Just not on the desktop yet. She went out almost 2 weeks ago now and purchased an iPhone 4 because everyone said it was the best smart phone for new users. I even recommended due to word of mouth from new users and iPhone fanatics worldwide. Boy were we wrong! Where is this amazing usability I keep hearing about with Apple products? I played with the phone for a couple of hours and my conclusion, and opinion, is it sucked! Hardware wise, screen wise, and usability wise, it flat-out sucked! Oh, and mom couldn’t agree more with me on that

So today she took the iPhone back, headed over to Costco, and got hooked up with a free Droid and a complete accessory pack. Her total was $15 which was just the taxes on the value of the phone. She now has a way bigger screen, 2 cores of 1.2GHz of love, twice the storage of the 16GB iPhone, and more apps at her fingers than she knows what to do with. One thing I noticed when she had the iPhone, is that she wasn’t intrigued, or really interested in messing with it. With the new Droid, she hasn’t put it down. The only thing she is missing is some silly graphical waste of phone case now. One mistake I made though, is I didn’t transfer her contacts or pictures off of the iPhone before she returned it. Luckily we have her old phone she upgraded to the iPhone from. It is as dead as one could get, but luckily I was able to snag her contacts off of the SD card and import them in her new GMail account in seconds. She hadn’t realized I did that until I heard her say, “Oh, there are my contacts, hrmm!” She thought they just magically appeared The photos are a loss unfortunately, or fortunately for many. You see, mom was damn near on her death-bed this summer, and while on it, she received really nasty bruises from all the needles injected. Well, she thought it was a good idea to take pictures of them to show to people. Now people will not have to hold back throwing up all over the place, so I guess I kind of won there

Also on the Android front, I got a Kindle Fire free in December. A stock Fire sucks the big one. Luckily a few hackers are creating an ICS ROM for it over at XDA Developer Forums. I put it on the other day and finally the Kindle is worth the $199. There are still a few minor bugs, but I can use it and be happy I am not looking at the garbage that Amazon created. If I were Google, I would make Amazon stop telling people it is Android.

Mom Finally Using Linux is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

OK, as I am sure you are all aware, the SOPA Blackout crap is upon us. Yes, I called it crap. Sites like Google and Wikipedia are planning on blacking out, but they are going to do so in a non-disruptive kind of way. They aren’t going to just blackout their website with a bunch of SOPA garbage and links. Also, if you aren’t a large website that is useful to millions, blacking out your website is doing nothing more than trying to make you look cool. That’s right, if you have 7 visitors a day to your blog, don’t black out. That is just plain silly. If you think you need to look cool and black out, at least do it correctly with a 503 Redirect, or just blacking out words longer than 5 characters. Don’t know what I am talking about? THEN DON’T BLACKOUT YOUR WEBSITE! But, if you still have to try to look cool, Google how to 503 or blackout certain words before midnight.

Right now, support in the house is about 50/50 on SOPA and PIPA. If it does pass the house, I am certain it won’t make it out of the senate. The senate realizes everyone in the house are idiots and takes their bills with a grain of salt, or the speaker just ignores it like in recent times. Say for instance the senate gets a wild hair in their ear and they pass it, now it is up to Obama. Now, whether you like him or not, his plan is to veto it. He knows it is BS as well as many others in the senate know.

So, if you aren’t a huge website and your panties are still in a bind…AHH WHO AM I KIDDING, YOU WANT TO BE COOL. WELL, YOU AREN’T COOL, SO KEEP THE LIGHTS ON, DON’T BLACKOUT BECAUSE GOOGLE AND WIKIPEDIA ARE DOING IT!

As you can see, blacking out your website or parts of it doesn’t make you look cool, it is actually annoying.

EDIT: You Ubuntu & Open Sourcers, this isn’t meant for you! I expect you all to blackout This is for my non-techie friends who think that blacking out their Blogspot/Blogger site will save their iTunes and porn.

Keep The Lights On is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Just wanted to drop a quick note for those of you who use vim with pathogen.vim and task (taskwarrior.org). I created a quick github repository that you can add to your bundle list to get syntax highlighting for task data in vim. Add the following repository to your bundle:

https://github.com/nixternal/taskwarrior-vim.git

I want to keep this up to date, so if you catch any changes upstream that I do not catch, let me know in the comments and I will get that fixed. Thanks!

Vim Pathogen Taskwarrior Bundle is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Earlier this week I was the lucky winner of one of the Phandroid Happy Holidroid Contests. The contest I won provided me the Amazon Kindle Fire, a JamBox by JawBone, a pair of Isotoner Smartouch Goves, a $30 gift certificate for the Seidio Online Store, and a zeemote bluetooth gaming controller for mobile devices. Not to shabby. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately to some lucky woman I know, the Isotoner gloves were women’s. If they were large enough, I would rock the pinkness. The Kindle Fire isn’t to shabby either, though it is one hell of a restrictive device, even rooted. Hopefully that will change as soon as a solid ICS build is available. The zeemote is pretty cool actually for some FPS, racing, and other games on a mobile device. The JamBox, is damn nice.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I was even going to like the JamBox. I really only listen to tunes on the train or walking around during a commute. I figured I would check it out, and if I didn’t like it, Craigslist/Amazon/Ebay it. After a little research I found out you are really restricted to the OS’ you can use to configure and get it setup initially. Windows XP (32-bit only), Vista, or 7 and Mac OS X are the only ones supported. I have that crap developer preview of Windows 8 on a machine, so I tried it. Hell no that didn’t work. Windows 8 couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Googling for help on that didn’t even result in a single thing. So, after borrowing a computer with Windows, I got it setup.

It has some pretty cool features. You can go with a wired connection with it or bluetooth. With the Kindle Fire I had to go the wired route, because Amazon has that thing locked down like Blagojevich will be soon. The sound out of it was impressive. Next I paired it via bluetooth to my phone and once again it was impressive. Speakerphone on it rocks, and just by pushing a button it will make the call, hold, mute, you name it. Next I wondered if it would work with Kubuntu.

So I enabled bluetooth on my laptop, set the JamBox to pairing mode, had Kubuntu search for it, and boom, it connected. Kubuntu even knew to add it as an audio device. To test it, I fired up Google Music and started playing. Hrmm, no sound out of it, just my laptop speakers. After playing around with System Settings and telling Kubuntu to prefer the JamBox, all worked, and worked well. The laptop speakers mute when using the JamBox, and when I shut off the JamBox the speakers on the laptop go back to playing the sound, and vice versa. I started walking around with it while LMFAO Party Rock was going and doing the dance around the house. I kept walking, and before you knew it, I was outside with it making my neighbors laugh. I then realized, damn, bluetooth has a range further than I ever thought. I was probably close to 50 feet away from my laptop, which was upstairs in the office, while I was outside.

The sound from the JamBox blows the laptop speakers out of the water. The ability to switch on different sound boosters is nice as well. The bass is good, the sound is crisp, and it is loud. As I write this, Google Music is shuffling between Gojira, Lamb of God, and more. I think I will keep this bad boy, as it is useful. Oh, and I have my phone and laptop paired with it now. So if I get a phone call, I can answer it through the JamBox and talk away. Rock on!

Kubuntu 11.10 and My JamBox is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Disclaimer

Here is a personal, unbiased, and opinionated review of the STM Alley Medium Shoulder Bag 15″ – Carbon from GearZap. I am in no way affiliated with GearZap. GearZap has not provided monetary support for this review or any advertisements, other than providing a free sample of the STM Alley laptop bag. Acceptance of the product does not guarantee a review.

Who is GearZap?

GearZap is a specialist online retailer of Netbook and Laptop accessories. All of their accessories, stocked in their central UK warehouse, are ready for dispatch as soon as possible.

A little background information

A couple of months ago GearZap contacted me and asked if I would be interested in reviewing a laptop bag because they had noticed that I have a couple of laptops in my arsenal and wondered how I was transporting them around. After speaking with them and letting them know that I have used another product for years, they offered up the STM Alley Medium Shoulder Bag 15″ – Carbon for me to review. The interesting thing here is I had previously tried to buy this same bag at an earlier time from a local store, but was unable to find one. I decided I would be more than happy to check the bag out and offer a review. At the time, I had planned on getting the bag and writing up a typical review in a few days time. After I started to write this review initially, I thought it would be unfair for me to review the bag without even using it. So I spent the past month doing exactly that. I have used the bag while commuting on a bicycle, the train, a car, and on foot. I have abused the bag just like I would any other bag that I have used in the past. After beating up the bag for the past month, I realized it was time for a review.

The STM Alley Laptop Bag Review

As you can see from the above image, the bag is good-looking, but does the good looks equate to a quality bag? The bag is a messenger style bag however it holds the laptop vertically instead of the typical horizontal way. I tend to ride my bike everywhere, and because of that I prefer the messenger style bag over everything else. In the past I always used the horizontal style bags as they lay across my bike nicely while pedaling my way through Chicago traffic. Concerned at first, I can now say that this vertical bag actually lays a bit nicer across the back than the horizontal bags I have used. I had to tighten up the strap so it would be held tight while riding. Now, you might be saying, “Well why don’t you use a backpack if you are going to carry on the back anyways?” Simple, a backpack tends to throw my balance off and I have never been comfortable riding my bike with a backpack. When I ride, I don’t tend to do 10MPH (or 15KPH for you non-imperial people) but ride as fast as I can. In Chicago I am typically faster than the traffic, so losing my balance while riding is dangerous. So far a messenger bag hasn’t posed this risk for me, and after using this STM Alley now for around a month, it hasn’t been an issue either. The only issue I have witnessed is dependent on the top layer of clothing that is resting against. If the material is a slicker material, such as nylon or spandex, it will tend to slip because there is just one strap holding it in place. Even when it tends to slip it hasn’t caused an issue for me at all while on my bike. The first time though it caught me off guard and scared me a little, but it didn’t throw off my balance.

Storage Capability

I have a similar bag to this one that I used for a netbook over the years. That bag simply had just enough storage to fit the laptop, an MP3 player, and barely the power cord. This STM Alley laptop bag has enough room that I can actually carry a 15.6 inch laptop, its power block, some notebooks, pens, and more. I was even able to throw in my netbook and its power block alongside the laptop. For the bag’s size, it can actually hold a bit, and do it comfortably. In the image below, you can see the inside of the bag with plenty of places to hold pens, business cards, and more.

Mobile Device Pouch

Previously I briefly spoke about the bag I used for my netbook. The one feature I loved was the pouch that held a portable media device and had a nice zippered strap that you could run the headphones through. This STM Alley laptop bag has the portable media or cell phone holder, but doesn’t have something that can carry the headphone cable nicely. What is nicer with the pouch on the STM Alley laptop bag is that it can hold various sized devices, as the pouch can stretch to accommodate even today’s larger mobile phones. Below are 3 images that show off the pouch, with the last 2 showing my Droid 2 inserted into it comfortably.

Laptop Storage Area

An issue I have had with pretty much every bag that I own, is the storage bay for the laptop is usually larger than the laptop. This is fine if you aren’t riding your bike, but if the laptop can shift inside the bag, this is what will throw your balance off while riding a bike. I can honestly say, this is not an issue with the STM Alley laptop bag. The laptop fits snug inside the bay and there is no way possible it can shift. The next few images show one of my laptops inside of the storage bay. The laptop is an older Compaq that is thicker than today’s laptops. My newer Dell fits in as well with a little room to spare. This room though shrinks up a little as you start throwing other items inside the bag.

This following image is yet another storage compartment that will fit a few notebooks with ease, or even the power block and mouse for the laptop.

A feature I have come to enjoy on laptop bags is a spot to securely hold your keys. The key fob in the STM Alley laptop bag is much nicer than any other bag I own or have owned. Once attached, the keys are held within yet another storage compartment that once zipped give added security.

The following image is the zippered compartment that the key fob is within.

On the front panel of the STM Alley laptop bag is yet another zippered storage compartment. This compartment is perfect for a notebook, some business cards, or anything else that you would need to have available easily. Inside this bag I keep my Moleskin, a pen, business cards, and my digital camera. The following image shows this front panel compartment.

On the back of the STM Alley laptop bag, the part of the bag that will rest against your side or your back, depending on how you are comfortable carrying it, has yet another zippered storage compartment. At first use and glance, I didn’t even recognize it and missed it for well over an hour or so. I had taken the pictures of the bag, and then started filling it up. It wasn’t until I started to use it that I had noticed the compartment. The storage ability of this compartment is smaller than the internal compartments, and a bit smaller than the front compartment. Even though it is smaller, depending on the size of your power block, it will more than likely fit in here. If I am not riding my bike, I will put the power in this compartment. If I am riding a bike, I will either leave it empty, or it will hold a larger notebook so that it will lie flat across my back. The following images show off the back and the storage compartment.

Conclusion

First off, I would like to thank the wonderful people over at GearZap for contacting me to do this review and for sending me a really great laptop bag. I probably haven’t been the easiest to work with, especially during the months leading up to the holidays, as it is one of my busiest times of the year. I am on a few boards and committees that have taken up a bit of my time, but it is these committees that have allowed me to use this bag often over the past month or so.

Back to the STM Alley laptop bag. After using this case for the past month or so, I am happy with it. It serves its purpose as a laptop case, and serves it well, as well as it looks good. I have actually had a friend of mine, who was visiting from the UK, ask about the bag and where to buy it. I can now say that my friend is also a happy owner of this bag thanks to the wonderful folks over at GearZap. The size of this case is perfect for pretty much every use I have for it. The only time it doesn’t work for me is when I need to transport a change of clothes, a 6-pack of beer, and more. When I need to carry that much stuff, I have a Chrome bag that I use, however I feel a Chrome bag is probably frowned upon when meeting with prospective clients in a much more professional atmosphere. Luckily for me, I have this wonderful STM Alley laptop bag that fits the bill perfectly.

Now, before I wrote the review and even received the case itself, I had read many reviews online from people who owned the case. I would say that more than 95% of those reviews were 5 out of 5 stars. The only complaints that I had found online were about the fact the bag is far from waterproof and that the velcro fasteners are loud when you are late to class. In response to the bag not being waterproof or where the flap folds over on the front can allow water inside the case, this is true. I haven’t used the case in a down pour, or used it for long periods of time out in the rain. When it is raining, I tend to either wear a rain poncho with the bag underneath, or use an umbrella. During those times my laptop did not get wet, nor did the contents inside. I wouldn’t recommend having the bag out for extended periods of time in the rain without some sort of protection. I wouldn’t recommend this with any laptop bag for that matter. As for the velcro fasteners being loud when you are late to class, DON’T BE LATE TO CLASS! No really, don’t be late to class. Everyone of my bags have velcro fasteners, and if you want to know loud, the Chrome bag is by far the loudest. If by now you haven’t figured out how to undo velcro fasteners quietly, well let me just tell you that you don’t pull them like they are band-aids. The slower you open, the quieter they are. The faster you open, the louder they are. I tend to get to my meetings on time, so while everyone is talking is when I normally open up the bag and get everything I need out.

