FamilyShield by OpenDNS – FREE
FamilyShield blocks adult websites across your Internet connection.  Just turn it on and go.  The filter is always up-to-date, adding new sites 24/7.
https://store.opendns.com/familyshield/setup/

1Password – $49.99
1Password can create strong, unique passwords for you, remember them, and restore them, all directly in your web browser.  It can use Dropbox (below) to sync passwords across multiple computers, smart phones, and the web.
https://agilebits.com/onepassword

Dropbox – FREE
Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily.
http://db.tt/AU00tGE

Spotify – FREE
Spotify is an online digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs.
http://www.spotify.com/us/

CrashPlan+
Secure cloud backup for your personal files and features like continuous, minute-by-minute remote backup.
http://www.crashplan.com/consumer/crashplan-plus.html

LogMeIn – FREE
Remote control of your desktop so you can open files, check your email, run programs and stay productive.
https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/

After a couple of years of considering it, I finally bought a Drobo for home use.

Monday, Oct 18:

The Drobo (2nd generation) arrived and I set it up with my Mac Mini.  I installed 1 1TB drive and 2 500GB drives.  I set it up with HFS+ and configured email alerts, etc. as recommended. Then I started migrating data from the existing external 1TB drive.

Tuesday, Oct 19:

Added another 1TB disk that I removed from an old Seagate external drive. Everything seemed fine as I migrated the remaining data from the still existing 1TB external drive.

Wednesday, Oct 20:

All data had migrated to the Drobo and things had been working fine for a few hours. So, I unplugged the external drive, removed it’s 1TB Seagate drive, and replaced one of the 500GB drives with the 1TB drive.  So, at this point the Drobo has 3 1TB drives and 1 500GB drive.  The Drobo began to rebuild the Data Protection. It calculated it would take about 13 hours to complete.

Thursday, Oct 21:

At about 6a this morning (about 12 hours after replacing the drive) I got another critical alert notification that “Drobo cannot currently protect your data against hard drive failures.”

At about 9a the Mac Mini that the Drobo is connected to froze, so I had to power cycle that computer. When the Mac Mini finished rebooting, the Drobo was no longer connected to the Mac Mini. After attempting to reconnect the Drobo several times, I ended up power cycling the Drobo. It came back online and showed the file system for a several minutes, despite continuing to state that “Data Protection” was still in progress.

Then, a few minutes later the Drobo unmounted from the Mac Mini again, but it shows up as unmounted and unformatted in the Apple Disk Utility. At that point the Drobo Dashboard started showing the Drobo’s file system is now “Unformatted” instead of it’s original “HFS+” file system.

I suspect that one of my drives are bad, but the Drobo never tells me that and it is still “In Progress” of rebuilding the data protection.

Around 7p I received a 2nd reply from Drobo support:

Lets try this next then:
1. Power down the computer.
2. Disconnect Firewire, then power to the Drobo.
3. Eject all of the drives.
4. Reconnect Firewire, then power to the Drobo.
5. Wait for the Drobo to connect to the Drobo Dashboard.
6. Put the Drobo into standby: Drobo Dashboard > Advanced Controls… > Tools > Standby.
7. Disconnect Firewire, then power.
8. Re-insert all of the drives.
9. Reconnect Firewire, then USB.

Let me know if this enables the Drobo to complete it’s re-layout.

I followed those steps exactly, except for replacing “then USB” with “then power” in step 9 (which I presumed was a typo).  3 hours later it was still showing the filesystem as “unformatted” and “appox. 1 minute remaining” on the data protection rebuild.

Friday, Oct 22:

Still not working and no further response from Drobo.  I’m stuck and frustrated, since I can’t really see what is happening behind the scenes with the Drobo.

Are there any Drobo ubergeeks out there that can help me?

This blog post is a test to see if Buzz will automagically pull in this post from my blog.

What are your thoughts on Google Buzz?

