Some Photos That Inspired the Blog Title

These photos were taken at various times while walking along the coastal trail in Half Moon Bay and at Pillar Point Harbor.

While the summer can have a lot of fog along the coast, the spring and fall can be rather nice. Silicon Valley’s summer heat pulls in fog from the Pacific Ocean, cooling the coast all summer. But when that heat abates in early autumn, the fog retreats and we get a glorious Indian summer on the San Mateo County coast.

The fall is a particularly busy time on the coast as Half Moon Bay prepares for its largest event of the season, the Pumpkin Festival in mid-October. Crowds pour onto the coast every weekend in October to enjoy the weather and to select their Halloween pumpkins.

Walking along the coast provides a wonderful and beautiful chance to escape the hustle of the fast-paced electronics and Internet industries that populate this area. 

New Windows Live Writer

I decided to try the new version of Windows Live Writer as it now claims to provide support for uploading images to Blogger.  The last time I tried using Live Writer it all went pretty well until I tried to upload a post with an image. Since Live Writer couldn't upload the image I wound up going to Blogger and adding the image manually later.  For this first try we'll just keep it simple with a image of the new Writer application.
UPDATE 04/10/08
The new version seems to have no problem posting entries with associated images.

Linksys WIP 300 Internet Phone

I Recently got a chance to try two Linksys WIP 300 Internet Phones in conjunction with a reivew of the DeviceScape connection service. One of the phones supported the DeviceScape service and the other was just a standard WIP 300 phone. Getting the devices connected to the home WiFi wireless network was a snap, enter the ESSID and Security code and the phone immediately obtained an Internet address using DHCP. Getting the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) side of things setup was a little more complicated.

With some help from the SIPPhone service under the topic "Minimum Settings To Configure A SIP Device" I was able to get these devices up an running after creating an account. The primary problem was determining the values to put in for the SIP server and Domain. The above tip provided the correct entries these values and once they were entered the phone went off and registered with the SIPPhone.com service.

Once the configuration was complete and the phones were connected and registered, both with a unique number, I had no problem calling from one to the other using a Wireless 802.11g home network connection.

Next, I headed off on a road trip to the local library where I knew there was an open WiFi network. My hope was that given the DeviceScape software on one of the phones, it would automatically locate the open wireless network and connect/configure itself, but no such luck. I was able to get the phone to use the library network but had to configure a new profile to use it. Fortunately the profile setup supports a site survey option that makes locating and entering the open network ESSID just a few clicks. Once that is entered and enabled you can associate a SIP entry with that profile and the phone again obtains an IP address and registers with the SIPPhone service .

Blogging with Drivel using Blogger 2.0/atom interface

One problem I had the first time using Drivel was the entry had no title. Looking at the documentation I found this was because the Blogger 1.0 specification didn't include titles. Since then I've updated the connection to use the Blogger 2.0/Atom interface which provides space for a title. I also noticed that the Blogger 2.0 interface is due to be discontinued soon so I'm hopeful that the atom interface used by Drivel will continue to work.

Blogging with Drivel

I've been reading through the book "Ubuntu Hacks" by Jonathan Oxer, Kyle Rankin and Bill Childers where they recommend using Drivel as a blogging tool for use on Ubuntu Linux. Looking at some descriptions I found that it would work with Blogger so I decided to give it a try.

After using the Synaptic package manager to download and install Drivel it was immediately avialable under Applications->Internet->Drivel in the Gnome Application menu. Starting it brought up a configuration screen where I selected the account type, entered my username and password and it immediately downloaded my most recent blog entries. From there adding a post was just a matter of entering text and hitting "Post".

Testing Windows Live Writer

 

Microsoft recently announced the availability of a beta version of their Windows Live Writer and after a little investigation I found that it would work with Blogger, so I thought I'd give it a try.  The beta version comes in a single MSI which is easy to install. 

After installing the application you can start Windows Live Writer by selecting Start->AllPrograms->Windows Live Writer (Beta) through the Start menu on Windows.  The startup wizard offers to create a new account on MySpace or you can opt to use an existing service.  In my case I wanted to use Blogger so I selected an existing service.  After filling out a short form with the blog URL, username and password the wizard analyzed the service, editing style and setup Windows Live Writer to edit my blog.  After that it was just a matter of providing the text and pictures.

Beyond the C++ Standard Library

I've been using the Boost Library for some time on both Windows and Linux and find it to be useful, flexible and easy to integrate with the C++ Standard Library. In addition the library is supported on a wide range of compilers and platforms which aids in the development of portable code. The boost library provides good documentation and plenty of examples for each individual library, however I've always wished there was a book that provided a more global look at the Boost libraries.
Recently I've discovered Beyond the C++ Standard Library, An Introduction to Boost by Bjorn Karlsson published by Addison Wesley copyright 2006. Beyond the C++ Standard Library covers 12 of the 58 Boost libraries that your likely to find especially useful. Of the 12 libraries covered in the book six have been accepted for inclusion in the Library Technical Report One (TR1) which means they will probably be included in the next version of of the C++ Standard Library. All told 10 of the 58 Boost libraries have been included in the C++ Standards Committee's Library Technical Report (TR1) as a step toward becomming part of the future C++ Standard.
I haven't dug into the book to deeply yet but it looks like a good follow on to the numeruous and excellent C++ Standard Library books currently avialable.