iMac WiFi Woes

Yesterday I took delivery of a brand new shiny 3.06Ghz iMac. I’ve been hankering after a decent desktop for a while. MacBooks and MacBook Pros are great for when you’re on the move, but when you want to sit down and do some serious coding / photo touching / gaming, you need a decent desktop.

So, I ordered a custom build iMac, which is now proudly taking pride of place on my desk.

After initial setup through restoring from a Time Machine backup, the iMac worked a treat, but from there, things deteriorated… I installed the 10.5.5 update.

After the update WiFi started playing up. The signal strength would keep varying, and constantly drop and reconnect altogether. Applications relying on internet connectivity would constantly fail.

After scratching my head and tinkering with all of the WiFi related settings I could think of, I was ready to start installing a new wired connection into the office… a damned pity given that this is the only appliance in the house that has a WiFi issue.

Then, i noticed something odd… I was running a little application called iStumbler to get a better look at the WiFi signal strength and characteristics. Strangely enough, whilst this application was left running, my network WiFi issues disappeared!

So now, I have a work around, but am completely at a loss as to how to properly fix this… if anyone has any suggestions, they would be very much appreciated!

Rantings & Ramblings

The content on this blog over the years has gradually morphed from a discussion of Java technology, software development and software engineering methodologies into a far more personal blog where I tend to have the occasional rant about something on my mind.

I’ve decided, partly inspired by a discussion with Jason of BookShelfApps, that I should split my blog into two… technical content one (this one), and all my random ranting and rambling in the other.

So… if you know me, and have a vague (or even passing) interest in my rantings/ramblings, you will now be able to find these over in the Atonewell blog.

I’ve imported all of the post from The jZone into this blog, and will shortly be pruning both blogs so that they only contain the relevant content.

How to reset a Blackberry to factory defaults

I’m just in the process of clearing out various odds and sods, including a Blackberry Curve that has been made redundant by my shiny new iPhone 3G.

Before shipping it off once it has been eBayed, I wanted to make sure that it had been completely wiped and reset to factory defaults, but couldn’t work out how.

Google to the rescue.

Google pointed me in the direction of a post on Lockergnome by Greg Hughes that advised exactly how to do this.

Go through the following menus to “nuke” your Blackberry:

• Options menu
• Security Options
• General Settings
• Menu
• Wipe handheld
• Enter password (”Blackberry” or your business-assigned security password)

It takes a couple of minutes, but afterwards, you should have a completely wiped Blackberry.

Moving to wordpress.com

I’ve got fed up with updating The jZone with new builds of WordPress. I’ve got better things to do with my time.

So, I’ve set up a new hosted blog with WordPress.com, and set up a ReWrite rule to direct traffic from the original site.

It may cause a few broken links, but will allow me (hopefully) to ignore this site, beyond writing the odd blog post or two of course.

The Sarcophagus Pattern

I’d just like to thank my colleagues Bill and Tom for defining this new pattern:

Sarcophagus Pattern
Intent

Provide a unified interface to a preserved, unspeakable horror that cannot be purged for sentimental or compatibility reasons. Sarcophagus is similar to Facade, but carries the implication that the box should only be opened in the presence of police, necromancers, or others familiar with the dealing with dead things.

Sarcophagus defines a higher-level interface that prevents the contents of the tomb from eating the brains of living. This can be used to simplify a number of despicable interactions and nightmarish dependencies into a single interface.

See also
Facade Pattern, Mediator Pattern, Adapter Pattern

Origins
Inspired by Tom during discussions of [removed to protect the authors]. Defined by Bill.

From the “Online Etymology Dictionary”: sarcophagus
“stone coffin,” 1601, from L. sarcophagus, from Gk. sarkophagos “limestone used for coffins,” lit. “flesh-eating,” in reference to the supposed action of this type of limestone (quarried near Assos in Troas) in quickly decomposing the body, from sarx (gen. sarkos) “flesh” (see sarcasm) + phagein “to eat” (see -phagous). The stone sense was the earliest in Eng,; meaning “stone coffin, often with inscriptions or decorative carvings” is recorded from 1705. The L. word, shortened in V.L. to *sarcus, is the source of Fr. cercueil, Ger. Sarg “coffin,” Du. zerk “tombstone.”