘A’ sends it to the Archive folder. ‘S’ to the “spam learn” folder to identify something as spam, and ‘H’ to the “ham learn” folder to identify something as not being spam.
Install the Mailbox Alert extension to get more control over toaster style popup messages to tell you when new mail has arrived so it didn’t keep telling me about things in my spam folder that I’d rather not see. I use it with the ‘notify-send’ program in Linux.

So I hope this helps and please let me know if you have your own favorite Thunderbird tweaks and extensions. Thanks!

Are Netbooks Going Mainstream?

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:45:58 -0400

When you see a tech gadget on display at Circuit City in State College, PA then you know it’s going fairly mainstream. Well, yesterday for the first time I saw a netbook on sale in a retail store. It was a blue Acer Aspire One running Linux. I clicked on the “Writing” icon from the main menu screen and up came the OpenOffice splash screen. I’ve seen and briefly used Asus and OLPC netbooks at computer conferences earlier this year, but this was my first time seeing them readily available for non-geeks. Nice!

What is a netbook, you ask? Well, it’s basically a very small, cheap laptop which is designed mostly for web surfing and email usage with light office software use as well. The trend was started last year by Asus with their Eee PC netbooks running Linux, and has grown from there. Netbooks become more useful as people use more and more web apps like Google Docs, etc. The idea is that you can bring this tiny, light machine around for cheap when you don’t want to lug a big laptop or when you’re away from your powerful desktop. They’re not really designed for use as a person’s sole computer or for people that need a large keyboard or monitor.

Rumor has it that Dell will start selling their own netbook running Ubuntu Netbook Remix any day now. Then netbooks will really have gone mainstream. So is anyone reading this post on a netbook? Who’d like to try one? How many college students will be toting them around campus by the end of this school year? Will Apple start selling a Super iPod netbook? Time will tell...

Our National Pastime

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:37:16 -0400

Tonight I had the treat of taking Isaac and Esther out to see a minor league baseball game with some free tickets from my favorite bicycle shop, Freeze Thaw Cycles. We saw our local single A Pittsburgh Pirates affiliate, the State College Spikes, play against the Staten Island Yankees. The SI Yankees were winning when we left halfway through the game because the kids were getting tired. :)

Freeze Thaw was giving the tickets away as a promotion in conjunction with a “Going Green” event the Spikes team organized. The weather was beautiful, the view of God’s creation in the form of Mt. Nittany and forests was gorgeous, and there were some nice hits in the baseball game. It was a real treat!

Eneloop Rechargeable Batteries

Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:11:08 -0400

Have you ever run out of juice in your digital camera only to find that your replacement set of rechargeable batteries were nearly dead? Normal rechargeable batteries lose their charge pretty quickly when they’re not sitting in a charger. Pretty frustrating!

Then comes a new type of rechargeable battery - “low-selfdischarge NiMH” batteries. They cost about the same as normal nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries and can be used in normal chargers, but they barely lose their charge over time. Instead of being nearly useless after a month or two, they keep about 85% of their charge after a full year! This also means that they’re well suited for devices that don’t use much electricity where normal rechargeables would self-discharge faster than they’re used up (like a wall clock, etc). And they even come fully charged because they retain their charge while in transport and sitting on a store shelf.

The two main brands of this battery that I’ve seen are Sanyo Eneloop and Rayovac Hybrid. I recently purchased some Sanyo Eneloops and I’ve been very pleased with them. They’re not easy to find yet but I bought them at our local Circuit City. I won’t make any financial gain if you buy them, I’m just a satisfied customer wanting to share what I’ve learned about a new technology with others. Enjoy!

Full Circle Magazine

Sat, 2 Aug 2008 08:40:37 -0400

Are you new to Ubuntu Linux? Or Linux in general? Have you ever wanted some more friendly help and tutorials to help you learn how to use your computer and graphics editing software like GIMP? If so, I highly recommend that you check out Full Circle Magazine, an unofficial Ubuntu magazine which is produced monthly. It’s done in a very attractive PDF format which is nice for reading online or printing and reading offline. It has a lot of nice articles, tutorials, and letters geared for people new to Ubuntu and Linux. I’ve been using Linux for a number of years but I’ve really enjoyed learning some good graphic editing skills from a series of GIMP and Inkscape tutorials. Check it out!

