Why was the change made?

Last week, without any warning, Facebook disabled the fan page of FB Purity and the personal Facebook account of its developer. FB Purity is a browser extension that alters the way Facebook appears, including filtering out the annoying and irrelevant messages and spam in the news feed. Without access to Facebook, the developer of FB Purity will have a difficult time updating this extension.

After these actions, I have decided to begin to disassociate myself from Facebook and focus primarily on this website as an online presence.

I previously logged in using Facebook. How do I login now?

The way “Login With Facebook” worked was by generating a username on this website when you authenticated with Facebook. In other words, when you first clicked the “Login With Facebook’ button, an account was created for you, and you can still access this account.

If you would like to login, click the Lost your password? link. Enter the email address associated with your Facebook account. You should then receive an email containing your username and a link to change your password.

If you do not know the email address associated with your Facebook account, or you would like to change your username, you can contact me.

I’m concerned about security. How do you ensure my login information is secure?

Since logging in with Facebook is no longer an option. I have added https to this website. When you log in, the information passed over the Internet is encrypted and cannot be intercepted. My website now has a valid certificate, which means it was signed by a trusted authority.

Passwords are stored on my database in an encrypted format. Even if the database were somehow hacked, it would not readable. By the way, I am also unable to see your passwords; I can only change them.

How do I make an avatar?

Use gravatar.com, and associate the same email address for gravatar as you do this website.

Let’s start with my endorsement for president. With Romney firmly winning Florida yesterday, it is a pretty safe bet that the two-party choice is between Obama and Romney. It all seems very similar to the Bush vs. Kerry race to me. Romney even looks like Kerry in a strange way. Well, anyway, if you’re like me, you probably don’t think there will be any noticeable difference between a second Obama term and a Romney term. They would both continue the Plutarchy, expand government’s intrusion in our lives, and start more wars against insignificant threats. Now that the Florida GOP primary is over, I can go back to being registered No Party Affiliation.

Anyway, there’s clearly only one choice for me on November 6th. However, he won’t be on the ballot, but you can write him in.

That’s right. I am endorsing Mickey Mouse for president in 2012. He ran in 2008 (see his website), and I’m hoping he’ll give it another go this year. By writing in Mickey Mouse, I am fulfilling my right to vote, and I can satisfy my conscience by voting for someone who isn’t going to say things during his election campaign and do the exact opposite once in the white house. (How could he? Mr. Mouse has no opinions.)

The house

Okay, now onto much more important things: Talking about my home project. On January 19-22, Julie and I traveled to Pensacola in order to get some things situated with the house plans. We are now under contract and have picked out all the little details of the house (colors, styles, etc). I created an album in the gallery that is pretty small right now, but it has the flooring samples we picked out and a picture of the land. I’m still confused and unsure what is going on with the financing (there are some things that need to be cleaned up in the contract to satisfy the bank), but I’ve been told not to worry about that.

As an aside, I got to see my family and my good friend Heather just before we left. I will look forward to seeing everyone more when I’m around more.

You can follow what’s going on with my home project by viewing the home-project page. Please use these instructions for getting access.

I got the actual drawing yesterday for the house from the architect. It is slightly different from what’s listed on the home-project page, and I’ll get around to updating that later, I suppose. The actual house plan has been named “JULIE” by the developer.

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/transition.html

Anyway, one of the features that is in MobileMe but isn’t in iCloud is iWeb publish, which allows subscribers to publish websites either using iWeb or other means to the web. Julie’s dad was using this feature. Since I can host unlimited websites with my Dreamhost account, he and I transitioned his iWeb sites to my hosting. All he had to do was pay for a domain name renewal for the domain registration transfer.

You can continue publishing iWeb sites to MobileMe through June 30, 2012, even after moving to iCloud. With iWeb you can easily move a site published to MobileMe to another web hosting service and you should do so before that date.

Anyway, I’m not sure if I do, but if I have any other friends or family (i.e. I actually know you) that use MobileMe iWeb publishing, I can probably help you out if you have or are willing to get a domain name. The only cost involved was some time and a $9.95 domain name renewal for the domain registration transfer… some credit would be nice, but not required, I suppose. Of course, please don’t have an expectation of excessive support (e.g. I’m not going to write your website for you). Hit me up…

Hope I’m not opening the flood gates here…

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/dec/12/david-brooks/david-brooks-says-newt-gingrich-once-proposed-putt/

That’s enough politics for the time being; although I meant this to be more about Astronomy. People don’t seem to understand the impact of light pollution, and it is something I will touch more on in this blog in the near future.

