I now have gDrive

Today my Google Docs shows the "Upload any file" link.

So I have the promised minimalist version of "gDrive". To get the good stuff though I'll have to upgrade our family domain and/or my personal Gmail account. That's not necessarily cheap at current prices.

You can't actually upload any file. Executables, including OS X apps. can't be uploaded.

Update 1/20/10: I found my first bug. I uploaded a PDF and viewed it. From the viewer I obtained the share link. The public link didn't work however. When I clicked "preview" it reported "Sorry, the page (or document) you have requested is not available."

How to fix permissions in an OS X Package and how deal with VMWare Fusion Insufficient Permission problems

In this one post I shall now solve two mysteries not currently addressed anywhere Google can find.

The first mystery is how, in Snow Leopard (10.6), to change the permissions for all the files in a Package. (Have I mentioned how much I hate the OS X/Unix permissions model?).

It's easy to change the permissions on a Package (a folder that appears in OS X to be an application), but that doesn't change the internal permissions. Unlike a folder, there's no GUI option to apply the changes to "enclosed items".

The answer is to right click on the package and choose "Show Package Contents". Inside the package, create a folder. Move everything into the folder. Apply your permissions change to "enclosed items". Move everything out and delete the folder. (Of course you should backup first.)

The second mystery is how to move an OS X VMWare image between users. In VMWare 3 this is a a Package, and every file in it has the original owner's permissions. Moving it to a the "Shared" folder doesn't change permissions - because the OS X permissions model is irretrievably broken.

Changing permissions on the Package is not enough, VMWare will report that the package cannot be opened: "Error while opening the virtual machine: Insufficient permissions to access the file ..." (The actual error message will reference on specific file in the package.)

I changed Permissions on the Package, then I used the above trick to change permissions on all the files in the Package.

That worked.

A Google calendar with contact birthdays

It's a secret, but for some time there's been a Google Calendar with Contacts birthdays and events.

It's in Other Calendars:Add:Browse Interesting Calendars:More:Contacts birthdays and events.

No, I don't know what "events" means.

The Contacts Birthdays and Events is public by default. So if anyone knows the URL, they can add it. So you can share it with your spouse and vice-versa, in which case you'll want to give each distinct names.

Obviously it has only those birthdays you've added to Contacts information. This calendar will be more useful if I'm ever able to integrate my OS X/MobileMe address book with my Google Contacts (currently the data models are too dissimilar). So, for the moment, it's more curious than useful.

These published calendars can add up. With this one I have 20 calendars available to my account, though I display only about 5-6 at a time. The calendars I display vary by season.

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USB 3 and Gigabit ethernet: two articles on the gap between marketing and reality

Vendors lie. It's the nature of things.

Ski resorts lie about their snow coverage, and tech vendors lie about performance. Marketing, for example, convinced most geeks that USB 2 was as fast as Firewire, but that's certainly not true under OS X.

In the same vein, here are two articles that contrast real world performance with marketing claims:

Coding Horror Gigabit Ethernet and Back of the Envelope Calculations: A 2005 article that showed Gigabit ethernet is about 3 times faster than 100 mbps ethernet -- not 10 times as fast. Great discussion.

Dans Data review: USB 3 drive box and controller card kit (Jan 2010): In most available machines USB 3 is 3 times faster than USB 2. (So it's probably faster than Firewire 400 and maybe comparable to Firewire 800).

Threefold improvements are nothing to sneeze at, especially in the post-Moore's Law era. It's just not quite what marketing promises.

Mac users need not feel USB 3 envy -- we get Firewire 800.

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Relational database 101: A Microsoft gem hidden in plain sight

Colleagues sometimes ask me about where to get a basic introduction to databases. My informatics students should be asking that, but they usually don’t.

I’ve not had a very good response. It’s been eons since my first encounter with data models, ER diagrams, keys and the like. I dimly recalled the monstrous Microsoft Access manuals of old, which often included quite good tutorials.

