Is 1W Really That Much Better?

March 20, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

This week has been wonderful. The weather has warmed from freezing in the AM to mid-fifties in the afternoon. And I think we have finally seen the last of the snow. So I’ve begun spring cycling in earnest. This week, I’ve put in over 110 miles of bicycle commuting. That is the best total for the year. I can’t wait for this to be the low point!
Now that I am cycling in the dark once again (due to Daylight Savings Time), I’ve needed to get even more serious about my dawn/dusk lighting. My CygoLite Mitycross front headlight has been fabulous. But the rear lights were not sufficient. After using a Topeak Redlite UFO for a few months, I’ve come to realize that it is a fine light for my kids. I would have no trouble letting them ride on the sidewalks at night. But it just isn’t enough for my daily commuting needs.
So I have been researching and planning my tail light campaign. I started with a Serfas Seat Stay light. This light is a very flexible light with seven LED’s (six small and one large). I had problems with the light due to poor battery contacts. But my local bike shop eagerly replaced the unit. Bless their hearts. I now use this as my secondary light assembly. It is a good light. And it can mount on almost anything. I have it mounted on an elevated stay that is part of my rear bike rack.
But I really wanted something with a “Wow” factor. So I invested in a Portland Design Works’ Radbot 1000 light. This light is absolutely outstanding. The light itself is bright – blindingly bright. And the unit has three distinct operating modes. I like the zZz mode which provides a gentle transition between flashes in the cycle. The second mode is euphemistically called the “Retina Blitz” – and it earns that name. I don’t think I would use this – unless I really wanted to piss off the motorists that are behind me. The third mode is an “always on” steady-light function. Finally, the unit has an excellent reflector just below the light itself.
This light can be mounted on almost anything. With its stiff clip, you can hook it onto your panniers, the rear of a saddle bag or even the back of your jacket. The product package also contains mounting accessories for almost any fixed hookup. My unit is mounted on the 5mm mounting bracket of my Surly Nice rack.
The battery life will be a challenge for many riders – and it was for me as well. Typical convenience store batteries won’t last very long. So I decided to invest in some high capacity rechargeable batteries. I chose Maha’s PowerEx 1000mAh batteries. Coupled with a good charger, these batteries should meet my needs. But since I can’t carry a tester with me wherever I go, I’ve decided to pack a spare pair in my saddle bag. They will now be part of my normal touring kit.
There is a great video about the light over at Youtube. I heartily recommend this light. BTW, one watt doesn’t sound like much, but it is REALLY bright. The “gold standard” that many commuters used to select was the Planet Bike Superflash. But the Superflash uses a 0.5W bulb. And the difference is really startling. And for those who know me, I’m all about being “startling” in everything that I do!
-Roo

A Little Dab’ll Do Ya

February 21, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Sometimes, help comes from the oddest sources.

As you can probably tell by my last post, I really don’t like compromising on technical matters. But I had to compromise a little in order to achieve the download speeds that I wanted. Consequently, I chose to “relax” my desire to use DD-WRT.

But I couldn’t live with the compromise. So that’s where a little innovation (and some off-the-shelf “hair grease”) came into play.

The problem was simple: when I connected the new router to the new cable modem, I was seeing abysmal throughput. And the challenge only came when using DD-WRT. So it seemed fairly clear that there was a problem with DD-WRT and how it managed the WAN port connection to the cable modem. Since both the cable modem’s downstream link and the router’s upstream link were attempting a gigE connection, I suspected that the issue dealt with auto-negotiation of the WAN port.

What could I do to bypass the code problem? From the simplest viewpoint, all I needed to do was change the hardware between the two devices; I needed a little dab of low-cost grease that could shiny up the problem. So I bought a cheap tin of techno-Brylcreem: a Netgea GS105.

Brylcreem was a pomade used for your hair. Pomades were made from beeswax, petroleum jelly and a little wax. These off-the-shelf components would make your hair shiny – and practially immobile! 🙂 The GS105 was the “off-the-shelf” component that both the cable modem and the router would seamlessly connect to. Hopefully, this would be a classic work-around for the problem that DD-WRT was having with the Cisco DPC3010.

Did it work?

Absolutely! The GS105 was the little dab that made my network quite shiny. Once installed between the two devices, my bandwidth (as tested by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was back to my contracted expectations. W00t!

