My Bicycle Routes - Mostly in Japan

I decided to create some Google "My Maps" to show the bike routes I take near my house in Yokohama, Japan. There are some really nice routes along the Sakai and Mekujiri Rivers. See them here: Rick Cogley's Bicycle Routes - Mostly in Japan.

Exporting Google's "My Maps" as KML

I have been spending some time making Google Maps in "My Maps", such as this bike route down the Sakai river, then along the Shonan coast, and back home.

Some applications, like Google Earth, use KML data to represent map routes. There is an easy link now, in My Maps, to click and open the map directly in Google Earth. But if you need the KML data for importing elsewhere, you can save it this way:

First, in one of your maps in Google My Maps, copy the URL for "View In Google Earth" by right clicking the link and copying the URL. On a mac, it's "copy link location".

Then in a blank browser window, enter the URL in the address bar:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&output=nl&msid=103784915361440638280.00045507229fde71c84ca

Now change the output by switching output=nl to output=kml. Entering the URL will give an option to save. Save the KML file somewhere on your drive, and then you can import it elsewhere.

Japan Cycling Route - Totsuka, Mekujiri, Sagami, Ebina and back

This last weekend I researched and tried a new cycling route, which turned out to be about 59 km. The route goes through Totsuka, Shonandai, Up the Mekujiri River on a bike path ("jitenshado" 自転車度), across Zama to the Sagami River, Down the Sagami on some trails, and back across to the Mekujiri River bike path via Ebina. I entered the route on Google Maps so other English-speaking cyclists in Japan can enjoy it.

Riders should note, that the Mekujiri RIver Bike Path has sections where every 100 meters there is a "gate" you have to swerve through ostentatiously to keep speeds down. If you want to just ride straight and fast, the Yamato Fujisawa Jitenshado is better. Also, the Sagami River bike path is not so much bike path but rather more trail, and is still underdeveloped and so would not be appropriate for a road bike. I read online that they are building a proper bike path along the Sagami River, which is due to be complete in 2011. I tried to pick routes where if the route was along a road, at least there was a decent sidewalk available to use, for riders who are still a little nervous about riding on the road directly.

Enjoy!

Celebrating Regiment, with Rodney Strong Symmetry

I decided to celebrate Phantom Regiment's DCI win with some Rodney Strong 2000 Symmetry, pedigree below. Man! This is good wine! Thanks Jack!

Phantom Regiment - I am Spartacus!

Phantom Regiment - Drum & Bugle Corps won the 2008 DCI Drum Corps International Championship yesterday with a evocative, powerfully emotional show based on the story of Spartacus, the gladiator and slave-leader who led an army of slaves against Rome in the Servile Wars. The 1960 movie with Kirk Douglas has a famous scene that has been quoted and parodied, where the Romans demand Spartacus come forward, and his fellow slaves say "I am Spartacus" to try to sacrifice themselves to protect their leader.

Regiment did not represent the mass crucifixion on the Appian Way, but did use stylized, theatrical violence in an operatic way, to show the tension between the Romans and the slaves. Their entrance to the field was epic, with "slave-master" hornplayers mimicing the brutal treatment slaves received at the hands of their Roman captors. The drum major Will Pitts was even wheeled out on his conductor's podium, as though it was a chariot or throne and he was the Roman Emperor.

There was love, there was betrayal, there were changing loyalties, and there were murders. Words don't describe it, so perhaps join DCI's Fan Network and view it for yourself.

Regiment did drum corps fans proud this season with this show, and not only won the title, but the high percussion trophy as well on awesome-sounding Dynasty equipment. Congratulations to the 2008 Phantom Regiment members and staff. Paul Rennick, I'm so proud of you - please keep producing the awesome drumlines you have been, and let me keep reliving my youth! I will never forget this show!

I am Spartacus!  

Bicycle Training Log

I bought a new Centurion bike last winter, and have been riding regularly. Decided to keep a log of my travels and hopefully chart any progress. Usually I ride down the "Fujisawa Yamato Jitenshado (cycling road)" to Enoshima, round to Kamakura and back home via Ofuna. It's a good trip for me, at about 35 km depending on which route I take.