Now before I begin, I want you to consider a few facts:

1. About half of Americans pay absolutely nothing in federal income taxes. [source]
2. One in six Americans receive some form of government assistance. [source]
3. 25% of my income went to federal taxes this year (note: I include Social Security and Medicare in that amount, since I will never see any of that money either). This does not include any state taxes. If I lived in a state other than Florida, the percentage would probably be much higher.
4. Who carries cash anyway?

Conclusion: I already give plenty to charity.

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I am in a position that I have to pay taxes, and I don’t envy those one-in-six people. I guess I don’t really have any point, but as an aside, I just have a real problem with charities.

Most people don’t seem to know or understand how big of a scam big charities are in this country anyway. You can visit guidestar.org and check out the tax returns of some of these well known charities.

For example, in 2008, the Terri Schiavo Foundation received $91,000 in contributions. $59,000 of which went to salaries. [source]
In 2009, Susan G. Komen received $128,000,000 in contributions. $22,000,000 of which went to salaries. [source]
In 2009, Mothers Against Drunk Driving received $34,000,000 in contributions. $21,000,000 went to salaries. [source]

Guess people have different definitions of charity than I do.

The point is, some charities are better than others, but for the most part, charities are just big business. I guess if it makes you feel better to pay into the huge salaries of CEOs, you can give to them (the CEO of Komen makes $450,000 per year, placing her very comfortably in the top 1% of income earners). Just please don’t expect me to, and don’t expect me to feel bad when I hold on to my own money to improve the lives of myself and my family.

Officially speaking, my job title is unfortunately named “SQA Engineer”. As many other professionals in information technology, my title does not accurately describe what I do. My job title would be more accurate if it were “Test Automation Engineer”; however, even that title may be inadequate. When people think of the title “SQA Engineer” (that is to say “Software Quality Assurance” Engineer), they think of someone who does just that: ensures the quality of software. Someone with the title “SQA Engineer” frequently writes and execute tests on a given piece of developed or partially-developed software. When you think of “SQA Engineer”, you typically do not think of someone who has computer programming skills. “Test Automation Engineer”, on the other hand, typically refers to someone who takes already-written test cases and automates them. That is to say, one or many people have been manually clicking through an application to ensure it isn’t broken; the automation guy typically uses record-and-play tools to automate that manual process. A “Test Automation Engineer” may have little or no programming skills at all.

I say “unfortunately named ‘SQA Engineer’” because, as I say, it does not properly describe what I do or the type of experience I am getting. It does not describe who I am, and I worry that it may lump me into a specific subfield, and future prospective employers won’t consider me for other types of jobs based on their assumptions about my experiences. I want to spell out exactly what I do here.

I do spend the vast majority of my day programming

The first and most important thing I’d like to spell out clearly is that I spend the majority of my work day writing code. Not spaghetti code in some product-specific funky-script, but well-documented object-oriented code in actual high-level programming languages. Although I do have record-and-play tools to use at my discretion, other than learning how to use these tools, I have never used them in actual practice. I write and maintain tens of thousands of lines of code that tie together multiple automation tools into an all-in-one automation framework that can operate across multiple applications and platforms. The majority of this code is written in Java; it also includes a amounts of Perl, C, C++, and C# code. I’ve even written some Objective-C code and done some web programming.

I maintain a framework that uses a number of tools and libraries

As I said, most of my code is written in Java. The framework I use primarily runs inside Eclipse and/or IBM Rational Functional Tester, but not exclusively. The majority of the framework is not coupled with RFT and instead uses pure Java and external JARs. I tie in other automation tools that better suit automation of other platforms, such as .NET and mobile devices. The framework also makes use of .NET Framework UI Automation. DLLs are written in MS Visual Studio and utilized within the framework. In additional to automation tools, I also use pure C and C++ to automate using windows.h. Mind you, all these tools and libraries are tied into the same framework which I maintain.