That’s what led me to crack open the Table of Contents of Microsoft Access 2007. It took me a while to figure out that how to do that. You can either click on a tiny blue circle/question mark in the far right of the app bar, or you can type old F1. You can then click the wee blue book icon to see a Table of Contents or you can look at “Browse Access Help”. From either location you’ll see “Database design” as shown here in the Table of Contents:

Microsoft has put a lot of material behind that little Database design link:

Starting with Database design basics:

Wow. I feel like I’ve entered a dusty old library frozen in time, and opened a book untouched for decades (I did that once in rural Bangladesh – quite memorable). Microsoft’s tech writers are terribly underappreciated.

The materials include demonstrations, references to sample databases, etc. The vast majority of this material is applicable to any relational database, from poor little Access to Oracle.

Many students and tech workers have an unused copy of Microsoft Access near at hand. Even if you never intend to do anything with Microsoft Access, you might as well take advantage of the excellent interactive textbook that comes with it.

Google talk IM clients: Adium for OS and Trillian for XP – the good and the ugly

I only became interested in instant messaging after I had a portable platform that supported it – namely the iPhone OS 3 update (prior that release there were no message notifications) and BeejiveIM.

IM still doesn’t work terribly well on an iPhone, but that technology change tipped the balance enough to make IM interesting on my desktop.

So I’m late to the game, but catching up. I did make one mistake in the catch-up process. Since my peers are all old and wrinkly like me, they don’t know this stuff. I should have asked younger geeks what they did.

That’s why I only now realized there was a solution to two problems I have had:

1. There’s no Google Talk client for OS X.
2. The XP Google Talk client only supports one Google identity – I want it to support my corporate and personal GT identities.

The solution for both problems on OS X is Adium. It supports multiple identities. I even have a sneaky suspicion iChat would work too (sigh, I’ve been so disgusted with iChat Video that I’ve dismissed all aspects of it).

On XP I was hearing good things about Trillian Astra. I figured I’d install it and, if it worked, pay for Pro.

Mistake.

During the install Trillian tried to change my search service and it installed the Ask.com toolbar – without notification or permission. This isn’t a new problem …

Does Trillian have a crapware problem- - Zero Day - ZDNet.com

StopBadware.org researcher Liana Leahy has taken Cerulean Studios to task for bundling two third-party applications into the popular free Trillian IM client, arguing that users who are not careful during the Trillian installation process could end up with a crapware problem.

During the installation process, the default setting is for Trillian to bundle the Weather Channel Desktop and the Ask Toolbar, two products that could introduce security risks to PC users.

I uninstalled the ask.com toolbar and Trillian immediately after the installation completed.

So I’m still looking for an XP IM solution.

This isn’t the first time I’ve run into quality issues with the XP marketplace. XP is a very large market, but it’s a very undiscriminating market with a lot of vulnerable users. The quality of the software is often very low.

Update: A trusted (younger geek) colleague recommended Pidgin for XP – libpurple based open source like Adium. See also:

• Pidgin, the universal chat client (not to be confused with ePigeon)
• Pidgin (software) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Five Best Instant Messengers - Instant Messaging – Lifehacker: they were gamed by Trillian, but Pidgin showed up there too.
• Configuring Pidgin for Google Talk (it's not as polished as Adium)

Update 1/13/2010: Pidgin's window didn't locate itself correctly in my two monitor setup and the app itself is pretty crude. Adium is far more polished. So I'm still looking!

Update 1/13/2010: I’d read somewhere that Windows Live Messenger would provide some interoperability with XMPP, so I tried installing it. Nope – it’s still pure Microsoft. Big install and uninstall. Surprisingly, it’s ad supported as well. First time I’ve seen Microsoft do that. I looked into AOL IM as well, but no federation there either. There’s far less interoperability that I’d expected, and the interoperable clients are disappearing. I wonder if a combination of SMS, Twitter and lack of a revenue model has killed Instant Messaging.

Update 1/14/10: Another colleague recommended meebo, but that web app doesn't support Oauth with Google -- it wants my Google credentials! I don't even give those to my mother. In any event, it only supports a single Google XMPP account.

Google Voice quality issue report form

Google seems to revise their customer feedback and problem reporting schemes monthly.

As of Jan 2010 we're to use: Contact Us - Google Voice Help to report voice quality issues.

Two weeks ago I had to stop using Google Voice to Montreal due to severe echoing, but the echoes are mild now.

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