thomascochran.com

Seriously…friends from first grade in Tokyo, friends from my summer spent in Dundee, Scotland, friends from my years in Bangkok, and friends that sit in the office next to me. Facebook has made it ridiculously easy to remain in touch with friends I thought I’d never see or speak to again.

There’s Chris who lives down under and Nuuti who’s now in Finland. We were friends way back in the third grade. Now through the magic of the Facebook feed, I can follow their humorous status updates.

There’s my newest Facebook friend Ryan who used to play on my baseball team a couple years ago, but then we lost touch.

There’s Brad and Charlie who were buddies of mine back in Bangkok. We used to get into all kinds of trouble with BB guns listening to Nirvana. Turns out Brad has lived in my town for the last three years, so we went out for a beer to catch up.

The wildest story was finding out that Pat, a girl that went to high school with me in Bangkok, ended up meeting and marrying Josh, a guy that went to boarding school with me in New Hampshire. Bizarre, and what a small world this is thanks to Facebook.

Apple announced the iPhone today. Check it out.

I’ve been addicted to social networking sites since Friendster circa 2003. First there was Friendster, then Myspace, followed by Facebook, and LinkedIn. I’d even go way back to Classmates.com back when I was in college in the late 90s.

What do I have to show for my intense interest in these sites? Zero. I have frittered away sometimes up to two or three hours of my day searching for the most obscure friend from my past, like the guy that played third base on my baseball team in the 8th grade (the Giants). Or whatever happened to my buddy Phil from 2nd grade…I wonder if I can track him down. Most of the time I come up empty handed, but once in a while I’ll stumble across a gold mine of old friends. I’m amazed at how easy it is to track people down and read the wealth of information they’re willing to share about themselves. I’m glad that you went to Pomona and studying salamanders, spending your summers on the Oregon coast…seriously, very interesting.

The thing that boggles my mind is all the college kids posting pictures of their boozin’ shenanigans from each of the last four weekends for all the world to see, then they wonder why they were turned down for that internship they applied for. Lack of common sense. Don’t pose next to a bong with two thumbs up if you’re looking to work at Morgan Stanley.

So, what have I gained from my estimated 1,000+ hours spent surfing these damn sites, tracking down and friending people I haven’t seen in 10+ years. Not much really, but it’s certainly an interesting opportunity to see where people from your past end up (at least according to what they write in their Myspace profile). Are you really a traveling cowboy performing with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show? Wow, what major do you need for that?

No more wasting time writing this post…time to check out who uploaded some new pictures to Facebook.

Is the iPhone going to be launch Q1 2007? If so, I suspect this is the most obvious and long awaited marriage of the iPod to the cell phone. The two most indispensable gadgets of the 21st century. I can’t live without my phone, and I wish I still had an iPod! I just don’t want to have my pockets full of techy-dorky stuff, so mash the two into one unit and presto, perfect piece of equipment. I’d buy one if it costs around $250, but I suspect it’ll be in the $300 range. Watch Apple’s stock over the coming months and especially after the phone is released. If it’s engineered the to quality of all their other products, which I’m sure it will be, it’s going to be successful.

Download the required files here first

Next, follow these instructions found on Yahoo Groups.

——————————————————-

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR LG CU500 USB DRIVER FOR MAC OSX
FOR USING THE LG CU500 AS A MODEM VIA USB DATA CABLE TO TETHER (DUN)

1) Replace this file:

/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/ Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCDCACMData.kext/ Contents/Info.plist

2) Update the Kernel Extension Cache By Opening the program ‘TERMINAL’ and typing in the following command at the Terminal Prompt:

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

3) Reboot the Computer (THIS IS REQUIRED DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!)