I work closely with other groups

The typical “Test Automation Engineer” just receives specific tests from a manual tester and automates them. This is not my primary purpose. In fact, I have frequently been the only tester on entire applications working only with developers. This means that I myself have had to become familiar with the application, develop my own test cases, manually test, and write automation. However, for the most part, my purpose is to write the framework, which provides easy to use methods for anyone to write and execute their own automation, without programming or automation knowledge. It might be me, a QA person, a developer, a business analyst, or even offshore groups. The point is that my time is best spent writing code and being creative, while someone else can actually write the steps used in the automation. I teach these people how to use the tools I write and assist them when needed.

I do create GUIs

The person who actually schedules and runs the applications (sometimes me, but usually someone else) receives an graphical user interface from me, so that they can select what automation they want to run, when, and where.

I have also written mobile launchers that allow me to start automation right from my mobile phone over 3G.

I write distributed systems and maintain computer labs

Where does the automation actually run? Usually not on my clients’ machines. I set up and maintain physical and/or virtual computer labs that automation runs on (think disk cloning). I use tools such as VirtualBox and VMWare to build these computers, and I maintain physical boxes. The clients’ machine running the GUI and the machine(s) running the automation are all tied together with distributed programming, usually written in Java RMI.

I generate reports and live feedback

I have heard it said that “automation does test anything unless you create checkpoints”. This statement is not true in the framework. Every single possible action in the framework has some sort of PASS, WARN, INFO, or FAIL conditions. No checkpoints are necessary, but can be added if they are wanted. I do not use the reporting tools included in the automation tools. Instead, I program my own reporting system. The reporting system provides feedback on every single action performed during automation. If something did not pass, it may explain why and provides a screen-shot or even a video capture of exactly what happened. This information is provided to the user in different ways, depending on the desires of my clients. The most common way is email/web. My automation framework generates email reports and also uploads web reports and attachments to web servers that we also maintain. I also provide live feedback to the client while the automation is running, in the form of RMI test prints, VNC views, and even feedback sent to mobile phones. The client can stop or check what the machine is doing right from the GUI, without having to log into the automation machine itself.

I do work with database systems

I frequently write SQL queries into my automation for data verification and environment cleaning purposes. A number of different database systems have been used, depending on the application.

I do lots of research

I like to stay versed on the technologies I may have to test. This means I do reading and tutorials on technologies I may use in the future (Flex, HTML5, mobile operating systems, etc). I like to know about these technologies, not just what I need to know to automate them.

I don’t just automate for testing

Most of the automation I have written has been for testing purposes, but not solely. I have also written automation for other purposes. For example, I have written automation to pull thousands of documents from a web server that we had no direct access to. Automation is not just for testing, after all.

I don’t just sit around after work, and this isn’t the first job I’ve ever had

Of course, I do want to point out that even though this is my first full-time job, before this, I was in school for six years getting a bachelors and masters degree. I didn’t go to school to learn to be a tester, and in fact, I never did any sort of application testing while I was in school. I jumped into testing and was writing automation code within a week. In graduate school, I was hacking kernel code, writing my own programming languages and compilers, writing distributed and parallel code, and exercising process schedulers. So, I’d like to say that “SQA Engineer” in no way summarizes my skills and experience as a Computer Scientist.

I also spent four years as a part-time computer support specialist. I was building computer labs, maintaining computers, consulting and advising, setting up peripherals, building networks, removing malware… on and on.

I use Linux, MacOSX, and Windows frequently (and I’ve used other operating systems, as well). I have maintained a personal website, and designed and created websites for some other organizations for over 10 years. I am fluent in web programming (LAMP); I use PHP, Perl, MySQL, JavaScript, CSS, HTML with ease. And I am fluent in a long list of FOSS applications.

I may even have some skills outside Computer Science. I have a good knowledge of Mathematics and Statistics. I am well versed in the latest goings-on in the Medical Informatics field. I am also an Amateur Astronomer, and I hopefully have some knowledge there. Lastly, I am a musician, although unfortunately a bit out of practice currently (but stay tuned).

So in summary, “SQA Engineer” isn’t who I am. It’s just what’s listed on my paystubs.

I was excited to find a seller would was selling the Intercom system at a pretty significantly lower price than others, as I have been trying to save money on all my special modification purchases. As with my other online purchases, I didn’t give it too much thought; just did the normal procedure: Buy with Paypal, wait for tracking number, tracked, received package…

I ordered three items. (1) I ordered the Intercom kit, which included 4 stations, the hub, and a remote control. (2) I ordered a 5th station, and (3) I ordered a front door station.

