A Random Pattern

The ever-useful Ubuntu blog led me to a top-10 list on Ubuntu apps, posted on the also always-useful Lifehacker site. There was also a link from the Ubuntu blog to a write-up on the Washington Post.

There are some different views on software philosophy presented in the articles. I often see GNU/Linux users expressing this philosophy of “the CLI (Command Line Interface) method is better because …”, the truth is not so simple. I guess it depends on where you want GNU/Linux to go, though. I’m coming from the Windows world, yet fairly familiar with command-line, since I use it regularly at work. So in one sense I appreciate the power and speed of just typing in what I need done so that I can move on. I also love that if someone knows how to fix your problem, or wants to share an app, they can just say “type ‘blah blah blah’ and tell me what you see”. It’s much more definitive, powerful, and effective, not to mention faster, than trying to talk through a GUI (Graphical User Interface, which is what you stare at every day on the computer screen). At the same time, perhaps 80% of the commands are worthless to me long-term. I do too many varied tasks with the computer, and I want to enjoy and be effective in certain of those things. The best way to enable that? Eliminate the memory issue, by providing a GUI.
GNU/Linux – if you’re involved in Linux, you ought to read the attached link. I’ve seen the term GNU many times, knew what it stood for (GNU’s Not Linux), had some vague idea what it was…. I didn’t realize that what we mistakenly call Linux is really just the kernel, just one part of the whole GNU/Linux package. One thing I haven’t done is verified the facts in the linked article, so let me know if it’s actually wrong. Seems hard to imagine someone fighting that battle without the facts behind them, though.

I’ve been thinking about one of the fun little extras Steve Jobs showed off at WWDC not too long ago: The ability to replace backgrounds in iChat video chats. Here are some ideas that I’m sure someone will play around with as soon as Leopard is available:

• Wear a t-shirt that matches the background. Presto, there’s a hole in your stomach! (Don’t know if this will work, depends on how they implemented the algorithm.
• Take a screenshot with your head in the picture. Does your head now disappear?
• Create a fake background with yourself, then “walk in” on yourself while chatting with someone else.

Remember, folks, you heard it here first. Here’s the site that gave me the idea, with a rundown on Leopard:

… In addition, a sophisticated chroma key algorithm was added so that a user can do a snapshot of the background he is chatting in front of, and it will remove the background and key in a background image or video of the user’s choice. For corporate presentations, podcasts or just plain having fun, this is a great feature. …

Update:  Links to WWDC, the Leopard sneek peek iChat page, and a picture from Apple showing the new backdrop effect:

Here are a few links on getting Ubuntu up and running with all the little goodies you might want:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-14062.html This is a forum where airtonix has a post (near the bottom) on getting WordPress up and running on Ubuntu. I’m still struggling with this, but realized I went about it the wrong way. There’s an option when you first install Ubuntu to install a “LAMP” stack. Choose this if you want to use your installation as a server for WP publishing, even privately.

http://torrez.us/myubuntu/ Someone writes on going “cold turkey” Ubuntu. Interesting, if a bit scary at first, with a ton of CLI (command line interface) stuff. My recommendations: 1. Don’t read this unless you’re a big geek. 2. Just install Ubuntu, and do things the nice easy graphical way. When you run into a problem, then worry about solving it. It’s much easier to take things one challenge at a time, and every issue you face is solvable one way or another.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=186792 Similar to above, but a little more friendly. This is an Ubuntu “customization guide”, and the idea is to make sure you can use all the proprietary stuff that you also used on Windows or Mac, probably without realizing it. Stuff like Adobe reader, Flash, mp3s, all those are licensed and somebody has to pay for you to use a copy. Luckily there are easy ways to get this set up on Ubuntu. Again, my recommendations: Try easyUbuntu and automatix first.

Interested in getting a Remote-Desktop-type setup to work?  I’m overdue for another post on the Ubuntu and Kubuntu methods of doing this, but in the meantime here’s a good link for setting up between a Mac and a Windows PC.  It uses rdesktop, as the Microsoft client for Mac is apparently not very good.

This has been a train wreck in the making for awhile. There are a lot of people still using an Operating System on their computer that is no longer supported. And by “no longer supported”, I mean “about to become a spamming tool owned by hackers”. Put simply, if you are surfing the web, and your startup screen says “Windows 98″ on it (you probably see it often if that’s the case), get off the internet until you can get a more secure OS.My recommendation? Drop $500 on a Mac Mini, then you don’t have to worry about it. Or just install the FREE but just as effective (for web surfing, email, and similar activities) Ubuntu Linux. The easiest way to do it? Just contact your local geek. Trust me, they like doing this stuff. (Even if they’re muttering something about hunting me down under their breath. Really. )

Why do I care? Because all the people that ignore this advice are going to end up sending me (and everyone else, including themselves) spam without their knowledge, as well as contributing to the general “clogging of the tubes” on the internet.

