Planet Ubuntu Chicago

Richard Johnson: NEEDED – Cross platform Qt software developer

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:52:38 +0000

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.

Richard Johnson: Ubuntu Chicago Bike Ride

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:35:37 +0000

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!

Richard Johnson: Oh where oh where could our CDs be

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:32:25 +0000

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.

Richard Johnson: Don’t call it a comeback!

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:41:35 +0000

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!

Chad Sutton: Twitter Is a Little Under the Weather

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:36:37 +0000

Richard Johnson: Grr, everything is breaking

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:48:50 +0000

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!

Michael Stemle, Jr.: Response to Mediacom & FCC, part 2

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 02:21:29 +0000

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.

Richard Johnson: Impressions of the latest MeeGo release

Thu, 27 May 2010 23:16:38 +0000

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.

Michael Stemle, Jr.: Amateur Aerial Photography of the Oil Slick

Tue, 18 May 2010 02:10:33 +0000

Michael Stemle, Jr.: Response to Mediacom & FCC

Tue, 18 May 2010 01:24:15 +0000

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.

Richard Johnson: Need something TODO

Sun, 16 May 2010 05:20:08 +0000

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!

Chad Sutton: Automatically Installing iPrint Printers on Mac OS X Workstations

Mon, 10 May 2010 21:06:48 +0000

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

Richard Johnson: Kubuntu 10.04 Released!

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:40:44 +0000

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‘

Richard Johnson: Bicycle Criterium Race Training Chicago Style

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:55:59 +0000

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’.

Richard Johnson: How nerdy meme

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 03:16:08 +0000

Chad Sutton: Automated Deployment of Pinnacle Studio 12 - Updated

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:21:33 +0000

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"

Richard Johnson: We can haz k

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:27:17 +0000

We got it! What you ask? The missing letter “K” in the new font that is part of the whole rebranding process for Ubuntu and family. I got home from enjoying the beautiful weather here in Chicago and good ol’ Jonathan Riddell asked if I could make a new Plymouth theme for Kubuntu using the new logo. 30 seconds later, and we have the following:

click for larger image

We are aware that it looks a bit cruddy with people using NVIDIA proprietary drivers. Once it is figured out on the Plymouth end, I am sure we will have something new by then, so please bear with us. Thank you!

Richard Johnson: Updated Kubuntu Plymouth Theme

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:35:38 +0000

I have updated the Kubuntu Plymouth theme. You can view it HERE.

Enjoy!!!

Richard Johnson: Kubuntu Plymouth Theme

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 05:02:23 +0000

Tonight I quickly threw together a Plymouth theme for Kubuntu. I borrowed the ubuntu-logo theme and edited it to fit Kubuntu better by changing the background colors, the color of the progress dots, and added a glowing Kubuntu logo. The logo is temporary as we await our new branding logos. As soon as we get that, we will put those in, and tweak the theme as needed.

I am aware of the clipped edges in the following screenshot, and this will be fixed in subsequent releases.

Richard Johnson: String Freeze Is In Effect

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:54:07 +0000

Ahh, my favorite time of the release, Documentation String Freeze. With every release, us Kubuntu folks seem to struggle a bit, but this time, we have done pretty damn good. We did a complete rewrite of our documentation, getting rid of the old KDE3 documentation. And after doing that, I am just extending the freeze on Kubuntu documentation almost 24 hours. This is going to give us time to have the documentation gone through by Carl, our amazing editor-in-chief who has done a kick ass job.

I am really impressed with the results of this release cycle and the people who helped make the Kubuntu documentation at least a bit better if not a whole lot better. My documentation ninjas include:

Vikram Dhillon (dhillonv) – forget ninja, this guy is a kamikaze. He pumped out a ton of docs this cycle.
David Wonderly (DarkwingDuck) – the darkwing duck of a ninja, he pummeled out the Netbook Remix documentation, the Desktop documentation and other topics as well.
Jonathan Jesse (jjesse) – I’m to sexy for my docs, to sexy for my docs, so sexy they don’t validate! He got them in at the turn of the clock thankfully. I give him hell because I can, and because he does an amazing job with the Kubuntu chapter in the Official Ubuntu Book, which I am no longer a part of
Carl Symons (kallecarl) – this guy is an editing ninja, so much so, I am giving him the title, Editor-In-Chief. My docs suck as it is, but thankfully he can unsuck them for me (that kind of sounded gross)
Bhaskar Kandiyal (gastly) – holy smokes, this guy took on graphics and video and totally blew my mind. He actually taught me some Blender with his documentation. Rock on!

If you helped with something and I forgot your name, I truly do apologize. I just went with the list of names on our todo list. Everyone, if you run into any of these people on IRC, Ubuntu Forums, a mailing list, or anywhere, give them a hug, they truly do deserve it!

At the beginning of the Lucid cycle I put out a call-for-help on rewriting Kubuntu Documentation. It seems about 10 people were interested, and out of those 10, 4 or 5 stepped up to the plate and hit home runs. I truly am amazed just how wonderful our community is here. So, if you are interested in documentation (I am looking at you shadeslayer), hop in to #kubuntu-devel and #ubuntu-doc on freenode’s IRC service (see, I spelled it right, so don’t give me grief Nathan Handler!) and let us know. I am expecting to start documentation right around the beginning of Lucid+1, the Mighty Maltese (please use this, so my little Maltese will be happy).

My plans for Lucid+1 documentation, rewrite everything!

Just kidding. Add to what we have, change some formatting and layout stuff. So if you see it missing in Lucid documentation, please, fix it up and propose a merge and we will get it in! Thanks again to everyone who made kubuntu-docs a reality!

help:/kubuntu

Richard Johnson: Desktop Help Summit 2010 Pictures Available

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:13:45 +0000

Thanks to Silke “If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it’s a duck” McCance for taking pictures during the entire weekend and uploading them.

The Official Pictures of the 2010 Desktop Help Summit.

Richard Johnson: Desktop Help Summit 2010 Complete

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:17:53 +0000

What an amazing weekend! First off, I really want to thank the following people:

Shaun “Is it Help? Hjelp? Yelp?” McCance – This entire event was his idea, his baby, and he pulled off one hell of an event. Thanks for showing off Mallard and Yelp.
Kevin “Is my iPad here yet?” Harriss – The venue was hosted by Kevin at the always awesome IIT Institute of Design in downtown Chicago, IL. Also thanks for allowing me to crash on the futon.
Jim “There are spy camera’s in my mansion” Campbell – Xfce and Xubuntu should be proud to have you on their teams, thanks for hosting that silly Brit Phil Bull and thanks for the coffee, donuts, and bagels.
Milo “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie” Casagrande – always good to see you again, and thank you for admitting that Italy could learn to make pizza from Chicago.
John “Fedora has a bat cave” McDonough – Google thanks you for realizing you shouldn’t listen to me for directions, and it was great to get to hang out with some (somewhat) local Fedora peeps.
Brian “GNOME is in the hizzy” Cameron – Thanks for spilling GNOME’s secrets so I can take them back to KDE Thanks for being a whicked cross-collab dude. Don’t think I didn’t hear you over there in the corner while I was writing American Idol’s next great hit!
Phil “The Intern” Bull – Thanks for the surprise! It was awesome to finally meet you after working along side you for the past 5 years on the Ubuntu Documentation Project. I had no idea you were coming and then hearing some British voice yell my name in Chicago scared the hell out of me, I swore I paid those tickets, really I do!
Silke “I’m with the Mallard” McCance – It was great to meet you, and great to see who it is that keeps Shaun in line Thanks for the spy videos of my computer voice song, and thanks for running across the street and picking up the utensils and drinks when there was free food, and thanks for getting Milo to admit that Chicago knows Pizza! Thanks for the coffee and bagels this morning too!

I would also like to thank Paul Cutler for trying to make it. I hope your family is feeling better, and I am sure this summer we can all get together for some documentation love!

