Tralfaz

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  • Review: The Story of Maths

    Review: The Story of Maths

    A couple of weeks ago, I got a “recommendation” from Netflix about a show called “The Story of Maths“, so I tossed it on my list to watch.

    Last night, I was playing bachelor, so I fired it up. It is a BBC created series, with 4 one hour episodes (57 – 58 minutes each), with an engaging host, Marcus du Sautoy, who provides a lively narration. I watched the first two episodes (The Language of the Universe, and The Genius of the East), and was impressed.

    The focus is on the story, and he tells a (brief) compelling tale around the origins of mathematics, and the contributions of the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the Greeks in the first episode, and then moves into the Chinese, Indians and Arabs in the second, before the West becomes a significant contributor. (more…)

  • Attributes of a Product Manager

    Attributes of a Product Manager

    The role of Product Manager is demanding in any organization. The list of what it takes to be successful is long, and daunting. A great product manager is a great communicator, has technical chops, can climb enormous learning curves with ease, and can contribute at all levels in the organization, from the production floor to the C-suite.

    Often I am asked “Where do you find good product management candidates?” or “How do I become a product manager?”. Not easy questions to answer, and I have posts elsewhere to answer specifically. (more…)

  • Oops – medications

    As a heart attack survivor, I monitor my blood pressure every day. I wake up, fire up the coffee maker, and then sit down to measure my blood pressure. I take it three times, to make sure that it is consistent.

    I take a variety of medications, an ACE inhibitor and a Beta blocker for my blood pressure. I also take a statin, and a anticoagulant, as well as an 81mg aspirin.

    I average a little below 120/80 (often in the 117/77 range), so when I measured at 139/101, 143/97, and 137/99 this AM, I was a bit concerned.

    I checked my pill organizer, and oops, I missed my meds last night.

    I have forgotten it twice in 6 years. Clearly, I will never be able to go off my meds.

    (of course, I had a touch of insomnia last night too. Probably related.)

  • Foiled by old tech – FAX

    Foiled by old tech – FAX

    We are doing some financial things, and needed to send some important documents. As many of my old friends at Open Text would not be surprised by, I needed to Fax these documents. Scan and email is not acceptable, it had to be a fax.

    Not a big deal, we have Comcast with a voice line, and an old but very serviceable Brother Fax machine. It has served us well for probably 15 years.

    I printed, filled out, and signed the forms, extracted the Fax machine from the hidey hole it was stuffed into, and connected it to our POTS port on our Cisco cable modem/router.

    Dialed the number, it range, answered, and negotiated the line. All seemed good.

    Key word: "Seemed".

    Alas, after 5 minutes, and not completing the first page, I hung up and tried again.

    No dice. Alas, my suspicion is that the POTS port is not really a full telephone line, analog converted to 64kbps, but more likely a VoIP compressed optimized for voice 8kbps channel. Pretty common, but it does mean that things that expect the full bandwidth (like modems and fax machines) will error like crazy.

    So, off to the FedEx office, and $2.00 a page later the fax was sent.

    Fax isn't dead, but POTS lines are on life support.

  • Bad times – iPhone died

    Bad times – iPhone died

    When you wake up in the morning and see that your iPhone is giving you a “No SIM detected” error, you know it is going to be a bad day.

    My iPhone 5s is well aged, but it has performed quite well for almost 2.5 years. I was hoping to get another year out of it, but alas, it decided to give up the ghost.

    It worked well, but the “No SIM” error was a harbinger of doom. It is not an uncommon problem in this version, and the last time, the “trick” of turning on and off Airplane mode worked to snap it out of its doldrums. Alas, this time, no such luck.

    The next step was to head to the AT&T store and try a known good SIM card, so at 10:00 AM, I was off to the local retailer (about a 5 minute drive.)

    No dice. (more…)

  • Formal Web Presence

    As I am looking to create a more formal, shall we say “professional” web presence, I am learning a few things.

    First, while my personal sites (like here) are self hosted, and currently managed by myself on Digital Ocean, I want something where I know that if I screw up I don’t lose it all.

    There are plenty of options, but as I am familiar with WordPress, and even got my start on wordpress.com, their hosted solution, I decided to go straight to it as a solution.

    wordpressI get a lot of benefits for this decision. They handle any security issues, they back up my content, and they keep it all up to date. I have a domain, prodbistro.com, I paid for a year of google apps (to get the email), and it was a simple click, click, click process.

    Of course, there are limitations. You can’t add plugins ad hoc. You can’t use themes that you buy elsewhere. You don’t get to add things like Google analytics. Inconvenient, but not fatal.

    Of course, I am currently using a free theme, and have tried several of them. They don’t suck, but they are quite limited. I am good while I am building my presence, but I can see myself opening my wallet and buying a premium theme.

    There is a benefit of buying one of the wordpress.com premium themes, they host the support, and from browsing the support forums, it looks like the support is quite efficient.

    However, my web presence is rising, and I am working on polishing my words, and preparing my offerings.

  • More Apple goodness

    This last week, I “discovered” something that wasn’t really hidden. Somewhere in the evolution of Apple’s iCloud service, in particular the sharing of login information and passwords in the service, a really cool feature is lurking.

    On Tuesday, Barbara had a 2 hour procedure at her doctor’s office, and I waited in the lobby. So I took my iPad and logged into their Wifi so I could continue reading the NY Times. Simple, find the SSID, and enter the password for guest access, and you are online.

    Since I had a couple hours to burn, I pulled out my headphones and plugged them into my iPhone, to listen to Pandora, and I discovered that I automagically connected to the wifi. Because I logged in on my iPad, the credentials were in the system, and my phone just picked it up.

    Of course, I knew that this was possible, and likely read that it was part of the feature set, probably even experiencing it somewhere. But this was the first time that it hit me.

    Way cool.

  • Back on the Fitness Track

    A recent life change (that is the understatement of the century) is providing me with time to improve my fitness. Being a “get out and do something” kind of guy, that means walking, hiking, cycling.

    In the last week, I have done 30 miles of walking (5 days of 6 mile walks), and one 18 mile bike ride. While it is too soon to see tangible results, I definitely feel better, and the exercise give me ample time to think.

    My goals are simple. I would like to shed about 30#’s (not too difficult), get back to being able to ride 30 miles 2-3 times a week, and to be able to run the occasional 10K race.

    All achievable goals.

  • Restaurant Review – Sinaloa Cafe

    Restaurant Review – Sinaloa Cafe

    When I lived in San Jose in the past, one of my favorite places to eat was a little Morgan Hill staple, Sinaloa Cafe. Solid Mexican cuisine, fun atmosphere, and packed on Friday and Saturday nights. Sadly, their original building burned down a few months before we left San Jose for Tucson, and I lost touch.

    I heard that they rebuilt, and moved closer to downtown Morgan Hill, but hadn’t made the trek.

    Well, we moved back in 2014, and finally I got the chance to try it out.

    First, the interior is a bit cleaner than the old place (not that it was “dirty”, but it was a well visited restaurant with 40 years of history). We went on a Wednesday night and arrived at about 6:45. No wait, and we sat in the front part near the bar. The chips and salsa arrived almost immediately, and it was how I remembered it, freshly fried chips, and a tangy salsa, not chunky. Yum. Our first round was their “Cadillac” margaritas, and they were delish.

    We ordered, a Chile Verde burrito for me (wet), and the Enchiladas Especial for Barbara. I also ordered a side of guacamole to nosh on.

    Food was hot, and while I can’t speak for the enchilada’s, I can say that the pork chile verde was delightful. It was zesty, the pieces of port were succulent, and the sides (rice and beans) were a perfect complement. A fabulous meal.

    The second round of drinks was a bit more reserved, a margarita for Barbara, and I had a Pacifico, as I had to drive.

    In summary, it was much how I remembered it, the quality remains high, and we will definitely be returning to the new location. Next time I will buy a new t-shirt, as my old ones are about to fall apart.

    I see that Yelp has them rated at 2.5 stars. Definitely a bum rap.

  • Some Apple Grumbling

    After yesterday’s post, and one a few weeks back about the aging of my laptop, and how battery life seems to be on the wane, I had a bit of a love-hate thing going with my trusty MacBook Air.

    When I got it, I easily (and I mean really easily) got 12+ hours of normal use on a charge. Often a few days between needing to hook it to the charger.

    But with Yosemite, the full disk encryption seemed to take a toll. Still for the added security, I was satisfied. Then El Capitan came, and battery life turned to absolute shit. 4 hours on a charge, watching the battery percentage drop like a late 1960’s Chrysler Newport wagon’s gas gauge on the freeway was no fun.

    However, from opening the activity monitor, I noticed that there were two services that were sucking YUUUUUGE amounts of CPU cycles and battery.

    Googling them lead me to an odd culprit. If you are syncing your contacts with Google Apps accounts (and I was), that often these two services would run rampant, and soak your battery. Disabling the sync from Google Apps, and boom, I am back to a reasonable run rate.

    2 hours of use, writing blogs, and the like, and I am still at 93%. Not bad for a laptop nearing 3 years old.

    Not sure if this is an apple problem, or a google problem, but at least I got my battery life back.