4) Once The Mac has completed the Reboot from step 3, please OPEN ‘Disk Utility’ and REPAIR PERMISSIONS of your Main Mac OSX hard drive (the volume where Mac OSX is installed, if you have more than one hard drive)

THIS STEP IS REQUIRED OR YOU WILL GET THE FOLLOWING ERROR When You Plug In the USB Cable: “Extention: /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/ Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCDCACMData.kext Not properly installed, please get an updated version from your manufactuer or vendor. ”

5) Now Plug in the USB Data Cable and Connect it to the LG CU500, and BAM it will Pop Up a window saying it was recognized correctly as “LG USB MODEM”

6) Using the Modem Script Provided in this (PCS INTEL EVDO 1.0 Modem script) apply correct cingular settings:

APN (Primary Number): 99**1# Username: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM (ALL CAPS) Password: CINGULAR1 (ALL CAPS) Modem Script: PCS Intel EVDO 1.0 * in PPP Options (System Prefs >> Network >> LG Usb Modem) Make sure “PPP Echo Packets” is UNCHECKED, as well as “WAIT FOR DIALTONE BEFORE DIALING” is UNCHECKED

7) ALL DONE NOW THANK ME!

-jsawhny

The ROM in the Qualcomm chipset has a wrong value in it, preventing OSX
from recognizing the chipset as a valid serial port. This has been reported
to Apple and a patch will hopefully happen before 10.5

This below is from the boards at MacNN
——————————————————
I have been successfully using an Intel MacBook Pro with a Cingular LG CU500 (using bluetooth) and a Cingular data connect plan to connect to the internet. I followed Cingular’s directions from their support web site, but it required typing a modem init string every time I connected. The directions involved using the null modem 115200 script, so I simply modified that script, added the commands that I was typing every time to connect, changed to connect rate in the script and saved it as “LC CU500”. It worked and a few speed tests have given me download speeds of 418-579kbps and upload of 135-141kbps (in the Dallas, TX area). Here is my modified modem script (save as a text file named LG CU500 in folder /Library/Modem Scripts):

! LG CU500 MODEM SCRIPT
!
!

@ORIGINATE
@ANSWER
serreset 1843200, 0, 8, 1
write “at+cgdcont=1,\34IP\34,\34isp.cingular\34\13”
write “atdt*99#\13”
@HANGUP
exit 0

and here are the directions to setup the LG CU500 with Mac OS X:

Setting up the handset
On the handset, press the Menu button.
Scroll to Settings and press OK.
Scroll to Bluetooth and press OK.
Scroll to Bluetooth On/Off and press OK.
Scroll to On and press Set.
Scroll to Bluetooth Settings and press OK.
Scroll to My visibility and press OK.
Scroll to Show and press Set.
Return to the Settings menu, scroll to Connection and press OK.
Scroll to Dial Up Networking and press OK.
Scroll to Bluetooth and press Set.

Setting up the connection
On the Mac, click on the Apple menu, and then click on System Preferences.
Click on the Bluetooth icon.
Click on the Settings tab.
Ensure the Bluetooth Power is On.
Ensure that Discoverable is checked.
Click on the Devices tab, and then click on Set Up New Device.
Once the Bluetooth Setup Assistant window opens, click on Continue.
Tick to select Mobile Phone, and click on Continue.
Once the search is complete, click once on the name for the handset and then click on Continue.
On the phone, type the 6 digit passkey displayed on the Mac and press ok.
On the Mac, check Access the Internet with your phone’s data connection and then click on Continue.
Click on Continue again.
Click on Quit.
Return to the System Preferences screen, and click on Network.
From the Location drop down menu, click on New Location.
Type CNG GPRS for the new location name, and then click on OK.
From the Show drop down menu, click to select Bluetooth.
From the Configure IPv4 drop down menu, click to select Using PPP.
Click on the PPP tab.
In the Account Name field, type ISP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
In the Password field, type CINGULAR1
Type *99# for the Telephone Number.
Click on PPP Options.
Uncheck Send PPP Echo Packets.
Check Use TCP header compression.
( Cingular’s instructions read “Check Connect using a terminal window, and click on OK.” but if you use my modem script, ‘Connect using a terminal window’ should be unchecked )
Click on the Bluetooth Modem tab.
From the Modem drop down menu, click to select LG CU500
( Cingular’s instructions use Null Modem 115200 )
Uncheck Enable error correction and compression in modem.
Uncheck Wait for dial tone before dialing.
Click on Apply Now.
Click on System Preferences, and then click on Quit System Preferences

