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Monday May 05, 2008
Urban Farming 2008
I finally got the garden planted for the year. My wife bought me a copy of the Square Foot Gardening book. Here is a shot of the freshly planted garden.
Nothing fancy, from right to left the front row has two basil, one rosemary and one oregano. There is bell pepper, mint, and a small pickling cucumber in the next row. In the back row is a cherry tomato and better boy tomato. It it weren't for the awful drought we had last summer our harvest would have been great. I hope this year is a good deal better.
Posted at 08:47PM May 05, 2008 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[0]
Monday Apr 07, 2008
A Walk in the Woods
While visiting my grandparents recently, my little family went off for a walk. In the Florida woods you have to be careful of what crosses the road.
"Red touch yellow, kill a fellow; red touch black, friend of Jack." Yep, that is the bad one. Walk away walk away...
Posted at 07:52PM Apr 07, 2008 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[0]
Tuesday Feb 26, 2008
Interesting Crema
I have a pound of local roast going right now for my morning espresso. This particular roast is creating a pretty interesting looking crema. Admittedly, I can't tell you if this is good or bad. It tastes quite good so I guess it isn't all bad.
Posted at 10:05PM Feb 26, 2008 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[2]
Saturday Feb 09, 2008
Easy AFP Automount on OS X 10.5
I have been working on the home network in an effort to attain seamless integration with the Macs. I use a ReadyNAS NV+ with 4x 500GB drives as the network backup/media/storage device. Media sharing is done via a Mac mini to the Xbox 360, Squeezebox and the Mac laptops. When I was running on Tiger I configured automount AFP shares using the NetInfo Manager application. Well, as of the upgrade to Leopard, this application is gone.
I was digging around a bit this morning on how to go about a proper automount under Leopard. I wasn't interested in any sort of kludgey AppleScript that would be setup as some sort of login or startup item. AppleScript will work of course but it wasn't good enough, this *is* UNIX right? A couple of queries into Google and I found a great blog article detailing autofs in Leopard. There are lots of different options, but I was primarily concerned with AFP automounts. This is detailed in part two of the referenced article.
Here is what I ended up with and it works great, as of 10.5.1 that is. I dropped the net option as I wanted a more direct way to access the mounts from the Finder. I created /etc/fstab and added the following.
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Mount AFP shares from the ReadyNAS
# servername:/path mount_point url auto,url==afp://username:password@server/path 0 0
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mynas:/Backup /Network/Backup url auto,url==afp://username:password@mynas/Backup 0 0
mynas:/Media /Network/Media url auto,url==afp://username:password@mynas/Media 0 0
mynas:/Storage /Network/Storage url auto,url==afp://username:password@mynas/Storage 0 0
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These will be auto-mounted on boot but you can easily refresh the automount config after making changes using sudo automount -cv. You can guess that, via a terminal, you can find the configured mounts under /Network. From the Finder, this is accessible in the Sidebar from either Devices -> Computer -> Network or Shared -> All... Depending on your Finder preferences, you my need enable visibility in the Sidebar.
So really that is it. Easy right?
Posted at
02:24PM Feb 09, 2008
by Matthew Montgomery in General |
Comments[2]
Biggest Lens Ever?
This post caught my eye over at gizmodo.com. Aside from bragging rights, I wonder what you would actually use a 1200mm lens for?Posted at 09:16AM Feb 07, 2008 by Matthew Montgomery in Photography | Comments[2]
Thursday Dec 13, 2007
A Gift of Meat
The previous owners of our home here in Nashville are session musicians. Specifically, contributing to Reba McEntire's music. Tis the season, cause FedEx pulled a stealth delivery and left a box from Lobels' of New York on our front porch today.
The box was clearly labeled as perishable and was addressed to our home's previous owners. We looked up their new number and left a message re: said gift box. Due to the nature of the contents, I decided to open it up and get the meat in the freezer until such a time as we could arrange for a proper delivery. What do we have here? Two boneless strip steaks, two porterhouse steaks and two filet mignons courtesy of Narvel and Reba. All said around $250 worth of aged steaks which sure beats a holiday ham I think.
What we secretly hope is that we never make the connection and Reba sends us steaks every year. Oh, did I not mentioned this happened last year but we were able to catch the FedEx guy and have them returned? I give them until January 1 to call back, if not I fire up the grill. Happy Holidays right back at you Narvel and Reba!