I ordered these items using Paypal on 11/13/2011, and received my receipt and order confirmation. On 11/17/2011, I received an email with a fedex tracking number letting me know that my order (3 items) had been shipped. I accepted the shipment on 11/21/2011. The first thing I noticed was that the package was missing one item, the door station. I found the email address for their customer support and sent them this message:

To: Customer Service at Surveillent.NET
Subject: Re: Order #207518 – Shipped

I received one package today containing VEN11-CVT-ST2000 and
VEN11-CVT-ST-0934.
The package did NOT contain the door intercom VEN3-CHV-IU0302C.

Were these parts shipped separately? If so, does the other package have a
tracking number? Thanks.

Later that day, I received this reply:

Hello from Surveillent

We have requested the status/shipping info from our warehouse and we will
let you know as soon as we hear back from them by replying to this email.

Our average reply time is about 3 hours however you might receive a reply in
just a few minutes or up to 2 business days. If you don’t receive a reply to
this email within 2 business days then reply to this email and let us know
you haven’t received this info yet.

Thank you,

So, I waited. After the two days, I still had not received a reply. Since I purchased these items using Paypal, I used the resolution center to report that only part of my order was received. I did not escalate the claim; I just wanted it on record that there was potentially an issue. I sent this email:

I have still not received my full order and no one has responded to the
inquiry. For my own protection, I have opened a dispute on my paypal
account. Please respond.
Thank you.

I was shocked to receive this reply:

Hello from Surveillent

Cancel the claim or we will reroute this back to us and block you from our
stores and all of our partner stores.

UPS tracking number:  –snip–

Obviously, this reply was completely unprofessional. I had every right to open a Paypal dispute at this point, because there was a legitimate issue and the seller was not communicating with me. If you are unfamiliar with Paypal, nothing bad actually happens with a dispute until you “escalate” the claim; however, you only have so many days to register a dispute. A normal customer support rep would have replied with a brief apology for the lack of communication and sent me a tracking number. Against my better judgment, I decided to close the claim, since the seller had sent me a tracking number. I replied with this message:

I have closed the claim. No need to be threatening; I am a paying customer.
Thank you for responding.

And received this reply:

Hello from Surveillent

We appreciate that but to educate you a little you should never pounce on a
claim as it can hurt you as well. Please research “badcustomer database” on
Google for more info on that. Just trying to help.

Thank you,

Again, more needless threats. Anyway, I did Google the “badcustomer database” out of curiosity. It turns out there used to be a website called badcustomer.com, where angry retailers would have a blacklist for customers. It was shut down earlier this year by the FTC and was forced to pay out $275 million for fraud (see here).

Anyway, I did not reply to this email. Figured this guy was just a pompous cyber-bully that I needed to stay away from. As long as I receive my last package that I paid for, I could let this guy’s email wash over me.

I did rate my experience on a ResellerRatings.com here. I found that many other customers had the exact same experience I did with their overly-aggressive customer support.

I also called Channel Vision customer support and was redirected to the director of national sales. I told him about my experience with a reseller of their product and sent him my email correspondence. I told him that even though I am sure they have quality products, this reseller was not representing them in a good light. He was very thoughtful and apologetic about my experience (like a normal customer support rep would be). He explained to me that he was not familiar with this reseller and that many unauthorized resellers have cropped up. He said they would find which warehouse supplies this unauthorized reseller and see what they can do in response, because he agreed that this reseller wasn’t representing their products as they would like.

Later Wednesday (11/23/2011) night, I received another unsolicited reply from this “customer support” fellow, apparently in reply to my review of my experience:

Hello from Surveillent

So you opened up a Reseller Ratings account just to review us negatively?

Tell you what we are now recording every extra labor cost we have regarding
this and every sale we lose from your review and we will see you in court
with your responsibility on the line. We will give you one business day to
remove the review off that slumblog.

Remove it NOW!

Again, I did not reply to this email or respond in any way. This is where having a spouse trained in law is nice. Julie let me know that there is no tort with anything I did, and that I have every right to review stores I shop at, and it was an empty threat. I’d have a number of counter-suits if this bully actually did try to push a frivolous lawsuit.

