I keep all my contacts organized on ‘Google Contacts’ and then I’m able to synchronize my iOS devices with my contact list. Its easy to do and just requires some dedicated time to enter everything in.

As I live in the US, I still have many friends (as well as family) in Canada, and that requires me to call ‘international’ (at least what AT&T calls Canada calling…). My skype local setup is quick and easy, and SIRI makes it fun.

I simply setup a phone number for a contact like so:

1. Create new phone entry, call it Skype
2. Enter my skype number (ex: 734-000-1234)
3. I follow that number with a PAUSE character `,` (comma) + a 2 (skype’s 2 means, call a custom number)
4. After that 2, I simply enter a Canadian number (ex: 1519-555-1234)

The final solution looks like:

Skype: 734-000-1234,21519-555-1234

And then once my contact is sync’d to the phone, I say “SIRI call [persons name] on Skype”, and obediently SIRI completes the call, and I don’t have to punch in any long strings of numbers.

Enjoy!

I’m not really about pitching stuff on my blog, but I was excited to find (on ebay of all things) Cowboom.com, a Best Buy ‘Outlet’ that sells referbs and used devices / laptops etc;

The great thing is they sell the Apple TV 2 for $79.99! Which is great, personally I could care less if the Apple TV was pre-opened or not, the model I got was brand spanking new looking, and I saved $20 bucks.

Anyway, my plan for my ATV2 is to hack it with XBMC and run my local network shows/movies off it. Saves my MacMini from being dedicated to just that effort, and for $80 bucks, hey its a no brainier. Plus Apple products have a tendency to keep their value well, so I’m sure if I get tired of this I can pawn it off on ebay for almost the same amount that I purchased it for.

Try it yourself, go to: https://github.com/thispagenotfound

And move your mouse around the 404 ‘image’ you will be pleasantly surprised that the effect is the images move to reflect your cursors position, thereby creating the look and feel of 3D movement.

I really like finding these little gems on 404 pages, or 500 errors (like common on Woot), or even Googles “Aww! Snap!” message when it crashes.

A3M in a nutshell

a3m is a great OpenID module for CodeIgniter, and what really sold me on it was it’s complete support of all the major openid providers (google, yahoo, myspace, facebook, etc).  It allows you to just build on it and not worry about the typical CRUD that developers go through in regards to user accounts. I’m really glad that I can take something, plug it in, and run with it, building my web application without building the ground work for user connections, something that as a developer you typically have to re-build on EVERY project.

Overall, it gives users a convenient means of connecting with my application, they don’t need to make yet another username/password that they might forget, or just make really weak security wise.

Problems with a3m?

Main issue I found with a3m, is that the developer didn’t have time to fully document the installation of said application. Maybe in the future with a full 1.0 release we will have a complete easy to use guide, but for now my post here aims for that documentation goal. Anyway, it basically comes down to a couple things, but having gone through google searches, and codeigniter forum posts, I can tell you people keep making the same installation mistakes during installation/config.

So the documentation is pretty poor when it comes to this app.  I hope with this post to at least give you a better starting position and eliminate some of the small user created issues (read.. not bugs!).

Oh and lastly, the project is questionable right now due to lack of ‘movement’ since March 2010 (as of this post). So hopefully the developer will contribute some updates.

How to start

1. Download a3m (which comes already with CodeIgniter 1.7.2 — as of this posting)
2. Extract the contents into your web directory (using an unzip app like 7zip). Personally I put everything into the root, and didn’t use the ‘a3m’ folder.
3. Using a mysql client (phpmyadmin or a desktop version like heidi sql), create a database and import the application data from the ‘a3m/a3m.sql’ file.
4. Once the database is setup, create a unique user account / password to access said database (you will need this for the next section).

Configs & Permissions

So now you’ve got the app extracted, you have your database prepared, privileges setup and ready to be used by your application, all you have to do is modify the configs to reflect your setup.