Update:
We met one of the previous owners last night around 10 PM. She was coming home from playing a show and stopped by. It was actually really nice to met her, incredibly nice woman and we chatted for a while about the neighborhood and such. Turns out they did get their steaks last year after FedEx got them to Reba's office. This is a yearly gift for playing and touring with Reba, quite cool. I mean, if you like steaks, which I do. Apparently one of the other band members had his steaks delivered to his next door neighbor. Before he could go and get them, the neighbor had eaten them. Not really in the spirit of the holidays! I assume that the address confusion will get worked out, but we won't know until next year.
Posted at 09:29PM Dec 13, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[3]
Monday Dec 03, 2007
Grilled Thanksgiving Turkey
This year for Thanksgiving I tried a new method of turkey preparation, grilled! I used a simple dry rub that consisted of salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper and sugar. It was grilled over indirect heat for about an hour and forty five minutes. I am not saying it was barbecued since I was using propane and that can be a touchy subject.
Before:
After:
I am happy to report it was a rather tasty bird.
Posted at 04:41PM Dec 03, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[3]
Tuesday Nov 20, 2007
I Suck at Espresso
Let me clarify, today I got my first home espresso machine so I am a total newbie when it comes to pulling shots. I plan to post some pics of the equipment I picked up in a later post. For now I just wanted to say, one of my worst practice shots was better than 90% of the shots I have had at Starbucks, restaurants, or local coffee shops. I can't convey how excited I am to be able to perfect pulling shots on my home equipment. I will be taking all my coffee at home now, thanks.Posted at 09:36PM Nov 20, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[1]
Monday Nov 19, 2007
Smugmug.com is Awesome!
I just have to being up how cool SmugMug is, specifically their customer service. I had been a paying customer for two years. Well, while in a state of severe sleep depravation, I decided to cancel my account and either host something myself or move to Flickr. My sleep deprived state was due to the arrival of our first child, so when am I going to have time to work on something hosted locally? After playing around with Flickr some, I found that the feature set at SmugMug is far better. So last night after realizing the error of my ways, I emailed them to ask if they could reinstate my account as it existed before. I fully expected them to direct me to signup again. Much to my pleasure, I got a reply this morning. They restored my account such that I am still listed as a user since 2005 and all my uploaded images are back. It is like I never left. Thanks a lot SmugMug!Posted at 10:44AM Nov 19, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[0]
Tuesday Nov 06, 2007
Running GlassFish on Mac OS X using launchd
I run a Mac Mini as my home server, currently with OS X 10.4. Tonight I dug around and got GlassFish up and running using OS X's answer to SMF on Solaris, launchd. I am by no means an expert on launchd but I will happily document what worked for me. First off I installed GlassFish v2 to "/usr/local/glassfish" as per the documented instructions.
Once I verified that it all worked, I sought out how to integrate it into launchd. I certainly don't want it running as root, so I took a look at the available users and groups using the NetInfo Manager application. I found an "appserver" user and associated "appserverusr" group. Seemed a good place to start. I changed the ownership recursively for my install directory to this user and group combination. Once done, I created my launchd plist file and saved it to "/Library/LaunchDaemons/glassfish.plist".
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.sun.glassfish</string>
<key>Disabled</key>
<false/>
<key>UserName</key>
<string>appserver</string>
<key>GroupName</key>
<string>appserverusr</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/usr/local/glassfish/bin/asadmin</string>
<string>start-domain</string>
<string>domain1</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>
Similar to SMF you have to load/import the service description. On OS X you use "launchctl load ./glassfish.plist" for this purpose. If all goes well you will have a running instance of GlassFish. If not, you will see rather vague error messaging in the system.log file.
Some drawbacks. It seems that launchd relies on sending a SIGTERM to the process when you attempt to stop it using "launchctl stop com.sun.glassfish". This doesn't work for GlassFish. I prefer the ability of SMF to define a appropriate shutdown command. Not a huge deal as I can easily stop GlassFish using asadmin or the admin console when needed. Once the process is stopped you can use "launchctl start com.sun.glassfish" to bring it back up. There is no notion of a restarter if the process dies. I think there is a new KeepAlive element in OS X 10.5 but I haven't be able to experiment with that version yet. Sounds promising though.