So, the Desktop Help Summit 2010, the main reason for this post. We, members of GNOME, KDE, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Oracle/Sun/OpenSolaris, gathered in Chicago this weekend to hold the first, but hopefully not the last, Desktop Help Summit. It was all about collaborating on bringing help to our users and doing it better than everyone else. We collaborated, we learned, and we quacked! Heck, Shaun even gave the dancing Mallard some background music provided by Severed Fifth. Some of you who have followed me in the past know that for 3 years I chuckled at Project Mallard and called it nothing more than vapor-ware. Maybe I said it enough that Shaun, deciding to shut me up, has provided an amazing markup language specialized for topic-based help. If you doubt it for even a second, you should really see it in action. It is definitely something I would like to see make its way into the KDE SC one of these days. He showed off what he has been doing on Yelp 3.0, I think that is the version, that made be a bit envious and made me want something like it in the KDE SC.

To learn more about the event and what went on, check out the links to the people above, as I am sure they will post more information as well. I know John and Milo already have started blogging about it. There are pictures somewhere, as Silke was showin’ off her mad super camera skills. I really want a nice camera like that. I think Milo took some pictures and John has as well. Phil didn’t take any pictures because he was to busy looking up in the air at the tall buildings. We had to take him over to the zoo because he was missing the view of sheep on a daily basis, so to curb his home sickness, we looked out for him.

I also had some tweets (by @nixternal) and dents (by @nixternal) about the event as well. Thanks to those of you as well who participated on IRC. Notes are also available via Ether pad at http://etherpad.com/tUI4jbLm01 and http://etherpad.com/bnDi2pxN42.

Richard Johnson: One of these days – UDS on the moon

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:18:36 +0000

Phil Bull, the amazing Ubuntu Documentation writer, says he wants stuff on the left and UDS on the moon, so this is just for him, while he waits for the manual to be released!

Richard Johnson: Qemu, Qemu-KVM, VirtualBox, play nice!

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:39:54 +0000

Last night I was working on getting some screenshots of Kubuntu for the Karmic to Lucid upgrade documentation. I typically use Qemu for all of my virtualization needs because: a) it is convenient, b) it is fast, and c) both a and b. One thing I was noticing last night in Qemu was the default wallpaper for KDE SC 4.4 wasn’t blue, but more of a light and ugly brown color. Not Ubuntu brown, or should I say the old Ubuntu brown. What I found a bit weird with this is when I used KSnapShot to take a screenshot, the preview image in KSnapShot showed the correct color of the wallpaper, however when I opened it in Gwenview on my local machine and not in the Qemu guest, the wallpaper was brown and not blue. This drove me nuts, and it still does, because I can’t find any information on such a case. I know I can’t be the only one experiencing this?

Anyways, with the issues I was having, today I decided to go ahead and throw VirtualBox on my machine for screenshots. After getting it installed, rebooting, and doing what you have to, I went to fire up VirtualBox and was presented with the following error message when trying to start a guest OS:

Failed to start the virtual machine Kubuntu

VirtualBox can’t operate in VMX root mode. Please disable the KVM kernel extension, recompile your kernel and reboot (VERR_VMX_IN_VMX_ROOT_MODE).

First off…Really? That is the error you are presenting to the user? VERR_VMX_IN_VMX_ROOT_MODE – oh this really makes me know what the problem is, this should be easy. Did you see what I did there? Yes, I presented you with sarcasm. VirtualBox developers, do me a favor, make your error messages a bit more user friendly. Simply telling the user to “disable extension” and then “recompile kernel” is about as insane of an option for what I consider an awesome end product. FYI people, you don’t need to recompile your kernel, unless of course you compiled your kernel with the KVM module and can’t do anything about it, but I would guess for 99.9% of you, this isn’t the case. And another thing, put that VERR_VMX_IN_VMX_ROOT_MODE garbage under the Details drop down, hide that damn thing.

OK, with that off my chest, easy fix. Fire up your terminal and fire off the following:

Ubuntu or Ubuntu based distro, or distro using Upstart:

sudo stop qemu-kvm

For a non-Ubuntu based distro or distro not using Upstart:

sudo service qemu-kvm stop

And if all else fails:

sudo /etc/init.d/qemu-kvm stop

Now you can fire up VirtualBox and rock-and-roll. If you need to use Qemu again before rebooting or shutting your system down, instead of issuing stop to the examples above, use start instead. This is only a temporary work around. If you reboot your machine after stopping qemu-kvm, when your system starts back up, you will need to stop it again in order to use VirtualBox.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming consisting of Global Jams, Kubuntu isn’t Ubuntu, To many Chefs, Marrying a coffee pot, and OMG THE BUTTONS ARE ON THE LEFT!

Chad Sutton: Leo Laporte Crowd Surfs at Diggnation Live Event. He's my Hero!

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:00:51 +0000

I have been a huge fan of Leo Laporte for a really long time. The man really knows technology. He is one of the few tech broadcasters that really seems to get it. He has really driven "podcasting" to new levels. I've half stolen his Twit.tv model for my own podcast that I run at Lords of Tyr (a gaming group that I am a member of). Someday maybe I'll be the Leo Laporte of D&D podcasting? I can only dream!

Leo is forever young, which is perhaps why he is so darn relevant. Actually I think he is beyond relevant. He is a pioneer. He was at the Diggnation taping the other day. He broadcasted is live over his Twit.TV network and what did he do? He crowd surfed while filming it! He is the man. End of story!

Richard Johnson: Google Maps Goes Cycling

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:34:32 +0000

THIS is an interesting thing done by Google today. They have finally added cycling routes to their maps. This is a really nice feature if you are just a casual rider. I know there are a few of us in the Ubuntu community who are not casual riders and we live for speed, we live for flying past pack fodder, and we aren’t afraid of hills. Well, Google maps new cycling route feature is afraid of hills, and when you use it, Google maps will route you around any hills. BOO!

I am sorry, but if Google was serious about the cycling stuff, they could have learned a lesson or two from Map My Ride. Map My Ride is amazing, as it will map, allow you to design a ride, and track your rides with a great level of detail.

Richard Johnson: Consulting Gig and Microsoft Sales Bash

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:21:41 +0000

So, here I am, a bit peeved but more humored than anything else. Today I spent some time with a client of mine, actually a friend. His company asked me to come in and sit in while 5 other companies bid on a project they are working on. I listened to sales people all day long, and it isn’t like I have anything against all sales people, just a vast majority of them. My head was spinning when it was all over with. So, I got to listen to 4 companies give their spiel about using Linux here, possibly Windows there, and one even promoted the idea of using Macs as the workstations. Interesting stuff by these 4 companies, yet still boring as hell. Then come sales dude number five, the second or maybe third largest tool I have ever had the great privilege of meeting in my life. He comes prepared no doubt, gives us a groovy presentation handout, business cards, and even a pretty cool pen. I love swag, so I grabbed a handful of pens. I flipped over this guys business card before he introduced himself, and there it was, in big bold letters, Microsoft. Rock on, this should be entertaining, and boy was it!

I will not go in to details on who this guy is or what he does either at Microsoft or one of their partners, however Microsoft was on his business card, bigger than anything else. Anyways, he starts out rocking. He had me impressed, all kinds of charts, cost cutting avenues, cost and benefit analysis which made my socks roll it was so damn sexy. He even had the project mapped out, which none of the other 4 groups had done. Thus far, literature wise, he dusted the other 4. I was starting to cheer for this dude, got a little hot and bothered there for a second, sorry, back on track here. So, he finishes his Microsoft talk, and it was great this far. Then he thanks the other 4 groups there, and seemed really nice, until…”Let me show you where these other groups don’t make the mark, seriously Mac? Let’s start by showing you how they have this whole Linux thing wrong. First it is created in the basements of unemployed hobbiests, it isn’t as secure as its made out to be, and needless to say all of the patents they are infringing upon, therefor making it a liability for you to even use.” Now that was paraphrased, but my jaw was on the ground. He knew I literally just shat myself, but what he didn’t know is I am a Linux fanboy and hacker. I was actually dressed a little nice, wearing my typical wise guy hat. He said something else, but I can’t remember what it was, all I remember is I grabbed my laptop bag like it was my gun holster, and from it I pulled out my 9mm. Err, I pulled out my netbook, which has 2 stickers on there, and both say Kubuntu.