1. Edit the following file /system/application/config/database.php and modify your settings just like you would for any CodeIgniter project.
2. (optional) Modify your .htaccess file if you were like me and put the application into the root directory of your website (remove a3m folder reference).
3. (optional) If your server / apache / webhost is on a linux box, you will need to modify some permissions on your folder structure.  I learned this through trial and error as no openid / google / yahoo account would validate (It couldn’t store the data locally in the cache).
   I chown’ed the following folders and put them assigned www-data ownership (lets Apache have read/write access) :
   - /uploads/ (all your images / user uploaded content)
   - /system/cache/ (critical for openid nonces)
4. With permissions set (optional) and the database configured, you only have one more things to edit, and this takes place inside the /system/application/modules/account/config/ folder, so lets edit account.php
5. account.php needs to be configured, so that you can actually play with your a3m setup.  In my case, I wanted to develop the app without any SSL or reCaptcha support out of the box (by default those 2 are enabled (which breaks your login process as it tries to redirect you to the https site or enable reCaptcha), so lets disable them:

   $config['ssl_enabled'] = FALSE;
   $config['sign_in_recaptcha_enabled'] = FALSE;
   $config['sign_up_recaptcha_enabled'] 	= FALSE;
   $config['sign_up_auto_sign_in'] 	= FALSE;
   $config['sign_up_recaptcha_enabled'] = FALSE;
   $config['sign_up_auto_sign_in'] = FALSE;
   

   also while we are in there, you can configure your outbound password recovery email:

   $config['password_reset_email'] = 'no-reply@reset.website.com';
   

All done…

And there you have it.  Config’s are all done with (for a basic start at least).  Simply navigate now to your website and enjoy testing the a3m interface.  I created some fake demo accounts to test with, one of my favorite openid ones to test with is https://www.myopenid.com/ so start there if you want to create a quick account and test with.  You can then begin building your CodeIgniter application, while utilizing the a3m module for all your login needs.

If you run into problems always refer to your apache / php logs and find out the cause.  If it is simply failing to validate your openid account (even tho you signed in) you need to verify your permissions on the cache folder.

Check it out here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/lego_album_covers/pool/

I really hope that the other politicians are at least more tech savy.  It is inexcusable to be in a seat of power and not know how to text or email, OR use a DAMN COMPUTER!?  Come on politicians, get with it.

In one particular case, I bench marked load times for a simple PHP web page at well over ~15 seconds!

I contacted support, they sent me useless information how to increase PHP performance (a tactic usually used to sling the blame at the user).  I provided back to them statistics from benchmarking my site, compared to their main page.

So godaddy, replied stating that I should upgrade my hosting to their new grid-something-or-other hosting, because I was a high usage ‘site’.  Right… this customer had a site that had a very small following (25-50 users a day).

Anyway, if you are in the same boat, and you might need to inform your web host (hopefully not godaddy, they won’t do anything) regarding slower than expected response times.  Check out http://webwait.com/

Webwait allows you to quickly and easily add sites to benchmark, and do multiple calls to get an average time rather than just one single test.

And I thought it was just funny  (not sure if the author thought of the article in the same mindset as I did).  Basically I love the breakdown the author provides on how Windows has progressed via the version releases, Win 1/2/3/4 etc..

Windows 1 was released in November 1985, 2.0 in October 1987, and 2.1 (a.k.a. Windows/286 and Windows/386) in May 1988.

Windows 3, which introduced some 32-bit capabilities, came to market in May 1990 and came into its own with version 3.1 in April 1992.

Microsoft split off a “new technology” version of Windows to compete with Unix. It was heavily influenced by Microsoft’s partnership with IBM that created OS/2, and development of the new version began as OS/2 version 3. It shipped as Windows NT 3.1 in July 1993 and was fully a 32-bit operating system. It was the first version of Windows that did not run as a shell on top of DOS. Windows NT 3.5 shipped in 1994, and 4.0 in 1996.

Windows 4 came out as Windows 95 in August 1995, the first consumer version with pervasive 32-bit support and pre-emptive multitasking. Windows 98 arrived in June 1998, and a second edition (Windows 98 SE) replaced it a year later. Windows Me (Millenium Edition) shipped in September 2000 and was the final consumer version of Windows 4.