So to reiterate over the last paragraph, do not be late to class and do not go swimming with this bag.

Unfortunately for my non-European Union friends, GearZap does not ship to you. For those of you in the EU, they have everything you will need when it comes to transporting a laptop, portable media, and pretty much every small digital device that you would carry. Their shipping prices look reasonable and their shipping times are good. I’m impressed at just how fast the shipment was to the US so I can do a review on it.

Reiteration time again. Overall, I am very happy with this bag and I am very happy to give my stamp of approval on the bag. If I were to do a star rating system, like everyone else does, I would have to give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. 4.5? But you just raved at how great it is, and you only gave it a 4.5? You are nuts! Yes, you are correct, I am nuts. The reason for the 4.5 is simple. As I stated, I ride my bike darn near everywhere. Because of this, being seen is important to me. With that said, being seen means I like being lit up like a Christmas tree, especially around Chicago. If the bag had a spot to safely attach a bike light to, I would have then given it 4.75 out of 5 stars. The other .25 of the star is the mobile device pouch. If you actually read this review, and didn’t fall asleep during it, you would have noticed I talked about another bag I own and how the strap allows me to run the headphone cable through it so it isn’t out and about getting hung up. If I was able to do this, and have a spot for my bike light, it would have easily gotten 5 out of 5 stars. I do have a bit of remedy for both cases though. I attach a light to the strap near the case itself. This isn’t exactly the best place, but it does allow me to have a little more light in the back when riding. As for the headphones, I use a velcro strap, and loop the headphone cable with the strap. I keep the pouch as close to my head as possible, so this actually works well for me.

Head on over to GearZap and pick up the STM Alley Carbon 15.6″ Laptop Case or any of their many other laptop cases today!

Review: STM Alley Laptop Bag is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

A few months back I lost my communications server to electronic death. That is part of the reason you don’t see me on IRC much and part of the reason I am desperately feening for Mutt now. I am looking to get a new server or machine that will fit the bill and that bill being cheap and able to run my email stuff (Mutt & OfflineIMAP as well as Irssi). I am desperately cheap now, especially with the holidays, so that is why I am reaching out to everyone in the intertubes to help me out.

I like the looks of one of the ARM boards as they are small enough to stick just about anywhere and not make any noise. Is there a configuration that would suit my needs and not break the bank? I like the small machines from both System76 and ZaReason, but they are to rich for my blood at this time. Of course it has to run Linux and only Linux. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

UPDATE: Thanks to Laura Czajkowski for reminding me that I have a Dell Mini 9 that I can use for this. It has a dead LCD, but I can use an external display to install and setup as it will be headless when up and running. I just need to find the power cord for it now.

Looking For Small Inexpensive Linux Server is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

The Fire is pretty awesome for $199. But it lacks several features that I think would put it right over the edge. I also have an older Nook Color. It has the one thing that I wish the Kindle did. An external MicroSD slot. 

The Kindle actually has MORE memory for media/apps than a Nook Color does by default however. The Nook only allows 1GB of its 8GB of memory to be used for user loaded content. The Fire has about 6GB for Amazon or user loaded content.

With the whole "cloud" thing, as long as you have a network connection, you really don't need much storage so its a nit picky thing.

The fact that it will be the best selling Android tablet guarantees that it will have great support in the modding community. I'm 100% positive that Cyanogenmod will create an Android OS install for it. As long as I can still do all the Amazon Prime streaming with a modded OS I'm game!

I've already "rooted" it and side loaded the Google Market and some Google apps. Its not perfect yet, but new tweaks and hacks are coming out everyday for it.

The bottom line is that if you are already an Amazon customer (especially if you are already a Prime user) the Kindle is spectacular.

If you have nothing invested in the Amazon eco system than it is cheap enough at $199 to make you want to be invested in it.

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Kindle Fire... Rooted from my Mac using http://blog.actlocalmedia.com/2011/11/developing-on-kindle-fire.html and http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1296916.

You need to have the Android SDK installed. To do that, go download the SDK at http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. Unzip it and install it to a location in your home directory. I put at ~/android-sdk-macosx.

Then you need to update the SDK by running the following command: 

~/android-sdk-macosx/tools/android update sdk --no-ui

That update can take quite some time. Sit back and relax while you watch a free Amazon Prime streaming TV show like Serenity or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

You can add the path to the adb command by editing your ~/.bash_profile and adding a path statement like the following.

export PATH=${PATH}:~/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools

Edit the ~./android/adb_usb.ini and add a line at the end with "0x1949". Then plug in the Fire (you have to have your own mini usb cable to plug it into your workstation). Then tell the Kindle to "Disconnect" so it is no longer sharing files over USB. Then run "adb kill-server" on the mac to to restart things. Once that is done you can check to see if you are able to see the device by running "adb devices". If a device is listed you are good to go!

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I owe a debt to a terrible demon, and he intends to collect.

My whole life I have spent taking gladly what this demon had to offer, all the while knowing it was wrong.

Still early in my years, the demon appears and says that the debt is due, but he intends to collect slowly, methodically, painfully.

In an effort to increase my suffering more still, he gives me a seemingly-impossible way out, and a tiny window of control.

In cruel irony, I must make a daily blood sacrifice in order to exercise control.

If I can wean myself from the excesses I have enjoyed, the demon will wait.

If I cannot, the demon comes in and takes me painfully, piece by piece, arms, legs, eyes, heart.

My neighbors also know this demon, for they owe him, too.

The demon will never leave me, he will take my life one way or another, he will collect his debt.

To the outside world, I appear an average husband, father, worker, but inside I know the truth.

I am not okay, and I haven’t been for a long time.

Just hit the road for a quick 1.5 mile jaunt. Knees are yelling at me and my sinuses are mad, but it felt great to expand those lungs!

I listened to TWIT: Windows Weekly while I walked with my newly improved Jawbone Hero. I read about how you can fit a Jabra eargel over the Jawbone's small rubber ear piece and get a great fit and improve the listening volume.

Wow does that work! The Jawbone's ear pieces generally suck. They don't fit well and always require the over the ear hook which even when worn doesn't always keep the ear piece from flinging itself across the room if you spin around too quickly.

The Jabra ear gels are very secure and comfortable. I don't need to wear the ear hook with it. It also directs the sound from the speaker farther into my ear so I can hear the ear piece much better than before. Brilliant!

I can wear the Jawbone all day long now.

OK, I know, this is hitting a planet or two, or three, where some of you just looked up from your basement and said, “HUH?!” As many of you know, I am somewhat into cycling and recently got a cyclocross bike. Cyclocross is like taking road cycling (you know, the type that Jens Voigt does. You don’t know Jens? Jeesh, how about Lance Armstrong?) and mountain biking, combine them in a road bike like setup, and race off-road. During a race you have to dismount the bike and jump over barriers or bunny hop over the barriers (just hope you don’t pull a Todd Wells).

In order to train for cyclocross you really need a barrier, or two, to jump over. Now, when you are training, you don’t want to have to lug around big wooden barriers, you want something more portable. Because of this, I Googled “diy cyclocross barrier” and got a few results. All were pretty much the same, and there was typically two variations of the design. I chose the design that would make the barrier stand up, but if you were to kick it while jumping, you wouldn’t trip and kill yourself. UCI and USA Cycling both state that 40cm is the maximum height of a barrier, or for you American turkeys (me included), that is approximately 15³/₄ inches. So, without further ado, here is what I created in less than 30 minutes with a whopping $3.06 USD with tax:

Cyclocross Barrier Hardware List (purchased from Lowes)

• 1x ¾ inch by 10 feet Schedule 40 PVC pipe (Lowes Item #23971) – $1.65
• 2x ¾ inch Schedule 40 PVC Tee (Lowes Item #23874) – $0.66 each
• 2x ¾ inch Schedule 40 PVC Elbow (Lowes Item #23868) – $0.52 each

I used a pipe cutter similar to this one at Lowes. That is it, nothing other than my hands for this one. You could use a hacksaw, or heck, even a really sharp knife. The reason I didn’t use a saw of some sort is I didn’t feel like de-burring or sanding the ends that I cut.

Cyclocross Barrier Setup

1. Cut off a 4 foot piece out of the pipe.
2. Cut 2 pieces 13¼ inches long.
3. Cut 2 pieces 8 inches long.
4. Cut 2 pieces 4 or 5 inches long, your choice on this one.
5. Attach the elbows to each end of the 4 foot pipe.
6. Attach the other end of the elbows to the 13¹/₄ inch pipes.
7. Attach a tee to each end of the 13¼ inch pipes.
8. Attach each 4 or 5 inch piece to the same said of each tee.
9. Attach each 8 inch piece to the other side of each tee. This way both 8 inch pieces are on one side, and the 4 or 5 inch pieces are on the other side.

The side with the 8 inch pieces is the front, or the part you will dismount your bike and run towards. The side with the 4 or 5 inch piece is the back of the barrier. This way here it stands up straight in the grass, yet will topple over if kicked or tripped on, hopefully keeping your face and body off the ground. The way the legs attach to the elbows and the tees, makes the 4 foot bar portion approximately 40cm high, the maximum height allowed for a barrier. I could make this even more portable by cutting the 4 foot pipe in half, and then using a coupler to connect them when I ready to use the barriers. That would make the largest piece only 2 feet long, and that should fit in almost all backpacks or messenger bags (I can put about 5 or 6 broken down barriers into my Chrome bag).

Have any questions, just ask away in the comments. If I insulted you with my opening statements, then go shave your neck beard, and stop looking at porn or building Ubuntu packages (that was for my buddy Ben!).

Homemade Cyclocross Barriers is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

So, I was tasked to download a bunch of images from another person’s Picasa gallery. At first this looked to be a pain in the rear, but I had noticed that on the right hand side of the person’s gallery there is an RSS feed. I quickly thought of Python with a bit of feedparser thrown in. And in just a few lines I was able to grab all of the photos from someone else’s gallery. The code isn’t clean, isn’t optimal, but it works.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import feedparser, os
items = feedparser.parse("<remote picasa web rss feed>")['items']
for i in range(0, len(items)):
    os.system("wget -q %s" % items[i]['media_content'][0]['url'])

Works good for a quick 4 lines of code.

Download Photos From Picasa is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

I was sad to hear on Wednesday that Steve Jobs had in fact lost his battle with cancer. For the past couple of days the media has done nothing but run with it here in the US. Knowing a little about Steve Jobs and the tech industry, I heard a lot of stretched truths in all the coverage. To be honest, when the news broke into the show I was watching, and the way they started, you would have though that either President Obama had died, or Jesus himself came back and killed in a drive-by shooting. True visionaries die every day and unfortunately the news never breaks into a show to let you know about them. Was Steve a true visionary?

I guess if taking a lot of money and throwing it at something like Pixar or NeXT makes you a visionary, then no doubt Steve was one. No doubt Steve was a great front man for a really big company, but calling him a visionary I think takes it to far. If he was a visionary, you would think that he would have seen what was about to come from Gates and Microsoft back in the day. If I remember correctly, was it not his entire team that was in fact telling him what he was getting himself and Apple into back then? Is it not also true that if it weren’t for Steve Wozniak, there would be no Apple? Then again, if there were no Steve Jobs there would have been no Apple. Steve Jobs, a technology visionary or a marketing master, you decide.

Seeing as I am not a Steve Jobs buff, I had to brush up on a little history, and of course I used the always amazing Wikipedia. OK, so there was a bit of sarcasm with that last line. According to Wikipedia, it says Steve Jobs was the primary or co-inventor of 338 US patents. I know, 338 patents, we all just threw up a little in our mouths. There are a lot of electronic device, computing device, user interface for computer display, and many more technical patents. If I remember correctly, and Wikipedia can back me up a little as well, Steve wasn’t an electrical engineer, he wasn’t a designer, and he wasn’t a developer. What Wikipedia says is that he was a business person. OK, so they also say inventor. Let’s see, did Steve invent the computer? No. Did he invent the GUI? No. Did he invent the touch screen? No. Do you think he really invented speakers, keyboards, power adapters, or staircases? Will someone please explain to me what staircases he invented, and is this like the staircases in your home or is there staircases for your iPhone? I don’t think he invented anything, I in fact believe he rode on the coat tails of the amazing inventors, engineers, designers, and developers that Apple had hired. Like I said earlier, he was an amazing front man for an amazing and talented group of people. If he invented anything, it would be the mindless brainwashing and creation of robots known as Apple users.

OK, so I called Steve out a little. Actually, I didn’t call Steve out, I really called the media out who has swung from his proverbial nuts for the past few days. I definitely do not think Steve was an evil person and actually believe that he was a really good guy with such an amazing passion for technology and computing. I believe he may have assisted in some decisions which led to the success of Apple, but unlike MSNBC, Fox, CNN, and others, I do not believe he is the visionary he’s made out to have been, and I also believe that Steve just might agree with me. Never once have I heard Steve say, “I did,” nor have I heard him say “because of me.”

Will Apple be able to continue without Steve Jobs? The media are 50/50 on this. They wholeheartedly believe Steve was Apple, but at the same time a few people with a bit of common sense that realize the company was left in good hands with the new CEO, and all of Apple’s amazing talent is still in tact. Jony Ive is still at Apple, and I do believe he was the head designer behind such products as the iMac, the PowerBook, the MacBook, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. If I remember correctly, earlier this year Apple lost Bertrand Serlet, one of the original GUI designers at Xerox (isn’t that where both Apple & Microsoft ripped off the GUI?) as well as NeXT, and he was the principal developer behind Mac OS X. So to you media moguls out there, Apple will survive, they just won’t present the next iPhone with a blue jean clad, black turtle neck wearing, CEO. They will still come on stage and disappoint with a new product. Example, you all thought you were getting the iPhone 5 this week, only being told you are getting the iPhone 4S, but I guarantee you will all be standing in line at the Apple store, or AT&T, or Verizon, or wherever it gets sold, just to get it. Who cares if you have only had the iPhone 4 for just over a year, you will go and spend your hard-earned money, and for that we are grateful. You need the dueling antennas to get the reception you should have had from day one.

So, from me to you Steve, I will miss you. Even though I am not a Mac user or fanboy, I will miss your product launches. I will miss your true UNIX spirit as well. UNIX spirit? Yes, one thing Steve did when he presented was talk about an app and how that app did one thing, and did it well. The browser, the email client, other apps, and the iPod. Kudos to you Steve for helping create one of the largest and successful companies in the world. Thank you for all the philanthropic work you have done over the years. Thank you for showing the world there is something more than Microsoft out there. Thank you for proving you can create a mainstream UNIX-based desktop. And one last thank you, with a bit of sarcasm and fun, thank you for taking 10% of the desktop market away from Microsoft leaving us Linux people with a whole 1% to 2% stake in that market. Rest in peace Steve, you have done a lot of good work over the many years and you deserve the rest. My thoughts and prayers go out to you, your family, and your friends.

