Tuesday July 31, 2007

StarOffice is invisible

I went to Borders the other night to see if there were any books on StarOffice or OpenOffice.org. Not a single one, but dozens on MSFT Office. What's up with that? Are we suffering from "If you build it, they will come" syndrome? Then I went to the web site of Encore Software, the US retail distributor of StarOffice. I didn't see SO listed on their home page among the games they sell, so used their search facility. It came up with nothing. We have an excellent product that sells at a fraction of the price of its only real competitor -- maybe we should tell the world about it.

Monday July 30, 2007

Technologies that are almost gone

I've been thinking about great technological innovations that are obsolete now, and may soon vanish. There are reasons I will miss them.

AM radio -- so simple you could make a receiver out of a razor blade, and a signal that could carry across five states. Nothing like the thrill of hearing a 50,000 watt signal from half a continent away in the middle of the night. They're actually talking about getting rid of it to free up spectrum.

Telegrams -- nothing could scare you as much as getting one unexpectedly.

Dial telephones -- hmmm, why did I like them? I still have one in the garage. There was something soothing about the little string of clicks, shorter or longer, depending on what digit you dialed.

Fire alarm boxes on downtown telephone poles -- they'll still work even after the terrorists have blown up the cell phone system.

Wireless telegraphy and Morse code -- I had to learn Morse in Boy Scouts. Now you don't even have to know it to get a ham radio license.

The revolver -- when it HAS to work, you know it will, every time.

Saturday July 28, 2007

Blastwave.org is my new best friend -- Or Persistence Pays with Pine

My latest quixotic quest, to get the Pine email program working on my experimental Solaris laptop, has had its intended effect, which was to force me to learn unexpected lessons about the Solaris environment and whatever else happened to pop up in the path to enlightenment. I find that solving each new challenge leads me down new and interesting paths. None of this would be possible without Internet research: maybe I should say that Google is my new best friend, now and forever.

As I wrote on July 7 (egad, have I been fooling around with this for 3 weeks?), I was having a mysterious problem connecting Pine to the North American Sun email server. From the the message, "Server disables LOGIN, no recognized SASL authenticator," it was evidently a security problem, but what? I started checking out obscure mailing lists, and asking around, to no avail. Finally, finally, I realized that more than one mailing list entry I'd already read held the answer -- I just hadn't believed it: the Pine binary that I was using had not been compiled to use the SSL and TLS security protocols, and the Sun email server required them. Sure enough, when I read through the Pine Help facility on my installation, there was actually a nifty little page that told me whether that particulary binary had been compiled to make use of the security protocols, and it had not been. Aha! Clearly, this is one of the pitfalls of not compiling your own binaries, but I'm not at that level of enlightenment yet. I had gotten the Pine 4.64 binary from the wonderful sunfreeware.com, the number one site for free software packages for Solaris, and my guess is that they compiled it without security because the majority of downloaders probably don't have to access an encrypted server like Sun's.

Where to get another binary that had been compiled for SSL and TLS? Fortunately, a kind commenter pointed me to blastwave.org, another treasure trove of Solaris binaries. It's a community-driven site, with hundreds of contributors, and it's filled with helpful articles. And yep, it has a Pine binary, maintained by none other than Sun's own Eric Boutilier.  I thought I was home free.

However, any time you're dealing with software, it ain't over until it's over. Lurking ahead of me was a landmine of diabolical subtlety.

Blastwave.org is more complex to use than sunfreeware.com. You have to download a program called pkg-get in order to download any of the hundreds of Solaris binaries they offer. And pkg-get is about the only program you download from Blastwave itself: you get the rest from one of  40 or so mirrors that are in operation around the world. Ibiblio.org is the default mirror, but the Blastwave site warns you that it is slow, and urges you to instead use a mirror that is close to you, so I obediently checked the mirror list  for a server near me. The closest one was at the University of Southern California, just a few miles away. Excellent!

In order to tell pkg-get which mirror to use, you have to edit a little file called pkg-get.conf. My vi skills are still rudimentary, so I approached this task with some trepidation. Then I caught a break, or so I thought.  Examining the file, I saw that all the 50 or so lines were commented out with the # sign, except for one that said "url=http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/packages/solaris/csw/unstable".  This was preceded by a comment that said it was the default mirror. Then came a comment that said the secondary default site was none other than USC, followed by this line:

#url= http://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/blastwave/unstable

This was too easy! All I had to do was remove the # from the USC line, and add one to the front of the Ibiblio line. Even so, between vi's weird modes and my fat fingers, this took a while. But I got it done, saved the file, and told pkg-get to go get me a Pine binary!

