As promised, here is the follow-up to my previous post, "Looking for a New Linux".
Fedora 16 was released three days ago and I've been experimenting with it in both the GNOME 3.2 interface and the XFCE interface. While GNOME is definitely pretty, it leaves a lot to be desired. The desktop, for instance, is a massive no-man's land where you can't put a icon. To do anything at all, you have to click the "Activities" button at the upper left corner of the screen, which activates a side bar reminiscent of Mac OS X's Dock. I have to agree with its many critics, including Linus Torvalds himself, who characterized it as an "unholy mess". In my opinion, the interface places form over function to such an extent that it's practically useless. This problem is only exacerbated by the fact that you can't customize the interface at all. It's even more locked down that Mac OS X and not nearly as user friendly.
The XFCE interface, on the other hand, is a lot better. I first experimented with Fedora 16 with XFCE and felt immediately at home, both because it bears a close resemblence to GNOME 2.x, but it also felt a little Mac-like at the same time.
Fedora 16 XFCE had a sort of glitchy startup, which required my intervention to solve, so I found myself thinking toward Ubuntu, but I wasn't completely sold on the Unity interface. Eventually, I realized I could have the best of both worlds with Xubuntu 11.10, which is the latest Ubuntu with XFCE.
Pronounced "zoo-BOON-too," Xubuntu offers the a highly customizable, yet user friendly interface that's light on system resources, yet retains the best of Ubuntu's user friendly features. And with just a few mouse clicks, I was able to make it look a lot like Mac OS X. All I can say is "Honey, I'm home!"
Now here's the crazy part: This system is so user friendly, the installer gives you access to the Web while the operating system is installing. Believe it or not, I'm actually typing this on my HP laptop as the operating system installs!
Update: 11/16/2011
So I've had Xubuntu installed on my HP laptop for almost a week now and all I can say is I love it. I've never felt as at home with any Linux distribution. I've always found Linux to be usable but it often took an effort to enjoy it. This time, it's different. Granted, it's not as slick as Mac OS X, but it also isn't nearly as frustrating as Windows. I feel like I have control and that's a good thing. The important part is I can use it without thinking about what operating system I'm on. I just do what feels natural and intuitive and most of the time it just works. I've always believed alternatives are a good thing, and this is definitely a good alternative; in fact, this is as close as I've found to what I've envisioned as my ideal Linux. It's not perfect by any means, but then what system is? The bottom line is when I'm using it, I'm focusing on the task at hand and not some quirk of the operating system.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Looking for a new Linux
For the record, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Mac person, but for some perverse reason, I've had a continuing fascination with the GNU/Linux operating systems for the past few years. I've long been a fan of free and open source software (FOSS). I've used Mozilla and later Firefox as my browser of choice, and although I use M$ Office in my work out of necessity, my preferred productivity suite for the past decade has been OpenOffice.org, although lately I've switched my allegiance to its progeny, LibreOffice.
I first encountered Linux up close and personal early in 2009 when I helped a buddy of mine install Ubuntu Linux on another friend's laptop. His WindowsXP installation had a terminal case of "Windows Rot" and he had lost the installation and recovery discs, so the only alternative was a "nuclear" option of reformatting the hard drive and installing Linux. Once we got it up and running, I was sufficiently impressed to obtain a cheap used laptop on eBay, install Linux on it, and write an article about the experience for PCSolutions magazine.
I installed OpenSUSE Linux on that laptop because it had relatively modest graphics requirements and although I'm not a Windows fan, the modified GNOME interface, which mimicked WindowsXP in many respects, made the transition to Linux fairly intuitive. Most amazingly, the computer ran much faster on Linux than it did on Windows.
I made good use of that computer for about three years, periodically updating the OS as new versions of OpenSUSE came out. Each new version ran a little better on that machine, except for the one time I decided to try the KDE interface. It finally died in a horrible hard drive crash a few weeks ago, and because the hardware was so outdated, I just couldn't justify replacing the drive. Instead, I went back to eBay to see what might be available in a used laptop on which to further my Linux experimentations.
The replacement was an HP nc6000 laptop. Although it's five years old, it was a high-end piece of hardware when it was new, so it has aged relatively gracefully. I got the thing for a paltry sum, partially because it was loaded with Fedora Linux instead of WindowsXP. That suited me just fine, except the computer is running version 14 of Fedora, for which support will end in a few weeks when the final release version of Fedora 16 comes out.
For that reason, I've been shopping for a new Linux distribution to replace Fedora 14. My front runners are Fedora 16 (now in beta release), OpenSUSE 12.1 (now in beta release), and Ubuntu 10.10 (now in full release). All three of these releases will take some getting used to as they all sport revised user interfaces. Fedora and OpenSUSE will have GNOME 3.2 and Ubuntu will have Ubuntu's proprietary Unity interface.
I recently downloaded a live CD of Fedora 15, which also uses GNOME 3.x, and I was less than impressed. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but much of the way it worked seemed counter intuitive. For this reason, I'm shying away from Fedora 16, although I am willing to load up a live CD and take it around the block. One mark against Fedora is it contains no proprietary software like Adobe Flash Player or even codecs for playing mp3 files or DVDs. It's taken me a while to get that stuff working under Fedora 14 and I still can't play a DVD.