Site Specific Browsers

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:15:03 -0400

Today I first heard about Site Specific Browsers (SSBs). It sounds really cool! The idea is to use an extra piece of software that interfaces with your web browser to create what appears to be a native app which uses a specific web app. So let’s say that you find yourself using Facebook or Google Docs all the time, such that they’re some of the main apps you use. Rather than let them get buried in your web browser as plain old web pages, you can use an SSB to “promote” them to first class status and they’ll appear on your desktop as a standard app and can do things like show you the number of unread messages on the dock icon similar to Apple Mail, etc. Also you won’t have all the usual browser UI (address bar and other toolbars) in the way giving you more screen space and less visual clutter when you’re working in your favorite app. Cool!

Fluid is a nice free SSB program for Mac OS X 10.5 which is based on the cross-platform and open source Mozilla Prism project (Ubuntu packages are available for at least 8.04 “Hardy”). Check ‘em out! I wonder if this type of thing is the way of the future for more and more apps that are done today as native apps for a given platform... What do you think?

Ruby on Rails & Django

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:41:50 -0400

So I’m excited at trying my hand at some programming again. It’s been a while and I’m getting the urge. I think that for anything new that doesn’t require hardcore multimedia or hardware support that an AJAX (aka Web 2.0) web app is the way to go. With the proliferation of mobile internet devices like the iPhone, Eee PC, etc it’s the best way to make apps available to everyone in a way that’s simple to start using.

So I’ve been learning about some of the more popular open source web application frameworks: Ruby on Rails and Django. Django means working with Python which is an awesome programming language that I really like and have tinkered with. Rails means learning Ruby, which is fun because it’s learning something new, and it has the reputation of being very similar to Python in a number of ways.

I’ve decided to try learning Ruby on Rails in large part due to its popularity and project culture. Popularity means there are a number of good books, screencasts, user communities, etc to turn to for help. The project culture seems to me to be more focused on making a framework that is fun to develop in and that works pretty well rather than focusing on achieving perfection and all possible features. For example, Django has been on the verge of a 1.0 release for well over two years and it’s currently promised as a present for my birthday this year. In that same amount of time the Rails project released v1.0 and have moved on to v2.1. We all know that version numbers don’t mean much in and of themselves, but for me it communicates that the Django crowd is content to stay in the realm of high end early adopters whereas the Rails project is eager to reach out to the masses and help everyone make better web apps. I also like that Rails is the defacto standard framework for the Ruby language and I wish that Python had more of a “standard” web app framework that the community could rally around. Also, Apple is eagerly bundling Rails with Mac OS X these days and there seems to be a very heavy Mac presence in the Rails developer community. Since I’m an Apple fan that communicates to me that Rails is doing things well. :)

Here are some of the things I read or watched in my research:
Snakes & Rubies video debate between core Rails and Django developers
Evaluating Web Development Frameworks: Rails and Django whitepaper
“Why I moved from Ruby on Rails to Python/Django and back” blog article
Funny Framework Comparisons blog article
Tour de Babel language comparison blog article

Adding Some Fiber to Our Diet

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:28:41 -0400

I’m excited! There is a very real possibility that we can get fiber optic telecom service at the DiscipleMakers headquarters by the end of the summer! That would mean greatly increased bandwidth (20mbit down, 5 mbit up) for our Internet connection which we use to host our email & web servers. And more bandwidth means faster access for everyone to our website and its multimedia files, and for our staff to their email attachments!

We’re currently using fixed-point wireless Internet access via local ISP GetWireless.net which gives us up to 6mbit down and 1mbit upstream bandwidth at a very reasonable price. It was the only affordable option when we moved into the building since the only existing data wiring is Verizon phone wiring which is too far away from the nearest CO for DSL service. The GetWireless.net service was quite reliable until the past few weeks which have been full of minor outages and included one major outage.

The fiber option is from a Lancaster, PA based telecom company named D&E Communications whom we used to use as a DSL provider at our previous office and whom I use for my home Internet & phone service. They’ve been very pleasant to deal with as they’re a relatively small company and they’re local. Their State College office is just a few properties down the road from our headquarters, which is the main reason why fiber to the building is an option with them. It’s a service they’re rolling out in part to compete with Comcast, and they offer very reasonable rates. I hope that it works out for us to step up to that level of service...that would be a huge step up! :)

ICCM 2008

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:48:51 -0400

My fellow missionary Brian Roberg and I recently got to attend the International Conference on Computing and Mission (ICCM) at Taylor University in Indiana. It’s a great conference put on by volunteers and with many of the attendees doing the leading and teaching. I really enjoy meeting other people involved with technology in missions, seeing what the Lord is doing, and refocusing my vision on why this support ministry that God has called me to is important. There were “techies”, managers, and volunteers with jobs in the secular workforce who came from all over the US and Canada. People also came from Europe and southeast Asia too!

