Looks like my home network user account system is going to use AFP provided by <a href="http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/">netatalk</a>, mostly so we can continue to use DropBox. AFS is still the likely candidate for everything else, including system accounts, media storage and other shared filesystem needs. I’m tempted to get a cheap VPS or two and put an AFS DB server, an AFS RO replica server and a kerberos slave out in the cloud that I can host web content easily, and have the filesystem be available when I’m not at home. That, however, is down the line from here – I need to get the home network setup and working before that happens. And I need to get the shed conversion done before I can really mess with building an AFS cell.

Too many projects, too little time.

We are converting the shed in the backyard to be used as an office, so we’re running power and networking out to it. The cables are run from the house already, and now I’ve got to handle the punchdowns of the networking cables, and decide how and where I am going to route wired ethernet in the walls of the shed. Inconveniently, the power and network cables come into the shed on the opposite wall from where I intend to put my computer.

Initially, I’m thinking I should put a 4 port outlet against the wall I intend to put my desk and computer on, and a 2 port outlet next to where the power and networking come into the shed. I’ll wire the switch up directly from the network cable coming from the house, and then run patch cables to each of the wall-port sockets. I have an 8 port Gig switch, so four ports will go to the computer desk, two ports will go to the other desk, one port will be used as the uplink, and the other port will go unused. Perhaps I’ll extend wireless with the unused port some time in the future, but this isn’t critical.

On the house side of the network cable, I’m going to run the cable up through the floor in the craft closet, and put in a small network switch. From here, we can connect the cable modem and Wireless Access Point together, providing wireless for the house, and internet services for both. I’m also tempted to go ahead and run network cable to either end of the house (while I’m under the house already), and add Wireless Access Points there – instead of putting one in the closet. Using Power Over Ethernet, this could made to be pretty simple, and would provide excellent coverage over the entire house.

We will see what I have the motivation for once we start doing the work.

I’ve been using the Geek Diet for the last 10 weeks, and I’m impressed at my progress. I’ve lost just over 30 lbs in those 10 weeks, and all from upping my exercise levels and dropping my food intake. It took a little bit of time to adjust to the new reality, but I’m past the part where it hurts. :) I’ve got another 30+ lbs to go, but watching the weight slowly fall off feels really good.

The 2012 WWDC keynote is here and gone, and while the laptops got a lot of love, none of the desktops were mentioned. It’s pretty clear to me that Apple is going to slowly move their entire product line over to Retina displays, but it’s going to take some time. If you think about it: when they next revise the iPhone, all of Apple’s iPhones for sale will be retina. The flagship iPad and MacBook Pro are Retina. I suspect in 48 months time there won’t be a laptop in their lineup that isn’t Retina.

The harder question is about desktops, which traditionally have physically much larger screens than laptops. The questions about manufacturing yields and costs enters in here, and I think it would be cost prohibitive for Apple to try to ship a 5120×3200 pixel panel. However, if Apple moved from the WQHD (Wide Quad HD, aka 2560×1440) currently shipping in the 27″ iMac and instead put a QFHD (Quad Full HD, aka 3840×2160) panel in the machine, they could make the native resolution in Retina mode equal to a pixel-doubled 1080P screen. Then, looking at the new MacBook Pro as a guide, they could use the scaling options double the old panel to 5120×3200, and then scale it down to the 3840×2160 size. The reviewers with the current MacBook Pro with Retina seem to think the scaled screens look really good, so this is possible with the 27″ iMac.

Even better, there is already a manufacturer who is producing QFHD panels in volume for medical imaging use, and has been doing so since 2010. That is where I think we are going to see Apple go in terms of Retina on the desktop, and they could even conceivably hit it this Fall. I admit that I’m somewhat biased, as I’m going to buy a 27″ iMac this fall, and would really love a Retina screen. When yields improve, they would up the pixel count, but in the interim, this could work for them, and really send the message to developers that this is the future.

It also sends a message to competitors in the hardware space that Apple is playing it’s supply-chain mastery outside the mobile space.

There’s been a lot of desperate handwaving going on about Apple’s apparent failure to release a giant television set with an integrated AppleTV at 2012’s WWDC. I’m very much not surprised, as Apple will release something when they feel they have gotten it right, not when market pressures force their hand. I figure there’s not even a very high likelihood that Apple is even working on an television set – lots of people more internet famous than me have talked about why this is a bad idea for Apple. In short, televisions tend to last a lot longer than computers do, and selling a $99 add-on to the television infrastructure is much easier than selling a wide range of $300-$3000 devices, based on screen size, ports available, etc.

That aside, I think the bigger picture on this has been totally missed. In the WWDC keynote Apple gave some very strong hints about where the platforms are going and what we can expect in the future. AirPlay mirroring is big – any Apple device can output to the TV in your living room over WiFi, and can be controlled from the device sending the video stream. This gets around all the handwaving about “we need an SDK to write apps for the AppleTV” – you have one, it’s called AirPlay. And the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad do the heavy lifting when it comes to CPU cycles, leaving the AppleTV as a display device. It also means that Apple doesn’t have to get into the business of selling various versions of the AppleTV (different storage sizes), and AppleTV’s don’t cycle out as fast as CPU upgrades come along.

And don’t get me started on web browsing on the AppleTV. Televisions are shared screens used by multiple people at once, and hell is watching someone else control a GUI. Sure, Apple could ship Safari on the AppleTV, and do weird things like making it require an iPad or iPhone to control it, but it would just be simpler and more Apple-like to enable AirPlay in Safari.

So, you can’t run the Dropbox client from an AFS volume, which makes my dream of a home AFS cell slightly more remote. However, looking through the Dropbox forums, you can run Dropbox from a networked AFP home directory. While I don’t want to separate my data in that way, I could run most things from AFS, other than our user home directories. This makes life slightly confusing, but it could work.

The real trick is making AFS home directories appear on my Linux/Unix nodes, and AFP shares appear on the Macs. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to set the Macs to use local home folders… and that leads to confusion as well.

Also known as the Hacker Diet, it’s a pretty simple concept – if you burn more calories than you consume, you will loose weight. A pound of fat represents about 3500 calories, so every time you burn 3500 more calories than you consume, you lose about a pound of fat.

That’s pretty much it. There are a number of other things to keep in mind, namely that your body weight fluctuates greatly over the course of the day depending on when and how much you consume of both food and water, so you need to pick a time of the day that you feel is representative and always compare weights at the same time. I’ve picked first thing in the morning, before I take a shower or eat anything.

The final trick of all of this it keeping track of what you do. What you eat, how much water you drink, and what physical exercises you do. To help you do this, there are a number of pretty good apps on the App Store. I’m using MyFitnessPal and the FitBit app at the moment, but when I get a FitBit, I’m going to dump MFP, as I won’t need both. (They both do calorie counting and have food value databases, but the FitBit device will track my walks without me having to do anything extra.)