-Roo

A Little Dab'll Do Ya

February 21, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Sometimes, help comes from the oddest sources.
As you can probably tell by my last post, I really don’t like compromising on technical matters. But I had to compromise a little in order to achieve the download speeds that I wanted. Consequently, I chose to “relax” my desire to use DD-WRT.
But I couldn’t live with the compromise. So that’s where a little innovation (and some off-the-shelf “hair grease”) came into play.
The problem was simple: when I connected the new router to the new cable modem, I was seeing abysmal throughput. And the challenge only came when using DD-WRT. So it seemed fairly clear that there was a problem with DD-WRT and how it managed the WAN port connection to the cable modem. Since both the cable modem’s downstream link and the router’s upstream link were attempting a gigE connection, I suspected that the issue dealt with auto-negotiation of the WAN port.
What could I do to bypass the code problem? From the simplest viewpoint, all I needed to do was change the hardware between the two devices; I needed a little dab of low-cost grease that could shiny up the problem. So I bought a cheap tin of techno-Brylcreem: a Netgea GS105.
Brylcreem was a pomade used for your hair. Pomades were made from beeswax, petroleum jelly and a little wax. These off-the-shelf components would make your hair shiny – and practially immobile! 🙂 The GS105 was the “off-the-shelf” component that both the cable modem and the router would seamlessly connect to. Hopefully, this would be a classic work-around for the problem that DD-WRT was having with the Cisco DPC3010.
Did it work?
Absolutely! The GS105 was the little dab that made my network quite shiny. Once installed between the two devices, my bandwidth (as tested by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was back to my contracted expectations. W00t!
-Roo

Zombie “Kill of the Week”

February 19, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

There is a time and a place for everything. This week was the time to upgrade my infrastructure. I’ve had a wireless router since the beginning of the last decade. My first WiFi router was a 3Com device. It supported 802.11b. My next router(s) was a Linksys WRT54G that supported 802.11g. So now that the new wireless standard has finally been approved, it was time to upgrade to a device that supported802.11n – or whatever draft specification is currently under review/consideration/implementation.

I tend to be a thoughtful man when it comes to buying technology. So I considered the following:

A desire to stream video content
A multimedia infrastructure that used Ethernet connections to the TV, the Blu Ray player, and a game console
A room location that did not have Ethernet but needed a wireless Ethernet bridge
A need to link the high-speed infrastructure and a low-speed camera infrastructure (featuring an 802.11b access point)
My past experience with firmware (which included three years of using DD-WRT)
A desire to use open source components wherever possible
A need to upgrade my broadband bandwidth to support simultaneous streaming and web browsing
A desire to switch ISP’s in order to save some money

This was a daunting list. And I tried to meet every objective on the list. I think that I may have succeeded – but not without paying a price.

My first choice was to replace the wireless gear that I had. So I selected a Buffalo wireless router. In particular, I chose the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH as my new router. It uses the Atheros chipset for the radio. So I knew that it would provide the signal coverage that we need. It also ships from Amazon with DD-WRT. At the same time, I was tired of running a home-built wireless Ethernet bridge for the entertainment center. So I also purchased a Buffalo WLI-TX4-AG300N as a replacement bridge.

I installed that infrastructure last weekend. And it worked flawlessly with my Time Warner cable connection. But I still needed more bandwidth from my ISP – and I wanted to save a few bucks on my monthly cable expenses. So on Tuesday, I worked from home while my “cable guy” switched my infrastructure from Time Warner to SureWest. Why SureWest? Because we had used them many years ago when they were Everest. And now that I no longer needed any exclusive content from Time Warner, it was time to change.

The change was not as simple as I would have liked. First, SureWest needed to string new cable. OK, I could live with that. But then SureWest felt compelled to change the cable modem to a Cisco DPC-3010. This is a fine device. And I am sure that SureWest got quite a deal with Cisco. And I know that the Cisco gear is very manageable for the provider.

But the customer experience was awful.

I went from a 15-30mbs service to something quite a bit less. Yes, I had contracted for 25mbs. But my experience (as measured by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was only about 11-12mbs. I was horribly disappointed. Indeed, I felt like the corporate zombies had stolen a good thing and replaced it with something less appetizing.

The cable guy had me test a direct connection between my new cable modem and my PC. In that configuration, I could get ~25mbs. Shoot! That meant the issue was with the router when I put it between the cable modem and my PC. I expected some performance loss. But 50% is just plain unacceptable.