I have not yet run OpenSUSE 12 from a live CD and will probably wait at least until it comes out in a release candidate version. I have read that its interface is virtually identical to that of Fedora 16. The big difference, in my experience, is OpenSUSE makes it a bit easier to install proprietary software when needed.
Although I've spent a lot of time with the 11.x releases of OpenSUSE, I'm somewhat inclined to let this one go because I have had difficulty getting wireless networking up and running on other machines I've loaded OpenSUSE onto. By contrast, wireless networking on Fedora and Ubuntu have been up and running from the proverbial git-go. All I've had to do is enter my WEP key and I'm off to the races, even running from a live CD.
Right now, Ubuntu 10.10 is my favorite of the three. Although its Unity interface has GNOME 3 underpinnings, it is much more refined and somehow more intuitive despite the fact that it's quite different from more conventional Windows and Mac OS X interfaces. The other big selling point for me is that everything works from the first start-up and the aforementioned proprietary pieces can be downloaded and installed when you're installing the operating system, provided you have a working Internet connection. That's all good stuff in my book.
The only reservation I have about Ubuntu is it seems to run a little sluggishly at times. I'm sure this will improve when I'm running it from the internal hard drive, but it does give me pause. Fedora 14 is lightning quick by comparison.
Another option that I have not yet explored is to install Fedora 16 with the xfce interface. It's more basic, more Windows like, but it should run well since it's designed to take up minimal system resources. I read not too long ago that Linus Torvalds, who invented Linux, has switched over to xfce from GNOME as his interface of choice since the introduction of GNOME 3.x.
When it comes to choices for this little Linux box, it seems I've got an embarrassment of riches. When I make a final decision, I'll let you know.
I first encountered Linux up close and personal early in 2009 when I helped a buddy of mine install Ubuntu Linux on another friend's laptop. His WindowsXP installation had a terminal case of "Windows Rot" and he had lost the installation and recovery discs, so the only alternative was a "nuclear" option of reformatting the hard drive and installing Linux. Once we got it up and running, I was sufficiently impressed to obtain a cheap used laptop on eBay, install Linux on it, and write an article about the experience for PCSolutions magazine.
I installed OpenSUSE Linux on that laptop because it had relatively modest graphics requirements and although I'm not a Windows fan, the modified GNOME interface, which mimicked WindowsXP in many respects, made the transition to Linux fairly intuitive. Most amazingly, the computer ran much faster on Linux than it did on Windows.
I made good use of that computer for about three years, periodically updating the OS as new versions of OpenSUSE came out. Each new version ran a little better on that machine, except for the one time I decided to try the KDE interface. It finally died in a horrible hard drive crash a few weeks ago, and because the hardware was so outdated, I just couldn't justify replacing the drive. Instead, I went back to eBay to see what might be available in a used laptop on which to further my Linux experimentations.
The replacement was an HP nc6000 laptop. Although it's five years old, it was a high-end piece of hardware when it was new, so it has aged relatively gracefully. I got the thing for a paltry sum, partially because it was loaded with Fedora Linux instead of WindowsXP. That suited me just fine, except the computer is running version 14 of Fedora, for which support will end in a few weeks when the final release version of Fedora 16 comes out.
For that reason, I've been shopping for a new Linux distribution to replace Fedora 14. My front runners are Fedora 16 (now in beta release), OpenSUSE 12.1 (now in beta release), and Ubuntu 10.10 (now in full release). All three of these releases will take some getting used to as they all sport revised user interfaces. Fedora and OpenSUSE will have GNOME 3.2 and Ubuntu will have Ubuntu's proprietary Unity interface.
I recently downloaded a live CD of Fedora 15, which also uses GNOME 3.x, and I was less than impressed. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but much of the way it worked seemed counter intuitive. For this reason, I'm shying away from Fedora 16, although I am willing to load up a live CD and take it around the block. One mark against Fedora is it contains no proprietary software like Adobe Flash Player or even codecs for playing mp3 files or DVDs. It's taken me a while to get that stuff working under Fedora 14 and I still can't play a DVD.
I have not yet run OpenSUSE 12 from a live CD and will probably wait at least until it comes out in a release candidate version. I have read that its interface is virtually identical to that of Fedora 16. The big difference, in my experience, is OpenSUSE makes it a bit easier to install proprietary software when needed.
Although I've spent a lot of time with the 11.x releases of OpenSUSE, I'm somewhat inclined to let this one go because I have had difficulty getting wireless networking up and running on other machines I've loaded OpenSUSE onto. By contrast, wireless networking on Fedora and Ubuntu have been up and running from the proverbial git-go. All I've had to do is enter my WEP key and I'm off to the races, even running from a live CD.
