A life more ordinary.

Click the image for a bigger version. The yellow circle shows the herniation. (c) Nick Howe. All rights reserved.

Four weeks ago my lower back started to stiffen and over the course of a week got worse and worse.  I did stretching exercises every day and over the course of the next week it gradually improved until I was back to normal (or so I thought).  During that second week I’d been to see my GP (‘primary care physician’) Dr Brian Moraes about something else and mentioned my back problem.  His diagnosis was “your lower back is too straight.  Don’t wear flip-flops; wear shoes with better arch support”.  Thanks a bunch.

Two days later I was sitting in the driveway repairing sprinklers (again!  I think I need to do a post about garden sprinkler problems.  They seem to fail unusually often).  I reached sideways to pick up a plastic ‘T’ piece and felt like someone had knifed me in the back.  After the initial pain had subsided my back didn’t feel too bad.

Over the next three days the pain in my back got worse and moved into my hip and thigh – classic symptoms of sciatica.  I went to the doctor on Wednesday.  This time I went to see my wife’s GP (Dr Robert Johnson), having lost faith in mine.  Dr Johnson suspected a deep ligament strain and prescribed pain killers and steroids, expecting the problem to fixed in 3-5 days. By the weekend the pain was no better and I made another appointment for the following Wednesday.  This time, Dr Johnson changed his diagnosis to a suspected herniated disc and sent me for an MRI.  He referred me to a spine specialist (Dr Ashish Sahai).

On Friday I went to see Dr Sahai and he confirmed that I had a herniated disk (L2) and prescribed an injection into the spine, which should happen next Thursday.  The injection has to be done under X-Ray to guide the needle, but allegedly I’ll be up and about the same day.

The back is gradually feeling better, but sitting is still very painful and I spend most of the day lying down.  At least it isn’t too difficult to use the iPhone and my small laptop while flat on my back.

I recently installed WIndows 7 on a MacBook Air under VMware Fusion 2.0. The install went cleanly, but I could not get any network connectivity.

Eventually I found this thread on the VMware community site that fixed the problem.  Seems that there is an entry missing from the VMX file.

To fix the problem, make sure the virtual machine is powered off, navigate to the Virtual Machines folder in Documents (or wherever you store your VMware files), right-click on the virtual machine and choose ‘Show Package Contents’.  Scroll down to find the file with the .vmx extension and edit it with text editor.  Your file should contain a lot of lines including:

ethernet0.present = “TRUE”
ethernet0.connectionType = “nat”
ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = “FALSE”
ethernet0.linkStatePropagation.enable = “TRUE”

Add the following line:
ethernet0.virtualDev = “e1000″

Start up the virtual machine.  Windows should install a new driver and you should be good to go.

Despite the massive improvements in Windows-to-mac connectivity, printing from a Mac to a printer attached to a PC seems to be more art than science.  After many attempts I finally managed to track down some instructions on how to print from Leopard (and Snow Leopard) to Windows Vista that actually work.  Other (more simple) ways might work for you; this is the only way I could get printing to work for me.

The original article can be found at here

Step 1: Share the printer in Windows Vista

If you don’t know how to do this you are reading the wrong blog post.

Step 2: Edit the Windows Registry (and maybe Group Policy)

Use the Registry Editor to set the following registry entry (create the key if it doesn’t exist):

• Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Lsa
• Key: lmcompatibilitylevel (this is a DWORD)
• Value: 1

If you are running Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise you will also need to set a Group Policy. Open the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) and set:

1. Computer Configuration/Windows Settings/Security Settings/Local Policies/Security Options
2. Right-click the ‘Network security: LAN Manager authentication level’ policy item, and select ‘Properties’ from the pop-up menu.
3. Select the ‘Local Security Settings’ tab.
4. Select ‘Send LM & NTLM – user NTLMv2 session security if negotiated’ from the dropdown menu.