So I went off to the forums to seek information – and a little solace. Based upon recommendations from forum gurus, I updated the router firmware to the latest DD-WRT versions. I first tried build 16144. I then moved on to build 16214. But the results were always the same: I was seeing about a 50% bandwidth loss.

I thought the issue might be the cable modem. So I contacted both SureWest, their outsourced technical support staff and I even checked with Cisco. It seems that SureWest will not support any modem except their customized and re-branded Cisco.

Consequently, I had but one alternative: change the router. But I didn’t want to get rid of my shiny new router. And it had performed so well before the ISP change. Therefore, I decided to switch to the default Buffalo firmware before I just swapped the whole thing out. This meant that I would be abandoning one of my requirements: i.e., using DD-WRT. But I had to test this in order to really determine where the problem was.

After a few minutes of downloading code and a few minutes of uploading the firmware to the router, I had the new/old Buffalo firmware running on the device. And what was the result? I started to see performance approaching 25mbs. Conclusion: DD-WRT, the Buffalo router and the Cisco DPC-3010 don’t work well together. It could be any number of things. And I will still pursue a DD-WRT solution. But for now, I have met all of my customer requirements – while compromising on one requirement from the infrastructure team.

In order to get what you want, you may need to abandon a well-worn rule or two. For me, I decided to meet my family’s requirements – and defer my geek requirements.

And what was the first movie I streamed using the new infrastructure? You guessed it: Zombieland.

-Roo

Zombie "Kill of the Week"

February 19, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

A desire to stream video content
A multimedia infrastructure that used Ethernet connections to the TV, the Blu Ray player, and a game console
A room location that did not have Ethernet but needed a wireless Ethernet bridge
A need to link the high-speed infrastructure and a low-speed camera infrastructure (featuring an 802.11b access point)
My past experience with firmware (which included three years of using DD-WRT)
A desire to use open source components wherever possible
A need to upgrade my broadband bandwidth to support simultaneous streaming and web browsing
A desire to switch ISP’s in order to save some money

This was a daunting list. And I tried to meet every objective on the list. I think that I may have succeeded – but not without paying a price.
My first choice was to replace the wireless gear that I had. So I selected a Buffalo wireless router. In particular, I chose the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH as my new router. It uses the Atheros chipset for the radio. So I knew that it would provide the signal coverage that we need. It also ships from Amazon with DD-WRT. At the same time, I was tired of running a home-built wireless Ethernet bridge for the entertainment center. So I also purchased a Buffalo WLI-TX4-AG300N as a replacement bridge.
I installed that infrastructure last weekend. And it worked flawlessly with my Time Warner cable connection. But I still needed more bandwidth from my ISP – and I wanted to save a few bucks on my monthly cable expenses. So on Tuesday, I worked from home while my “cable guy” switched my infrastructure from Time Warner to SureWest. Why SureWest? Because we had used them many years ago when they were Everest. And now that I no longer needed any exclusive content from Time Warner, it was time to change.
The change was not as simple as I would have liked. First, SureWest needed to string new cable. OK, I could live with that. But then SureWest felt compelled to change the cable modem to a Cisco DPC-3010. This is a fine device. And I am sure that SureWest got quite a deal with Cisco. And I know that the Cisco gear is very manageable for the provider.
But the customer experience was awful.
I went from a 15-30mbs service to something quite a bit less. Yes, I had contracted for 25mbs. But my experience (as measured by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was only about 11-12mbs. I was horribly disappointed. Indeed, I felt like the corporate zombies had stolen a good thing and replaced it with something less appetizing.
The cable guy had me test a direct connection between my new cable modem and my PC. In that configuration, I could get ~25mbs. Shoot! That meant the issue was with the router when I put it between the cable modem and my PC. I expected some performance loss. But 50% is just plain unacceptable.
So I went off to the forums to seek information – and a little solace. Based upon recommendations from forum gurus, I updated the router firmware to the latest DD-WRT versions. I first tried build 16144. I then moved on to build 16214. But the results were always the same: I was seeing about a 50% bandwidth loss.
I thought the issue might be the cable modem. So I contacted both SureWest, their outsourced technical support staff and I even checked with Cisco. It seems that SureWest will not support any modem except their customized and re-branded Cisco.
Consequently, I had but one alternative: change the router. But I didn’t want to get rid of my shiny new router. And it had performed so well before the ISP change. Therefore, I decided to switch to the default Buffalo firmware before I just swapped the whole thing out. This meant that I would be abandoning one of my requirements: i.e., using DD-WRT. But I had to test this in order to really determine where the problem was.
After a few minutes of downloading code and a few minutes of uploading the firmware to the router, I had the new/old Buffalo firmware running on the device. And what was the result? I started to see performance approaching 25mbs. Conclusion: DD-WRT, the Buffalo router and the Cisco DPC-3010 don’t work well together. It could be any number of things. And I will still pursue a DD-WRT solution. But for now, I have met all of my customer requirements – while compromising on one requirement from the infrastructure team.
In order to get what you want, you may need to abandon a well-worn rule or two. For me, I decided to meet my family’s requirements – and defer my geek requirements.
And what was the first movie I streamed using the new infrastructure? You guessed it: Zombieland.
-Roo

