Finishing up the aftermath of moving again reminded me of the virtual moving idea. You find someone leaving wherever you’re going to who, in turn, is moving to wherever you’re leaving. (Possibly of a chain of such people, but it gets complicated fast.) The two parties pick a date and swap apartments, contents included. My TV is your TV, your TV is mine. Maybe a little cash changes hands to balance out gross inequality. But it saves both parties a lot of time, labor, and expense.

The idea originated when I realized it would cost more to ship my belongings across the country than they were worth. Selling everything, moving a wad of cash, then buying equivalent stuff worked out well, but there’s a lot of friction because you end up selling low and buying high. If you could just get matched up with someone going the other way, you could agree on much more equitable prices and not even bother with craigslist.

Installed Ubuntu on an HP Mini 110 I had lying around, figuring it’d be a good cheap system to take on the road I wouldn’t mind losing. The short version is that everything mostly works, except the stuff that doesn’t. I’m more used to OpenBSD, but I’m trying to separate difficulties that come from familiarity issues and real problems.

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I just installed Ubuntu recently and it gave me the opportunity to reflect on what makes a good vs bad operating system installer. The short version is I don’t really like the way Ubuntu’s installer is designed because the task it is performing isn’t really installing an operating system.

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Currently, the web server for tedunangst.com (without www.) is set up to redirect all requests to www.tedunangst.com/. I could have mirrored the content, or redirected to the full URL, but instead everything goes to the top page. While it’s a little less convenient for anyone stumbling upon such links, in the long run I think it’s beneficial.

The long term goal is to only have one canonical website. I don’t want the same pages available at slightly different addresses. So mirroring is out. Redirecting is possible, but links without the www part will continue to proliferate if they work. The dumb redirect gives people enough of a hint on how to find the content they came for and offers a stronger disincentive to continued sharing of the broken link.

Update: Now there’s no A record at all. Too many stupid bots trying to crawl the site without www.

A few years ago I added a new function to OpenBSD libc, strtonum, to solve yet again the problem of converting a string into a number. In OpenBSD, we happen to like the function, but other projects have made various objections. The man page gives a brief explanation of the function, but it’s not a full history. I’ll try to clear the air by explaining strtonum’s rationale and responding to its criticisms.

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Two movies and one novel. To prep for watching the new movie version, I first watched the older movie. I had heard the new one was more accurate in some way, but after watching both I decided to read the book as well to make my own determination.

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A short reflection on the last few laptops I’ve purchased. Mainly of interest to compare specs and prices over time. I still have the receipts for the last four computers going back about six years. Did computers get faster or cheaper or both?

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I spent a few days at the OpenBSD hackathon adding TRIM support to FFS. It started off quite simply. Whenever a file is truncated (which also happens when it’s deleted), FFS calls a function for each filesystem block that needs to be marked free in the bitmap. We can add a little code to this function and tell the drive that we don’t care about these blocks.

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Some free iPhone apps I’ve found useful. I’ve written about paid apps and games in other posts.

Facebook - Maybe not the most useful, but probably the most used.

Chase - If the deposit by camera feature worked more reliably, this would be great, but it only works in perfect lighting and some checks it just doesn’t like at all. It’s usually worth one attempt, then the check goes into the eventual bank visit pile.

Netflix - With the TV cable, works great as a portable Roku. Don’t watch much on the iPhone screen, however.

Instapaper Free, Economist Free - Were very useful when I had more reliable reading time. Now that I’m alone with the phone less often, I’m less inclined to rely on it for timely reading.

Stanza - Broad and easy to browse selection of free books.

Kindle - Switched to the Kindle app after getting the Kindle device. Not all the books are free, but the books I purchase I tend to want to read quickly, or at least comfortably. That leaves all the free books to be read on the phone at a more leisurely pace.

Photosynth - A panoramic picture stitcher. Very easy to use, produces reasonable results considering the limitations of the input, works fast. Gold star.

Open Table - Find a restaurant, make a reservation, walk there, earn rewards. Sweet deal.

Amazon - Ironically, used this app the most in a Barnes & Noble store.

iPhone apps I paid for and don’t regret. Apps where I know the author are marked kta. See also the games and free apps roundups.

WhatsApp - Text message replacement. Not a heavy texter, so I’m not saving money, but it has a few bonus features like location sharing and group chat that make it nicer than SMS. Even though I never run out of texts, there is the peace of mind being freed from even considering if a message is worth 20c. kta.

iTrans NYC - Subway maps. Bought this just to always have a subway map available, but discovered a great second use. Download the neighborhood maps ahead of time, and you’ll have fast offline access to detailed street maps without waiting to make a cell connection. kta.

JotNot Pro - Portable document scanner. Someday I hope to use this, as detailed in my paperless project post.

Camera+ - A great drop in replacement for the default app. It only takes a few touchups to drastically improve the visible detail of photos taken with the builtin camera.

Nike+ GPS - Run tracker. I find the phone too heavy to carry on every run, but take the app with me every once in a while, particularly when trying out a new route.

Split Expense - Total up expenses, then send bills to your friends. Bought it after a friend used it on a trip, then used it myself on a later one. The app is very basic, but easy enough to use once you’re used to it. As much as the formality of tracking every purchase seems like it’d drag down the fun, I found the opposite to be true. People stopped worrying about who paid for what when they knew that an accurate settling up would occur.

Precorder - Video recorder that’s always a few seconds ahead. Would have loved to have this app a million times, then I bought and haven’t needed it since. Am hoping to get a chance to use it. kta.