Location Aware Apps:

• AroundMe – find things near you
• Google – localized search, voice enabled, access to all Google apps
• Gowalla – track and share where you are
• iWant – find things near you
• Showtimes – view local movie show times, read reviews, view trailers
• Urbanspoon – get random local restaurant recommendations
• CoPilot Live – relatively inexpensive GPS navigation

Miscellaneous:

• Bible – best free Bible app with most versions – developed by LifeChurch.tv
• WordPress – manage your WordPress blog
• Photoshop Mobile – Photoshop for simple editing of your iPhone photos
• Remote – control iTunes on your computer from your phone
• ESPN ScoreCenter – view scores and game updates
• Walgreens – we use this to manage our prescription orders

Social Networking

• Tweetie – best Twitter app available
• Facebook – connect with Facebook
• AIM – instant messaging on the go
• Yahoo Messenger – instant messaging on the go
• Pandora Radio – streaming music to your taste – check out Rockin’ Holidays channel

Financial

• Quicken – financial account overview via free Quicken Online
• PayPal – pay people securely
• USAA – best online bank – deposit checks with your camera – transfer money live

Games

• Paper Toss – waste more time than imaginable
• Sol Free – best free solitaire games
• iBowl – like a Wii on your phone

Remote Connectivity

• TouchTerm – ssh client for linux sysadmins
• VNC – remote vnc viewer for screen sharing
• RDP – remote desktop for Windows

My office mate, Matt, currenly has 254 apps installed on his iPhone.  That’s more than the iPhone is actually capable of displaying on it’s home pages.  Anyway, I also asked him for his recommendations of best apps.

Matt’s Picks:

• Now Playing
• WeatherBug
• Grocery IQ
• Where
• Facebook
• iDig It – underground farming game
  
• Pocket Bible – read Bibles and books from Laradian
  
• MotionX GPS Drive – very cheap GPS navigation
  
• MotionX GPS – track your path along a hike
  
• Paper Toss
• Strategery – simpler version of Risk boardgame
  
• Pzizz Relax – take a power nap
• Hold On – hours of non-stop fun for the kids
• AIM – instant messaging

What are your favorite iPhone apps that you use at least once a week?

Sony PSP 2000 – Piano Black   $155
Used about 1 hour till I confiscated it from him.  In excellent
condition.  Comes with opened box, battery, and power charger.
http://www.amazon.com/PSP-2000-Console-Piano-Black-Sony/dp/B000UA0LXQ/

God of War  – Chains of Olympus – for Sony PSP   $28
New in sealed box.  Never used or opened.
http://www.amazon.com/God-War-Chains-Olympus-Sony-PSP/dp/B000R3BN4M

Email me if you’re interested in either of these items.

We finally received our first of the new MacBooks at work today.  We’re considering making this our default, preferred laptop across the organization. So, I gave it a quick trial run for about 45 minutes.

First, how does this keyboard feel?  I think it’s a tad bit cramped.  The response of the keys is ok, but I feel like my pinkies are held in uncomfortably tight.

The screen seems fine to me.  Less real estate than I’m used to, but much easier to read than my 17″ high res screen.

The speaker response is very adequate.  A bit tinny, but fine for normal work use.

The track pad seems pretty natural – I forget I don’t have a button.

Sitting it on my lap, it feels too small for me.  But, I could get used to it.

The compact size and light weight make it nice for moving around the building easily.

The glossy screen is very nice when the display is set to bright.  But, if I’m trying to save power in a meeting by dimming the screen, the glare makes it hard to view.  But, again, I’d get used to it.

I plugged in the laptop to a projector in a conference room, and it worked exactly as my MBP does as far as connectivity.  Looked fine.

The entire machine just feels well made. While the keys look cheap, they work well. The screen is amazing and very rugged. All the metal and glass on the case feel awesome to the touch and yet extremely rugged.

The only problem I had with the MacBook is that my wireless internet seemed to be really slow. I’m not sure if that’s an issue of the MacBook or if we were having problems here at the office today.

Overall, I think it’s a great little laptop for typical users at our office. Some developers will still prefer the 17″ MBP, but it’s adequate for the majority of our Mac users.

For the past year and a half we’ve been lucky to have been lent a Leprecon LP-X24 lighting control console. This has been a really nice board, but now we’re needing to give it back to it’s owners who have another use for it. As we move forward with expanding into some intelligent lights in the coming year, I don’t really want to spend a ton of money on a new controller which could easily cost $3,500-$10,000. So, I’m exploring some options of replacing the controller on the extreme cheap.

