This morning I upgraded our home wireless router that connects to our cable Internet modem.  I installed a D-Link DIR-615 basic wireless N router in place of the old, dependable Linksys WRT54G Version 2 that just kept going and going, connecting to our laptops at the far end of the house (porch) from the other end of the house (living room).  The old router is going downstairs to be a wireless client and router in the Game Room, maybe to be upgraded later if the bandwidth is needed there.

I have used hardware or home network firewalls for a very long time.  I've even memorized their network address, 192.168.1.1.  This morning the initial install of the D-Link box went very, very well.  I used the setup wizard on the included CDROM, which established the basic configuration.  Everything was off and running for all the workstations and wireless laptops.  We even got a great signal on the porch.

Unfortunately, our Home Server disappeared off the network.  Since the Home Server and the other server are routed through two switches and several cable connections, and the cable router install had gone so well, I concentrated on the switches and cables.  After about three hours of frustration, I found that the new router established our subnet on 192.168.0, not 192.168.1.  I reset the subnet of the servers and everything worked great.

Today I discovered that not all routers are made the same.  And also that I'm not cut out to be a Network Engineer.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 7-26-2008

When we are children, life is full of possibilities, opportunities, and great goals.  "I want to be President when I grow up!"   Or, "I'm going to invent a time machine!"

The dreams of our youth fade quickly, replaced with the drudgery of work, the responsibility of family, survival, disappointment, maybe a few bad habits that take years to get under control.  Immature dreams give way to mature realism and goals.  But when we retire or near the end of our days, we remember the dreams and the lost opportunity to pursue them.

Whenever I encounter people that dreamed of flying as kids, and marvel that I or my flying friends actually got a license to fly, I'm reminded how most people lose their dreams and regret it every day.  Truly flying is a common dream that most never achieve, except in the back seat of some aluminum tube going from point A to point B.  I think the secret to a satisfied life is to keep the dreams and live a full life.  Achieve some of your dreams, pursue some more, and you'll always have something great to remember and something to look forward to.

Among pilots, one of the cool dreams is to build your own airplane.  Some kit airplanes are real hot rods, vintage reproductions, or unique expressions of the way we'd like to fly.  Next week hundreds of thousands of pilots and homebuilt airplanes will converge on Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture event.  I'd love to go, but that's a dream I'll have to keep for next year.  It would be great to join all those homebuilt aircraft enthusiasts, learn some building and maintainance skills at the workshops, watch the great airshows, check out the thousands of homebuilt airplanes on the ramp, and see the latest airplanes and kits.

I share the dream of building my own airplane.  In fact, I have a basic need to build an aircraft of my own design.  I've started the design for a two-place Light Sport Aircraft this past week.

I'd like to "share the dream" on this blog as I refine and build the aircraft.  I looked out on the Internet for some examples of other folks work.  I've seen lots of builders that document building their kit aircraft on various Websites.  But not much describing the design process.

Chris Heinz, who has designed and kitted several well-known aircraft, has some articles posted on the Zenithair Website.There are some simplified design programs that you can run on a Website.  There are countless articles on specific aircraft design factors, such as engine choice, propellers, streamlining, airfoils, and so on.  I haven't found any publication on the Internet that describes how a specific design happened.  Please send me links to Websites like that, if you've found one!

I am not going to simplify the process I'm going through.  I will probably use some approaches and tools that are foreign to other aircraft designers.  I will be including current designs and aircraft in my design process.  I hope this will be interesting and a good way to start design discussions.  Most of all, this is my dream and it is for fun.

Next time: Goals, baseline, and initial wing design.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 7-23-2008

Lisa and I have been shopping around for a flat screen TV for the Game Room downstairs.  We shopped casually.  My attitude was that this particular purchase was not only optional, waiting to buy would give us the benefit of the inevitable descent of prices in flat screen TVs.  Not to mention that the technology seemed to be maturing for good LCD contrast levels and built-in HD broadcast tuners as standard equipment.

It is clear for us this weekend that prices are reversing their trend.  Even though the Knoxville Best Buy has LCD TVs stacked to the ceiling, today's sale flyer features their less-desirable 720p models at higher prices than the 1080p models were going for just a week or two earlier.  Why is that?  Where is the fire sale to clear their enormous inventory?

Well, maybe Best Buy has to generate some cash flow for some reason (better quarterly report or whatever).  Or maybe there are major market forces at work that all retailers have included in their planning.  Clearly, price hikes for flat screen TVs aren't part of the seasonal "back to school" strategy, so something bigger is going on.

Perhaps the retailers are depending on a perfect storm of factors that will drive flat screen demand to record high levels.  Clearly, the broadcast switch to digital TV signals in February will be a great motivator for consumers.  And the deadline occurs soon after the end of the Christmas buying season in America.  Another factor driving spending on at-home entertainment is the high cost of travel.  And don't forget that most flat screen TVs are manufactured overseas so wholesale prices are very dependent on exchange rates.  If retailers believe wholesale prices are getting worse, they won't mind higher inventory levels that are bought at lower prices.

