Take that, Google

Metro: welcome to a world full of opportunities.

Microsoft announced that they heard the demands of their users to return the Home button to the desktop of their new Windows 8.1, while users respond that, instead, they have returned to insult their intelligence.

Microsoft may die within a decade, but it will not without resistance.

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Major computer companies are no more intended to provide technology to handle large amounts of information, nor to create needs we can no longer live without and for which we will end up paying, not even trying to sell advertising. Besides all the above, some try hard to hoard as much personal information as possible and then use it or sell it for something as innocent as designing an advertising campaign ... or as dark as massive spying for political purposes.

When Microsoft realized that the future battlefield was not in the living room but in the pocket —where people carry their phones ... and their wallets— they dropped Media Center and devoted themselves to design an interface where effectively mix all the goals from the beginning of the personal computer era.

First, a technical stable, efficient, safe and functional enough solution to deem reasonable to requiere the payment of a license, although not a solution in the level of GNU / Linux. On the other, something capable of creating addiction, a kind of feeling of being connected, of being alive, to interact, a feeling to which nobody could run away, like Apple. Also, you cannot miss a billion glances a day from captive users of Windows to sell advertising, Amazon-style. If everything worked well, Microsoft could get a major chunk from the life of billions of people and take it away from Facebook. Your contacts, your messages, your interests, all captured on hidden servers in remote places, thanks to a clever combination of incentives and baits, and where information and propaganda are indistinguishable.

So to this interface they called it Metro: a colorful canopy made of information bricks designed to be operated with a finger, from a train station or a sofa in which to locate one of those store-like shops —like the ones their competitors love to show— from where to try to strangle independent developers and to end up selling movies. All very interstitial, safe and modern.

And Microsoft saw that Metro was good, so they decided that it was also good for humanity, and embedded it into their brand new and ultrafast Windows 8 to make it absolutely ubiquitous in offices, living rooms, pockets and ... bathrooms.

Never mind that millions of people who spend more time at the computer screen than with their families and are only trying to perform their daily work faster may be forced to go through an interface designed for touch screens, no matter they have one or not, they want it or not: The future is small screens, and Microsoft is not going to budge. They have not even drop the obsolete Office ribbon with which they once tried to force the use of large screens and mouse —although now the classic desktop is nothing more than an annoying appendix hanging from Metro.

This kind of schizophrenia is the "user experience" that Microsoft has decided to impose on their captive customers, those who pay for a license to buy a computer or phone without not even being aware of it or have any choice at all.

Not even the angry demands of some activists claiming the return of the ability to boot directly to the desktop without going first through Market Square have served Microsoft to alter its strategy:

"I force you to buy outdated software, watch my imposed ads and pay me to do trivial things with your information, that I will later sell."

The old Redmond giant has not said his last word.

Take that, Google!

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For the original Spanish version, click here.

Just do it!

Photo by Carmel Zucker for the New York Times

An interview with John Pultorak, the man who built an Apollo lunar spacecraft computer on his basement just for fun

They say it takes a whole generation to convert any event into history.

But, for Apollo lunar landings, the process has been much faster. People seems really interested learning how could it be possible that in a such ancient time, with virtually no personal computers, a bunch of men could dare to fly and land in the moon inside tiny capsules.

Maybe their risk assessment was dramatically different from the one we have nowadays. The value of a life, the value of a dollar… go figure. The point is that they did all those things, pursuing a rather naïve dream from a president died long ago. Things that amaze, overwhelm us today, so we praise the people that make it possible. A unite world, maybe by the 1st and last time, around a common purpose.

So many people around the globe show interest in the things and facts that surrounded the Apollo program.

We had before a chance to meet Ronald Monsen, author of an awesome simulation software, whose interview published this very same month can be found right here, and today we turn to another amazing story from another Apollo geek.

His name is John Pultorak, a middle age psychologist, now software engineer for the space systems group at Lockheed Martin, living in Highland Ranch, Colorado, whose second love is computers.