Right now, Ubuntu 10.10 is my favorite of the three. Although its Unity interface has GNOME 3 underpinnings, it is much more refined and somehow more intuitive despite the fact that it's quite different from more conventional Windows and Mac OS X interfaces. The other big selling point for me is that everything works from the first start-up and the aforementioned proprietary pieces can be downloaded and installed when you're installing the operating system, provided you have a working Internet connection. That's all good stuff in my book.
The only reservation I have about Ubuntu is it seems to run a little sluggishly at times. I'm sure this will improve when I'm running it from the internal hard drive, but it does give me pause. Fedora 14 is lightning quick by comparison.
Another option that I have not yet explored is to install Fedora 16 with the xfce interface. It's more basic, more Windows like, but it should run well since it's designed to take up minimal system resources. I read not too long ago that Linus Torvalds, who invented Linux, has switched over to xfce from GNOME as his interface of choice since the introduction of GNOME 3.x.
When it comes to choices for this little Linux box, it seems I've got an embarrassment of riches. When I make a final decision, I'll let you know.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Streaming simplicity
For the past few years, I've been fond of listening to streaming radio stations while I work on the computer. When I first got broadband around 2004, I discovered the radio tab in iTunes and was instantly hooked. My enduring favorites include:
Last night, I found a better way to listen to Internet radio streams, if only on my laptop, which runs Fedora Linux. My new best friend for streaming is a little application called Radio Tray, which puts a little icon on the system tray and allows one to select a stream to listen to. Its simplicity is sheer elegance. The interface is nothing but a drop down menu from which I can choose a stream. The best part is I can get to any of my favorite Internet radio stations with a single mouse click and have tunes streaming from my speakers in a matter of seconds.
Right-clicking the icon brings up a preferences menu from which one can add more stations or set a sleep timer so you can listen to your favorite stream while you drift off. This truly is a case where less is more. I just wish they would come up with a version for Mac OS X.
- Haveyouherd radio--If you're into bands like Donna the Buffalo and Railroad Earth, this is your slice of Internet heaven.
- Reallymusic Radio--I'd swear someone's rifling through my record collection and playing them online when I'm not looking.
- WNCW FM--Probably the most original public radio station in North Carolina. Curiously, their stream consistently goes silent on Fridays from 12:00 noon 'til 1:00 p.m. when they play "Frank on Fridays," an hourlong weekly exploration of the music of Frank Zappa.
Last night, I found a better way to listen to Internet radio streams, if only on my laptop, which runs Fedora Linux. My new best friend for streaming is a little application called Radio Tray, which puts a little icon on the system tray and allows one to select a stream to listen to. Its simplicity is sheer elegance. The interface is nothing but a drop down menu from which I can choose a stream. The best part is I can get to any of my favorite Internet radio stations with a single mouse click and have tunes streaming from my speakers in a matter of seconds.
Right-clicking the icon brings up a preferences menu from which one can add more stations or set a sleep timer so you can listen to your favorite stream while you drift off. This truly is a case where less is more. I just wish they would come up with a version for Mac OS X.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Sad Macs and black turtlenecks...
Ironically, his passing comes almost exactly 20 years to the day after I took delivery of my first Macintosh computer--a Mac Classic with two megabytes of RAM and a 40-megabyte hard drive. It came with a monochrome StyleWriter ink jet printer and I felt like I was ready to take on the world. Two decades, 10 Macs and two iPods later, I still consider myself among the Apple faithful, grateful to Jobs, his early partner Steve Wozniak, and their vision that has so greatly changed our world. I'm not going to recount his exploits and accomplishments. That's been done to death (sorry, bad pun). Instead, I'll concentrate on how Jobs' vision has impacted my own life.
At the time I got that first Mac, Jobs was in the midst of his exile from Apple and the company was heading into its darkest days. I was just beginning graduate school. The Humanities Computer Lab at N.C. State University had a whole bunch of IBM PCs with green screen monitors sporting WordPerfect 5.1 on DOS, but in the back were four or five Macs. They were the original all-in-ones with nine-inch black-and-white screens, but sitting down at one of those was a whole different experience. I knew within minutes of touching one for the first time that it was the computer for me. Less than a month later, I ordered one from the campus bookstore and I haven't looked back.
Having a Mac back in the early '90s made me feel like I was part of the cool kids' club, something I've seldom experienced in my life. For once in my life, I was the one with the cool toys, especially compared to the DOS-based PCs most people had. But more than that, I had a machine that would allow me to unlock my creative side in a way that I had never before been able to do.
Although to be completely honest, had I started graduate school a year later, I might well have settled blithely into the world of Windows as those DOS PCs were replaced in the lab the following year with newer Windows models. Instead, I've always seen Windows for the derivative work it is. Microsoft developed Windows after getting a look at the Mac operating system's source code in order to create Word, which was originally a Mac application.
Of course, the graphical user interface didn't originate with Apple. Legend has it Apple stole the design from Xerox after examining Alto, a prototype project developed at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The more accurate version of the story, as told by Steve Wozniak in his autobiography iWoz, is that Apple adapted the graphical interface first to the Lisa and then the Macintosh with Xerox's blessing because unlike the upstarts from Apple, they didn't see it as having any commercial viability. Jobs, on the other hand said he realized almost instantly that he was seeing the very future of computing. It was that laser focused vision, the ability to see what the market wanted before the market even knew it existed, that will be sorely be missed at Apple and in the technology industry as a whole.