He just chuckled at me, which I think infuriated me more than what I had just heard. So now he tries to explain himself, back peddles at least to the point where he admits there are great corporations behind Linux development. But the 4 other groups that were there and myself really wanted to know, and before I could say anything, the CEO of the one group, Mandy I think her name was, chimed in with a, “Could you please explain the patents Linux infringes?” He gave her a brief look, and she went all comedian on him, and I had to hold back everything just not to start rolling on the floor. She lets out a, “No, before you continue, can you please explain that, as I would hate to be sued by some insane company for something they think is theres.” He wouldn’t answer at all and would only state he wasn’t allowed to speak about it. Oh boy, I am peeing myself by this time. So I look at my buddy, and I had to do it, some of you might have heard me say it before, but I just had to do it.

You know, I have been thinking about writing a piece of software that did nothing but infringe upon every software patent there was.

Brief pause, trying to get the people to do the, “OK dude, wtf are you getting at?” And when I got that look, I finished with…

But it’s to late, as Microsoft beat me to it.

Yes, very childish and immature, but it had to be done. So, that was my Microsoft bash. Listen, if you are a salesman, especially a Microsoft salesman or partner, don’t do your unfounded threats in a professional manner. You might be surprised that the people sitting in the room might just see right through you, and today, they saw through you, big time! In the end, it looks like there might be a combination of 2 of the companies used. One of the companies is the one who suggested the Macs as the workstations, and the reasoning behind it was good. On the server side, there will be Linux. In the end, a very entertaining day. Even this former or current FBI Cyber Security guy even poked fun at the Microsoft salesman. Supposedly he is one of the gentleman that also helped rip off the state of Illinois with frivolous claims about Linux, and boy did Illinois fall for it.

Anyways, just wanted to share that with everyone, as it was a fun story, probably a more of a “You had to have been there.” Now this salesman wasn’t the only one to bend the truth or outright lie, so salesman, be careful, not everyone is dumber than you anymore!

Richard Johnson: Let me tell you where to put the buttons…

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:50:41 +0000

You really don’t want me to tell you where to put them, as you might not like the answer. However, with KDE, you can put the buttons wherever you would like Daviey, Mike, and everyone else.

No need for some confusing application or editor, simply configure the location of the buttons as you would like them to be. You can drag stuff where you want, click apply and test the results. Tweak until you are happy.

Richard Johnson: opportunistiK needs help

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:33:54 +0000

This way here, Harald won’t be able to add to his count. Anyways, I am giving a presentation next week for Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week, it is on Friday, March 5^th, 2010 at 17:00 UTC. The topic I will be presenting is “Creating a PyKDE App.” I am slotted for one hour to attempt and teach everyone who shows up, how to create an application using KDE’s Python API. Seems easy enough right? It is, but I was thinking I would like to start some sort of application that has future potential, that hopefully an opportunistiK developer or two can take on, and maybe make something great in the future.

So what does this have to do with you? Easy, what would be a perfect application to start and present for this topic? I don’t want to create just a shell for something, I would like to at least have a little bit of functionality to it. Thus far, I have received one idea from @harriseldon on Identi.ca. Feel free to leave comments on this blog, or follow @nixternal on Identi.ca or @nixternal on Twitter and shoot me a message. Thanks everyone!

Richard Johnson: Uh oh

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:54:37 +0000

For those of you who have kissed off openSUSE, Novell, and possibly recently Ubuntu for its Yahoo deal (which by the way is with Yahoo, NOT Microsoft), it is time to kiss off other things, such as Amazon. Granted this deal blows to the highest level and just shows how shite Microsoft is, there are many companies doing this same thing with Microsoft, deals like this and others. So while you are sitting there, wearing your anti-Micro$oft (see what I did there? That’s what all of the cool Microsoft haters do) hats, ditch the following product manufacturers:

Samsung
Fuji
Nearly every computer manufacturer
Asus
MSI
Nearly every automobile manufacturer
More than likely your lovely ISP
and so much more…

Don’t forget to dismiss your family members who are using Microsoft products too, but not Uncle Ned, he is cool, oh and Aunt Jane, as they at least use Linux. And the next time you get a bill, just throw it out, as it was probably printed from a Microsoft computer. Oh boy, and your government, local police, because they are up to their armpits in Microsoft deals. I wonder if Microsoft touched the snow in the backyard? I think I will get naked and sleep out there tonight. Yuck, the thought of something Microsoft has a deal with anywhere near me gives me the heebee-jeebees.

NOTE: I sure hope you all found the sarcasm, because I am not a Microsoft lover at all. I am tired of their BS just as much as the next person, but I am also tired of the anti-Microsoft extremists and their simple-minded attitudes. It’s fine to stand up against Microsoft, and those who have deals with Microsoft, but just remember, that is a lot of standing, hope your legs and back are ready for it.

Richard Johnson: Please say Fedora

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:43:08 +0000

Last evening I went over to a family friend’s house to help her with an ongoing problem with her Internet connection. She has AT&T DSL, and every night around 5pm or so, the connection pretty much drops. Getting to a web page is hit or miss, like one in every 10 attempts it will load a page. The pings were good, but getting out was a nightmare. She has a huge laptop running Windows 7 with insane specifications. Great machine. So, I took over my netbook running Kubuntu Netbook Remix (Lucid) to see if the problem was her laptop. Right away I was able to decide it wasn’t her laptop. Further debugging made me realize it was the DSL connection. I connected directly to the DSL modem, no router, firewall, anything in between me and the Internet. The problem still existed. At that time I determined it was AT&T’s fault so we called them up. Initially the phone call was a nightmare.

Typically I am really good at understanding an Indian dialect because the area of Chicago I grew up in was largely an Indian population. The person on the phone was a bit harder to understand and I believe the reason was because they had a mix of the Indian dialect with a distinct southern US drawl. Anyways, after talking to the AT&T tech support person for a few minutes, I started telling him what was going on and what I had done thus far. He asked what version of Windows I was using to test and I told him I wasn’t using Windows and instead was using Linux. I expected the “We don’t support Linux” comment, but was floored when he said, “Please say you are using Fedora.” I chimed in with a “Sorry, using Kubuntu.” He chuckled then said, “Some people will never learn.” We shot little jabs back and forth at each other having a bit of fun while he was doing a modem test. In the end they figured out it was their issue and some AT&T techie will be out there today to fix the issue.

So, if you were that AT&T dude I talked to last night who loves Fedora and despises us Ubuntu fanboys, drop by and say HI! It was a pleasure getting to talk to you for support on the issue, and it is great seeing that there are some tech support people who aren’t afraid to explore other options.

Chad Sutton: Comcast Becomes XFinity... If That's the Case How Come They Limit Our Bandwidth?

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:34:35 +0000

Look, I don't like to bag on Comcast, but heck this is about the dumbest name ever. If you are going to have infinity in your name, you can't be going around yelling about limiting bandwidth hogs! OK Comcast?

Perhaps they are just referring to the ability for their monthly bill to become infinitely large? Or maybe they want to describe how long you need to wait at home, while missing, work for one of their repair techs to show up?

I don't get the rebranding at all. I'm pissed that some of my monthly payments was actually used to pay some marketing jock to come up with this horrid idea. Pants on the ground Comcast!

Richard Johnson: Freenode IRC – Connect And Auth Securely

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:30:44 +0000

OK, so today freenode migrated to their new server. It was a bit rough around the edges at first, however they have finally added support for connecting via SSL and using a script in Irssi you can authenticate via SASL. So, I will quickly show you how to get SSL and SASL setup for Irssi and Irssi only, and I am assuming you already have a connection to Freenode already setup.

WARNING: It has been brought to my attention that the Irssi folks get mad when people tell you to edit the config file instead of using the commands, so with that, backup your config file first, and if anything goes wrong, not my fault

Let’s install the necessary packages (I think this is all, I already had openssl installed but had to install the libcrypt- packages for the SASL script below):
```
sudo apt-get install openssl libcrypt-openssl-bignum-perl libcrypt-dh-perl libcrypt-blowfish-perl
```

Grab and save the cap_sasl.pl script to ~/.irssi/scripts and setup a link for it to autorun:

cd ~/.irssi/scripts
wget http://www.freenode.net/sasl/cap_sasl.pl
mkdir autorun  ## only if you do not have this directory already
cd autorun
ln -s ../cap_sasl.pl .

Fire up Irssi without connecting to anything:
```
irssi -!
```

Once in Irssi, setup your username and password for SASL:

/sasl set freenode your_nick your_password DH-BLOWFISH
/sasl save
/save

Quit Irssi
Using a text editor, edit ~/.irssi/config and in the section that says servers = ( you want to remove the stuff between the { and } for freenode, and then add the following in its place:
```
address = "chat.us.freenode.net";
chatnet = "freenode";
port = "7000";
use_ssl = "yes";
ssl_verify = "yes";
ssl_capath = "/etc/ssl/certs";
autoconnect = "yes";
```
Now under the chatnets = ( section, you want the freenode = part to be changed to:
```
freenode = { type = "IRC"; };
```

If you get a message about your nick being “Juped” or “temporarily unavailable” and get switched to Guestxxxx nick, read the following, otherwise enjoy your new secure connection.

Now you can go ahead and connect to IRC like you are used to. If you have the ENFORCE flag set for your nickname, you may come across some issues with identifying, and the one message I kept getting was:

Nick nixternal is Juped

If you get this, you need to disable the ENFORCE flag on your nick (make sure you are identified with your correct nick first):

/msg nickserv set enforce off

After that, disconnect from IRC, then reconnect to IRC. You shouldn’t be getting that error message now. If you do, go to #freenode and complain accordingly If all is well, you can go ahead and set the ENFORCE flag back to on:

/msg nickserv set enforce on

Now all should be well. Enjoy your new secure, SSL and SASL authentication, connection.

Richard Johnson: Ubuntu, Yahoo, Microsoft, and bears oh my

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:29:05 +0000

Yes, as many of you have read recently, Canonical has created a deal with Yahoo! to provide the default search for Firefox in the Lucid release. I decided that I would sit back and parse not only the information that Canonical has put out, but also the information I am reading on the web, Twitter, Identi.ca, and mailing lists. To be honest, I was actually surprised that a large scale attack or a FUD campaign never started over this, and I feel there just might be a turning point in all of this. Before I go on, let me throw a bit of a disclaimer in here as to hopefully not provide a lash back against either Canonical or Ubuntu.

Disclaimer

I am not an employee of Canonical, I receive zero money from them for anything I do.
I am not a speaker on behalf of the Ubuntu project nor the Ubuntu community.
I speak for myself and nobody else.

OK, I think I covered the grounds. I know this post has the potential to either be popular or very unpopular. I am not here for a popularity contest, so if it sinks or swims, I do not care. I just want to provide my opinion of the deal and the atmosphere I have experienced since I first got involved in Linux some 17 years ago.

I personally think this deal between Canonical and Yahoo! is a good one, and to be honest, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of these deals. I wouldn’t mind seeing a deal with Google, Ask, Bing, or whatever else there is out there. The reason I like this deal is that it brings the potential of hiring more developers for the Ubuntu project. Seeing as I am a Kubuntu user and developer, I would love to see some of the money make its way into Kubuntu. Wait a second, did you just say Bing? Isn’t that the search engine, or rather the decision engine, ran by that big evil empire known as Microsoft? Oh boy, how many of you just went, “WTF IS WRONG WITH THIS IDIOT?” I am sure some of you did, and that was to be expected. I mean, Canonical did strike a deal with Yahoo!, and for some reason, many of you feel that Yahoo! is now Microsoft, or at least powered by Microsoft. If you read more than a couple of blog posts here and there, and dive into the news by not only Yahoo! and Microsoft, but read the stuff by the WSJ, NYT, and more. You will see for one, this deal has yet to be approved by the powers to be, and who knows if it will. Saying that Yahoo! is powered by Microsoft is not only incorrect, but it can be construed as either trolling or FUD at best.

You see, I have been around this Linux community for the better part of 17 years. There were good years and plenty of bad years. There were two things that always stood out during these years.

Free is on one side of the fence and open source on the other side, in other words a split camp with common goals.
Microsoft is a big and evil empire

So, Microsoft is big and evil, and don’t think I could disagree with that statement, and they haven’t proved themselves worthy of us removing this title, or whatever we want to call it. How many of you actually feel that striking this deal with Yahoo! is striking a deal with Microsoft? Don’t be shy, I have seen you on Twitter and Identi.ca stating the same, and on the Ubuntu Developers Mailing list as well, oh and on IRC. How many of you use Dell equipment? HP? IBM? Intel? I could keep going, but I wanted to kind of use companies that Canonical has worked with that Microsoft has worked with as well. How many you out there love your new Intel i7? Why? Don’t you remember the late 90’s when Microsoft was driving Intel to only do things a certain way that would benefit Microsoft only? How many of you are driving a Ford? Shoot, how many of you own a car? How many deals do they have with Microsoft? What about that bicycle, as I know there are a few of us nuts who prefer to ride instead of drive? Your TV? Cable? Shop at Best Buy? Oh man, I could keep going. How many of you just went, “WTF DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF TEA IN <nsert county so I don’t offend anyone>?” It has a lot to do actually, and yes it is probably beating yet another dead horse. The reasoning I see a lot of with dealing with $X who in-turn has a deal with Microsoft, in this case Yahoo!, in many cases can be seen as hypocritical. Imagine a life if you only dealt with companies or people that didn’t have a deal with Microsoft. For those of you against this and use Google, not to long ago Google made a deal with Twitter who already had a deal with Microsoft in terms of searching. Did you just switch your default search engine because of that? How about Microsoft and Facebook? Strategic alliance between Microsoft and O’Reilly? Gonna stop reading O’Reilly books now? Sugar CRM? Xen Source? And the list goes on.

Let me cover those of you who are using System 76 or Zareason, or some other Linux only manufacturer, that want to keep the attack going possibly on the deal. Ever consider the hardware that is used in those systems? I know System 76 uses, or was using, MSI equipment. Guess what, big Microsoft deal there. I don’t care what it is, there is a damn good chance you are using something right now that has struck a deal with Microsoft.

Is this the year of the Linux desktop?

or…

Is Linux ready for the mainstream?

Two of the most sickening questions I have seen for over a decade. The answer will always be “NO!” until we realize we need to step from underneath this rock we, yes we, have put ourselves. We have this great product, but if we continue being split on whether the Free Software side or the Open Source side is the correct side, or we shouldn’t be doing these types of deals, let’s just keep our mouths shut and enjoy this lovely rock canopy we have created for ourselves. Oh, here comes a big bomb, Novell. I am not about to rip on Novell, sorry Boycott Novell. I do not agree with their merger whatsoever, but I am a first hand witness of the good that has actually come out of the deal. Guess what Novell is doing that we aren’t right now? They are showing large companies, Fortune 500 and then some, that there is a choice out there, there is more than just Microsoft for your infrastructure. I went to their IT In Action tour here in Chicago last year. Granted I didn’t appreciate it when they said, “Microsoft is now the largest provider of Linux service,” nor did I like when one of their speakers decided to take off his jacket and reveal this nasty Detroit Red Wings hockey jersey (/me points at the Ubuntu Michigan people with a grin). What I did like, and I was wicked impressed with, were these people who were almost to the point of bashing Linux before the event started, to being super stoked over the Linux platform and the tools that Novell had when it was all over. Here I was an Ubuntu guy, and they knew that and welcomed me with open arms, who came in defending Linux and left helping some of these companies switch to, or look at the possibilities of switching to Linux. So thanks Novell for helping me get a few consulting gigs out of the tour.

I feel we, the Linux community, need to unite more so than we have. Not a fan of President Obama, but last night during his State of the Union address, he talked about reaching over those party lines. I think we need to do the same thing. Hey, if Microsoft is evil and they won’t reach their hand out, then why shouldn’t we try? OK, no more politics, OK maybe one more. Let’s tear down this wall! OK, that was lame, but I had to do it because it made me chuckle a little. I am not saying lets sell out to Microsoft, because that is definitely the last thing I want. You see us Linux people look at the big guy and concentrate on trying to make them look bad. In my eyes, we aren’t winning that battle, and while we keep carrying it forward, there is this person in the middle who is seemingly getting bigger and bigger every time they announce an iSomething. So instead of spending membership money to stand out in front of some silly event with a sign, lets think of better ways to use it. There are so many people out there who see people with signs picketing something, and a majority of the time these people go unnoticed, except for that one rogue honk, which believe it or not wasn’t supporting your campaign.