Steve Jobs – My Take on the Man is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

OK, this is a bit of a rant. I couldn’t let this one go. As many of you know, I live in Chicago. We typically have really good local news, however tonight, they failed at the good part. My favorite local news is NBC 5, and tonight they reported on the Google Map Burglar. This guy would use Google Maps to find local houses that were near a highway as well as expensive. According to the police that interviewed the burglar, the burglar told them that he would Google “expensive homes that run along highway” and then use Google Maps to view these homes.

BULLSHIT!

When I got to get an early listen to Jono Bacon’s first Severed Fifth album, I told him something like, “this music makes me want to break into people’s house and rob them.” Well, I put on some Severed Fifth, fired up some Google, and got my search on. I typed the following into Google search:

• expensive homes that run along highway
• “expensive homes that run along highway” – had to try it with quotes as well

expensive homes that run along highway
Here is what showed up with that search string:

Google Web search results with un-quoted string

Google Maps search results with un-quoted string

"expensive homes that run along highway"
Here is what showed up with that search string:

Google Web search results with quoted string

Google Maps search results with quoted string

Why did I call bullshit initially? Easy:

• As you can see, those search terms don’t come up with a single thing that would make my career as a burglar a good one.
• Said he used Google Maps in satellite view and then used the 360° view to get a better look, however you can’t do this with Google Maps. They then go on to say he used Google Earth, so I am downloading and installing now to see if I can get a better view.
• OK, Google Earth might help locating exterior windows and doors when panning around, but still isn’t all that clear.
• Oh, remember he Googled expensive homes, well where the crimes happened, the homes there are far from expensive.
• If you are going to case houses from Internet maps, use Bing, it is better when panning populated areas and gives a much clearer image.

Sure, they used Google Maps to find houses near a highway, but they didn’t Google expensive homes and got the results for the houses they robbed. I don’t know what is worse, the idiots actually using those search terms, or the cops who actually believe that is how they found the houses they hit.

OK, another bullshit thing, and you don’t get to read it in that article, is they way they made Google Maps so scary on the news and made it sound as if there were no Google Maps, robberies like this wouldn’t happen.

OK, rant is over, sorry to have disturbed you.

Burglar Googled Your Expensive Crib is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Synergy is a great and free way to replace a KVM switch (kind of). It doesn't do video, but it does keyboard and mouse control across multiple networked workstations awesomely.

I was having issues with high CPU utilization on Mac OS X with Synergy. I am using Ubuntu 11.04 as the Synergy server and Mac OS X as the client.

The Synergy project has gone through some changes over the last year or so. It was forked a while back to a new project called Synergy-Plus. But now things have come back together and the projects have merged to be one again. This is generally a good thing and one of the reasons why open source is so great.

A fork is sometimes subversive (heck maybe all the time), but it also allows the project and the technology to continue to grow and mature, even if the original project isn't on board with the changes. In the best case scenario, everyone can literally patch up their differences and merge a fork of a project back with the original and keep the ball rolling full steam ahead.

I had a mix of older Synergy Plus versions going between Ubuntu and OS X. I was noticing a huge load on my Mac CPU just by moving my mouse around in circles.

Synergy is normally a very low overhead app. This was not normal at all. So I upgraded all of my workstations to the latest version (1.44 beta). It is not available in the Ubuntu repos so I had to download and install the .deb manually.

Once I got everything on the same and newest version, OS X zips along like usual. Synergy is one of my most favorite applications. I use it every day at work, and frankly could not do my job without it. Go check it out!

Update:

I ran into a weird problem with 1.4.4. Double-clicking on Mac OS X stopped working. So I dropped back to version 1.3.5 which is referenced in the bug report and both my CPU and my double-clicking are happy now :).

read more

I just finished reading an interesting article on Linux Insider that asked the question, "Does Windows 8 Pose a Threat to Linux?" The TLTR version is Windows 8 does not pose a threat to Linux because Linux on the desktop would have to matter first.

Before you start going bat shit insane on me, let me first state that I love Linux, and use Linux 99.9% of the time in my daily life. That other .1% of the time that I have to use something like Windows is only to sync up a Garmin device I use on my bicycle, and even then it is a bad excuse to use Windows (I know I can’t sync but I can manually upload my .FIT files via Linux). As a developer of sorts, I prefer to use Linux and its amazing tools to get my job done and to keep my life going. Sure, it started out as a hobby for me back in the early 90′s, but has since turned into a way of life for me.

I have done development on a Windows machine, and 75% of the time I complained about the workflow and how the tools available for Windows did nothing more than get in the way. The other 25% of the time I went out to dinner while something was compiling or I was updating the machine. Sure, that last part had a bit of sarcasm, but damn it is fairly dead on. I am one of those who prefer to use Vim (back in the day it was Emacs) to do most of my development work. Sure, I could use those in Windows, but they aren’t great at doing Windows development. My workflow with Linux is so much simpler than it is in Windows, and especially Windows 8.

Why doesn’t it pose a threat you ask? Simple, Windows already has billions of people using it and Linux only has millions. There is no threat to Linux, I repeat, there is no threat to Linux. Have you used Windows 8? If so, you know there is probably no threat to Windows XP. Sure, it is cool on the surface, and it is only a developer’s preview, but still, there is enough going on that you can figure out the direction. I installed Windows 8 on my desktop to play around with it. Note the phrase, “play around with it“, as it is nothing more than a toy at this moment. My dad, a devout christian Windows user, even a power user I guess you would say, played around with Windows 8 as well. His verdict was that there was no way in hell he would use it. Sure there is a lot of buzz out there about Windows 8, but my guess it is from people who haven’t used a Wii, saw a Windows Phone, played with Google TV, or used anything like Unity, Gnome Shell, or the KDE Plasma Netbook.

The one thing Windows 8 does brilliantly that has actually posed, not a threat, but more of a challenge to Linux, is the amount of time it takes to start. I put it on an older machine (3+ years old), and in 10 seconds it was up and running. Haven’t seen Linux do that yet. I know Canonical has been busy working on boot speed with Ubuntu, but it can’t even compare with Windows 8 at this time. Even if I put my Linux machine to sleep or hibernate, it can’t even boot up as fast as Windows 8.

So, not threat for Linux, and I doubt at threat for Windows XP, Windows 7, or Mac OS X users. One thing people need to remember is that Mac OS X users and Linux users are proud people, and use either of those for a reason, and a majority of that time the reason is because Windows sucks. OK, sucks is a harsh word, but you chose to use Linux or Mac OS X for some reason.

I am interested in hearing if you think it poses a threat to Linux, so go ahead, leave a comment below.

Windows 8 Does Not Pose A Threat To Linux is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

I am teaching my Drupal 101 and Drupal 201 classes starting tomorrow night. It will be the third time teaching the classes. I keep thinking that once I get my slides set that teaching the next time will be much easier to prep for. But I'm always wrong.

The reason this time is that I've decided to move to using Drupal 7 for the class. when I taught it last winter it was just way too soon after Drupal 7 came out. I think it was released literally the week before class started. Now I think Drupal 7 is ready for primetime. I've got a few sites that I've already upgraded to 7 so I feel pretty comfortable with it now.

I'll be teaching these classes again in the winter and spring terms as well. If you live in the Chicago area go check it out!

Cycling 100 miles for a cause and sending diabetes Off The Back!

On Sunday, June 12, 2011, I will ride for over 100 miles to help raise awareness and collect donations for the American Diabetes Association. As it currently stands I have $825 out of $1,000 in donations. A special thanks goes out to my fellow KDE hackers, Athletes By Design cycling team members, family, and friends. All I need to complete my donation campaign is raise another $175, and I am hoping any of you can help. The minimal donation allowed through the Tour de Cure is $5, however if you would like to donate just a $1 or less than $5, you can use the donate button to the right and I will move that money over. To donate directly to my Tour de Cure collection, please go to http://main.diabetes.org/goto/nixternal. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated!

A few years ago my mother was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and I have other family and friends who are also battling either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. I see the pain they go through day in and day out living with this disease. Now before some of you say it is their fault, often with my family and friends it isn’t. Among friends is a professional cyclist riding for Team Type 1 who has had it since he was a kid. I am just trying to do my part in helping an organization that is all about teaching and finding a cure. I am riding for my mother as well as my family and friends.

I know that with your help I can reach my goal. Also check your local areas for the Tour de Cure ride and sign up, then let me know so I can donate to your goal. It is a very well-organized and fun ride. I will be riding with about 10 of my other cycling teammates as well as friends and colleagues. Thanks everyone!

Tour de Cure – Sending Diabetes OTB is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

NO THEY DIDN’T!

It seems a story is making its way around the various Linux news organizations that is blatantly misrepresented. THIS STORY is the one making its rounds. It claims that Canonical takes another step against the Community. This is totally wrong in every sense of the word wrong. Let me break it down for those of you who actually believe this on the shut-down of the Sounder Mailing List.

The Community Council voted, unanimously I might add, to close down the Sounder. Here are the current members of the Community Council:

• Alan Pope
• Benjamin Mako Hill
• Daniel Holbach
• Elizabeth Krumbach
• Emmet Hikory
• Mark Shuttleworth
• Matthew East
• Mike Basinger

Those names which are in BOLD LETTERS are members of the Community Council who are NOT employed by Canonical. So that is 6 out of 8 members, or 75%.

So, to make sure people like the Anthony Papillion, aka the Cajun Techie, understand this, CANONICAL DID NOT SHUT DOWN THE SOUNDER, THE COMMUNITY DID!. This was an issue back in 2009 when I was on the Community Council, and my opinion then is that it should have been shut down, as I never saw the service it provided or any good in it whatsoever. There are other channels of free speech, and I thought the Sounder was useless then. Good riddance it is finally gone.

EDIT: I just changed Emmet to a Canonical employee, so that is now 5 out of 8 members are not Canonical employees, or 62.5%.

EDIT: I changed Emmet back to a non-Canonical employee, so it is back to the original 6 out of 8, or 75%.

Canonical shut down Sounder? is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Well, I finished up installing and setting up the latest Kubuntu release, Natty Beta 2. Everything went smooth, no hiccups at all. Seems a little peppier in its step, however the main reason for installing today was because I was tired of the slowness of my last install. Nothing like installing from scratch, only to realize you forgot to backup one directory, therefor losing a bunch of work. Seeing as I like pretty much everything about the latest Kubuntu, I will only address the things that are annoying to me or do not work at all.

Fonts
By default the fonts are awful looking. I am not well versed in all of the fontness, however I can say the fonts are blurry as hell after an install. First thing I did here was Enable Use anti-aliasing in System Settings, and then set the Hinting style to Full. After a quick restart the fonts are now nice and crisp looking.

Network Mangler
Jeesh, for 2 years now I have had to manually enter the MAC address of my wireless router because I utilize a hidden SSID. Looks like I will be spending another 2 years adding that address to ~/.kde/share/apps/networkmanagement/connections/{35570ccd-a656-491e-97d0-622d29ba020b} for seenbssids=. I will make sure I tag this post KDE so the Network Manager folks can yell at me and show me I am doing something wrong.

I seriously think those are my only 2 gripes, and both gripes are easily fixed in less than a minute each. There are a couple of new things too that finally work.

Printing
YAY! Huge hugs to the person who implemented the network printing stuff, or at least fixed it so now I don’t have to install the GNOME printer applet or whatever it is called just to install a shared network printer. Kudos to you my friend or friends, job well done!

Bluetooth
I can connect to my phone, I can send it a file! Haven’t been able to do this before. To be honest, I never used it, and after using it today it made me realize one thing. Bluetooth sucks, except for those little ear pieces we see all the wanna-be business people wearing. You know, the things where people look like they are talking to themselves but really aren’t, or they could the new school posers acting like they are important. I am choosing the latter there.

Like I said, overall I am really impressed with what I am seeing here. As some of you know, I have been a bit bummed over the past year with Kubuntu and Ubuntu and annoyed by so much. Seeing this release makes me cheer up a bit and realize just what I am missing by not sitting in IRC for 24 hours a day running pbuilder constantly. Damn, now that I put it that way, I don’t know if I was missing that

Kudos Ubuntu and Kubuntu hackers on a job well done!

My Kubuntu Natty Opinions is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Hey everyone! I will be participating in this year’s Tour de Cure. I will be riding 100 miles and collecting donations to help fight against diabetes. I have set a goal of collecting $250 $500 $1,000 USD in donations, and I am hoping some of you can help me reach my goal. I would love to blow that goal out of the water of course and be one of the top contributing teams, so any and all help is very much appreciated, as it really isn’t for me but for a greater cause.

You can check out my Tour de Cure page as well as give to the cause HERE. Thank you everyone, and if there is a Tour de Cure in your area, I urge you to sign up and ride for the cause.

UPDATE: seeing as the cycling community, some friends, and Kubuntu have stepped up in an hours time, I was close to reaching my first $250 USD goal, so I have since bumped it up to $500. My family and friends are passing around the donation information, so hopefully I can reach this new goal.

UPDATE: Here is a direct link to my Tour de Cure page since some had problems with the first link I had posted – http://main.diabetes.org/goto/nixternal

UPDATE: Here is the bike I will be riding for over 100 miles in my mom’s name. She was diagnosed a few years ago with Type 2 Diabetes. I will also be riding in the names of other family and friends who are battling this disease. Thanks again to all who have contributed and who are also standing up to fight this disease!

UPDATE: seeing as my mom’s work, members of the KDE community, friends, family, and other members of the cycling community have helped, I blew the $500 goal out of the water, so I have upped it to $1,000 now. Come on my Ubuntu geeks, I know you can do it! Thank you so much to all of you awesome rock stars who have donated!

Help Me in the Fight Against Diabetes is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

This Friday through Sunday, April 1-3, 2011, the Flourish! 2011 Open Source Conference will be taking place at the University of Illinois At Chicago. The Ubuntu Chicago LoCo Team will be in attendance and are planning on holding our Ubuntu Global Jam there as well. It is a free event and it is recommended that you preregister. I have been going to this event now since the beginning and it has gotten better every year. There are some really awesome speakers lined up this year, and if you can make it to geek out, I highly recommend it. Hopefully I will see you all there!

Flourish! 2011 Open Source Conference is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Well, if you were reading around lately, you might have noticed my previous post about creating my Family Tree. I asked for input and a few of you responded with some very helpful information. For instance, if you are planning on working on your family tree, there are a few applications you need to check out:

• Gramps (Genealogical Research Software) is a free software project built just for genealogy/family trees and aimed towards the hobbiest or even the professional.
• webtrees is an on-line, colaborative, genealogy application. If you have access to a web server with PHP and MySQL support, you are golden. I am in the process of planning on creating a setup where the members of my family can get together and work on our separate branches.
• LifeLines (second generation genealogy software) looks to be a lightweight, yet robust, application. I haven’t yet messed with this, but I just noticed under tools for them they have emacs modes and even vim syntax highlighting, so this might be well suited for the hacker in you.

You know what all 3 of these applications have in common? They all utilize the GEDCOM, which stands for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, specification. It is a proprietary specification, however it is the open de facto specification.

