For the past 2 weeks I’ve been working on a script that uses the free software project apcupsd to regularly poll an APC UPS, collect statistics (Line Voltage, Battery Load, Time Remaining) and then create graphs from this data using gnuplot.

If you have a typical Linux system with all the standard tools (bash, grep, awk, sed, tac) and gnuplot installed with libpng support (you probably do) then it should work for you. First, make sure you are running apcupsd and that the “apcaccess” program works for communicating with your UPS. If it does, all you need to do is tweak a few options in the script and setup a cron job to run it at whatever interval of time you’d like your graphs to cover. I currently keep 4032 entries for each data point, run at 5 minute cron intervals which comes out to 1 week’s worth of data.

The graphs are PNG images, intended to be displayed with a web server, but if you just want the images, comment out the HTML portions of the script. I have tried to make it easy to understand and modify.

To see a live example of my UPS data, go to airwaterunix.org/ups.

And here’s the script: http://airwaterunix.org/makegraphs.sh

When I first picked up the new Apple Remote in the store yesterday, I was struck by just how huge it seemed compared to the previous one. I took it as a given that whatever replaced Apple’s previous plain white plastic remote necessarily had to be smaller, maybe iPod shuffle sized, and also thought the buttons would be difficult to use. I was surprised to find that the remote appears designed to be held comfortably in your hand, rather than made as small as possible, and the concave buttons are precisely fingertip sized.

Instead of a combined Play/Pause/Select button, Play/Pause have been moved down right, and the center of the directional pad is Select. Menu is on the bottom left, and the directional pad is marked by simple dots, rather than arrows. There’s a small IR port on top, and a battery door on the back, and nothing else.

Cleverly, since the body is tapered, when the battery door is turned, it sits uneven with the rest of the remote, making it easy to remove.

The battery door perfectly wraps around the battery, keeping it from rattling.

At first I thought the new remote was just a change for change’s sake, and was uglier than the old white one. But having used both, I now think that Apple is serious about Front Row and using your iMac, MacBook, or Mac mini as a media device and they want you to have a nice controller to use it with. The old white one may be cleaner and aesthetically simpler, but feels chintzy compared to the new sculpted unibody. And as yet another unibody product in Apple’s lineup, it passes the squeak test. Go ahead, dig out your white Apple remote and roll it around in your hand squeezing it. Hear those slight creaks? Won’t happen on the new aluminum one. It’s a little thing, but a seamlessly enclosed media remote really does make it feel like a luxury accessory to a luxury product.

In fact, I’m currently puzzled as to how exactly Apple manufactured this thing. The only openings on the entire body are the tiny IR port on top, the 3 button areas, and the battery door. It looks like the battery door is actually just a carved hole, with a little metal contact coming in from above. The hole the directional pad sits in is the largest hole. My current hypothesis is that there’s a very small circuit board, inserted through that opening, with the battery contact at the bottom. Then the buttons are inserted from the outside. They must have sweated the manufacturing process on this for months to figure out how to carve out the necessary space inside a solid block of aluminum, all for a $19 remote. That’s passion.

Lots of great stuff in this article about Ken Segall’s book Think Different, chronicling his time at TBWA/Chiat/Day during Apple’s recovery, but this particular quote stood out to me:

“Dell and Apple: It’s night and day,” Segall says. “It’s a transactional world Dell lives in. It’s all about numbers. Everything they say about Apple making products for themselves is true. Apple — it’s about changing the world. For everyone else, it’s about the money.”