Saturday, December 29, 2007

Calendar-Geek
Ok, so here's the thing; I want to synchronize my Palm PDA with my Google Calendar.
I can sync my palm to my PC with the built-in software that comes with the standard Ubuntu install. The trick is synchronizing that with Google Calendar.
The default calendaring application in Ubuntu is Evolution, and that's where my palm stuff gets synchronized to. So I needed to find a way to get Evolution sync'd with Google. There's a service called scheduleworld that can act as a central repository to synchronize with a variety of platforms, including Google, so I signed up for a free account. But how do I get the information to scheduleworld? That's where SyncEvolution comes in.
First you have to add the repository in Synaptic under the settings menu, select Sources, and then on the "Third-Party Software" tab, add "deb http://www.estamos.de/download/apt stable main" then back in Synaptic, search for "SyncEvolution", and you'll find three packages. For the version of Evolution that comes with Ubuntu 7.10, I needed to install "syncevolution-evolution-2.12" From there, it gets a little more complicated because I need to do some stuff in the terminal, and edit some config files. Fortuneately, the Getting Started link above is pretty specific for what I needed to do. Specifically, I had to do the following 3 commands in a terminal window:
  • mkdir -p ~/.sync4j/evolution
  • cp -r /usr/share/doc/syncevolution/scheduleworld ~/.sync4j/evolution/
  • gedit ~/.sync4j/evolution/scheduleworld/spds/syncml/config.txt
    • set "username" and "password" and choose a unique string for "deviceId"
Once all that was done, I could run the command "syncevolution scheduleworld", which would sync my PC's Evolution calendar with ScheduleWorld, and trigger ScheduleWorld to automatically sync with my Google calendar.
I added a launcher of type "Application in Terminal" with the "syncevolution scheduleworld" command in it so that I could to the sync in one click.
So in summary, I now have it set up so that I can click the SyncEvolution launcher, then sync my Palm, then click the SyncEvolution launcher again, and all my calendars will be up to date everyhwere!

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Bicycle-Geek
I competed in my first bike race recently. The Iceman Cometh Challenge is the worlds largest single-day mountain bike race. It's held every November in Traverse City, Michigan.
There are around 2000 competitors, and I raced in the beginner category.
With my only training being my daily (8 mile, flat) commute to work, I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to finish the 27.5 mile race on hilly trails. My goal was to finish in under 3 hours.
A good friend built up a nice hard-tail bike for me to race on, and I ordered a bunch of Gu to keep me energized.
The weather for the race was perfect, and all was going smoothly until about 2/3 of the way through the race. Inexplicably, the bolts that hold my chainrings started coming loose. I made the mistake of not bringing any tools, so when I stopped there was not much I could do. As I was trying to tighten them as best I could with my fingers, another cyclist stopped to offer help. He asked what I needed and how long it would take; when I told him I just needed a wrench for a few seconds, he produced one and I was all fixed! The joy was short-lived however because the loose rings must have done something to my chain, which broke within a few minutes. So I started walking in the hopes that I would find an aid station and someone with a chain tool. Fortunately, after walking for about 20 minutes another racer stopped to offer a chain tool! Understandably, he didn't want to wait for me to make the repair, so he left his tool with me on the chance that we would see each other at the finish. I worked very hard to remember his name (I'm terrible with names), and though I didn't see him at the finish, I was able to find his hometown from the results board and look him up later in the phonebook so I could settle-up with him.
So I did finish, and even with the mechanical difficulties, I made my goal of under 3 hours!
It was a very positive experience, and I hope to do it again next year. Next time I will bring plenty of tools, and I will also be very willing to help other racers like I was helped.

Here's photographic proof that I crossed the finish line: