Ingredients.

• Netflix account
• DD-WRT capable WIFI router
• Oldish DD-WRT
• dnsmasq
• iPad or iPhone

Steps.

1. Buy a DD-WRT capable WIFI router
2. Install DD-WRT on the WIFI router
3. Use DNSMasq for the DHCP/DNS
4. Pay up the Netflix
5. Install Netflix app on iPad
6. Try to watch the streaming on it.

Result.
KABOOM! The streaming never starts on iPad.
The streaming works fine on computers like PC and Mac.

Cause.
DD-WRT generates a dnsmasq.conf with "stop-dns-rebind" option.

Being cheap, I bought a DVI KVM from monoprice.com. KCF-131DA is the model name, made byOCT - Omnidirectional Control Technology.
This one has 3 port, which is unusual, but thought it would work for me, having FreeBSD server, MacBook Pro and a desktop.
The other KVM, VGA 4 port from random source via newegg.com, worked great, also a cheap one, but I wanted to upgrade the video to DVI.
But, this 3 port DVI KVM did not work out, and now I'm using it in my office.

Here are the reasons.

This is a blog worthy troubleshooting.

I had been frustrated for probably 15 years or so about the logging output of syslong on my FreeBSD server.

It took me quite a while to figure this out.
My Ubuntu machine stopped bringing up the WIFI.
No matter what I do, it just does not want to connect the wlan0 to the network.
After lengthy googling and regoogling, I finally came to the answer.

As in here, all I had to do was
sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager stop
sudo rm /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state
sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager start
Tada!

This made me not like Network Manager even more.

I bought into a premise that Ubuntu can do major version upgrade with single click. I installed MythBuntu 9.10 (karmic).
Since my on-board graphics is ATi, I had to use fglrx driver.
When I installed MythBuntu, the flgrx driver that comes with karmic did not work. I had to download then latest driver from AMD web site, or else the video did not playback.
Anyhow, I installed fglrx.
I also manually install lirc driver. I have a ActiSys 200L dongle, but I have no idea how "act200l" that comes with Ubuntu works. I don't expect it to work, so I hand install the driver.

My Abit IL-90MV is a weird motherboard. It is a micro ATX form factor but it uses Intel Socket-M (479 pin) mobile Core2 Duo CPU.
I've bought this on eBay for $50, and a CPU (Core2Duo T7200) to go with it.
It's got firewire, HDMI, Intel Gigabit Ethernet 82573L, yet it has only 2 SATA.
As I'm turning to use jumbo packets in house, this Intel 82573L gave me a good fight.

One was Sichuan Gourmet in Billerica and Jade Garden in Chinatown.
They are both better than Great Wok in Arlington Heights.

After googling same topic several times, it's better to write down.
This is how you set a password for the VNC access for MacOS X from "regular" VNC client.
By default, the screen sharing does per user authentication and does not let me take over the screen with a master password.
This allows me to do so.
/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -configure -activate -access -on -clientopts -setvnclegacy -vnclegacy yes -setvncpw -vncpw your-VNC-Password -restart -agent

Credit goes to:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=129918

I bought Abit IL-90MV microATX motherboard off of eBay for mere $50, along with Core2 Duo T7200, total of about $120. This was meant to be home FreeBSD server.

About a year, it worked great, but, well I replaced it with Gigabyte GA-EG45M-UD2H, paired with Intel E3200 (Celron 2.5GHz). Total of about $180. One of not so justifiable reasons was that I needed a spare motherboard since the FreeBSD server is my production system, and after sending out all my spare machines to World Computer Exchange, I realized I have no spare machine.

A simple discovery which probably is known widely. MacBook does hibernate.

All you need is "pmset" command. Something like

pmset -a hibernate 1

(well, sudo if you need.)

Before we use any power tools, let's take a moment to talk about shop safety. Be sure to read, understand, and follow all the safety rules that come with your power tools. Knowing how to use your power tools properly will greatly reduce the risk of personal injury. And remember this: there is no more important safety rule than to wear these — safety glasses.

I finally installed Snow Leopard. I usually wait long while after the major version changes. I thought that 10.6.2 would be a good time to do it. Along with it, I made two partitions, thinking that Ubuntu would be handy for the installation server, one large for Mac and one small for Ubuntu.