That's why I show my tech writing students a YouTube video of how Jobs crafted his presentations when we talk about oral communication. I want to expose them to a little of that passion and vision so that maybe, just maybe, one of them will catch the spark and do something insanely great with his or her life. That would be the highest tribute anyone could pay Steve--or me.
Update--Shortly after I posted this, I went out to run some errands and found myself at a nearby thrift shop. My only purchase was a black turtleneck shirt.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Pullin' Parts
There are few experiences I have found more satisfying than getting an old car and fixing it up to be, well, maybe not just like new but definitely closer to new or newish than it was when I acquired it. I've done this twice. The first time, I was in high school back in the early '80s and got a 1968 VW Beetle that was mechanically sound and needed, well, just about everything else. It was the second Bug I had owned. The first one was a '72 model that looked great and had some serious mechanical problems. As part of the transition between these two, I picked up a wrecked '71 Super Beetle that offered just about everything I needed to fix both of the other cars with a bunch of parts left over. The engine went into the '72, which I sold for enough to just about break even on all three cars. Most of the interior and some of the body panels went into the '68, although the front fenders and trunk lid had to be sourced from elsewhere. I took the best of the available parts and made the most of what I had, and when I had it finished and painted, the end result wasn't half bad. It was lots of fun and I took great satisfaction in knowing I had made the car what it had become.
Flash forward some 30 years and it's become deja vu all over again. Last fall, I needed a car and was short on funds. My previous car had developed some serious mechanical issues that were beyond my financial means to repair, so it was more cost effective to buy another car, albeit a cheap one, and sell off the old one.
The solution I found was a '95 Pontiac Bonneville that was nicely equipped and in reasonably good mechanical condition, but had a few minor issues, not the least of which was that the paint was peeling off most the trunk and rear quarter panels. Still, it was reliable, affordable transportation. It kept me on the road and I knew I could fix most of the little issues it had.
In looking at another car, the seller told me of a junk yard in a neighboring town called Pull-A-Part (www.pullapart.com) that had terrific prices on used parts, but with one little catch--you have to bring your own tools and harvest the parts yourself. Whle this means extra work for the customer, sometimes in less than pleasant weather, it also has some distinct advantages. The first is you can pick and choose from the available vehicles to find the best available part for your need. The second is that in removing the part, you can educate yourself on the procedure before you do it to your own car. Better to do this on a car you can afford to mess up. Plus, it's okay to be a little brutal to these donor vehicles; they don't feel any pain.
I've had incredible luck at my local Pull-A-Part. I've found lots of things I needed form a turn signal lamp to a power antenna, as well as little upgrades like a better radio and a center console cup holder that wasn't originally included on my car.
I mentioned the paint on my Bonneville earlier because one of my summer projects has been to sand and spot paint the areas where the paint was peeling. It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than it was before I started. The worst of these areas was the trunk lid, which was missing about half its paint. I wasn't looking forward to doing all that sanding in the summer heat and I knew the end result wouldn't be all that great when I got finished.
Fortunately, on a recent trip to Pull-A-Part I harvested a power antenna from a white Bonneville with much better paint than mine. How ironic, I thought, that this car, the same color as mine, should be sitting here at the end of its useful life with such good paint. Then I took a closer look at the trunk lid and realized the swap would be pretty easy. Just take out four bolts and run some wires for the tail lights and automatic trunk release. The only catch (no pun intended) was the lock cylinder since there was no trunk key with the donor car.
After a little online research at www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com, I learned that a lock cylinder swap really isn't that difficult—just remove a retaining clip and it falls out—so I found someone with a pickup truck and some time on his hands (this was actually the most difficult part of the entire project) and made a return trip to Pull-A-Part. It was a hellishly hot July day, but with a little blood from scraped knuckles and a whole lot of sweat, we got the new trunk lid off the donor car and swapped it over onto mine. The car now looks great with a whole lot less effort than to sand and paint it myself and a whole lot less expense than to have it painted professionally.
Having an old car and fixing it up is a singularly gratifying experience I would recommend to anyone who knows his or her way around a wrench or socket set. There is simply no better way to become one with your vehicle. And having a resource like Pull-A-Part makes it all the more cost effective.
Flash forward some 30 years and it's become deja vu all over again. Last fall, I needed a car and was short on funds. My previous car had developed some serious mechanical issues that were beyond my financial means to repair, so it was more cost effective to buy another car, albeit a cheap one, and sell off the old one.
The solution I found was a '95 Pontiac Bonneville that was nicely equipped and in reasonably good mechanical condition, but had a few minor issues, not the least of which was that the paint was peeling off most the trunk and rear quarter panels. Still, it was reliable, affordable transportation. It kept me on the road and I knew I could fix most of the little issues it had.