So, we currently have 24 microplex channels and 5 DMX channels, all of which are non-intelligent lights (not moving or color changing). Adam Callender at Granger Community Church posted a while back about how they started into a High End Hog controller system by simply purchasing something like a HOG 3PC DMX Widget and controlling their lights using a spare computer running the HOG 3PC Software. This option appears to cost about $1200 $1,700 plus the cost of a computer. And presuming we went with a real HOG lighting console in the future, the DMX Widget would continue to be part of that.

But, then that got me to thinking, “Haven’t I seen some other cheap or free software for lighting controllers?”

Well, after a bit more searching online, it appears that we could purchase a lower end (no pun intended) USB DMX Interface for $151. This would let us drive a DMX universe using software like the following:

• MagicQ (windows, mac, or linux)
• StageConsole (windows)
• miniStageConsole (windows or mac)
• QLC (linux)

Below are two web sites that I found with some more details on cheap/free DMX control:

• http://www.chromakinetics.com/DMX/
• http://www.opendmx.net/

So… I’m looking for any input or experience with any of these cheap/free DMX options. At this entry price point, I’m just tempted to give several of them a try and see if they meet our needs. But, I’d love to get feedback from others who may have already gone down this path.

You can spread this viral video here. Would you vote for me?

Warning: This is a technical post, mostly to document and share my experience so others interested might stumble upon it.

So, I purchased a couple of new 1TB USB hard drives this week and have been trying to figure out how to best set them up for optimal speed and accessibility.  The latest setup is to connect them via USB to my Apple AirPort Extreme Basestation as AirDisks.  I’ll be backing up my laptops to these drives daily (I’ll share the backup details later), so I was curious just how fast I could dump data to them.

How fast should I be able to copy data to the USB hard drive attached to my Airport Extreme?

• 210 GB/hr (480 Mbps) peak from server – limit of USB 2.0 is lower than my gigabit network
• 131.8 GB/hr (300 Mbps) peak from laptop – limit of 802.11n

But are those numbers realistic for average write speeds?  I’m currently averaging about 10.5 GB/hr.

Somebody suggested that the Airport Extreme is limited to about 5 MBps (17.57 GB/hr).  This has something to do with the processor in the Airport Extreme (APEB).  Here’s what they’re experiencing:

• reading from APEB: 16 MBps
• writing to APEB: 3.5 MBps average and 5-6 MBps peak

3.5 MBps = 12.3 GB/hr which is about what I’m experiencing so far.  I have 4 USB disks connected to by AirPort, but I think this throughput should be for all drives combined.

If you have a USB disk attached to a network with something like the AirPort Extreme, let me know what kind of read and write speeds you are averaging.

Watch the video featuring my burn notice

Thankfully this is just a clever viral video promoting the 2nd season of Burn Notice on USA.  But, I enjoyed how they created the customized video on the fly.

If you already have a PayPal account, you can use these single use credit cards for free.  Here’s a link for PayPal users to find out more information about the service:

• https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_vdc-hub&show_page=Help
  Note you have to be logged into your PayPal account before the above URL will work.

This seems like a great way to add some extra security when you’re purchasing stuff online.

Have you used anything like this before?  Do you have other tips for securely shopping online?

On that Monday and Tuesday I served in a temporary data center for a 6,000 person shelter that had been setup at the River Centre in Baton Rouge, LA.  As a computer guru and web application developer, I knew that a few technology tweaks could make this data processing much more useful.  It was frustrating to be there and know that something better could be done.

Then on the drive back to Illinois on Wednesday, we were listening to a Steel on Steel podcast and they were talking about how technology could possibly solve our oil shortage.  I was like, “Yeah… technology can solve any problem.”

Then, suddenly, I realized what I was saying.  I really did tend to think that technology can fix any problem.  Technology is amazing.  It can solve starvation, resource scarcity, data analysis, recovery from natural disasters, etc.  It can literally save people.  Or can it?   Can technology fix all our problems?  I sure tend to think it can if we can just wrap our minds around a solution.