I'm very against doing dual boot. It complicates the set up, making the maintenace more difficult, and backup/restore can be tricky if you think about booting. I'd rather have a second disk and boot from it. Anyway, to make the logistics easier (I did not want carry a laptop, and hook up a Firewire disk to run Ubuntu), I did the dual boot.

Being Japanese, I travel to Japan once or twice a year. Noise cancelling headset is a must for the long air flight. Most people I know have Bose, QC-1, 2 or 3. I know it's good, but being cheap, I cannot settle on it.

I have a Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7. Apparently, it's now revisioned as ATH-ANC7b.

I bought mine about a year ago for $200, and pretty happy with it. You can probably find it a lot cheaper now than before.

Good:

This is probably well known already, but it came across.

Sun's compiler sends a UDP packet to Sun for tracking the usage of compiler which may slow down the compilation.

UT_NO_USAGE_TRACKING=1

It is mentioned here.

Also, 

SUNW_NO_UPDATE_NOTIFY=1

seems a good idea.

アメリカに住んですでに20年近くたってしまいました。　仕事の年数を数えると日本で働いた10年の倍の20年働いたことになります。

ここのところ、私の頭の中にあるのはテニスのことと、 World Computer Exchange, それに、バケーションかな？

テニスは2年間のお休みのあと、それなりに戻ってきたように思います。　ショットの切れはそれなりで、特にバックハンドでも結構 Winner が取れるので、自分よりへたくそ相手には簡単に勝てます。　バックハンドのクロスコートを2，3球深く打って後ろに押し込んでおいて、次をフォアハンドに打てば大体ポイントが終わってしまいます。

サーブは明らかに切れがなく（ようするにラケットヘッドスピードが落ちているのと、自信のなさからコーナーに向かって打てない） ので、キープの率がいまいち。　サーブのペースは、体／肩の回転を速くすることで少し戻ってきたようですが、2年前のように、ワイドコーナーに打てていません。　（デュースサードのワイドサーブは調子のいいときしか打てなかったけど...）

リカバリーの遅さと、特に「スプリットステップ／予測／最初の一歩の反応」がまったくできていないので、2年前に比べると、カバーできるコートの範囲が半分くらいしかないように思います。 

自分と同じかうまい相手には、これがたたって、運がいいとゲームが取れるけど、ちょっと疲れるとまったくゲームになっていません。　要するにランニングショットばっかりになってしまって、完全に受身状態だし、パッシングショットにペースが載せられないので、前に出てこられるとまったくポイントが取れない。

I was thinking about buying a USB WIFI stick that has an antenna - so that I can try canneta and other goodies on laptops, and the other day, I bought Hawking's HWUG1A. Last summer on vacation, the place I stayed had a free WIFI, but from my room, I could not get the signal by about 30 feet + a wall with my MacBook. This summer, I want to be more prepared for using WIFI from the room I'm going to stay wherever it is. I'm determined to bring a better antenna for the WIFI connection.

It does work on both Mac and Windows, as the box screams, and has an antenna. This is, I thought "perfect". When I take this on the road, I can take either Mac (MacBook goodness) or Windows (Panasonic Toughbook Y2, the best hardware) laptop.

For many years, I wanted to have a multiprocessor machine. I was ecstatic when I bought dual proc G4 MDD. It was my first real dual proc machine.
After a while, I decided to sell it, and got iBook G4, because MDD was such a terrible design. I could not stand for the noise. Until MacBook, I was sad.

Dual core became norm. iMac Intel and MacBook are both running dual core 2GHz at my home, and I also built a machine with Core2 Duo E7450. It was sweet.

I did not go to Ginza in Chinatown many many years. Many years ago, I was frequent there. It served a best Japanese food in Boston for years.
Tonight, my family was in Chinatown, and we decided to go to Ginza.
I am Japanese, and I may not be the best person to judge restaurants, but the demise of Ginza shocked me.
First off, wife and I realized that there is no Japanese sushi chefs at Ginza anymore. Bad sign.
We ordered our three dishes, Chirashi zushi, Salmon shio-yaki (grilled salmon with salt), and Nabeyaki udon (Udon noodle soup). For better or worse, everywhere we go, we order pretty much same dishes, so I exactly know the difference.