In looking at another car, the seller told me of a junk yard in a neighboring town called Pull-A-Part (www.pullapart.com) that had terrific prices on used parts, but with one little catch--you have to bring your own tools and harvest the parts yourself. Whle this means extra work for the customer, sometimes in less than pleasant weather, it also has some distinct advantages. The first is you can pick and choose from the available vehicles to find the best available part for your need. The second is that in removing the part, you can educate yourself on the procedure before you do it to your own car. Better to do this on a car you can afford to mess up. Plus, it's okay to be a little brutal to these donor vehicles; they don't feel any pain.
I've had incredible luck at my local Pull-A-Part. I've found lots of things I needed form a turn signal lamp to a power antenna, as well as little upgrades like a better radio and a center console cup holder that wasn't originally included on my car.
I mentioned the paint on my Bonneville earlier because one of my summer projects has been to sand and spot paint the areas where the paint was peeling. It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than it was before I started. The worst of these areas was the trunk lid, which was missing about half its paint. I wasn't looking forward to doing all that sanding in the summer heat and I knew the end result wouldn't be all that great when I got finished.
Fortunately, on a recent trip to Pull-A-Part I harvested a power antenna from a white Bonneville with much better paint than mine. How ironic, I thought, that this car, the same color as mine, should be sitting here at the end of its useful life with such good paint. Then I took a closer look at the trunk lid and realized the swap would be pretty easy. Just take out four bolts and run some wires for the tail lights and automatic trunk release. The only catch (no pun intended) was the lock cylinder since there was no trunk key with the donor car.
After a little online research at www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com, I learned that a lock cylinder swap really isn't that difficult—just remove a retaining clip and it falls out—so I found someone with a pickup truck and some time on his hands (this was actually the most difficult part of the entire project) and made a return trip to Pull-A-Part. It was a hellishly hot July day, but with a little blood from scraped knuckles and a whole lot of sweat, we got the new trunk lid off the donor car and swapped it over onto mine. The car now looks great with a whole lot less effort than to sand and paint it myself and a whole lot less expense than to have it painted professionally.
Having an old car and fixing it up is a singularly gratifying experience I would recommend to anyone who knows his or her way around a wrench or socket set. There is simply no better way to become one with your vehicle. And having a resource like Pull-A-Part makes it all the more cost effective.
Friday, July 8, 2011
...The Final Frontier
About an hour ago, I witnessed the end of an era as the space shuttle Atlantis cleared the launch pad for the final time. The mission, which will take the shuttle to the International Space Station on Sunday, is scheduled return to the earth on July 20, just two days shy of the forty-second anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.*
I was five years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface. In fact, the space program was the first news event I remember being aware of and interested in as a child, although I do remember being somewhat irritated when my Saturday morning cartoons were interrupted for live coverage of Alan Shepherd hitting golf balls on the moon. Nonetheless, I was a big astronaut fan. I ate Space Food Sticks, drank Tang, played with my Major Matt Mason toys, and watched Star Trek religiously, considering it a foregone conclusion that the starship Enterprise would someday be a reality.
I also remember feeling very let down when the Apollo lunar missions came to an end in 1972. Somehow Skylab and the Apollo/Soyuz "handshake in space" in the mid-1970s seemed more than a little anti-climactic after exploring the moon. It seemed to me that we should be reaching out even further to Mars and beyond instead of shackling ourselves to low earth orbit.
That future seemed to be within our grasp in the late 1970s, when the first shuttle prototype, the Enterprise, named for TV's most famous starship, rolled out of the hangar to sound of a military band playing the theme from Star Trek while several members of the show's cast looked on. Still, TV continued to stay a few steps ahead of reality.
A couple of years before the space shuttle Enterprise made its debut, another show called Space: 1999 took to the airwaves. Set on a moon that had been blasted out of earth's orbit by massive explosions at a lunar nuclear waste dump, the show depicted what seemed a very realistic view of earth's next logical step in space, a permanent colony on the moon. The Eagle spaceships on that show not only bore the name of the first lunar lander, they looked as though their design could have evolved from the Apollo LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) spacecraft. Unfortunately, that vision of the future also has yet to come to pass.
As the 1980s dawned, so did a new era for America's efforts at manned space exploration. In the spring of 1981, the space shuttle Columbia set off on its maiden voyage, lifting the nation's spirits with it. I remember watching TV coverage of the event and thinking 'I feel good about America again' as the malaise of the post-Vietnam/post-Watergate era seemed to fall away with the solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank. I regarded the concept of a reusable spacecraft as a bold first step toward that starship future. Unfortunately, the space shuttle program had a few obstacles to overcome in order to reach its full potential, including the tragic loss of the Challenger in January 1986 and Columbia in February 2003.
The first problem was that the original intention for the shuttle was to ferry people and materiel to a space station. Originally, that space station was to be Skylab, but the shuttle was also needed to give Skylab the occasional boost to a higher orbit. Unfortunately, the shuttle's development took longer than expected and Skylab's orbit continued to decay until it crashed back to earth in 1979, two years before Columbia left the launch pad for the first time. By the time the shuttle program got under way in earnest, it was without a destination and instead served as both shuttle and station for orbital experiments. It would not be until the mid-1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the shuttle began fulfilling its original mission by making regular visits to Russia's Mir space station and then serving as a heavy lift vehicle for sections of the International Space Station.
In the spring of 1996, I was fortunate enough to witness one of those launches, STS-76, when Atlantis took off to Rendezvous with Mir. The husband of a cousin of my mother's was on the shuttle crew, so my parents and I were included on the guest list and got to watch the pre-dawn launch from the bleachers across the river from the launch pad. The flames from the shuttle's main engines and solid rocket boosters lit up the still dark sky in a spectacular manner. There are no words to adequately describe the experience of seeing a shuttle launch up close and personal. Unless you have experienced the deep roar and felt the vibration of those engines as the shuttle takes to the sky for yourself, you cannot fully comprehend the true extent of its power and majesty.
Seeing Atlantis leave the pad again today, albeit on a 19-inch computer display, brought back memories of that launch and of watching Apollo launches on TV as a child. It was a bittersweet moment as the event was set against the backdrop of NASA's uncertain future.
The International Space Station's mission continues, although it will now be serviced exclusively by Soyuz capsules for the foreseeable future. NASA is reportedly developing a new five-person crew capsule to take astronauts to the space station Apollo style. Supposedly, it may also be the basis of a spacecraft that one day may head to Mars.
It seems ironic to me that the path to the future in space may be marked by a return to our past. Until the eventual end of the shuttle program was announced in 2003, I had always assumed the shuttle would be replaced by a newer, more sophisticated space plane. In retiring the space shuttle, we are also giving up a major technological capability, just as happened when the Apollo lunar missions came to an end and the Concorde supersonic airliner made its final landing. It may make a certain fiscal sense, but that doesn't mean it feels right.
I have to hold onto the hope that humanity's best days in space are still ahead of us. It just remains to be seen whether it's NASA, Russia, or an entrepreneur like Richard Branson who gets us there.
As this chapter in space exploration comes to a close, let us pause to remember the crews of Apollo I and the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, whose sacrifices have paved our way to the Final Frontier.
*My memory was faulty here. Apollo 11 landed on the moon July 20, 1969, so Atlantis was actually scheduled to return to earth on the anniversary. It would have been a nice bit of symmetry, had it happened as planned; however, the shuttle's final mission was extended by a day. Either way, it was a helluva ride!
I was five years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface. In fact, the space program was the first news event I remember being aware of and interested in as a child, although I do remember being somewhat irritated when my Saturday morning cartoons were interrupted for live coverage of Alan Shepherd hitting golf balls on the moon. Nonetheless, I was a big astronaut fan. I ate Space Food Sticks, drank Tang, played with my Major Matt Mason toys, and watched Star Trek religiously, considering it a foregone conclusion that the starship Enterprise would someday be a reality.
I also remember feeling very let down when the Apollo lunar missions came to an end in 1972. Somehow Skylab and the Apollo/Soyuz "handshake in space" in the mid-1970s seemed more than a little anti-climactic after exploring the moon. It seemed to me that we should be reaching out even further to Mars and beyond instead of shackling ourselves to low earth orbit.
That future seemed to be within our grasp in the late 1970s, when the first shuttle prototype, the Enterprise, named for TV's most famous starship, rolled out of the hangar to sound of a military band playing the theme from Star Trek while several members of the show's cast looked on. Still, TV continued to stay a few steps ahead of reality.
A couple of years before the space shuttle Enterprise made its debut, another show called Space: 1999 took to the airwaves. Set on a moon that had been blasted out of earth's orbit by massive explosions at a lunar nuclear waste dump, the show depicted what seemed a very realistic view of earth's next logical step in space, a permanent colony on the moon. The Eagle spaceships on that show not only bore the name of the first lunar lander, they looked as though their design could have evolved from the Apollo LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) spacecraft. Unfortunately, that vision of the future also has yet to come to pass.
As the 1980s dawned, so did a new era for America's efforts at manned space exploration. In the spring of 1981, the space shuttle Columbia set off on its maiden voyage, lifting the nation's spirits with it. I remember watching TV coverage of the event and thinking 'I feel good about America again' as the malaise of the post-Vietnam/post-Watergate era seemed to fall away with the solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank. I regarded the concept of a reusable spacecraft as a bold first step toward that starship future. Unfortunately, the space shuttle program had a few obstacles to overcome in order to reach its full potential, including the tragic loss of the Challenger in January 1986 and Columbia in February 2003.
The first problem was that the original intention for the shuttle was to ferry people and materiel to a space station. Originally, that space station was to be Skylab, but the shuttle was also needed to give Skylab the occasional boost to a higher orbit. Unfortunately, the shuttle's development took longer than expected and Skylab's orbit continued to decay until it crashed back to earth in 1979, two years before Columbia left the launch pad for the first time. By the time the shuttle program got under way in earnest, it was without a destination and instead served as both shuttle and station for orbital experiments. It would not be until the mid-1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the shuttle began fulfilling its original mission by making regular visits to Russia's Mir space station and then serving as a heavy lift vehicle for sections of the International Space Station.
