Adventures in Open Source

Since the Apple fanboys seem to like unboxing their gear, I thought it would be fun to do the same with a new Juniper SRX240 I just bought (from Redapt – our equipment vendor of choice).

Due to my previously detailed issues with Centurylink, we are working with Time Warner to get a dedicated fiber circuit to the building. While the 10Mbps down will (in theory) be the same as what we had with the DSL line, it’s the 10Mbps up that I’m looking forward to the most.

Currently, we use a Cisco 800 series router to terminate the DSL line, and I needed something else for the new circuit. I’ve soured on Cisco in the last few years (due more to issues with their hiring practices than anything to do with their product) and I’ve grown real fond of Juniper gear, not the least because they are a customer (I buy my pizza at Papa Johns, I book travel on Travelocity, and I shop at Sears in part because I like being a customer of my customers).

Anyway, it looked like the SRX240 would be both more than sufficient for what I needed and it comes with lots of cool features.

I liked the minimalist packaging. The router came in a plastic bag held in the box with lightweight, molded plastic spacers – no “peanuts”. There was another bag with some documentation and a console cable, and the only other thing in the box was a power cable.

The router itself is rather lightweight. It’s 1U in height and about half the depth of a standard rack.

Since the circuit won’t be in for a couple of weeks there isn’t much configuration to do at the moment, but I was able to get the management interface configured from the command line which gives me access to the web-based user interface.

I tend to be a command line person, but when learning new gear having a webUI will be helpful.

Paulo, a Juniper employee who happened to be in our office when this arrived, showed me a neat trick with the CLI.

When you make a change to any router configuration, you usually have to “commit” it in order for it to be applied. This can be a bit scary, especially if you are remote or if you depend on the router for network access. One mistake and you might end up in the car.

JunOS has a feature called “commit confirmed”. This will commit your changes, but only for ten minutes unless you issue a normal “commit”. Thus if you screwed something up, ten minutes later the changes will be rolled back.

Pretty cool.

Just a heads up to everyone who has missed it – American Airlines has a sweet new iPhone app.

Last fall I bought an iPhone 3GS. It was a hard decision, but one I haven’t really regretted. Note that I don’t make many phone calls, so I was mainly interested in having a 3G iPod Touch, but I did have the requirement of having a GSM phone since I travel overseas a lot.

Last week, as you know unless you have been living under a rock, Apple introduced the iPhone 4. It was enough of a redesign that it triggered my “don’t by Rev 1 products from Apple” rule, so I was in no real hurry to get one. But then my wife, who is a runner, kept borrowing my iPhone for the MotionX GPS app to track her progress so I got permission to spend the extra money and get the iPhone 4 so she could have my old one.

After a week of playing with it, I have to say I’m pretty happy. The biggest weakness of the iPhone 3Gs (at least the way I use it) was the camera, and the new iPhone camera is much, much improved.

Of course a lot a press has been devoted to the “retina screen” and it is beautiful. I wear contacts that I take out every night, and one of the first things I do when I get up in the morning is pick up my phone to check e-mail. I have to bring it close to my face to see it, and it is almost impossible to make out the individual pixels. Think about it – the iPhone 4 is 640 pixels wide and the pictures I post on this blog I crop to 450 pixels.

I have also noticed much improved battery life. The iPhone 3Gs wasn’t bad and it would last me about a day of heavy use, but the iPhone 4 seems to go about twice as long.

However, the only real “wow” feature has been FaceTime. I was chatting with OGP member Mike Huot and it worked amazingly well. In fact, I think the audio quality over FaceTime was equal to or not better than what I get over AT&T with a normal phone call (FaceTime is Wi-Fi only). Another cool feature is that you can switch between the front and the back cameras by tapping an icon in the lower right side which means you can show your caller what you are looking at without having to rotate the phone.

On the downside, much has been made about the attenuation of the signal when the device is being held. Unlike the other iPhones, the iPhone 4 is surrounded by a metal band that is also used by the antenna. I can tell you that the problem is quite real. While this may be hard to believe, I have never had a call drop from the office, and the first call I received on the new phone dropped within the first 10 seconds. Of course I was gripping in my left hand, which is apparently a no-no.

