Technology Bytes

All right. We survived yet another pledge drive without losing a single member to fund raiser flu. Which means we’re back with a little BarretTime trivia.

What actor or actress do all of these television shows have in common:

Howdy Doody, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, 77 Sunset Strip, Route 66, The Outer Limits, The Reporter, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Fugitive, Hawaii Five-O, Columbo, and 3rd Rock from the Sun?

How about: Boston Legal.

And the gimme: TJ Hooker.

If we had needed it, the ringer would have been Star Trek.

Of course, we’re talking about Bill, aka Billy aka The Shat, aka William Alan Shatner. Wil Weaton, the actor who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek, The Next Generation, had an early experience with Shatner. Upon their first meeting, William refused to shake Wil’s hand. Wheaton said he explained what his character did on the Enterprise-D, and all Shatner could do was tell him, “I’d never let a kid come onto my bridge” and walked away.

Weaton writes, “Capt. James Tiberious Kirk, of the Starship Enterprise 1701, and Enterprise 1701-A, the only person in Starfleet to ever defeat the Kobiyashi Maru, the man behind the Corbomite Maneuver, the man who took the Enterprise to the Genesis planet to return Spock’s
katra, the man who I had admired since I was 8 years old, was immediately transformed into ‘William F’ing Shatner.'”

Of course, that’s been cleaned up for radio.

Regardless of how you feel about the good Captain, he’ll be in Houston on March 23rd at Jones Hall for a speaking engagement. Called Shatner’s World, the one-man show may not be all Trek, but it’s definitely a shot to see the legend locally. The show opened Yesterday on Broadway with the tagline, It’s Shatner’s world. We just live in it.”

If you can’t wait until March to scratch your Star Trek itch, look no farther than Starbase Houston, Houston’s oldest and largest Trek Fan Club. Their URL is starbasehouston.org and they conduct most of their business online. If you want an actual meetup, you’ll want to beam
up to the USS Zavala NC-100101, the new ship assigned to Starfleet International Region 3 serving Southeast Texas. The next Crew Muster will be an away mission to get some tacos this Sunday at 1400 hours. Hit usszavala.org for details on the departure. And since they’ll be
beaming down to West Belfort, you’ll definitely want to leave the red uniform at home.

If you think all of this Star Trek nonsense is silly, that Kirk was a wimp or that Deep Space 9 was a waste of time, then you’re an excellent candidate for the Space City Trade Federation, Houston’s official Star Wars fan club. Movie outings, conventions, picnics, parties and
light saber duels round out the groups bi-monthly meeting schedule. For details, hit the Jedi Council Forums at boards.theforce.net and drill down to the Houston page. We’ve actually done some light light saber repair work a few Geek Gatherings ago. That’s off the record, of
course… I’m not union and I don’t want to get loopylow in trouble.

And just to keep myself out of trouble, I’d better mention our last group of the night, the Houston Browncoats. Can anyone in the studio guess what show these guys support?

The Houston Browncoats are the Houston area Firefly/Serenity Fan Base. If you’re not familiar with Firefly, it was a single season television series, an American Space Western, if you will, produced by Joss Whedon. Whedon originally pitched the show as “nine people looking
into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things”. The show explores the lives of some people who fought on the losing side of a civil war and others who now make a living on the outskirts of society, as part of the pioneer culture that exists on the fringes of their star system. In addition, it is a future where the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures. While it’s a very good watch, be prepared for disappointment, as the show was not renewed after the first season. There’s a movie to make things a little better, but the television version turned out to be the beginnings of a story that would never see an end.

And lastly, apologies to any Babylon 5 fans out there… Maybe it’s time you pick a real Sci-Fi franchise…

That’s that for talking Shat and that’s it for BarretTime.

Allright. We’ll start out with a first-ever BarretTime tech question …slash… desperate cry for help:

Actually, Chris Fenton needs your help. After constructing a 1/10th scale, cycle accurate Cray-1 supercomputer and finding a disk with Cray software on it, he’s ready to start loading the operating system. There’s one small problem, though: no one knows how to boot the thing. Chris posted a disk image for a Cray-1/X-MP with the help of the people at archive.org. Now he’s looking to the community for help – if you think you can reverse engineer the file system, Chris will pay handsomely with a miniature model of a Cray printed on his MakerBot. So if you think you’re the man, woman or child who can reverse engineer a Cray Bootloader, surf over to hackaday.com to lend your talents. Hopefully, they’ve already tried pressing the power button…

I never thought of cutting down a Cray like that – I wonder if you could get it small enough to fit into a Unibody MacBook chassis…

I’d definitely take a CrayBook Pro down to the local coffee shop… If you’re harboring your own plans for world domination that involve sourcing some new-to-you Apple hardware, you’ll want to clear your calendar for the morning of Saturday, January 21st for the Houston Area Apple Users Group, affectionately referred to as HAAUG. The event takes place at 7008 South Rice Boulevard from nine in the morning until one in the afternoon. The event is free to attend for casual swappers, but if you plan on hauling in more gear than you can carry under an arm, you’ll want to register for a dealer table. Info on that and more is available on the HAAUG site at www.haaug.org.