In the spring of 1996, I was fortunate enough to witness one of those launches, STS-76, when Atlantis took off to Rendezvous with Mir. The husband of a cousin of my mother's was on the shuttle crew, so my parents and I were included on the guest list and got to watch the pre-dawn launch from the bleachers across the river from the launch pad. The flames from the shuttle's main engines and solid rocket boosters lit up the still dark sky in a spectacular manner. There are no words to adequately describe the experience of seeing a shuttle launch up close and personal. Unless you have experienced the deep roar and felt the vibration of those engines as the shuttle takes to the sky for yourself, you cannot fully comprehend the true extent of its power and majesty.
Seeing Atlantis leave the pad again today, albeit on a 19-inch computer display, brought back memories of that launch and of watching Apollo launches on TV as a child. It was a bittersweet moment as the event was set against the backdrop of NASA's uncertain future.
The International Space Station's mission continues, although it will now be serviced exclusively by Soyuz capsules for the foreseeable future. NASA is reportedly developing a new five-person crew capsule to take astronauts to the space station Apollo style. Supposedly, it may also be the basis of a spacecraft that one day may head to Mars.
It seems ironic to me that the path to the future in space may be marked by a return to our past. Until the eventual end of the shuttle program was announced in 2003, I had always assumed the shuttle would be replaced by a newer, more sophisticated space plane. In retiring the space shuttle, we are also giving up a major technological capability, just as happened when the Apollo lunar missions came to an end and the Concorde supersonic airliner made its final landing. It may make a certain fiscal sense, but that doesn't mean it feels right.
I have to hold onto the hope that humanity's best days in space are still ahead of us. It just remains to be seen whether it's NASA, Russia, or an entrepreneur like Richard Branson who gets us there.
As this chapter in space exploration comes to a close, let us pause to remember the crews of Apollo I and the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, whose sacrifices have paved our way to the Final Frontier.
*My memory was faulty here. Apollo 11 landed on the moon July 20, 1969, so Atlantis was actually scheduled to return to earth on the anniversary. It would have been a nice bit of symmetry, had it happened as planned; however, the shuttle's final mission was extended by a day. Either way, it was a helluva ride!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
It's All Done with Magnets
For the past year or so, I've been using a Sonicare electric toothbrush. It's an amazing bit of technological kit that blasts plaque away with a brush head that vibrates at ultrasonic frequencies. I had used inexpensive battery toothbrushes for several years prior to acquiring the Sonicare, and I was fascinated to note several significant differences between it and its less expensive counterparts.
The first major difference is the lack of a motor. The other battery toothbrushes I have used have all had a small electric motor, which drives the the head with a simple mechanism that either causes the bristles to oscillate back and forth or spin around.
The Sonicare also oscillates, but there is no motor. The only physical connection between head and handle is the threaded collar that keeps the head in place. Instead of driving the head with the spinning shaft of a motor, this toothbrush uses an electromagnet that reverses polarity several thousand times a second, causing the head to vibrate several thousand times a second. Unlike traditional battery toothbrushes, which will run without a head attached, the Sonicare will not. Its head completes the mechanism.
A secondary advantage to this design is it allows the handle to be a completely sealed unit, ideal for operating in a wet environment like a bathroom--or a mouth. This sealed design continues at the bottom of the handle, where there are no electrical contacts despite the fact that the handle contains rechargeable batteries. Here again, magnetism comes into play as the batteries are charged by a process called magnetic induction. It's not the most efficient design, as it takes almost 24 hours to give the batteries a full charge, but it does facilitate a design where there are no metal contacts to allow leakage or oxidation.
As amazing as this design is, the batteries, two non-replaceable AA size nickle-cadmium (Ni-Cad) cells, are definitely its weak point. I was genuinely surprised the manufacturer, Phillips, opted for lower quality Ni-Cad cells when superior nickel metal hydride (NiMH) cells would have added, at most, a few pennies to the cost of the toothbrush.
The problem with Ni-Cad cells is twofold: They generally have a faster discharge rate than NiMH cells and they develop a 'memory' pattern in which they have a very short operational life between charges if they are charged at frequent intervals without being fully discharged first. To get the best life out of Ni-Cad batteries, they need to have deep cycle charges, which can be achieved by charging the batteries only when they are fully depleted. Fortunately, the Sonicare toothbrush is engineered to maximize battery life by alerting the user when when the batteries need charging by giving a beep and flashing an LED under the power button. While the instructions mention the low battery indicator feature, they don't state specifically that the battery should only be charged when this feature calls for a charge. On average, I have to charge my toothbrush about twice a month.
This is somewhat problematic given that many users will doubtless keep the toothbrush in its charging stand between uses. Over time, this can lead to premature battery failure, which spells the end of the toothbrush's operational life since the sealed handle can't be opened without destroying it.
I believe that NiMH batteries would be more suitable for this application because they hold a charge longer and have much less of a memory effect. I proved the superiority of NiMH batteries to myself a few years ago when the Ni-Cad batteries in my Remington electric razor died on me. Because the outer casing was held together with screws, I took it apart to find conventional AA-sized Ni-Cad batteries with solder tabs inside.
