Allergic to mangoes

For the second time in the past month, I just started getting this itchiness all over my body, concentrated on my lips, but also on my face, hands, legs, and other places. I've got little tiny red bumps on my lips that are itchy and sensitive.

I've had this in the past, since moving to St. Croix. The other times it seemed to happen after putting bleach in our cistern, so I chalked it up to too much bleach exposure.

But these past two times, we haven't added bleach recently. The one thing that is common, though, is that 1-2 days before each breakout, I bought some local mangoes.

It turns out that mango allergies are quite common. This article claims the allergy is to the sap on the leaves and fruit, not the actual fruit itself. Since I have been cutting the mangoes myself without wearing gloves, I probably got the sap all over me, causing the itchiness.

I knew the sap caused problems, which is why you shouldn't eat the skin on the mango and why you need to wash your hands after cutting one, which I definitely am careful about. But it seems I am much more sensitive than some people, and I should probably avoid all contact with the mango skin. This is unfortunate, since I love mango and recently planted a mango tree in our yard. Oh well, I'll train Gerald how to cut them!

Tomatoes, hybrids, and viruses

On return from my trip to San Francisco, I was excited to see my tomato plants are now producing 4 tomatoes. However, I was dismayed to see that the plants are covered in tiny white flies.

Searching around, I found that these are simply called whiteflies, and they are a serious threat to crops grown in the tropics and subtropics.

In addition to the physical damage they do to the plants, they also carry dozens of diseases. One of the most serious is called Tomato yellow leaf-curl begomovirus or TYLCV, and looking at my plants, I would say they are infected. Most of the new leaves are small and curling in on themselves, and most of the older leaves are yellowing and dying.

I have been trying to grow my tomatoes as organically as possible; I am quite hesitant to add pesticides or artificial fertilizer. When I started, I did some research on how to control pests, and they suggested planting marigolds and nasturtiums along with the tomatoes. So I have a row of both of those flowers bordering the garden. Unfortunately, the whiteflies seem unperturbed by these flowers.

So why is this happening? I think that the increased reliance on hybrid crops is the culprit. These tomatoes are hybrids; I bought the seeds at our local hardware store. Selling hybrid seeds make economical sense because the seeds they produce are usually sterile or produce subpar offspring. So I have to go back to the seed company if I want to grow more. However, that also means that the hybrid seeds have very little (if any) bio-diversity. Most seeds are genetically identical.

What this means is that, instead of relying on natural selection and evolution to produce hardier plants that are resistant to diseases and pests, we have to rely on the companies manufacturing the seeds. And I don't think humans will ever be as efficient as evolution at solving problems. Even as the seed companies struggle to produce new seeds that are resistant to certain pests and diseases through genetic engineering and traditional breeding, the pests and diseases are allowed to evolve naturally. Natural evolution is very efficient, cunning, and effective, and quickly produces new pests and diseases. These pathogens are specially evolved to prey on the lack of bio-diversity present in these hybrid plants, so they can target very specific traits and wipe out entire fields.

So, after I pick a few tomatoes, I will destroy these plants and try to get rid of the whitefly infestation. Then I need to do some research and try to find some plants that are resistant to these flies, which seem to be ubiquitous here. (Since I grew them from seed, the flies must have migrated into our courtyard.) Wish me luck, and if you have any suggestions, leave me some comments!

So St. Croix seems to be covered by helicopters today, all flying low over the island.

Someone told me they are looking for people growing marijuana. I haven't confirmed this, but I know that they do occasionally search for marijuana on St. Croix, and they have shut down several fields that they've found in the past. They've made several passes over our private courtyard, no doubt looking intently at my tomato plants.

What a waste of time and tax dollars; there are much better ways to reduce drug dependence in our communities. Even if they find and eliminate all marijuana production on St. Croix, it doesn't provide a net gain to our society. What will happen is that the fixed demand for marijuana will continue (at least in the short term), raising the street price of the drug. Drug users will either switch to more affordable (and more dangerous) drugs or will have to find more money somewhere to buy it. One of the places this money comes from is crime, so robberies and burglaries are likely to increase.

So let's consider how this affects everyone in our society. For normal law-abiding citizens, this increases the crime they may be subjected to. The only thing it teaches drug users is that they need to find some more money somewhere to continue their habit. And the drug dealers will find more shady non-local sources for their drugs, bringing more crime and questionable people to our society. Drug dealers in South America and elsewhere make out pretty well by increasing the demand for drugs produced outside the US.

The only US entity to benefit from this policy is the government, who can say they are "doing something" about the problem, even though they are actually making it worse.

On St. Croix, Senators Hold Emergency Meeting to Address Fuel Costs.

Asking Hovensa (the oil refinery on St. Croix) for cheaper fuel costs is the wrong answer. That will just increase our reliance on a non-sustainable fuel source and postpone our search for alternatives.

I applaud their move to lower government energy costs by 20% by installing solar and wind power. However, if this is a good idea for government, why isn't it a good idea for the power plant to do in a larger form (e.g. a wind farm)?

If the government installs wind and solar power in excess of what they use, they will effectively be creating a distributed power plant that would reduce fuel consumption by the power plant. The panacea here would have the grid-tied power producers creating the bulk of our energy used from renewable sources and the power company providing power through traditional means to cover the excess load.

One of the things I love about St. Croix is that it's really easy to get access to owners of local companies. For retail stores, the owners often work in the store, and they get to know you when you shop there often. It's great to be able to build up relationships like that.

Indeed, I recently got an email from Mike Meluskey, co-owner of Broadband VI. He was concerned about the intermittent problems I was seeing with his service that I posted about on my blog. He and I have been emailing back and forth to try to solve the issue; it seems to be something that's only affecting me and not the rest of his customers.

I'm very pleased with their customer service and their service in general (aside from the present issues), so I really hope we can figure out the problem. Thanks, Mike.

Congratulations to Senator Obama on winning the Democratic Nomination!

Residents of the Virgin Islands can't vote for president, so I've been supporting his campaign financially instead. I hope the few readers of my blog will join me to make a difference.

Let's bring to the presidency someone who pledges to bring our boys and girls home from the ill-conceived Iraq war, encourage research into alternative fuels and improve auto fuel economy, ignore corporate lobbyists that don't represent the needs of most Americans, and to make us safer by bringing some sanity to our foreign relations.

Though I don't share all his views, he's the only candidate who seems honestly committed to thinking through and talking about what really matters to Americans rather than attacking the other candidates or lofting colorful balloons (like suspending the federal gas tax).

Interesting article regarding net metering lawsuit on St. Croix. Net metering allows you to sell electricity back to the grid when you produce an excess through solar panels or other means. (Solar panels produce more power during the day when usage at your house is typically lower, so this allows you to "bank" the power produced, lowering your total bill.) WAPA allows this, but apparently you have to sign a waiver that you are responsible for any damage caused to the grid. This seems a bit circumspect, though I'm not sure what other states require for this privilege.

After many months of hard work, we're pleased to announce that Pocket Tunes is now available for Windows Mobile phones and PDAs. Visit our website for more information or read the press release.

A big public thanks to all the employees at NormSoft who made this release possible!

The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority (our power company) is seeking a 40% increase in power costs come July. We are already paying $0.33/kWh for residential areas, much higher than most areas of the US (3-4 times higher than many areas).

From what I've heard, the high rates are caused in part by people stealing electricity. Many residents will routinely unhook their meters, only to re-connect them the day before someone comes out to read the meters. WAPA has been cracking down on this lately, and most of the boxes now have tamper-evident clasps and are read automatically from the office. In addition, they burn oil at the power plant, so they are highly affected by increasing oil prices. And they seem resistant to alternative energy ideas for some reason. It seems like a wind farm would be an obvious natural source of energy on an island where we have fairly constant 10mph+ trade winds all year round.

This rate hike will make alternative energy much more viable, of course, so we may have to reconsider solar power in a much shorter timeframe.

In preparation for this, I decided to spend part of my weekend figuring out where we use all of our electricity. Our bill runs around $800/month, so surely there must be something we can cut back on. I measured the energy usage of everything in our house that consume electricity. I use a few different methods to do this.

First, I purchased a Kill-A-Watt power meter and plugged various items into it. It displays instantaneous usage in Watts and total usage in kWh over any period of time.

1. For devices that are plugged in and operate all day long at the same power levels (e.g. routers, telephones, etc.), I simply took a Wattage reading and added it to the spreadhseet.
   