I realized that much of the time I look to technology to fix us, instead of God.  The world’s core problems can only be solved by God.  My deepest problems can only be made right by God’s miraculous touch.

If I don’t watch myself, I start to worship technology, rather than the one who created order to our world and gave us the left and right parts of our brains in order to develop and apply technology to our worlds.

Lord, help me to rely only on you and realize daily that technology is something you created for us to use to glorify you.

How do you tend to worship technology?  What else do you worship instead of God?  Politics?  Wealth?

You probably already have several distributed servers in your organization.  But, instead of calling them servers, you probably call them desktops.  But, what’s the difference between a server and a desktop?  What’s the difference between a client and service?  Can’t we start to blend the lines between these?

It’d be like implementing Grid computing into your organization.  Or similar to RAID, which used to mean redundant array of inexpensive disk. Why not a redundant network of inexpensive storage servers?  Most modern desktops have an under-utilized CPU, network connection, and hard drive.  Why not make them useful?

It’d be like P2P in the organization, but it’d have lots of extra features like permissions, levels of redundancy, dynamic network topography mapping, distribution of data, search features, fault tolerance, version history, etc.

It’s like taking RAID, ZFS, a distributed file system, drive mirroring, backup software, data integrity, and a search engine and packaging it all into a desktop client that acts as a P2P server.  It’d ideally be integrated into common directory services like LDAP, Active Directory, and Open Directory.

I doubt this is an original idea.  In fact I seem to remember talking about this general concept (probably involving ZFS) with a coworker a couple months back.

What do you think?  Could it work?
Does anything like this exist already?
What other features would be useful?

I’m lost and confused.  How do I check my email?  How do I read my morning news?  How do I read my Bible?  How do I collect my thoughts?  How do I plan my day?

It’s kind of scary just how much I depend on my internet uplink.  I really do feel lost when I’m disconnected from the grid.

Seems like I’ve got two options… 1) go buy myself an iPhone, or 2) relax and chill out for a few minutes.  I’ll choose option 2 this time (until the deluge of email kicks back in).

Being the frugal geek that I am, I’m trying to rethink if there is a free way to replace this system instead of spending another $250 on a new keypad. I’m thinking there should be some way to setup some service so that our nursery workers could call a special phone number and type in the number. Then this number is communicated to the tech booth operators via SMS, IM, or Twitter.

The closest I’ve come up with so far is to setup a special Jott account and link that in with a Twitter account. The nursery worker calls Jott, says they want to contact Twitter, and then speaks the number and name of the parent. This would require the tech booth to be running a Twitter client to see the alerts. Here’s a sample of what I’ve got it doing so far:

I’m thinking there should still be an even easier way to do this, hopefully involving fewer internet services. This solution wouldn’t work if our phone service, internet service, Jott, or Twitter experienced any outages. And, it’s not totally straight forward for our volunteers to use.

Anyone have a simpler idea?

• TwitterPod

Do you have any other Twitter tips that help you?

If you share any similar interests with me, you might find that subscribing to my shared news feed is useful:

• Bill’s Shared Posts and News

Let me know if you find this useful.

Are you using an RSS Feed Reader? If so, what do you use?

Pipes lets you do some powerful things with RSS feeds and other web content.

Check out my first three pipes:

• http://pipes.yahoo.com/billglick/gracelctvpodcast
  combines LifeChurch.tv and FindingGrace podcasts
• http://pipes.yahoo.com/billglick/digdeep
  limits the feed down to only 1 item
• http://pipes.yahoo.com/billglick/newsalerts
  search Yahoo and Google news and display unique alerts

This seems very powerful. I want to see about creating some other custom feeds from various sources.

Could a parent send an SMS message to the church as they’re arriving to somehow speed up or simplify the process? When they show up at the check-in area, the volunteers or whatever could have preprinted name tags and labels for the kid.

Then that same cell phone could be used as a contact method for the parent in an emergency. If a parent needs to be contacted, why not send a text message to the parent’s cell phone that they registered the child with?

It’d take some work to make it easy, but why not consider it? Doesn’t most everyone carry a cell phone anyway?

What do you think?