Fnord.

So it’s been a few months since I started experimenting with Twitter and Asaph (microblog), and the results are kind of interesting. Similarly to how architecture affects our behaviour, the designs of these two have changed how I blog here at Fnord. To wit:

Twitter is, of course, all about short posts, 140 characters or less. It’s ideal for impressions, brief wit and small updates. Combined with a URL shortener like tr.im, you can sort of microblog on it, but that doesn’t work as well. As others have noted, Twitter really excels at keeping up with your friends and family, hearing the little trivia and minutia that keep us connected. 

Asaph similarly allows posting a paragraph or so of text, or a scaled image. No space for wit, but excellent for a fast way to share interesting links/sites. 

The software affects the usage, too. On the desktop, I use MoodBlast, which is hotkeyed, so you can Twitter in 15 seconds or less; quite handy. There are also several good iPhone clients, I use Twitteriffic and like it. Very convenient.

Asaph is accessed via a bookmarklet, so I only use it from the desktop.

I’ve got accounts on others services (Plaxo, Facebook, LinkedIn, not sure what all else) but for me Twitter and Asaph work best.

In a way, this post is an explanation of why I’ve posted less (short stuff goes elsewhere now), a review of the services, and a long-winded way of saying ‘keep an eye on my Twitter page and microblog if you want another way to keep in touch.’ 

Another reason that I thought to write this is a surprisingly good piece on NYT Magazine about Twitter - highly recommended.

apt-get broke something in my theme just now. I’m on travel, so fixing it will take more time than usual, sorry…

Update 9/9/08: Fixed!

I’ve been an RSS fan for years now, and with the advent of the iPhone/Google Reader combo I read even more. I used to use NetNewsWire, but by using Google Reader I’m always in sync on mobile and desktop. Their iPhone interface is really good, even on EDGE data rates.

Yesterday, I checked out Google Reader Trends, and found the following:

Umm, that’s a lot, right?

Kinda interesting. What I’m finding is that the iPhone allows me to do short newsfrouping sessions when I have a few spare minutes, so I end up reading more than I did before. I also really like that the load of loading feeds and pages is moved to Google, resulting in less laptop/PDA CPU usage and faster overall performance. It is, in a word, magnificent.

Even if you don’t have an iPhone or iTouch, Google Reader is still most excellent. If you do, fire up Safari and start keeping up with more of the world than previously possible!

Highly recommended.

P.S. I have several hundred feeds, with an unusual organization that I plan to post later. I’m also happy to share the list with you in OPML format if you want to jump-start your Reader setup.

Update: Here’s reading by time of day and day of week. Lots of late-night!

Yesterday was San Jose, CA:

Exactly one week before that was San Jose, CR:

…quite the difference, eh? One letter difference in the airport codes, too - SJC vs SJO. Anyway, the coincidence amused me, but thanks to good luck on Southwest my case of Traveller’s Butt isn’t too bad. Check out this luck:

If you’re me on an airplane, that is absolutely the luckiest you can get. Seat 10E (I think) on the 737-xxx has a space in front of it, for over 1m of legroom! Bliss. Doubly lucky since I had gate pass B30something.

Back home now, just ran out to Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve for a meeting this morning:

So I’ve been quite the travellin’ fool of late. Home sounds good for a while.

Non-geek summary: Email was down to phfactor for a few days due to a local problem. It’s back now, and I have tools to keep an eye on things.

Geeky details: I run exim4 on Debian, and had tweaked the config for dual-port (25/587) for SMTP inbound and outbound. One of the recent Debian updates borked something, such that

 -oX 25:587 -oP /var/run/exim4/exim.pid

was no longer valid, and thus exim refused to run. Oops. As a workaround, I’ve removed the port settings (meaning I have to use a different SMTP server when out and about, so this’ll get fixed later as time permits) and it’s back to running.

Having been bitten numerous times by similar problems, where one of many Debian updates will break a service, I spent some hours today researching server monitoring software beyond the Smokeping I have running already. I wanted something that could query a running service over TCP/IP and see if all was good. I came up with Monit via this post, and have it up and running now. Here’s a screenshot:

(click for full size)
Seems pretty good, decent list of native protocols that it understands. Right now it’s passworded off, not sure if I’ll remove the login or not. Seems mostly harmless to publish, since most of the monitored stuff is only accessible from this side of the router.

Update: Password will remain, as the webpage allows you to stop/start services! What a vulnerability that is, yeesh.

I’ve been working on this for a while, but haven’t mentioned it yet. I’ve got a sorta-informal consultation gig working with Bjorn Kartomten of Yes Watches, working on the design of a new watch.

Yes, this is right up my alley and an absolute delight. I now wish there were more hours in the day!

Anyway, expect a review soon-ish of the current gen Yes (pictured) which Bjorn kindly gave to me. Ahh, a free watch, source of great happiness…

I’m working on a bit of EE as well as component sourcing, (cough) other considerations, much fun. A watch has space and power constraints that are a most interesting challenge. Fun stuff. I met Bjorn when I was having dinner with long-time collaborator Christian Cantrell of WatchReport, turns out that Yes is in La Jolla. Small world, eh?

Update 6/20/08: My review of the Inca is posted here. Enjoy!

 As mentioned yesterday, I’ve moved the web address of this blog from the previous http://www.phfactor.net/wp/ to the more obvious http://fnord.phfactor.net/ All old links redirect automatically, so there should be no errors, but please update your bookmarks when you get a chance. Thanks! 

I’m working on moving the blog from www.phfactor.net/wp/ to the more-obvious fnord.phfactor.net. Not as simple as you’d think, since the wordpress install is file-shared dual-config with annalog, there’s apache2 virtualhosts in there too, and of course the Debianized wordpress config auto-loader, everydns caches, 301 autoredirects, mysql, oh my…Anyway, partially complete, I have to figure out how to craft a regex redirect rule for apache so all the old links to /wp go to fnord…. expect some errors for a bit. 

Update: VHost up, redirect almost perfect, only fails for /index.html…  

Update 2: index.html fixed, too. I hope. Move should be complete! 

Out the window at the house where we had CPR class. Lots of hail fell!

Massive storm early AM, came out to find 5mm hail!