Ford Sync Review

As a recent owner of a new Ford vehicle that includes the SYNC system I thought a review might be in order.  Ford Sync is described at syncmyride.com.  Its major features include:

• Hands free calling with a Bluetooth enabled phone
• Hands free music playback
• 911 Assist
• Hands free text messaging
• Turn by turn navigation
• Vehicle health report

Unfortunately, the last two features above are currently only available in the United States.  Here in Canada they are still being worked on.  On a personal note I hope they hurry up and get it enabled.  The nice thing is by registering the vehicle on syncmyride.com an email warning will appear once an upgrade is available.  The upgrade and a loader program get put on a USB thumb drive.  Put them in the vehicle and boom…updated system.  In my opinion this software based system is a much better setup than a hardware based system, that likely would be harder to upgrade.

In terms of the hands free setup all the controls are on the steering wheel.  A “voice command” button is used to get SYNC’s attention.  You then select by voice what service you want (Phone or USB).  During the Bluetooth pairing exercise SYNC downloaded the address book from the phone.  So any contact can be dialed by name and by location (cell, home, office, etc).  Any incoming call’s ID is displayed on the display console.

Selecting USB (assuming an iPod, Zune, any other MP3 player, or even a thumb drive with music on it) will index the music on the device; building a catalog of metadata regarding each of the songs.  Title, Artist, Genre, and Album are all indexed.  Once indexing is completed you can “tell” SYNC to play any of these items by calling for a track, artist, etc.  SYNC also has a play “similar” feature.  Find a song you like then ask SYNC to “play similar”.

911 Assist places a 911 call on your behalf if the airbags are deployed, a very comforting safety system.  The hands free texting will read out incoming text messages and allow you to select from a set of canned responses.  Unfortunately, this feature requires a cell phone that supports a text profile over Bluetooth, something my BlackBerry 8120 does not do.

All in all I am very impressed with this setup and feature.  It was jointly developed by Ford and Microsoft and it works very well.  At a $500 option it was well worth it.

vSphere Host Update Utility 4.0

Had some difficulties upgrading my ESXi 4 host today using this utility.  The patching process failed several times with an uninformative error message.

I was instructed to check the log file, unfortunately it was not obvious where that log file was.  After several Internet searches I was no closer to finding the source of my problem, let alone the log file that was going to answer my questions.

Finally found it so thought I would share in case anyone else finds themselves looking for the log file created by the Host Update Utility.  The logs can be found in C:\%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\VMware\VIU\logs.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT)

Attended an interesting presentation tonight on the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010.  This appears to be a very powerful way to manage image deployments for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

I have to admit I’ve been eyeing this tool up for some time and been looking for a way to give it a try.  For a free tool it appears to have promise.

The presenter deviated from the canned Microsoft presentation and showed us some examples from his production MDT environment.  To any presenters this is an excellent approach and I highly recommend it.  Real world approaches almost always make for a better demo.

The presenter was able to show a depth of experience with the MDT product.  His blog appears to have a large amount of information on this subject, it can be found at http://www.toddlamothe.com/.

Here is a link to the Microsoft MDT site, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/dd407791.aspx.

Two of the best Canadian Commercials ever...

Molson Canadian ads have always been excellent. Two of the best ever have to do with the “unwritten code in Canada”.
You agree? Let me know.
1st

and a close 2nd

ESXi 4.0

I recently realized I needed to update my skills from VMWare ESX 3.x to version 4.x.  So I recently converted one of my home lab machines from Windows Server to ESXi.  VMware is making its standalone ESXi hypervisor available at no cost in order to help companies of all sizes experience the benefits of virtualization.

VMware ESX and VMware ESXi are both bare-metal hypervisors that install directly on the server hardware. The difference resides in the architecture and the operational management of VMware ESXi. Although neither hypervisor relies on an OS for resource management, VMware ESX relies on a Linux operating system, called the service console, to perform two management functions: executing scripts and installing third party agents for hardware monitoring, backup or systems management. The service console has been removed from ESXi, drastically reducing the hypervisor footprint and completing the ongoing trend of migrating management functionality from the local command line interface to remote management tools. The smaller code base of ESXi represents a smaller “attack surface” and less code to patch, improving reliability and security.  From a security professional’s standpoint this appeals to me. The functionally of the service console is replaced by remote command line interfaces and management with the vSphere client.