If you’re carrying an Android handset, you’ve actually got a little Linux with you wherever you go. Why not take the plunge and get to know the real deal this Saturday the 14th at the first Linux Users Group bi-monthly presentation of 2012. The group gets together from two to four in the afternoon for an hour and a half presentation on something Linuxy at the HAL-PC Headquarters. All are welcome; you don’t have to be a member of HAL-PC or a Linux Guru to attend. And…some of what you will learn about Linux can be applied to your Android phone.

If you *would* like to consider joining the Houston Area League of PC Users, there are two things you need to know. One: Despite being named a League, they don’t issue uniforms; superhero, bowling or otherwise. Though that doesn’t stop you from wearing your own. And two: While they do have a monthly general meeting, the Special Interest Groups are where it’s at. Surf their SIG calendar to see when you can converse and learn about topics diverse. SIGs include Database and Graphical User Interface Design, Microsoft Server, Genealogy, Computer Investing, Robotics, and even Sybex tech, if that’s your thing. For details, directions and this month’s list of events, hit www.hal-pc.org.

If you’re familiar with the Benoni, the Modern Benoni, the Modern Benoni Classical Variation, the Modern Benoni Four Pawns Attack, and, of course, the Benoni Defense, or even if you just know every word to every They Might Be Giants song ever written, you might want to consider reliving your high school chess club days by swinging by the West Gray Cafe Express at Seven O’Clock Monday night for a game of pick-up chess at the Houston Chess Bi-Weekly Meetup. Finally, a chance to relive the Glory days without worries of wedgies or lost lunch money…
Does anyone in the studio play chess? Do you have a favorite or signature opening?

My own highly explosive opening? Pawn to C4. And boom goes the dynamite.

That’s it for your week in geek, and that’s that for BarretTime.

All right. It’s that time of the season when we’re supposed to reflect upon the last year of our lives and make well thought out resolutions that will hopefully put us in a better place right in time for the end of the world.

About.com offers up what it purports to be the top ten New Year’s Resolutions. If you’re stuck for your own, feel free to borrow from theirs.

First on the list?

1) Spend more time with family and friends.

That’s right. Get them on Google Plus. Or get them into Arduino. Or get them to a Geek Gathering or Hacker Space Open House. We do have a Geek Gathering coming up on the sixth of January, so why not pick a resolution that you can knock out of the park?

The number two spot?

2) Exercise

Exercise your political muscle by sounding off against things like SOPA and other transgressions against good engineering and common sense. You can do this by emailing or calling your political representative from the comfort of your couch.

3) Lose Weight

Drop the heavy laptop and go lighter. NetBook and tablets anchor the inexpensive end with things like the MacBook air ocupying the rarified atmosphere at the top.

4) Quit Smoking

Or at least, quit smoking electronics. Learn to read the power adapters for various gadgets around the house and then make sure you’ve got the right match before connecting them to any expensive appliances. The three things you want to look for are Amps, Volts and Polarity,
which is either Center Positive or Center Negative, depending upon whether the center dot in the three dot illustration on all AC/DC power adapters is connected to the plus or the minus.

5) Enjoy Life More

I think what they’re getting at here is to earn more in-game achievements and complete more side quests. Or, if you’re not into that style of gaming, just stopping to smell the roses in Simville or even planting some in Farmville. Or fry up some bacon, then stop to smell it
while playing Angry Birds. Your options are limitless.

6) Quit Drinking

Given that our bodies are nearly 75% water, I think that this is horrid advice. If anything, you should be trying to drink about 64 ounces of water per day, though this can vary with factors such as the altitude at which you live, the relative humidity, the amount of exercise
you get, your weight and how much alcohol you regularly consume. A quick and easy calculation is to take two thirds of your weight in pounds, and drink that many ounces of water per day. Then throw in a pint or porter or a sip of Scotch for good measure.

Next on the list?

7) Get out of Debt

Since it became illegal to sell your own organs on the Internet, you’re not left with many options other than gold farming. Even Spamming doesn’t pay what it used to…

Eighth on the list is:

8) Learn Something New

This one is pretty easy. Just surf to http://www.hal-pc.org or visit http://www.txrxlabs.org and randomly pick something from their calendar. If you already know it, rinse and repeat. Or even better: All windmills turn counter-clock wise, with the exception of those in Ireland. You can scratch that one of your list, now…

9) Help Others

Since it may be construed as a little creepy for a grown man to join the Boy Scouts, you probably want to skip the organized doing of good deeds and head to Houston’s own HackerSpace instead. It is here where you can help others realize their dreams by donating talents, labor
or knowledge to fellow hackers and makers. Or it could also mean that you should run a lower level World of Warcraft player through a decent dungeon.

And lastly?

10) Get Organized

There’s no better time to organize and catalog your collections than the present. Whether you have a cube full of action figures or a library full of technical manuals, there are a number of open source programs and apps that will help you through your endeavor. At the very
least, you should go through your bags and bank in whatever online games you play. Do you really need that many brooms?

That’s it for Resolving your New Year’s Resolutions and that’s that for BarretTime.

All right. Hopefully it’s a short work week for most of you. Of course, if you’re in retail or IT, that might not be the case. Still, there are things to be thankful for.