If it's true that retailers are hiking the price of flat screen TVs and stocking inventory ahead of forecast demand now (in July), then we are likely to see upward pricing through the end of the year.  If you've been waiting for a good sale to buy a flat screen TV, you might have to wait until March of 2009.  Plenty of time to save up.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 7-20-2008

Sorry about that.

If Spaces provided some indication exactly what posts people are reading, I'd be happy to crank out something interesting every now and then.  Rather than doing as I please all the time.  According to the statistics, the Spaces blog has gotten over 18,601 page views as of right now.  Last time I looked in early June, the count was about 17,000.

On the other hand, if I weren't so lazy I would put little tracking bugs in each page, write an app to count individual page views on Spaces and the Walt Lounsbery Direct blog, and then the mystery would be solved.  I could even post an article about that.

Hmmm, where did I put those tracking bugs?

Walter Lounsbery, 7-18-2008

I think I saw this little chain reaction rumbling around the developer community about a year ago.  I hoped to escape the schoolyard-like "tag, you're it!" highly non-viral spread of this blogging exercise.  If you heard about it before, certainly you saw the roots of this game in more notorious chain email.  It's kind of a drag of uniformity, those that are tagged are expected to follow the format and then "tag" some other poor slobs.  Unimaginative and distracting if you are already a regular blogger.  A regular blogger wouldn't need some lame-o thing like this to create a semi-interesting post.  And they certainly shouldn't have to be tempted with egocentric topics.

Trouble is, what can you do when you're tagged by someone you know?  Especially someone local, that runs the local .NET user groups that you participate in?  Plus, I can't call myself a regular blogger.  I've been short of posts the past few months.  Mike has caught me at a vulnerable moment, he has challenged me a bit.  Not only am I a bit rusty, I'm not sure this will be material most other developers would want to read.  Just remember, this little post is Mike's fault, direct all criticism his way.

How old were you when you started programming?

I started programming the Summer after my Junior year in High School.  I attended a Summer camp for Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC). Many of my nerd friends from High School also went, so we had a blast encountering dorm life, fun tech stuff, and freedom from parents and curfews for two weeks.  I should mention that my nerd group was gender-balanced, I was shocked to find a much less balanced nerd social scene in college (at the University of Missouri-Rolla, now the Missouri University of Science and Technology).

By the way, my older sister went to the UMC.  Her boyfriend was taking Summer courses.  We went out one evening and got a pitcher of beer.  I found that I liked beer and that he was a lightweight drinker.  My parents never heard about that, of course.

Even at that young age, I was dedicated to a career in aerospace engineering.  Programming is my second career.  I made good use of the University's computer to obtain numerical solutions to aircraft propeller equations I'd derived.  In my Senior year in High School, I became the first person in my High School to enter the Kansas City Science Fair with my work on propellers, probably becoming the only student at that High School to earn first place and go on to the International Science Fair.

That is how nerds became known as propeller heads.

What was your first language?

FORTRAN IV, Level G, on the venerable IBM 360.

What was the first real program you wrote?

What a loaded question.  Like, what is a "real program?"  I haven't seen a good definition of a "real program" or a "real programmer."

The first program would be that propeller analysis program.  My first commercial program was a database program for the Amiga called "Record Master."  The most impactful program I did was a proof-of-concept, almost a demonstration-level program.  It laid out the basic concepts for an engineering data management library that could support flexible simulation and analysis.  Some very talented engineers took that work and made it one of the key tools for engineering simulation for the F-16, F-22, F-35, and other aircraft programs.

The first Website I produced was for the Chatham County School Board in Georgia.  There were less than a dozen Websites by school systems (not universities) at that time and this was one of those leading the way.  I got to demonstrate the Website for one of the local TV stations and lecture on it at the Georgia IT in Education forum.

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

If you know what I went through before I started my programming career, you would have wondered what took me so long.  The aerospace industry has been declining since the cancellation of the United States supersonic jetliner around 1974.  The bizarre management of DOD projects over the years is just incredible.  On the civilian side, funding is highly uncertain and everything is unstable.  In some ways, programming is much less stressful and a more dependable career.

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

Learn how to organize, design, and document.  Quit laughing, I am deadly serious.  Nobody wants to do these things, few are capable.  Be a rare gem.  Everyone loves to code, some code well, few produce a good product.

What's the most fun you've ever had ... programming?

I have two major projects that I really need to do.  They will be really fun.

Every programming challenge, whether it is a new start, a major debugging effort, or a serious upgrade to a badly broken legacy application, is fun.  It is great to master a really tough objective.  There have been times when it is great to go from start to finish on a Website in a day or two.  But the great challenges have the great rewards.

Who am I calling out?

Nobody in particular.  If you read this and like the idea of this theme, do a post and link back to me.  If you can leave a comment, do that too.

Thanks for reading.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 7-13-2008