2. For devices that are off or idle most of the time but come to life for periods of activity (e.g. washing machine, microwave,
   computer, etc. - most things that are plugged in), I took a Wattage reading when the device is off (many devices consume a small amount of power even when they are off!) and then when it was operating. I then estimate approximately how many hours per day those devices were operating.
   
3. For devices that fit the previous criteria but are difficult to estimate usage (e.g. water cooler, wine cooler, washing machine, etc.), I measured one cycle if possible (e.g. wash one batch of clothes). For continuous things like the water cooler, I plugged them into the Kill-A-Watt meter for a day and measured how many kWh they used.
   
4. Lights are easy. Just read the Wattage numbers on them and multiply by the number of lights. With compact flourescent (CF) bulbs, be sure to read the actual Wattage and not the effective Wattage. For example, our driveway lights are 7W bulbs, but they replace incandescent bulbs of 35W and produce the same amount of visible light (incandescents waste a lot of power by producing light that's not visible to human eyes and by producing light over a broad spectrum).
   
5. Ceiling fans are also easy. I found a chart online that gives 52" fans as using 90W and 36" fans as 55W.
   
6. For some appliances that weren't easy to get to the plug, I looked up their rating at EnergyStar's website.
   
7. For hard-wired appliances that had power ratings on them, I used those. Some were listed in Watts, but others were listed in as horse-power or Amps. A horse power is 746 Watts, so that's easy. (Our water pump is 1/2 HP, for example.) To convert Amps to Watts, you simply multiply by the Voltage. So you have to know if the appliance is on a 120V or 240V circuit. For example, our 17.7amp air conditioner on a 240V circuit uses 4.2kW at peak power. (This is a very powerful and efficient Mitsubishi mini-split air conditioner.)
   
8. To further confirm the energy usage a few key appliances like our pool pumps and air conditioners, I took a meter reading. To do this, I turned off as much electricity as I could in the house, especially anything that might come on intermittently and ruin my measurement. This required that I turn off the circuit to the refrigerator and turn off all A/C. I then measured how long it took for the power meter (installed by the power company at the edge of our property) to make one full rotation. One rotation is 0.01kWh or 10Wh. The baseline measurement with everything off was 54.39s/10Wh. Since one hour equals 3600 seconds, we can cancel out seconds and get: 54.39/36000W. Take the reciprocal to get: 662W. That's our instantaneous power usage with all the large power-consumers turned off. I then repeated this calculation with the appliance in question turned on to come up with a total instantaneous Wattage. Subtract the baseline Wattage to get the power that the appliance is using.
   

Conclusions

First, I found that we are doing a lot of things efficiently, already. For example, we use a solar hot water heater with a solar-powered pump. So our hot water is effectively free. The sun heats the hot water to excess of 160 degrees, seriously minimizing the amount of supplemental heating the clothes washer or dish washer need to supply. Second, we use propane for cooking and clothes drying. It is much cheaper to produce heat from propane than electricity, even at mainland US rates.

In addition, we've recently upgraded some appliances to very energy efficient models. We upgraded our washer and dryer to Whirpool Duet high efficiency ones. I did a batch of laundry in both and calculated 0.08kWh to wash and 0.22kWh to dry. Even if we do 4 loads per week, it only costs $0.56/mo to wash and $1.24/mo to dry a medium-sized load (including the constant 1W that each appliance uses while inactive). It helps a lot that water and heated water are free due to our rain-collecting cistern and solar hot water. We also upgraded our old Sub-Zero refrigerator to a more efficient Kenmore side-by-side.

There were also some surprises. While I knew that compact flourescent lights saved power, I didn't realize how much power incandescent lights used! For example, in our bathroom, we have a set of 12 40W lights over the mirror. When on, that's 480W, twice as much as my computer! Even if we just use them 2 hours per day when getting ready in the morning, that's $7/month just for those lights. If we forget to turn them off, they cost $4/day or $120/month just for one set of lights!

In addition, our pool pump uses much more power than I suspected. Here's the full breakdown:

• Air conditioning and fans: $306
  
• Computer Equipment: $154
  
• Television Equipment: $35
  
• Lights: $91 (including 9 low-power Sodium security lights that run 12hr/day on a light-sensitive switch)
  
• Appliances: $29
  
• Pool pumps: $182
  
• Other: $3
  

I was also interested in how much power we were wasting on devices that stay on all the time or use power when "off". It was not as bad as I thought. So here is the breakdown looking at that:

• Devices that are off: $9
  
• Devices that are idle or always-on: $36
  
• Devices that are on or being used: $755
  

Now the post office is returning mail to me that I sent BEFORE the rates went up. This is ridiculous.

For my weekend project, I moved three palm trees from one corner of our courtyard to another. Check out my Flickr photostream for pictures. Damn those trees were heavy.

Once I got an 18" trench dug around the tree, I used 3/4" and 3/8" drill bits to drill a bunch of holes into the dirt between the tree and the concrete walkway (there wasn't enough room to dig anything). This loosened up the dirt enough to free the tree, and it fell over quite easily. Then I had to lift the tree out of the hole and onto a hand truck and move it to the other side of the courtyard. I would guess the trees with the root ball weighed easily 200-300 lbs. The thorns on the palm fronds didn't help.

Digging the new hole was relatively easy. Propping up the trees while I backfilled it was not. I probably should have gotten a friend to help, but I managed on my own. I'll have to support the trees with concrete blocks and mounds of dirt for a few weeks probably, until the new roots take hold. They are in the ground pretty solid, but the trees are tending to lean slightly. In addition, I'll need to water them every day to promote root growth and keep them from drying out with their reduced root structure.

Broadband VI's Internet service has gotten increasingly unreliable lately. I'm getting disconnected several times a day, and I sometimes have to reset the router because I can't connect to our company's VPN. Right now the whole island of St. Croix is offline. (I'm online through my Sprint broadband connection, which works really well but is too high latency for VOIP or gaming, so I don't use it regularly.)

I'm headed to the phone company, Innovative, tomorrow to sign up for their $39.95/month DSL package (1Mbps) so I have a backup connection.

Solar PV generation costs coming down in the next few years, and new solar technology almost as cheap as wind power: http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/tech_talk/2008/05/photovoltaic_moores_law_on_tra.html

The US Post Office is a pain in the ass. All my mail that I dropped off in the mailbox Sunday just got returned to me because the new rate went into effect Monday, and I owed 1c. How much money did they lose returning that mail to me and re-delivering it?

It boggles my mind that they don't just raise the rate 5c instead of raising it 1c every damned year. The Forever stamps are nice, if our post office would ever have them in stock.

We've been considering installing solar PV panels on our roof. One of my main concerns about PV has been whether or not the cells actually generated more energy than they cost to make. Based on the prices to the consumer, it seemed to me that installing PV panels was akin to importing energy from somewhere it is cheaper.

In other words, we are paying nearly $0.33/kWh for power here. It will take around 10 years for a PV installation to pay for itself, including installation fees, shipping, the inverters, and other stuff necessary for install. The lifetime of a PV panel is about 20 years. So it seems like that would be akin to taking energy from somewhere where it costs $0.165/kWh and importing it to St. Croix. (20 years x $0.165/kWh = 10 years x $0.33/kWh)

However, according to http://www.ecotopia.com/apollo2/pvlever.htm , PV panels should produce much more energy (on the order of 9-17 times) than they take to create. That's good news, but it doesn't explain why the cost is not 1/17 to 1/9 of what I'm paying for electricity.

My assumption is that this difference is accounted for in overhead, profits, distribution, shipping, middlemen, installation, and other costs not included in the raw cost for creating the panels.

Though we may consider a PV installation, I think our next step is to try to reduce our energy usage. Air conditioning is ridiculously expensive here, and a lot of that is due to our poorly-insulated house (it was designed before a/c with an open-air design, so it's not well-suited to air-conditioning).

I may also wait a few years to see what happens with PV panels and concentrated solar generators. Wind power would be great here, but our home owners' association would probably frown on it. The local laws prevent homeowners' associations from restricting the installation of solar and wind power (except to suggest alternative installation locations that would not dramatically affect energy produced), but our C&R prevent installing anything to obstruct another lot's view, and I don't want to test the boundaries of those rules...

Broadband VI gave us a fixed IP address, and since then we haven't lost our connection (been about 2 days).

Well it seems the speed comes at a price... Couldn't connect to our VPN. I called customer service, and to make a long story short, I had to set our wireless router into bridge mode and use the DHCP built into their device instead of using our router.