For starters, I’m thankful that while there are hundreds of words I probably shouldn’t say on the radio, there are only (1,2,3,4,5,6) seven that could really get me into trouble.

I’m sure that most people are familiar with these seven words – or at least the fact that there’s a set of words that the FCC says we’re not allowed to say on the radio. You can thank Pacifica Station WBAI for taking that all the way to the US Supreme Court. And while some people will probably complain about even a single word being on a censor list, seven isn’t so bad, given the competition. Ealier this month, Pakistan released their short list of words that are to be blocked by all wireless providers in an effort to crack down on sexting.

If you’re thankfully unaware of what sexting is, never fear: Technology Bytes is here to rob you of your innocence. So… I can explain sexting. Let’s see. When a man phone loves a woman phone very much, they… OK. Actually, just Google it. Unless phliKtid wants to have the birds and geeks talk with you… phliKtid? (OK – just Google it.)

So… sexting may not directly map to radio – the big difference here is that while Radio is consumed by the public with little control over the age or maturity level of the listener, text messages are sent to a specific individual and are private by design. Oh, and the other thing to note is that while our list contains just seven words, Pakistan comes in at sixteen hundred…give or take.

So what made the list of banned words?

You can’t text Dahmer. I’m assuming that’s a reference to Jeffrey. Apologies if it means something else. You also can’t text Devil. Harem and Hobo are also out, as is the word Hoser. Sorry, Canada. KMart and Snot are also no-nos, but *I* could have told you that…

I can also tell you that I’m thankful that Google is forcing me to get a new Android phone, as the Nexus One will not get the Ice Cream Sandwich update. The Nexus Galaxy won’t be available on my network at it’s debut, so I guess I’m thankful that I may be moving to a
wireless carrier that offers LTE.

I’m also thankful that cloud computing is taking off. I mean, it’s about time we started sharing data over a series of interconnected networks. I’m getting really tired of people having to come to my home to view the documents on my PC. My keyboard is just…icky.

I’m thankful for Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

I’m thankful that we don’t have to take a lot of Mac calls, because Apple users can be really annoying.

I’m thankful that pizza is now a vegetable. My diet just got a whole lot healthier…

I’m thankful that Cyber Monday takes much less physical effort than Black Friday. I’d high-five Jay Lee on that, but I’ve already done a lot of mousing today. I’m kinda spent…

I’m thankful for cheap hobbyist electronics and sites like Adafruit Industries, MakerShed, Solarbotics, and Sparkfun for bringing more than just blinky lights to the masses.

I’m thankful that the crew of Technology bytes is *almost* back in full force and in good health after a few months dealing with the travel bug, the fundraising flu, the shutter bug and Doctor Dwayne’s orders to sit last week out.

I’m thankful that we’re headed into what promises to be a beautiful Thanksgiving Day with clear skies, warm sun and cool temperatures.

And… I’m thankful that we have a Geek Gathering coming up on Friday, December 2nd, where we get to hang out with you, our listeners. More details on that next week, but for now, that’s it for this litany of T-Day Thanks and that’s that for BarretTime.

All right. Unless you’ve been living under a mountain, you’re probably familiar with the major movie milestone manifesting itself this week. Although the story was initially aimed at a younger generation, many adults have developed a soft spot in their heart for this work as well.

I mean, what’s not to like? A boy, living a life of perceived obscurity in a cookie-cutter collection of homes, finds out that he has special abilities that set him apart from other humans, and, at the end of the story arc, it’s up to him to save everyone he’s ever known or loved. Of course, the movie I’m talking about is The Last Starfighter, starring Robert Preston of Music Man fame and Lance Guest, who plays the protagonist, Alex Rogan.

Released 27 years ago today, the movie tracks the adventures of Alex and his high score on the video game (slash interplanetary recruitment tool) Star Fighter, which earns him a spot as a gunner in an actual Star Fighter in outter space.

This movie was released on the heels of the wildly successful Star Wars trilogy, so it’s not surprising that the Alex Rogan character has some similarities with the young Luke Skywalker of A New Hope. People may also draw some parallels between this story and that of Harry Potter, but, uh, I just don’t see it.

Something you *can* see in the original movie is a very young Wil Wheaton running around wearing a red jersey. As he wasn’t officially part of an away team at the time, he was able to proceed to play the role of young Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which
is referred to as TNG by Star Trek aficionados. Another actor in the movie, Marc Alaimo, went on to play Gul Ducat, the very first Cardassian in the Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine. And that’s not all! Several other Starfighter cast members went on to work in one Star
Trek franchise or another.

Dan Mason, who played Lord Kril in the movie, went on to play Accolan in Star Trek: TNG.

Barbara Bosson, who played Alex’s mom, Jane Rogan, went on to play Roana on Deep Space Nine, aka DS9 for those in the know.

Norman Snow -> who was Xur in StarFighter -> went on to play Torin on TNG

And Geoffrey Blake -> who played the small role of Gary in StarFighter -> went on to play Arjin on DS9.

But… The most uber of all the Trekkie tie-ins is that of Meg Wyllie, who played the role of Granny Gordon in The Last StarFigher. Any guesses as to her significance?

She played the role of The Keeper in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, which was called The Cage. Though the pilot was completed in 1965, it wasn’t broadcast in it’s entirety until 1988 due to the fact that NBC rejected Gene Roddenberry’s original submission. A two-part episode was substituted for the network premier of the series. Titled The Menagerie, this new pilot contained much of the footage originally shot for The Cage. It also contained a entirely different enterprise crew than the original pilot. Only one
crew member is common across both pilots. Anyone want to take a guess as to which?

The answer is Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, who got the very first line in all of Star Trek, “Check the circuit!”

So… As far as trivia questions go, that first one was a toughie. No worries that no-one got it.

I’m sure if I had asked someone to name the five houses of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they’d certainly be able to. Anyone want to take a try? Dwight? Sorry, but in the words of Admiral Ackbar, “It’s a trap!” I think Ackbar would have made a cool Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher…

And in other happenings, the Movie which Shall not be Named is hitting theaters tomorrow night. Really, whether or not I see the movie this weekend depends entirely upon when Apple’s new OS, Lion, hits, but that’s another story, which we’ll loop back to in a second.

If you don’t have a clue as to who Harry, Hagrid or Hermione are or what the House of Hufflepuff is, you may want to head over to the Houston Area Apple Users Group Semi-Annual Swap Meet to shop for some amazingly “new to you” computer deals. If you missed the release of the first film in 2001, then you probably also missed the release Apple’s OS 10.0 (code name Cheetah), earlier that same year, meaning that most of the stuff you’ll come across at the Swap Meet will be so technologically advanced, it may even appear to be magical.

Muggles and Luddites alike are free to stop by the Bellaire Civic Center this Saturday, July 16th, between nine AM and noon to peruse the peripherals up for sale or trade. 7008 South Rice Avenue is where you want to be, and the site www.haaug.org will certainly help you get
there.

Well, That’s nearly it for your last night of sleepless Slytherin sensations and that’s that for BarretTime.

All right.

If you’ve ever known the joy of owning an Apple product, then you’re no doubt familiar with the sting of obsolescence that eventually follows every purchase. One reason Apple owners may have such a bad reputation for being flashy with their gear is that they have such a short window in which to feel superior. What contempt Steve Jobs giveth, he also taketh away in the form of a steady stream of new product announcements.

My own Precious is about to be lapped by the newest line of MacBook Airs sporting Intel’s Sandy Bridge. I feel a little betrayed, and even though I knew it would happen, I didn’t think it would happen so soon. That’s the bad part. The new gear doesn’t even have to be out yet to send you spiraling into the sickly space inhabited by owners of newly old Apple hardware.

If you don’t want to follow in my footsteps of despair, your best bet is to start with something that’s old already. The only place to get your hands on old Apple gear available for sale or trade this side of Cupertino may be at the Houston Area Apple Users Group Semi-Annual Swap Meet, happening Saturday, July 16th, at the Bellaire Civic Center. The Civic Center is located at 7008 South Rice Avenue in Bellaire, Texas. Things go from nine AM until noon, so chances are good you could be poring over an OS 8 manual by lunch, reveling in the fact that only Woz has control
over you now.

And when Lion hits, all you’ll have to do is pull up your Platinum Interface to catch the curiosity of any apple-head in your immediate vicinity.

And who knows… If you come across the correct hipster, you might be able to trade up to something with Sandy Bridge. Your magic word for this impromptu-swap meet will be Vintage. It also doesn’t hurt to say that music just sounds better on old (Correction: vintage) gear. Don’t go overboard and answer ‘yes’ when asked if it contains any vacuum tubes (and they will ask you) but promising to produce a vintage Apple v-neck t-shirt will definitely help you seal the deal.

For details about the group or next Saturday’s Swap Meet, surf to haaug.org. Or call the HAAUG Hotline at 832.305.5999 to find out the latest news on future HAAUG meetings or to report any blinking lights.

If you’ve had an opportunity to venture out to the Houston Hacker Space known as TxRx Labs, you would have surely noticed the spread of mechanical and electrical tools they have at their disposal. The group now intends to delve into the arts of computer science just as deeply with a series of regular discussions centered around any given area of computer science. The group is newly formed within the hackerspace, and certainly fills a bit of a void in Houston in the non-institutional comp-sci community.

So, if you’re at all interested in the amalgamation of black arts and best practices that make up the field of computer science, surf over to www.txrslabs.org and look for the CompSci @ TX/RX link.

A little more in our immediate future, the Houston Linux Users Group will be hosting their first of two monthly meetings covering topics of a Linuxy nature. Things run from two to four this Saturday afternoon at the HAL-PC Headquarters, located at 4543 Post Oak Place Drive, Suite 200. Some past presentations can be found at the site, video.houstonlinux.org. You can also surf there to pick up the live video stream of the presentation if you can’t make it in person. The group also inhabits an IRC channel, #hlug, on irc.freenode.net in case you can’t wait until
Saturday to get your Linux fix.

A cool ancillary trivia question: Does anyone know what city the monthly magazine, “Linux Journal” calls home? It’s published by Belltown Media of Houston, Texas. A little more Trivia for you: the first issue was published by Phil Hughes and Red Hat co-founder Bob Young in March of ’94, and included an interview with Linus Torvalds.