I think it is pretty easy to figure out how Apple missed this. In all of the real word tests the phones were in cases to hide the fact that they were new. This probably helped the signal and the fact that in Silicon Valley AT&T drops calls often, so the testers probably didn’t notice. In any case, I ordered my $30 rubber band which should help. I’ll know more when it arrives next week.

I’m not unhappy with my purchase as the camera improvements mean I can leave my point and shoot at home now, but barring the fact that my wife wanted my old phone I would not have bought at this time. Always, always wait for Rev 2 if you can help it.

Of course, programming on the iPhone can be painful. I usually spend 45 minutes just sorting out my certificates, although the new Xcode makes it a little easier. I only use it to play with the new OpenNMS iPhone app, but it is considerably harder than anything I’ve done on Linux.

I do have a little bit of guilt about buying such a closed product, but my reasons for buying my original iPhone still stand. However, I saw on MacRumors that there is a new project called “marble” which may actually become Xcode 4, and it got me to thinking. Since Apple now owns it’s own chip company, it could use Xcode to be the only way to compile on it (although Ben tells me that it would be much harder than that to lock it down). Then Apple could move all of their Macs to that chip and seriously lock down those as they have the iPhone/iPod/iPad. Thus OS XI or whatever would be as closed a platform as we’ve ever seen (well, at least on that scale).

A long shot I know, but scary.

So you might be asking “why in the world did you buy another iPhone, you freedom hatin’ conformist?” In part it is because I don’t view it as a development platform like I do a standard computer. I don’t need to have access to the code in my microwave or my car, for example. And I am seriously hoping that Android is able to catch up. I think it will, eventually, but that it will take time. Apple has a larger market cap than Microsoft, so they have a lot of money to throw at the product, and it is hard for a free, distributed community to compete with that as quickly.

But with enough time and interest, all commercial software becomes a commodity.

Just a quick post between a lovely weekend at the beach and the Open Source Business Conference.

Last year I managed to visit Dresden where I saw for the first time, in person, the ampelmännchen. These are the rather unique street crossing lights that can be found in the former East Germany. It wasn’t the first time I was introduced to them, however. That was at the house of Jonathan Sartin (OGP) in the UK, where his son Eddie had plastic toy versions of them.

In fact, there are a number of shops dedicated to the symbols.

However, I was unable to find ampelmännchen cufflinks. Since I live in a area that has a high density of artisans, I decided to have a pair made.

I think they turned out rather well. They were made by Sandra McEwen in silver and enamel.

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

- Oscar Wilde

David was telling me about a program he watched on the Marriott hotel chain, where the founder was saying that he spent 100% of his time thinking about the business. That pretty much seems to jive with my experience, as rarely a moment goes by that I’m not thinking about OpenNMS.

I don’t think this is healthy, so I am trying to find some sort of hobby to occupy my mind that doesn’t involve computers. In the summer I raise vegetables but I wanted something for the winter as well.

I have a mental “bucket list” of things I want to do before I die, and I’ve accomplished several of them. I’ve jumped out of an airplane, gone trout fishing in New Zealand, had sushi in Tokyo, etc. but one thing stood out as a good choice for a hobby.

Learn to play the guitar.

In fact, I have always wanted to play a particular brand of guitar. Many years ago (I’m an old guy, remember) there was a short-lived television show called “Key West” with Fisher Stevens (who played the Indian character in the Short Circuit movies and the bad guy in Hackers). In “Key West” he ran a bar, and in one scene the camera pans across the bandstand and I saw the most amazing guitar. I described it to friend of mine who knows such things and they identified it as an Ovation Adamas.

After many years of wanting one, through the power of eBay and a bad economy, I finally own one. It’s a 2000 Millenium CB edition, one of only 75 made, and while my wife doesn’t like it at all, I think it’s beautiful.

It also has the most unusual artwork on the fret board, featuring all nine planets (remember, in 2000 Pluto was still a planet).

I’m carving out an evening each week for lessons, so perhaps at the next users conference we can all get together and play a little music.