So, what I have been doing is leveraging the data available from Ancestry.com. My family signed up for their free 14 day trial which has been amazing for us, except on my father’s side because as soon as it hits his great grandparents in Sweden, I have to pay for a premium version at $25 per month. Anyways, I have leveraged their data and created a huge chunk of my family tree, verifying as much as possible along the way. Now that I have a big chunk and my trial will expire in the next week and a half, I want to get the data I created their to my computer so I have it and can import it into Gramps, webtrees, or LifeLines to develop further down the road.

Luckily Ancestry allows you to export your tree in the GEDCOM format, however trying to figure this out on your own isn’t an easy feat. I searched and clicked everywhere until it was finally right in my face. So now maybe I can help you for future reference. As of Friday, March 11, 2011, this is how you export your tree from Ancestry to a GEDCOM file (image below with red dots shows label and button locations for clicking):

1. Go to your family tree
2. Under the menu bar, next to your tree’s name, there is a drop-down link labeled Tree pages with a down arrow. Hover your mouse over the link
3. Select Tree Settings from the drop-down menu
4. On the right side of the page you will see a green button labeled Export tree, click it
5. Ancestry will now go ahead and process your tree, eventually presenting you with a button labeled Download your GEDCOM file, click it
6. Save the file to your computer

Now you can easily import it into whatever tool you are using. Using Gramps, I created a blank tree as soon as I started it up, Then from the File menu I selected the Import menu item, selected my GEDCOM file I just downloaded, waited quite some time for it to import, then went along on my way. I had a few minor issues with some data not showing up in the tree, however the data was available as I could view it from other locations within Gramps. Once I get rolling and have Gramps figured out, I will see about creating another post with further information, hopefully within the next few weeks.

Export GEDCOM File From Ancestry.com is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

So, my mom setup a free Ancestry.com account which is good until March 22nd. After that it is really expensive to continue going. At this point to where I am in my family tree, we would have to pay for the maximum package to locate members of my family who are from Sweden. My mom’s side of the family is covered pretty well, all the way back to the 1400′s. Any Shackelford’s out there? Also found out I am related to Woody Guthrie and his son Arlo Guthrie on my mother’s side. On my father’s side I only got back to my great-grandmother until my dad told me about her sister, Gerda Ulrika Dahlberg, who unfortunately froze to death during the sinking of the Titanic. Fortunately because of that incident, it has helped me get back to my lineage in Sweden, but without shelling out $300 or so, I can’t get any further. Pretty cool that I now know the address to where my great grandmother (Signe M. Dahlberg Johnson) lived while working for Adlai Stevenson.

Now this is where you all come in. I would love to continue this and I found plenty of resources out there, but if any of you are family tree hackers, I would love input on how I should continue over the next couple of weeks. Is there software I should be using? Something I need to focus on or learn? My dad’s mother is of American Indian decent. So, ancestry.com doesn’t help much here, so if anyone knows how to proceed in possibly getting more information, let me know. I appreciate any and all help, so please, leave a comment. Thanks all!

Family Tree is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Here we go again with what I am calling the Linux Pissing Contest. See, years ago it was browser wars, then it was desktop wars, now it is contributor wars. All are useless, I don’t care how you break them down. Today, I read a post on Linux Journal titled, Who Contributes the Most to LibreOffice?.

The answer is simple, WHO CARES. First and foremost, I have nothing against the author. I am just tired of these pissing contests. First it was who contributes the most to the kernel. And then you had a bunch of immature people attacking this distribution and that distribution. Why write stuff like this? What does it prove? Who does it help? What are you all trying to prove? Thus far, everyone of these pissing contests have been about quantity and nothing about quality.

If you are one of those who strive to have the most commits for a project because you think it is cool, well then this is for you:

UPDATE: This is for a little clarification. The post that LJ did is exactly the type of post(s) that lead to the entire Kernel commit bullcrap that went on 2 years ago. The same thing will happen with this one, and if you follow other Linux or Open Source news things, they are already picking up on it and each one points out the same exact thing. Sure, 133 new contributors, but who are they? Do they all work for Novell or Red Hat, because that is who LJ really focused on in terms on names and the amount. Then LJ brought up Canonical, and then added the, “They contributed the Human theme and a later fix…” They don’t see what the 133 new contributors committed, or what Novell or Red Hat committed. It is just another cheap stab, and this is what kicks off the pissing contests.

I should probably also make it clear that I am not a fanboy who is enraged, I am not crazy about Canonical either. I use Kubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, and Arch on all of my machines, so I am not sticking up for anyone here. I am just trying to point out that these pissing contests that kick off are what make us look like a joke to the “mainstream“.

Pissing Contests – Nobody is a Winner is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

A question I have been coming across a lot lately has been, “How do I get Dropbox to work with KDE?” Most have probably noticed that when you go to the Dropbox website and go to download it, it is for GNOME and the Nautilus file manager. Unfortunately for us KDE users, we don’t use Nautilus. Or I could say fortunately for us KDE users, but I am sure that will start all kinds of flame wars in the comments. Instead, KDE utilizes Dolphin as its file manager. I will use this post to show you how to quickly get Dropbox installed and up-and-running in KDE, without the use of the terminal or command line.

NOTE: In this tutorial I am using the Rekonq web browser for KDE. At the time of this tutorial, it is the default web browser for Kubuntu.

NOTE: After completing the Download Dropbox selection below, you can scroll down to the bottom of this post to see how to do all of this via the command line. It is actually really simple and much faster. If you are uncomfortable with the command line, then follow this post completely, minus the end where I show you the command line way of course.

Download Dropbox

Here are the links to the latest Dropbox downloads. NOTE: these links will always be the latest version of Dropbox, so if you come here next year, this simple howto will still be valid. If anything changes, I will make sure to update this page:

• 32-bit Dropbox Linux Client
• 64-bit Dropbox Linux Client

Clicking on one of the links above will pop up the Save As dialog. Click the Save As button.

In the Save As dialog, click the Home button and select the Downloads folder to save the file in.

Extract the Dropbox archive

The file that is downloaded for Dropbox is known as a tarball. It is similar to a Zip file if you are coming from the Windows world. To extract this file we will use Ark, KDE’s archiving tool. To open Ark, click on the menu button, select the Applications tab, scroll down to the Utilities section and click it, then once that is open you should see Archiving Tool or Ark depending on how your distribution has it in the menu. Once Ark is open, click on the Open button. Here you will be presented with an Open Dialog where you can select the file that you downloaded. Navigate to your Home/Downloads directory and select the Dropbox file.

Once the file has opened in Ark, the next thing to do is extract it. To do this click the Extract button towards the top. The only option you should have is Extract To…

Select it and you will be presented with the Extract dialog where you can select the location you want to extract it to. Select your username in the folder list, as this is where you want to extract it to.

Configure Dropbox to run at start-up

You will definitely want Dropbox to start every time you log into your computer. To do this is really easy. Open System Settings by going to the KDE menu once again. Most distributions stick the System Settings icon in your Favorites tab, so when you click the menu button, you should see it right away. Click it if you do. If you do not see it, don’t worry. You will need to go to the Applications tab, scroll down to the Settings section, and in there you should see System Settings. Click it to open it. Once it is open at the bottom, in the System Administration section, there should be an icon labeled, Startup and Shutdown. Click it. Once that is open, in the right pane you should see 5 buttons. You want to select the button labeled Add Script…. This will pop up a small dialog for you to select the Dropbox script we want to run at startup.

Click the small folder to the right of the text input box. You should be presented with a System Settings open dialog. In order to see the folder and script that was extracted from the Dropbox download, we need to make sure that Show Hidden Files is selected.

Once all files are showing, click the .dropbox-dist folder and scroll until you see the file named dropboxd.

NOTE: Select dropboxd, not dropbox, as shown in the above image.

Once you have selected it click OK if needed, now you should be back at the small popup dialog. Go ahead and click the OK button. You should be back to the main System Settings window now.

You can close out of System Settings now.

Running Dropbox for the first time

Open Dolphin, the file manager, by going to the KDE menu button and under Applications, System, there should be a menu item labeled either File Manager or Dolphin. Click it. Once Dolphin is open and in your Home folder, we will need to view all hidden files again. To do this, click the View menu item and about half way down is the Show Hidden Files item. Click it. Now you should see all hidden files and folders. You will want to find the folder named .dropbox-dist and click it.

Scroll down until you see the file named dropboxd. Note once again that it is dropboxd that you want.

You will now be presented with the Dropbox application setup dialog. Go through and answer the questions.

That’s it, Dropbox is up and running and will start every time you log into your desktop. If all went well you should see the Dropbox icon in your System Tray.

Install the quick way with the command line

Now that you have the Dropbox file downloaded to your computer, open up your terminal (Konsole is the default in KDE) and type the following commands, or copy & paste the following (you should see 4 lines total):

cd
tar -xf Downloads/dropbox*.gz
ln -s .dropbox-dist/dropboxd .kde/Autostart/dropboxd
.dropbox-dist/dropboxd &

That’s all folks, enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!

Dropbox for KDE is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Since changing around my website and blog this month, I have switched over to using Thematic, a WordPress theme framework. I have created my own child theme and have written plenty of PHP code to get it the way I like and of course to hopefully optimize the site as much as possible. One thing I can’t stand with a default WordPress installation is its pagination. Pagination is what the « Older posts and Newer posts » are. If you have more than a few pages of blog posts, these become a pain for most readers. I know when I come across blogs like that, and I want to hit every other page of posts, I usually just change the page number in the address bar.

I have chosen to use a plugin called WP-Paginate that creates a block of page numbers which allow the reader to select a page number instead of next or previous. The following is an example of what I am talking about:

First thing you will need to do is install the plugin and activate it. After doing that, you need to set it up, and of course this is something you should play with to get it the way you would like. After tweaking and testing, the settings I use that worked best for me were:

• Pagination Label, Previous Page, Next Page, Before Markup, and After Markup I left default.
• Markup Display and WP-Paginate CSS File are both checked.
• Page Range I set to 4
• Page Anchors I set to 1
• Page Gap I set to 3

NOTE: the following is for use with WordPress 3.1 and a Thematic child-theme. Will it work on other themes or child-themes? I don’t know, that would be up to you to play around with, I just know this is working with the latest version of WordPress at this time and Thematic as well. Thematic version as of this post is 0.9.7.7.

The next step would be to add an override function for either your above-nav or your below-nav, or both. In my case, I did both, but with a twist. When I am reading the first page, I didn’t want the pagination block to be at the top of the blog page, but when viewing pages 2 and up, I wanted to see the block at the top. This way here if a reader decided when the page loaded they didn’t want anything there, they could switch to another page without having to scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Now remember, I am showing this for a Thematic child-theme, and this is tested and working on just that with WordPress 3.1. To replace the default pagination with the new pagination, I need to add the following to my child theme’s function.php file. Here is the code that I added to that file:

if (function_exists('wp_paginate')) {
    function setup_navs($loc) {
        echo '<div id="nav-' . $loc . '" class="navigation">';
        if (is_single()) {
            echo '<div class="nav-previous">' . thematic_previous_post_link() . '</div>';
            echo '<div class="nav-next">' . thematic_next_post_link() . '</div>';
        } elseif ($loc == 'above' && is_category()) {
            wp_paginate();
        } else {
            wp_paginate();
        }
        echo '</div>';
    }
    function childtheme_override_nav_above() {
        setup_navs('above');
    }
    function childtheme_override_nav_below() {
        setup_navs('below');
    }
}

Breaking the code down
The first line checks to see if the WP-Paginate plugin is in fact installed and activated. If it is, then it goes ahead and does its magic. Seeing as I wanted to change both my nav_above and nav_below functions, I created a function called setup_navs and passed it a string for either above or below. This function then steps through and checks if the page is a single page. This is a page where you have gone ahead and clicked on a blog post and are reading it. I didn’t want the new pagination in there, so the reader will be present with the Previous and Next posts just like normal. Then I wanted to check and make sure that the location for the pagination block was above and that it was a category page. This is a page of posts. The reason this works is because when you go to your blog posts page, and are using proper permalinks, it is really addressed as /blog/page/1, but it is redirected to /blog/ instead. As soon as you go to the next page of posts, or a page greater than 1, the is_category() check will now be true, therefor displaying the pagination block at the top as well. If the location, or $loc is bottom, then it just does the pagination as normal for the bottom of a page.

To see what I am talking about in use, go ahead and click around on the page block on the bottom. When you get to a page that isn’t the first page, you will be presented with the block at the top as well as at the bottom.

NOTE: I am not a PHP programmer at all, and only know enough to be dangerous, but it isn’t much different than other languages that I am better versed in logically. So if you see something I could do better, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

WordPress, Thematic, and WP-Paginate is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

NOTE: The following has only been tested on version 3.1 of WordPress. It is not my fault if stuff blows up, so follow at your own risk.

Since I have started using Google AdSense on my blog, I have always used the same size ad on every page. The reason I did this is because of space allotment, and I didn’t know any better at the time. The other day while I was researching AdSense, I was reading about targeting and the different channels. After reading, I created a few different sized ads and tried to figure out how to fit them in to my website. I knew on pages like my blog, where the page was long, I could use a skyscraper ad, but on pages that were smaller, such as as my Contact or Donate pages, I couldn’t use such a large ad. Instead of mucking up my page with Javascript, or better yet my sidebar widgets since that is where my ads are placed, I decided I wanted to go the PHP route, do a single call to the database to get the page name, and go from there. If you have any experience with WordPress, one thing you will notice is you can’t include PHP markup in the body of any pages, posts, or widgets. This is a good thing, as it can potentially become a security risk. Sure there are different plugins you can use that will allow you to use PHP in pages or posts, but I decided on one.

I chose to use Shortcode Exec PHP (SEP). I read reviews, checked out the forums, making sure nobody was having major issues or security issues. What SEP does is allow me to create PHP snippets in my WordPress Settings, and call them with short code in a page, post, or widgets. For instance, for my ads I would add [adsense] where ever I wanted to place my customized ad format.

To do this, you first need to install SEP into your WordPress site, activate it, and then get to writing your snippets. To access the page to add, delete, or edit snippets, go to Settings → Shortcode Exec PHP. On this page you will see a box or boxes for your snippets.

NAME represents the name of the short code that you will call within the brackets in a page, post, or widget. SHORTCODE SNIPPET is the actual PHP markup you will use for this snippet.

So in Google AdSense I have gone ahead and created 3 different ads, each have a different size.

• Blog page and other longer length pages have a text/image skyscraper ad that is 160×600 in size and is in the sidebar.
• Contact page has a text/image box that is 250×250 in size and is in the sidebar.
• Donate page is short, so neither of the 2 above will fit it correctly, so I created a text/image ad that is 468×60, and isn’t in the sidebar.