Nothing happened. Oh, there was an error message: "URL http://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/blastwave/unstable not found." What the @#$%!? How could this be? I typed the URL into my browser and went directly to the USC mirror site with no problem. What could be wrong? I was stumped.

This condition persisted for a couple of days. I tried various remedies, none of which worked, and concocted wild theories, like maybe I was supposed to do something with the commented-out firewall lines in pkg-get.conf. I consulted various mailing lists. But mostly I just stared glumly at pkg-get.conf, hoping for inspiration.

Finally -- finally!--  I saw the problem. It's hard to see in the lines above, but it's there: an unwanted space after the = sign in the USC line. The Ibiblio line doesn't have a space. What's maddening about this is that the bad URL is actually repeated in the error message, but without the = sign you just don't see it. I wondered if I had inadvertently introduced the offending space myself, but I checked another copy of the original pkg-get.conf, and there it was.

I removed the space, and voila! Pine downloaded from the mirror site, along with all the packages it depends on, another cool feature of Blastwave. Eagerly, I fired it up and checked Help to see if this version had been compiled with SSL and TLS support. Hurray! It had been!

I entered the Sun server's address into the Pine configuration file, saved, restarted Pine, and there was my Sun mailbox! Hee-hee!

Actually, it took me two tries. The first time, Pine helpfully explained in great deal that, for my own good, it couldn't let me into the Sun server, because the Sun server has a self-signed security certitificate, which I couldn't match. This could expose me to a "man-in-the middle" attack, which I already knew from one of the interesting byways I had wandered down during the weeks I was trying to get Pine going. That's what I mean when I say I have been forcing myself to learn unexpected lessons. Pine advised me that I could get around this by using the novalidate-cert option, which I had also already read about, and thus knew was a legitimate option. Once I did that, my Inbox opened up. One of my next steps will be to actually retrieve and install the Sun security certificate, but for now I am content with my working Pine instance, and the lessons I have learned.

Wednesday July 25, 2007

One Laptop Per Child is here

This thing is amazing. What a wonderful gift to the children of the world.

Instead of simplifying existing technology, they added innovations we'll all be using.

http://etech.eweek.com/content/desktops_and_notebooks/meet_the_xo.html

Monday July 23, 2007

A funny thing happened to OpenOffice.org

Great companies follow their customers, and sometimes those customers go in unexpected directions. When StarOffice split into two products, it was thought that OpenOffice.org would be the hobbyist-oriented, community-supported version,  and that StarOffice would be the professionally-supported version that would be demanded by large organizations, rather in the mode of RedHat and Fedora. Then a funny thing happened.

As Jonathan pointed out recently, OpenOffice.org is popping up everywhere, and it is being adopted by some very large organizations, particularly government agencies around the world. More and more, agencies are following mandates that the software they use be entirely open. However, these large customers don't want to run unsupported, and Sun, following its customers where they lead, is beginning to sign deals to support OpenOffice.org. You read that right: customers can buy professional OpenOffice.org support from Sun. This takes nothing away from StarOffice -- there are still plenty of customers signing up for StarOffice support.  But it does show that sometimes whole market segments come out of nowhere, and astute companies must be ready to serve them. Sun is ready.

I was recently assigned to be the product manager for StarOffice and OpenOffice.org services, so this subject is very close to my heart. Anything you'd like to see happen in StarOffice and OpenOffice.org support? Let me know. Sun follows its customers.

Sunday July 22, 2007

Enlightenment from a 24-year-old UNIX book

BW and I were hanging out at Out of the Closet, a thrift store that raises funds for an AIDS assistance group here in LA. BW has an eagle eye for classic vintage clothes, and I like to peruse the used books. I came across a real gem: Understanding UNIX, A Conceptual Guide, by James R. Groff and and Paul N. Weinberg, published by Que in 1983. What a cool blast from the past! From page 1: "Exactly what is the UNIX system? Why do such intense interest and controversy surround it? How does UNIX relate to other microcomputer operating systems, such as CP/M and MS-DOS?" And from Page 2: "What are the relationships among the different versions of UNIX, such as System V, Berkely UNIX, XENIX, and PC/IX?"  No mention in the book of that little startup called Sun Microsystems, but it does say that "over a hundred different computer vendors offer UNIX or 'UNIX look-alike' products."

