| The Ultimate Business Machine Technology, business And, not least, about by: Bernard Teo
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Sun 18 Jul 2004 Disaster RecoveryCategory : Technology/disasterRecovery.txt This web site's domain names (cutedgesystems.com and roadstead.com) are hosted at dyndns.org. There are a couple of advantages to outsourcing your domain name hosting to a third-party provider, rather than running a DNS server yourself. One is, of course, if you're running everything out of an Internet connection with a dynamically assigned IP address - which makes running your own DNS Server impossible in the first place. With a piece of software like DNSUpdate, you can get your server to update dyndns.org regularly whenever its IP address changes, so that people can continue to find you via the domain names no matter what happens with your IP address. A connection with a dynamic IP address is cheaper than one with a fixed IP address. So, there's a cost saving that comes from being able to do that. Plus, most home broadband connections are of the dynamic IP address type - so this makes it easy to set up a home office. Wherever you hang your hat, that's where your server is. The second advantage is not so obvious. You may only realise how useful it is to have this dynamically updateable DNS service if, by any chance, you're not able to run your server at its current location for any length of time - e.g., if power is unavailable, as in the case of our office where the building's management has decided to shut down the power again, over the weekend, to complete the installation of the new air-conditioning system. So, once we're told we have to bear with another long weekend shut-down, it took less than 10 minutes to get ready the iMac at home (where we have a broadband connection) to take over the server's job. With SSH (Remote Login in System Preferences->Sharing), we can copy over most of what we need and set up the MySQL database remotely. With Postfix Enabler, we could get whoever is sitting at the iMac to set up the mail server, just by entering a couple of domain names and hitting the Start button. And with DNSUpdate, we can switch the servers over the same way (enter domain names and hit OK). The process is simple enough to walk someone through by phone. Come Monday, all we need to do, when we get back to office, is to get someone to deactivate DNSUpdate at the iMac, and then we'll be able restart the server at the office, and we'll have everything back as we have left it. Of course, some details remain, like bringing over the new stuff that were saved to the iMac over the weekend, but these are easy enough to do. In most IT organisations, mention Disaster Recovery, and it will evoke images of a tactical manoeuvre involving a cast of thousands, backed up tomes of Standard Operating Procedures that have been vetted by layers of "information architects" to meet ISO-9000 standards. I've always felt weighted down by these initiatives. It's got to be much simpler than that. After all, by definition, a disaster means there's no time to think. Why are large organisations so stupid? We often wonder what we're doing, slogging away, running our own little company, when we could have remained the good salarymen. So, now and then, having the liberty to work a bit smarter brings its own little pleasures, and short of becoming as rich as Bill Gates, this will have to do. Sun 11 Jul 2004 Java on OS XCategory : Technology/javaOSX.txt Just a word about WWDC. It seems like we're all on our own in the way we're using Java on OS X. We're building Cocoa applications using Java. Attend a Cocoa talk, and it's all about Objective-C. Attend a Java talk, it's all about J2EE (which we are using) and things like Swing (or call Cocoa using, horrors, JNI). If you're doing Java, there's no CoreData API for you (yet). Neither WebKit. Nor Cocoa Bindings. So one can't help feeling that Java programmers are second-class citizens in the Cocoa world. Then why do I feel, even more, that we're on the right track? Well, if you're on Objective-C, even with Cocoa Bindings and CoreData, you're still only going to be allowed to call a SQL database locally, on the same machine as the application. Whereas, using JDBC, we can already call our accounting database from half-way around the world. And you've got to wait for Tiger to come out. Because, then, OS X would have SQLite bundled in. But we've already waited four years for MySQL to get almost all the critical functionality of Oracle. I'd hate to have to wait another four years for SQLite to catch up. Apple may have valid reasons for their choice but SQLite doesn't interest me at all. And I've heard people asking for better XML and WebServices support in Objective-C. Well, we've already got that, right now, in Java. And try writing a web server application in Objective-C. Or modelling the business workflows and business rules. I wish Java is as elegant as Objective-C. But we've got to get something done now. Wouldn't it great to concentrate all your efforts in one direction? And not trying to re-invent the wheel. Not Invented Here? It's funny that WebObjects programmers are headed in the other direction (from Objective-C to Java). And DashBoard widgets are written in JavaScript. And so on. We're going to continue walking to the beat of our own drum. Probably the best way of maintaining our sanity. Luca proves that you can write a complete, full featured Cocoa application using Java. And you can do a bit more and make a web-server based application out of it. Or a cross-platform Swing application. And that's probably all we need now. CrashCategory : Commentary/crash.txt The server was down for about ten hours yesterday. The building we're on switched over to a new air-conditioning system yesterday and we had to switch off everything for the recommended ten-hour stretch - if we didn't want anything to be damaged in the event of a power surge. It would have been easy to switch the server over to the spare iMac I had running at home (I've done that before and switched servers, on the fly, within 30 minutes, in the