OK, that should be it. I am sure it is all confusing, so please feel free to respond anyway you feel is right in the comments. Thank you, and I apologize for causing you to spend this time possibly reading absolutely nothing.

Antonio Sosa: LAVA 5.0 Remote Tool

ansotech@gmail.com (Antonio Sosa) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:32:00 +0000

I added the remote tool to the new build of LAVA I am going to upload.

Now users of LAVA can use my desktop remote tool I posted earlier upon install or via livecd. Once ran, they can select a live session to a technician. The technician can then remotely login to the desktop to help out.

The remote service is a paid service I am developing here at my company Ansotech.

The remote tool I built and is installable on Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSuse.

I am planning on bundling the remote service backend and front end so internal ITs or corporations have a easy remote solution for their linux clients.

The server backend piece runs on XP, 2000, 2003, Vista, Windows 7, MAC and of course Linux. This piece is the software that runs on a technicians pc.

Let me know if anyone out there would like information on this product as it is a new product we are going to offer and obviously are looking for feedback as well as users willing to try out the initial offerings of the product.

Thanks

Chad Sutton: Apple Turns the iPhone into a Keyboardless NetBook with the iPad

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:29:22 +0000

I Just finished watching the Apple announcement online via live.twit.tv (Over 114,000 viewers!). The biggest piece of information is probably the price point. It is much lower at $499 that I thought it would be. Additionally the $14.99 250mb/month and the $29.99 unlimited price points for data plans with AT&T are lower than I expected as well.

I think all of the so called "ebook" readers out there (Kindle etc...) are in serious trouble. The fact that the iBook store exists is huge. I'm not a big fan of Apple's closed attitude towards their hardware and software, but having the iTunes/iPhone/iBook eco system is very user friendly. Its something that perhaps only Google, at this point, could ever compete with. Certainly Microsoft doesn't have anything close to this as far as content and ease of use.

As an Ubuntu user, I enjoy the easy to use repository of free applications that are available to me without any hassle. iPhone and now iPad users enjoy a similar easy of use to get to applications (those poor Apple fans have to actually pay for a ton of their apps though!). What does Microsoft have? Nothing. They have a huge number of apps, but they are horribly smushed across the Internet in an unrelated uncaring mishmosh. With no useful easy to use eco-system. Microsoft just doesn't have a chance.

Richard Johnson: Mark E-mails in Mutt as Tasks in Taskwarrior

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:12:29 +0000

OK, so I think most people know that I have grown quite fond of Taskwarrior for managing my Getting Things Done stuff. Many of you might also know that Mutt is my e-mail client of choice, for the past 15 years. Recently you saw a post on Planet Ubuntu by the rockstar Bryce Harrington concerning Mark emails in mutt as tasks in gtg. Well, I have had something similar, actually pretty much the same damn thing, just with a different GTD application. So without further ado, here is what you need to do in order to mark an email in mutt as a task in taskwarrior.

Setup Mutt Macro

macro index t "<pipe-message>mutt2task<enter> <save-message>+TODO<enter>"

What this does is set the t key, while in the index of mutt, as a macro. The macro pipes the email message to a script I wrote that strips the header from the message and adds that as a task. The save-message part saves the email to my TODO folder.

Setup Mutt2Task Script

#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/task add +email E-mail: $(grep 'Subject' $* | awk -F: '{print $2}')

What this does is call the command task add which adds a new task. The +email tags the task, and the E-mail: $(grep ‘Subject’ $* | awk -F: ‘{print $2}’) greps the Subject line and then prints the part after Subject: from the email, therefor just giving me the subject text. Make sure you place this script somewhere in $PATH and make it executable.

Make sure you add a TODO message folder in your mutt configuration so you can see the TODO messages.

Chad Sutton: Remote Controlling Mac Xserve When ARD is Running

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:22:23 +0000

So I've been working on getting all the Mac Workstations setup to use ARD at the college that I work for. I ran ARD on our Xserve to search for and capture all the Macs in one of our labs. But since then I haven't been able to remote into the Xserve. I keep on getting the following error.

An administration application is currently running on this computer and will not allow you to remotely control the screen

Well that stinks! Now I have to go way up to the computer room and see what is going on. Or do I? Heck no! I figured that the "administration application" that was currently running must have been ARD. So I can just kill it from the command line. So I ssh'd into the server and ran:

ps aux |grep Remote

That lists anything running with the word Remote in it. ARD is listed as "Remote Desktop". So I copied its PID number and ran:

kill -9 [PID of Remote Desktop]

Then I could once again remote control the Xserve from my desktop. However I wanted to make sure I wouldn't have to go through this all again. So I started poking through the preferences of ARD. Under "Security" I found a check box called "Allow control of this computer when this application is running". I checked it and now I can remote into the Xserve just fine again.

I love ssh!

Richard Johnson: Doc Jam Chicago Style

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:47:36 +0000

Hey everyone, just wanted to drop a quick note to those of you who are in or around the Chicago land area, on Sunday, January 17th from 12:30PM until 5:30PM the Ubuntu Chicago LoCo team will be meeting up in Chicago for a documentation jam. If you would like to show up, here is the address of where we will be hanging out:

On-Shore Inc‎.
1407 W. Chicago Ave.
Chicago, IL

View Larger Map

If you can’t make it to the event, no worries, as you can join us on IRC in #ubuntu-chicago channel on the freenode IRC network. Plans are to work on Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu system documentation, as well as cleaning up the team wiki pages as well as community documentation on https://help.ubuntu.com/community.

If you plan on working on system documentation, here is what you can do prior to joining us on Sunday:

READ how we use the Bazaar repository for doing system documentation.

Ubuntu Documentation
Install build dependencies for the ubuntu-docs package:

sudo apt-get build-dep ubuntu-docs

Kubuntu Documentation
Install build dependencies for the kubuntu-docs package:

sudo apt-get build-dep kubuntu-docs

Xubuntu Documentation
Install build dependencies for the xubuntu-docs package:

sudo apt-get build-dep xubuntu-docs

Once you have done that, then you need to check out the latest documentation for Lucid for the documentation you are going to work on:

Ubuntu Documentation

bzr branch lp:ubuntu-docs

Kubuntu Documentation

bzr branch lp:kubuntu-docs

Xubuntu Documentation

bzr branch lp:xubuntu-docs

System documentation is in DocBook/XML format, which is a very simple markup language. Don’t worry if you really don’t know it as Jim Campbell and myself can quickly teach you what you need to know, in order for you to get up and running.

Don’t worry, if you don’t feel you are ready to work on system documentation, there is also plenty of wiki documentation that needs to either be cleaned up or added.

Hope to see you Sunday!

Richard Johnson: Ubuntu Chicago Files Chapter 13

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:37:09 +0000

To go along with the spirit of most big things in the United States, Ubuntu Chicago is filing Chapter 13. Well almost big things, as they all filed Chapter 11 pretty much. Anyways, Ubuntu Chicago isn’t going anywhere, it is just going to restructure itself to become a much more efficient LoCo team. Some of the restructuring is going to bring:

Regular online meetings
Regular in-person group meetings
Regular Jams (we are doing a Doc Jam this weekend as a matter of fact)
Much more visible in the community
and more…

So, we have already started the process for regular online meetings and online gatherings where we will follow and not follow an agenda. We are going to start scheduling regular in-person group meetings as well, which will more than likely go hand-in-hand with the various LUG meetings in the Chicago land area. We are going to start doing regular jams, and starting this week we will be kicking off a Doc Jam. We are planning on becoming much more visible to the community and to people who are outside of the community. One major complaint we had was our website not only sucked, but was so outdated. To alleviate any issues regarding the website, I will now be hosting our website, which will bring news, events, information and more to the people of Chicago. The buzz right now is pretty high in Ubuntu Chicago and I feel like I did the day myself and Mike Greenwood decided to make Ubuntu Chicago a reality damn near 5 years ago. I will keep you updated with the changes coming and being implemented as I am sure Nathan and Jim will as well. If you are in or around the Chicago land area, please do not hesitate to join us in #ubuntu-chicago on the Freenode IRC network, or join our mailing list to follow along with current and upcoming activities.