All is fairly good now, but they don't seem to like TCP connections that last more than 30-60 minutes and routinely disconnect them. This affects ssh sessions, game playing, and other stuff, making it very frustrating to use.

Broadband's customer service seems really good though, so I will let them know about these problems tomorrow and see what they say...

Our new ISP, Broadband VI, still hadn't updated our network speed as of yesterday. In addition, the network was getting flakier and flakier. We would regularly have outages of an hour or more every day or two, and the uplink bandwidth was degrading to as low as 20kbps.

I called last night to let them know, and this morning a tech came out and switched us over to their other network, replacing the radio receiver. Now I am getting burst speeds of 3Mbps down and 1Mbps up! Glad to finally have state-side Internet speeds again. So far, I'm very happy with the service.

The only downside is we are behind two private networks via NAT. I used to have a security camera that I could look at while away from home as well as a remote login on my Linux box that I could access while traveling. In order to make those work now, I will need to set up a reflector on a public server somewhere. That seems like an acceptable price to pay for the better speed, but it's a bit of an inconvenience.

Of course the real test of the ISP is to see how often they have outages. That's something I'll just have to wait and see.

Clinton's and McCain's recent accusations of "elitism" against Obama seem like a bit of psychological projection of their own personality. They so fear being called elitist themselves that they jump eagerly on any chance to apply the name to their competitor.

Of the three candidates, Obama is most in touch with reality. Anyone who listens to the original recording in question will see how hard he works to empathize with Americans and understand what issues and concerns they are facing. Perhaps his description was politically incorrect, but no one can truly relate to all Americans; we are a hugely disparate gang. We need someone as President who can show the ability to empathize with anyone and work to understand their situation. That's what makes a President who's loved by his constituents and is great at foreign relations.

I added three new St. Croix restaurant reviews on Yelp:

Lalita Juice Bar and Raw Food

Salud Bistro

Smokin' Butts Bar-b-que

Enjoy!

Woo hoo! Just got an email from my ISP on St. Croix (Ackley Communications) saying that they are merging with Broadband VI and increasing our wireless DSL speed from 384kbps to 1Mbps (synchronous). They are also combining their two 155MBps links to the mainland for redundancy purposes.

One of my friends also works for Choice Communications. They provide a great Internet service here as well, especially if you need near line-of-sight. Last I checked, their pricing is higher than Ackley / Broadband VI for the same speed, so I will stick with Ackley / Broadband VI for now.

Looks like St. Croix is finally moving into the 21st century for Internet connectivity. It can only get better.

Motricity May Slash As Many As 200 Employees

The good stuff is in the comments about Ryan Wuerch, Motricity's CEO.

Some random product reviews

Mozy backup software for Mac or PC

A couple of months ago, I installed Mozy (www.mozy.com) on my Mac to do online backups. The key features that attracted me:

• Encrypted storage, and they don't have access to the encryption key! If I forget my password, I'm toast, but there is no way for them to dig into my private data.
  
• They keep 30 days of incremental backups, and you can restore to any point within the past 30 days. So if you accidentally delete a file, you can still retrieve it within 30 days.
  
• Really good incremental backups. Not only does it only upload the files that have changed, it also only uploads the portions of the files that have changed. So if you download a single email to your 100MB Inbox file, it only backs up that new email, not the entire 100MB file.
  

So far I've been very impressed. The Mac beta occasionally crashes, but it automatically restarts itself and resumes from where it left off. It also takes forever to initially backup your computer, but it's worth the wait.

Garmin Mobile XT on Palm Centro

I tried TomTom's mobile GPS, and it was absolutely terrible. I couldn't get it working on my 700p or 700w, despite the fact that those devices are listed on the box as compatible. (I'm a Palm developer, so if I can't get it working, there's no chance most people could.) So I returned that device and purchased the Garmin model instead, after playing with one at this year's CES. In the meantime, I upgraded to the Palm Centro (which I also love, by the way).

I love the Garmin Mobile XT! Setup was very easy, and it works great. The device itself is small (about the size of the Centro), so it will be easy to travel with. It has a clip on it that fits perfectly on any sun visor, and it comes with a car charger so you don't have to worry about running out of juice (though it also has a good battery).

The positives are: easy-to-use user interface. It supports downloading of traffic information, which is included for free (no monthly fee). The voice prompts make it easy to use without looking at the screen. The screen automatically turns off on your Palm to save power, and the voice prompts continue. You can switch to other applications while navigating, and the voice prompts continue.

The only downsides are that the maps are slightly out-of-date. It was missing an exit here in Tennessee that was built within the past year, and it didn't have one of the new restaurants at that exit. Also, the application occasionally resets spontaneously. This has happened a few times at key points during the navigation, so I have almost missed exits due to it. Luckily this is uncommon; I have been using it regularly for 6 weeks and only seen his happen 3 times. Still, I hope they fix it.

I really like the song that Apple is playing in their new Macbook Air commercials. (Plus I think the laptop itself is pretty sexy.) I'm currently using Rhapsody To Go as my music service because it works with Pocket Tunes. So I searched for the song (it's "New Soul" by Yael Naim) on Rhapsody.

Sure enough, it's not there. You have to wonder if Apple purposefully chose a song that was only available through iTunes.

Luckily, though it's available as an iTunes Plus track, meaning it's unprotected. So it plays in Pocket Tunes.

Why I hate MySpace...

My sister just sent me a link to join her MySpace network. I already have a MySpace account, so this should be dead simple, right?

Wrong...

I click on the link in the email. It asks me to sign up for a new account. Squirreled away in small print is an option to log in with an existing account. I finally find this option and click on it. It logs me in but fails to accept my sister's invitation.

No amount of screwing around has enabled me to accept her invitation.

I've been programming computers all my life and every time I interact with MySpace, it makes me feel stupid.

Well, I can't say it much better than Engadget:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/05/palm-assimilate-with-android-or-die/

Wow, my first earthquake!

I am traveling in the San Jose area (for the Business of Software conference) this week. Last night I was out at dinner in Sunnyvale with a colleague, and suddenly the room started swaying left to right. It felt as if it was swaying as much as 6 inches, but nothing was falling off tables, and it felt mostly gentle but random. There was no rattling and no thunderous noises as might be expected from what Hollywood has told us.

It lasted about 20 seconds, and then I had the strange sensation that maybe the ground was still moving, but I couldn't quite be sure. Similar to the sensation you get when leaving a cruise ship after a few days.

Apparently earthquakes of this magnitude (it was 5.6 and located about 8 miles from San Jose) are not super common, so I was "lucky" to experience it.

A couple of months ago, I was considering creating a website for St. Croix restaurant reviews. The idea would be that it would be all user-contributed reviews and easily updatable, like a wiki. Well, it's been done! Take a look at Yelp.

I've started writing reviews for all of the St. Croix restaurants I love! Check out my Yelp page.

Seth Godin has an interesting post about bundling.

It got me thinking about how this applies to software. One application is this: General purpose software often doesn't stand out as much as software with a sharp focus, even if it's as good or better.

Part of the reason is due to the effect that Seth talks about. When someone searches for a product, they search for something that solves one specific problem. So what they find first are the products that focus specifically on that problem. The general-purpose apps fall to the bottom of the list.

Of course, part of the problem is likely due to the fact that it's hard to create general purpose software that excels in several areas without being hard to use or expensive. But I recall in the early days of Palm OS, there were tons of specialized database apps and a few really good general-purpose databases. The specialized apps always seemed to out-sell the general purpose database apps, even when the general purpose apps were just as good. Some of those database applications even came with hundreds of templates to make them work just like the specialized apps.

How do you get around this effect if you have a really good "bundled" application (e.g. a product that solves more than one problem)? One extreme idea is to create separate products. Market each one at one of the problems it solves. It's actually the exact same product under the covers, but it's targeted at just one problem instead of several.

I find it interesting that, even as Steve Jobs praises DRM-free music, he likes the DRM concept when applied to locking out applications from the iPhone.

The Vista Shuffle

Anyone who knows me knows that I detest Windows Vista. Yet I use it on my laptop because that's what it came with, and I need a Vista machine for testing compatibility.

Here's my latest gripe; I call it the Vista Shuffle.

We use a Windows VPN at NormSoft. Windows Vista has a new method of connecting to a network. When I'm traveling, I use WiFi or a Sprint mobile broadband card, so I have to go to the "Connect to a network" screen. I enable the Internet connection, and then I open the same screen to connect to the VPN.

Here's where the fun starts. About 50% of the time, next to the NormSoft VPN entry, Vista says, "This connection requires an active Internet connection", and the Connect button is grayed out. Well, I do have an active Internet connection (I'm posting to this blog, aren't I?). Typically if I disconnect my main connection and reconnect once or twice, the NormSoft VPN entry will eventually be enabled, and I can connect. But sometimes, like this morning, I can never get it to show up.

Even worse, sometimes the VPN entry becomes enabled for about 2 seconds. If you don't click on the Connect button in that short time window, you're SOL. Hence why I call this the Vista shuffle. (Imagine a heavily-drugged psychiatric ward patient shuffling down the street. That's how I feel.)

Verisign - just a pretty name?

Wow...  Our credit card processing gateway just went down.  It is rejecting all charges and authorizations with some obscure error message.  I tried calling their tech support number, and they're closed.  They have a $500/month support service that gives 24/7 telephone support, but there's no way to buy it off-hours.

You might guess that we're using some mom-and-pop discount gateway.  Nope, it's Verisign.

I don't understand how a company like Verisign can let this kind of thing happen...

Blogger is acting up today. It is not letting me post my blog entries.

My Treo is on the Sprint network. Lately they have taken to calling me once a day on my cell phone as "a courtesy call to see if we can save you money on your phone plan" (i.e. upsell me on their new services). When I complained that I didn't want them calling my cell phone unless there is a problem with my particular account, they got defensive and said, "It's a free call, sir."

I don't care if it's a free call! You are interrupting my time on my cell phone, which is only used to receive important calls! The fact that it doesn't cost me anything on my Sprint bill does not affect the fact that I do not want to be interrupted.

This is compounded by the fact that, most of the time that I receive these calls, there is no operator on the other end. So for 3 days now, I have gotten a call from their 800 number, only to be hung up on as soon as I answer it.

Ahhh, Germany. I am on a business trip to receive training from one of our partners.

Currently I'm in the Frankfurt airport waiting for my connection to Nuremburg. My data connection seems to work here, but I'm sure it is costing and arm and a leg...

My lunch consisted of a sandwich that looked (and tasted) like a big piece of pretzel shaped like a bun with some salami and pickles in it. There was also some kind of spread, butter maybe. It was quite yummy. They call it a Laugenbr�tchen Salami, which, for all I know, simply means salami sandwich...


[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

How to Register Your Car in the Virgin Islands (aka How To Waste 10+ Hours of Your Life)

Well I am finally the proud owner of a VI driver's license and plates for my car that I shipped down. If you have never had the pleasure of registering a car in the Virgin Islands, you are probably unimpressed. If you happen to live here, you are probably amazed that I am still sane (or am I?).

Before I begin, please understand that I tell this story not as someone complaining and fed-up with the process but as someone amused and bewildered by the inefficiencies of the system. Luckily for me I could see the humor in the whole process, so I had a smile on my face most of the time (and I still do).

It all started a few months ago when Gerald and I decided that we should probably get our driver's licenses. Should be easy, right? Well...

First, you have to go to the main police office, which is about a 20 minute drive from our house. There, you pay $2 and pick up an official photocopy of the driver's license application form. No, you can't download it off the Internet, and no you can't have it mailed or faxed to you, and no there's nowhere else on the island where you can get it. It's just a regular photocopy, but you're not allowed to make duplicates. Not too hard, and the woman at the police office was very friendly and helpful. (In fact, almost everyone I met during this process was friendly and helpful, but extremely rigid on the rules; no exceptions!)

Next, you have to go get two 2x2 passport photos. They don't actually use these photos for anything; they are just tossed in a filing cabinet with your paperwork and then they take a digital picture of you for the license. Getting the photos was easy. There's a popular photo shop in the main shopping plaza on the island, and they take 5 minutes to take your photos and have them ready in a half hour.

Next, you have to go to your doctor's office to get your application stamped, saying that you are not insane, have corrective lenses, etc. etc. When you go to the doctor's office here, there are almost always 4-5 walk-ins waiting to be seen. Luckily our doctor takes appointments, so we were sure to make one. But due to squeezing in the walk-ins, you always have to wait. And because our doctor is an honest sympathetic kind of guy, he didn't charge us for the appointment.

Now you have to go back to the police station. But wait! The driver's license application asks for your blood type (nobody knows why). What if you don't know your blood type? Well, you have to get a blood test and get it typed. So back to the doctor to order you a blood test. Then off to the Island Medical Center to have the test done. The waiting room is like most waiting rooms on St. Croix. You walk in and take a ticket from the ticket dispenser. Then you sit down and wait for your number to be called. Then you tell the receptionist why you are here. She then tells you to have a seat, and you wait for your name to be called. Once the blood is drawn, they inform you that the results will be ready in about a week. A week for a blood type test?! Yes, they have to send off for it. But the hospital is right next door, and they can do blood typing in minutes in the ER. Shrug...

So now the whole process has ground to a halt. I can't proceed until I get the blood type results. Oh well... Luckily my Massachusetts driver's license is still valid. Technically it's only valid for 90 days after moving here, but no one's called me on that yet...

So a week later, I was in Rhode Island with my car that I wanted to bring to St. Croix. In order to get it there, I had to drive it down to Tropical Shipping in West Palm Beach, Florida. So I'd planned my road trip to Florida and my flight back to St. Croix. The trip went well, and I enjoyed the drive in my car. When I got to West Palm Beach, I once again remembered what it felt like to be bewildered and bemused.

I drove to the container port. Straight in front of me were two guard gates with clear signs indicating that no one was to enter without a valid container port ID. To the right were 5 lanes of trucks next to a small unmarked trailer. Since I didn't have a container port ID, I parked next to the trucks and walked into the building. There were two other people waiting. After a few minutes, someone came in and started creating IDs for everyone. I got my finger prints (from both hands) taken for the first time in my life, and my photo taken and printed out on a small ID.

Tropical's shipping location was a small unmarked trailer (sound familiar?) sitting in a parking lot. I found my way there and entered and waited for the right person to show up. She came in and reviewed all my paperwork. They then checked my car, and I removed all my luggage. They then pointed across the street and said to go to Customs to get my documents stamped and then I could go.

Across the street was a huge warehouse and a parking lot, all behind a fence. With my 3 bags in tow, I trundled across the road, dodging trucks and cars entering the container port. There was no entrance door in the fence, so I had to go around. I saw someone behind the fence and asked him which way to walk around; he pointed right. So I walked about 100 yards, trying to keep from tripping over my luggage. I finally arrived 2 feet from where I started but behind the fence. I walked into the large warehouse to find no one there. I again asked the person where to go, and he shrugged his shoulders. Hmm, okay. Finally someone showed up and demanded, "What are you doing here?" I explained my plight, and he said, "You have to go all the way around the building and go to the unmarked door at the end for customs." He must have sensed my exhaustion at this point (maybe it was my sweat-drenched shirt that gave me away; did I mention that it was 100 degrees?), and he looked around conspiratorily and said, "Follow me".

He led me through a door marked "Authorized Personnel Only" and pointed to the unmarked customs door 30 feet away. I thanked him and walked into Customs. They stamped my paperwork and said I was ready to go.

This all went fairly quickly, and I had asked for a cab to show up before I started. Sure enough, the cab was waiting to pick me up, after I trundled back up to the container port entrance gate with my luggage. I had two options to get to the airport; I could take the Tri-Rail, which arrived only 1 hour before my flight. The cabbie told me that I wouldn't make the flight because you have to take a tram from the train station to the airport, and you need to check in 45 minutes prior to departure. The other option was to pay the cabbie $180 to drive me 65 miles to the Miami airport. After agreeing to this outrageous fee, I thought of a third option too late; it would have been cheaper to rent a car.

Back in St. Croix, I awaited for the arrival of my car. Thanks to a friend with connections, I found out that the car was ready to be picked up half a week earlier than estimated. The bad news was the list of TODOs looming ahead of me to get the car in my possession...

Knowing that I would need to have insurance on the car, I first drove to my insurance agent and got the car added to the policy. This was easy enough to do but took an hour to complete.

I then drove to the container port in St. Croix. The woman at the guard gate told me, "Just drive straight ahead and you'll see the signs for Tropical." Easy enough. I drove until I saw the signs for Tropical (only vaguely aware of the signs that said "Authorized Personnel Only"; I was authorized by the guard gate, right?) and parked in the rear of the trailer. There was my car! It must be the right place. I went to enter the building when someone waved frantically at me through the window. The security officer came out and told me, "You can't park back here. You have to park over there." She pointed to the parking lot 20 feet away from where I'd parked. "Do you want me to move my car?" "Yes."