Network Backups Are Now Available at Chez Roo

January 29, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

After replacing the old external drive with a shiny new network drive, the next step was obvious: network backups. I was excited. This was going to be a no-brainer. Windows 7 offers a backup tool. And that tool is quite good. Too bad it doesn’t work with Windows 7 Home Premium. Yes, you can backup your system to a USB-attached device. But if you want to use a network location, you’ll have to invest in Windows 7 Professional – or some other tool.
I chose the “some other tool” option. My requirements were simple.

I want to be able to take full backups.
I want to be able to take incremental (or differential) backups.
I have to be able to use my new network-attached storage device.
I don’t want to spend much (or any) money to make all of this happen.

To start, there are a lot of backup tools. Some come with the operating system. Others are available via purchase at a retail store. Some are bundled with network storage systems. And still others can be downloaded from the Internet. So my first chore was to sort the list down to two or three tools that would meet my requirements. After fiddling with Google search arguments, I finally ran a search that narrowed my choices down.
After checking out a few reviews, I read the review put together by Mark Muller (at BrightHub). Based upon that review, I downloaded and installed Comodo Backup. And I am genuinely thrilled with this product. It does all of the things that you expect a backup tool to do. And it does them on any kind of media (including network-attached storage).
And it does this for free. I’m still trying to figure out how this company makes money. They do offer a remote storage option (a la Mozy or Carbonite). Maybe they will make their money in this fashion. I sure hope that they do – because I really want to continue to use the product. Why do I want to use this product? Two words: it works!
-Roo

The Egyptian Crisis Proves the Need for Anonymity

January 29, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

I had a very interesting conversation at work yesterday. Someone I work with asked me about the “cool tools” that I really believe in. After thinking long and hard about the question, I told him that I believe in freedom of speech and I believe in anonymity as a bulwark to ensure both the freedom of speech and the freedom of thought. He nodded his head at the blandishment. Then I told him about TOR (the onion router). After a few minutes, he asked for a URL. So I gladly pointed him to http://www.torproject.org.
Most of the time, I am greeted with crickets when I talk about TOR. In fact, most people recite the old rubric that if you have done nothing wrong, then you should have nothing to hide. While I often agree with this sentiment, I always cringe when I hear it. Why? Because Americans have a fundamental right to think and speak whatever is in our hearts and minds. But in some places, the definitions of right and wrong are horribly twisted. During times of great crisis, freedoms are routinely challenged. And that is exactly what is happening in Egypt today.
I am not informed enough to know whether President Hosni Mubarak is or is not a tyrant. He is unelected. And he has been the unelected leader since the death of Anwar Sadat (over thirty years ago). And he has suppressed speech – especially the speech of the extreme minorities (like the Muslim Brotherhood). Do I want a stable regime that is peaceful towards Israel to be replaced by some unknown group that may be hostile to peace? Absolutely not. But I can’t read the future. So I won’t comment on what I would like to see. Again, I am not familiar enough to pick “right” and “wrong” in a complex multinational struggle.
But I do know this: when freedom is challenged, geeks turn to technology. And there are geeks in Egypt that are turning toward TOR. When President Mubarak shut down cell phones, messages came from alternate sources. And when folk feared that their browsing and their postings would be monitored, they turned to the tools of anonymity.
TOR usage has skyrocketed. There are now four times as many people using TOR to ensure their anonymity. And the number of relays supporting these users has also skyrocketed (see below).
This spike in relays is across the globe. And geeks everywhere are bombarding Twitter and they are deluging Facebook. And folks are starting to march in America. I am so glad to see that people are engaged and active. I am not certain what outcome I want to see. But I do want to see freedom of speech and freedom of thought flourish in times of turmoil. So count me in.
-Roo