One thing that really stood out to me this year is that the explosion of small Internet devices is nearly upon us. What I mean is that there is a greatly increasing number of computer-ish devices smaller than laptops which have relatively wimpy specs, but are great for surfing the web, checking email and doing other basic computing activities. Some of these devices come in the form of ultra small laptops like the Eee PC, and others come in the form of smart phones like the iPhone and Nokia 810. They run many different operating systems, so the best way to target an application across all of them is to make it a web application suitable for a relatively small screen. One application I depend on which is tricky to use on that kind of platform is TntMPD, a Windows personal support raising database program produced by Campus Crusade. Since I went to a Ruby on Rails class at ICCM I now have the idea to lead a project to create a simple open source web app clone of the most important parts of TntMPD. We’ll see if anyone else is doing that and if God will help me get the idea off the ground. :)

Another thing I really want to get up to speed on is Bomgar, a remote desktop system which is very well suited for remote support of our missionaries’ computers. Apparently many of the founders are missionary kids (MKs) and support ministries by making Bomgar available at very low cost (free?) for mission agencies, etc. It looks like a fantastic tool which will be a big step up over reading error messages over the phone. :)

So there are a couple things I’m currently excited about in the realm of supporting missionaries with computer technology. Thanks for reading!

Acts of God - Bigger Trees?

Thu, 15 May 2008 06:38:25 -0400

Yesterday was an exciting day for those of on the DiscipleMakers Systems Team because our Internet connection at the headquarters office was down all day. That’s especially critical for us since we host our email and web server on-site, so those were unavailable to people. The upside is that we all got a lot less spam yesterday! :)

The type of Internet service we use is a little unusual in that the “last mile” of delivery to our building is a fixed-point wireless system from a company called GetWireless.net. We have a small radio antenna dish on our roof (similar to a satellite dish) which is pointed at a tower on a nearby mountain. Anyway, once I noticed the problem I gave them a call. They quickly acknowledged that our link was down and they dispatched a guy to check things out on-site. A man named Tom came and did an excellent job cheerfully working on our problem and communicating with us. His diagnosis: trees on slight hills between our building and the nearby mountain have gotten bigger this year and now that it’s spring and all the leaves are growing there’s enough bulk to block the radio signal (which requires good line-of-sight access). So we can praise God for his beautiful creation of trees, but also acknowledge that the curse of Genesis 3 is still in effect and his creation is fighting against us (as anyone knows who is trying to keep their yard weed-free over any length of time).

About mid-day Tom from GetWireless called for backup and after trying several different options and taking a trip for parts they finally found a solution: putting our antenna on a different part of the building and increasing its height by mounting it up on a pole (see picture). Thanks for your hard work to get us back online, Tom & GetWireless!

Building a Rack...and Learning About God’s Plans

Sun, 4 May 2008 14:16:15 -0400

Friday was an exciting day since our last major pieces of server equipment arrived thanks to FedEx! The pieces we received were an unassembled server rack and two nice Dell PowerEdge 1950 servers which we’ll use to run all of our virtual machines. My co-worker Brian and I had fun unpacking everything and showing it to the rest of the people who were working in or visiting the DiscipleMakers headquarters at the time. We even had a lot of help from Clayton assembling things and taking pictures! You can find lots of fun (if you think computers are fun) pictures on our Web Gallery site.

The first half of the afternoon was really exciting as Brian masterminded putting together our new rack. Yeah! The second half of the afternoon was pretty discouraging as we tried to figure out how to mount our new Dell servers on the rack. Eventually we figured out that the Dell rails we got just aren’t compatible with the either the rack or the PDUs (power distribution units - big power strips) that we got. Once we actually had equipment in hand to try and follow the instructions with then the specs and info we had been reading about racks slowly started to make more sense.

Friday evening I did some more research and discovered that we’re not alone in having these kinds of problems and that there are other ways of mounting servers (in this case, using “fixed rails”) that will make our servers compatible with everything else. Saturday I got to test it out using some extra equipment someone had donated to us a while back and it worked! Bonus!

I praise God for helping us to figure out how to make it work even with equipment that turned out to be less than perfect. Come to think of it, that’s a good analogy for how He makes his plans work by using us people who are less than perfect. I guess you can learn about God even by working with computers... <grin>