Countdown:

What is Operation Chokehold?

On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. The idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!

I’ve prepared 3 video files that I have tested and can confirm WILL DOWNLOAD over the 3G connection on the iPhone. These are 3 videos from the Lollapalooza concerts in Chicago last year. I figured, might as well eat the bandwidth with something fun to watch too!

Radiohead: http://bit.ly/8B3UGe (528.1 MB)
Kanye West: http://bit.ly/7CeZSX (161.6 MB)
Rage Against the Machine: http://bit.ly/5RYjvR (475 MB)

I also posted a video from Rothbury 20007: http://bit.ly/4MFKt9 (200 MB)

Also! Blackberry Users can participate too. Try PANDORA!

FUCK AT&T.

AT&T IS EVIL

Quoted from Reddit:

From what I can tell, this is only a confirmed issue in Southern California at the moment, but seems to be wider than just a regional problem. Those who have contacted AT&T representatives were told that the site is in fact blocked, so this isn’t a technical problem, and all the other 4chan subdomains work fine.

Moot is aware

It’s come to our attention that AT&T is filtering/blocking img.4chan.org (/b/ & /r9k/) for many of their customers. There is no remedy at this time.

If you’ve been affected, I would advise you call or write customer support and corporate immediately.

xkcd’s comment is my favorite:

What IP blocks do their corporate offices have? If they’re really cutting off my trashy time-wasting web entertainment, I’m cutting off theirs.

As many people have been saying, this very well could be the begeniniung of the end of the Internet as we know it. And considering the 4chan crowd, AT&T should be ready to battle. The shit is really going to hit the fan now. Too bad for AT&T. HA.

Hey everyone. Just checking in to say hi. I started by adventure last week on Wednesday when I drove out I Milwaukee to visit my friend Mark and since the weekend of the 4th I’ve been in downtown Chicago chilling with Stef and now Brett and Keil.
It feels so good to have the freedom to do something like this right now. So free.

Big things to come.

I’m working on a research project involving Context-Aware RFID Driven Web Applications and came across these videos.

iPhone RFID: object-based media from timo on Vimeo.

Wireless in the world from timo on Vimeo.

Making an RFID cross-section from timo on Vimeo.

Experiments in Field Drawing from timo on Vimeo.

These are just for fun

Volume I from timo on Vimeo.

Volume III from timo on Vimeo.

My good friend and avid Arch user Travis just put together a great review and guide to the Tracks GTD web app. Check it out!

I make no claim to having any real skill making panormas. Instead, I use the very handy app DoubleTake by Echoone. Brent tool all of these pics.

Getting closer to the mall.

Gathering by the Washington Monument

Washington Monument from the WWII Memorial

Pacific – WWII Monument

Atlantic – WWI Monument

The Mega Monument Panorama

I also created a Quicktime VR file from the Mega Monument Panorama. SHIFT = Zoom In, Control = Zoom Out

For the inauguration of President Barack Obama this year, I wanted to make a point to include as many people in the experience as I could. Being an avid user of Facebook, Loopt, WordPress and now Twitter, it was important to find a way to bring all these services together and syndicate the information between them all. Originally, I wanted to use Loopt to track myself, but without a Blackberry Bold client, had moved to TwitterBerry and some lightweight Twitter location updating client. While I was searching for an adequate solution, I was reading through Blackberry Forums and found that the 8830’s Loopt client ran on the Bold without too many glitches (Open wap.GetJar.com with your mobile -> Quick Download -> enter Quick Download Code 29639). Loopt it is.

Having used Loopt in the past, I had known about the Loopt feature called “Loopt Link” that will syndicate the last 10 or so journal entries in the Loopt application to Twitter, Facebook, A Web Widget & RSS feed. For Tuesday’s ceremony, I implemented all but the RSS feed into my web applications to allow for maximum visibility which put my Blackberry in control of every Loopt journal entry, Tweet, Facebook Status and post here at nickganga.com.