After my scolding, I came back with my tail between my legs. She checked my ID and said I could go in. When I entered, no one was there, so I looked through my paperwork and waited. Someone came in and greeted me. When he saw that I was there to pick up the BMW, a huge grin appeared on his face, and he told me how much he liked my car. He then told me that unfortunately, I was in the wrong place. He then went down the list of tasks I needed to complete and said, "And then you can come see me! You've got a long day ahead of you." Indeed.

My first task was to go to the other Tropical building. The one before the "Authorized Personnel Only" sign. The one that you couldn't see unless you happened to have made a right turn at an unmarked parking lot. A very friendly woman checked my paperwork and gave me a form that listed all of the day's tasks. She then gave me a form that I had to fill out, where I hand-wrote my credit card number and name. "We don't have a swiper; we use the Internet," she explained. The woman next to me was less trusting than I. She refused to write down her credit card number and insisted on leaving and returning with a certified check instead. Her day was bound to be longer than mine...

Next I went to pay my excise tax in a trailer several doors down. The woman there went through my paperwork and asked me how much the car was worth. I gave her an estimate, and she said, "I need to have something in writing. You can go on the Internet and look it up. My blue book only goes up to 2001." I had no intention of going all the way home to go on the Internet, this early in the progress! So I asked her how else I could get her a price. She said that I could go to Customs next door and see if their blue book had the price. I checked my watch: 11:45am. Her sign said, "Closed for Lunch 12-1".

I hurried over to Customs and told him my story. He checked through my papers and told me I didn't need to pay any import fees because my car is made in South Carolina. But he had some paperwork for me to fill out. He then looked in his blue book, wrote down a price, and stamped it with his Customs seal. He then told me I'd better go next door before she closed. I made it with only a few minutes to spare. She took my official Post-It note and finished up my paperwork. I paid my excise tax with my Mastercard; I was relieved to see that she had a swiper. She tried to derail me one last time, "That's an expensive car, mon. Are you sure you don't want to look up the price on the Internet and get it cheaper?"

Next I headed over to the Virgin Islands Finance building. This is a white building hidden behind the loading docks near K-Mart. As usual, there were no signs about where to go, so I wandered through the building, trying to find the most-travelled paths. When I reached a receptionist, I showed her my paperwork, and she politely pointed to a cashier window. I filled out some paperwork that she gave to me. One of the fields was "Vehicle Weight". Oh crap, I hope they don't have to weigh it. I left it blank. I honestly expected that she would tell me I needed to go back to shippers and get a bill of lading to get the weight. Instead, she looked up the weight in a book and entered an estimated 3,000 lbs. Close call...

One final task remained before I could go home for lunch and get Gerald to help with the retrieval of my car. I drove to the main police station and walked in the building. I asked the woman there where to get a temporary moving permit. You need this to allow you to drive the car out of the container port and back to the police station to get it registered. She said, "Oh yes, I can help you with that. But first you need to go over to the cashier and pay for it. Then come back with your receipt." She gave me some paperwork and told me to go outside and look for "Cashier #3 or #4". I walked in the direction she indicated and found several unmarked trailers. There was no one around them so I assumed they were unused and kept walking. I finally came upon something that could not possibly be the cashier's station. It was an open-air building with several benches with a dozen people sitting on them. Next door were several student drivers apparently taking driving tests.

Uncertain, I walked up the bench area and looked around. There, I saw 4 windows: #1, #2, #3, and #4. This must be it afterall... There was one person each at windows #3 and #4, but no line. Were the people on the benches in line? If so, it must be some incomprehensible system. I lingered for a minute and someone finally queued up behind one of the people at the window. Aha, that's how it's done! I joined the line and suddenly someone sprang up from a bench and made it obvious that he was in line too. I guess I didn't completely understand the system yet.

Once at the head of the line, the cashier took my $5 and paperwork and gave me a receipt. I took this back up to the police station, and the woman signed the paper and said I was all set to go.

Now I needed Gerald to drive the truck back home while I drive my car. So I went home to meet him, and we headed back out to the container port, armed with an arsenal of mangled papers that looked more like a hairball than official import paperwork. We drove into the port and past the "Authorized Personnel Only" sign; this time we really were authorized. We parked in the correct parking lot, and I walked towards the building where I had started the day.

There's an interesting thing I've learned about Crucians. Once you get scolded by someone, you create a kind of rapport. Upon returning to the woman at the Tropical building, she gave me a huge smile and waved me in. "Do you need to see my ID?" "No," she waved her hand, "just pretend I checked it." I received a similar smile from the man in the building, and I smiled back just as big; I was about to finally get my car. He checked over all my paperwork and looked impressed. We then chatted about cars for a bit, and then we headed out to inspect mine. Everything looked fine, so I took the keys and drove off.

After 10 yards, I noticed that the flat tire light was on in the car. Oh no... The car has run-flat tires, so you can't tell if they're flat by looking at them. Instead, the computer monitors the rotation differential for all the wheels and notifies you if one of them is rotating at a different rate than the others, which indicates a drastic drop in pressure. Since I had purchased insurance on the car, I decided I'd better tell them about the problem. Luckily, they said they could air up the tires to the correct pressure to see if they had a leak. After 10 minutes, they showed up with a pickup truck with a huge engine mounted on the rear. The engine was attached to a compressor and a hose. Sure beats the car-battery-powered compressor I had.

The tires looked okay, so I reset the tire monitor computer, and headed off. It was 3:05, and the Tropical guys had told me that the car registration building closes at 3:30. It was only 10 minutes away, so I could make it, and then my journey would be complete! However, upon arriving, a friendly gentleman told me that they had closed at 2pm, and he handed me some "homework" and told me to come back tomorrow morning.

This morning, I resumed my expedition in earnest. I had my car, and the end was near; I could taste it! Feeling ambitious, I also retrieved the partially-completed paperwork for my driver's license. I would get that finished today as well. First, I needed to get my blood type.

I called the Island Medical Center and asked for my test results. "I can't give out results on the phone due to privacy issues, but I can tell you that it's ready." Not wanting to argue, I agreed to stop by in a few minutes. On arrival I repeated the usual steps (take a number, sit, wait your turn). Turns out my blood type is O+. So there! I have defeated the medical center's privacy measures by posting this publically on the Internet.

Next stop: the registry. I pulled in to find the parking lot nearly full. I found a spot and walked up to the gentleman who had given me my "homework". He looked it over, stapled a few things together and mumbled something about needing the original title. He then pointed me over to the receptionist. This time I walked up to Window #2 (having learned that this is the correct window by listening to what other people were asking the cashiers) and handed in all my paperwork. The young man took my paperwork and motioned for me to sit down.

After a minute, the young man came out of a door and waved to me. I got up, and he pointed to a line on the form where he had added an "X". The line read, "mailing address, if different from above". I had left it blank because it was the same address I had entered above. I tried to argue that but he stuffed the form in my hand and closed the door. Puzzled, I duplicated the information and handed the form back through the original window.

I sat for a minute and then a great idea occurred to me. I knew that I would have to pay for my driver's license eventually, so why not use this idle time to wait in line to pay it. I got up and entered the line for Window #3, which I guessed would be where I would pay for the license.

I was right! When I got to the cashier, she took all the paperwork and asked for my payment. I handed her the credit card I had used all along. She came back a few seconds later and pushed the card back to me, explaining, "It was declined." (The credit card company had called the previous evening to make sure that all these charges to various VI government offices were authorized. I told them they were. I can only assume that the credit card company did not believe me and has locked my card.) I handed her another card, and it worked. She told me to go back up to the police station to finish up.

Meanwhile, a woman handed me the certified copy of my title and explained, "Your registration is complete but we can't give you the plates until you give us the real title." I did not want to argue, so I said, "Okay."

Before leaving, I went to the police station and greeted the woman at the front, who had gotten to know me; this was afterall my 4th trip there. I obtained my driver's license (which entailed having my finger prints taken for the second time in my life) and walked down to my car to go home and get the title. While leaving the police station, a police officer waved me down. I opened up my window to see what he wanted. He pointed at my plates, still the Massachusetts ones, and asked why my car was not registered. I explained that I needed to get the title to complete the registration process. He looked dubious. I then said, "I have a mover's permit." That did the trick. Without asking to see it, he nodded and waved me off. The $5 mover's permit had come in handy afterall.