So, since I am targeting the sidebar widget here, I am just going to look at the ads for my blog and contact pages to do some shortcode for. Like I stated earlier, I gave this shortcode the name adsense. In the shortcode snippet box I added the following PHP code:

global $post;
if ($post->post_name != 'donate') {
    echo '<script type="text/javascript"><!--';
    echo 'google_ad_client = "ca-pub-0123456789876543210";';
    if ($post->post_name != 'contact') {
        echo '/* YourAdsUniqueName */';
        echo 'google_ad_slot = "0123456789";';
        echo 'google_ad_width = 160;';
        echo 'google_ad_height = 600;';
    } else {
        echo '/* YourAdsUniqueName */';
        echo 'google_ad_slot = "0123456789";';
        echo 'google_ad_width = 250;';
        echo 'google_ad_height = 250;';
    }
    echo '//-->';
    echo '</script>';
    echo '<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">';
    echo '</script>';
}

NOTE: your YourAdsUniqueName and google_ad_slot information will be different.

After adding this, I click the Add button, which adds the shortcode and now allows you to edit it, test it, or delete it. In this case testing it won’t be of much good, as it will only return the portion of the add in the else portion of the if statement. Next you will want to make sure that both the Enabled and Output echoed boxes are checked.

Next go into your widgets and add a Text widget. In the large post box, all you need to add is [adsense]. You can wrap this in a div if you need to do any formatting.

That’s it, now I will have a different ad whether it is on my donate page, a blog page, or a page that is longer.

WordPress and Google AdSense is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

I am so impressed with TweekDeck. First of all, their regular apps are great. Forget all those other social media apps. If you have a smartphone, TweetDeck is the best there is. It is also great on the desktop, but their HTML5 application in Chrome is amazing! I think I actually like it better than their desktop client. Having it available everwhere I have Chrome installed is really nice. The interface is dead simple to use. Without TweetDeck, I would loose so much information and be completely clueless about half the people that contact me in Twitter, Facebook, etc...Great job TweetDeckers! Keep up the great work. 

Today while I was writing some code, I got an instant message from a friend of mine I haven’t spoken to in a while. At first I figured it was his dumb self because he can’t spell worth a crap, or is actually pretty dumb in many cases. I shrugged it off and thought nothing of it. After another line or so the next message threw me for a loop. He wanted me to go to some website and trying something. OK, I haven’t talked to you in over a year, and that is the first thing out of your keyboard? I responded with something about porn, and the next response from him is what gave it away. He used ‘plz‘ instead of ‘please‘. Sorry Matt, but you aren’t hip to the Internet chat lingo. After that, I responded letting them know I was on to them, and after a little research I knew it wasn’t Matt at all.

Here is the conversation in its entirety. Thought it was kind of funny, especially since many people would have fallen for this. FYI, the website he wanted me to lookout was revealed by Google of course to be a phishing, virus, and that other crud Windows users have to deal with, website.

Either his password was insanely simple, which I don’t think it was, or he will be calling me within the next couple of days stating something along the lines of, “Can you fix my computer, I think I have a virus?”

UPDATE: After that conversation I filed a report on Yahoo!, just like any good contributor does. I gave them my system information and all of the details letting them know I didn’t have to worry about clicking links. Well it seems they throw that information out and use some USER_AGENT sniffing instead. Boy did they get that all wrong. First off, here is a snippet of what they replied to me with, of course you can tell it is computer generated:

Dear Richard,
 
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Messenger.
 
I understand that you have received an Instant Message or Messages
containing a suspicious link or links. The links appear to have been
sent by one or more of your contacts, but were actually sent by a
malicious third party. Please do not click these links or download the
associated EXE files.
 
Remember, we always recommend that you never click suspicious links or
download executable files sent from anyone including your contacts.
Also, keep in mind that we are working to identify the source of the
issue as well as to take down the sites that are the destination of
these links.
 
To remove and prevent further infection, please update your anti-virus
software.

I told them previously in my report that I was using Linux and had nothing to worry about. Typically this helps with the pre-generated email responses, but in this case it didn’t. Then it went on and detailed the conversation I had with my hacked friend. After that though is what got me, and that was their information about my computer I used to contact them. Here that is:

Machine: Unknown
 
OS: unknown
 
Browser: Default Browser 0
 
REMOTE_ADDR: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
 
REMOTE_HOST: xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.somerouter.insomelocation.onsomenetwork.net
 
Date Originated: Tuesday February 22, 2011 - 13:47:01
 
Cookies: disabled
 
AOL: yes

Umm, for one I am not using AOL, and the last I checked, you couldn’t use it with Linux. If their sniffing were correct, it should have looked something like this:

Machine: ShakaDoobie
 
OS: Linux  (probably either Ubuntu or Kubuntu, as the WordPress sniffers pick this up)
 
Browser: Default Browser 0  (should say Google Chrome, and it isn't my default browser)
 
...
 
Cookies: enabled
 
AOL: hell no!

Ahh the fun an excitement I tell you. OK, you can go back to doing whatever you were doing now that I wasted 5 minutes of your time.

Account Hackers Have No Mojo is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

OK, as you can probably tell now, I have been wasting a lot of time playing with GUI email clients. Why you ask? Simple, I am nuts, like that wasn’t obvious! Like I did in Part I and Part II, I am going to do the same this go round, but with Mozilla Thunderbird instead.

First off, I am using version 3.1.9~hg20110206r5951 from the Ubuntu Mozilla Team Daily Builds PPA. Forgot I added that PPA to check out Firefox, so because of that, I have the version of Thunderbird that I do.

First things first, I like Thunderbird. I will even go as far as saying it is by far the best GUI-based email client available for Linux, and Windows for that matter. It integrates as better as the others, if not better actually, when it comes to tying it in to GMail. My complaints at this time are small, damn small. They are:

• Unsubscribing from an IMAP folder does not hide that folder, you can still see it in the list, annoying
• I don’t use local folders, so I had to download Mail Tweak just to hide it. Mail Tweak has about 50 or so other tweaks built into it, but I am only using one of the tweaks
• You have to try a few shitty extensions until you find the right one

I have 2 GMail accounts set up, and there are different folder views you can use. I was using the Unified Folders view, which is a really great idea, one I haven’t seen on any other client out there. So I have 2 accounts, and they both have an Inbox, this will show only 1 inbox with both of them combined, and when you expand that inbox, you can then access each inbox individually. This saves space when you have a ton of folders in view. Another thing I like is the support of IMAP IDLE which allows damn near real-time communications between GMail and Thunderbird. You can kind of think of it as the PUSH Technology deployed in mobile devices these days. It is funny. An email will show up both on my Android and Thunderbird before it does in the GMail web client. When I get a new email in my inbox, a message pops up, and at the same time my phone makes a noise, and about 15 to 30 seconds later, the message shows up in my GMail web client. Also, it uses its own message indicator and not the Ubuntu or Kubuntu indicator. I kind of prefer the Thunderbird one because it is more out of the way for me. To be honest, I absolutely hate the indicators in Ubuntu and Kubuntu, but that is my personal preference, I just have a different work flow than those who like them.

It doesn’t look to bad in KDE. Of course it doesn’t fit in look wise, but that is easily overlooked when it comes to functionality, speed, and usability. I have installed the Zindus extension which syncs my calendar and contacts with Google’s calendar and contacts. It does this better than any other extension out there, so don’t waste your time trying this or that, just get Zindus, enter your username and password, and in seconds you are up and running. Thanks to Timothy Richardson for leaving a comment telling me about Zindus. As it stands, I don’t think I am missing anything from any of the other clients that I wish was here. Well maybe a social tab with sex built in like Zimbra Desktop had, out of the box I might add.

So, are you a Thunderbird user? Am I missing anything? Any extension that is a must have? Any tips or tricks I need to know? Speak up in the comments and let me know.

NOTE: Inbox zero!!!

Linux and GMail Part III – Thunderbird is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Just the other day I posted about Linux and Gmail in reference to clients other than a web browser. I had noted trying out Evolution, KMail, Thunderbird, and of course Mutt which I use daily already. Well, one of the comments, by David Fraser, was about the Zimbra Desktop. I don’t think I have ever used a Zimbra client but I am fairly certain I have used their backend products in the past. Anyways, I went ahead and downloaded Zimbra Desktop, and after a fairly simple installation, have it up and running.

The installation was fairly simple. You extract the tarball, then sudo ./install.pl, answer the questions, and boom it is installed. Fairly quick, less than a minute I would say. After it finished installing I went ahead and run it. I was presented a dialog asking me to create an account, in which I did. I selected GMail, entered a name for that account, my username and password, and my name. I clicked save, said OK, and it was up and running and synchronizing my folders faster than any client out there. Sparrow and Mailplane, which I like for GMail clients, can’t even compare in speed. Thunderbird? Evolution? Not even close. KMail? Don’t even ask! OfflineIMAP can’t even compare to the speed in which I was up and running with all email downloaded.

Usability? I would say it is pretty much the same as every other GUI client in terms of usability. It may seem a little snappier to me compared to the other GUI clients, but time will only tell. The first thing I did was click on a message, I thought, “OK, lets reply.” I am used to the Reply button being over the message I am reading, however Zimbra has it to the left of the message in the top toolbar. I had to actually search for a second to find it. Before I found it, I decided to just do the tried-and-true pressing of the r key, and wouldn’t you know, my reply was ready to be created.

So I haven’t really dug into it deep yet, but first thoughts are not bad, but not great. So, I know my stuff is synchronizing because I can see the little spinner that is up by my account name. What it is synchronizing though I have no clue. Would be nice if it told me. Also, if you look at the image I have included, you will notice a Social tab. This does not belong in an Email client at all. I don’t need Twitter, Facebook, or Digg in my email client. Also, one of the columns that were displayed to me under the Social tab was a Twitter trending topic, #verysexy. Nice, just what I need in my email client, sex. Nothing like reading about a nipple in this shape or size, or a girl or guys ass, in your email client. Classy! As of right now Zimbra folks, get rid of that shit, otherwise I will end up chalking your entire client up as nothing more than a joke.

Oh, and one more thing, it is actually a web client, and uses Prism, which Mozilla is discontinuing and rolling the good stuff into Chromeless. So, keep an eye out, and if I think it is worthy of more discussion, I will add more to the comments, update this post, or create a new post in the future.

Linux and Gmail II – Zimbra Desktop is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

I have spent a bit of today playing with the various email clients on Linux today. I use GMail with IMAP for all of my email. Why you ask, especially when there are so many other options? Easy, convenience. I don’t have to set anything up, works with my phone, computers, TV, and then some. I also like how my calendar, contacts, and email are all in one place, and can be viewed, edited, or used from all of the devices I just listed above without having to install a single application. Convenience. I wanted to see how the desktop clients were going these days in regards to email so I played with Evolution, Kontact/KMail, and Thunderbird.

All 3 left a bad taste in my mouth. They all connected with GMail just fine, without having to do more than giving it my GMail address and password. Evolution was probably the fastest on the initial import of email out of the 3. KMail was by far the slowest. Evolution took about an hour, Thunderbird was about the same, and then there was KMail. It is now 19:00 and I started the KMail one at about 16:00, so almost 3 hours. Once KMail got up and running, you would hover over a message and a popup would display with information pertaining to the email. Everything was correct except for the body. The body was for an email in some other folder who knows where. Other than that, they all did what they are supposed to do with GMail.

Well how about with Google Calendar or GMail Contacts? Yeah, not so great. One would work great with contacts, but suck with the calendar, or one would work great with calendar or suck with the contacts, or one wouldn’t work with either. So, I have concluded thus far for me, that Mutt combined with a script or terminal command worked better than the GUI solutions. So I guess the Mutt slogan is 100% true then:

All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less

I just went in and did an apt-cache search gmail and this is what it told me:

Each red dot in that image signifies a GMail notification application. Well, it seems the Linux world has plenty of GMail notification applications and no GMail application. I think it is maybe time you stop being opportunistic with the notifiers. I wish I had some more time, as I would love for something like sparrow or Mailplane for Linux. If you want to be opportunistic, there you go. I think an application like either of those 2 would be great.

That’s all, just wanted to have a little fun today and it has been a while since I blogged, so I figured I would bother you all really quickly

EDIT: I Google’d mac gmail and realized they are as bad as Linux when it comes to the notifiers too. I didn’t Google windows gmail because they don’t matter anyways

Linux and GMail is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

As I sit here writing this right now, we here in Chicago are hunkered down with the expectation of receiving more than 24 inches (60cm), of snow. Hoping I can get this posted before the power totally goes out here due to the wind. The wind is making it even worse. We have sustained winds in the 25 to 35 miles per hour (40 to 56 kph), with gusts around 50mph (80kph). It is nuts, but it is fun at the same time. Luckily for us, we don’t close down like other major cities in the US, well except for schools.

EDIT: Forgot to add a link to pics I will be updating of our storm just in case you were interested. Head over to my Picasa Pictures and enjoy. Getting ready to head out and try to stream via U-Stream, because it is nuts right now.

Well, I was looking at the state of documentation in both KDE and Kubuntu and realized it really needs a lot of help. Now that I am starting to have a bit more time available, I am looking at making my way back into contributing to both projects again. I have missed doing the work and hanging out with everyone online.

I plan on making changes to my blog as well in the coming months. I want to get back to not only giving updates about my personal life and my contributions, but I also want to start documenting work I have been doing in the cycling world, and some development work I have been doing there as well that I think other cycling groups around the world could use. With that, it is high time to once again pay that dreadful hosting bill, and right now I am very limited on the funds I have available to go out on things like this. I hate doing this and thought it wasn’t fare to do things like this, but I would appreciate any donation possible. Whether it is $0.15 or $1, any little bit helps me keep this site alive so I can bring news to everyone who reads it. Over to the right of my page is a donate button that goes to PayPal, and if you could click it and spare some change, I would greatly appreciate it.

So with that said, you peeps in the KDE and Kubuntu worlds, get ready, because I want to come back! I have missed you all and I have so much love for each and everyone of you. You all have held the fort down perfectly and have kept progressing in creating the greatest operating system and workspace I have used to date. Thanks for that!

Blizzard of 2011 is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

UPDATE: after just over 2 days, all of my whining may have paid off. I woke up 12/15 to find my GMail working again. I would like to think a Google employee who contacted me on Twitter got it fixed or at least escalated for me.

If you can’t read what that says, here it is:
Temporary Error(500)
We’re sorry, but your Gmail account is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest trying again in a few minutes.

Well, 2 days later, not a few minutes, it is still dead. So I did what everyone else would do in a situation like this, I head to Tech Support. Yeah, like you, I couldn’t find a clear tech support channel either. I did find a bunch of documentation that didn’t pertain to the situation, and what documentation I did find, didn’t help the situation. Well, luckily I found a contact link, actually I found 2, maybe 3, different contact links, to report the issue. So I did, all 3 times. I waited with another email account, thanks Yahoo! for working! And I am still waiting, over 24 hours later. Next step, the amazing Google Forums, or whatever the hell they call that.

So I post my problem initially with a subject of Temporary Error(500) – Numeric Code: 93. This didn’t even draw in a response. So, I did something I can’t stand, I said screw bumping the thread, let me create one with a subject that shows a little panic. I added the info they asked for, I told them everything I have gone to from Google and GMail to rectify the situation, and none of it works. Wouldn’t you know, my subject draws someone in, and their first response is:

Did you check this link? Have you done this?