I am not posting this message to my blog until I have received (or not received) my last package, which is supposed to be here Tuesday, 11/29/2011.

Okay, posted now… I have received the product, so now I can put it all behind me. To be completely fair, I want to say that the prices were excellent, and I saved money by going this route. However, if I had to do it over again, it wasn’t worth the savings to have to deal with this guy. Worst online buying experience I’ve ever had. Stay away!

Have you ever had a comparable bad experience with shopping online? Please share your thoughts below.

Greater network capacity

I am wiring a gigabit network, that is to say, 1 billion bits per second. A wireless N network is listed as 300 mbps (300 million bits per second), and you probably won’t actually get wireless N (more on that later). What many people don’t seem to understand is that with wifi, your actual connection speed is split between the number of devices connected. That is to say, suppose you have 300 mbps and 10 devices connected. Then each device would share that same 300 mbps line.

On the other hand, my gigabit switch has 16 ports and a capacity of 32 gbps. If I connect 10 devices, each device is going to get 1000 mbps. There is no shared line.

Why would I need that speed? Well, suppose I made a raw rip of a DVD on my desktop, and I wanted to move it to my home theater computer connected to my TV. Currently, my desktop is connected wired to my wireless router, and my HTPC is connected via wireless G. It currently takes me about 45 minutes to move that 4 GB image from one computer to the other. If I had a gigabit network, it would take a minute or two.

Wireless N? Wireless G? Wireless B?!

Another thing people don’t seem to understand… not only is wifi a shared line (dividing your speed by number of connected devices), but in order to utilities a wireless N network, all connected devices must have wireless N interfaces. Suppose I have a wireless N network with two connected devices with wireless N interfaces. If I connect another device with only a wireless G interface, the other two devices will fall back to wireless G speeds as well. Now you have wireless G speeds divided amongst three devices. Wireless G is at 54 mbps.

The same is true for wireless B. If you connect one wireless B device, the entire network will fall back to wireless B. Wireless B is at 11 mbps, divided amongst the number of connected devices.

Mean while, each device connect to my gigabit network will have its own 1000 mbps line.

Interference and Wireless router placement

If you have wireless N, you’re not actually going to get 300 mbps. If you have wireless G, you’re not actually going to get 54 mbps. These are speeds you’d get under “ideal conditions”. In actuality, you’re probably never going to get “ideal conditions”.

Wireless can be thought of as people shouting and listening. Your wireless router can shout at a certain volume and has the ability to hear certain volumes. Your laptop’s wireless router can shout (not as loud as your router) and can hear (but not as well as your router). Any time you shout, you are probably having shout through walls, and you’ll lose about half your volume and the sound will be muffled.

To continue the analogy, there is also background noise. Your cordless phone is an air horn and your microwave oven is a jackhammer. Chances are, your laptop won’t be able to hold a conversation with your router with the jackhammer going, especially if you’re trying to talk through walls.

You can put an amplifier on your router. This will give your router a megaphone. If the amp also improves received signal, it means your router will also have a megaphone pointed at its ears. The router will be able to hear better, but it will also hear the jackhammer much more loudly too.

You can buy repeaters. Each time your router says “marco”, when the repeater hears the router, it says, “marco” in the router’s voice. When it hears your laptop say “polo”, it says “polo” in the laptop’s voice. One problem I used to have using a repeater was that the repeater was louder than the router. So, the laptop would always listen to the repeater rather than the router, even though the repeater was further away and had more latency and muffle.

If you use multiple repeaters to fill dead zones, you’re going to get into something called “repeater hell”. In this scenario, you have a router and two repeaters. Router says, “marco”. Repeater 1 hears router and says, “marco”. Repeater 2 hears router and says, “marco”. Repeater 2 hears repeater 1 and says, “marco”. Repeater 1 hears repeater 2 and says, “marco”… Now the repeaters are screaming “marco” at each other… and the router can’t hear anything over them.

With a wired network, if you want wireless too, you can use multiple routers on different sides of the house if you have dead zones in wireless. They have their own voice and their own line.

Better to do it now rather than later

Not really comparing one to the other, but if you want a wired network, NOW is the time to do it. Since this is a new build, I can wire the network before the sheet rock goes up. If you have a current build and want to wire a network, you’re probably going to try to go under the carpet (if you have carpet) or you’re going to have to saw through your sheet rock.

