Received: 15:26:48 2008-07-16

Hey man i am about the take a practice MCAT so i will be unavailable until after 9. We are planning to play pong after 10. Let me know when you are free for the night and if you have other guys who want to come. We can pick you up at jester and drop you off

So, I have not idea who this came from or what they are talking about. But I love it when someone dials the wrong number. I used to get calls all the time for a different William, but at least that time it was from someone I knew and the other William was also a friend.

The reference to “jester” lets me know that the message is from someone local. Jester is the name of the biggest dormitory at the University of Texas. I was tempted to play along and send a message back that sounded vaguely like I knew what I was talking about, but I ultimately decided against it.

Even though I have never seen The Love Bug, Herbie Rides Again, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Herbie Goes Bananas or Herbie Fully Loaded (though I narrowly escaped watching Herbie Fully Loaded once), I think it is cool to see something like this for reals.

The photograph was taken on 23 April 2008, outside Welch Painter Hall on the University of Texas campus. I used my Nokia 6126.

Whatever it is, I probably suck at photography right now. Here is a photo I took:

These are some pipes outside one of the School of Architecture buildings at the University of Texas. I took this with a Nokia 6126. Wait, what? That’s right, I took this picture with my cell phone camera. I guess it looks alright, for a cell phone camera.

Now with my job I have been supporting some Apple computers rather closely, and learning so much more about the operating system, specifically how I can configure just about anything with the Terminal. You know, type type type? Text-only? UNIX? It really is great.

In a way, learning and using Linux (i.e. UNIX (i.e. POSIX)) for my server has prepared me for Mac OS X and helped me to appreciate it more.

Also, there is remote administration. I can see the computers without leaving my desk. I can control them, even if someone else is logged in and using them. That would probably be a bit freaky: you’re mousing around when suddenly, the mouse is moving on its own and there is nothing you can do about it.

I haven’t tried that on anyone yet.

Here is the problem I ran into, however: I want to change a setting, but to do so I need to take control of the computer and open System Preferences, &c. I don’t want to interrupt the user to do it. I was considering this, when I remembered all the times I read tips online for configuring Mac OS X before I actually owned such a computer, and I remembered that the tip-giver would almost always give a Terminal command to effect the change, and said Terminal command would almost always begin with defaults.

So, I did some digging and learned about the defaults command, and, long story short (“Too late!”), I came up with these magic words:

defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow PowerOffDisabled

This command shows the Restart and Shutdown buttons on the login window (so you can turn off the computer without logging in first). Having a Terminal command to do this is great because I can run such commands on the computers I administer without interrupting the current user. All behind the scenes. It is very clever.

The blog is protected, so if you want to read it you will have to email me.

Also, I am doing very well.