At this point I have steam coming out of my ears. How in the hell could you ask me that question if you read my initial post? How? I don’t get it? Supposedly this person is a ‘Level 4′, whatever the hell that means. I think they give you a level by the amount of posts you get. I did a little research on this person, and wouldn’t you know it, they are doing the same shit in every one of the other HELP ME! posts in the forums. Oh, this is part of the reason I can’t stand forums.

I have done everything. I hit Twitter, messaged people who work on GMail, everything, except fly to Mountain View and grab the first ass I saw riding some foldable bicycle coming out of one of their numerous gyms or campus hot spots there, and choking them until my GMail worked again. So now I have resorted to my blog, and I am hoping that just 1 of the 3 people who read my blog, knows someone who knows someone.

I am seriously at a standstill here. Everyone of my email addresses forward to my GMail account. It is kind of like my digital lifeline. I have a few major tasks, one including Christmas presents and lists, that I have to do like yesterday, but I can’t. I have an Android that is damn near useless to me right now, except for Angry Birds and Bubble Blast 2.

OK, so to my other point. What ever we all do with this wonderful world of free and open source software, lets never get this bad when it comes to getting some sort of support for a free product. Yes, we have docs, we have forums, we have IRC, and we have, well we have everything one needs to get something fixed. I don’t think in all of my years of working on Linux, Ubuntu/Kubuntu, KDE, you name it, I have had to wait a day, let alone 2 or more, to get something fixed. Well, get something fixed that is as important as your email. If you want to make sure you don’t fail with your product, just head over to GMail support, look it over, and promise not only yourself, but everyone of your users, that you will never be like that!

OK, my venting, or dribble, is done here. Everyone enjoy your day and the rest of your week!

NOTE: I have another GMail account for cycling stuff that works perfectly. I have tried no less than 6 other browsers, 2 other operating systems, cleared cache, history, cookies, and candy bars.

Promise me you won't fail like this is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

WHO
Ubuntu Chicago LoCo Team

WHAT
Maverick Release Party

WHEN
Today! Sunday, November 21, 2010 from 3PM until 6PM

WHERE
Pumping Station One
3354 N. Elston
Chicago, IL 60618

View Larger Map

Please stop by and say hi. We will have some snacks, some CDs, and a lot of fun! Hope to see you there!

Ubuntu Chicago Maverick Release Party Today! is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

My buddy Curtis is at it again with his awesome company, Bluecherry. For those of you who don’t know what Bluecherry is, a quick introduction. Bluecherry is a US based company out of the sticks in Missouri. They specialize in creating high quality Linux supported video capture cards as well as surveillance software. Those of you who work in a tight-security data center might be familiar with the Windows surveillance systems that out there, since more than likely you are hosting those servers as well. Well Bluecherry lightens the load by supplying the same type of equipment, just in a Linux environment.

Well Curtis hit me up on IRC this evening, and it seems my previous post where he was looking for a Qt dev worked out well for him. He asked me again to help out, and of course I am more than happy. Seems I am doing better at getting other people employed than I am with getting myself employed. Oh well.

This time around they are looking for someone who can hack on drivers and the kernel for their equipment, as well as a little bit more. I know the salary is competitive, the atmosphere is great, and if it is warm, you can wear shorts. My type of job, except for the fact I couldn’t hack myself out of a wet paper bag when it comes to creating drivers. Here is a quick breakdown on what they are looking for:

• Prior experience in Linux based software design / implementation including design
• Extensive knowledge of Ubuntu, including building / maintaining Debian packages
• Extensive knowledge of the Video4Linux2 and ALSA sound API
• Prior experience with gstreamer and RTSP
• Prior experience with SQLite, Postgres and Mysql
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Linux operating system development (device and kernel level) recommended
• Strong knowledge of C, PHP, Javascript required. Knowledge of Perl and Python suggested
• Strong knowledge of Apache2 and prior experience in writing PHP modules
• Played a leading role in the design and develop of previous client / server based applications
• Previous work with and understanding of working with video / audio formatting / codecs including MPEG4 and H.264
• Internet and operating system security fundamentals
• Sharp analytical abilities and proven design skills
• Strong sense of ownership, urgency, and drive
• Demonstrated ability to achieve goals in a highly innovative and fast paced environment

Sound like your type of job? If so, head on over to the Monster page for the position, Linux video surveillance software developer. In the past Curtis was looking for someone in the US to fill this position. And just so you know, you don’t have to live in Missouri, but if you happen to live in any of the US time zones, then you would be a groovy candidate. I do happen to know they are using Qt as well as Ubuntu (cough, someone get him on Kubuntu fast!) so I am sure knowing a little of that wouldn’t be to bad either, but I am sure it isn’t necessary.

There are great perks, so hurry up while it lasts!

Linux Software Developer Required is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

So, as you probably already know, since it is quiet in Orlando, I am not at UDS. Because of that, I am tuning in remotely. Thanks to Harald for the Amarok script that is working amazingly right now. Thus far, here is my little summary of what I have witnessed today:

• Mark announced Unity by default, in turn uniting a bunch of pissed off people on Twitter. Psst! gnome-desktop-environment will still be there
• The live video feed of Mark looked black and white, except Ubuntu was aubergine
• Gobby (gobby-0.5 is the package you want to use by the way, or kobby as it actually works with this UDS) can’t make up its mind on if it wants to be up or down
• Kubuntu is thinking about going with the stable Kontact/KMail, stable being version 3.5.10, until KMail2 is alive and well
• Scott brought up default browsers, in turn causing every Kubuntu developer to bring out some fangs and claws
• Oh and concerning the live video feed, it is true about the camera adding 5 or more pounds, but I also learned it also removes 5 or more hairs on your head at the same time

Working remotely, I also realized something else, and this concerns the plenaries. Remotely, these would be best at the end of the day, as then I would only have to worry about the lunch break as a disruption for remote participation. Instead of 2 hours of disruption, there would only be an hour. Also, I remember the plenaries after lunch while being at UDS physically. At times, they were hard to stay awake for after having a belly full of food. I think having them the last hour of the day as the closer would be good, as it brings everyone to the same location at that time.

Also, playing the UDS live audio streams along with Severed Fifth is quite amusing.

UDS Remotely is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Just a quick post showing a couple of hacks I have done using OfflineIMAP and Byobu on my server. I use OfflineIMAP to download my email from GMail and then use Mutt to read that email. I use Byobu on my server because I run Irssi, Mutt, and a shell, and of course Byobu makes this easy. So here we go.

OfflineIMAP
First, here is my ~/.offlineimaprc configuration:

[general]
metadata = ~/.offlineimap
accounts = GMAIL
maxsyncaccounts = 1
ui = Noninteractive.Quiet
 
[Account GMAIL]
localrepository = LocalGmail
remoterepository = RemoteGmail
 
[Repository LocalGmail]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/.maildb/GMAIL
#restoretime = no
 
[Repository RemoteGmail]
type = Gmail
remotehost = imap.gmail.com
remoteuser = your_gmail_login@gmail.com
remotepass = your_gmail_password
ssl = yes
realdelete = no

To fire off OfflineIMAP, I use a cronjob:

*/5 * * * * $HOME/bin/cron-run-offlineimap.sh

And my ~/bin/cron-run-offlineimap.sh looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
ps aux | grep "\/usr\/bin\/offlineimap"
if [ $? -eq "0" ]; then
    logger -i -t offlineimap "Another instance of offlineimap running. Exiting."
    exit 0
else
    logger -i -t offlineimap "Starting offlineimap..."
    chmod +x $HOME/.byobu/bin/1234_OFFLINEIMAP
    offlineimap
    logger -i -t offlineimap "Done offlineimap..."
    chmod -x $HOME/.byobu/bin/1234_OFFLINEIMAP
    exit 0
fi

You can see that this script changes the file mode bits to executable when it runs, and removes the executable bit when it finishes, on the ~/.byobu/bibn/1234_OFFLINEIMAP file which is a Byobu script.

Byobu
Here is what ~/.byobu/bin/1234_OFFLINEIMAP looks like:

#!/bin/sh
printf "\005{= rw}IMAP\005{-}"

So now every time my OfflineIMAP cronjob runs, I will get IMAP in my Byobu bar.

A super simple hack that lets me know when OfflineIMAP is running. Another reason I use this is because sometimes OfflineIMAP hangs, and when it does, I will know this if IMAP stays displayed in Byobu after a minute or so. Then I can check /var/log/syslog to see exactly when OfflineIMAP started. Normally OfflineIMAP runs for about a minute on my server every check. This could all be streamlined into one script as well with Byobu, but I know you don’t want to fire off processes or other things that may cause resource hogging.

Dear Internet,

I am at my wit’s end. I have been trying to build some astronomy software for my graduate program for 2.5 weeks and I have hit a dead end. The software is called Heasoft and is used in analyzing spectrum files. I am on Maverick and getting this error -> http://pastebin.com/mDkuRUba when I try to build the package. Are there any astronomy buffs or just some developers out there who can help me? I am really really stuck and would appreciate any help.

Please leave me a comment of shoot me an email Freddymartinez 9 AT gmail . com.

Thanks in advance.

Congratulations on your position and your new blog. I find it refreshing that you have taken the time out of your busy schedule to share with students and community members what you believe to be in the interest of our community and our young people. This is, of course, not without some sense of irony… I have a hard time grasping how a man making $620,000 in the days of budget cuts, tuition hikes, and unpaid furloughs could possibly have any clue as to what would be best for either our students or our community. That said, it does seem like you have quite a knack for looking out for what’s best for you and the other wealthy elites and blue-bloods in our community, so maybe its not your ability to act in the best interest of a population or organization that should be in question, but perhaps your ability to do so for people other than the rich, connected, and yourself.

I would like to extend my sincerest congratulations for managing to land such a lucrative position on the backs of working-class Illinois residents. I don’t know how you did it, but I suppose at least I must concede that you’ve displayed an ability to succeed in an endeavor we all had hoped was impossible: fooling the whole of the State of Illinois into making another rich, connected person even more rich and connected at tax-payer expense.

I look forward to seeing how you will spin what is best for yourself and your connections into what is best for students, the Champaign-Urbana community, and the state of Illinois as a whole. I wish you the best, but in all reality I do hope you are ashamed of yourself.

First off let me make a quick apology to Earl over at ZaReason for publishing this write up a bit late. Right after I received the new laptop, I had my daughter for the end of the summer, so needless to say, I decided to spend time with her. Once again sorry Earl.

So, a little over a month ago I found myself in one heck of a situation. I was sitting here with piles of ruined equipment with nothing more than my netbook. Well, as many of you know, a netbook will not get you anywhere with development except for some testing here or there. Try and build packages or compile code, jeesh what a pain. Jono got wind of my situation and hooked me up with Earl over at ZaReason who helped me out tremendously in a time of need. I needed something right now that would do what I needed and didn’t need to be top of the line. Well, top of the line is exactly what I received, and today I would like to take a few minutes to show off my new toy which I absolutely love!

Those of you who know me know that I speak my mind. If something sucks, I will say it sucks, even if I can’t make it better or don’t know how to make it better. I have no problem calling something out when I don’t like it. With that said, lets get on to the goodies!

My new laptop is a machine which ZaReason was carrying until recently. It seems they have massively upgraded the version I currently have which provides me with a bit of jealousy and awe. For being an inexpensive machine it is plenty powerful for what I need. It is actually really damn powerful! It boasts an Intel Core 2 Duo T7100, 4 GB of memory, 160GB SATA drive, a NVIDIA GeForce 9200M, a 15.4″ widescreen display, camera, DVD burner, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, and the lists goes on. Hell, this thing even has HDMI, which I am proud to say, it is the only device in my house with such an option. Anyone have a high definition TV for me so I can test it out?

Unboxing

The nicest box in the industry

Inside the ZaReason Box

The Kubuntu CD

The ZaReason Open Hardware Warranty. This rocks, keep reading to find out more!

The ZaReason Quick Start Paper

Sexy Is The Name

The ZaReason Notebook Lid, it needs stickers doesn't it?

ZaReason!!! Stickers!!!

The ZaReason Notebook Right Side: DVD burner and a lonely USB port.

The ZaReason Notebook Back: Security lock spot, a plugged hole, some rectangle plastic thing I haven't figured out (yet?), power, VGA, HDMI, and USB times two.

The ZaReason Notebook Left Side: Gigabit Ethernet, headphone jack, microphone jack, funky card slots.

The ZaReason Notebook Opened: Anyone order a real keyboard?

Hey, where did the Windows key go?

The Ubuntu Key

This baffles me, no Window’s sticker either

Energy, NVIDIA, and Ubuntu

Open Hardware What?

The ZaReason Open Hardware Warranty

In a recent post by Jono Bacon concerning his new ZaReason laptop, he talks about this and that, and says:

Zareason are a company that I think really gets Open Source.

Jono, you know I love you, but let me fix this for you. ZaReason is a company that really gets the meaning of being OPEN. ZaReason provides you with what they refer to as the Open Hardware Warranty. What exactly does this mean? Just look at the next picture to see what they say.

The ZaReason Open Hardware Warranty

That’s right, you are free to tinker with your hardware. Go ahead, open up the case, there is no Warranty Void if Seal Broken sticker like everyone else uses. Heck, they even provide you with a small ZaReason screw driver to do just this. So I did what anyone else would do in this case, I opened it up!

The ZaReason Notebook Hardware

I am in love! I didn’t void my warranty! If I broke it, I fix it, but if I didn’t break it, then ZaReason will fix it. How kick ass is that?

Up and running

BLOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This machine is a tank, but it is a very light tank. I am impressed with the weight. It is so darn light for its size. There isn’t much I can say except this machine kicks ass, it is fast, it is stable, it is quiet, it runs cool, and it is fast. Did I say fast? I mean it is super fast! Well faster than anything I had before hands down.

Did you notice the Kubuntu CD? That’s right, they shipped me a notebook with Kubuntu. Earl and I joked around and I said, “Now don’t ship me Ubuntu or Fedora now!” I was waiting for him to pull a trick, but I am happy to say I got a brand new notebook running Kubuntu out of the box. No tweaking really needed, everything works out of the box. The only thing I did was enable the proprietary NVIDIA driver. Yeah I know, kill me. I am following the open source drivers closely and playing around with those as well. They are definitely getting much better for KDE compositing but still have a little more to go before I can use them and be 100% happy. Right now I am probably 90% happy.

Conclusion
OK, so where do I stand? I am in love. I have been a huge fan of Compaq and Dell notebooks for ages when it came to running and developing Linux. I can say I am now a huge fan of ZaReason and I will definitely do business with them in the future. Sure, you might pay a little extra when comparing to the others, but you don’t get the level of support, the freedom to do as you wish without voiding a warranty, and you don’t get Kubuntu or the KDE Software Compilation out of the box! I am super happy and super in love with my new machine!

Thanks again to Earl and the wonderful folks over at ZaReason. If you are in the market for a new computer and want to support the Linux community, then I will highly recommend ZaReason. Make sure you let them know ‘Rich Johnson’ sent you. Happy hacking!