I have an Apple USB modem, which is connected to an intel iMac. Therefore, I have absolutely no need to use my old RS-232C serial fax modem at all.

But, hey, it does not hurt to see I can dial the old serial modem. One day, when, somehow I go back to dial up, I might want to. (Joking)

Anyhow, I was cleaning up my room, I had a USB serial dongle, a fax modem, and a lot of DB9 cables, probably serial cables, and wanted to test the cables.

It's time to hook up the modem to Mac. Time to Google.

First, I found a console command "screen".

"screen /dev/<YOUR-SERIAL-DEVICE>" does good job of talking to a serial device.

This is slick. I don't need to download anything to just try serial.

A friend of mine’s PowerMac G4 MDD died one day, and he somehow managed to buy a used G4 replacement off of eBay. Regardless of whether or not it’s a good idea, he gave me the dead G4.

When you use the Intel's GMA for X11, and you don't have a built-in LCD like laptop, but you want to use VGA output, xorg.conf is a bit tricky.

I had to google for quite some time to find out necessary ingradients to use VGA output for SD11G5. Though xorg.conf is for FreeBSD, Linux machines' setup should not be much different.

First, I have a 1280x1024 LCD for VGA connection. I could use DVI output but I only have a VGA KVM. When FreeBSD starts, VGA connection does work, but as soon as X server stats with "intel" driver, it switches over to DVI. 

I bought a Shuttle's SFF box, SD11G5, a socket M non-Core CPU only machine. It was an eBay auction, along with cheap old socket M CPU. If you want to know the detail, there is an excellent review.

Idea is to run the home server on this machine to save electricity. 

The machine eats 40W full-load, and backs down around 30W idle, without powerd.

With powerd, CPU idles around 100MHz, and probably eating 20W or less. It has a single Western Digial GP 500GB disk. 

This is a great setup.

I have upgraded the SmartFruit.com's Drupal from version 5 to 6, just to be "up to date".

I'm still a novice (very very novice) Drupal user and I don't have much interest in learning it. Bad combination. Anyhow, I realized I had a pile of user registration request, lot of comment spams, and a real comment. I might have deleted some real comment left on the site, as I had to mass-delete the comment spams.

If so, I'm sorry.

Anyhow, as you can see, my old theme is gone. "aquasoft" theme is not Drupal 6 compatible so I had to switch. The current theme is probably temporary but I like its simplicity.

Finally, I received a Fios HD STB (Set Top Box), and the world is great. I also got DCT-700, a little cable box.
Naturally, DCT-700 is dedicated to the MythTV and there is a well known problem with the channel change by Infrared transmitter. Somehow, "0" does not work at all.

There,  I said it. me and friend of mine was at a sushi restaurant, just 300 feet away from my hotel. The place is located under a train track and pretty noisy. It's clearly not a prime location, but anyhow, it's in the Sushi capital Tokyo downtown, Ginza. We had "Tencho Omakase" which is mere $20 that gives me a bunch of sushi, a miso soup, a salad. Well, besides miso is decent, the sushi was pretty good, way better than "Ginza" in Boston Chinatown, which probably charges me twice more. (In Japan, there is no tip so $20 is really $20).

Well, I cannot write more specific title than this. Anyhow, I'm quite annoyed and therefore probably it's time to leave a log. As I had to go to a business trip in Tokyo for 3 weeks, I thought it would be neat if I could use my camcorder as webcam. I've tried a few (most of them available in the wild), and decided to purchase WebCamDV 2.1 from orangeware.com.

Pros:

1. It can convert the sound input from the camcorder as sound input.
2. The dv input to webcam works great

Cons:

I broke my MacBook's internal drive. Shoot. It feels like something is in it. My MacBook's warranty expired about 10 days ago. I can probably make a case and let Apple replace the drive. But, I did not. Instead, I decided to replace the drive myself.

iFixIt.com has a collection of very concise guide to replace all sorts of things. I took a look at the guide of replacing the optical drive of MacBook, and it was not too difficult. Compared to replacing a disk of iBook G4, it's nothing.

Today's problem: Keeping the cable box always-on

The cable box needs to be on for MythTV to work. But, since it can be easily turned off by accident, I need MythTV box to turn it on.
I thought that "listening to the cable box should not be difficult", and it worked beautifully.