After searching around the Internet, I found a source for the batteries and saw they had both Ni-Cad and NiMH batteries available at virtually the same cost. I opted for the NiMH batteries, soldering them with a minimum of fuss. In the process, I extended the life of the device at about a tenth the cost of replacing it. My replacement batteries outperformed the originals in every way. Not only do they hold a charge longer, but six years later, they are still going strong, whereas the originals only lasted about five years.
Given what I know about these batteries, it boggles my mind that Phillips would choose an inferior battery for an otherwise highly advanced toothbrush. The only rationale that comes to my mind is one of built-in obsolescence in that it's not always in the manufacturer's best interest to let the consumer have too much of a good thing.
Update: 10 December 2011
I was in Target yesterday and saw a new entry level Sonicare model. This one uses conventional AA batteries and sells for the relative bargain price of $20, less than half the price of my Sonicare Essence. Because the batteries are replaceable, you can use either alkalines or rechargeables and you don't have to throw the handle away when the batteries wear out. If I were in the market for a Sonicare today, this model would be on the top of my list, along with some rechargeable NiMH batteries. The brush heads are still frightfully expensive, but at least one would potentially get a longer service life out of the handle.
The first major difference is the lack of a motor. The other battery toothbrushes I have used have all had a small electric motor, which drives the the head with a simple mechanism that either causes the bristles to oscillate back and forth or spin around.
The Sonicare also oscillates, but there is no motor. The only physical connection between head and handle is the threaded collar that keeps the head in place. Instead of driving the head with the spinning shaft of a motor, this toothbrush uses an electromagnet that reverses polarity several thousand times a second, causing the head to vibrate several thousand times a second. Unlike traditional battery toothbrushes, which will run without a head attached, the Sonicare will not. Its head completes the mechanism.
A secondary advantage to this design is it allows the handle to be a completely sealed unit, ideal for operating in a wet environment like a bathroom--or a mouth. This sealed design continues at the bottom of the handle, where there are no electrical contacts despite the fact that the handle contains rechargeable batteries. Here again, magnetism comes into play as the batteries are charged by a process called magnetic induction. It's not the most efficient design, as it takes almost 24 hours to give the batteries a full charge, but it does facilitate a design where there are no metal contacts to allow leakage or oxidation.
As amazing as this design is, the batteries, two non-replaceable AA size nickle-cadmium (Ni-Cad) cells, are definitely its weak point. I was genuinely surprised the manufacturer, Phillips, opted for lower quality Ni-Cad cells when superior nickel metal hydride (NiMH) cells would have added, at most, a few pennies to the cost of the toothbrush.
The problem with Ni-Cad cells is twofold: They generally have a faster discharge rate than NiMH cells and they develop a 'memory' pattern in which they have a very short operational life between charges if they are charged at frequent intervals without being fully discharged first. To get the best life out of Ni-Cad batteries, they need to have deep cycle charges, which can be achieved by charging the batteries only when they are fully depleted. Fortunately, the Sonicare toothbrush is engineered to maximize battery life by alerting the user when when the batteries need charging by giving a beep and flashing an LED under the power button. While the instructions mention the low battery indicator feature, they don't state specifically that the battery should only be charged when this feature calls for a charge. On average, I have to charge my toothbrush about twice a month.
This is somewhat problematic given that many users will doubtless keep the toothbrush in its charging stand between uses. Over time, this can lead to premature battery failure, which spells the end of the toothbrush's operational life since the sealed handle can't be opened without destroying it.
I believe that NiMH batteries would be more suitable for this application because they hold a charge longer and have much less of a memory effect. I proved the superiority of NiMH batteries to myself a few years ago when the Ni-Cad batteries in my Remington electric razor died on me. Because the outer casing was held together with screws, I took it apart to find conventional AA-sized Ni-Cad batteries with solder tabs inside.
After searching around the Internet, I found a source for the batteries and saw they had both Ni-Cad and NiMH batteries available at virtually the same cost. I opted for the NiMH batteries, soldering them with a minimum of fuss. In the process, I extended the life of the device at about a tenth the cost of replacing it. My replacement batteries outperformed the originals in every way. Not only do they hold a charge longer, but six years later, they are still going strong, whereas the originals only lasted about five years.
Given what I know about these batteries, it boggles my mind that Phillips would choose an inferior battery for an otherwise highly advanced toothbrush. The only rationale that comes to my mind is one of built-in obsolescence in that it's not always in the manufacturer's best interest to let the consumer have too much of a good thing.
Update: 10 December 2011
I was in Target yesterday and saw a new entry level Sonicare model. This one uses conventional AA batteries and sells for the relative bargain price of $20, less than half the price of my Sonicare Essence. Because the batteries are replaceable, you can use either alkalines or rechargeables and you don't have to throw the handle away when the batteries wear out. If I were in the market for a Sonicare today, this model would be on the top of my list, along with some rechargeable NiMH batteries. The brush heads are still frightfully expensive, but at least one would potentially get a longer service life out of the handle.
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