ultimate test of disaster recovery) but somehow, this time, I just let things crash. It's been difficult to get going the last few days - so many things to do, along so many axes. So it's good to crash and start all over again. Sorry, if you were trying to get hold of something here. Normal services are resuming and the process of recovery starts now. WindCategory : Commentary/wind.txt I have the answer to my own question. It takes longer to fly back to Singapore than to fly to San Francisco because there is a constant headwind that reduces the speed of the aircraft by about 15-20%. (When flying to San Francisco, the plane was aided by a slight tailwind.) That's why it takes about 20% longer to fly back, increasing the journey by more than 2 hours. So the next question is: why is there a headwind? And I believe it's like that the whole year round because it always takes longer to fly back. Why does the wind always blow from west to east, at least at high altitudes? What makes this puzzling is because I know, from sailing dinghies off Changi, that the wind usually blow in-shore from the east? That's why the Peranakans of Singapore - the Straits-born Chinese - made their home along the east coast. Having got to this region longer than the later Chinese immigrants, they know where to get the nice sea breeze, over there at Katong and Changi. But I digress. A quick search through Google turns up these two articles : What makes the wind? and Weather Systems from West to East. So the earth's rotation is indeed the cause. But it's counter-intuitive. We should expect to reach Singapore faster when coming back from San Francisco because the earth's rotation swings Singapore back towards us. But the earth's rotation also causes the hot air that rises from the equator, on its way towards the poles, to move east. This is because, due to something called the Coriolis effect, they maintain the speed of rotation at the equator. "So, as these winds travel away from the equator, they move eastward relative to the ground beneath them - since the winds have a greater rotational speed than the ground. This explains why high altitude winds blow from west to east. And it is these high altitude winds that, to a large extent, control the weather." So, mystery solved. But the point I'm getting at is that we can learn almost anything we want from the world-wide web, without going through formal school. Here's to Tim Berners-Lee. Mon 05 Jul 2004 Last Day in San FranciscoCategory : Commentary/GoodbyeSanFrancisco.txt It's amazing how many places you can get onto the Internet from (for free) via the Airport connection in San Francisco. I've sent mail from a bench in Union Square, a bus stop near Nordstrom and, now, from a Chinese fast food place (Asia Express, I think it's called) near the Villa Florence Hotel. (And, of course, the Apple Store). It's been a good WWDC. I didn't think sitting inside a convention hall listening to geek-talk could compete with the sights of San Francisco, but I've sat through all the sessions I wanted to attend and found them all interesting. I hadn't written anything because there's just so much to absorb and there's already so much written elsewhere on the web. Also, I couldn't quite shake off the jet lag. Mostly, at around 4.00 pm San Francisco time (when it's 7.00 am in Singapore), all my systems just want to shut down. It's all I could do to plough through the last two sessions, and then it's time to crash out. Maybe a summary when I get back. But, first, there's a long 18-hour flight to endure tomorrow. Time to say goodbye to San Francisco. (PS : Why does it take longer to fly back than to get here? One would have thought that we would be aided by the earth's rotation; you know, Singapore should be rushing towards us just as we're rushing towards it.) Mon 28 Jun 2004 The Summer of LoveCategory : Commentary/haightashbury.txt
On my first visit to San Francisco, I tried to see if I can find Haight-Ashbury without a map. I knew in which general direction it lay, and on my second day, after having meandered through JapanTown, Alamo Square, Fillmore, and Castro, I finally found it. (I had much stronger legs then. These days, the SF 7-day Unlimited City Pass is my best friend. Passing through familiar streets on the buses, I'm amazed at how much ground I had covered on foot, then.) I'm a child of the sixties, though too far away to be touched by its excesses. Listening to Janis Joplin and, later, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Carol King, I knew quite a bit about Flower Power and the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius. (It's funny but I've just finished reading Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, and those who have read it will know the connections. But I digress.) The Pacific Ocean is but one huge basin into which both east and west pour its ideas, some of which gets washed up on the other shore, to be re-used in new ways. Jared Diamond, in "Guns, Germs, and Steel", writes about how it's no accident that civilisation, as we know it, originated and then spread out from around the Mediterranean Sea. Geography played an important role in the diffusion of knowledge. Technology, too, because nowadays, it takes me less time to reach the opposite shore in California than it took the Greeks to sail to Egypt. The Pacific becomes the new Mediterranean Sea. So, the Californians absorbed Eastern Mysticism and fused into a most attractive form of music and philosophy which, in turn, was consumed by us, the children of the east. I've gone through long hair and bell bottoms. And made my pilgrimage to Haight-Ashbury. If you're intrigued, like me, by the ideas Dan Brown stirred up in Da Vinci Code, this is another book to read: "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess - The Conflict Between Word and Image" by Leonard Shlain. Certainly, it has helped me enjoy the proceedings at this morning's SF Gay Pride Day Parade with a certain historical perspective.
Sun 27 Jun 2004 Moscone WestCategory : Commentary/moscone.txt Registration starts for WWDC at Moscone West.
And I've got a nice WWDC bag.