Ubuntu Chicago Coming Soon!

"We’ve got this LoCo team, and it’s f@#kin’ golden!" – Governor Tuxgojevich

Chad Sutton: Big Surprise: Geek Squad Optimization Service is Usless and Expensive

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:19:08 +0000

In other news, the earth is round. Consumerist reports that Best Buy is up to their usual dasterdly tricks. They advertise an inexpensive computer. Then when you go to purchase that computer they only have ones that have been "optimized" by the Geek Squad for $39.99 more than the advertised price.

This is shameful and it should be illegal. Not only because they don't seem to be able to sell an item for the advertised price, but because their optimization service is a monumental joke. At best it will remove a few icons from the desktop (but not the actual crap programs that they point to... Like AOL, Symantec Virus Protection, etc...). At worst, they will lose parts for the PC like power cords or actually make it run slower! Good Lord people!

This just in! Consumerist Reports that Best Buy's Mac Optimisation Service Also Sucks!

How do you avoid this problem? NEVER EVER SHOP AT BEST BUY! Unless you are getting a price on something that makes you feel like you are ripping them off (hardly ever) just run away from that horrid place. There are plenty of other places to buy great computers from. Namely, I would look at Amazon, Newegg, HP, Dell, ASUS, and... well ANY other place.

Richard Johnson: Byobu shows me next meeting

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:25:21 +0000

Have I ever told you all how much I love byobu? I have always used screen, though I really never tweaked it all crazy like many did. Recently I typed screen at the command line and I was presented with this thing called byobu. I went ahead and gave it a shot, and at first I will say I was rather annoyed with the bar at the bottom of my screen, and my scrollwheel didn’t work with byobu the way it did with screen. I went ahead and changed my workflow in order to get used to byobu. A couple of weeks ago, I got nosey, and wanted to know how byobu was doing its thing. After a while of messing around, and seeing everything it could display, I wanted more! And since quite a few of you on IRC wanted it, well here it is.

See, I use the cli more than I do the desktop, which is weird seeing as I am an avid KDE lover and hacker. Here is my current workflow via the command line:

IRC – irssi
Email – Mutt
Feedreader – Newsbeuter
Calendar – gcalcli
GTD/Todo – task

With byobu, I have it set up to automatically create 5 windows (the 4 above, plus a regular zsh shell). Since I use the command line so much, I tend to forget about meetings from time-to-time as I don’t get any warning of them, until it is either to late or I have totally missed it. So I thought, since I use the command line so much, how can I have something simple to show me the next meeting. Then I thought: I could use gcalcli to read the Fridge meeting calendar, and then have the next meeting output to the bar in byobu, so I will always see the next meeting. Currently with byobu, it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to add custom items such as this, but I have been told they are coming soon! Awesome!

So, here is what my new addition looks like:

To get this, I had to do the following:
Step 1: Create crontab task
Create a crontab task to create a file in my home directory that contains a list of meetings:

*/5  * * * * gcalcli --nc --ignore-started agenda "`date`" > $HOME/.gcal_agenda.txt

Step 2: Create a script for byobu
Create the following script (/usr/lib/byobu/gcal_agenda) and then make it executable:

#!/bin/sh
if [ "$1" = "--detail" ]; then
        head -2 /home/nixternal/.gcal_agenda.txt | tail -1
        exit 0
fi
GCAL=$(head -2 /home/nixternal/.gcal_agenda.txt | tail -1)
printf "\005{+b }%s\005{-} " "$GCAL"

Step 3: Add a tick to the common profile
In /usr/share/byobu/profiles/common, you need to add the following:

backtick 200    67      67              byobu-status gcal_agenda

Add this line right after the last backtick line you see.

Step 4: Add output to the hardstatus string
We need to add the number 200 that represents our backtick in the previous step to the hardstatus string line in $HOME/.byobu/profile. profile is a symbolic link to the current color profile you are using in bybobu, so if you ever change your theme, you will lose this setting until you add it to the next theme. Here is what my hardstatus string line looks like in $HOME/.byobu/profile:

hardstatus string '%99`%{= kw} %100`%112`%= %102`%101`%200`%127`%114`%115`%108`%128`%125`%126`%113`%119`%117`%116`%106`%104`%103`%105`%107`%123`%120`%121`'

That is all on one line. See the %200 in that line, that is our gcalcli output. That is the one we need to add in there.

Step 5: Make byobu use it
For some reason, byobu didn’t automatically pick up my new script in /usr/lib/byobu, even after reloading (F5), so I added gcal_agenda=1 to $HOME/byobu/status, did a reload (F5), and it was there.

I think this is everything, hopefully I didn’t forget anything. If you try it, and it doesn’t work, let me know.

EDIT: I am a moron, not /var/lib, but /usr/lib. I have made the changes to the post already. Also make sure you have gcalcli up and running with your calendars first. To add the fridge calendar, you subscribe to it from your Google calendar.

EDIT: I redid the last 3 steps because I totally forgot them originally. Thanks to Chris Johnston to pointing this one out!

Eddie Martinez: debian lenny logitech quickcam chat?

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:44:40 +0000

Dear lazywebs: My family has all received Logitech quickcam Chat cameras for Xmas (and happy holidays to you!). Ive managed to get the Logitech Quickcam Chat camera to work under various Ubuntu Karmic installs and I know for a fact it works under Windows Vista. I am running Debian Lenny however, and haven’t gotten it to work after installing gspca-source_0.1.00.20-1.all.deb as well as running m-a a-i gspca.

lsusb | grep Logitech
Bus 006 Device 003: ID 046d:092e Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Chat
user@host:~$ dmesg | grep gspca
[113379.415192] gspca: USB GSPCA camera found.(SPCA561A)
[113379.415192] gspca: [spca5xx_probe:4275] Camera type S561
[113379.417630] gspca: [spca561_config:711] Spca561 chip Unknow Contact the Author
[113379.417639] gspca: Failed to configure camera
[113379.417668] gspca: probe of 6-1:1.0 failed with error -5
[113379.417730] usbcore: registered new interface driver gspca
[113379.417735] gspca: gspca driver 01.00.20 registered

sudo modprobe gspca returns no output. thoughts and thanks in advance?!

–eddie m.

Richard Johnson: Everyone is late to the game

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:53:34 +0000

Last night as I went to bed, I turned on the television to see what was on. This is typically the way I fall asleep. I came across this movie titled, “The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest” from 2002. In this movie, 4 researches split off from some big research company to create a $99 PC. Where have I heard that one before? Oh, they were only off by a $1. Then, in order to make this $99 PC, they had to get rid of so much, they got rid of things such as:

Hard drives
CDROM drives
Floppy drives
and more…

This got them to thinking, if we get rid of all of this, then how in the hell will this PC work? Their answer, put the software on the Internet! Here are a couple of quotes from the movie:

“The world needs a cheap portable computer, Casper. Third world school children want to join the information age.”
“Your mother uses Macintosh!”

The movie was quite hokey, and what they created was a small computer that looked like a toy of some kind from the Star Trek set. It used a hologram instead of a monitor, and it had icons that roughly represent the icons that Google uses today, except when you clicked on email for instance, the little envelope sprouted wings and flew up to be read. So in 2002, a movie starts talking about our so-called cloud computing buzz word, a $99 PC, and makes fun of the Mac kids. We are just a bit late to the game now, time to innovate something else

Michael Stemle, Jr.: Corporations are Killing Global Solutions

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:37:18 +0000

It seems talks in Copenhagen are stalled for a number of reasons. One, is that our shameful “democratic” process in the United States is actually trying to shoehorn in lackluster measures so they can continue business as usual.

Another reason why things are stalling is because the developing world is woefully incapable of funding the changes that are necessary for them to participate in the solution to man-made global climate change. They make a compelling case that the already-developed world owes a debt to the developing world for the years that we have enjoyed prosperity due to our polluting activities.

One more interesting point I’ve heard is that developing nations are being priced out of being able to participate because corporations in developed nations are implementing strict intellectual (imaginary) property regimes to prevent others from partaking of solutions science without paying top dollar.