When Opportunity Knocks…

January 23, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

I am one of those odd folks who truly believes that each challenge you face is an opportunity to grow and become more than you were before. Yeah, it’s trite. And worse still, I’m not always a consistent example of this “life lesson.” But this weekend has been a cool example of how a challenge can yield some unexpected (and welcome) changes.
Over the past week, I’ve run into quite a few problems with hard disk drives. We’ve had some trouble at work. And we’ve had some trouble here at home. And this is not altogether unexpected as hard drives are the largest source of moving parts in any computer. So they are the most likely components to fail. And this week proved that point.
At home, we’ve had a hard drive fail in my wife’s old laptop. When she had a power supply fail on the device last month, we quickly replaced the whole laptop. And the new laptop runs very well. But what about the old laptop? Well, I’ve finally gotten around to trying to extract Cindy’s data from off of her old laptop. And the results have been singularly unimpressive. After pulling the drive out, I got some USB-to-SATA cables and hooked up the drive to my main system. Unfortunately, all I am getting is a clicking sound and no recognition of the drive when it is attached to my system. After confirming this with someone else at work, I’m coming to the realization that when we had the power supply problem, it zorched both the motherboard and the hard drive. I’ll try a few more things this week [including the freezer trick]. But unless I want to send the hard drive off to a clean room, we may have substantial data loss (since the last backup).
And the situation got worse when I started to have serious problems on my own external hard drive. I had a three-year old external, USB-attached hard drive. And I started to get some seek errors on the unit. After about four hours of fiddling with the device, I got it back to a “limping along” state. But I knew that such states rarely last. So I began the process of researching a replacement unit.
After a lot of research, I finally decided not to buy the NAS system with a RAID-5 infrastructure. I didn’t have the cash for that kind of expenditure. Rather, I got a simple, single disk NAS system at Best Buy. And as of this moment, I am singularly impressed by the Western Digital MyBook Live device that I purchased.
This device is simple and solid. It plugs into an AC outlet. And you connect it to your network with an Ethernet cable. In my case, I plugged it into the main router/switch that I have in my office. And the good news is that this device will migrate to my gigabit Ethernet network – whenever I put that in place.
Once I plugged it in, the setup was utter simplicity. Within a few minutes, I had a device that could act as external storage for every computer connected to our network. And the performance seems reasonable – even for systems connected via WiFi (including our smartphones). So within a few minutes, the core mission was accomplished.
Then came the fun.
The enclosure for this 1TB drive came with sufficient ROM and RAM to place real functionality within the chassis. Obviously, there is a Linux kernel running Samba. And there is also an instance of Twonky Media server. So this device provides DLNA/UPnP services on the home network.

This means that I can have all sorts of devices consume the content – including my HDTV and my phone. But at a minimum, every Windows device in the household can get streaming content from the NAS.

And the music and videos will stream directly through Windows Media Player.

At this moment, I have all sorts of content that I used to source from my desktop system (running TVersity) which can now be streamed from a purpose-built applicance.
All of this proves that cool capabilities can now be plugged right into the network. Last year, I plugged a printer directly into the network. Yesterday, I plugged disk storage ad a streaming media server directly into the network. Before this, every desktop and laptop in the house depended upon my desktop system to be available. I can now stop worrying about whether I am impacting other people’s work when I do some CPU-intensive or some disk-intensive task. I can schedule desktop downtime during prime-time hours. W00t!
Finally, all of this new stuff makes me realize just how far we’ve come in such a short time. When I built my first computer system (i.e., a Heathkit H89), I had the option of installing one of the very first “Winchester” drives into the system enclosure. I declined the option. I knew how important disks would be for personal computers. But I couldn’t justify spending over $600 for 10MB of storage. And how could I ever use that much storage. Yesterday, I installed a system with 100,000 times the capacity for 1/4 the price. Times really have changed.
-Roo

Liberty: An Ideal and a ROM

January 12, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Last weekend, I wrote about installing and using a new ROM for my Droid 2. At the time that I wrote that post, I knew that I would be replacing it with another post very shortly. That time is now. And the reason I am writing this post is because I have once again changed the Android ROM for my Droid 2. As of 7AM this morning, I switched to the new Liberty ROM. This ROM is a collaboration between two exceptional Android contributors. Kejar and JRummy have united to build a very interesting new ROM – and it rocks.
Why did I switch – yet again? First, you have to know that sampling and deploying ROM’s is a very addictive thing. It meets some fundamental control issues that every geek must address. Second, I really wanted to join into a very “new” thing. So leaping onto Liberty meets the “cool” threshold I set for many technologies.
But beyond coolness, style and swagger, Liberty represents freedom from the historical bonds associated with phones and their operating systems. It represents the work of the common man. And it represents a labor of love for many people. Android is truly about open communications. And the Liberty ROM brings us the best of that open ideal for communications technology.
-Roo