Loopt Widget & Journal Entries

Loopt’s blog widget is a great way to show your journal entries on an interactive map. I featured the widget here on this site in the header from Monday January 19, 2009 – Wednesday January 21, 2009 as family and friends followed us on our journey to the nation’s capital.

Wordpress TwitterTools Plugin

Alex King’s WordPress plugin TwitterTools powered the WP integration for this historic event. Because Loopt delivers status updated to Twitter, this plugin listens to Twitter and was set to create an entry for each Tweet.

To Frank Potter @ Loopt for helping make this geo-tagging experience possible!

Working with OS X, Windows, Active Directory and other network services as much as I do, I came across a great tip when adding a leopard based machine to a AD domain today. After you bind the machine to the domain, make sure to enable the option called “Create mobile account at login”, especially if the machine is a notebook. I’m not going to say I learned this from experience, but hey you get the drift.

After binding to your domain, select “Show Advanced Settings” and select the “Services” tab. Open the Active Directory settings and enable the Create Mobile Account at Login check box and confirmation box if necessary.

I’m using the iPhone/iPod touch WordPress client. Not too shabby if you ask me!

Your assignment is to plan and manage the development of software for a reconfigurable cockpit simulator for an advanced stealth fighter. The instrumentation is identical to the actual production version. This is a tool for pilot skill and mission training. The simulator must provide a high-fidelity representation of the actual fighter’s response to the controls. As the stealth fighter is modified over its lifetime, the simulator must be capable of being modified to reflect those changes. It should also be reconfigurable for different fighter variants used for different missions. The hardware interfaces are stable, available and well documented. This is a standalone system. The software of the aircraft’s control responses, Aircraft Model, World Model and Aircraft Controls are available as COTS products. As the new project team, you must conduct the planning, designing, construction, testing and delivery of one of the simulator subsystems (see Block Diagram). One Team will be the Lead System Integrator (LSI) and will coordinate the work of the other teams (subcontractors).

I have gone ahead and posted all of the Adobe Flex 3 projects I worked on during the Fall 2008 semester at Oakland University. The course focused on Human Computer Interaction and User Interface. Check out the demos!

WTF MATE

What gives Apple? What about Target Disk Mode???

The Tikitag first kit has arrived! Check out the unboxing pictures below! The box and packaging is very minimal and the tags are very, very small.

The tag is about the width of a small paperclip.

Had to take it apart

Well, I am HAPPY to announce that Phase 1 of the MacMini in car server project has been completed. I have successfully installed the power supply and router for the MacMini in the BMW 325 Wagon Project. Sparing you the details of the project (those will come later), let’s go through the steps I went through today.

This project starts in the trunk of my wagon. Since the plan was to install the MacMini into the trunk of the vehicle, I started my expedition in the CD Changer/Satellite Radio compartment of the trunk. Since I do not have the CD changer or satellite radio, the trunk compartment has both connections waiting in the trunk. Each of the connections has two components: power and optical connection. For this project, I will not be using the optical connections but the power instead. 

The power connectors (Brown & Orange+stripe) are connected to the plug as one, but can be separated from the kit. The first step is to separate the power from the optical block. Once the power has been separated from the optical block, I cut the power cords and attached quick connect adapters to the ends of the wires, for both the CD Changer and the Satellite radio connections. This provides me with power for both the Primary and Secondary power connections that come out of the Carnetix power inverter system. Once the power connector was separated, I cut the power cords and crimped on the quick connect ports. 

Now that the power has been separated, I went ahead and crimped on the corresponding quick connect clips to the wires on the cable supplied by Carnetix. 

Notice that all the quick connects are crimped on and ready to go. ?The next step for the install involved finding  a 12V source that only came online when the car is in Ignition On mode. Luckily, there is a 12V power plug located in the trunk right next to the compartment for the CD Changer, et all. I connected the ignition indicator wire to the positive line from the 12V source.

