Mexico 2

I'm not allowed to use my computer and I don't have internet access where I'm staying. At least things are going well and we'll have some results regarding Christian's condition. Yes, one of the things we're doing while here is perform tests on Christian to see if we can find out why he's been sick so much.

We hope that we'll find something here and that in addition, the fact that we're in a new house where we've removed the carpet, we'll have a healthier child.

-P

Mexico 1

I am taking some vacation and I'm currently in Mexico. It's interesting how technology reaches a place but that doesn't mean that the place has "advanced." I'm not going to say that Mexico is a backwards country because there's been a lot of great technological advancements that have come from Mexicans.

Anyway, I'm enjoying my time without the "ball and chain" that is my MacBook. I must admit I miss it and I feel that I could better organize my stay here, visit family, etc if I had it and internet access. However, I'm going to avoid that. I'm actually using a VAIO with internet access so I can post this. And since it's using a Mexican keyboard layout, it's harder to type this out quickly.

I will update this as anything interesting happens. Time to go spend time with family.

-P

Tablets and iPhone

I want an iPhone. Why? Because of the geek factor and the fact that there's a lot of potential in the little guy, however I am going to wait until the 2nd rev. I know a lot of new stuff can and will come via firmware, but I am pretty sure that the hardware is going to improve too. Also wouldn't it be neat if you could get attachments or other hardware to interface with it?

I know that Motorola, Nokia and pals have products that they want to compete with the iPhone, but I haven't seen any that I would consider... yet. That said, I think that Apple has done something that the cell phone industry needed. Opening their eyes to their true potential (revenue, technological, etc) and at the same time making the customers aware that there's much more to be expected in the future.

Now what does this have to do with tablets? Well, I think some interesting things are going to happen in this space. Rumors abound about Apple's "iTablet", "iText", iGuessAgain which would incorporate some of the iPhone's technology. Dell has finally entered the tablet market with a multitouch screen, and I'm sure there's going to be more to follow! Anyway, the whole point is that I'm excited that this technology is finally starting to come around. This coupled with Microsoft's Surface computing table and... well, what's a geek to do?

Buy...

-P

symbolic links

Something that people might run into this and get confused, or worse, panic at the posibility of losing data.

I was trying to explain the issue but it'll be easier to just write the syntax out and explain it there.

ls -l
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 user1 group1 68 Dec 12 11:47 dir1

ln -s dir1 dir2

Here you create the symlink from one directory and no problem here.

ls -l
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 user1 group1 68 Dec 12 11:47 dir1
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user1 group1 4 Dec 12 11:48 dir2 -> dir1

Next:

ls -l
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 user1 group1 68 Dec 12 11:47 dir1
drwxr-xr-x 2 user1 group1 68 Dec 12 11:49 dir2

ln -s dir1 dir2

Oops! Does this replace dir2?

ls -l
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 user1 group1 68 Dec 12 11:47 dir1
drwxr-xr-x 3 user1 group1 102 Dec 12 11:50 dir2

ls -l dir2/
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user1 group1 4 Dec 12 11:50 dir1 -> dir1

Nope! It just creates a symbolic link inside the 2nd directory!

So don't worry! Remember to delete the symbolic link just use rm

-P

New House

We're in the process of buying, updating and moving into a new house. It's in the same street where I live now, about two blocks up. We're excited and are trying to get the bathroom looking nicer than it is now. It's really tough as most people know. While the work is going on, we're painting and decorating; making the house into a home.

Once we're finally moved in... I plan on going high tech! Yes, I am going to go green too. I'll change the lightbulbs a few at a time. I plan on automating the lights, however this seems to be a bigger issue than I thought since I can't seem to find ways of automating things cheaply. I'll have to research this a bit more.

I'd like to eventually add solar panels or a wind turbine at the back. They're not cheap, but I think you get an incentive from the gov or a discount or something. I'm going to take a look at this further. (Looks like £5000 for solar water heating panels and £2000 for a wind turbine from B&Q...)

I'll have to look at other things I can do.

--
Patrick