Airplay, Cisco AnyConnect, and IPv6 Don't Play Nicely

Here's the situation:

I use AirPlay at home to stream audio from iTunes on my MacBook Pro running Mac OS X 10.7.3 to my AirPort Express in the bedroom and my Apple TV 3 in the living room. It's pretty slick. This works great until I connect to my work VPN using Cisco AnyConnect. Once I connect, and even after I disconnect from VPN and quit AnyConnect, the AirPlay pull-down menu in iTunes won't let me re-select either of the network speakers, and my music is trapped!

What's going on:

After some forum diving, I discovered that this is an IPv6 issue. After the AnyConnect session, AirPlay switches from IPv4 to IPv6, and never goes back until the Mac reboots. And apparently, AirPlay doesn't play nicely with IPv6. Awesome. 

Here's the fix:

The good news for me is that I don't really need IPv6 on my Mac. Turning it off in Mac OS X 10.6 was a cinch.  

Network Preferences -> Advanced -> TCP/IP -> Configure IPv6: Off.  

But... the "Off" option is gone in Mac OS X 10.7! What gives? Apple doesn't want us using that option anymore.  No problem, we can still set it in the command line.

networksetup -listallnetworkservices
networksetup -setv6off Ethernet
networksetup -setv6off Wi-Fi

And so on. If we go back to Network Preferences, the GUI will actually reflect this setting with "Off" appearing in the Configure IPv6 pull-down. AirPlay now works perfectly, even when I'm on the VPN.  Hopefully by the time I need IPv6, Apple will have patched AirPlay accordingly.

Office 2007 SP3 now includes an IEEE XSL Style Sheet

Good news! Office 2007 SP3 now includes an IEEE XSL style sheet built-in! You can download Office 2007 SP3 here or use Windows update, and read the Office 2007 SP3 release notes here.

Over the past few years, I have had a steady stream of folks stop by to grab my IEEE XSL Style Sheet which I put together for myself in an afternoon to support my thesis writing process. It's good to know that by sharing it, I've helped hundreds of grad students and academic paper writers save a little bit of time, effort, and frustration. Thanks to all of you who downloaded my version over the past few years and left feedback, it's been fun!

Hi, a real human interface

Hi from Multitouch Barcelona on Vimeo.

Hello, friends! As you may know, I am working on a multi-touch table in my copious spare time (heh). If you haven't seen this already, it's definitely worth a look and a laugh. A true multi-touch "human" interface!

Jobs Lost / Gained Visualization

Here are some interesting interactive figures regarding recent unemployment trends in the US:

The Geography of Jobs
When Did Your County's Jobs Disappear?

To Be

Just a little lighthearted fun concerning the continuity of existence.

(Video no longer available)

Some more reading on consciousness and cyborgs here... (Thanks, Reddit)!

Magnetic Fields are All Around Us

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

Quote:

The secret lives of invisible magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic ever-changing geometries . All action takes place around NASA's Space Sciences Laboratories, UC Berkeley, to recordings of space scientists describing their discoveries . Actual VLF audio recordings control the evolution of the fields as they delve into our inaudible surroundings, revealing recurrent ‘whistlers' produced by fleeting electrons . Are we observing a series of scientific experiments, the universe in flux, or a documentary of a fictional world?

More info on their website.

Organ and Cell Regeneration

Check it out, engineered organs.

(Video has been removed from YouTube, sorry.)