Connecting an external building

I’m going to have a garden office. I will connect the building by running an Ethernet run through metal conduit. The external building will have one gigabit line connected to the building’s own router. In order to do this wirelessly, I would have to purchase two fairly large outdoor directional wifi antennae and make sure they point to each other. These antennae may attract lightning. I’d need to take down the antennae prior to any hurricane (or else they’ll possibly be destroyed).

Actually, there’s nothing wrong with connecting external buildings wirelessly, and I actually considered doing it that way early on. Wireless mesh networking is actually pretty cool. However, I decided the gigabit speeds were worth the trouble of running conduit.

I should mention that buried cable is definitely susceptible to lightning too. Here is what I am doing to help the situation:

1. Bury the cable. It does help the lightning danger, but not much.
2. Surge protection. Put surge protection on both ends of the outdoor runs. This will possibly save your switches (and possibly your computer) in the event of a lightning strike. I am using these. It should be noted that, although surge protection helps, your surge protectors may fail, and you may still lose a switch.
3. Use metal conduit. It may not make sense to you, but use metal conduit instead of PVC. Metal conduit will protect your run from lightning by creating a Faraday cage around the cables.
4. Lightning rods else where? I am not doing this… but I guess this can help too.

Desktops come wired, not wireless

Pretty much every desktop these days comes with a gigabit ethernet port built in. Very few come with wireless, so you’ll have to buy wireless cards for each one.

Take a look at what I’ve put together…

In actuality, my house will have a gigabit wired network, an indoor wireless network, and an outdoor wireless network.

If you haven’t looked yet, sign into this site using Facebook (or you can register with an email address). Once I see you have signed in, if I recognize who you are, I’ll give you the ability to look at my Interests > Home Project page (nudge me if I don’t notice you). You can take a look at how I plan to wire the house and my network diagram. Let me know what you think.

First of all, the job situation. I spoke with my boss and have gotten confirmation that after Julie finishes law school, there is no expectation for us to move back to Jacksonville. I may continue to work from home, no matter where home is. With the understanding that I will have to travel to Jacksonville a couple times a year or so. For our situation, this is very convenient. The job market for entry-level attorneys right now can be scary. Luckily, Julie is graduating from the highest ranked law school in the state and has done her best to build up a strong resume (no longer viewable on this website). Some assurance that we have an income no matter where we live puts less pressure on Julie. I don’t think most people over the age of 30 really understand what is going on with student loans in this country, but that is maybe a post for a later time.

We’ve given some thought about where we want to live. We are pretty much restricted to living in Florida, unless Julie decides to take multiple bar exams. We have been looking into moving back to the Pensacola area. The primary reason for this is because we think it would be a good idea to be near family whenever we start breeding spawn. There are some concerns with this idea, of course. The Pensacola area is sort of an Internet dead zone, still having overpriced, slow, and few broadband options. I currently have a 25mbps down / 4mbps up cable connection in order to get my work done. I don’t think those upload options are available at all in the Pensacola area. Much are the area has no broadband options at all (I define broadband today as a 5mbps connection or higher). If we choose to move back, we’ll have to make certain wherever we live has these options. We also have to consider the school options, but it sounds like Julie has found a few private schools that she would consider. I think both Julie and I are a little concerned about the job situation in Pensacola. It is an embarrassingly low tech area, but I think I would probably be okay if for some reason I had to look for work there. UF’s career center seems to think Julie will have no trouble finding work there if that’s what she wants. I have a few other concerns about living there again, but I won’t get into all that right now.