Finally arriving back at the registration office, I handed in my original title at Window #2 to the young man whom I had originally spoken with. He looked at me funny and said, "Who asked you to bring this?" I sighed and pointed to one of the women behind him, and he waved me off. I then sat down to wait for my name to be called. A few minutes later, I was summoned to Window #3. I paid my bill using my other credit card, and received my vehicle registration and plates. I'm done!, I thought. "Next, you will need to go to the police station to get a copy of your new title." But, but...

After my run-in with the cop, I decided that I'd better install my new license plates before leaving. So I asked the gentleman outside for a screwdriver and put them on. I then went back to the police station and greeted my friend for the 5th time. Getting my new title was effortless.

Easy, right? I'm off to our favorite restaurant for a rumrita...

The Attack of the Iguanas

We just had an iguana traipse up to our pool to see what was going on...

The Best Mojitos

It's often hard to find fresh mint on St. Croix.  The fresh herb section in the supermarket is often lacking.  Some of the restaurants here grow their own herbs because of this.

However, mint seems to be available in abundance recently.  We picked some up at Plaza Extra and experimented with mojito recipes until finding just the right combination!  The key to a good mojito, we learned, is to use a pestle to grind the mint and lime wedge on the bottom of the glass.  The mango rum is just sweet enough (but not too sweet) so you don't need to add simple sugar like other recipes call for, and has just enough fruity flavor so you don't need lemon juice.  Here is the recipe, for your enjoyment.

4 fresh mint leaves
2oz Cruzan Mango rum
4oz soda water
1 lime wedge, plus 1 for garnish (optional)
1 sugar cane stick (optional)

Squeeze 1 lime wedge into a cocktail glass.  Using a pestle, muddle the mint and lime wedge in the bottom of the glass.  The mint leaves should be well bruised, but not broken into little pieces (which get in your teeth, etc.)  Add the rum and soda water.  Garnish with another lime wedge and sugar cane stick or sprig of mint leaves (optional).

If you make a second (or third... or fourth), re-use the same glass with the left-over mint (and optionally the lime).  They'll get better each time!

Phone's Dead

Well apparently we've been lucky.  Since we've gotten here, our phone has never been out.  All of our friends who are also newcomers to the island have been complaining about how often and how long their phones go out for.  Well today we finally got hit, and our phone is dead.

Luckily we've been preparing for this ocassion, and we have 3 backup plans (before we go to smoke signals, that is).  Gerald and I have two cell phones on different networks (which are working great).  Plus we have an Internet phone number through Skype.

4,000 lbs of stuff

We recently decided to sell our house in Millis and move to St. Croix full-time.  (If you're interested in a beautiful 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house on a private lot with a gurgling brook in Millis, MA, send me an email, and I'll hook you up with our realtor!)

Part of that meant moving all our stuff.  We decided not to move any furniture (except for one piece).  So we expected that there wouldn't be very much stuff.  Well, after piling up books, computers, games, CDs, treadmills, TVs, and kitchen appliances, the total rang in around 4,000 lbs!

We used Allied Van Lines to move.  They came to our house in Millis and carefully packed up every piece.  The movers were phenomenal; very careful, friendly, and professional.  They packed everything into large wooden boxes, which would then be placed into a cargo container and put on a ship.  Then the ship sails from Boston to St. Croix, and they unload it when it arrives and bring it to our house.

It's just arrived, so now we have cardboard boxes all over our house waiting to unpack.

How Not to Change a Tire

This one's from Gerald...

Every once in a while. Just every once in a while. Why can't a simple thing in my life be simple???

Tim and I have been planning to put new tires on the truck for about a month, then Brien and Susan came down. We all know what happened then! Woopie, new baby!

Last night we went out to dinner at Cheeseburgers in Paradise with some friends down from MA for the week. Gravel parking lot. Screw in the tire. Ok, made it home safely with no flat. Scotty (one of the friends from MA) was going to come by this morning, run to the auto store to pick up a patch plug kit. He came by but the tire was holding air so we decided it would probably be ok if I drove on it again to go buy new tires. So I did, but...(here's where it starts to get complicated!)

The guy who sells tires doesn't mount tires. This is St. Croix. You go to the tire guy, buy your tires, then go to a tire "shop" to get them mounted. Seems simple enough, right? Simple unless you have a screw in your tire.

I made it to the tire guy, bought 4 new tires. Headed off to the tire shop to get them mounted. Got less than a mile and had a flat. How on earth did that happen you might ask? Well, dumbass me was driving with a screw in the tire (I really thought you'd get that one.).

So I pull into a shopping plaza. Called Tim. Asked him to call Scotty to come help me. He couldn't reach Scotty by phone, so he rode his bike down to their house. No one home. He rode back to our house to call me. I told him to call our friend Julie. Surely she could help or know someone who could. Her assistant Jill picked Tim up and brought him to me so we could change the tire. Oh...but we couldn't find the tool you use to lower the spare from under the truck! Yeah, ok, still with me?

So Jill calls Honnie, our realtor here. Honnie has this woman who changes her flats for her, so she called the woman to come help us. Woman calls me on cell, I tell her where to find me. She comes but it took her over an hour to change the tire. I swear, it must have been the first truck tire she'd ever changed. She didn't have a clue. But imagine if you will, Tim and I standing there watching this woman crawl around on the ground changing our tire...there's a picture for you!

Anyway, she finally got the tire changed so we got on our way to the tire shop. He got us in relatively quickly, put the spare back under the truck, mounted and balanced the new tires in about 45 minutes and we were off! Finally! Headed home to clean up, relax, and figure out what we would do for supper.

About a mile from the tire shop we go around a curve and hear a sound like we had clipped an aluminum can and sent it scurrying off across the road. Hmmmm. Ok, next curve same sound, except much louder and this time accompanied by some very alarming clacking noises. Oh yeah, this is Gerald's life. So I whip into the parking lot of a closed Feed store before the tire could fall off. It nearly had. The lug nuts were barely hanging on. So Tim gets out the lug wrench and proceeds to tighten down all the lug nuts.

Yes, we actually DID make it home and are about to go have some supper. But an hour or two errand turned in to an all day affair for me with drama at every turn, literally. Such is my life. Please...trade me???

Blowout party in St. Croix

Gerald is planning a huge party for my 30th birthday.  He's got space reserved at the Cormorant Beach Club in St. Croix for hors d'ouevres and drinks.  And, he's reserved B & the Buzz, a phenomenal high-energy jazz band!  The party is scheduled for 8pm-12am January 15, 2006.  Guests can arrive around 7pm.  If you'd like to come, send me an email, and I'll send more details!

Crucian Baby

Well I really ought to be writing in here more often.  You'd think that we're having a nice quiet life down here.  On the contrary, it's been an exciting rollercoaster ride!

We recently hired Brien Wheeler as the Vice President of Engineering at NormSoft.  We're very excited to have him on board, and we're sure he'll do a great job managing our engineering resources.

We decided to fly him down to St. Croix for his orientation two weeks ago.  His wife Susan was seven months pregnant at the time but decided to come along as well to get some good relaxation in before the baby was born.

Everything started out great, and we were having a great time coming up to speed on business and relaxing in our spare time.  Then on Tuesday night, we went shopping to make dinner.  When we returned home, Susan was not feeling well.  After a call to her doctor, they decided that they'd better go to the hospital to have her checked out.  So I drove them a few miles down the road, and they spent an hour in the ER.  They hooked up a baby monitor and everything looked fine with the baby, so they told her to go home.

A few hours later, Susan was not feeling any better.  They finally asked me once again to take them back to the hospital.  Nervous and concerned, I drove as safely and quickly as I could.  Upon arriving at the hospital, Brien put Susan in a wheelchair and whisked her away.  I parked the car and waited in the ER for 20 minutes, worrying about what was happening.  Finally, someone there told me that they didn't know Susan's status because they had taken her to Labor & Delivery.

At this point, I was still in disbelief that Susan was having her baby.  One of the security guards showed me over to the main hospital entrance.  I said to him, "I can't believe she's having her baby now!"  He responded simply in his Crucian accent, "Believe it."

When I saw Brien a few minutes later, his face was red with mixed concern and joy.  He said, "We're having our baby!  You'd better go home; we'll call you."  I was dumbstruck and walked out of the hospital like a zombie.  I don't remember the drive home, but I do remember that I didn't get much sleep.  Finally, Brien called me shortly after midnight to say they'd had a baby girl, and they'd named her Greer.  Everyone was doing well.  He would call me in the morning.  I finally caught a few winks.

