Now with the 3G iPhone, I cannot travel my morning/evening commute route without dropping my calls, sometimes more than once during the 15 minute commute. Checking the ATT coverage map shows that the location that I drop my calls is an area that has no 3G coverage, which is surrounded by an area of full 3G coverage. In other words, I drop calls when I travel from a 3G coverage area into an area of no 3G coverage. The problem is that the iPhone refuses to hand off the call from 3G to GSM. When the phone does switch to GSM the signal is very good, but the call has already been dropped.

This is one of the issues that I’m having, certainly, amongst others. Many have suggested that the solution is to simply turn off 3G, to which the general response — was annoyance. Though this solution does indeed work, it’s definitely not one I’m terribly thrilled about. One aggravated customer responds:

So we’re paying an extra $15 a month extra compared to the older plan and can barely use it without glitches… and you recommend shutting of 3G to make calls?

I can’t agree more, having ‘upgraded’ from a fairly well-functioning first-generation iPhone to this. Some people reported that they were able to alleviate the issues by simply restarting the phone but unfortunately this had no effect for me. It appears, however, that there’s light at the end of the tunnel! The original poster eventually took his phone back to Apple store and was given a replacement.

On my way home I decided to test the new phone, so I started a phone call while in 3G service and then drove home via the same route that I normally commute (which previously had always included 2-3 dropped calls during the 15 min commute). I was shocked that I did not drop the call the entire way home! Since then I have traveled the same route several times while on calls and still have not dropped a call. I have even watched my phone switch over to GSM while on a call!

That definitely sounds promising, so I’ll have to give it a shot. I’ll be going to the Apple store later tonight, and will post back here in a few days with the results.

Note: Here we will assume that ProFTPd has been configured for SQL authentication.

Restricting Access Via Shell

The first thing that needs to be done is to restrict permissions on the FTP disk so that shell users aren’t allowed to read it. This requires some simple UNIX permissions knowledge, and I used the following to get the job done.

chown -r gongloo:ftp /var/ftp
find /var/ftp -type f -exec chmod 640 {} \;
find /var/ftp -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;

That’ll set the permissions for all directories so that they can be opened by anyone but written to only by gongloo, and permissions for all files so that they can only be read by those in the ftp group and, again, can only be written to by gongloo. This means that any users who have FTP access as well as shell access will be able to list, but unable to read, the files on the FTP disk via shell.

Now all that we have to do is make sure that the ftp UNIX group contains only members that should have access to the FTP disk via shell.

Allowing Access Via FTP

The second thing we need to get done is to allow access to the files via FTP for those users who should have it. This is fairly straightforward if we configure ProFTPd to assign GIDs directly from the SQL database that it uses as its authentication backend. We simply create an entry in the SQL table for ProFTPd groups matching the ftp entry in /etc/group. I used something like the following:

INSERT INTO groups (groupname, gid, members) VALUES
('ftp', '21', 'userid1, userid2, userid3, ..., useridn');

And that’s it! Users listed in the ftp group in the SQL database are now able to grab files off of the FTP disk. Huzzah!

In the near future I will set up permissions so that the FTP file system will be unavailable via SFTP — that way, there’s a privilege separation that’s easier to manage than the hodge-podge that currently exists. At that point, I’ll write another update to show how I did it!

So, a hint to those with similar issues: disable (or uninstall) NuclearMouse before running iPatch update programs. To do so, simply drag the NuclearMouse.bundle out of your SIMBL plugins directory.

What You Can Do With It

The new advanced search should be very familiar to anyone who uses recent versions of Mac OS X, as I’ve modeled it after the same UI concepts that Apple put together for Smart Playlists in iTunes, Smart Folders in Finder, and Smart Mailboxes in Mail. The basic idea is that you add one row to a search table per criteria, adding as many criteria as you desire. Each criteria corresponds to a simple query clause, such as “unseen movies,” “movies from 2007″ or “movies not in English”. These search criteria are combined (to match either ‘all’ of those criteria, or ‘any’, depending on your input) to create a complex compound query, such as “Non-English movies from 2007 that I haven’t seen.” Combine this with some fancy AJAX for dynamic results display and paging, and you have my complete advanced search package.

How It Was Written

I wrote the search new advanced search page using the existing simple search page as reference. All of the new JavaScript was written from scratch and tested independently on a built-from-the-ground-up test bed, having nothing to do with VideoDB or my database. For this small project I delved for the first time into that great Prototype library I’ve heard so much about. I must say, it cut my total development time down by quite a bit and took most of the pain out of JavaScript DOM calls. While it’s nothing groundbreaking, the convenience factor is definitely very much appreciated.

Where It’ll Go From Here

So far, this little project is pretty much in a ‘works for me’ state. I won’t be spending exuberant amounts of time on it, but at some point I would like to clean up the code and submit it as patches to the VideoDB team. As I understand, not only are they relatively open to outside support and patches, but they’ve been actively working on the project as of late as well. Hooray for open source software. Some things that’ll need to be cleaned up is some of the internationalization code that we’ve come to expect from VideoDB that just isn’t there in the new portions that I created, as well as some parameterization issues with regards to how select boxes are created and drawn for selecting criteria (not everything is dynamically generated that should be).

Don’t hold your breath, but there may be more to come around the corner.