GummyJAR Starts Out As A Gooey Mess

January 8, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

After using ApeX 1.3.1 for almost a week, I decided it would be time for a few more changes to the phone. Sometimes, I amaze myself with the brazenness of my ego. But that amazement never occurs before the fact. Rather, I plunge headlong into the fray. And I invariably clean up the mess after the fact. And that was the case today as well.
I started today by downloading GummyJAR. GummyJAR is a custom ROM that attempts to be both AOSP-compliant and extremely fast. Rather that use pre-built binaries, the developers recompiled everything. The result of this is a much faster build
The download process itself was positively wonderful. Since I’m using ROM Manager Premium, I can download straight to my SD card. And the process only took a few minutes. So while I was waiting on downloads, I decided to take a backup of all of my apps using Titanium Backup. Once I had a good backup, it was time to launch the install. I chose to wipe cache and data. And with that, the install began. It took about ten minutes to boot into recovery, copy the files and start the glistening new OS. And the OS began without a hitch.
The next step was the coolest thing I’ve seen in at least… four or five days. I went to the Android app market and selected one of the apps I had purchased already. And within a few minutes the Market app was downloading several dozen apps to repopulate my system. This is totally awesome. And the recovery went without a hitch.
So within an hour, my phone had a new OS with all of my apps. I was flush with excitement. I felt the swelling of pride rise in my heart. So I decided to make yet another change: I used Titanium Backup to move many of these newly deployed apps to my SD card. And that’s when the trouble began.
My first inkling of trouble came when TB couldn’t move some of my apps. But I was amazed at just how many had moved before things failed. In the past, I had been able to move 15-20 of my 104 apps to my SD card. The rest didn’t move. But TB was telling me that it could move 79 of the apps. I felt great – even though a few apps didn’t move as expected. Things seemed to be working – and then I rebooted my phone.
After rebooting, very few of my apps were visible. This puzzled me. And some of the really important apps seemed to be gone – including ClockworkMod and ROM Manager. I tried to uninstall the apps and re-install them to no avail. Indeed, the Market wouldn’t install these apps as it believed that they were still available on my phone. But they acted just as if the SD card had not mounted – even though it had. After struggling with the issue for half an hour, I decided to just restore from a backup. But I could get TB to work at all.
So in desperation, I decided I would just boot into recovery mode and recover to a different ROM. But ROM Manager wasn’t working. So I tried to manually enter Clockwork Recovery. But I had no joy. And I was starting to feel desperate.
I rebooted the phone into GummyJAR. But this time, I could see the apps – and I could run them. So I downloaded a fresh ROM and rebooted. But on restart the apps were gone once again. As I was pulling my hair out, I figured that maybe the process of trying to go into bootstrap recovery had some effect that allowed successful execution of the apps I had moved. For whatever reason, this did have the desired effect. I could access my apps. So the first thing I did was run TB and move all apps back to internal memory. This took about five minutes and the process ended without error. Then I went into ROM Manager and re-installed the Clockwork Recovery software.
Upon reboot, everything came back in a functioning state. I have used the phone for about an hour. And I’ve rebooted the phone almost a half dozen times. And everything is working well. Phew. I had bad dreams of humbly going to the forums and begging for assistance. Fortunately, I accepted my slice of humble pie and I wasn’t forced to make public penance.
So what was the problem? What caused the trouble? Since moving the apps with TB was the start of the trouble and moving them back was the end of the trouble, my conclusion is simple: using any tool to force an app to SD is a bad idea. And it is a worse idea to move any apps when testing a new ROM.
But the good news is very good. The GummyJAR ROM is very cool. It is a complete AOSP solution. And there are no vestiges of MotoBlur on the phone at all. For this, I am very thankful. And I’ve learned a lot along the way. And this ROM is blazingly fast. So I will be living on this one until the new Gingerbread ROM’s start to surface in a few weeks.
So I am happy as I live with this new ROM and I dream about the new Motorola Xoom and its Android 3.0 goodness.

-Roo