As it turns out, the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital on St. Croix is top notch.  Greer had excellent care, and the nurses were warm, friendly, and knowledgeable.  Greer is fully expected to make a full recovery.  However, Susan was having a few complications, so they kept her in the hospital for a few days' observation.

Susan's parents quickly made plans to fly down to visit.  Dan and Dianne were excellent guests and were relieved to finally see Susan and the baby doing well.  Feeling a bit helpless, Gerald and I did the best we could to make everyone feel at home.  We knew that Brien and Susan were likely to be here 6-8 weeks until Greer was ready to fly, so we started making long-term arrangements.

Things progressed for several tense days, and then Susan was told she could go home.  Greer would be kept in an isolette in the hospital until she could breathe and eat on her own.  Everyone took turns joining Susan going to see the baby over the next several days.  Susan was still feeling ill, and eveeryone was concerned, including the insurance company.

Amazingly, a representative from Tufts Health Care called Susan and asked if she'd like to be medflighted back to Boston, fully covered by the insurance.  After some discussion, they agreed that would be the best option so that they could be with their family and regular doctors.  They started working on the arrangements, and Susan, Brien, and Greer were finally flown back to Boston on Thanksgiving day.

We're now without guests and without excitement.  We feel enormously relieved that Greer is back home with family and doctors that they know.  But we can't help but feel a bit saddened that our Crucian baby has left us.  Brien and Susan proclaimed us Uncle Tim & Gerald, not honorary, but real uncles.

Brien and Susan have since let us know that Greer and Susan are both doing wonderfully, and Susan was released from the hospital in Boston with a clean bill of health.  Greer will be going home in a few weeks as well.

We've had lots of other excitement as well, but I'll leave that for another post.

 

We woke up this morning to find this over-sized hermit crab drowned in our pool. Poor thing...



[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Driving down the main street of Christiansted on St. Croix, we passed a boat being hauled on a trailor. It's name? Marine Juanna.

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

My Bike Arrived!

I shipped my bicycle through the US Postal Service parcel post on Friday 8/5.  It just arrived yesterday, 19 days later!  I am eager to go for a ride.

I spoke with Jamie at the bike shop, who is the mechanic there and apparently does really well in the local races.  The biking on St. Croix is supposedly very good.  There are lots of local road races and triathalons.  The terrain is mountainous in areas and flat in others.  I went for a quick spin near my house and found that the hills are quite steep.  I should get back into shape pretty quick!  I'm hoping to start riding every morning before it gets warm and before the traffic gets bad.

Shipping warning

If you ship something to us down here, go way overboard on the packing protection, please.  USPS Priority mail is the fastest way to get stuff here, but they are exceptionally rough with the packages.

We just received a gift today that included very well-wrapped and packed margarita glasses.  Unfortunately, 6 out of the 8 had broken stems, and a heavy duty 3-4mm thick plastic serving tray was completely smashed.  Amazing!

Cheap cigarettes

Without taxes, cigarettes are amazingly cheap in St. Croix.  At Cost-U-Less, the local warehouse store, a carton (10-pack) of Marlboro's is $16.  A carton of Pall Mall's is $7!  When we were in Massachusetts, a carton costs around $50 or $60 because of state taxes.  Unfortunately, this doesn't help people who want to quit...

And no, we're not taking orders!

Electricity is fun

So we're in the midst of our first power outage on the island.  Supposedly these are fairly frequent, but luckily our house came equipped with a 21kW generator powerful enough to run the whole house.  It's got a 500 gallon oil tank, good for a month or more.  It's a bit noisy, but it's nice to have the power on!

Visit us in St. Croix

We'd love to have our friends and family visit us in St. Croix.  I've set up a web-based calendar where you can book your time.  Email me for the web address and login info.

The Conclusion

Everyone's been emailing me, asking how the story ends.  Sorry for keeping you in suspense.

The next morning, I drove down to the service station, and they had a receipt hanging by the cash register.  "Oh yeah, here it is," he said.  And I gave him my credit card, and we were good.  Simple!

So how did we get money?  Well, the ATMs were still not working, so we went over to the Cormorant Beach Club hotel, where we've stayed on both trips to St. Croix.  We had been eating there almost every day this time because we hadn't gotten any food in our house yet.  So the lovely manager of the hotel told us she acts as "banker" for a lot of the local regular diners, and she'd be happy to cash a check.  So there you go!  We still haven't been to an ATM that works!

We had dinner with our realtor Honnie (www.honnie.com) a few nights ago.  She planned a dinner with some of her staff and 3 couples who had recently purchased homes on St. Croix.  We had a lovely dinner and made some good friends.  We took one couple to our favorite island restaurant, Savant, last night.  Its cuisine is a mixture of Thai (coconut-based curries), Mexican (fajitas, etc.), and Caribbean (fresh fish, Caribbean spices, etc.).  It's always fantastic, and their bartender Cheryl makes incredible rumritas.  The yellowfin tuna is fresh off the boat, same day, from local waters and is perfect ordered rare.

Speaking of rum, it's cheap here!  The Cruzan rum distillery is on the island, and there is no duty charged on any alcohol.  All the grocery stores have the Cruzan dark and light rum for about $4 a bottle (750ml), and I've heard you can often get it for as cheap as $2.  They also have a great selection of flavored rums that are really tasty, and a key component in the raspberry or pineapple rumrita.  Since Coca-Cola is sometimes over $2 per bottle and some imported juices are really expensive, you can imagine that the bartenders here tend to overpour the liquor in the mixed drinks!

I'm working on putting up a calendar web page so friends and family can reserve the guest house.  I'll send out an email when it's ready.

Island Living

Everyone is so laid back on the island that it's sometimes quite surprising!

A few days ago we spent our last cash, thinking that we'd just go to the ATM to get some more.  Well, 4 ATMs later, and 2 of them were out of service, and the other 2 said, "Could not process transaction.  Temporary error.  Try again later."  So okay we'll use our credit cards.

On the way home from dinner, we stopped to buy some gas.  "Do you take credit cards?"  "Nope."  Hmm, okay.  Next station.  No credit cards.  Next station, "No, but go down the road to Everybody's Service Station.  They take cards."  Woo hoo!

So out of the car to fill up the tank and get some cigarettes for Gerald.  "Do you take credit cards?"  "Sure!  Visa and Mastercard."  Great!  So we started filling up.  After about 11 gallons, suddenly all the lights went out and the pumps went dead.  We'd been hit by one of WAPA's infamous power outages.  WAPA is the Water and Power Authority on the Island, and everyone complains about their inefficiencies and frequent outages.

So now we're thinking, "Okay, we don't have any cash.  Our checks are back at home, and the power's out, so we can't pay with a credit card.  Uh oh!"  "Do you have a generator?"  "Yeah, but it's busted."  Okay, we'll just wait for the power to come back on.

5 minutes later, and no power.  The service station owner finally said, "Well it's probably not going to come back on, so I'm just going to close up.  Come back tomorrow and pay me.  Here's a pack of cigarettes; I'll add it to your bill."  "We can go get you a check."  "No, don't bother.  Just come back tomorrow."  Stunned, we said, "Okay...", then introduced ourselves, shook hands, and off we went.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to find out how we eventually got some cash!

The view from our new home.

We're mostly moved in now. We've had some interesting adventures, which I'll share soon.



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One of my carryon bags had 20 PDAs, MP3 players, and cell phones. They didn't say a peep when it went through the X-ray machine. I have to wonder what the X-ray tech was thinking. 'Oh another bag o' Palms...'


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As some of you know, Gerald and I are moving to St. Croix (US Virgin Islands) this winter to work from paradise. I'm going to try to write regular updates in my blog about our trials and tribulations.

Today was our flight from Boston to St. Croix. We're in the San Juan airport now waiting on our layover.

When we unloaded our 10 bags at the curb, we needed a porter. I asked someone rolling a cart and he quickly emptied it and said, 'See that long line over there? That's for this luggage service. But stick with me and I'll take care of you.'

He loads our 6 bags and says, 'You know you only get 2 bags per person.' Gerald said, 'No, AA told us that we get 2 bags per seat, and we purchased 3 seats.' 'Okay I'll go check.'

Turns out he was right. So he says, 'Play along... You're very upset because you were told incorrect information. I can get you to the front of the line, but you'll have to pay for the bags anyway.'