2008 Books in Review

Books read in 2008:

Stephen King - Dark Tower Book I: The Gunslinger
This series has been around for a while so I decided to sink my teeth into it. It's sort of a post-apocalyptic / western / sci-fi / adventure / fantasy. It somehow reminds me of the Trigun anime. It's not like most of King's other novels. I enjoyed it well enough to read the next in the series. (4/5)

Stephen King - Dark Tower Book II: The Drawing of the Three
Book two isn't quite as exciting to read, but it definitely takes another big step into the weird with some time travel thrown in. Still a fun read. (3.5/5)

William Gibson - Pattern Recognition
This was a fun book about a person who is attuned to memes and is tasked with tracking down an Anonymous who is posting videos online. A fun and interesting read tracking the main character around the globe, but I wasn't very satisfied with the ending. (4/5)

Brandon Sanderson - Elantris
How often can you find a fantasy that is good AND fits in one reasonable sized novel? Not too often, but here is a great example of an interesting story woven and completed in six hundred and some odd pages. Check it out while you're waiting for the end to Wheel of Time. (4.5/5)

Nick Sagan - Idlewild
Carl Sagan's son wrote this novel about kids living in a virtual reality training school and their struggles against the system and the machine. It was fun to read, but do yourself a favor and read Ender's Game instead. :) (3.5/5)

China Mieville - Iron Council
I really like China Mieville's world and people. They're so interesting and colorful you can't help but want to turn the page. The plot of this one is a bit odd (a group of vagabonds hijack a train and build and remove the tracks as they go to escape civilization... and then return) and the ending is a bit depressing, but that's par for the course. If you liked Perdido Street Station (a better book, and one you should read first), then check this out.

Aimee Mullins: Super-Power Legs

Aimee Mullins has an amazing story about how her prosthetic legs maker her not disabled but super-abled. Below is her talk from the TED conference.

Happy New Year for Zune Owners

Here's an exercise for you. What happens when days = 366 in the code below? Maybe the better question is what happens when programmers skip their morning coffee when they reinvent the wheel and write a "simple" date parser with leap year detection? This code was loaded on every 30 GB Zune. Check out the offending module and read the coverage on Engadget. This presents a great case for unit testing!

---

 
while (days > 365)
{
    if (IsLeapYear(year))
    {
        if (days > 366)
        {
            days -= 366;
            year += 1;
        }
        //else?? 
    }
    else
    {
        days -= 365;
        year += 1;
    }
}

---

What's in your firmware??

Write-up in Case Daily

If you are clicking through from Case Daily, welcome! There was a nice write-up about my award at IEEE Sensors Conference in Friday's issue. Here's the text below with some additional hyperlinks and clarification:

---

Bradley Farnsworth, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, won first place in the Best Student Paper competition as part of the 2008 IEEE Sensors Conference in Lecce, Italy, in October. The award included a prize of 750 euros. Farnsworth, who is part of Professor Darrin Young's Wireless Microsystems research group, is working on the paper for his thesis topic and is collaborating on this project with the Advanced Platform Technology (APT) Center at the Cleveland Louis Stokes VA Medical Center. The full citation for Farnsworth's paper is B. D. Farnsworth, R. J. Triolo, and D. J. Young, "Wireless Implantable EMG Sensing Microsystem." In addition, he received a top prize at the 2008 Research ShowCASE for the poster about his research; the award included a $1,000 account for research activities and a $250 check. He used a portion of these funds to attend the conference in Italy, along with assistance from the APT Center and ENSCO, Inc.

IEEE Sensors Conference

I recently attended the IEEE Sensors Conference in Lecce, Italy and had a wonderful time learning about technology and meeting colleagues from around the world. The area was very beautiful, especially visiting the coastline and seeing all the architecture. I also ate some really wonderful local food!

I am honored to announce that I won the First Prize in the Best Student Paper competition. It feels very nice to have my thesis work noticed and appreciated. Below, you can see a photo of me accepting the award.



It was my first time out of the U.S. and was very enjoyable. I don't know if I'll ever go back to Lecce, but I can't wait to travel some more!

SICK LMS 291 LabView LIDAR Driver

Hello! As you probably know, I worked on sensors for DEXTER in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The first software I worked on was a LabView driver for the LMS 291 LIDAR laser scanner along with Amaury Rolin. We cleaned up and submitted our driver to National Instruments, and you can now download it from the NI Developer Zone. Hopefully this program will be useful to others! Good luck! :)

Open Source IEEE Bibliography XSL Style Sheet for Word 2007 Available

Thanks to everyone who downloaded, commented upon, and helped improve my IEEE style sheet for Office 2007! Reader Wesley Allen has pointed out that there is a free, more fully-featured, open-source IEEE style sheet available on CodePlex. It supports more reference formats than my version and seems to be getting feature improvements. Please go check it out, and thanks for all your support and comments.