When I look at the average times of the Tour de France riders, I am humbled. They are incredible athletes, averaging something like 38 to 40 kph on the stages. Lance Armstrong averaged something like 40-plus kph over a whole tour, which means he was probably doing 30 uphill and 60 down. Wow!

21 Years in Japan

Today marks my 21st anniversary of coming to Japan! I've officially spent half my life here, and things are going well!

Apologies: The Japanese Tradition

I've lived in Japan since 1987, and it never ceases to amaze me about the way there's constant apology going on for fairly trivial stuff, but none when it's really needed. Anyway, I'm probably guilty of apologizing too much myself, having been here in Japan so long. This video Apologies: The Japanese Tradition, provenance unknown, is a fairly hysterical look at apology here, and is spot on. Check out the guy's facial expressions - quite humorous in places.

Photo Tampering Throughout History

So "Photo Shopping" is not a new thing. Not at all! Check out Photo Tampering Throughout History for a taste of what's been done.

New Microsoft Remote Desktop Client for OS X

Microsoft released a new Remote Desktop Client version 2, with a useful multi-session feature (the previous version could only connect one Windows system at a time). Download it here.

Saving Downloading FLV Files using the Safari Activities Window

If you have a YouTube video you covet, you can save it to your hard drive using the videodownloader Firefox extension, or using other websites such as KeepVid. For sites that do not work this way, you can grab the file from Safari's "Activities" window. Here's how:

1. Load the page with the video and let the video start playing.
2. Select Activity from the Window menu.
3. In the list of all the URLs referenced in the current page, you will see one file that is indicated as being larger than the rest. Press and hold Option, then double-click on this listing to download the file to your Downloads folder.

Now you can use FFMPEGX or the like to convert the FLV to another format, or, extract its audio.

Have fun but don't fill up your boot drive, kids. :-)

Open Source Project Management Software - OpenProj

Wow, a full-blown opensource project management app from Projity. Check out OpenProj.

Emacs GUI Version for OS X - Aquamacs

Found an interesting Emacs GUI - Aquamacs. Works with Japanese as well. Now if I can only get over my allergy to all those keyboard shortcuts.

SproutCore - Apple's Open Source Javascript Development Platform

If the new desktop-like apps in MobileMe, Apple's replacement for its .mac service, are any indication, SproutCore is going to be the source of some really incredible apps. AppleInsider calls it Cocoa for the Web.

O'ReillyMaker - Roll Your Own O'Reilly Book Cover

Ever wanted to bust out a cool book cover just like the ones O'Reilly does? Well now you can, thanks to www.oreillymaker.com. When you hit publish, you get your very own cover URL to show to all your friends.

TextMate Japanese Input Bundle

I use TextMate for text editing in OS X and love its clean interface and features, but the defaults do not allow Japanese input and choosing Fonts has been problematic. Never fear. Hetima san, the developer of SafariStand, released a bundle called CJKInput for TextMate to allow Japanese input, and has a font to boot. I searched a few times for this in English and Japanese, but for some reason never came across it despite its having been around for quite some time.

At any rate, you can download CJKInput, and unzip and copy the tmbundle file into:

~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/PlugIns/

Hetima's Font-Forged, Mono-Space Japanese font ForMateKonaVe.ttf is here, so you can install that in the normal way. Enable it in TextMate Preferences, and away you go. The font is an amalgam of a Japanese font and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, so it looks good too.

Design Stencils - Yahoo! Design Pattern Library

I occasionally search for design stencils and keep an eye out for them via Google Alerts and so on. Yahoo has a library of stencils available at Design Stencils - Yahoo! Design Pattern Library which has a set available in Visio, Photoshop, Illustrator and OmniGraffle format. For OmniGraffle stencils, there is also GraffleTopia.

If you are not familiar with the concept, design stencils are an illustration that is made available in a design or illustration application, so that you can just quickly drag the illustration from a picker menu, to your drawing canvas. That way, instead of reinventing the wheel and illustrating an office chair every time, you can just drag a stencil in and Voila! you're done. Makes life easy, and makes you look good.

Large 450MB Upgrade to Leopard 10.5.3

This AM I upgraded my two macs, a first generation MBP and a G5 iMac, to Leopard 10.5.3. Please note, the upgrade is large, at 450 MB, and when you finally restart it seems to cause Mail and iCal to freeze. You need to allow it to perform its processing on those apps, because it apparently does some kind of check on the mail and calendar contents.

