Chalk this up to yet another "I should have read the man page first" incidents. I kept noticing that my PATH was not set properly in new Terminal sessions, even though I was 100% positive I set it correctly in my ~/.bash_login. It turns out that the man page clearly states that during login, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile are checked, in that order, and executes the first one that it finds. That prompted me to look around to find the ~/.bash_profile file that I had created when following directions to install an application several weeks ago. Merging the files together, everything went back to working as it should. Live and learn.

I've been listening to .NET Rocks for quite a while now. They almost always have good content, and the production value is insanely good. I had problems when they went away from AAC feeds (note: it looks like the AAC feed is back again!) where the entire episode would restart when I would bring my iPod out of a long sleep.

I've also been listening to more audio books as a way to kill time in the car. Most audio books are coming in as mp3, but then you don't get the benefit of speed-up playback or having the iPod remember your position. In order to have iTunes classify a file as an Audiobook, you need to do 1 of the following things:

1. Rip the audio file as AAC rather than mp3 (or convert an existing mp3 file to AAC using iTunes). Afterwards, rename the file extension to .m4b. The default extension for AAC encoding is .m4a, so you need to rename them manually.
2. On Windows, use this free software to do all of the work in one step.
3. On a Macintosh, use this script to do the work for you.

I was getting a strange problem at a client's site recently where on occasion, an ASP.NET application that called a web service would throw different exceptions. The fact that I could claim "It works on my machine" meant little consolation. Stranger still, when debugging the application, it would blow up at different spots. When it finally blew up on a call to Response.Redirect, the client suddenly remembered some code that he used in a similar situation before. The theory was that there is some kind of misconfiguration in the servers somewhere, so this should not be needed, but this work-around has since been added and no additional errors have been reported.

// svc is a WebService that you would use in your ASP.NET application
svc.Proxy = new System.Net.WebProxy("127.0.0.1");
((System.Net.WebProxy)svc.Proxy).BypassList = new string[] { "NameOfLocalMachine" };

After reading David Glassborow's blog on CoRD (a Macintosh application to access Remote Desktop sessions), I decided I needed to document how to use SSH and VNC on a Mac client to access a Windows server. The basic steps are: Create a connection to your server via SSH, Create a tunnel to use over the SSH connection, and use your VNC Viewer over the SSH tunnel.

SSH

I already have SSH set up on the Windows box, using SSH Secure Shell, so I'll just focus on how to get the Mac connected to it. The application I like best right now is Fugu, a freeware, open-source application from the University of Michigan. You need to create a tunnel in Fugu by selecting the SSH | New SSH Tunnel menu item. Once selected, you fill in:

• The remote server's IP address in "Create Tunnel to" (e.g. 192.168.1.76)
• The remote port number for the VNC Server (by default: 5900)
• The local port number that you will use to detect when TCP/IP traffic should be forwarded to the remote server over this tunnel
• The external IP address of your home PC in "Tunnel Host"
• The Username that you will use to login to the Windows server
• The default port for SSH communication, i.e. 22

Once you have all of this set up, and press Start Tunnel, you will have an SSH connection and tunnel running to the Windows box on the other end.

VNC

Now that SSH is setup, we need to connect VNC to the host machine. I'm using the RealVNC viewer for Mac OSX, and it seems to work alright. All you need to do is connect to 127.0.0.1:1 in your VNC Viewer. The 1 tells VNC viewer to run on port 5901, which was the port we wanted to forward to the host PC. I do get a warning message about needing to enable Protocol 3.3 option, so I'll look into setting that on the server since I'm running UltraVNC there. I've also noticed a very significant slow-down when running over SSH compared to running a direct VNC connection to the host PC.

Another option is to run the Java version of VNC Viewer from TightVNC. My limited testing showed that it was an acceptable alternative. Unfortunately, the VNC application on the Mac that everyone talks about, Chicken of the VNC, doesn't work in my setup. I get a rectangle encoding error when connecting to my remote host.

Copying files

One reason I chose to use Fugu is that you can also use it to copy files between the remote host and your local machine. File copying over SSH is done by using the standard SFTP and SCP applications, which Fugu supports. If you absolutely do not need file copying capabilities, then JellyFiSSH) seems to be the SSH application that people talk about a lot.