That’s it for Apple Obsolescence Avoidance 101 and that’s that for BarretTime.

All right. Technology Bytes has been here for sixteen years, and, as the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. So what has Technology Bytes had to contend with over the years? 1995? Is that the year? We’ve got Internet Explorer 1.0, the birth of Ebay and Hotmail, Java and Javascript, Windows 95 and PHP, as well as the introduction of the venerable ATX motherboard form factor from ATX.

Netgear was founded in 1996, known for more than a decade for their blue metal boxes. This is the year that personal computing power hit an all-time high as Intel released their 200MHz P6 chip. Duke Nukem 3D hits the shelves and the domain name myspace.com is registered. HTTP/1.0 becomes a standard and the IMDB makes the hop from Usenet to the web. Google also gets is start in 96, and Creative Labs drops the first dedicated gaming graphics card, the 3D Blaster.

Dr. Thomas Pabst creates the website, (any guesses?) Tom’s Hardware.com and Apple stock hits a ten year low at a valuation of $18.00 a share.

In 97, the Internet2 Consortium is established, AOL gets sued by subscribers with connectivity issues, the Intel Pentium II ups the processor ante, and CD-RW drives and readable/writable media are introduced, heralding the death of the mix tape. Bill Gates becomes the world’s riches businessman and steps in to save Apple with a $150 million dollar bailout investment on August 6.

Internet Explorer 4 and Microsoft Office 97 are released shortly before Windows 98 is announced. This is also the year that WiFi arrives. Slashdot comes online, as does Hotmail. At this point in History, both sites are Linux related… 😉

In 1998, online web journals or Blogs start to hit the web and congress, much to the dismay of technologists everywhere, passes the Digital Millenia Copyright Act. This is the year that Bill Gates is hit in the face with a cream pie and people across the world start to donate their spare processing power to help in the search for extraterrestrial life with Seti@Home. Windows 98 is Released on June 25 in *1998*, and MS IE passes Netscape in Internet Browser Market Share less than 20 days later. Funny how bundling a browser along with an Operating System will put you ahead like that. This is also the year that Microsoft goes to court over anti-trust concerns.

On the Open Source Side, MySQL is released. And on the non-free side, Paypal comes into existance, as does Rockstar Games. Hot Coffee, anyone?

In 1999, RIM realses the Blackberry and a Victoria’s Secret fashion show becomes the first major webcast on the web with over 1.5 million viewers. Wiki’s hit the web this year, and the Relational datbase management program Access becomes MS Access. And gamers rejoice as Nvidia introduces the GPU. Naptster is sued by the RIAA and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is named Time Person of the Year.

In 2000, the world trudged on after the very uneventful Y2K event. Twitter.com comes online this year, and EA releases the SIMS. Win2K hits and ATI introduces the Radeon line of graphics cards. And only two short years after legal proceedings began against Microsoft, Judge Thomas Penfield announces that Microsoft be split into two companies. Of course, this didn’t happen, but it was a nice gesture, all the same.

In 2001, Wikipedia starts ammassing user created content, and we start to lose the first of our living computer history with the passing of William Hewlett at 87 and Claude Elwood Shannon. Shannon is known for his work in the 40s at Bell Labs as he laid the foundation for modern information theory. He was 85. With the old guard gone, the Code Red worm also starts wriggling through the world wide web and Dell continues to thrive, becoming the world’s largest PC maker during a fifteen year low in computer sales. Apple’s OS 10.1 comes out. Does anyone remember the codename? Puma. Serial ATA and USB 2.0 are introduced and Microsoft decides to kill off Clippy shortly before the release of Windows XP. I still pour out a sip for the Clip every time I drink and work with MS Office docs… I hope you do, too. And after producing the last fireball, Qantum sells off its hard drive business to Maxtor. This was also the first year you could stumble upon stumbleupon.com. Oh, and one more thing. The iPod. Yep.

In 2002, Dean Kamen unveils the Segway. Have we ever had any Segway support calls? I guess George Bush wasn’t a fan of the show at the time. PCI Express is approved as a standard and Roxio picks up the Napster name at a bankruptcy auction.

In 2003, The Smaller worm does it’s thing and becomes the fastest spreading work in history after infecting hundreds of thousands of computers in it’s first three hours of life. SCO becomes the target of everyone’s ire as it sues IBM for its alleged contributions to the Linux kernel. Apple opens the iTunes store, and LinkedIn launches. This is the year that Skype goes public, and Apple releases OS X 10.3. Panther.

In 2004, the Official MySpace site launches, though still managing to hold onto a look that predates it’s domain name registration. Mark Zuckerberg launches TheFaceBook, which is later shortened to just FaceBook. And on April 1st, Google announces the creation of GMail, which many percieved as a joke. Sorry, Hotmail. And modern warfare truly enters the information age as the first five human beings are killed by an unmanned ariel vehicle or UAV in South Waziristan on June 18. OK, that’s definitely a bummer, but something insanely great did happen that year, the release of OS X 10.4 (codenamed? Anyone? Tiger!) just ten days later at the World Wide Developers Conference. Ubuntu 1.0 is released, as is the game World of Warcraft. In terms of the balance of good and evil, this one’s a wash. This is also the year that the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 enter our collective consciousness.