Step 3: Add the Shared Printer to Your Mac

This is far more difficult than it should be.  You would think you would open the Print & Fax dialog, select ‘+’, select Windows, find your printer in the browse window and select it.  No chance.  Instead you need to:

1. Choose the ‘Print & Fax’ icon in the System Preferences window and Click the plus (+) sign, located just below the list of installed printers.
2. Right-click the printer browser window’s toolbar, select ‘Customize Toolbar’, drag the ‘Advanced’ icon from the icon palette to the printer browser window’s toolbar; click ‘Done’.
3. Click the ‘Advanced’ icon in the toolbar; select ‘Windows’ from the Type dropdown menu.
4. The next step is to enter the shared printer’s device URL, in the following format:
   smb://user:password@workgroup/ComputerName/PrinterName
   An example would look like this: smb://TomNelson:MyPassword@CoyoteMoon/scaryvista/HPLaserJet5000
   The PrinterName is the ‘Share name’ you entered in Vista.
5. Enter the shared printer’s URL in the ‘Device URL’ field.
6. Select ‘Generic Postscript Printer’ from the Print Using dropdown menu. You can try using one of the specific printer drivers from the list. The drivers most likely to work are labeled ‘Gimp Print’ or ‘PostScript.’ These drivers usually include the proper protocol support for shared network printing.

7. Click the ‘Add’ button.

All done.

Good luck.  It worked for me, but I can’t promise anything.

I’ve been struggling for the last 18 months trying to get Time Machine to work with disks attached to my Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS).  Things would work once or twice then stop.  Disks would disappear and reappear.  Arrg!  At this point I should say that external disks on AEBS are not officially supported as targets for Time Machine, so the fact that it doesn’t work is not surprising but very frustrating.

The Apple Time Capsule is supported, but as I have a 4TB Drobo disk array and a new dual-band AEBS I don’t see the point of going out and spending $299 and up for yet another device.  Despite many attempts at different fixes nothing would work.  Ultimately I gave up.

Then a couple of days ago whilst troubleshooting another problem I came across a post in a forum that suggested enabling an option called ‘Use Interference Robustness’.  On the AEBS, choose “manual setup, the Airport pane, Wireless tab, ‘Wireless Options’.

This innocuous little check box seems to have worked miracles.  Since I turned the option on I haven’t noticed any speed degradation on the network, and Time Machine has been working flawlessly!  I’m now three days into the new setup and monitoring it closely.  The big test is going to be a restore (backups are useless if they won’t restore).  Keep watching this space for an update.

Many, many moons ago I worked at a great company called Bechtel Corporation. During my ten years at Bechtel I travelled the world, including a one year stint in Kuwait after Gulf War I.

The lasting legacy of my time at Bechtel are the many friends I made there. Unfortunately I don’t get to catch up with them very often but occasionally a chance crops up and I seize it. This week not one but two chances presented themselves. My first meeting was with Danny Jones.  I worked with Danny in Kuwait in ‘92. I can’t do justice to Danny’s resume and world-traveling escapades here (such as the time he was in Falujah when the bombs started dropping) but it was great to catch up with him over lunch.

My second encounter was with Tommy Bombon.  I love the fact that although we have’t seen each other for a dozen years, we can pick up like it was yesterday.  Tommy comes from the Philippines but has been in the Bay Area since he was 17. Back in the early 90’s Tommy spent five months at the Hammersmith office of Bechtel in London and we became good friends.  Despite being separated by the Atlantic we kept in touch and saw each other regularly – usually on my business trips to San Francisco.  In the mid 90’s Tommy went over to the UK with his family and I met his (then) wife and his young sons, Russel and Mike.  That was (I think) the last time I saw him until this week when a chance discovery on Facebook reconnected us.

So what has this got to do with “Your New Secret”, and what is “Your New Secret”?  Well…Tommy has always been interested in photography and recently formed  AtomicBee Productions to showcase his work and (maybe) to start a second (or is it third?) career.  Many of the videos he’s created are for the a couple of bands, the most recent being Your New Secret.  The common element in those bands is the lead guitarist and lead vocalist – none other than Mike Bombon, Tommy’s son who has grown up quite a bit since I met him in London.

Putting all these things together led me last night to the pool patio of the Sofitel Redwood Shores to meet Tommy who was there filming YNS performing an acoustic set for a private party.  Mike and the guys performed four songs (which I’m sure will be up on their and Tommy’s websites soon).  If you can’t wait, check out my feeble attempt below (sorry for the terrible quality – this was my first attempt to use the QIK live streaming software in my iPhone).

A  beautiful, warm evening under the setting California sun was finished off by a great thai meal with Tommy before I headed up to SFO for the red-eye back to Miami and home.

Thanks to Tommy, Mike and the rest of the band for a great evening.  Hopefully my next trip to Santa Clara in a few weeks will give me the chance to meet Tommy’s wife Cat and daughter Sophie and to sample some wonderful Filipino home cooking.