Unplugging the Cisco Valet Connector allowed the media center to boot properly. Cool, well not really, as a WiFi adapter should not keep a computer from booting. The fact that the Valet Connector shows up as a USB flash drive before becoming a WiFi adapter seemed odd to be before. And, I’m placing part of the blame on that behavior for this constant rebooting. To resolve the issue, I removed USB flash drives from the boot list in the motherboard’s BIOS.

When the media center finally booted, I noticed another issue. The Valet forgot that it was supposed to be in WiFi adapter mode. This one was my fault. If you do not complete the device setup using the included easy setup software, the device may not remember its state after reboot. Awesome, right? After completing the setup within the included easy setup software I have not had either issue reappear for a week now.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Conditional permutations are where you conditionally perform a permutation based off of a switching variable. For example, {x: (1 3 4 2 5), *}, in this if x is 1 the first permutation is performed (1 3 4 2 5), if x is 0, then the pass through permutation denoted as * is taken. This syntax seems a little odd as the first logically should be executed when x is 0 but this is the notation used in the class.

As part of one of the assignments, we were given the choice to:

1. Write a program that transforms boolean expressions into conditional permutations
2. Write a program that transforms conditional permutations into boolean functions
3. Do some conditional permutation work by hand.

Well, the choice here was not too difficult. I had already written a permutation evaluator to check my work on a quiz, so I chose to do the conditional permutation to boolean function option. As the permutation evaluator was written in PHP (some features of PHP make these types of tasks easier than trying to do them in C/C++). Since I knew the professor may not have access to PHP, I hosted a version of my code on this site. I am now opening it up for others to look at and play with. Checkout mtekk’s conditional permutation evaluator.

There are a few other neat things I wrote for this class, including a cyclical boolean logic solver. However, they don’t have a nice interface available yet. A long term goal is to make the rest of them available to the public, however there are other things that do take precedence.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Since I’ve had this laptop for over 3 years now, it is nearing the end of its normal service life. Lithium Ion batteries are only good for 3 to 5 years. Based on previous experience, I probably have about a year left before the battery stops holding a charge. Even though I could just buy a replacement battery, getting something new may be a better alternate (already have a fatigue crack near the ExpressCard slot).

Below is the list of requirements I have for a new laptop:

• 13″ to 14″. My current laptop, the Vostro 1400 is just about the perfect size for using as an actual laptop (lugging around to conferences, classes, meetings, etc.).
• <1.3″ in height (when closed). One thing I don’t like about the Vostro 1400 is it is a little on the pudgy side.
• “Generation 2″ Core i processor or better. They get better battery life than the first generation of Core i processors.
• Performance equivalent to a Core 2 Duo X9000 (2.8GHz). While I don’t exactly need any more performance than what my current laptop offers (all the heavy lifting is to be done on the desktop), I certainly don’t want anything that is much less powerful.
• 6+ hours of battery life (low screen brightness, reading/editing code). This is the battery life I get with my Vostro 1400 and will not accept anything with less run time.
• 1280×800 or higher resolution display, and I prefer this to be 16:10 format (16:9 is pointless as all movies are wider yet so you will always have black bars). 16:10 screens are very difficult to come by these days, maybe we’ll see a rebirth of them in the future. This one is quite important, I will not go to a screen with less than 800px in height.
• Preferably an IPS panel, without a glossy screen.
• Not a Toshiba, Lenovo, or HP. Lenovo and HP have special requirements for add-on hardware (I have a Intel Ultimate-N 6300 card in my Vostro 1400 and I want to bring this to my new laptop). And, I have had bad experiences with Toshiba in the past.
• Backlit keyboard. This is essential, even when I “know” where the keys are on the keyboard, typing in the dark while riding in a vehicle isn’t easy on the Vostro.

The ultrabooks look interesting. Though none of them have 16:10 screens. Performance wise, looking at notebookcheck.net, the Intel Core i5-2557M found in the ultrabooks is comparable with the X9000 that I currently have (even though they rank it lower). Speaking of which, their list is quite good for getting a general feel for the performance levels of mobile CPUs, and they include some desktop CPUs in there for reference.

Mobile Processors – Benchmarklist – Notebookcheck.net Techhttp://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.htmlThis table is sorted by the approximate speed of the (laptop) CPU. It contains average benchmark values of some internal and external reviews. Furthermore, the list can be sorted…

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

This mod began in late June when I went with a friend to the technical college he was taking a “How to create anything” class at. Using the mill in the classroom, I cut a hole in the front of the case (originally wanted to use the laser cutter, but it can’t cut through aluminum). It isn’t visible in the provided pictures, but the hole is slightly crooked, but most won’t notice it if I don’t point it out.

The front panel sat, hole cut, all summer. Last night, I finally took the time to cut out the perforated aluminum and mix up some epoxy to bond the “mesh” to the front panel. After 24 hours of curing, the front panel is done. Below are two pictures of the results.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Chris Spooner, over at line25.com wrote an interesting article titled “10 HTML Entity Crimes You Really Shouldn’t Commit” (found via Twitter thanks to Lester Chan). I however, don’t agree with his crime #8, which deals with the multiply (cross product) and division symbols. The divide symbol is hardly used outside of elementary math, and the cross product multiply symbol is used incorrectly in scalar math. Here’s an hint: the multiplication of two scalars is a form of the dot product.

Why shouldn’t I use × for scalar multiplication?

The short answer is vector math. Back in middle school, our teacher used · rather than ×, and claimed that the switch was to reduce confusion with using x as a variable in algebra. There was also a quick mention of the fact that it was technically more correct to use ·. It wasn’t until high school that I saw vectors and the dot product and the change made much more sense.

