Final day in San Francisco
Although this post is much delayed (1 week!), I've finally downloaded the last few snaps from my phone.
Network bandwidth throttling in Windows 7
Having to support Windows in my day to day job (I'm the Windows administrator) is a necessary evil. I was wondering why my test deployment of Windows 7 was so slow copying files. Turns out it was due to bandwidth throttling, a "feature" since Vista. Windows 7 seems to throttle bandwidth, especially on a LAN and it's based on helping to prevent little or no interruption to audio playback. This can be damn annoying, especially when copy large files across an intranet. Two registry settings that seem to prevent or alleviate the throttling are: (DWORD value) HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanworkstation\parameters\DisableBandwidthThrottling (create if it doesn't exist and set to 1 to disable and then reboot) or HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile\NetworkThrottlingIndex (set to a value between 1 and 100 and reboot) Also another possibility is to disable the MMCSS (Multimedia Class Scheduler) service - from wikipedia: "This service has been implicated in poor networking performance while multimedia is playing", or "Windows throttles the network interfaces while audio is playing in order to maintain audio quality and prevent network interrupts interrupting media playback. By default, this limits the network receive speed to 10% of its maximum - 100Mbps on gigabit ethernet, and 10Mbps on fast ethernet" The service is is a dependancy in the windows audio service (the dependancy needs to be removed so windows audio can still run) so in regedit,go to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Audiosrv, find DependOnService and remove MMCSS and restart.
Finally, in the services control panel, services.msc, disable “Multimedia Class Scheduler service” and restart. Voila!
Final day of WWDC
There was only really a 1/2 day today with sessions ending around midday-ish. As a consequence I did a few touristy things, mostly walking.
Stupidly, I walked from my hotel (marker "E" on the map below, Second St) to "Japantown" , marker B, where google had told me there's a good anime shop called Japan Toys.Aghghg. Around 1 hour of walking later (I stopped at the Apple Shop (near 4th st and Powell) to browse along the way) I got to the shop, only to discover they're mainly into web distribution and so didn't really have much in the way of stock. All up I walked at least 10km. Distances are deceptive - "only a couple of blocks" is actually a fair distance!
To put things into scale, the second image shows the distance in contrast to the whole peninsula.
A cathedral along the way...
Japantown approaching
A peace pagoda made of concrete at Japantown
Powell St with obligatory trollycar.
Entrance to China Town
Tomorrow is my last day in the USA so I plan to bike ride along the top of the peninsula (Fisherman's wharf etc) across the Golden Gate Bridge and on to Sausalito, catching a ferry back.
WWDC day 4
The WWDC bash at Yerba Buena featured Ok Go. The lead singer, Damian Kulash came into the crowd during their set and stood immediately in front of me and the people I was with. He made comments such as "we're all [the band] nerds, but not as good as you.. err.. not as well as you as my grandma would say", and "we normally perform at conventions.. I've played to a lot of white people before but usually there are some women in the audience..."
More updates coming soon
So little time!
Heres the app wall, colour-coding and sorting the apps as they are bought from the app store in real time. Not a very good photo as it's popular to stand and watch it in a sort of mesmerized stupor. Although it's really cool, perhaps next time they could drop the icons in a detail and colour coded sort to produce a photo-mozaic of say Steve you can see if you stand back far enough.
Queuing for wwdc sessions
If you pick a popular session, prepare to queue.. this is the queue for the mission room.. Developing for a recent device.
Conference gummy bears
Apparently the green ones are nutritious (because they're green), but after eating a whole cup of them..
WWDC DAY 2
Quick test post, wwdc leaves little or no time!
The sessions are great, unfortunately I can't blog about them as there's a NDA. So many people, so little time, so many ideas.
Sent from my iPad
WWDC day 0
WWDC Day 0
bzzzzap transmission begins
Started off on a coach trip organised by the AUC. After a brief wait in the hotel foyer with the mac-labbers,
first stop was Frys Electronics which is apparently one of the biggest electrical retailers in the US.
I bought a few goodies - my noise cancelling headphones got damaged on the flight over (by me, I must have drifted off and woke with a start when someone coughed - this lead to me knocking the adapter in the headphone socket and shearing the end off), so I decided the flight back would be a nightmare without them. Cheap $49 Sony ones will do. PS3 games aren't region coded so a game I was after presented itself to my credit card. Annoyingly, Super Mario Galaxy 2 was out, but unfortunately Wii games are region locked so I'll have to wait until July in Aus for it. I bought a strategy guide for it that was cheap though.
Moving on to the Computer History Museum. I'd been here before so I wasn't so snap happy "oooh.. a disk platter... ooooh, look space war" as last time. It was slightly disappointing that the bulk of the museum was undergoing significant renovations, but it looks like when it's complete it will be quite amazing. Maybe if I get to go to wwdc 2012? The chief interest for most patrons is the Difference Engine No. 2, a working implementation of one of Charles Babbage's designs. Watching the polynomial calculation progress is quite fascinating, ticking over the different spools, cogs whirring, platters going up and down and passing a carry across. The machine is on loan to the museum by some Microsoft executive who commissioned the device to be built. His house is not big enough to display the 5+ tonne monster, so it's on loan until he builds a new room to house it. If that doesn't scream extravagance, what does?