…

However he puts in a quick little note that Windows 7 is actually Windows 6.1, and MS will probably change it to 7.0, however I think thats unlikely as Windows 7 is basically 6.1 or in ‘standard named terms’ Vista Service Pack 2.  This was a smart move on Microsofts part, in distancing its `next` OS from a collosal failure that is Windows Vista.

Anyways those are my 2 cents, I thought I really needed to chime in (I couldn’t help it.. honest!).

Here are some of the issues/hurdles I encountered with the hardware:

1. Intel Pentium M 1.73ghz SSE2 – No problem, the Voodo kernel worked fine with this (read about this setup just before I began, just to be sure the the Intel M’s were supported).
2. Intel 915GM Chipset – unsure if this was setup correctly, it could have contributed to the lack of keyboard/mouse control (see below).
3. ATI Radeon Mobility X700 (not supported by any kext), I was unable to get the Video card running at any level.  There is just no driver for this ‘older’ generation ATI card.  I seen some reports that some users had partial success, but I didn’t even get to it (more about that lower in the post). I got this working at 1024.768 resolution, and was unable to change any settings.
4. Wireless Intel 2200BG, altho supported with hacked kexts, did not function well enough.  I could not get WPA2-Personal running, and it would cut out periodically (not sure if any fault of mine, or just kext).
5. Loss of laptops keyboard and trackpad – this was just a royal pain in the butt, I read different notices on this, and I could not resolve the issue (/conflict).  Some people speculated it was a conflict with the USB drivers?  However, I was able to plug up a USB keyboard / Mouse to get going, so just a minor annoyance.
6. Realtek RTL8169 LAN - was recognized just fine, too bad I didn’t really get to use it for anything.
7. Intel 82801 FBM ICH6 - audio I got working, even tho I investigated another codec.  Turns out the Apple Azalia drivers (AzaliaAudio.pkg.zip) work just fine.  This was one of the only few kext installs that made me happy, as it was a very noticeable change (we got sounds after all!).

I got pretty far with this project. I was hoping to get Mac OS running on the laptop just for testing, as I already own Leopard and a fantastic Mac Mini which I use as a media pc hooked up to my LCD in the livingroom.  But unfortunetly the hardware was either way over my head or skill level, when it comes to modifying MacOS installs (kexts and all that jazz).

The moment when I gave up came when I installed the WRONG kexts based on a forum suggestion/research post.  This kext killed the USB ports and disabled any keyboard / mouse access (I was using the USB devices as the built in trackpad & keyboard did not work).

All in all, I enjoyed tinkering with the hardware, and I’m just dissapointed that Mac OS is not an option for a PC enthusiast (yet) without shelling out the big bucks for a nicely build Mac hardware system.

If you have an Acer Aspire 9500 model laptop, maybe this will help you.  At least it will give you a starting point of what hurdles to expect as I did.

Now after 2 seasons, the biggest problem I find with Ultimate is that it is truly hidden from the mass populus due to the fact that the perceived sport is just something hippies would do on a beach. And that’s just not right. The issue the league faces is that marketing the sport is tough, people just don’t “get” the sport unless they have been introduced to it by a friend. So making posters or print/visual ads is not the best way to get NEW members.

The biggest return on our advertising so far is connecting other Ultimate players to the Windsor league.  It is difficult and slow coming in getting fresh blood.

My best example is trying to canvas my soccer league for recruits for our season in 2008. The most common reply I got was a laugh and some reference that soccer in no way compared to Ultimate.  Its almost as if the person just didn’t want to believe that a sport that invloves tossing a disc around could be fun, or competitive like soccer. Funny tho when after one soccer game we played a mock game of Ultimate, the same people that were hating on the sport (prior to playing) where the ones singing its praises afterwords.

Have any of you played / enjoyed Ultimate?  If so post your first experience with the sport.

Don’t get me wrong, I ran the University of Windsor Rock Climbing Club (UWCC) for over 2+ years when I was in school, so I know first hand about recruiting for other sports.  But Ultimate just seems to be more difficult, where as rock climbing carries a certain mysticism I found people want to try more willingly.

Anyways if you happen to be in an administrative function of a sports team/league, how do you manage to recruit new blood? Is it just Ultimate that has a unique set of challanges? Or is it difficult all around for all sports? Post your answers.