Another promising way to copy files is by using MacFusion. MacFusion lets you mount a virtual disk on your OSX system and interact with the volume like any other disk. You need to install MacFUSE first, in order to use MacFusion. In the future, I'd probably go with MacFusion and JellyFiSSH, but I was never able to get MacFusion to successfully mount the volume (Error message: "The folder "xyz" could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges.". The credential information I entered was the same as for Fugu and other SSH connections that I have used in the past, so that doesn't make a lot of sense. The log files were less than helpful on the Mac and Windows side, too. On the Mac side, it simply reports "failed to detect remote user ID", and the Windows side didn't show anything in the Event Viewer, despite numerous setting changes in the Local Policy application).

Other Information

This is a good screen cast on how to set your Macintosh up as a VNC server, and walks you through several other general topics. JellyFiSSH and Chicken of the VNC are highlighted in this video.

For as long as I can remember, I've had my computers set up to allow me to log in and view them from afar. I'm sure I've played with (er, sorry, "evaluated") just about every technology relating to this space.

I recently came across ShowMyPC.com, which is an open source project. This is a drop-dead simple wrapper of SSH and VNC to quickly and easily allow remote access to computers. If you need to do support for your tech-challenged friends, have them go and click the "Show My PC to Remote User" link, click Start, and give you the password. Then you can run the viewer side, enter the password and you're good to go.

There are some minor items that would make this a better offering (run in service mode, longer session support, etc.), but in the meantime, it is a very compelling product.

As some may remember, I took up biking again this year. It has been an extremely enjoyable and rewarding endeavor to get back into, and I'm happy with the results. (We'll talk about my obsessive nature in pursuing such things later. )

One thing I noticed is that this hobby tends to collect a lot of IT folks. The field is littered with technology add-ons and technical talk to optimize your riding. I just did the 150 mile Scenic Shore ride this past weekend, and I met several people who talked about some of the technology. As a result I thought I'd share some links of some really cool gadgets and web-sites related to biking. I figure there at least some out there that will appreciate this. If you have any other accessories that you use and love, post them here in the comments.

• Garmin Edge 305 - This is a GPS device that tracks multiple categories (position, climb, speed, cadence, heart rate). The battery power is ok, the price is steep, but the data it gives you is endless. I really wish the device could have actual maps on it so you could see (e.g.) "Oh, I'm coming up on Highway 42 now".
• Even though you don't have maps, you can create a course on your PC and sync it to your Edge.
• Ascent software - If you have an Edge, it comes with bundled software that is adequate. But for $35, this software is well worth it. The downside for most people is that it only runs on a Mac. The upside is that the Animation, Statistics, Profiles, Google Earth usage, and tight integration with the Edge are unsurpassed.
• MapMyRide.com - This is a web site that lets you input routes and capture your training data online. You can also publish routes to share with others (see the link to the Scenic Shore 150 above for one such example). You can either draw the route by hand, or integrate with your GPS device. As a social networking site, I think this site does it right. It's very targeted in what it tries to do, and it succeeds in that regard.
• Using a Garmin Edge to Plot Cycle Routes with Google Maps on Linux, Macs and Windows - Nice technical information that a developer may find helpful on what you need to do to interface between Google Maps and GPS devices.

I got turned on to BackPack from 37signals as a way to better manage lists between multiple people in a collaborative fashion. I really love the Voicenotes addon, too!

Being a typical developer, I figured I'd use the BackPack API to extend the system. I found a nice 4-part article on Coding4Fun that already did the hard work, so now my job got even easier.

The only thing to really note here is that you get the API token from the Accounts page of your BackPack site. After that, things just worked great. I'll extend the code to do things like only display active items, and integrate with the Voicenotes to play the sound file, but really, it seems that 95% of what I wanted to do is already done in this article. Thanks to Michael Campbell for writing the series.

When connecting via Airport to an existing Linksys wireless router, and that router is using WEP, you will need to prefix the key with a dollar sign ($) when asked for the password. This makes the password be treated as a hex number and will get you connected.