OpenMoko

The latest iPhone frenzy turned me on to the OpenMoko project:

http://www.openmoko.org/

This is basically a completely open source Linux based phone solution. It's still in the early stages, but looks pretty interesting, especially given how Apple has built the iPhone to not allow third party applications. They have a development preview device available for $300, and a full dev kit for $450 (includes JTAG dev board).

As a fortunate coincidence, the OpenMoko software platform also runs on the HP hx4700, which is the handheld I own and started gathering the necessary parts last week to load Linux onto (see http://www.handhelds.org/projects/hx4700.html for more info). That said, I should be able to do some dev on that device, which would be portable to the OpenMoko phone. They also have a QEMU based emulator.

Looks like it has alot of potential, although probably limited to the geek crowd. As some random forum comment noted, Apple sold more iPhones in the first weekend (half a million) than will EVER be sold of this device.

Obsessive compulsive at work

So this evening at around 6:30 I was trying to get something to work, and needed to remove a couple of conflicting function definitions. The next thing I found myself writing a series of sed routines to replace every ACE CString in the codebase with STL strings [simultaneously converting fast_rep() method calls to c_str() and removing redundant c_str() calls where the result was just being converted to an STL string anyway]. Well, it's 11:14pm and I committed 6439 lines of changes across 19 commits. Not quite what I had in mind. Ouch. What the hell was I thinking??

Need food. No money. Have to stop at ATM so I can buy bread on the way home.

Home from the Shore

On Saturday, went to memorial services for Victoria's uncle. Afterwards had dinner with her extended family. Then Vikki, Cortney, Michelle and I went to the Inkwell for some dessert. Went home, saw Lauren and Greg's new apartment in Neptune.

Today went to the beach in Sea Girt with Vikki, Michelle, Lauren, Greg, Julie, Brian, and two of Lauren's other friends. First time I've been in the ocean in quite a while. It was 94 degrees and I think I got some sunburn despite the SPF 50 I put on twice while I was there.

Back in New York City. Doing some cleaning. Getting ready for work tomorrow.

Why Userspace Sucks—Or 101 Really Dumb Things Your App Shouldn’t Do

Ran across a great article by Dave Jones about his profiling of Linux userspace applications. It should be mandatory reading for anyone who does Linux development:

https://ols2006.108.redhat.com/reprints/jones-reprint.pdf

Left the office at 3pm yeterday and saw Transformers with Dan and Jae yesterday. Not bad, but not as good as the first one.

Went to Veselka with Vikki last night for diner. Yummy.

Spending 4th of July here in New York. May go see the fireworks.

Monday

Still can't sleep, so ended up finally watching Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Good flick.

Work closes at 3pm tomorrow for Independence Day. A nice change.

Looked at flights/hotel for Vegas. Looks pretty reasonable. Will probably book my trip tomorrow.

Weekend roundup

I was specifically instructed to not do any work this weekend. So what better to do than build an old fashion fort in my living room?



Went to the movies on Saturday and saw Sicko. Pretty depressing. It was especially fun to see the looks on the faces of the Canadians, French, and British patients when he asked them how much they paid for their hospital visits (ranging from confused looks to laughter).

Also, per recommendations over Friday lunch a few weeks, I rented Pan's Labyrinth and watched it Friday night. It wasn't bad.

Spent the afternoon today lounging on the grass in Washington Square Park. Played some scrabble with Vikki, listened to the live music in the background.

Took a stroll through Staples by Astor Place and found a bunch of closeout items. They had a 52x CD-ROM drive for $5.99, a Sony CD-RW for $14.99, a Maxtor 80 GB portable USB hard drive for $69.00. Picked up a 512MB SD flash card for $14.99. Also walked through CompUSA and found Trendnet PCI and USB 802.11g cards for $24.99 not including a $20.00 rebate. Five bucks for a wireless card is pretty damn good (I don't need the latest newfangled 802.11n support).

Going to see if I can get Linux running on my HP Ipaq HX-4700 handheld. It's a couple of years old but it looks like it's actively supported and I like the idea of a Linux handheld that has 802.11 and Bluetooth support. All sorts of possibilities for wireless sniffing projects.

Also need to book my trip to Las Vegas in August for DEFCON 15.

Friday

Something really good happened at work on Friday, I guess. It's what you might consider a best case scenario for a startup. For me it means a lot more work and pressure to deliver.

Victoria came to New York for the weekend. We broke out all the new cookware I got for my birthday (Thanks Family!), and made some vegetarian tofu stir fry using the wok and rice cooker. Yum. Discovered the hard way though that brown rice takes WAY LONGER to prepare than white rice.