All in all this works pretty well. GlassFish will launch on boot using the recommended subsystem. If anyone has any tips on achieving a tighter integration with launchd let me know.
Posted at 05:55PM Nov 06, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[15]
Sunday Sep 09, 2007
Extending the Home Wireless Network
I recently picked up a Linksys WRT350N to replace my old WRT54G. After getting the new router up and running, my wife noticed a problem with her Powerbook. It would no longer pick up a strong wireless signal in the sun room. I had hoped the new unit would provide increased range throughout the house but this doesn't seem to be the case.
I decided to put the old WRT54G back into service and set it up in the sun room as a WDS participant. I flashed both of the units with DD-WRT v24 RC2 and more or less followed this guide. So far it is working great. My wife's Powerbook went from essentially no signal to four bars. The other benefit is that I can now get my Squeezebox back on the network. Since mine is an older model, it doesn't support WPA which I am now using for wireless security. The WRT54G is parked right next to the Squeezebox so I am able to connect it wired and get music back in the sun room.
Posted at 07:04PM Sep 09, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[0]
Wednesday Sep 05, 2007
My Headphones, Let Me Show You Them
Having a degree from MTSU in audio production, I like things that sound good. Back in college, I bought a pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones and they remain my favorite to this day. You know they are popular when you can easily buy replacement pads, which I did recently. Not to mention the fact that this model is as readily available as it was in 1996. The thing I think audio geeks like about them is their flat response, very predictable and very detailed.Posted at 11:22PM Sep 05, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[1]
Who are Genki Rockets?
I first heard of Genki Rockets as their track, Heavenly Star, features in the video game, Lumines II. After catching this post on Aeropause, I really think they are marketing a sort of Rei Toei image for the present day.Posted at 09:17PM Sep 05, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[0]
Friday Aug 31, 2007
Flashing the Linksys WRT350N
Once Rama posted some favorable results after a recent AirPort upgrade, I decided to drop the cash for a WRT350N of my own. I have been running the home network on a WRT54G v2.2 flashed with a beta of DD-WRT v24. The idea was to migrate to the new hardware using the same software.
After some sleuthing on the interwebs, I discovered that I needed version 1.0 of the WRT350N which is still Broadcom based and supported by DD-WRT. Various folks have reported receiving version 2.0 units which would, for now, keep me tethered to the stock firmware. Either I got lucky or the version 2.0 units just aren't that prevalent out in the wild because when the friendly UPS truck came, it was indeed bearing a version 1.0 for me.
The initial flashing was rather easy once I booted up Windows on my Mac. Using Firefox or Safari I would get the rather humorous error message, "Upgrade are failed." This makes me think those Linksys engineers are big fans of Zero Wing. A bit more research revealed that I needed to use IE for the initial flash from the stock Linksys firmware. Granted, it was stated that the OS X version of IE would work but who still uses that?
The new router is now happily running DD-WRT v24 RC1 and most of my settings have been migrated. I haven't cut over to it yet because that means I have to get under the house. Yep, one of the main reasons for getting this router was the gigabit switch fueled by my grand scheme of running three CAT-5e cables into the sun room. The WRT350N was the last bit I needed and now I have no excuse not to get down into the basement and then into two different crawl spaces to run cable. Well, I guess I can still use spiders as an excuse.
Posted at 09:29AM Aug 31, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[0]
Monday Jun 25, 2007
The Drunk Guy Outside Identified
I had posted about a lost drunk guy that was lurking outside our home. Well, after eating my lunch one day I thought I would take a walk around the back yard and get some fresh air. I didn't expect to find a United States Passport lying on the ground beside the house. We looked up the phone number for the address listed and I spoke with his Mom. Her son, the owner of said passport, had recently lost his wallet as well. She gave me his phone number and I gave him a call. I asked him if he knew how his passport had gotten in my back yard. He replied that he had absolutely no idea, but he lives on my block and walked by to pick it up. Yes my friends, I believe this may in fact *be* "Woooo guy." So I guess you can get so drunk that you can't find your way home, at least on the first try.Posted at 07:55PM Jun 25, 2007 by Matthew Montgomery in General | Comments[1]