Celebrate your gay lifeCategory : Commentary/sanfrancisco.txt It's Gay Pride Day at San Francisco, held on the last Sunday in June. I missed this the last time I was here, so I made sure to look out for it. Keep a look out for their logo. If you didn't know, you would have thought Apple (or at least the old Apple) is the main sponsor for the event. (More pictures from the previous year's event.)
This is a great time to visit San Francisco. And jazz singer Jacqui Naylor has found a new fan.
(Look at that guy on stage on the right. He's translating the vocals for the people with hearing disabilities. Wonderful isn't it?) Sat 26 Jun 2004 The Most Useful Machine in the WorldCategory : Technology/theUsefulBook.txt I've just had a conversation with my wife, using iChat and the wireless network at the San Francisco Apple Store. When the background noise got too loud and I can't hear her, we reverted to using just text. Got to talk to the kid, too. "It's a free call, how cool can you get?", goes the Apple Panther commercial (I'm sitting at the theatre), as I'm typing this. And last night, tired out from the long trip over the Pacific, and the long trudge up Powell Street, the silence that awaited me at the hotel room got to be a bit too oppressive. I hadn't had time to think about the trip and, before I knew it, I was there, wishing I was home (the great view that I had of the lights of San Francisco from the hotel room, notwithstanding). So what to do? I decided to turn on iTunes. Music to unpack with, and get your soul back. Lift the gloom. Maybe this is not going to be so bad, after all. You know, this iBook is probably the most useful Mac that I've ever had. I'm always working on it. If you exclude sleeping hours, I probably spend a lot more time on it, or with it, than without it. Once my camera is recharged, I'll be able to organise the pictures I've taken today. I've trekked up and down the hills today and didn't feel its weight. I was hoping to find a place I could jack in and get all my mail. The Apple Store is it, as I had hoped. Tomorrow evening, when registration starts for WWDC, I will have another place to connect home. Nothing, not even having a PC with free Internet access to use at the hotel, beats using your own machine. Everything I need is on my iBook. Wherever I can find an Airport network, that's my office. A little note to myself. Singtel mobile phone users with Roaming facilities activated can call home by dialing *121*65phone_number# Fri 25 Jun 2004 Apple Store SFCategory : Commentary/appleStoreSF.txt I'm at the San Francisco Apple Store. I can get on to the Airport network. And all my mail's coming in. Cool. Wed 23 Jun 2004 From Chinatown to ChinatownCategory : Singapore/chinatown.txt I've been so busy working on the traveler's hostel project that I hadn't had time to think about going to WWDC. But the time is almost near and the bag's been packed. I've been doing a lot of reading about Singapore's Chinatown. It seems odd that Singapore, with its largely Chinese population, should have a Chinatown, or that it would amount to anything beyond token significance. But due to Stamford Raffles' delineating of the city along racial lines, when he established a free port here in 1819, that's the place where most of our forefathers landed, whether they be rich or poor, and that's where our story began. You can't tell by looking at the tall buildings in the Central Business District, along the fringes of Chinatown, that a lot of places where I walk over today used to be sea. Like where our office stands. Just like Boston's Back Bay, the water had been filled, but in our case with earth from the hills, since flattened, around Chinatown. There's a lot of history, and tragedy, and not a little heroism, to get from then to now. A lot of writing about Singapore is about its plasticity and lifeless-ness, e.g., about the fake Disneyland-ish facade in today's restored Chinatown. But that's what you get when you leave out the story about the people. If you care to hear the perspective of one for whom this is home, you may hear a different, more vibrant tune. After all this is what it means to travel, to learn how other people live and see their own world. That's the theme that I'm trying to build for the hostel website. I'm starting to understand things a lot better now, myself, about Singapore, and if anything, whether we succeed or fail with the hostel, this will be its own reward. So. I'm going to be moving mentally and physically, in the next few days, from one Chinatown to another, in San Francisco. And then back. The experience should be interesting. And also, finally, to watch Steve Jobs live. This I can't wait. Thu 10 Jun 2004 Do, Learn, AdaptCategory : Singapore/DoLearnAdapt.txt I've just finished reading a compilation of the speeches and writings of Mr Tan Kim Lian, CEO of NTUC Income, Singapore's largest provider of general and health insurance, and third largest provider of life insurance. Having started in 1970 with a share capital of only S$1 million, its asset base now total S$11 billion. It was a surprisingly enjoyable read because it's clear within the first few pages that, here, we have a brilliant mind - a rare entreprenurial spirit in a government-linked company. He was constantly exhorting people to "do, learn, adapt" and this reminded me of the diagram that Burke and Morrison drew in the "Business @ the Speed of Stupid" book that I reproduce below : I like this because it pulls the users and systems developers into a cycle that allows each to do, learn, and adapt from working with the other. It's the yin and the yang of systems development.
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Mac@Work
Services running on this server, a Mac Mini running Mac OS X 10.9.2 Mavericks:
all set up using MailServe, WebMon, DNS Enabler, DNS Agent, VPN Enabler, Liya and our SQL installers, all on Mavericks. |
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