Month: December 2006

Happy New Year, approximately one hour early.

I spent the last week in Colorado, on Mountain Time, so I’ll use that as my excuse.

Not that I’d be staying up to midnight anyway. 😉

Our Christmas evening movie this year was The Good Shepherd. This dark look at the CIA and its founding, through the fictional story of the director responsible for planning the Bay of Pigs invasion, is generally strong, and worth the nearly 2.5 hours it asks of the audience. Still, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the rest of the group. It’s trying pretty hard, and sometimes you notice.

I thought the historical back-and-forth worked, as you watched Matt Damon’s character pitch backwards in time to his introduction to the Agency while he worked through the current cleanup of his botched operation. I just didn’t consider his connections to his family, especially to his son, to be strong enough to occasion the conflict presented at the end of the movie. Without a real tearing between his loyalty to the Agency we’ve watched him help build and his love (?) for his family, the film’s ending feels forced. The rest of the movie doesn’t, though.

Metacritic score of 62 probably reflects high expectations, which are not quite met. I’d wait for the DVD, though it’s worth seeing.

2006 is coming to a close, and before I head up to bed (no late evening for me), I must note another fun Carl Hiaasen read: Sick Puppy. Take a trust-fund enviromentalist with anger-management issues… and that’s your hero. I finished this one just before Christmas, and passed it on to other family members. Wasn’t on my planned list of gifts to give, but might be the most appreciated.

OK, I’m biased. But I think OpenDNS CacheCheck is remarkable. Very simple, sure: you can see what address OpenDNS has for a domain, and ask OpenDNS to refresh that address if it’s not correct. Nothing more. Read what I wrote on the OpenDNS blog for more.

But if it’s so simple, how come no one has done it before?

I moved DNS for this domain, pencoyd.com, back in November 2004. I’m hardly alone in having warned people ahead of time, and then being relieved when the changes were propogated (or propogating).

I know I would have jumped to use this kind of tool, even though I did lower my TTL setting before making the switch. If you have the chance, wouldn’t you want your website to be visible as close as 100% of the time to as close to 100% of the Internet as possible?

OpenDNS does not equal the Internet as a whole. Not even close. But maybe we can start something here?

Gosford Park won out over football on Sunday night. Metacritic gave this film a 90. User ratings, though, are down at 59. I’m more with the users. There are sparkling characters, but the interactions are uneven. The scenery and setting are fantastic: 1932 England, at a divine country estate. Yet the dialogue was like West Wing on speed, with accents just to add an extra challenge. The mystery which supposedly drives the movie feels more like a distraction, especially in its comical investigation. The unveiling of hidden connections among characters appeals, but the murder was no more than a blunt excuse for the revelations.

Note: The official movie website gosfordparkmovie.com has been squatted on (hence no link). Again, I ask… does no one at a movie company think it’s worth $10 a year to try and keep a domain running to sell DVDs, if nothing else? This movie was made in 2001, so it’s not exactly ancient history, and since the director Robert Altman just died, there is likely to be renewed interest in this movie. It did receive 7 Oscar nominations (one winner, for screenplay). Oh well.

On Sunday December 10th, after I had backed up about half of the 250GB internal drive on the iMac, things went wrong.

I’m not sure what exactly finally brought the drive to its knees, but some sectors were problematic as far back as January 2006 when I first tried to get serious about backups. (And failed.)

I left things alone for the rest of the (very busy) year, but I know that there are only two kinds of people: those who have already lost data, and those who will. Only those who backup their data handle the loss well, whenever it happens. My recent mishap with my contacts probably overcame my inertia. That, and I’ve wanted to upgrade the iMac to Tiger for quite some time.

So, I fired up SuperDuper and got, well, a lot farther than 11 months earlier. All the videos, music, and photos were backed up to the external drive before things got stuck. This was the bulky data, which turned out to be very useful.

The SuperDuper log was clear that the application failed while trying to copy an IMAP archive, so I tried to clear up Mail.app’s older files, especially the mailbox in question. The file was simply a coincidence, but somewhere in the sequence of restarting (repeatedly), I ended up with the flashing folder icon. No system folder found. Argh!

The only “good” news was that I could still start the computer up in FireWire target disk mode. The bad news? The disk was unrecognizable, and I was being asked if I wanted to reformat it. I declined, and got ready to start the week, considering my options for data recovery and more.

That was Sunday evening, and it was not a great end to the weekend.

NOTE: SuperDuper was not a contributor to this sequence of events; just an ironic, unfortunate coincidence that the drive died while I was trying to (ahem) back it up.

Monday morning, I spoke with my friend Sean, and got the best tip: DiskWarrior. Fortunately, version 4.0 which works with Intel Macs was just released, so I could run the software on my work laptop while tackling the problematic G5.

Short answer: DiskWarrior was a data saver… and savior.

While I could not rebuild the drive, I could get all the data off, with the exception of the borked (technical term? should be!) System folder. Various items were “Rescued” but I’m uncertain I need them since the end goal was an upgrade to the System anyway. The data was spread across my work MacBook and a thumb drive. Fortunately, we never got a change to fill up this 250GB drive (well, 233GB formatted), or I would have been doing even more juggling.

Monday night, then, ended in a much better place. The wife had her data, and I knew that the whole process was doable. And I relaxed for a few days, doing sporadic research on internal hard drives and the process of replacing them. I scheduled a stop by the Genius Bar at the San Francisco Apple Store, just to ask a few questions.

• How long would it take for them to do the replacement? Answer: 10 business days. Ouch.
• How expensive would it be? Answer: $350. Hmmm…
• How hard is it to do this myself? Answer: Not so bad. They suggested going online and taking a look around, but since (a) the computer was already out of warranty and (b) I’d opened it up before (RAM install, and other mucking about) I was a good candidate to do it myself.

With a busy weekend and a general retail phobia during the pre-Christmas weekends, I didn’t buy a new drive until yesterday, at CompUSA. I paid more than I would have online, but I had it in my hands, and last night I installed the drive while watching the Colts demolish the Bengals on Monday Night Football.

Installing Tiger was simple from there, and I called it a night.

I still have lots of work to do, re-installing applications and re-connecting the applications with the recovered data. But I expect the applications, at least, to be completed tonight. I’m typing this while Software Update catches up.

And, yes, when I’m all done with the whole enchilida… I’ll be backing up. Wish me luck!

Been a light training period since racing three weeks ago, so I was tentative going into this morning’s Christmas Classic races, another 1 mile race followed by a 5K a half hour later. Both races are in Golden Gate Park.

The mile is blessedly downhill most of the way — just a gentle slope up in the last quarter-mile. On this day six years ago, I ran a 4:41, finishing 18th overall (of ~140). Today, I ran a 5:05 and finished 11th overall (of ~95). So, I’ve slowed 24 seconds in six years, or 4 seconds a year. Hmmmm…

Splits I got (never saw the 1/4 mile mark):
First half mile: 2:27
1/2 – 3/4 mile: 1:16
3/4 mile – 1 mile: 1:22

The 5K felt better than the one on Thanksgiving, but the time was similar: 19:18. Six years ago, I ran an 18:41. This year, I finished 11th overall, and 2nd in the M30-39 age group. I butchered the splits, but it was close to this:

6:24 first mile (gently uphill, back over the mile course)
5:58 second mile (downhill or flat)
6:20 third mile (downhill, flat, and then uphill)
0:36 last .1 mile (uphill)

This is touted as a certified course, and it’s definitely the same one as six years ago. Despite the ups-and-downs chronicled in the splits, this is almost a complete loop, so no overall elevation change.

No more racing this year, and really nothing planned until Super Bowl Sunday.

Kill Bill, Volume 2 didn’t match my opinion of Volume 1, but just as well to see them in rapid succession. I did enjoy the “chapter” form of telling the story, and the back-and-forth between the current killing spree and the history between/among the characters which broughts events to these extremes. Yes, it’s all a visual cartoon, but it’s well done.

Metacritic score of 83 is flattering, but a bit high.

Been looking forward to seeing Casino Royale, and Friday’s viewing did not disappoint. The most stunning scene is the one right after the opening titles. I had noticed the credit for “free running stunts” and wondered why that kind of stunt, especially, earned beginning of the film mention. Then I saw the scene and wondered no longer.

The just-faster-than-possibly-human pace of the chase has you gasping, and the combination of obstacles (especially vertical) flows together in a plausible stream. (Plausible in movie terms, at least.)

Overall, a new movie Bond that more accurately reflects the ruthless Bond of the books. Casino Royale was Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, back in 1953, so it’s only fitting that this film harks back to the core of the character. Still, it’s modern throughout… even though the opening, pre-titles, scene takes place in black and white, it’s set in the Czech Republic, not the Czechoslovakia of the 1950s.

The lead villian, Le Chiffre, fills less screen time here, as the “Bond girl” demands more of the film than we’ve come to expect. Since Le Chiffre didn’t shine, no damage done to the movie.

Metacritic score of 80 is justified. I want to re-read the early Bond novels now.

Magnetic Yellow Card is a semi-polite way to make the point that the road is for sharing. Still, despite the non-invasive, non-marking nature of this method of spreading the gospel of good manners, I’m quite sure that attaching these magnets to offending vehicles will not improve relations between drivers and bicyclists. Politeness only dulls the vitriol, and drivers (read: people) don’t react well to anger, however veiled.

I’m interested in ideas, though, for overcoming the communication gap between the two-wheelers and the four-wheelers. I’m a regular bicycle commuter, so I’ve had my moments of “pedal rage” — these are usually stoked by fear. While there’s nothing as freeing as a bicycle in traffic, there’s also few things more vulnerable to damage. A haphazard turn, a blindly-opened door, trash on the pavement… any of these things are more is a recipe for personal injury if you are on a bicycle. I get angry because I am afraid of the consequences of other people’s actions.

I drive a car, too, so bicycling isn’t a moral issue for me, just a lovely marriage of convenience, exercise, and economics. As a driver, I’m not sure what kind of message I would react well to… but it’s not a yellow card on my side panel.