What we will live in. I’ve given a lot of thought into what I want to live in when we finally move and settle. I am very tired of apartments. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we’ve lived in some nice places and some not so nice places. Rent is expensive, and you never build an investment paying rent. I’ve been looking at several plans and properties online. The property I am still not sure about. At first, I was looking for a lot of land, say a 10 acre lot. I planned to clear out only 2 acres of it or so and leave the rest as a buffer. Julie has also express some interest in maybe having a house at some point [I don't really know about that, but I guess the option is nice at least]. The reason for the buffer is I want to be able to stargaze in my yard without having to worry about neighbors light. Most of the area does not really have a big problem with skyglow. There are plenty of reasonably priced 10 acre lots in Santa Rosa County. I actually was looking as the roads just north of Willard Norris Rd, not too far from civilization. Unfortunately, it is a dead-zone for broadband, as is most of the county, so it is not an option. The problem is, I don’t want to live in a subdivision. I want to have space, and I want to have enough property to have a tree line all around, but AT&T ADSL and Mediacom Cable are horrible and are not available, even though their services are available 2 minutes away. I can’t even get a 3G connection, and satellite fraudband isn’t a solution for anyone with half a brain (in fact, it doesn’t support VPN at all). I could easily go into a rant about how horrible the US corporate controlled Internet infrastructure is right now, but I’ll refrain. My mom has been helping me try to find viable lots, but we haven’t come up with much yet. There are 4 acres available next to my brother’s house, but it may be only sold has 1/2 acre lots. I have actually picked out a house plan and have a lot I want to do with it. I have gone over everything with Julie, but I really haven’t gotten a ton a feedback from her. Anytime she has said, “I want it to have…”, I say, “Oh, I already factored that in.” Either Julie doesn’t have much to say about it, or I am just doing a good job of anticipating what she wants all ready. Rather than to go into all the details about the house project here on my blog, I think I will create a static page for it. I actually am going to make it a hidden page (meaning, you’ll need to register and login to view it). A static page will be easier to keep up to date than this blog. Some big things I want out of the house are: (1) Most rooms fully wired with a gigabit Ethernet for computers and set-top boxes, plus one or two wireless access points, (2) An intercom system in some rooms, (3) A designated “comm closet”, so that networking equipment isn’t an eye sore, (4) A fitness room for the treadmill and Wii, (5) A good sized guestroom for out of town family and friends [we have a lot of them], and (6) An office for Julie [as an attorney, she will need it].

One other thing I will say I want is something called a Garden Office. They are actually more popular in the UK, where telecommuting is much more popular. Essentially, it is just an outdoor building (insulated shed?) set up as an office, with power, phone, Internet, through-the-wall AC, etc. The primary use for this structure is because I will be working from home for the time being, and it would separate me from all the distractions of the house (e.g. Julie and cats). The structure would also double up as a hobby area, a place where I could store my telescope(s), and far enough from the house so that I wouldn’t have to carry equipment far. I found two relevant examples of structure similar to what I am looking for. The first is from a guy named Brian DeHamer. You can read about is here and see his photos of it here. The other example is actually my sister, who recently build an outdoor structure to use as a school house, as she home schools her children. You can read about her school house here. Although she left out many of the technical details (that only a nerd like me would care about), I asked her about these details. She wired the build underground using conduit. She wired power and a coax cable. The coax cable is currently not connected to anything. They wired it in case they wanted to move the cable modem out there. I would actually recommend that she leave the modem in the house and use Ethernet Over Coax to connect the building, but it sounds like her wireless network reaches the building and is sufficient at this point. Her building is much larger than anything I am looking at, but I list it as a good example and congratulate her and her husband on putting together a great building that is going to benefit them immensely.

What I will do. One of the primary things I want to get back into immediately is stargazing. Stargazing the using a telescope is one of my loves, and I very much regret that things didn’t work out with the local astronomy club here. If I move back to the Pensacola area, I may join the EAAA. My hope is that having a decent observation point on my own will lessen my need to use theirs (unless I just want to). I would also be more reluctant to get too involved too quickly, as I did with the AAC. It isn’t that I don’t enjoy building websites for groups, on the contrary, I do enjoy it, but if I ever were to do it again, I’d need an assistant or something. Not necessarily another person with programming skills, but someone who knows computers enough to serve as someone who the people can talk to. Having the audience talk to me directly is problematic. Another thing I want to do is get back to practicing my marimba. I have been without my marimba ever since I became a renter, simply due to difficulty of moving and lack of space. I would like to practice up and get back to the skill level I was before graduate school. I used to be part of the Pensacola Civic Band, and I also played for random gigs (Christmas programs at churches, etc). These were things I used to very much enjoy, and I want to have them back again. I think Julie would also like to pick up her violin again, but she hasn’t felt good about it living in an apartment. I’ve thought about even sound proofing to the master closets, so they could double up as music rooms.

These cool little ideas sum up exactly why I would rather build a house than buy an existing one, by the way. I will create a new Interests page for the house project later.

I’d like to restrict discussion about the house project to the forum. Thanks.