In vector math, there are two vector multiplication operations; the cross product (×), and the dot product (·). These are two distinct operations that take two vectors and produce vastly different results. The cross product takes two vectors and returns a vector. The dot product takes two vectors and returns a scalar. The dot product on two single element vectors is the same as multiplication of two scalars. Hence it is slightly more correct, and definitely less confusing to use · for multiplication rather than ×.

As with ÷, I haven’t used × for scalar multiplication since middle school. And, I don’t see myself changing from this style any time soon. When pencil hits paper, which multiplication symbol do you use? And, does anyone still use ÷?

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Truth be told, this wasn’t a fully new build. I only updated the following components:

• CPU: C2D E8500 => i7 2600K
• Memory: DDR2 800 4GiB XMS2 with DHX => DDR3 1600 8GiB Vengeance
• Motherboard: DQ35JO => GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3
• SSD: 80GB x-25m G1 => 120GB Intel 320

Is it fast? Of course. The processor and memory upgrade is the most noticeable, especially for tasks such as video trans-coding. However, the transition from the x-25m to the 320 was not a big upgrade. Under load, the system runs significantly cooler than the old C2D based system. Part of this may be due to replacing the front exhaust fan (the PC-A05NB vents to the front) with a PWM controlled one that can move much more air if needed.

Overall, I’m enjoying this new build, and can once again rely on my desktop for important tasks such as programming.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Today, a few members of the MSP WordPress user group got together to participate in the Automattic Worldwide WordPress 5k run/walk/jog (and maybe I arrived a little late). The planning was a little last minute, and all week the forecast had it raining today. So we were quite lucky to actually get a group of 5 to participate and have it only feel like a humid summer morning with a gusting wind from south.

Above is the route I ran (run #3 for the season). Starting at the band shell, I ran around lake Harriet, counter clockwise (like anyone who has ran around a track would). Since, the loop around lake Harriet is only about 2.8 miles, I continued past the band shell for another .15 miles before heading back to the band shell.

I noticed two things about running around the lake. First off, it is rather flat around lake Harriet, which is a bit of a change from the somewhat hilly area I live in. I’d provide elevation numbers from my Forerunner 305, however, I noticed it is horribly inaccurate (on run #2 this year it had me climbing in elevation when I was actually going down hill).  The second is there are far more people running/walking around the lakes in Minneapolis than just about anywhere out in the suburbs.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

It won’t make me a sandwich?

System Restore can fix many problems, but it’s not designed to do everything. It won’t fix a slow download speed, for example. But it’s a great tool to turn to when everything else you’ve tried hasn’t worked…

I ran across this little nugget last night while trying to figure out why System Restore was only keeping one restore point on my dad’s laptop.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Currently, the Google rich snippits format for breadcrumbs is mostly redundant information. It currently contains three properties: url, title, and child. Two of these properties are completely redundant, url and title (especially when using the HTML5 microdata properties). This is their example of the format using the HTML5 microdata constructs:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Breadcrumb">
  <a href="http://www.example.com/dresses" itemprop="url">
    <span itemprop="title">Dresses</span>
  </a> ›
</div>
<div itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Breadcrumb">
  <a href="http://www.example.com/dresses/real" itemprop="url">
    <span itemprop="title">Real Dresses</span>
  </a> ›
</div>
<div itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Breadcrumb">
  <a href="http://www.example.com/clothes/dresses/real/green" itemprop="url">
    <span itemprop="title">Real Green Dresses</span>
  </a>
</div>

Ugly, isn’t it? Now for the same format using RDFa (Google’s example once again):

<div xmlns:v="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#">
   <span typeof="v:Breadcrumb">
     <a href="http://www.example.com/dresses" rel="v:url" property="v:title">
      Dresses
    </a> ›
   </span>
   <span typeof="v:Breadcrumb">
    <a href="http://www.example.com/dresses/real" rel="v:url" property="v:title">
      Real Dresses
    </a> ›
   </span>
   <span typeof="v:Breadcrumb">
    <a href="http://www.example.com/dresses/real/green" rel="v:url" property="v:title">
      Real Green Dresses
    </a> ›
   </span>
</div>

That’s much, better. However, this still doesn’t mean that all of the data is non-redundant. The url and title properties still are redundant here as the href property of an anchor gives us the URL (more importantly, it gives the computer the URL), and the title is implied to be the contents of the anchor tag.

The point of microformats/rich data formats is to provide extra data to the computer so it can understand what is obvious to humans. In the case of the url and title properties, the computer fully understands these things without the help of extra data thanks to HTML.

What is nice, however, is the defining of a breadcrumb type for each breadcrumb in the trail, and the defining of a set of breadcrumbs. If the focus was more on standardizing the way we represent a breadcrumb trail in markup I would be all over it.

I also disagree with placing the breadcrumb separator as a member of a breadcrumb, as done in their example. Note that this may just be a typo, or something that is flexible. The way I see it, a separator is just as its name implies, a separator. It separates breadcrumbs, and thus it should not be the member of any particular breadcrumb.

Lastly, I plan on monitoring this format as it evolves and will implement it into Breadcrumb NavXT when I see fit.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

1. Complete the outline for my presentation for WordCamp MSP.
2. Get Breadcrumb NavXT 3.6.0 ready for translators. Right now I’m aiming for August 23rd as the release date.
3. Run at least 3 times this week. Since a hilarious (when looking back on it) crash on my mountain bike on July 4th, I have not been keeping up on my running routine. It’s time to change that.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]