Oddly enough, I'm getting a lot out of reading the book, and not just quaint references to long-vanished UNIX variants. In 1983 the authors were writing about something that was exciting in its newness, and their enthusiasm makes the text come alive. I'm learning about the features that made UNIX important then, the ones we take for granted now because they've become part of every other operating system. And UNIX was simpler then, so I'm learning about what is most important in the system, without becoming bogged down in chapters about all the less-important stuff that's been added since.

The authors weren't kidding, either, when they called it  A Conceptual Guide. A lot of the UNIX books I've seen are too monkey-see-monkey-do for my taste, telling you what to do rather than why you do it. Understanding UNIX  is organized by concept, with chapters on the file system, the shell, file processing and so forth, with explanations of the underlying structure at every step. I like that. Maybe it stems from being over-educated, but I find that I have a much greater attention span when I understand the "why" of what I'm reading. For me, this is the best UNIX book I've come across. Sometimes older really is better.

Wednesday July 18, 2007

The Doomsday Algorithm

As I get older, I make efforts wherever I can to keep my mind sharp. Working for Sun is pretty intellectually demanding, but there's no harm in doing a few extra exercises to keep in shape, right? I never store a phone number in my cell phone, so that I'll be forced to use my memory. Seems to work -- people are often surprised at the phone numbers I have rattling around in my skull. It helps to use mnemonics, too. For instance, one seldom-used phone number I've remembered for years is 223-0454. That's easy: .223 is a common rifle bullet caliber, and 454 is the number of cubic inches in a storied big-block Chevy engine.

For dates, I use the Doomsday Algorithm. It's a simple, clever mnemonic and once you know it, all you have to do at the beginning of each new year is to check the day of the week that the last day of February falls on. Then you're set for the rest of the year with the ability to quickly calculate the day of the week corresponding to any date. Thanks to its inventor, the mathematician John Horton Conway, I'm keeping the little gray cells in fighting trim.

Saturday July 14, 2007

Another Windows XP annoyance

Two days ago, as I was logging off my Windows machine, I got one of those easy-to-overlook messages: Install updates and shut down? My finger automatically hit the Return button. Arrgh! Now, whenever I use Internet Explorer, all my Favorites are listed en masse, in alphabetical order, instead of a nice manageable number of the most viewed ones. Dammit! I hope IE is just counting page views until it can start ranking them by frequency again. Bah. I think I'll go play on my Solaris machine. 

Update: The most-viewed list is back. After a couple of more days, it returned, thank God. Every time I accessed Favorites, I was getting more annoyed. Blood pressure is now back to normal.

Tuesday July 10, 2007

Unhelpful Sun help desk

Every once in a while I astonish myself with my own naivete. Last night I logged a Sun service desk ticket asking for help with my Pine configuration to access the Sun North American email server. Early this morning when I checked email (using Thunderbird), I was happy to see that there was a "Servicedesk request completed" message. Great! What fast service! Some helpful Sun support person, toiling through the night on the other side of the planet, had found a solution to my configuration issue!

Alas, it was not to be.  This was the message:
 

The following action has been taken on your ticket number [deleted]
Please read the comments and respond if necessary.
Action : Close           
Taken By : [deleted]  
Date/Time : Jul 10 2007  8:42AM

Service Providers' Comments :

Hi David,

Please be advised that this Product Pine is not supported via ServiceDesk, so
no further action can be taken by the Global Resolution Center.

This ServiceDesk ticket will therefore be closed.

Thanks

Oh, well. I know it's ridiculous to expect the Global Resolution Center to support every weird email client out there, even a legendary open source tool like Pine, but I couldn't resist razzing my Sun colleagues a bit. Heh-heh.
 

Monday July 09, 2007

How to crash Nautilus in two easy steps

1. Search for a file using the Nautilus search facility.

2. When the results come up as file icons, click the drop down menu to switch to a list view.

Step back and watch the fireworks. Fun!

This occurs using OpenSolaris build 57. Your mileage may vary.