With some guilt, we skipped ahead of the dozens of people in line while he demanded a manager on our behalf and got our tickets in just a few minutes. We gave him a good tip!

Two of our carryons are our cats. Going through security, they said, 'Take the cats out and walk through.' Ack! It was hard getting them in those carriers. Luckily the drugs had kicked in and 2 groggy kitties put up no fight getting back in their carriers.

Temperature: 88F in San Juan, PR. Sunny and humid. Calm.

More later...

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Wow! I've been digging through the mess in my office getting ready for our move. I came across my first 'real' handheld computer: a Tandy Pocket Scientific Computer PC-6. It ran BASIC or assembly programs, stored memos, and did all the scientific calculator stuff... Amazingly, it still works and still has all my programs that I wrote over 10 years ago. Looks like they sell for around $75 on eBay! I think I'll hold on to mine, though.



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Time to try Firefox?

I've resisted trying Firefox so far, but a few irksome problems with IE have recently pushed me over the edge.

1) We installed a wiki for internal collaborative use, and IE ocassionally hangs when trying to load the wiki's page.

2) I recently sent this rant to everyone at NormSoft: Download a large file using IE. Meanwhile, go back to typing email. As you know, email includes lots of spaces, so I hit the space bar all the time.

Suddenly, the download finishes, and the freaking download window pops to the foreground, intercepting all my keystrokes. When this happens, the active button on the download window is "Cancel". So as soon as I type the space bar key (which is very common - see above), it cancels the fucking download.

Now I have to go back to the web site and download the freaking 250MB file again. And then I forget it's downloading and start typing spaces again and I end up cancelling it a second time. Argh!

NowI'mwaryoftypingspaces.Anyonegotabettersolution???

3) There's some kind of limit on how many downloads you can do at one time with IE.  It fluctuates.  Right now it's 2, but I remember a few days ago I could do 6.  Seems like a ridiculous limitation since I have a 4MBit cable modem connection.

4) IE does not download files directly to the destination - it makes a copy.  Why?

Hotels.com Cracked

I just got an email from hotels.com about a recent hotel I booked to North Carolina.  I'm not going to North Carolina!  I called them up, and they confirmed that someone actually placed a reservation on my hotels.com account!  They flagged my account as fraudulent and disabled it.  They weren't super helpful, but they did confirm that the person did not use my credit card to reserve the account.  Very strange...

As many of you know, I'm super vigilant about security (see CryptInfo).  So I can't imagine anything that was my fault that would have leaked my account information.  I recommend avoiding hotels.com; they either have poor security or flaws in their system that allow other people to place reservations with your account.

Another Case Against Blacklists

This was just too good to pass up.  Our customer support person just received this bounce and sent it to me for diagnostics:

From: MAILER-DAEMON@mail01h.rapidsite.net

Date: 4 Mar 2005 03:57:51 -0000

To: yyy@zzz.com
Subject: failure notice

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mail01h.rapidsite.net.

I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.

This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

xxx@yyy.net:

66.150.45.42 does not like recipient.

Remote host said: 550 5.2.1 Mailbox unavailable. Your IP address 131.103.218.175 is blacklisted using SPAMCOP. Details: Blocked - see http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?131.103.218.175.

Giving up on 66.150.45.42.

So, if you'll follow me here: 131.103.218.175 is blacklisted.  That IP address is mail01h.rapidsite.net.  But that's the mail server that's receiving the email (and relaying it to someone else - presumably one of the ISP's customers).  So it's refusing to deliver mail because it is blacklisted, itself!

Real Semaphores on PalmOS 5

It turns out it's fairly easy to implement real binary semaphores on PalmOS 5. This is really handy for folks that want to perform synchronization between their audio callback thread and their UI thread, for instance. Unfortunately, you have to access the semaphore from ARM-native code.

The trick is the SWP ARM instruction. This instruction swaps the contents of a register and a memory location, and it guarantees that this will be an atomic operation.

Here's some sample code in ARM assembly:

@ initialize a 4-byte word value to 1. That initializes your semaphore.

@ wait

@ r4 should contain an address that points to the semaphore.
.Lacquiresemaphore:
mov r5, #0
swp r5, r5, [r4] @ try to set the semaphore to 0
cmp r5, #1 @ if the previous value was 1, then we got it
beq .Lgotsemaphore @ this is a busy wait, but you could insert
@ an OS call - perhaps SysTaskDelay - to make it better
b .Lacquiresemaphore

.Lgotsemaphore:
@ do stuff

@ signal

mov r5, #1
str r5, [r4] @ reset the semaphore

Of course you can extend this example to implement more complicated semaphores as well.

The advantage of this versus a spin lock is that you don't need to know which thread you are executing in. With a 2-slot spin lock, you need to know if you are user #1 or #2.

Enjoy!

ActiveWords

Pretty cool piece of software.  Gerald's been using it to do some customer support, and it really speeds up entering canned responses, etc.  You basically can assign any set of keys to do certain tasks (using an optional action key to trigger the task).  Tasks are very flexible and can include things like running programs, web pages, pasting contents of text files, etc.

SPF has problems

I thought I was doing a good thing by adding SPF to my email server.  Unfortunately, I am now finding that there are some serious problems with this scheme.  The biggest one has no solution (that I know of) other than to disable SPF: If your ISP forces you to send email only through their SMTP server (lots of ISPs do this now), then your emails will all fail the SPF test because they originate from your ISP's SMTP server instead of your own.  This also occurs when you are travelling and hook up to a random WiFi hotspot.  Many of them funnel email through their SMTP servers.

Someone's written an article about these types of problems.  He's a bit extreme but has some good points.

The volcano display at the Mirage



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Cirque du Soleil show 'O' at Bellagio - before the start



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Very cool Palm-controlled flexible displays from nyxit.com!



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Ryan Sutton from Handmark



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John Chafee from SplashData



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Here I am at the NormSoft kiosk in PalmOne's booth at CES 2005. Come see us at booth #30,374!!



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There's little that pisses me off more than poor customer service.  Twice I have reported a pricing error to www.pricegrabber.com and twice they have responded with a completely irrelevant answer and have taken no action.  Seeing as their core business revolves around having accurate price listings, this is inexcusable, and I will switch to using other price comparison web sites.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/12/25/flights.canceled/index.html

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Even the airlines are joining in on the Christmas Cheer. I got a coupon for up to $150 yesterday. The catch is that my luggage needs to remain lost for 5 days...


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ROTFL

I just had to share this support request...  I'll withhold the name to protect the ... err ... not so innocent.

"I just want to know if I can set Pocket Tunes to vibrate mode so my tunes will vibrate to the beat instead of playing music. I want to drop it down my pants and be happy all day!  Rock on dudes!"

Pocket Tunes Update

Pocket Tunes 3.0.6 is now available with lots of nifty new features, including support for M3U playlists.

I've also updated the Pocket Tunes automation API and the Pocket Tunes skin compiler.

 

Our November newsletter

Don't use blacklists!

Today we sent out a newsletter to all of our users.  It's a perfectly legitimate email sent to existing customers with clear unsubscribe instructions, and we completely honor all subscription/unsubscription requests.  We even process all bounce requests and remove emails that bounce 3 or more times.

Several hours later, SpamCop blacklisted us, and we got a slew of complaints from customers who weren't getting their order confirmations.  This is a perfect example of why blacklists are bad.  Do not use blacklists on your server!  If you use blacklists, you are likely blocking legitimate email because most of these blacklists make ill-informed decisions based on over-zealous user reports of spam.  There is no oversight and very little recourse for valid companies to contest the blacklisting.  For all we know, it could be one of our competitors reporting the spam.

All the user has to do is click the unsubscribe link, and we'll NEVER email them again, but yet they'd rather go through the trouble of filing a bogus spam report.  Go figure.

 

Don't Install the T3 DIA Compatibility PRCs on a T5

We've had half a dozen customers angrily email us that the DIA is no longer working on their T5 after installing Pocket Tunes.  It turns out they installed the T3 DIA compatibility PRCs.  The only solution that I know of is to perform a hard reset and restore your files except for those 2 PRCs.  Two problems here:

1. Why the hell did PalmOne let the T3 compatibility PRCs screw up the T5?

2. Why do customers insist on installing files for devices that they don't have?  (In the past, we've heard from customers who installed these files on their iQues and Zodiacs, too!)

If you're a Palm developer, it's another support nightmare to worry about.  Have fun!