He undertook all on his own the effort to build a replica of a 1964 prototype of the Apollo Guidance Computer, probably the 1st embarked computerized system. And he did it in his own backyard.

So we knocked at his door to know a little more about his very particular endeavour. We did read his interview in the New York Times back in 2005, but now we wanted to take a retrospective look at it.

Hello, John and many thanks for joining us at Aerial Phenomena. What is your own technical background?
I have a B.S. in psychology. As far as electronics and computers are concerned, I'm self-taught. I built electronics kits in the 60's and early 70's and breadboarded various circuits. When microcomputers arrived in the mid-70's, I couldn't afford my own but I assembled computers from kits for other people. I built at least 2 SWTPC 6800 systems and a CRT terminal kit that must have had over a hundred ICs.

I was surprised that they worked.

Around that time, I got a job as an electronics technician where I did some CMOS design. After that, I went to graduate school in experimental psychology and took a part-time job as their resident computer engineer. I taught myself assembly language programming on a dozen different 8- and 16-bit architectures (6800, 8080, 6502, Data General Nova, SC/MP, and a bunch of others). I designed and wire-wrapped a dozen microcomputer trainers and used them to teach a microcomputer class.

The space shuttle was starting orbital flight tests around then, so I dropped out of graduate school and hired on as an engineer for Ford Aerospace in Houston where I worked in the Mission Control Center for 3 years.

I got tired of the Houston heat and moved to Colorado where I've been a systems engineer and software engineer for 25 years. After awhile, I decided I needed some academic credentials so I got a master's in computer information systems from a local university.

How did you start thinking on building a fully functional AGC in your own backyard? What was the purpose of it?
Well, I didn't build it in the backyard. That would have been a mess. I built it on a workbench in my basement, but I did lug it upstairs and out into the backyard to photograph it.

...I can't imagine how anyone could make money from redesigning a 40-year-old computer. Anyway, there's more important things in life than money. Live below your means, be kind to others, and be grateful for what you have; I think that will bring happiness to most people...

In the late 1990's I decided it would be fun to design and build a simple computer from scratch. I designed a 4-bit machine with a 16-bit instruction word; a 4-bit opcode and a 12-bit address. I wire-wrapped it and put it in a nice metal chassis with lots of lights and front-panel switches.

Afterwards, I decided to try something a little more challenging. I thought it might be fun to recreate a minicomputer from the late 60's or early 70's. At first I thought about a Data General Nova or PDP-8. But then, I thought, maybe, I should pick something a little more strange. So, I decided on the AGC.

The project had no purpose other than to satisfy my curiosity about whether I could do it.

What is the main problem or barrier you have found in your way? Where did you source your means to carry it on?
My main problem, initially, was finding enough documentation on the AGC. To keep myself motivated, I broke the project into stages. Each stage was a complete sub-project of its own that produced something of value. At the end of each stage (around 6-9 months each), I could decide to stop or to go on to the next stage. That way, if I stopped, I'd still have a complete and successful project.

The stages, roughly, were:

Stage 1: gather documentation.

Stage 2: create architecture diagrams (at the register level) and write an AGC simulation in C++.

Stage 3: write an assembler for the AGC.

Stage 4: use the assembler and simulator to write a suite of test and checkout code to verify each AGC instruction.

Stage 5: use the assembler and simulator to host and debug the AGC operating system and user interface portions of the Apollo 11 CM code.

Stage 6: design LSTTL implementation of the architecture and run it on a circuit simulator.

Stage 7: wire-wrap the subsystems and integrate them.

Stage 8: debug.

Stage 9: organize all my notes and diagrams into .pdf files.

Stage 10: enjoy having an AGC for a few weeks.

Stage 11: donate it to a museum.

What is the main lessons you have learnt along the way?
You don't have to be particularly smart to tackle a big project. You just need to be very organized, disciplined, and persistent. Break it down into small parts and don't get too side-tracked by any particular part.

What did you do with your creation?
I donated the AGC to a local air and space museum. They put it on open display in a hanger next to a 'boilerplate' Apollo command module, fenced-off from the public only by a rope. Of course, it quickly became damaged. I declined to repair it and I've heard it has been removed from display. I don't feel any sense of "attachment" to it, so I'm not much bothered.

The Computer History Museum in California wanted it and it probably would have been a better "fit" there, but I didn't want to spend 18 hours driving it to California in a minivan so the local museum got it instead.

What would it be your main advice for other people seeking to start their own project?
Just do it. Don't tell anyone beforehand; tell them after you're done. My observation is: people who talk about a project they’re going to do seldom get around to actually doing it. The act of talking about it seems to satisfy some need and destroys the motivation for completing the work. Maybe that's just me.

Did you consider turning it into a money making venture?
I can't imagine how anyone could make money from redesigning a 40-year-old computer. Anyway, there's more important things in life than money. Live below your means, be kind to others, and be grateful for what you have; I think that will bring happiness to most people.

What are your plans for the future?
I can't tell you; if I did tell, then I probably wouldn't get around to doing it (see above). But, I almost broke my own rule.

Many thanks, John, for sharing with us your dream.

This is John. A bit idealist, but owner of an indomitable spirit.

The spirit of the people that made Apollo possible.

Want to know more? Maybe dare to try building your own Apollo Guidance Computer? Check here for more.

The Eagle has landed once more

An interview with Ronald Monsen, author of Eagle Lander 3D.

Ron was a kid by the time the last man walked on the moon.

Like many other kids, captivated by the blurry TV images and garbling voices coming from the space, he probably dreamed to become an astronaut himself.

Life had different plans for him, though. Like many other kids, Ron grew up, married, had a son and forgot about becoming an astronaut.

Luckily, he did not forget about flying, and became an airplane nut.

Many, many years later, working as an expatriated petrophysicist for the Saudi Oil Company in Dhahran, and since general aviation is simply banned there, he had to forget about his full scale pilot skills and focus instead on remote controlled models, something he had been in for over 35 years!

But flying RC models or homebuilt designs, running along roads or diving was not enough, for Ron still had the astronaut child inside.

So he started a project of his own to build a virtual Apollo lunar module, making it as realistic as possible, and to offer it to the world.

He called it Eagle Lander.



It quickly became an acclaimed piece of software for personal computer flight aficionados, competing on his own lane next to other gigantic efforts like Orbitersim.

But unlike them, Eagle Lander was a Solo project.

As risky as it can sound, Ron had to carry on with the entire project on his own, and after version 212 was released by January, 2006, development seemed having come to a halt.

So a few weeks ago, we decided at Aerial Phenomena to take a step ahead and knock on Ron’s door.

Honestly, having been a bit concerned on Ron's mysterious disapperance, we were delighted to see him well and plenty of energy and new ideas for an upcoming new version of his celebrated Eagle Lander 3D.

So now please come join us and meet Ron Monsen, the man behind one of the most exciting lunar landing simulations ever!

Hello, Ron. It's good to have you with us today.

How did you start thinking on writing Eagle Lander 3D? What was the purpose of it? Does it compare to other simulators?
I started back in 1992 with very modest goals: I wanted to duplicate one of my favorite arcade games from the early 80’s.

The first version of EL3D was a simple 2D arcade style game and only simulated a short flight. It was fun to include the audio – and the spliced audio at the correct altitudes found its way into the 3D version.

EL3D is created to simulate the flight dynamics of the LM to the greatest extent possible.

What is interesting about the LM is that it is a flying machine that will never fly again.

A WWII P-51 Mustang can be restored and flown. The LM will never be able to be “restored” and flown – at least not for a few hundred years!
EL3D is a small piece of the flight to the moon. There are some other space simulators such as Orbiter that are fantastic at general spaceflight and orbital mechanics.

EL3D really is targeted at the people who really want to fly the LM in the most realistic possible way, and fly it at the most exciting point of its flight – those last few minutes before touchdown.

...I still get goosebumps when I hear the words, “Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed"...

What is the main problem or barrier you have found in your way? Where did you source your means to carry it on?
I think the main barrier is just finding all the time to do the work. To get every detail right takes a lot of time.

Luckily once I got going a lot of individuals began feeding me tons of Apollo documentation and technical assistance. Guys like Frank Obrien – sending me gigabytes of Apollo docs, or guys like Paul Fjeld who provided valuable insight.

What is the main lessons you have learnt along the way?
Take the time you think it will take – and multiply it by three.

Other then that I was astonished and very proud to find a great following of dedicated people to the sim.

A very special contributor, Capt. Gene Cernan, Commander Apollo 17 and last man on the moon, teamed up with Ron in 2004 and took the EL3D controls to become a test pilot once more. Photo courtesy Ron Monsen.

Has the growth of Eagle Lander 3D surprised you? It does seem coming to a stop now… why?
Yes it did – but after all the support from the users group and others I guess I should have been too surprised.
I know – it has been awhile since a release.

I am working on several new versions with a fantastic new moon, walking astronauts, updated graphics and a whole host of other features.

It is just running a little behind. Nevertheless I am committed to and interim release soon…

What do you think on open source movements and volunteers groups? Can they compete with commercial products?
In a way they can.

The problem with open source projects is that their greatest appeal are to people that are interested in the subject matter but are also computer geeks (like me).

So, often installation and operation is not accessible to the occasional “flyer” who wishes to shoot a few approaches.

What would it be your main advice for other people seeking to start their own project?Go for it! It is a great learning experience for both 3D programming and the space program.

Did direct payment prove enough to support a project like this? Did you consider other financial sources? Luckily I have another job! Yes I was able to pay the cost of development myself, which was really the hardware and my time.

Ron, we thank you sincerely for your words. What are the plans for the future?
I want to add to the realism, extend the missions a bit, and add more capability.

Kicking up dust. We were so excitead at Ron unveiling for us a sneack preview of the upcoming version! The moon, more realistic than ever! Check here for more.

Lots of people make suggestions about expanding to the full mission from launch to splashdown.

Maybe I’ll add in that direction incrementally, but in the end I don’t want to lose focus on the main focus of EL3D – the piloting of the LM to the surface of the moon.

I still get goosebumps when I hear the words, “Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Windows Vista is still too much Windows

Long ago, Bill Gates promised the world a stable, transparent and capable system. Today, many years later, that promise is yet to be fulfilled.

For Windows Vista is still Windows. And you will not trust on it to run your critical tasks.

No matter which edition (Home or Ultimate) or version (x86 or x64) you will be exposed to the usual black box Windows has come to be. It took for me less than one day to get the old good Blue Screen of Death, running a simple minimal system bought specifically for Vista, no bizarre hardware, no lack of resources. And Vista was unable to shred the least light on what could have happened.

But if you want Vista to collapse for good, just keep pressed the Windows key plus E for a while, just to witness how a stream of 'My Computer' dialog boxes crowd the screen and finally throw the system to an irrecoverable halt.

Just a nice toy with its Aero cool desktop I wouldn't pay 10 dollars for.

If that is the best Microsoft can do, there's no reason for the Open Source community to worry about.

Patenting the justice

I think everyone will agree here that some things should never be allowed to belong to any individual, as the rivers or the air above. These are public domain goods. They were given to us by the mother Earth.

Now, inspiration, ideas, that's another story.

For some other people, by no means what a human being's mind produces can be stolen. It can be bought, trade or given away, never stolen. If they were, there would be no motivation for innovation. In the long run, inspiration, ideas, would disappear.

For some people, they may become also public domain if they serve to a greater cause, like some benefit for the human beings. Free circulation of ideas, they say, bring much more powerful thinking and innovation. We may again agree here on some examples of such benefits. Woudn't it be immoral to own the formula to cure some mortal illness and allowing thousands of people to suffer and die before permitting the formula to be freely produced? Yes, it would. And sadly, it's already happening in the pharmacy industry.

If things went that bad there, you can imagine where computer programs we use daily can go.

For some corporate citizens have being filing patents for years, stealing what was given for free, and making a private asset of them. Now, they seek to make you pay royalties for hundreds, thousands of stolen ideas that were previously innocently spread in universities, forums and an army of willing developpers.

By allowing this trade, you're actually helping strip the authors of their work, and permitting all sorts of abuses, like speculation and manipulation of ideas. A world of great fortunes, tycoons, multimillion suits and maybe some charity.

Would it be better a world of free thinking, based on your own work and merits, based on justice instead?

Some less concerned people use a more practical approach, and only think of free as open source, a way to spread more efficiently innovation, but this doesn't provide enough confidence in the system since it's not a phylosophical position.

Free software, justice for all.

The End of the Internet (as we know it)

Networks collapsing due to Youtube traffic, Microsoft debunking Linux myths and even the Open Source movement is dead. Internet Service providers want you to pay for accessing each single page, and depending on how far away the server is.

Riiiing, wow, it was just a nightmare. I open the window, see the rising sun, a brand new day. I read the news: The Internet is not dead. It's just about to born. Hail to the net. Prepare for the wave.



Thanks God.

The long and winding road to a web farm

It all started in the last part of 2005. I had been playing with the idea of setting up a full featured website, but had not been successful finding anyone to join. So I decided to start on my own.

The Zero Investment Promise (ZIP)
I didn't have the money or the will to spend it on this project, but I had the feeling I could make it by using only legal ways as long as I were ready to use my brain. That would also exclude hacking or stealing resources from others, or even copying unauthorized materials.

The initial equipment
All I got to start was a dynamic IP DSL line with just 1MB bandwidth, a 3COM wireless router and a low-end desktop computer running Windows XP.

Along the way, other software will be needed. All free. So our ZIP is secured.

1. Apache
2. PHP
3. MySQL
4. Joomla and Joomla extensions
5. Windows Update client
   

The web server
The first step was to choose a web server. I did some testing with IE, but decided for Apache 2 because it seemed much more feature-rich and documented. I also heard it was faster, so I quickly set a basic installation on my home desktop. Once I was able to open a browser, typing localhost on the address bar and get the welcome Apache page, I knew that was a small step for a man, but a giant step for my ego.

Once the server was running, I had to find a way to allow people from outside my home network to call. I had no idea how to do it, but a nice German workmate accessed my router remotely and showed me the way by using a feature called virtual servers. Now I was able to route any incoming request to a given internal IP. That meant I had to give my desktop a fixed IP so the router would find it.

The Dynamic DNS
At this point of my journey, I had a functional server, but since I was getting a new IP from my ISP every few hours, I needed to take note of my newly assigned IP and use it to call my http server from outside.

Since you will probably choose to name your websites to reach them, like respectable people do, a single subscription is needed. Go to DynDNS and create an account to use their free DNS service for your dynamic IP addresses. This way, everytime your ISP wickedly changes your IP, a piece of software in your own network will update the DNS, so you will be able to use a name just like if you had rented a fixed IP plus a domain.

The piece of software I am referring to can be located either in

• your own router (simpler, no need to download and install software) or
• directly on your own host (more reliable, flexible, needed if you have more than one website).
  

Luckily, by using a feature called DDNS on my router, I was able to tell it to refresh my IP on one of the two suggested Dynamic DNS services. I chose DynDNS, and set up an account and a domain name without any problem.

Now, my server was working more or less like a commercial host, answering all incoming http calls through the router.

Anyway, I noticed my router-only solution was not as fast as anticipated updating changing IP's to my DNS, so I took the advice from DynDNS guys and set up in my host a client updater too to reinforce the service. Both systems can work redundantly. Why would you choose just one? I like redundancies, especially in women.

Besides, this proved to be a wise idea once I decided I needed to serve more than one website from the same IP. But I will tell you later about that one.


Shotting websites from home
Hey, it was nice to have my own web server. I know hosting and hiring a domain is becoming a cheap thing, but hiring a fixed IP is not in Spain. By using a dynamic DNS, I was keeping my promise on Zero Investments.

I placed my old personal website on my newly opened web server. It worked flawless.

The good old but little-known e-mail server
All websites needing to log users in need a way to send them an e-mail during the registering process. There are several free solutions you can use. I decided for a Windows-specific open source software, hMailServer.

The real problem there was that e-mail coming from servers using a dynamic IP are not much popular among commercial email services because they are usually pested with spam, so Hotmail and others will block mails coming for your home e-mail server as long as its IP is marked as being within a Dynamic range. There's nothing you can do about it.

Confronted with the idea of a home e-mail server only to use its POP3 or IMAP4 service, I decided to completely abandon it and use my old hotmail account to receive, and my ISP's SMTP service to send.

The Great Challenge: a CMS
I downloaded, installed and ran phpBB and 4Images packages without any problem, even when right with the first one I was told to install MySQL first. Some of them will create on their own the databases needed, other may ask you to do some typing in the command line to do it. But it's a straight-away process, so do not worry.

I liked what I saw. Yeah. But I was looking for an integrated solution so I could add more functionalities, like the portals you see around on the net. Again, my old pride.

I decided for Joomla. It seemed more updated and active than Mambo, and started by setting a testing portal with no extensions.

Looking for customers
I offered my local tennis club a customized website for free... They liked the idea, so for the coming months I tailored a template, and added a bunch of extensions. Calendars, forums, weather reports, multimedia galleries... just name it... Almost nothing worked, hmm, let's say out of the box... but a few postings in the right forums and here you are. A glittering website much more sophisticated than most portals around.

What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is an essential part of the fun, as long as you want your website to be read by others that are not your wife or your daughter.

AdSense, Analytics, Sitemaps and other Google candies
Now this is great. Joomla comes with a simple banner component, so you can set accounts and banners for selling impressions, but you still need to knock on your prospect sponsors' door for the money.

If you hate the job, you can still get some bucks by creating an AdSense account and adding any AdSense module to your Joomla site. Soon you may check how popular (or most likely totally unknown) your site is. They will also give you hints on the next steps to take to add a new dimension to your websites: profitability.

The server grows. A web farm flourishes.
This Apache feature is called name-based virtual servers, so you can serve several websites from the same unique IP machine. Isn't it lovely? It's quite easy to use, believe me. All you have to do is some editing in the httpd.conf file. Apache 2.2 proposes these extra configurations to be written in separate files, but you can still put everything together in httpd.conf, instead.

But remember that, since you are using a dynamic IP, once your Apache starts to serve several websites, you will have to:

1. add a new host service for each additional website to your account at DynDNS
   
2. add these new hosts to your DynDNS updater.

Securing the farm
You have already heard of many dangers surrounding a website, no matter how humble it may be. The fact is that you have to take all the usual cautions to shield your Apache server up from day one.

Regarding the individual websites, well... the ones using PHP as Joomla does always come with a user management module. So, dynamic pages will only be built and posted using the user rights. A problem appears with Static pages. These old but plenty of good memories all pages are ready to show to everyone, as long as they are requested. For them, you have to use the authentication built-in features of Apache. Not big deal. Just:

1. Create the user/password list or database, using the htpasswd utility found in Apache folders, and place it where you may reach it later... just in case you didn't figure out. You can specify to encrypt your passwords using MD5 or SHA, so no one accessing it will make any profit. Not even account owners...
2. Then you have to edit the httpd.conf file to make Apache to ask for a valid user/password every time someone requests a website within the protected directories. You can here decide whether you want Apache to encrypt the password as it is trasmitted from the user, so no one listening will make any profit, neither.
   

That's about it. You can instead encrypt everything using SSL Apache implementation feature, as long as you really need that level of privacy and you are ready to pay the extra workload it takes.