America should be ashamed at how our corporations are behaving. We should be ashamed at how our leaders are behaving. And we should be shamed that while the science is calling for 20-25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 emissions estimates, the United States is only willing to make a 4% change. Of course, we’re calling it a 16% drop, but then changing the benchmark from 1990 to 2002.

Some days it’s harder to be an American than others. Our government is controlled by corporations, despite the lies that Obama told us when he promised to keep corporations out of the White House. Obama, please give us the change we believed in and worked our asses off for.

Richard Johnson: RE: SSH Tab Complete

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:47:46 +0000

This is a response to SSH Tab Complete by Michael Lustfield.

Create a ~/.ssh/config file and populate it with configurations. Doing this is the only step you need to do, and you don’t need to add anything to your ~/.bashrc. Example ~/.ssh/config:

# foobar.com
Host foobar
    Hostname foobar.com
    User xxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
# Home server (internal)
Host iserver
    Hostname 10.0.0.2
    User xxxxxxxxxxxx
    Port ####

Host is a simple word that will be used with ssh like ssh foobar. Hostname is the actual IP address of domain name of the server. User is your username for that machine. Port is the ssh port number, if it isn’t the default port of 22.

So, when I want to ssh into my home server, I just do ssh is, press tab, then enter. There are many more options to add to the config file as well, and a simple Google search will provide more. Also man ssh_config will give you pretty much everything you need as well.

Richard Johnson: Awesome!

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:34:30 +0000

AWESOME! This definitely shows that the Kubuntu community has grown over the past couple of years, even among the complaints, we seem to be succeeding, and this makes me super happy. Just over a week ago, I decided that we were going to totally wipe out the current set of Kubuntu documentation and start from scratch. My buddy Jonathan Jesse, the 2nd Kubuntu docs dude, was freaking. He was like, “that sounds like a lot of work!” Oh, it did, but our awesome community has stepped up and is taking control, writing documentation, and good documentation at that. I am really grateful to all of you who are helping, and because of you, there is no doubt in my mind that our docs will finally kick ass again!

Richard Johnson: OMFGWTFBBQ! No more Gimp?

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:40:14 +0000

Seriously, is removing Gimp from a default install of Ubuntu that bad? Bad enough for you to leave Ubuntu for some other distribution? I have been reading blog posts, news sites, blog comments, IRC, Twitter, and Identi.ca, and what I am seeing simply amazes me. Thus far, the popular topic to these complaints is that Ubuntu is making the desktop even dumber. So, if Ubuntu is making the desktop dumber, I guess in the past it has made many lazier? I mean, installing Gimp isn’t a big deal. I am a Kubuntu user, and KDE user of other distros, and none off the top of my head include Gimp. Just now, I had to reinstall my system because my hard drive blew up. In just over a minute I had Gimp, the Plugin Repo, and Inkscape installed. And for you all who are going crazy over the decision, just know that the developers of Gimp agree with the decision:

“That is pretty much in-line with our product vision. GIMP is a high-end
application for professionals. It is not the tool that you would advise
every user to use for their casual photo editing. And as far as I
understand this, it’s not that GIMP would not be available for Ubuntu
users. It’s simply not installed by default.

Sven”

HERE is a comment from the Gimp world supporting it, HERE is another, and another. I use Zsh, Ubuntu doesn’t ship that by default, I am going to go take a turkey hostage now!

Simmah down nah! It isn’t the end of the world. When Ubuntu switches to KDE in 2012, then it will be the end of the world!

Richard Johnson: Kubuntu DocBook/XML 101

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:37:27 +0000

So, you keep hearing me talk about contributing to Kubuntu documentation, and you see that I say it would be nice for you to have some DocBook/XML experience. Many people want to help, but they don’t have that experience. In most cases, the people interested at least understand HTML or some other markup language a little bit. If you can understand that, then you can easily understand DocBook/XML the way we use it for Kubuntu documentation. DocBook/XML has a lot of tags that one can use, however we only use a very small subset of those tags with our documentation. Just an idea of the main tags we use from DocBook/XML are:

<sect1>
<sect2> – sometimes
<title>
<para>
<ulink>
<example> – sometimes
<mediaobject> – only for screenshots
<imageobject> – only for screenshots
<imagedata> – only for screenshots
<acronym> – sometimes
<guibutton> – sometimes

There might be a few more, but these are the ones that pop into my head. For instance, when you are trying to let the reader know to open up an application via the menu, there is a tag called <menuchoice>. We have an entities file that contains all of the menu stuff, so you wouldn’t even need to use that tag, as you would call it in the document you are working in. Example: Say you are trying to tell the user how to open Amarok, you would enter &menuamarok;. Easy!

Here is an HTML example, lets say, Hello World

<html>
<head>
<title>Hello, World!</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello, World!</p>
</body>
</html>

The html, head, and title, are already taken care for you with the template, so you just need to do the part in between the <p> and </p>. So in DocBook/XML, that would look:

<para>Hello, World!</para>

Easy. Typically with HTML, when you are trying to show a section or make a section stand out, you might use <h1> to make the title stand out. Well in DocBook/XML there are a few more lines, but still easy to do:

HTML:

<h1>This is the title of the section</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph in the section.</p>
<p>This is another paragraph in the section.</p>

DocBook/XML:

<sect1 id="intro">
<title>This is the title of the section</title>
<para>This is a paragraph in the section.</para>
<para>This is another paragraph in the section.</para>
</sect1>

If you are looking for a little bit more information concerning documentation in the Ubuntu world, take a look at the Documentation Team Wiki Page. There is also a bit of information on how we use Bazaar when working with documentation as well. To get an idea of how we use DocBook/XML with Kubuntu documentation, take a look at the old Jaunty Documentation for Kubuntu. Under the docs/ directory you will find the topics covered. And then under the topic, in the C/ folder is the XML markup for that topic. There is obviously a bit more DocBook/XML markup in our documentation, but the header portion and the layout is already completed in a template, so all one would need to do is fill in the space and create new sections.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to stop by the Ubuntu Documentation IRC channel on Freenode in #ubuntu-doc and ask away. We also have a mailing list where you can ask questions and communicate via email to other documentation people.

Richard Johnson: Kubuntu Documentation Needs Help

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:42:32 +0000

Here is the email I sent to the Ubuntu Documenation Project’s mailing list today:

Currently we over in the Kubuntu world are completely rewriting the system
documentation. Why you ask? Because the old documentation was just that,
old. It contained information from the KDE 3.5 days. The reason for this is
because for the past 4 years, there have only been 2 of us working on the
documentation, and for the past 2 years, we both have been super busy with
our personal life. We will have a similar structure/layout as previous
releases in regards to the fake topic-based help, however the content needs
to be totally rewritten.

Because of this, we are looking for people who have the following
experiences:

1) You run Kubuntu and are familiar with its applications
2) You can read and write English
3) DocBook/XML experience would be nice
4) Understand how to use Bazaar

I have created a quick todo list [1] where we can track who is working on
what. There is no time line set in stone, however I would like to have a
solid documentation base by the end of the year. Because we are rewriting
the documentation from scratch, we need to have this solid base in place so
we can start translations. I would love to have all topics with a status of
NEEDS REVIEW by the end of the year.

If you have any questions or would like to help, please feel free to reply
to this mail or find me on IRC (#kubuntu-devel and #ubuntu-docs). Thanks!

[1] https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Documentation/Lucid/Todo

Any and hell help would be greatly appreciated right now. Thanks!

Antonio Sosa: LAVA PLus 5.0 released

ansotech@gmail.com (Antonio Sosa) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:42:00 +0000

Finished the DVD multimedia edition of my lava.

Added thunderbird and extensions such as zindus, google imap, google calendar, signature, etc.

Added alot of custom context sensitivie menu keys for 'convert to mp3', 'convert to avi' , 'add subititles' , 'convert to wmv' , 'convert flv to avi' , 'fix avi index' , etc.

also added a huge list of apps for media encoding and authoring as well as audcaious, exaile, streamtuner, tvtime, etc.

added alot of games as well and emulators.

Let me know what you think.

