Garbage In Garbage Out : Tech Blog

The Great Flash Debate (iPad/iPod/iPhone)

Chris Brewer — Thu, 06 May 2010 01:34:07 +0000

Some interesting insights are shared in this blog post by yours truly over on MacLearning.org. The topic: the Flash debate swirling around iPad and iPhone.

Install and run Maya 2009 on Snow Leopard

Chris Brewer — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:34:07 +0000

Did you upgrade to Maya 2010 because you found that you couldn’t install Maya 2009 on Snow Leopard 10.6? Are you finding that Maya 2010 on Snow Leopard is flakey, giving you lots of rainbow beach balls? No worries. Ian Herzog over on MacLearning.org has the answer, and it’s simple as tweaking the Maya 2009 installer to work on Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Check it out.

From the “What Are They Thinking” files: Bing on Google?

Chris Brewer — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:23:26 +0000

Why does Microsoft feel compelled to sponsor the link at the top of competitor Google’s search page for the term “Bing”, when the first organic search result (and 8 of the first ten) is bing.com?

HD streaming on Roku fails

Chris Brewer — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:51:46 +0000

Recently my Roku, attached to a new Airport Extreme 802.11n Dual Band II router, started having problems streaming HD content from both Netflix and Amazon video. It also had intermittent quality problems with SD content as well. In the past, it performed flawlessly.

Network tests (ranging from the obligatory Speed Test to ping and traceroute) seemed to work. Hard wiring the Roku to my router didn’t make a difference, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t my router.

But then, amidst my disgust, I remembered something I changed not so long ago… I changed my DNS on the router from InsightBB to Google’s new public DNS. I did a traceroute to Netflix’ content distribution host (traceroute cdn.netflix.com) and lo and behold, I saw that my requests were being routed from Cincinnati to Atlanta to Washington. Oy! (see output below)

traceroute cdn.netflix.com
traceroute: Warning: cdn.netflix.com has multiple addresses; using 208.111.168.7
traceroute to netflix.vo.llnwd.net (208.111.168.7), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1)  1.243 ms  0.850 ms  0.715 ms
2  74-136-176-1.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.136.176.1)  10.292 ms  7.530 ms  16.441 ms
3  74-128-22-49.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.22.49)  14.362 ms  6.205 ms  11.816 ms
4  74-128-19-33.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.19.33)  9.586 ms  28.300 ms  40.123 ms
5  74.128.9.233 (74.128.9.233)  14.796 ms  15.419 ms  14.436 ms
6  te-9-2.car1.atlanta2.level3.net (4.71.252.37)  30.392 ms  32.277 ms  32.545 ms
7  ae-72-52.ebr2.atlanta2.level3.net (4.68.103.61)  26.019 ms  23.410 ms  47.447 ms
8  ae-63-60.ebr3.atlanta2.level3.net (4.69.138.4)  37.086 ms  23.687 ms  35.168 ms
9  ae-2.ebr1.washington1.level3.net (4.69.132.86)  41.345 ms  53.264 ms  48.131 ms
10  ae-81-81.csw3.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.138)  38.460 ms  41.296 ms  55.540 ms
11  ae-41-89.car1.washington3.level3.net (4.68.17.135)  43.551 ms  47.695 ms  45.433 ms
12  te3-4-10g.ar2.dca3.gblx.net (64.212.107.61)  39.097 ms  39.573 ms  38.241 ms
13  limelight.tengigabitethernet6-2.ar2.dc3.gblx.net (64.215.26.126)  39.358 ms  42.771 ms  97.640 ms
14  tge9-3.fr3.lga.llnw.net (69.28.171.158)  44.475 ms  44.565 ms  46.384 ms
15  tge1-2.fr4.ord.llnw.net (69.28.171.193)  49.194 ms  50.696 ms  51.392 ms
16  cdn-208-111-168-7.ord.llnw.net (208.111.168.7)  48.165 ms  47.922 ms  45.886 ms
17  * * *

So, I decided to change my DNS to OpenDNS instead (it’s great…try it out! Great set of features). Voila! Now my requests to Netflix’s content delivery network are routed directly to Chicago!

traceroute cdn.netflix.com
traceroute: Warning: cdn.netflix.com has multiple addresses; using 208.111.168.6
traceroute to netflix.vo.llnwd.net (208.111.168.6), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1)  14.704 ms  1.160 ms  0.603 ms
2  74-136-176-1.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.136.176.1)  12.129 ms  15.592 ms  12.027 ms
3  74-128-22-49.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.22.49)  12.657 ms  8.135 ms  13.160 ms
4  74-128-16-133.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.16.133)  20.713 ms  9.090 ms  12.973 ms
5  74.128.8.233 (74.128.8.233)  149.239 ms  226.148 ms  239.229 ms
6  4.71.250.29 (4.71.250.29)  20.493 ms  22.167 ms  21.960 ms
7  vlan51.ebr1.chicago2.level3.net (4.69.138.158)  22.478 ms
vlan52.ebr2.chicago2.level3.net (4.69.138.190)  27.008 ms
vlan51.ebr1.chicago2.level3.net (4.69.138.158)  22.622 ms
8  ae-5.ebr2.chicago1.level3.net (4.69.140.193)  27.992 ms  27.293 ms  39.074 ms
9  ae-23-56.car3.chicago1.level3.net (4.68.101.167)  32.908 ms  24.086 ms  20.232 ms
10  glbx-level3-te.chicago1.level3.net (4.68.110.194)  22.624 ms  25.286 ms  25.018 ms
11  64.215.29.250 (64.215.29.250)  39.314 ms  26.946 ms  23.569 ms
12  tge7-1.fr3.ord.llnw.net (69.28.172.41)  25.630 ms  29.050 ms  22.004 ms
13  cdn-208-111-168-6.ord.llnw.net (208.111.168.6)  22.039 ms  22.772 ms  23.608 ms
14  * * *

High definition virtual tours of Cincinnati

Chris Brewer — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:49:23 +0000

These guys are using some cool technology to build amazingly clear, panoramic high definition virtual tours of Cincinnati and the surrounding region (including Covington, KY and Newport, KY): http://yetimonkey.com.

And, that’s a great name!

New community for independent musicians

Chris Brewer — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:57:14 +0000

I’m happy to announce to readers of my blog that I’ve just launched a new music community. While branded as a service for Cincinnati musicians, it fundamentally is capable for providing a really rich community for musicians globally. Check it out — it’s free: http://grooveriver.com

Enable AVI, FLV and DivX encoding in Podcast Producer

Chris Brewer — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:50:37 +0000

Excited at the prospect of using Flip Ultra and Flip Mino cameras and uploading the video via Podcast Producer, I was disappointed to discover that both Flip cameras wrap their video in AVI files, and use the 3ivx codec, effectively thwarting my Podcast Producer plans. Videos uploaded via the Podcast Capture utility resulted in audio-only posts to the wiki/blog server.

That highlights one common complaint I’ve made and heard about Podcast Producer — that it demonstrates it’s heritage with a decided bias for Apple-endorsed wrappers and codecs (read: QuickTime).

In my quest to use these fantastic(ly inexpensive-but-handy) Flip video cameras, I recently found out that simply adding a QuickTime plugin to Mac OS X 10.5 server provides the capability to transcode far more file formats and encodings than the stock installation of Podcast Producer allows: AVI, FLV, 3ivx, DivX, MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, Flash Video, Indeo 1 & 2, to name a few!

The solution is drop dead simple (as any Mac OS X endeavor ought to be):

First, download the Perian plugin: http://www.perian.org/

Second, open the disk image.

Third, double click the Perian.prefpane icon in the disk image window.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you install for all users of the computer. This is because the Podcast Producer service runs as its own user. If you do not, it *will not* work for Podcast Producer.

Finally, confirm that the preference pane indicates and “Installed Version #.#.#”, and set the Audio Output to “Stereo”.

Restart Podcast Producer.

Google flagging all search results as “harmful”

Chris Brewer — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:10:38 +0000

Searching for GarageBand ‘09 topics this morning, I noticed a pattern — one that’s virtually impossible to notice given Google’s new self-appointed role of protector of digital humanity.

Every link is flagged as “This site may harm your computer” — even trusted pages on the topic, such as pages on Apple.com. Any attempt to visit the resulting links are intercepted by Google, in effect preventing me from visiting the site. Sounds like a good idea, except it isn’t, because Google can’t seem to get it right, and Google isn’t interested in fixing sites that are incorrectly flagged.

I searched using the term "site:apple.com garageband 09"

The impact of such as ruling by King Google is that those pages, linked from the search results, cannot be loaded into my browser.

Having been flagged as "harmful", even might Apple Inc. can avoid the overarching reach of Google's misstep.

A mistake on Google’s part? Probably, but as the owner of a site similarly flagged, I can testify that the behemoth that is Google rarely takes down such a notice. In my case, they caused a site of mine to lose nearly 90% of the traffic it was receiving after erroneously making the same determination. Now, I’m no fan of frivolous lawsuits, but I’m positive there are a number of businesses both large and small who are being irreparably harmed by Google’s service offering.

Undoubtedly, Apple has the clout to rectify Google’s “mistake”. Sadly, the little man, like you and me, does not.

Follow up: Google has officially posted a response, indicating that human error caused a 40 minute outage, whereby all search results were incorrectly marked as harmful. The overriding point, however, is that Google’s practice of editorializing in their search results can have massive consequences, even if well-intentioned.

Strap-on jet powers human flight

Chris Brewer — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:54:29 +0000

Somehow this article didn’t get posted when I wrote it in May of 2008. Nevertheless, it’s still mighty cool, the whole notion of individual jet-powered human flight. Strap on wings, a turbo fan, and get your flight on!

“Praise song for the day”, the poem from Barack Obama’s Inauguration

Chris Brewer — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:51:43 +0000

The following is a transcript of the Barack Obama inaugural poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander, which I thought was great:

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.