Saturday July 07, 2007

Problems with Pine email setup

I've been on vacation this week, just hanging around home with BW, and enjoying what LA has to offer. Tip for tourists: head for the Century City outdoor mall. They've completely refurbished it, and the food court is to die for. Each kiosk there would be a two-star restaurant anywhere else. The people-watching is great, too. 

The days off gave me time to fool around extensively with my Pine email installation on Solaris. No luck so far on connecting to mail-amer.sun.com, the Sun IMAP server. If I weren't so relaxed from vacationing, I'd be tearing out what's left of my hair. No matter what config changes I make, I still get this cryptic error message:  "Server disables LOGIN, no recognized SASL authenticator."

Oh, well. I've learned all kinds of interesting stuff by fooling around with Pine so far. This little challenge has taught me some things about security that I never would have thought of. However, my attention span is now beginning to gray out. If anyone has some advice on configuring Pine to talk to an IMAP server, please drop me a line.

Wednesday July 04, 2007

Sunfreeware.com is my new best friend

Pesky libraries. When I installed Pine off the Solaris 10 Companion DVD, Pine complained about a missing library when I tried to open it. Some Internet research revealed that the library, libssl.so.0.9.7, is one of the OpenSSL libraries, and it wasn't the only one missing. It turns out that OpenSolaris Build 57, the one I am using, contains a later version of OpenSSL, one that uses libssl.so.0.9.8. Other needed OpenSSL libraries had the same versioning problem. Rats! You'd think that Pine would pay a little more attention to forward compatibility, but the price is right (free), so I guess I can't complain too much.

Hmm. What to do? I tried a hack, renaming the library, which worked but also revealed that there was a whole series of other libraries that would have to be renamed as well, so I decided to do things the right way instead. More Internet research led me to Sunfreeware.com, a veritable Aladdin's cave of free and open source applications for Solaris, including a newer version of Pine. Awesome! The site is run by Steve Christensen, quantum physicist and national treasure. How fortunate Sun is that geniuses like Steve take an interest in Solaris.

The version of Pine on the Solaris Companion DVD is 4.61, but the version on Sunfreeware.com is 4.64. I decided to gamble that this version wouild be compatible with the version of OpenSSL on OpenSolaris Build 57. Given my horror at compiling applications from source, I was pleased to see that Sunfreeware.com provides easy-to-install binaries that use pkgadd for installation, and contains very simple instructions on how to do it. Downloading and installation were a snap. So far, so good.

Now, the acid test. Would Pine actually work? I added its directory to my PATH, typed in "pine," and hit return.

It worked! Hee-hee! I was in business.

Now, the next problem: how to configure Pine to talk to the Sun email system. So far, I am stymied. I know Pine is making contact with the Sun email server, but something in my Pine configuration is causing the login to be rejected. The Pine documentation is maddeningly vague, and Internet research turns up hundreds of instruction pages on how to install Pine at specific university systems from here to Hong Kong (really), but they are too specific for me.

This is all rather frustrating, but it is also a valuable lesson on why open source is a viable corporate strategy for software vendors. Pine is free for the asking, so would I pay for a Pine support contract that would allow me to call someone right now and ask how to set it up? You bet your ass I would.

Monday July 02, 2007

SiCKO -- you'll laugh, you'll cry

BW and I saw Michael Moore's SiCKO this weekend and I have to tell you, every American should see this film. It's a devastating critique of the so-called US healthcare system, filled with heart-wrenching stories of good people denied coverage, bankrupted and even killed. It's not shrill -- it doesn't have to be. The stories speak for themselves. It's also hilarious in parts, as when Michael tries to sail a boatload of ailing 9/11 heroes into Guantanamo Bay, in hopes of getting the same free healthcare that our government provides Al-qaeda suspects there.

After years of hearing our craven legislators shill for the health insurance companies by claiming that the Canadians, British and  French are fed up with "socialized medicine," I was overjoyed to see ordinary people in Canada, Britain and France talking about how much they like their systems, how good the service is, and how short the waiting times are. I used to manage a piece of Sun software that is a mission-critical element of the British National Health Service, and I can tell you I have never seen such a rigorous testing and implementation process used by any client. Those folks are dedicated.

Thousands of Sun employees outside the US are covered by government health care systems. I'd love to hear your comments (good or bad) on what you think of these systems.