[ Download Here ]

Antonio Sosa: LAVA 5.0 CD Version

ansotech@gmail.com (Antonio Sosa) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:48:00 +0000

I finished version 5 of LAVA based on 9.10.

Here is the CD version

I will upload the PLUS and DEV edition in the next day or so.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks

Antonio Sosa: New LAVA

ansotech@gmail.com (Antonio Sosa) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:16:00 +0000

New Version of LAVA CD Version will be uploaded today based on Ubuntu 9.10

Features:
* Custom sysctl.conf for increased bandwidth and security as well as filesystem and memory tweaks
* Enabled hdparm.conf for dms, hard disk cache, etc
* Installed , configured preload
* a suite load of addtional software to make it easier to use: gnochm, ntfs-config, eggscups, etc.
* removed usual gnome menu and replaced with gnome-main menu
* added custom templates like NEW Excel Spreadsheet, New Word Docuemnt, New Python Script into right click -> New
* added a bunch of nauitlus context menus - convert ot BMP, convert to PSD, convert to GIF, merge images into a PDF, extract images from PDF, burn Xbox game
* added firefox addons - text to link, dns cache, adblock, etc. and reconfigured firefox for safer browsing.
* added network utils like traceroute, aircrack
* added cd converting utils like nrg2iso, binchunck
* added mediubuntu repos to software lists so you can download media codecs or apps
* changed all media to play thru smplayer - avi, mpg, mpeg, mov, wmv, wma, mp4, flv, etc

etc, etc , etc.

Let me know what you think.

should have it uploaded by this afternoon.

Antonio Sosa: Not Ubuntu related

ansotech@gmail.com (Antonio Sosa) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:33:00 +0000

But it is open source related.

I built a backup utility for our datacenter based on rsync. It used rsync in the background but gives our non unix technicians the ability to backup shares, folders with rsync on windows without needing us unix gurus to setup the backups.

It has all the rsync features, plus scheduler and can build the UI options into a script so you can have a nice icon to just double click on to do the backups whenever and/or throw them into your own schedules uses the scheduler for windows.

here's a video of it I posted on youtube.

Antonio Sosa: Ubuntu 9.10

ansotech@gmail.com (Antonio Sosa) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:10:00 +0000

Yeah! Been pretty busy the last two months with work, web development, drupal, server management - I have not had time to jump on and blog about the cool things I have been doing. But since the new release of ubuntu is out in the wild, I decided to download it and begin working with it in a VM and start retooling it for a new LAVA and LAVALite release.

Lately I have been working on some projects for clients with RAILO, drupal and cakephp. All web based applications but it's been amazing to build some apps that look and run just like desktop apps all built on opensource software. I have been using LAVA based on Ubuntu 8.04 with apache, tomcat, cakephp, drupal and RAILO depending on the project. I have grown to really enjoy coding this way. I started about 8 years ago as a COLDFUSION programmer and started to write smaller apps with RAILO when it became opensource. Now with a UBUNTU stack and I throw in either RAILO, drupal or cakephp and volia instant backend for some really robust apps. Having ubuntu as a solid test environment really makes development so much faster cause I can make a custom cd for the client which has all the software and runtimes necessary to completely install a new instance of the application within their environment without the need for an apache guru or a mysql guru, etc.

Throw in some Yahoo UI, EXTJS or Jquery and your apps look awesome.

I am really excited about this new version of ubuntu - supposed to be alot faster. I played with the betas but now to see the true release.

Will post something once I have tested out a couple builds.

Chad Sutton: Microsoft Marketing Still Totally Clueless. Runs Screaming from Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:58:03 +0000

Microsoft and Fox cooked up a sponsorship of Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show. Seth and Alex of Family Guy fame. Not exactly your "this sitcom rated for corporations" kind of duo right? I guess South Park wasn't available? Well I guess after seeing a rehearsal of the cutting edge comedy they dropped the sponsorship like virus infected Vista PC and ran back to Seattle.

Microsoft isn't cool enough to pull that off anyways. Especially after seeing horrid stuff like the "Windows 7 Party" video. Microsoft couldn't have pulled off sponsoring reruns of "The Golden Girls" (R.I.P. Bea!). Balmer is not "Steve Jobs" cool. Balmer is a goofball who reminds me of a junior high school gym teacher. I'm sure he's a perfectly find person. He just doesn't seem like a leader or a visionsary type of guy to me. Gates didn't seem to be much of a leader to me either, but he sure had the visionary/schemer thing down. The execution of his visions made lots of money, but never inspired the rabbid loyalty or fandom of the users of his technology.

Chad Sutton: WhiteHouse.Gov goes Drupal!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:28:39 +0000

Ah Drupal! How I think you are the most awesome! Well the White House thinks so too! As of October 25th, 2009 http://whitehouse.gov is now Drupalized!

Chad Sutton: Goodbye Geocities, but frankly we don't need you anymore. We have MySpace now.

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:17:51 +0000

Geocities is dead. I don't miss it at all. I avoided Geocities ~~like the plague~~ like MySpace. The clashing colors, the blinking and scrolling text, the chance that some horrid tune would start playing, and worst of all, finding a site that hadn't been updated since the 90's made me want to claw my eyes out. Just like MySpace does.

There are so many ways for someone to "be on the Internet" and at the same time prove that they are completely ignorant of technology. Its like Yahoo bought Geocities just to laugh at all the users' sites created there. I hope it was worth it Yahoo! Now we can cross out having a Geocities site as one of the havens for the technologically ignorant. Don't worry! All you lost Geocities luddites! MySpace is still around, at least for now. Sign up quickly so you can update your "Internet presense" with more vommit inducing colors and ear piercing music. It will take some getting used to. But I'm sure you can handle moving from 1998 to 2003 technology.

Wow! This nasty virus I have is really making me grumpy.

Chad Sutton: Belkin TuneStudio and SoundBlaster Extigy Don't Work with Mac OSX 10.6.x Fixed!

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:07:37 +0000

I purchased a Macbook Pro about 6 weeks ago. Its been great for the most part. Rather than immediately putting Kubuntu on it, I've been forcing myself to learn OSX. I like it, but its not all that much different than my Linux user experience has been. In fact, when it comes to USB audio devices, its been worse. Linux was 100% plug and play for all of my audio devices. Two of which are my Belkin TuneStudio and my SoundBlaster Extigy. I use the TuneStudio to record podcasts on Skype. It works awesome! Just plug in your iPod and you have a very reliable, simple, almost pro quality device for recording with your computer. The Extigy is just a play awesome usb device. Even though its old it just rocks. Lots of digital options and very high quality sound.

On my Macbook, the TuneStudio worked, but the Extigy didn't. I tried one fix found at this thread on the Apple Support forums. Basically you replace the AppleUSBAudio.kext file with an older version. But it didn't seem to work and, in fact, made the problem worse because now both the TuneStudio and the Extigy didn't work. I kept looking and found a related post that also replaces the IOAudioFamily.kext file as well. Once I did that everything worked. I didn't even need a reboot. Here are the steps that I took.

Antonio Sosa: Microsoft datacenter woes

ansotech@gmail.com (Antonio Sosa) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:56:00 +0000

Looks like Microsoft datacenter had a huge loss this week. Actually all the mobile sidekick data for all the USA.

This just in time for Microsoft's unveiling of their new Azure online cloud service and Microsoft's bid to get people to use Microsoft Office online.

I know it's not ubuntu news but it's interesting to see with everything going to the cloud. The new version of Ubuntu allows cloud service integration with Amazon. And although I think everyone who has been using cloud services have come accustomed to some lose of service whether that is disconnects to their data or some downtime, this is the first time I have ever heard of complete data loss.

having lost data on local hds, I understand hardware fails but come on. When someone like a Microsoft loses data - it's unforgivable and a real testament to their growing lack of technical skill. Reading the article, they do point out that Microsoft inherited it's sidekick infrastructure a year ago, but that does not help their case - if anything it makes it worse. They had a whole year to put in place a backup strategy. For me being a person who likes the idea of cloud computing and even uses Google Apps cloud service it puts the fear in me that Microsoft could be so complacent. Let them be an example to all in the cloud business - make backups.

Read the article here:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/11/microsofts_danger_sidekick_data_loss_casts_dark_on_cloud_computing.html