andrew 05.01.08
Marco Polo is software that you can use to make your laptop “location aware.” You set up a series of predicates based on things like visible wifi networks, ip address, external monitor, usb devices, etc. Marco Polo will evalute each of the predicates and come up with a score that it uses to determine where you are. For example my work desk and my work mobile profiles are very similar, but when I’m not connected to my desktop monitor the mobile profile is ranked slightly higher.
You can preform a bunch of built in actions like changing default printer, changing wallpapers, etc. but the really cool thing is that you can run an arbitrary shell script. When I plug in at work I automatically nfs mount our file server. When I’m at home and my vpn is up, I automatically sshfs mount the fileserver. My environment at home is automatically setup to be the same as my environment at work. It’s cool stuff and worth checking out.
andrew 04.29.08
It really strikes me how different a world my daughter will grow up in than I did. I know for a fact that I’m not the first person to have these thoughts. I would imagine every parent since the beginning of time has had these thoughts at one point or another. She will never really know what film is. She will never really know what a typewriter is. She won’t know a time when finding a pay phone was an issue. She’ll never know a time without completely ubiquitous computing.
I was talking with my wife tonight about something and the conversation moved towards our daughter being in school, which is still several years off. I realized that I have no idea how the internet has impacted life in school. I think I have a pretty decent grasp on the “social networking” stuff. I know what myspace, facebook, twitter, etc are. I don’t use all of them so there’s a limit to what I can know about them, but I have a feel for where they fit. What I have 0 clue about, is how the internet is impacting the educational part of grade school. Are there assignments to look something up online? Are assignments emailed to the students? The possibilities seem endless to me. In 4 years when our daughter actually starts attending school what will the internet look like? I’m really excited to see what the answers are.
I remember my mom switching from handwritten drafts and a typewriter to using a word processor while she was working on her master’s degree and her CASE (masters +30). I remember my dad using a Burroughs hand pull mechanical/electric “adding machine” to tally general ledgers. There was a time in my life when there weren’t computers (yes, I know that computers have been around since the 30s, this is just from my standpoint). My daughter will never know a time without the internet. I think because of that she’ll have a different way of looking at the internet because she never knew a time without it. Like my grandparents saw life a bit differently than my parents did because of the telephone, and other improvements my parents took for granted. I realize this isn’t groundbreaking stuff but I had never taken the time to think about it. Off to send some mail. . . .
andrew 04.29.08
I’ve been using a really cool piece of software recently. Selenium is designed to automate testing of web applications, but I’ve found that it’s fantastic for web automation as well. I have a script that will compile, install, and configure the project I’m working on. It uses vmrun to manage the vmware images, and selenium to do the post install configuration.
You can record your test using the Selenium IDE (available for firefox). Once you get your test (or automation tasks) recorded you can export that test to the language of your choice. The recorded tests normally need a little bit of tuning, but the IDE does a very good job of getting you 80 – 90% of the way there. That script can then be run against the Selenium RC (remote control) server. It drives a web-browser to preform the actions you tell it to.
Cool stuff.
andrew 04.27.08
Just starting this thing out. I’ve gotten sucked into twitter, and want to start generating some content. I’m not sure what this will end up being about. . . . but it’ll probably cover life, gadgets, parenting, computing, and other random stuff. Today we went to the Aquarium and had a pretty good time. Hopefully I’ll get some time with my ruby book tonight.