Last up was the Company Store, a store at Apple headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop that sells Apple-branded items. I didn't intend to spend any money here but they sucker you in and take your credit card at the door, giving it back when you depart after some hypnotic episode where you discover you've spent $92US. Maybe it's the Steve Jobs distortion effect that's infused into all the buildings making you think an Apple-branded mug is a must have item. As is a pen. And a travel mug. And a t-shirt. sigh..
The coach tour ended by dropping us of at the conference venue, Moscone West, to register for the conference. The only conference goody this year is a baseball-style jacket with WWDC blazoned across the front, and "10" on the back, which replaces a satchel and t-shirt from previous years. Rumour has it they'll be giving away iPhone 4 during the conference, the chances of which I rate as high as me becoming the next King of England*. Next transmission begins perhaps from the queue waiting for the keynote - if there's a wifi signal outside the moscone. Our plan is to start queuing at 4:00am for the 10:00am start. Anecdotal evidence suggests this isn't keen enough and we'll actually be at the end of the queue, but I'm thinking that's apple-fanboy enough keen-ness for me.
*(my parents are english so mayhap my heritage doth include some royalty, a bastard son of a court dalliance etc. Maybe even the Flemish traders who were perhaps my ancestor's precursors might have raided a few villages to claim some form of monarchical right to the throne.. who knows - it's still a slim chance :-P)
bzzzzap transmission begins
WWDC day (-1, 0)
bzzzzap. Transmission begins.
Day -1 (Saturday)
Finally made it to San Francisco (woo!). After seemingly waiting forever in the boring immigration line (I'm surprised they didn't take retinal scans or DNA samples!) I managed to stumble my way out to the baggage carousel. Watching forlornly for 30 minutes to see if my suitcase would decide to stop hiding and appear, some random official wandered over and asked what I was doing. "umm.. looking for my suitcase". "What does it look like?".. "suitcasy?" She then told me to go over and see the carousel supervisor. I should have realised after 10 mins that the sinking feeling you get watching other people on the same flight escape from that same immigration queue and see their bags immediately means your suitcase has decided to abscond and leave you to your own devices.
The carousel supervisor had my name on his list. I should be impressed and feel important but that clinched it. My suitcase was not here, and not clinging to some crevice in the conveyor belt somewhere. He directed me to the baggage claims desk, where a seemingly harried looking vietnamese gentleman behind the desk was trying to placate another Australian who was flying on to Britain sans baggage. He was very loud and vocal (the Australian) and using terms like "well, what are you going to do about it?" and "what am I supposed to do now?". All very understandable but the baggage clerk wasn't helping matters by trying to move him along saying he had to help other people - me. With a glare from my compatriot, the clerk turned to me. Blah blah, yes, we'll send the bag to you, TOMORROW night. The local time was around 11:00am. To my surprise though he then filled in a petty cash slip and gave me $100 US "for the inconvenience". I didn't understand why I was being offered a bribe to keep quiet and shuffle out wearing the same clothes for more than 24 hours, and the other guy who was flying on before his baggage would arrive wasn't. Who cares! I recall seeing on those airline reality shows the loud-mouthed passengers doing anything to secure $100 vouchers eg. "my seat was the wrong shade of blue", but I didn't say anything!
I managed in my state of stinky 30-hour underwear to catch the BART to near my hotel, and thankfully, got checked in immediately. This was about midday local time. I needed sleep but first I had to go buy some clothes for tomorrow. After my zombie-gait meandering along Market Street, I ended up in the equivalent of a "best and less", "Ross" where it seems buying "cheap but quality goods" was a mandate for every San Franciscan to be there at the same time. It doesn't seem there are any normal department stores in the city, unless you want designer clothes (but I just want some underwear!) so this place seemed the most likely to satisfy all my underwear needs. Hmm.. that sounds a bit dubious. Anyway, back to the hotel for a decent sleep.
Day 0 (Sunday)
bzzz-tchetch-kerthump. Oh great. 2:30am, and people staying in the room next door have arrived and want to continue to paaaaaarty. Lots of "I love you man" and drunken shenanigans. Maybe I'm old and crotchety in comparison but I want to sleep! I should have called out "get off my lawn" but they may have heard.
Today's going to be much better. Showered, in new clothes (completely - bought jeans, shirt, socks and underwear with my lucky "please keep quiet" qantas bribe), breakfasted and now sitting here in my hotel room typing this blog entry before going on an organised coach trip by the AUC to Frys electronics, the Computer History Museum and the Apple store at 1 Infinite Loop.
Unfortunately, my laptop charger and ipad/ipod sync cable is in my suitcase, so I only have around 2 hours of battery left. Hopefully I can take photos and upload later.
bzzzzap. Transmission ends.