After the upgrade, I noticed that Option-Cmd-Eject (sleeps the system) works more smoothly, and that opening the laptop from the sleep state is quicker. Perhaps that is a coincidence, but this update is said to have covered a large number of bugs.

How to - Remove Leopard Wiki Mailing List Spam

If you have group mailing lists set up in Leopard Server, these conveniently link to the Leopard Wiki page for the group. However, spam can sully the look of your page, so you may need to perform some routine maintenance at some point. Here's how you can do this.

SSH to your Leopard Server as admin, then "sudo bash" to log in as root. Navigate to group mailing list folder:

bash-3.2# cd /Library/Collaboration/Groups/itsystems/mailinglist

Use grep to find the mailing list pages with spam. In our example, let's say we have a lot of "spam" messages coming from the FileMaker server - announcement-type messages that have a limited usefulness by nature. These all have, say, the string "FMServer" in them, so we grep this way:

bash-3.2# grep -R "FMServer" *

cb90d083b749806821e589295fa79609.page/page.plist: FMServer Information...
...

Copy the results to the clipboard, then search and replace in a text editor to remove the "/page.plist: " bit. Put "rm -rf" in front of each line, with no double quotes of course, then copy this block of commands to the CLI to execute. Grep again to confirm that the result is nothing:

bash-3.2# grep -R "FMServer" *

Remove the index.db file then restart:

bash-3.2# rm -rf /Library/Collaboration/Groups/itsystems/index.db
bash-3.2# serveradmin stop teams
bash-3.2# serveradmin start teams

You can also do "sudo serveradmin stop teams" if you are not logged in as root. The index.db is created after a few seconds, which you can confirm.

bash-3.2# pwd
/Library/Collaboration/Groups/itsystems
bash-3.2# ls -la
total 6704
drwxr-x--- 12 _teamsserver _teamsserver 408 May 8 12:37 .
drwxr-x--- 6 _teamsserver _teamsserver 204 Apr 1 12:47 ..
-rw------- 1 _teamsserver _teamsserver 3040287 May 8 10:55 backup.mbox
drwxr-x--- 25 _teamsserver _teamsserver 850 May 8 06:42 discussion
-rw-r----- 1 _teamsserver _teamsserver 2074 May 8 08:53 extrainfo
-rw-r----- 1 _teamsserver _teamsserver 377856 May 8 12:37 index.db
drwxr-x--- 18 _teamsserver _teamsserver 612 May 8 12:30 mailinglist
-rw-r----- 1 _teamsserver _teamsserver 1278 May 8 12:37 metadata.plist
drwxr-x--- 2 _teamsserver _teamsserver 68 Apr 1 12:47 public
drwxr-x--- 2 _teamsserver _teamsserver 68 Apr 1 12:47 resources
drwxr-x--- 3 _teamsserver _teamsserver 102 May 8 06:25 weblog
drwxr-x--- 23 _teamsserver _teamsserver 782 May 8 06:42 wiki

Hope this how-to is helpful to someone.

Linux and DOS Command Comparison

When systems engineers are just beginning to learn, or are faced with a situation of having to change from one OS to another, it is good to have a comparison of commands or methods to ease the transition. Thinking of one such situation, I put together Linux and DOS Command Line Equivalents, and hope it is useful for some.

The technology behind the page is interesting, and it's such a pleasure to have tools like this. The page uses a Google Spreadsheet as its data source, and the GTable macro from Loghound's PlusKit. In a styled text page in RapidWeaver, I inserted commands like the following (without the space between @ and gtable):

@ gtable((pRjiYF5QI6j4rHxaJXP7rRQ, id:sysadmintable1, theme:lab-report, header:true, search:section="Entering Commands",ignore:section))

This feeds the ID of the Google Spreadsheet and other query parameters to the Google Docs API, and several of these commands resulted in the nicely-formatted page within the confines of my site. The best thing is, when I update the Google Spreadsheet, my site's page updates automatically.

The page itself is admittedly imperfect, but it is a start. Hope you enjoy it.