Update: Good news! Office 2007 SP3 now includes an IEEE XSL style sheet built-in! You can download Office 2007 SP3 here or use Windows update, and read the Office 2007 release notes here. Thanks to all of you who downloaded my version over the past few years, it's been fun!

Missing Money - Unclaimed Funds

Do yourself a favor and search for your name (and friends and relatives) here on Missing Money and directly with your state from a link on unclaimed.org. Apparently state governments can capture funds from "inactive" accounts through a process called escheatment. I heard about this from my bank, ING Direct (highly recommended, btw). Your grandparents will thank you when you find that long-lost bank account money for them.

Team Case on Robocars

Tonight is the big night for Team Case on The Science Channel. Episode 2 of Robocars is tonight and Case is one of the featured teams. I should have a bit of airtime too! I'll be watching it with Scott in Baltimore and many Case folks will be gathered at Johnny Malloy's in Coventry for a Case Alumni Association sponsored event. So, if you have digital cable, tune it to the Science Channel tonight at 10 PM. See you there!

Scott and Erin's Wedding

Hello, faithful readers! I just got back to Cleveland from Scott and Erin's wedding in Cincy. I was a groomsman and had a great time! I also got to help Nick write his best man's speech, which was a lot of fun. Nick delivered it brilliantly... if he doesn't make it as a MD-PhD, BME, or artist... maybe he can be a stand-up comic.

I also got a chance to put my new Canon EOS 40D digital SLR with 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens to the test. I took about half as many pictures as the professional photographer (who had a Nikon 200D with various lenses and a nice external flash). The image stabilization in my lens helped me get a lot of non-blurry shots inside that would have otherwise been hard to get. It's clear to me that the next accessory I should get is an external flash. The built-in flash in my camera has a slow recycle rate and casts unnatural shadows behind the subjects. I did manage to get some great photos, though! You can click on any of them to view them in full (printable) resolution. I haven't done any post processing on them, so feel free to touch them up if you're interested.

Here is Scott and Erin's first dance as husband and wife:

All the bridesmaids wanted a piece of the action:

Erin was the center of attention and looked beautiful in her wedding dress:

And here's a picture of me in my tux:


I'll be posting a lot more pictures to my Facebook, so feel free to add me. Bye for now!

Research Showcase 2008 - Grand Prize!

Howdy folks! Yesterday was the 2008 Research Showcase at Case Western Reserve University. I presented a poster on my M.S. research topic, Wireless Implantable EMG Sensing Microsystem. Out of about 600 posters from across the university, I was one of 10 grand prize winners, which includes a cash stipend for me and some additional funding to support my research. Next stop, graduation (hopefully)!

Quicksilver.

I've been using LaunchBar on my Macs for a long time now... maybe 5 years. I've always heard rumblings about that other keyboard shortcut program, Quicksilver. Well, a CIM Mac-using student came in to tech support on Saturday with his Mac tricked out with QS. I installed it today, and it is totally sweet. Especially by turning on "proxy actions," enabling access for assistive devices in the Universal Access control panel, and creating a short "trigger," I now have a keystroke (option-space) that gives me keyboard access to all the menu items of the application in focus.

For example. I'm in Safari and I want to open the downloads window. I don't remember the keystroke (it's cmd-opt-L, by the way). So, I hit opt-space, do, enter and viola! The downloads window appears. I also have access to all my bookmarks since they are in the bookmarks menu.

This is so cool. If you have a Mac and want to speed up your computer usage and/or reduce your mousing time, try this out!

Uploading some DEXTER Videos

More to come soon! Here are some DEXTER videos that I uploaded to YouTube.