In 2005, we all become a little less lost, as Google Maps is introduced. And we’re all given a video voice as YouTube comes online. Does anyone remember the title of the first video uploaded? Me at the zoo. And speaking of 800 pound gorillas, Apple announces that it will leave IBM for Intel as the main supplier of chips for its personal computing line. Microsoft swaps the name Longhorn Windows Vista and IBM halts sales and support of it’s own Operating System OS/2.

In 2005, the XBox 360 hits store shelves, ushering in a new era of Internet connected gaming consoles. And while everyone else is out buying XBox games, Yahoo buys Flickr, News Corporation buys MySpace, eBay buys Skype, Adobe buys Macromedia, Yahoo! buys del.icio.us and Seagate buys Maxtor.

Blu-Ray brings in 2006 as Wikipedia publishes its millionth article. Toshiba releases the first HD DVD player as Apple announces BootCamp. Twitter is officially launched, lengthening its name from Twttr, though still restricting users to 140 characters. Cloud computing comes of age as Amazon Web Services fire up for the first time. Nintendo launches the Wii as Sony releases the Playstation 3. And Time Magazine names *Me* as the Person of The Year. Well, actually, it was you. But me just sounds better.

In 2007, Apple announces that it will drop the “Computer” from it’s name, as it becomes a company that deals with more than just computers. Apple then announces that it intends to stick the letter “i” in front of every common word Steve Jobs could write down in the 24 hours before the release the first iPhone at the Macworld Conference and Expo. Things get twice as nice this year, as Intel drops the Core2 Duo. Of course the cpu-hungry Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 are there to eat up any spare cycles you may have left over from the extra proc. And Google shows us what we look like from a smart car as Google Street View is folded into Google Maps. Google continues to have a big year with the release of Android, and Amazon starts to change the publishing game as it starts to sell the Kindle along side its books in print. Aplpe releases OS X 10.5. Codename? Leopard.

In 2008, the Blu-Ray HD DVD wars come to an end as HD DVD throws in the towel. Hopefully not the towel they got from the industry that helped push Blu-Ray into the winner’s circle…

In 2009, Google produced a shiny new browser, Chrome, and Microsoft hits back with the release of Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft announces the Bing Search Engine and Google announces the morphing of Grand Central into Google Voice. Microsoft inks a ten year deal to replace Yahoo! search with Bing and after 5 years, Gmail finally gets out of Beta. And not to be outdone by anyone, Steve Jobs is named CEO of the Decade by Fortune Magazine. Oh yeah, and Barnes & Nobles release the Nook.

In 2010, Apple produces the iPad and Google gives us Buzz. And in contrast to our military milestone, the first all-robotic surgery is performed in Montreal.

And in 2011, Watson beats the two highest ranked Jeopardy players, thus replacing the holy grail beating human chess players with that of beating game show contestants.

And here we are. Duke Nukem still looks like Duke Nukem, we still live in a world without Clippy, and I still don’t have my flying car. Maybe in another 16 years IBM will produce a computer that’s really good at Monopoly. Or dodgeball.

That’s (about/been) it for the Bed music and that’s that for BarretTime.

Of course, we still need to talk about the Geek Gathering. It creeps me out a little to do BarretTime without the BarretTime Bed Music. I feel like it’s kinda up to me to keep the baseline going…

All right. The summer is continuing to heat up, but so is the list of available geeky summer activities. Things get underway with the Houston Super Secret Science Club meetup, happening tomorrow night at 6:45 PM at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Unless that was supposed to be a secret… Well, the cat gut is out of the bag, as it were, because the Super Secret Scientists aim to explore the mind through music tomorrow night as they get together to attend a number of talks hosted by Rice University.

Reservations aren’t required and seating is first-come-first-serve. The Club will be meeting outside of room 1131 at 6:45 PM, where you’ll want to track down the head secret scientist, Steve. Over the course of three hours, attendees will choose between two sets of talks, one geared toward science, and the other geared more toward music.

Some of the science talks include Amy Hoover’s “Functional Scaffolding: A New Principle for Enabling Computational Creativity in Music”, John Iversen’s “Neural Dynamics of Beat Perception” and Rebecca Lepping’s “Development of a Validated Emotionally Provocative Musical Stimuli Set for Neuroimaging Studies of Depression”. Guy Madison will take a look at some rhythmic properties of Music that are correlated with groove – or the tendency for music to induce movement. Michael Schutz will examine the benefits of moving to the beat while listening to music, and Sherman Wilcox will spend some time looking for the link between Music and Sign Language.

Back on the music side of the school, in room 1133, Benjamin Anderson will talk about the fact that Elton John can write a song in less time than it takes most of us to make a sandwich when he addresses “Schemata and Elton John’s computational practice”.

If you feel the need to Crocodile Rock out, you may want to attend “Negentropy for solo flute: A compositional and perceptual study using variable form,” featuring flutist Izumi Miyahara. You can then follow that up with Shannon Layman’s talk on “Differentiating Rock from Bach” and how the identification of mainstream recordings requires only brief excerpts. Shazam!

All in all, it sounds like a solid night of science and music for both Tiny Dancers and Rocketmen, alike. For details and directions, surf to meetup.com/Houston-Secret-Science-Club. Of course, if the secrecy of the site proves to be impenetrable, or if you just can’t get the hyphens right, you can hit music.rice.edu, too.

If anyone does attend, please ask them how to purge all of these Elton John songs from my subconscience. Seriously… Please, don’t let the sun go down on me with “Candle in the wind” stuck in my head.

That’s just about as scary to me as Linux Kernel Internals may be to some of you. And while my situation may be hopeless, yours certainly isn’t. At least with the help of TxRx Labs and this Saturday’s three hour class designed to give you an Introduction to Linux Kernel Programming. The class takes on Linux kernel development with an eye towards creating your own kernel module or device driver and towards tricks and tools of the trade to make interacting with the Linux kernel development community go smoothly.

Hit www.txrxlabs.org for registration information on the last in their first summer series of classes.

If this scenario still sounds a little nightmarish to you, then you’re nearly fully prepared for Apollocon, Houston’s Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Conference, taking place at the end of the month at the Houston Intercontinental Airport Double Tree Hotel. In addition to the strong Sci-Fi, fantasy and horror fare, KD5 and I will be hosting a panel on the Maker Movement, as well as a two-hour workshop aimed at the Arduino. We’ll be providing the code and the kits, while attendees are asked to bring a laptop, an Arduino, and the necessary cable to connect them. If you’re new to the world of Physical computing, this workshop will give you the knowledge to make stuff move, blink and and make sound. Hit www.apollocon.org for details, directions and con registration information.

And lastly, we have a very special Geek Gathering coming up in July. Our Sweet Sixteen Party is taking place on July 1st, and even though we’re keeping things quiet, attendees are invited to Geek, Nerd or Schoolgirl it up.

We’ll have more details next week, but for now, that’s it for the passing of the Elton John & Con Batons and that’s that for BarretTime.

Allright.

We’ve been on a BarretTime hiaitus the last three weeks, but I’m back with a couple of activities to keep you busy until the next Geek Gathering rolls around.

If you find yourself too caught up in the digital world and are in need some time to get back in touch with your softer side, you can head over to TxRx Labs this Sunday, June 12th, to take their two hour intro to painting class. The class explores the fundamentals of the materials and techniques of painting. Multiple mediums and styles will be discussed, along with proper storage procedures.

Also taking place this Sunday from 3:30 to 6:30 PM at TxRx Labs is an electronics workshop.

This lab provides electronics enthusiasts access to TX/RX Lab’s professional electrical engineers to assist in completing and trouble shooting their projects. Participants can use TX/RX’s fully outfitted electronics workshop to work on their project while being able to obtain guidance and aid from experts with decades of expertise in electronics design and construction. Participants may also use this time to get instruction on advanced techniques in soldering, troubleshooting, and the use of electronics test equipment.

Both classes require a small tuition fee that can be taken care of online at www.txrxlabs.org/classes/

Swinging back to the free side of things:

If you’re an existing Android developer or are interested in taking the first few steps down that path, you’re in luck. Houston’s first Android Developers Meetup is taking place on the evening of Tuesday, June 28th, at the Zebec Center near Westheimer and Fountainview.

The Houston Android Developers Meetup (or HADM, as I will refer to it for the remainder of the segement) will hold their inaugural meetup to delve into the new Arduino offerings that allow Android Developers to tap into the physical world when writing applications for their Android smartphones. I’ve got a board on order from Seeed Studios, so regardless of whether or not we GETM before HADM does, we’ll hopefully HAVM out at the July Geek Gathering.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Arduino platform, but want to remedy that before HADM meets, you may want to stop by Apollocon the weekend of June 24th for a crash course workshop on the subject. David Brummel and I will be hosting a panel on the Maker Movement and then following that up with a two hour workshop workshop focused on building things with the Arduino platform. Participants are asked to bring their own Arduino, USB cable and laptop to the workshop, where they’ll spend two hours working through nine mini-projects that David and I designed.

Seating space for the Arduino Workshop is limited, so you’ll want to reserve your spot early by surfing to www.apollocon.org. Apollocon, Houston’s own Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Convention, is actually offering a Geek Track in addition to its more traditional fare catering to writers and readers of sci-fi and fantasy. Hit www.apollocon.org for registration info as well as a listing of the con’s other events.

Also taking place on June 24th from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the American Society for Training and Development, Houston. The conference, while aimed primarily at individuals involved with training in their organization, includes topics of wide appeal, such as Cloud Computing, Second Life, Serious Gaming, Shooting video for training, and much more. They Keynote is titled, “Mobile Learning and the Mobile OS Wars: How to Avoid Getting Caught in the Crossfire”, which shows the slant the day’s events. For registration info, hit www.astdhouston.org and for the Houston Android Developers Meetup, surf to www.meetup.com or hit the geekradio website post-show for a full list of links.

That’s it for your summer session sylabus and that’s that for BarretTime.

Allright. As if Fundraisers weren’t scary enough, this Friday is Friday the 13th.