While the official VMWare Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) does not list my test machine the install of ESXi 4 went very quickly and appears to be working fine.  The only requirement is a 64-bit capable processor, this machine does not have the Intel Virtualization extensions.

While I can’t get most of the advantages of shared SAN storage the 500 GB hard drive in this machine is more than enough space to run the permanent virtual machines I need as well as space to stand up specific environments to test or learn most scenarios.  This will also be the platform to learn Server 2008.

After registering with VMWare and downloading the code, the install took about 10 minutes:

1. In the BIOS disable “cpu id is limited” or set to set support to legacy /nt4
2. Boot the CD created from the downloaded ISO
3. Allow the installer to partition the drive as it wishes
4. Reboot when completed
5. A small management console will appear allowing you to set the IP address, root password etc
6. Install the vSphere client on another machine

I was up and running in no time.  While not a server class machine this will be more than sufficient for the experimentation and learning I need to do.  So far I am very impressed with this version of ESX and look forward to more experimentation.

Global Positioning System – GPX Files

As a recent owner of a Garmin GPS Navigation System I’ve been amazed at the accuracy of the data and the maps.  However, until the recent past, the machine had only travelled around my local city and a couple of short trips down the highway; nothing too elaborate.  Last week my parents took the unit with them to Kelowna, British Columbia.

Upon their return I decided I should spend some time trying to extract data in a useful format, something I could use to recreate the trip in Google Maps / Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth or something else.

So the rest of this post might be common knowledge for those who have been using their GPS for some time but this is all new to me, so I’m going to try and summarize.  In later posts I will try to get into a few more specifics of certain applications.

GPX

The GPS Exchange format file was introduced in 2002.  Most GPS units made since then are able to store files in that format or are able to convert to and from this format from their native file structures.  GPX files are XML based, here is the Wikipedia article and a link to the official GPX Website.

The GPX format contains three data types:

• Waypoints – are a collection of locations, typically not ordered in any fashion, such as a group of landmarks, or locations you have visited or have an interest in.
• Tracks – are also a collection of locations but are a record of where you have been, thus they are ordered by location and time.
• Routes – are suggestions of where you might go, so are only ordered by location

GPX Files on Garmin Nuvi

To get GPX files off the Garmin Nuvi models, simply attach the GPS unit to a computer via USB.  Assuming you have loaded the Garmin Communicator software (Nuvi Drivers) in the past the Garmin unit will appear as a removal drive to the operating system.  In a folder called GPX is the current.gpx file.  There are a few more files in my unit but they are fairly small.  I’m not sure yet if the file rolls over, but I am wondering if I should rename it on a regular basis or not.  If you copy this current.gpx file off you will be able to edit and manipulate it.  There are many websites that publish routes in GPX file format.  If you copy the downloaded GPX files onto the device, the next time it  boots up those routes and associated waypoints will be there.

Google Earth

I will include more information on various items you can accomplish with GPX files and Google Earth later, mostly because I’m still playing with it, and do need some material for later posts.  For now, launch Google Earth and drag the GPX file onto the screen, it will offer some options and then import the file. You should see individual waypoints and a representation of the track you took.  (Note: Since Google Earth version 5, GPS support comes with the free version rather than just the Professional version, connect the Garmin via USB, go to the GPS menu in Google Earth and select Import).

GPSVisualizer

While searching for ways to manipulate GPX files I ran across this free web service, GPSVisualizer.  You can upload GPX files to this site, fill in several options in terms of output format, and receive a file.  This process normalizes the data a little bit, making the end result much smaller, it will also color code the route in terms of time or elevation.  I uploaded my Kelowna trip GPX file and got back a KML file (Google Earth’s native file format).

EasyGPS

EasyGPS is an easy (and free) way to transfer waypoints, routes, and tracks between your computer and your Garmin, Magellan, or Lowrance GPS.  Once this software is downloaded and installed it can read, edit, organize and create GPX files.  Those files can then be uploaded back in to the GPS unit if you wish.

PrimalPad

Ran across this one today.  Sapien has released a free, portable script editing tool.  While not a full featured IDE like its big brother PrimalScript, PrimalPad, is a tabbed interface single file, color coding editor for VBScript, JScript, HTML and PowerShell.

The best part of this tool is the fact that it is self contained in a single file, and requires no install.  For this reason it is portable, making it easy to update a script on a machine when you are away from your main development environment.

Copy it to a thumb drive or home drive on a network and always have access to an editor way better than the default notepad.

To get PrimalPad free go to: PrimalPad