Lanchester.net ...musings of an old nerd

It was impossible for me to activate my new Verizon Wireless MiFi following the terrible instructions provided by Verizon. It appears the version of VZAccess Manager (software stored on your MiFi used to activate it) is incompatible with Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). You have to download a new version from Verizon's website to get it to work.

Verizon's MiFi Support page VZAccess Manager software for 10.6 (You'll have to enter your MiFi's phone number, which you can actually get off the WRONG version of VZAccess Manager, but you have to install the wrong version first.)

Before installing the new version of VZAccess Manager, you need to uninstall the old version. The uninstall option is under the VZAccess Manager menu, if I remember correctly. Somewhere along the way, while fussing with the wrong version of VZAccess Manager, something (I think from the cell tower) started updating the MiFi, and it activated on its own, without my credit card info and without my name and address. Geesh. Have to call into them this morning and pass that along.

If you run a website with Drupal content, you understand the need to run cron periodically (http://yoursitename/cron.php). Some hosting companies won't allow cron jobs on their servers, leaving you in a bind. If you have a Mac sitting around that's awake at a certain time every day, just have it and its built-in scheduling system, launchd, do the job for you.

• If you don't have a text editor like BBEdit, download Bare Bones Software's free TextWrangler
• Open a new doc in TextWrangler, and paste in this code: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>Label</key> <string>com.darla.cron</string> <key>ProgramArguments</key> <array> <string>/usr/bin/curl</string> <string>--connect-timeout</string> <string>10</string> <string>http://www.someurl.com/cron.php</string> </array> <key>StartCalendarInterval</key> <dict> <key>Hour</key> <integer>8</integer> <key>Minute</key> <integer>0</integer> </dict> </dict> </plist>
• Modify this line
  <string>com.darla.cron</string>
  so the text com.darla.cron is the same as the name you are going to give the file (see naming file step), without the ending .plist.
• Modify this line
  <string>http://www.someurl.com/cron.php</string>
  so that www.someurl.com is your site's name. (Drupal will need cron.php on the end!
• Modify this text
  <dict> <key>Hour</key> <integer>8</integer> <key>Minute</key> <integer>0</integer> </dict>
  so the start time is what you want. This represents 8 am.
• Save the file to ~/Library/LaunchAgents, with a name such as com.yourname.whatitdoes.plist, where ~/ is your "home" directory (Macintosh HD/Users/yourname). It should save with the correct permissions. (You don't need superuser or root permissions.) You must have the ending plist!
• Open Terminal (Applications/Utilities).
• Type this command (and don't press Enter until I tell you to!):
  launchctl load
  Then drag the plist file you created near the end of the command you just type. This will load the path and name of your plist. NOW press Enter. (There is no need for sudo. As a matter of fact, using sudo will generate an error!)
• The Console (Applications/Utilities) will show any errors. Click on the System log, then in the search field, type in curl. This will filter the results for your curl command.

What does the above plist do? It invokes the Mac's scheduling system, launchd, at a specified time, and tells it to access a certain URL (link) via the curl command. That's all. Drupal has a built-in web page, cron.php, which performs certain maintenance tasks for your Drupal site. You could access the URL manually yourself once a day (or several times a day, depending on how active a site you maintain), but automation is so much more geeky.

I've read a few articles and heard a podcast indicating everyone should stop eating gluten (wheat flour, barley flour, etc.), because our bodies weren't made to process it. I don't eat it because it's apparently a migraine trigger. I find I miss it a lot less than I thought I would, although avoiding it is a pain.

Every now and then you have a hankering for something, like biscuits and gravy, and those items just don't make an appearance on a standard gluten-free menu. But these gluten-free biscuits are good and easy to make. They look good, too.

And to top them off, just make Bill's Sausage Gravy, and modify the recipe thusly:

• Use your favorite gluten-free flour in place of regular flour (Sylvan Border Farm all-purpose GF flour, Bob's Red Mill all-purpose GF...).
• Use 16 oz of Jimmy Dean's regular sausage or Bob Evan's regular sausage (instead of the 12 oz maple sausage the recipe calls for).
• Toss in five dashes of Worcestershire sauce at the end for that extra special "something."
• As a shortcut, you may also modify the recipe to leave the sausage in the pan, and add the flour to the sausage, browning the flour in with the sausage before adding the milk. (Sounds bizarre, but it works fabulously!)

Yummy.

I already have an iPhone with AT&T's 3G network. The network speeds where I live are great, but when we trek out to the east coast to where the brat lives, her 3G speeds are awful. In addition, the 3G networks between here and there are few and far between, so it's a lot of EDGE. So why not kill two birds with one stone? Get a Verizon MiFi and a WiFi Apple Tablet. The MiFi is on its way (1 cent from Amazon). Too bad I can't order a tablet yet.

I just can't understand the reasoning behind the choice of the official name for the Apple Tablet. (I like Andy Ihnatko's name for it during the rumor phase: The RAT or Rumored Apple Tablet.) Are those in charge of Apple so urbane and sophisticated they call "those things" feminine napkins?? It never occurred to them the name was harshly, grossly wrong?

I'm calling it the Apple Tablet.