Occurring between one and three times each year, the day is superstitiously believed to bring bad luck.

Anyone want to take a shot at the clinical word denoting the fear of Friday the 13th?

Friggatriskaidekaphobia. While anyone who took some Highschool Latin can pull out the base words for fear and the number thirteen, Frigga may be unfamiliar to those not sporting Viking heritage. Frigga is the Norse goddess for which Friday is named. Pretty Friggan cool, huh? Oh yeah, I’m going to abuse this every chance I get, starting with June’s Friggan Geek Gathering. Yeah – probably best just to walk away before that gets out of hand…

Although the number 13 has had a negative connotation since Biblical times and the sixth day of the week has been considered a bad day on which to travel or to start new projects since the 14th century, the combination of the two can’t be found until the 19th century. As far as superstitions go, this one is a bit of a noobie.

While I can neither confirm nor deny this particular superstition surrounding Friday the 13th, I can try to dispell one or two more current ones.

The first? Never turn your monitor on before your workstation. I’m not sure if there was ever a time when this was true, though in the early days of Linux, it was certainly possible to damage a monitor by using an incorrect refresh rate. In the day of Energy Star compliance, monitors tend to go to sleep rather than implode, if they receive power without a video signal.

I also know a number of people who are afraid to turn off their computers, especially if they seem to be working OK. While it probably doesn’t hurt anything to leave them up and running, that isn’t exactly green behavior. Unless we’re talking servers or network gear, nightly power cycles are generally a good thing, not an invitation for something bad to happen.

In Linux circles, this is even more of a superstition, as losing uptime is considered a very Bad Thing. For instance, a server with an uptime of 400 days is inherently better than a server with an uptime of 4 days, even though the fresher server probably has a newer kernel and more current hardware. I did some checking into this myth and found out that this one is *completely* *true*.

Some geek superstitions are actually borrowed from professional athletes and gamers…

If you’re into online sports games and are having a good season in competitive play, you may have a pair of lucky socks that go unwashed for far too long. I did some light checking, and while this behaviour may not bolster your team’s standing, it will do *wonders* for your chances of catching athletes foot.

Oddly, the notion of a lucky pair of boxers hasn’t really taken hold in the Geek world. I wonder why that is…?

Blowing on dice happens not only at the craps tables of Las Vegas, but at the gaming tables of tens of thousands of paper based gamers across the US. While the moisture from one’s breath may have made early dice more likely to stick on the side closest the blower, any actual effects are mostly mythical today. There’s no harm in continuing with this one, provided you’re equipped with the appropriate breath care products.

Another one? Crossing the streams is usually considered to be bad. Outside of the realm of Proton Packs, Neutrona Wands and Particle accelerators, this is a myth. From a Geek’s perspective, the Transmission Control Protocol takes care of streams of packets getting crossed
while traversing the Internet. The only real danger is getting KPFT’s audio stream crossed with that of FOX News. Supposedly, life as we know it would stop instantaneously and every molecule in our bodies would explode at the speed of light. Actually, that sounds kinda fun on a slow Saturday night.

Anyone else have any other geek or tech superstitions?

I’d mention the superstitions about partaking in sex, drugs and rock’n’roll while spending your summer as a camp counselor at Crystal Lake, but I don’t think that any of us are in any real danger there. You probably caught that that was a reference to original Friday the 13th movie, which was actually pretty scary the first time I saw it. Of course, I was seven, so your mileage may vary.

If you *were* a kid in the early 80s, it’s entirely possible that you saw a movie starring Richard Benjamin and Jeffrey Tambor named Saturday the 14th. The premise of this 1981 work is that Friday the 13th is for noobs; the true danger doesn’t arrive until the following day, Saturday the 14th, when it’s possible to open an ancient tome that will spill forth an odd assortment of creatures, as evidenced by the the first of two monthly meetings of the Houston Linux Users Group. While power users of the Linux Operating System may seem scary to some, they’re actually completely safe to be around, provided you follow some basic rules.

Dress down. Suits and other trappings of the corporate world tend to spook Linux geeks. It’s best to go with a t-shirt, shorts and some sandals (socks are a bonus) when moving amongst large herds of linux types to avoid causing a stampede.

Linux users are primarily dossile creatures, but, just as bulls are enraged by the color red, Linux users charge and trample anything between them and a blue screen of death in an attempt to both mock it and document it with their camera phone so that the pics may be pored over during those lean periods when Microsoft happens to deploy a solid OS. This is especially true in public spaces where web kiosks, smart vending machines and public terminals may be close by.

And lastly, once you’ve become fairly comfortable moving among the monolithic kernel’d masses, be wary that you don’t become *too* comfortable. Linux users will often turn on their own when it comes to disagreements over text editors, window managers and file system choices, so it’s best to maintain an air of ambiguity if your preferences are ever called into question. “I run them all” usually works for me.

The Houston Linux Users Group gets together at two in the afternoon every second and fourth Saturday of the month at the HAL-PC Headquarters located at 4543 Post Oak Place Drive for a two hour talk that will drop some new knowledge on your superstitious self, but for now, that’s it for your Friday the 13th 411 and that’s that for BarretTime.