This completes the power requirements for the MacMini + BMW system. Now that the power has been configured, there are two more steps to completing the phase: the fon router & connecting to the aux audio input. Save that for Part 2.

Once upon a time, many a year ago, the internet was born. And with that came the need for web hosting companies (web-hosts). Soon the land was filled with hosts, some dedicated and others just resellers of the more expensive services.
On a nice Winter day in 2001, I purchased my very first domain name for ten years! Not being familiar with how the domain names and hosting worked, it took me about a week to figure out that I needed to pay for hosting in addition to buying the domain name. This is where my web hosting adventure begins.

While I can’t remember the name of my first webhost, I do recall they were limited to static HTML pages with no included database technologies and cost me about $5/month. At the time, that was a lot of money to me. That web host worked out very well for me, considering my site was statically generated using Microsoft Frontpage 2000. Unfortunately, that web-host went out of business and decided to transfer all their customers to their "parent". I use the term parent loosely because they were really just the wholesale distributor of hosting service. It was this experience that opened my eyes to some of the real workings web-hosting online. Any Joe Schmo can buy hosting in bulk from a larger company and resell it in smaller packs. Not a bad idea on paper, but obviously not the best for the customer either. This was the end of my experience with my first hosting company.

As I went back to the tubes to try and find another host company, I found it hard to gauge wether or not a web-host had their own servers or was just reselling for another company. Since the prices for dedicated hosting were astronomical compared to that of shared/resold hosting, I decided to narrow my search down to something within my price range. After doing a bit of research, I decided on a company called based Reyox, out of Seattle, Washington. At $9.95/month I thought it was a pretty fair deal. At the time, I selected Windows hosting (not really knowing anything different) and I continued to use Frontpage to build static sites. It wasn’t until I started to build more dynamic sites that I became frustrated with Reyox. At one point all of the Reyox sites got hacked my some hackers in Hungary. My entire site was destroyed along with some of my friend’s sites that I had recommended to Reyox. During my time with Reyox, I always thought it was interesting that when I contacted the support people, I would always be dealing with the same person, Asher Saeed. It wasn’t until after I left Reyox that I realized he owned Reyox and was the only person running the show.

My next stop in the web-hosting world was a company called MediaTemple. I was referred to them by a friend who had raved about their exceptional service, customer service and automated tools. At $20 a month, MediaTemple was more expensive compared to Reyox, but I needed a reliable host with no BS. During my first year of service with MediaTemple, I was relatively happy with their service. They offer all the services you would expect from any Linux provider: PHP, Apache, MySQL, ssh acces, etc. It wasn’t until after my first year that I really started to experience problems. The problems started with the MySQL and PHP simply flaking out at any time up for up to 10 minutes at a time. When I first contacted the support team at (mt), they told me it was because there was a heavy load on my sites. At first I just accepted their explanation, but when it started to happen on a daily basis, and especially when I was working on web projects for my classes I couldn’t stand it anymore. As you can see from the MediaTemple , the issues were originally documented by (mt) at the end of February and continued all the way through May 14, 2008. If you ask me, that is unacceptable for any host. I was giving a presentation for one of my academic projects and the web app completely crapped out. It was right then that I decided Media Temple had to go.

I’m now on a new host. One that is owned called Mosso. They pride themselves on offering both Apache/IIS 7 and everything you would expect from both of those. At $100 a month, it is the most expensive host I have ever used, but it definitely has paid off. I have been on them for 3 months now and from a service standpoint, I have been really happy with the performance of the sites, databases and server side scripting processing. In my opinions, the only thing missing in Mosso is SSH shell access, but I hear it’s on the way. Mosso also has one of the best Reseller interfaces available from any host I’ve used, especially for web developers who handle everything for their customers.

Overall, I’ve been very happy with Mosso and I would recommend their service to anyone looking for excellent web hosting. I know the price is a bit steep, so if anyone is interested just post a comment and we can work something out with the reseller interface.