If you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comments.

Along with the latest point release of Ubuntu, the Kubuntu developers have been busy whipping up the 10.04 release in to a shape good enough to present you all with the latest point release. This release will bring along with it any security fixes, bug fixes, or updated packages or applications that have been made available since the original 10.04 release.

Both Kubuntu and Kubuntu Netbook Remix are now updated to 10.04.1. These new ISO images are updated to include all the post-release fixes delivered since Kubuntu and Kubuntu Netbook Remix were released. This release includes updated desktop installation CDs for the i386 and amd64 architectures and an updated ISO image for USB installs for netbooks.

Note to those already running 10.04: There is nothing you need to do. As long as you have been doing your regularly scheduled updates then you are running the same as 10.04.1.

Please visit the website under Get Kubuntu to see your options for obtaining this latest release.

Thank you for listening, and we will now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Hey there my Ubuntu and KDE people! I am still around. I have my daughter for most of the month of August so I am currently AFK. I will be back in a couple of weeks full-time again. In the mean time if you need to get in touch with me, hit me up on Twitter @nixternal, or if you have my phone number you can call me there.

When I come back, I have a great review in the pipeline of a new ZaReason laptop that runs Kubuntu out of the box!

My daughter and I have been having a blast these past couple of weeks. We have enjoyed the weather, watched a lot of bike racing, and she got groovy with Ubuntu. She likes Kubuntu’s look better, but I hooked her up with some Ubuntu to play around with. She wasn’t down with the default look, so we found some themes, colors, and fonts, that she likes, and thus far she has been happy. I need more than an SSH backdoor, so if you have any ideas let me know. I would like to know when she logs on and gets online, but I would really like to know is her IP address automagically so I can connect and do updates and what not for her. I can probably do most of this with a little bit of scripting, but I am sure that 100% of the time she will be behind a firewall that doesn’t have ports for SSH open, so if there is something out there that you know I might be looking for, let me know. Oh, I need to figure out a way to prevent her pesky mom or grandparents from installing Windows on this machine, any ideas on that as well?

Oh, and Elizabeth, she one-upped you. She has pink braces :p

My daughter, myself, and Chris Horner from Team Radio Shack

Bluecherry, a company that specializes in Linux (Ubuntu-based) surveillance equipment and applications, is currently looking for a full-time cross-platform Qt software developer. If you are a Qt developer who lives in the United States and is looking for a job, let me tell you, this could very well be it! It is a great opportunity to design and develop a new version of their interface and you get to work along side somebody like Ben Collins. Curtis Hall is the founder and owner of Bluecherry and is a really groovy dude. If you live around Fulton, MO, you can work in the office, and if not, you can work from home.

Here is just a brief introduction to the job posting Curtis has posted on Monster:

Bluecherry is seeking a well qualified applicant for cross platform Qt user interface software development. The position will also assist with training and support. The ideal candidate should have excellent communication skills and a strong background developing software applications under Linux. The candidate should also have extensive knowledge of Ubuntu. The position is full-time and is based in our Fulton, MO office however consideration will be given to telecommuter positions within the United States.

If you are interested in the position, I highly recommend you take a look at the job posting on Monster and apply through there, or send Curtis an email with your resume or CV to jobs (AT) bluecherry (DOT) net. Curtis would also like you have the following:

Applicants should provide, a resume including past work history, a cover letter with a brief introduction, two personal and two technical references.

Applicants should have prior work history available for us to review, specifically examples of Qt design and development.

Curtis also told me the following in an email:

We are trying to fill this position ASAP, so if someone might be interested I would highly recommend they apply quickly.

The Ubuntu Chicago LoCo Team is hosting its first ever group ride this Sunday, July 18. The ride will kick off from the Geneva, IL Metra Train Station at 12PM. If you are in Chicago and would like to come out, hop on the 10:47AM train on the Union Pacific/West line out of the Ogilvie Transportation Center. The train will arrive in Geneva at around 11:50AM. Once everyone is there we will take off and cruise either south or north on the Fox River Trail for a few hours. We will make stops for some ice cream, food, or cold beverages, and the speed will be as fast as the slowest person. This is a cruising ride for the team to come together and hang out on a great summer day in the Chicagoland area. We can either ride until 4PM so people can get back to the train station to head back downtown or 6PM. We can play this by ear and see how long people want to hang out for, but I am guessing 4PM will probably be more than enough on many people’s rear ends.

If you are interested, RSVP here in the comments, on our mailing list, or hop into our IRC channel on freenode in #ubuntu-chicago. Hope to see you there!

Lucid, 10.04, was released nearly 3 months ago and still to this date the Ubuntu Chicago LoCo Team has not received our shipment. Not only has our shipment not been received but nobody seems to be answering my emails. Getting a bit tired of telling everyone, nope you can’t have any CDs because I don’t have any CDs, and not being able to have a decent gathering to promote Ubuntu because we have zero materials. Maybe this blog post will make its way to someone’s desk that can help or who possibly cares.

In the meantime, many of you (well maybe 1 or 2, not many I am sure) might have noticed I haven’t been online for over a week. I totally forgot about my home refinishing project that I was supposed to do this week, and the moving of my office space. When I am done working I try to get in a bike ride, and after that it is shower and sleep. Hit me up on my cell phone if you need me, as my computers are being moved around and no power is in the office area yet.

Severed Fifth has been here for years!

OK, probably not the brightest idea to mix a little bit of LL Cool J and Severed Fifth, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Do you know what Severed Fifth is? No? Where the hell have you been? You have? Awesome! </jcastro>

Jono Bacon is in the process of finishing up his second album as part of his Severed Fifth project. If you know Jono, then you know there is a bunch of loud noises, a few grunts, and a wanna-be British man screaming from the depth of his gut. Years back, prior to the release of the first Severed Fifth album, Denied by Reign, I had the privilege of listening to a few of its tracks at a Linux fest. To quote myself after hearing some tracks:

“Oh yeah…this is the kind of shit I want to listen to before I break into someone’s house and rob them.”

I have heard a couple of the raw tracks through the Severed Fifth UStream channel, and I think my previous quote still stands. I haven’t heard the words yet, well not all of them. One day I overheard Jono growling something about My Little Pony, so you never know!

One thing Jono recently added was Fair Pay. Jono has been spending quite a bit of money to keep the Severed Fifth project afloat and recently if you remember, another group released an album where you paid what you thought was fair. Well, Jono is doing the same. If my broke arse can afford to donate money for some incredible music that I am free to do whatever I want with, then so can you! Only afford $1, groovy, Jono could use it. If you were planning on heading to space this year and still have $20,000,000 lying around, screw space, rock out with Severed Fifth instead!

While recently reading through the Severed Fifth website, I came across one of the posts talking about how Severed Fifth was being used in quite a few online videos. Don’t know about you, but I found not only the work cool, but the fact there are some people I would have never expected listening to metal using it in their video. Check that out and definitely look the videos over.

Street Team time! You can help spread the word of Severed Fifth in your community. When Denied by Reign came out, myself and a friend worked hard to try and get airplay on Q101, a local radio station here in Chicago. They were impressed to say the least, but 2 things stopped them from doing so. Metal wasn’t really their genre though they played some, and the other was the fact Jono was a misplaced British guy who isn’t from Chicago. Hey we tried. I did however get the local college to play it on their airwaves, so a few people got to hear the goodness.

So, if you are a metal head, or even if you aren’t, head on over to Severed Fifth’s website and check it out. I promise you a good time, and who knows, you just might end up a metal head if you weren’t already one.

Mama said knock you out!

It all started a bit over a month ago when I lost 2 machines to a natural disaster, one being my build machine which was powerful and the other being my laptop, which I used the most. Then yesterday when finishing my bike ride, busted spokes sent me into a nice slide with a broken wheel. The other day I noticed a clicking in my server, hard drive is what it sounded like. So I was able to power up, make a final backup, and noticed it wasn’t clicking. So I ran it for a day and just now, it died. One of these days I will have all of the money in the world and this type of stuff won’t bother me so much, but right now I am flat ass broke. So, until I can scrape together some money, I do not think I will be able to help much around the Ubuntu world. I will be using my netbook for pretty much everything right now, and if you have a netbook, lord knows you can’t do much with it besides surfing the intertubes.

Calgon! Take me away!

I got this response from Mediacom today when I got home, it is dated June 2nd.

Dear Ms. Bowers,

This letter is in response to a follow-up letter that we received from Michael David Stemle, Jr., which your office was copies on, involving the high-speed data service that Mr. Stemle receives from Mediacom. While the complaint involves facets of Internet access service not currently regulated by the Commission, I would like to inform the Commission of Mediacom’s response.

In the complaint the customer classifies Mediacom’s practices as involving deep packet inspection, and makes a moral argument against such a practice.

Mediacom must inspect packets of information to some degree in order to send customers to the web pages that they request. Mediacom operates in accordance with applicable laws and operates its service in a way that works well for the Internet-using community that it serves.

I will now consider the matter closed. Should you or Mr. Stemle need any further information, please contact me using the information below.

Sincerely, James McKnight

I find it interesting that this guy goes out of his way repeatedly to remind the FCC of how impotent they are in this matter. I am currently considering my response, and will likely post it here upon putting it in the mail.

So, I have been spending some time playing around with various netbook operating systems lately, trying to find that perfect one. A little bit of a background first. Last month I finally switched from a Blackberry phone to an Android phone, so for the past month I have spent quite a bit of time playing with the Android SDK, writing applications, checking out all of the available applications, in other words playing with my phone. After having done this now for the past month, one thing was clear, my phone integrates with my life damn near perfectly, whereas my netbook isn’t even close. So with that, I set out to play with every distribution or operating system out there. The following have been the releases I have tried out:

• Kubuntu Netbook Remix (10.04/Lucid)
• openSUSE’s Plasma Netbook Reference Platform
• Ubuntu Moblin Remix for the Dell Mini 10v
• Ubuntu Netbook Edition
• Ubuntu with Unity
• MeeGo for Netbooks v1.0 (which I will review now)
• and a few more…

Many know me as a lover of all that is Qt and/or KDE, as well as Kubuntu. Even though these are my loves, I also enjoy using other platforms and have recently become more-and-more a fan of GNOME and other environments and distributions. Let me just say, that with all I have tried, no matter which one you choose, the likelihood of it being a failure is close to null, as everyone performed and behaved very similar for me. KDE didn’t waste any more juice than GNOME, and openSUSE wasn’t any faster or slower than Kubuntu or Ubuntu for that matter. When it came to speed, they were all damn near the same.

I have a Dell Mini 10v netbook without bluetooth and with the stock battery. Nothing fancy at all, 1GB of memory, 160GD of SATA storage. Every distribution or operating system I threw on it (Windows 7 included), all ran just under 3 hours on the battery. If I didn’t mess with power settings and used stock settings, they all did roughly 2 hours and 30 minutes with battery power. Messing with screen brightness, I got that up to 3 hours.

Now on to MeeGo! The main interface is very simple, straight forward, and very good looking. I like where they are going with it. The interface is broken into tabs, 11 in total. They are: Myzone, Zones, Applications, Status, People, Internet, Media, Devices, Bluetooth, Network, and Time.

Myzone

Myzone is the home page you could say of the MeeGo interface. It lists, in a very nice layout, appointments, tasks, unread messages, favorite or pinned application launchers, and Twitter or Last.fm status messages. I am a fan of this layout, and none of the other platforms I have tried do it quite this nice to be honest. You can do this by tweaking the KDE Plasma Netbook interface to get a very similar configuration, but out of the box, I think MeeGo is a winner.

Zones

Instead of using a task bar, system tray, or whatever the hell they are calling it these days (seems everyone wants to change the name of an item that does the same damn thing so they aren’t mimicking Windows), MeeGo uses a tab called Zones, which is an area where applications being used will show up. If no applications are running or being used, MeeGo explains what the section is, otherwise you will see something similar to the image above. They explain it as such:

Applications you’re using will show up here. You will be able to switch and organize them to your heart’s content.

Applications

I think this tab is fairly self-explanatory. This is where all applications on your system are made available for easy launching. There is two sections under this tab, Favorite applications and Your applications. Favorite applications are the apps that you have pinned by hovering over an application launcher in the Your applications section and pressed the pin icon in the top right-hand corner. This is a combination of the KDE Plasma Netbook Search and Launch workspace and the KDE Kickstart Menu. It isn’t to shabby, and in the way it is being used with MeeGo, it works, and works as it should.

Status

This tab allows you to setup your accounts for Twitter and Last.fm. If you use Twitter, you can post and read messages from others here as well as these messages show up on your Myzone tab. Last.fm is another one you can setup where you can see the music your friends are listening to. Setting this up with straight forward and very easy. One thing I noticed and disliked was when I added my Last.fm information and told it to connect, it never informed me that it did in fact connect. So I spent a minute pressing the “Login” button over-and-over, kind of like Windows users do when the application or action doesn’t happen right away.

People

This tab lists all of the people who you have in your instant messaging accounts such as Google Talk, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ, and more. It uses Empathy, which I have a love-hate relationship with. Actually, I do not like Empathy the least bit, except for the ability of it to locate people on your network and notify you of their existence. That’s a stellar feature, and if other clients out there do that, I just do not know about it, but Empathy does this out of the box.

Internet

Can you guess what this tab does? MeeGo has 2 download options, one using Google Chromium and one using Google Chrome as the browser. In my case, I went the open source or free software route and selected the version with Chromium. The MeeGo interface is nice, and provides you with the favorite pages like Chromium does in the browser, and you are provided with a search bar as well, which of course is Google.

Media

No, not USB flash drives or smart media cards, but instead multimedia. In MeeGo’s case, they use Banshee, which is another application I have a love-hate relationship with. No, I don’t hate it because of the whole Mono thing and no I don’t hate it because Gabriel Burt was afraid to ride in a car full of KDE people (that’s a joke, but he didn’t ride with me to Penguicon a couple of years ago). I dislike it because Daap support has always been a pain in the ass. I use a Daap server here at home to stream all of my music, so no matter which machine I am at (Windows, Mac, Linux), I can access my music. I know Banshee can do it, but it has never been stable for me, nor has it ever been easy to get working. Out of the box, Banshee in the MeeGo configuration is a failure for me, but it might not be for you. I prefer Amarok for various reasons, and not because it is a KDE application. Amarok’s ability of Internet radio, podcast stuff, and of course Daap is far more superior than any music application I have ever tried in my life.

Devices

This tab is just a simple area that shows you battery level(s), storage space used, speaker volume, folders (which opens up Nautilus when activated), as well as any external device that you plug in to the netbook.

Bluetooth

My netbook doesn’t support bluetooth, so I wasn’t able to take a look at this section. It looks fairly straight forward by listing devices on one side and settings on another.

Network

Another love-hate relationship tab for me. I really like the layout here as you can easily enable or disable a wired connection or a wireless connection, or you can even go into offline mode which disables all connections. What I hate about it, is the WiFi configuration sucks. I have a hidden connection here at home which means I need to setup my connection. Cool, this is how it is for every operating system in the world. What it doesn’t do that every other operating system in the world does is….wait for it….it doesn’t freakin’ remember my newly created connection! Yes, that means every time I want to connect to my wireless Internet, I have to manually add it every time. Not a difficult task by any means, but a tedious one at best. Hopefully as MeeGo matures this will get better.