Making the connection
From here, Cingular’s instruction didn’t quite work, but using my modem script, you can just open internet connect, select bluetooth, and click connect, and you should get connected, but here is cingular’s instructions:
On the mac, click on the Phone/Modem icon, and click to select Bluetooth.
Click on the Phone/Modem icon, and click on Connect.
Once the Terminal window opens, type
at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,”isp.cingular”, and press the return/enter key.
Once OK appears, type atdt*99# and press the return/enter key.
Once CONNECT appears, then click on Continue.
You will now be connected to the Cingular GPRS service

Good Luck!

Google goes solar ... Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA will soon become America’s largest solar electric installation on a single corporate site, and one of the largest such projects in the world, according to solar power systems integrators EI Solutions.

A new stealth start up is building what is supposed to be the next generation of natural language search engines. Powerset still has yet to be launched, but according to the folks at TechCrunch (who heard it from their sources), it’s supposed to be a zinger.

I read on Yahoo News that an Indian state plans to dump Windows in favor of running Linux on their school computers. This has got to hurt for Bill Gates and Microsoft, losing such a huge customer base. Is this the next step to flipping the entire country over to Linux?

Score one more point for Linux…

The gigabytes are quickly filling up and terabyte is slowly becoming a household word. I was curious to see what’s after the terabyte…

• megabyte MB
• gigabyte GB
• terabyte TB
• petabyte PB
• exabyte EB
• zettabyte ZB
• yottabyte YB

Can’t wait for the yottabyte.

I’ve been playing around with Yahoo’s UI library lately and I’ve got to say, I’m pretty impressed with the improvements made over the last two months. I really dig the YUI animations, very solid replacement for script.aculo.us in my opinion.

My favorites of the bunch would have to be the autocomplete, calendar, and CSS grids.

YUI utilities and controls combined with some solid core PHP framework (maybe Zend, Code Igniter, BlueShoes) really should make for a solid grab bag of tools to rapidly develop web apps.

This weekend I hacked together a site that presents Washington DC crime statistics on a Google Map (www.crimeindc.org).

Take a minute to check it out…hopefully this will be a good resource for the residents of DC, especially in light of the DC ‘crime emergency’.

Some stats:

• Over 1,500 stolen autos
• Over 180 crimes on Wisconsin Ave
• Over 800 assaults with deadly weapon
• 113 crimes on July 1st, 2006

From Yahoo! News

Flex 2 includes a number of free features, such as the Flex SDK (software development kit). The real changes, though, are in pricing, where Adobe is looking to reduce the cost of simple Flex deployments.

With Flex 2, Adobe is permitting free single CPU deployments of Flex applications using the Flex Data Services 2 Express or XML and Web Services. Previously, Flex users paid $15,000 per CPU to get started with the Flex SDK, which was part of the Flex Presentation Server.

Yikes! $15K? No wonder AJAX is winning out … be curious to see how things shake out with a more aggressive pricing model. Can’t really get more aggressive than open-source (free).

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Google Inc. on Monday released the latest upgrades to the mapping tools that rank among the company’s biggest success outside the Internet-leading search engine that steers much of the Web’s traffic.

The improvements include a major expansion of the satellite imagery included in Google’s three-dimensional software for touring Earth.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company said four times more land will be covered in the latest version of its free Google Earth software, enabling about one-third of the world’s population to obtain an aerial view of their homes and neighborhood.

1. Coffee is more popular than tea (except internationallity in India, the Netherlands, the UK, and Italy)
2. Football is by far the most popular of the four major sports (football, baseball, basketball, and hockey), except in Boston and St. Louis
3. The Nationals are more popular than the Orioles
4. Yahoo is more popular than Google