Last weekend Tracey, Lina and I went to see Secondhand Serenade live at The Webster Underground and had a blast. Though I was sick and probably shouldn’t have gone in the first place, there was no way I’d miss that show for the world. Tracey and Lina also really enjoyed the show and hope that we can have a repeat experience whenever Secondhand Serenade next goes on tour.

Who’s Secondhand Serenade?

I’ve been listening to Secondhand Serenade for about a year now – since about the release of their debut album, Awake. Having completely fallen in love with them listening to samples online, Lina went about buying their album for me. What I didn’t know at the time was that Secondhand Serenade wasn’t really a full band at all, rather only a one-man-show. John Vesely apparently rented out a studio one day, sick of waiting for a label to pick him up, and cut his own album, layering himself over himself as many times as necessary to complete his songs as he saw fit. Even the album artwork was his; the concept that the entire artistic creation is his and his alone is definitely something I can get behind. Lina had to buy the album online personally from him via his MySpace page. It worked something like this: she sends him the cash via PayPal along with an address, and he ships it out. Now that’s underground.

Since Tracey listens to my music a lot when we both happen to be online and listening to music at the same time, she was introduced to Secondhand Serenade pretty early on as well, and took to it almost as quickly as I did. The fact that John Vesely has a voice to die for certainly piqued Lina’s interest, and when I heard that he had been signed and would be in the area on tour, I almost immediately booked tickets for the three of us.

The Venue

When I found out that Secondhand Serenade would be playing at The Webster Underground, I was pretty stoked. I’d heard great things about the venue, and I have no problem saying that it lived up to my expectations and then some. A cozy little establishment in less than the nicest part of Hartford, The Webster Underground probably couldn’t fit more than two hundred even if packed to the brim and out the door. They have a bar area separate from the stage with a single pool table and only a few bar stools. I definitely loved the minimal-security open-air atmosphere that the whole place had about it. The show was only in medium attendance that night, with maybe a hundred people in the room at best. Including staff and band members.

Probably the coolest part about the venue was the complete lack of security between the audience and the stage; performers entered and exited from the front of the stage, and one of the performers even crowd-surfed during his own performance – definitely something I hadn’t seen before. The second coolest part? The picture at left – that’s us with John Vesely hanging out before the show. That’s right, we got to meet the performers. Just like that.

The Show

Opening for Secondhand Serenade (neglecting a mediocre-at-best local band) we had wonderful performances by Automatic Loveletter, The White Tie Affair, and Making April. I was particularly shocked with how spot-on the vocals of The White Tie Affair were, totally having expected a good sound engineer rather than natural vocal talent when I heard their demos online. I’m definitely looking forward to their upcoming album release.

By the time Secondhand Serenade came on, I really got the feel that these four bands had formed a cohesive unit over the duration of their tour together. At a couple of points through the show, lead singer from one band stepped right on stage while another band was performing and finished the song with them. I thought it was pretty cool to see that much comfort between bands, as I know that often bands go on tour together and develop rivalries.

Needless to say, Tracey, Lina and I were all impressed with John Vesely’s Performance. There’s no doubt that he has natural talent, and he definitely shows it live.

We didn’t bother with any pictures or video for this competition, but you can definitely expect some for the MIT Open next month! Read on for a full recap including the usual results breakdown.

Competition Overview

All in all, the competition was terrifically well run. The vast number of judges employed over the two day competition was truly awesome, and the speed and efficiency with which line-ups, rounds, and callbacks were run was nothing short of amazing. I have yet to see any other competition that was run more smoothly. No competition is without its small organizational hiccups, but I have a huge degree of respect for the Harvard ballroom team and associated persons.

One thing that really caught my eye was how the paperwork — or lack thereof — was handled for adjudication. It turns out that they used a new software system, HustleComp, for the whole results and callback process, which was extremely smooth and slick. They had a free (open but private) wireless network set up which allowed online and instantaneous access to callback and results information. In addition, wireless hand-held devices (iPod Touch devices, namely) were used by all of the check-in staff as well as the judges in order to record callback information instantaneously and without the hassle of running scrutineer sheets back and forth. That’s right, no pen and pad, no mixed up or lost sheets, no fumbling to try to find out which number was circled, and no extra time wasted. Finally, they had several projectors set up around the room to facilitate dissemination of callback information. As a result, they seldom called out any actual couple numbers when doing callbacks, rather expecting each couple to stay on top of that information themselves. And what’s best about the whole setup is that it just worked for the most part. Hooray technology.

Results

Again, I think we outperformed my expectations for the competition despite the fact that we pretty much got creamed. I was especially happy to hear from one of my coaches that there is visible improvement in our dancing. There’s still plenty of room for improvement, though, as visible in the following full results breakdown.

Of note here, we did pretty well in smooth. I feel as though at this point I should take a smooth lesson or two (which neither Lina nor I have ever had before) in order to get a few things to work on within that style.

Looking Forward

Lina’s going to be studying flat-out until her step one boards, which she is scheduled to take two days before the competition at MIT this year. That leaves me practicing mostly on my own for the next month or so, which is actually quite nice as I have a number of things to work on by myself, especially in Standard and Latin. I’m looking forward to being able to correct a number of my own issues that have nothing to do with my partnership.

• Clean WordPress Installation
• Updated K2 Theme
• Various Cosmetic Updates
• New, Reduced Categories

More to come as I continue development and deployment. I look forward to complaints, comments and suggestions.

Enjoy!