Time

Click on the clock tab and you will be presented with what I consider my ultimate favorite layout of time and date, appointments, and tasks. It doesn’t get any better! You are presented with a section for Time where you can select your city and other clocks for other locations around the world. Another section is for appointments which is just a front for your calendar. It support Google calendar which is a huge win for me, and it displays the information very cleanly. The third section is for tasks, you know, that getting things done stuff. It uses Tasks as its backend, which is a very simple application. I couldn’t find a way to get it to integrate with services such as Google’s Tasks or Remember The Milk, so I don’t know about sharing between computers.

Conclusion
MeeGo, in its first release, is pretty damn good, and this coming from a KDE loving maniac! It used to be Maemo, all Gtk in the backend, but now it is MeeGo with Qt (v4.6) as its backend now with a really nice MeeGo API as well. With MeeGo using Qt, KDE apps and Qt apps integrate nicely. What I don’t get is this, why in the hell are all of the Apps Gtk-based then? Chromium, OK I can understand, it is an amazing browser, and my browser of choice right now. Banshee? I think Amarok would have been a better app for media. Evolution? Oh hell no! I would rather they ship Mutt. You want me to say KMail or Kontact don’t you? Well I won’t, just yet. If I used POP3 for email, then yes, KMail/Kontact for the win! But seeing as I am lazy and use GMail’s IMAP settings, KMail needs help here. Thunderbird seems like a good choice, but for what I am guessing to be as a netbook operating system for those who aren’t hardcore mostly, I would think KMail/Kontact would be perfect. You can’t beat Kontact’s tight integration, you can’t, so don’t even try to argue that. Empathy is nice and light, so I understand it, even though I do not like it. I would have loved to have seen Kopete here, especially with its Skype plugin.

Overall though, I am still impressed with MeeGo, though I don’t think it is my replacement for the KDE Plasma Netbook Workspace. I think it is a perfectly fine solution for many though, and I am excited to see the ongoing work that is going into it. I know a few of the developers and I know they will be doing an amazing job on it in the future, especially as it starts getting on the more mobile devices out there. It uses Yum/RPM, which took me a few minutes to get used to again, but package management was as fast as I am used to when using APT or some other Debian package manager.

Good job MeeGo devs, and keep up the good work! I am fairly certain my review here sucked, so if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask them in the comments section, or email me at nixternal AT gmail DOT com, or even hit me up on IRC (freenode) as nixternal.

On May 2nd I found evidence that Mediacom was sniffing my internet traffic. I filed a complaint with the FCC once I was certain I wasn’t going to get cooperation from Mediacom. Today, I received a response from Mediacom.

Dear Ms. Bowers (the FCC representative who followed up with Mediacom)

This letter is in response to a letter that we receved from your office regarding a complaint from Michael David Stemle, Jr. that involves the high-speed data service that he receives from Mediacom. While the complaint involves facets of Internet access service not currently regulated by the Commission, I would like to inform the Commission of the results of my investigation of the complaint.

In the complaint, the customer states that Mediacom filters the customer’s requests and responses when he tries to access websites, and redirects the customer to Mediacom’s search results page.

Mediacom does not do what the customer is claiming. If a customer types a non-existent web page address into the address bar, such as www.foxskorts.com (instead of the popular www.foxsports.com), then the customer will be directed to a page that lists choices of websites that the customer may have intended, and some choices on there may be advertised spaces and would be identified as such. This is done because Mediacom’s search page is the default browser for incorrect addresses. This setting can be changed to whatever browser the customer would like to use. If Mr. Stemle would like to contact me, I will have a representative call him and walk him through these steps at his convenience.

Then this guy goes into some Internet Explorer tutorial on how to change my default search engine. He concludes with the following:

I will now consider the matter closed. Should you or Mr. Stemle need any further information, please contact me using the information below.

There are obviously some holes in this guy’s story. First, he claims this is a browser setting, when this is actually something coming from the ether. Neither my computer–which is a Mac running Safari, not a Windows box running Internet Explorer–nor the third party website has directed me to the assist.mediacom.com webpage.

Dear Ms. Bowers,

I have reviewed the letter from Mr. McKnight (Mediacom attorney) and found it to be inaccurate. I would like to take this opportunity to clarify my complaint and to provide some evidence which I hope will make this matter clear for both the FCC and for Mediacom’s representative.

My complaint is not that Mediacom filters all traffic, but rather that Mediacom engages in what is known as “deep packet inspection.” In addition to a telephone call where Mediacom customer support disclosed that such techniques were being used, I discovered that these techniques were being used when on the night of May 2nd at 11:17PM (US-Central time) I did make the HTTP request of the following URL: [http://sva.notsosoft.net/fdhkasjhfsd.htm]

Upon making this request I received a “HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found” response from the server, which is correct. What I noticed was that while the HTTP headers remained unmodified, the body of the HTTP response included this code which Mediacom did in fact deceptively inject (bold added to highligh executing client-side JavaScript code):

<HTML><script>window.location=’http://assist.mediacomcable.com/mediacomassist_pnf/dnsassist/main/?domain=’+escape(window.location);</script><body>The Search Guide redirection service has been enabled to provide helpful searches from browser queries. You entered a non-existent url and your browser attempted to redirect you with Javascript. To enable this please update your browser preferences. <a href=’http://search.mediacomcable.com/prefs.php’>To turn off this feature please click this here</a></body></HTML>

The effect of this code is to instantly cause the browser to redirect to the page http://assist.mediacomcable.com/mediacomassist_pnf/dnsassist/main/ with the query string parameter of the domain equalling the URL from the request which resulted in the 404 message. While this seems like a benign action, it has some potentially far-reaching consequences including unsolicited advertisements, sale of user data, bogus claims of intellectual property infringement, and a complete trashing of the fourth amendment rights of users.

It has been frightful this last decade to watch as internet service providers have engaged in warrantless wiretapping, packet spoofing, and disclosure of traffic data to the RIAA and MPAA. We all watched in horror as courts ruled that by virtue of users knowing that Gmail service was provided with advertising that they had no reasonable expectation of privacy, and therefore no Fourth Amendment protection with regard to email in their Gmail account. In addition, this robs me of my ability to enter into any new non-disclosure agreements with any third party while using my internet connection as I have no way of knowing what Mediacom looks for and collects, and with whom they disclose what they collect.

Contrary to Mr. McKnight’s claim, this is not a preference within my browser–I am not using Internet Explorer, I am not using Windows, I am using Safari on a Mac which does not redirect 404 errors to search engines in any way. While Mediacom does have what they call an “opt-out” option, this does not actually solve the problem. The opt-out option likely does not disengage the deep packet inspection, it likely only disengages the redirect. The problem is the deep packet inspection, not the redirection. The redirection is merely a symptom of this unethical practice. I have asked Mediacom to have technical personnel explain to me in detail as to the nature of the opt-out mechanism in place, but to date Mediacom has chosen not to fulfil this request.

On the phone call with Mediacom technical support, more than one technician did disclose that Mediacom inspects packets of users for several reasons including (and likely not limited to) virus detection, traffic-shaping, as well as the detection of copyright infringement for the purposes of disclosure to recording industry professionals and disconnection of consumer connections.

While I understand that the FCC is not currently regulating internet carrier behavior like this, I view this as highly unethical, especially when it is a practice which is not disclosed to consumers. Furthermore, I am greatly concerned that I was able to find technical people within Mediacom who were informed and did disclose this information, yet Mr. McKnight failed to even do such basic research as I had. More than one technician within Mediacom–both in the call center and technicians which respond to service calls–have told me they understand this unethical packet inspection to be a common practice within Mediacom, yet senior counsel within Mediacom seems unaware of this practice.

Since I contacted Mediacom regarding this matter they have since dispatched a technician to my house to re-wire my house, which was entirely unnecessary, wasting the time of both their technician and that of my lovely wife. While some Mediacom technicians have claimed that these unethical practices can enhance performance for Mediacom users, my neighbors and I know all too well that Mediacom has a record of poor network performance, and it is likely that deep packet inspection is exacerbating the problem.

All I ask from Mediacom is that they cease deep packet inspection on my connection. If this practice is not going on, and I am mistaken, I would appreciate it if technical personnel within Mediacom could explain the error in my argument, and I would request a letter declaring that deep packet inspection is not going on, and that I would be unreasonable to believe Mediacom is in any way inspecting or modifying packets between my home network and the server from which data was requested.

I do not consider this matter closed, I will continue to pursue this matter with authorities local and federal to the extent I can, and I do still maintain that Mediacom does violate the ethical expectations of their customers by engaging in this practice. Should either Mr. McKnight or the FCC require further information from me, my information is below.

Sincerely yours,

Michael D. Stemle, Jr.

This is going in the post tonight, hopefully we can get this matter addressed soon. I’m considering sending this to my senators, congressmen, and Illinois’ attorney general as well.

I have setup my own Tracks instance on my web server, installed Shuffle on my Android phone. I have created all of my contexts, setup my common tags, setup next-actions/waiting for/someday lists, but I have nothing TODO. On my desktop, I fired up Task by Taskwarrior to take a look and nothing!

So, with work beginning on Maverick for Ubuntu, and of course Kubuntu, I need something to do. So JR, Scott, Harald, Jon, David, and whoever else I forgot, gimme sumpin’ to do already!

Speaking of getting things done, as many of you know Task is my favorite. I needed something that I could access with my computers and my phone, so Tracks and Shuffle are the two best things for a droid phone. I want Task on my phone, and seeing as we now have Dropbox on the droid, I am starting to think about how I can get a GUI for Task on my phone as well. Oh, maybe that could be a to do!

I just went through some fun (you can replace fun with eye gouging pain) figuring out how to automatically install iPrint printers on Mac OS X.

The first thing I found out is that any version lower than 5.00 from Novell is totally broken and useless in every way. So if you are using iPrint from Novell, you should definately download that and install it on all your Macs.

Once you get that done you have a lovely iprntcmd utility that you can use for all kinds of useful stuff (we'll get into that later), but you still can't upload Mac drivers with a Mac. How difficult would it be to just make iManager work across platforms for Printing Novell? Hmmmm?

So now you have to... gasp... use Windows XP. Its easy enough to just load up VirtualBox and run a session right on your Mac. You are going to need access to all the print drivers on your Mac anyways so copying the ones you need to your home directory and sharing them out to your VirtualBox VM is pretty easy and useful. If you don't run it in a VM on your Mac, then you will need to share or copy whatever print drivers you will need to upload to your iPrint servers so you can get to them from a Windows XP box of some type.

So upload the drivers already (RTFM on Novell's website if you don't know how to upload and assign drivers for iPrint). I'm really putting this up here so I can remember it anyways and I already know how to do that! :)

Now the fun begins.

To install a printer just type:

iprntcmd -a ipp://iprintserverhere/pathtoqueue

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Wow, what an awesome development cycle! The Lucid Lynx has matured to a ripe old age of 10.04 and now brings you 3 years of support through free security and maintenance updates for your desktop. The Kubuntu team, as well as the entire Ubuntu community, did an awesome job this cycle and my hats off to each and every one of you, job well done friends!

Some new things for this release include:

• New branding
• KDE Plasma Desktop 4.4
• An official Kubuntu Netbook Remix featuring KDE Plasma Netbook 4.4
• Amarok 2.3
• Installer slideshow (I did the text, so read it! Let me know how horrible it is and we can fix that up in future releases)
• KDE integration for Firefox
• and more…

One mission down, many more missions to go. Next mission, Kubuntu Maverick Meerkat! That’s right, cat with a ‘K‘

I just wanted to put this out on my blog, hoping that some of you who follow this blog, live in or around Chicago, and enjoy road cycling or racing, might be interested in the following. I ride for a team called Athletes By Design (ABD). Tonight we kicked off our first ever Wednesday Night Training Criteriums series. I am one of the event leaders, so that is another reason I am putting this out, hoping to attract some new riders out there. Right now we have planned and confirmed 4 events, with the first kicking off tonight (April 28, 2010). The next 3 events will be:

• May 5, 2010
• May 12, 2010
• May 19, 2010

The location is nicknamed the “Pelladrome” as it is a 0.8 mile perfect oval, wide open, right next to Pella Windows in West Chicago, IL. HERE IS A MAP of the location. It is just south of the DuPage Airport off of Fabyan Parkway.

Registration kicks off between 5:30 and 5:45. You must have an ABR license. If you don’t you can get a single-day license for $5 or a full-year license for $25. On top of that, adults pay a fee of $10 to race and juniors pay $5 to race. If we get 30 adults to attend the event, then the juniors will be refunded and get to ride for free. These are training races so there are no prizes really. Well, we have fun certificates and tonight we even had blueberry and chocolate muffins which were given out to the winner of the primes. Great recovery fuel!

If you have never raced before and think you might be interested, then this event is perfect for you. The first race kicks off at 6:15PM and is strictly for beginners or noobies as many like to call them. The non-beginner riders get to ride in this first race as well but just as pack fodder out the back. They are not allowed to attack the beginner riders but are allowed to help a beginner rider get back in the pace line if they get dropped. Following this is 2 more races, the first race consisting of 2 groups, A Group which is made up of Cat 1, 2, and 3 riders and B Group which is made up of Cat 4 and 5 riders. A Group rolls out first and 20 seconds later the B Group rolls out. Tonight, we saw the B Group attack from the start. Heck, I don’t even think some riders were clipped in fully before hammering on it to catch the A Group and sit in with them. Sprints galore, attacks were fast and hard. All in all it was a great event tonight.

Please, if you are interested, head over to http://www.abdcycling.com/events/wednights.html for more information. Hopefully I will see some of you out there. I am not hard to spot, I am a football sized person wearing either a team kit or strolling around with my Ubuntu or Kenda hat. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email to ‘nixternal AT gmail DOT com’.

I can't think of a much crappier install than Pinnacle Studio 12 for automated deployments other than perhaps some Adobe stuff. Their msi gives you absolutely no way of filling in the information ahead of time for your serial number and registration information. I wonder if the folks at Pinnacle have heard of a little thing called large friggin workstation deployments! I started down the horrible nightmarish road of having to use AutoIt to manually pump keystrokes into the registration dialogue box. Oh man did I hate that! OK rant over. All that being said, I kind of stumbled upon a solution.Here is how I got it working.First I ran the install and manually went through the registration process. Evidently this creates a bunch of files in "c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Pinnacle\Pixie". If these files exist before you start the install process on a workstation, the registration information will already be setup in the registration dialogue. Hmmm fascinating!  So basically I just setup a little pre distribution script that copies those files down before I start the silent install of the MSI. xcopy /y/e/s/i/q/r "\\Network Location\pinnacle-studio-12\Pinnacle" "c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Pinnacle"The network location is the "Pinnacle" directory that goes under "Application Data"

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