Fellow (Firefox) geeks, I need your help. I’m in way over my head here.

Although I’ve been blogging about Ubuntu, and am quite happy learning and using it, we also recently got a Mac Mini. My wife would be fine using it, except for one critical thing: one website doesn’t display pictures on Firefox on the Mac.

Tonight, I got around to digging into it more, and also used some tools that I know very little about. The site (and an example page) is www.babycenter.com boards. First I ran the Javascript Console, and discovered the site throws a ton of errors. The errors seemed to be similar and similar in number on both the Mac and Windows. I didn’t look too much into these, as I wouldn’t know what to do next anyways.

So I opened the DOM Inspector and inspected a specific item I knew was failing on the Mac. I looked at the first picture of our kitchen that my wife had posted, and happened to discover that “Moz-binding” was “none” on the Mac Firefox, but had the proper image address on Windows. If anyone can tell me where to go from here, or what this means, I’d appreciate it as I would like this to work.

I did discover that the same page works ‘properly’ in Safari, as well as in Ubuntu Firefox. So who do I feed this back to? Is there a fix possible? And what, exactly, did I find out (or not find out)?

UPDATE:  My wife says that the page displays fine on my Mac login, just not on hers.  I first installed Firefox on my account, so maybe that has something to do with it?  I don’t really know too much about how the Mac user accounts work as far as sharing applications.  Can anyone shed any light on this?

Here’s a screenshot from one of the games I tried when I first installed Ubuntu. The first thing you have to do is try the games, right?

“Simply remove all Bubbles by the creation of unicolor triplets.” (Snicker) That’s why I love geeks. My wife told me recently that my whole blog since I switched to Ubuntu sounds like that….I took the feedback to heart, though I’ll probably need continual reminding (I love you Honey!).

I haven’t posted much this week, but a lot’s happened in the background. Here’s a quick summary, and you can expect me to return to a more normal posting schedule.

The Ubuntu box is back up – I ran a memory test, then rebooted a few times and it started up fine. During the memory test I discovered my RAM is bad, so that’s probably the reason for all the startup issues with that computer.

I also had a little trouble getting Remote Desktop working again, until I remembered to check my configuration for Firestarter (the firewall). Sure enough, I had momentarily lost power, so my laptop had a new IP address. I learned how to allow access to a whole range of IP’s through firestarter’s help site (though it was a little hard to understand). Here’s the short version: IP address/netmask. So if you want everything on 192.168.0.x to have access, add 192.168.0.1/255.255.255.0 to Firestarter’s “allow” list.

The frequent (brief) losses of power here probably don’t help any of my computers, so time to look into a UPS. Any recommendations for home use?

Today I finally got my own domain: ransomedhome.com. It’s a little raw right now, but I’ll be cleaning it up over the next few weeks, and moving everything there. In fact, I’m already importing my posts from here, and this may be my last post here (so update your bookmarks / feeds!) I will post a few more times to remind everyone of the move…

If you’re curious about string theory, or what in the world 10 dimensions mean, here’s a really nice graphical demonstration to confuse you explain everything.

That’s it, folks. More to follow soon.

uh oh.  I came back from a trip to D.C. and Pittsburgh to discover my old PC, the one with Ubuntu installed, wasn’t on.  When I tried to turn it on, it gives me a boot manager with a choice of 2 kernels, plus recovery mode for each, as well as my Win XP installation.  The first time,  I wasn’t even paying attention, until I saw a blue Kubuntu boot up screen.  It’s supposed to boot into regular Ubuntu, though I had switched sessions temporarily to a KDE session.  Anyways, trying any of the 4 kernel options results in weird display followed by restarting.  I guess I really am going to have to fix what’s wrong with this pc.  ;)  Only I have no idea what that is, at the moment.

Mark Shuttleworth, benevolent sponsor and launcher of Ubuntu, posted an email discussing what went wrong with communication / setting of expectations for what the latest Ubuntu release would deliver. He also points out the very good “problem” of Ubuntu being compared to Windows.

Among other linux-y items, Jorge has this response:

I think that it’s difficult to gauge exactly what users expect. Pre-warty’s users (like me) were usually experienced Linux users who enjoyed being lazy and having things Just Work(tm). By the time Dapper rolled around, if it wasn’t doing your laundry, then it’s game over. I’m sure those of us that advocate Ubuntu regularly run into this all the time …

I think people on the web just get their expectations set too high regardless – some high profile blogger makes a small, unsubstantiated statement with no real concrete communication, and next thing you know the whole blogosphere undergoes a severe case of speaker feedback, until one of the speakers blows.  The next round of feedback starts, since the blogosphere is recursive in nature, and …

Anyways, back to my topic.   Oh, yeah, Ubuntu and Dapper Drake.  Well, I think Mark’s right about “polished” not being a good word to use.  For example I, as a new user to Ubuntu (and Linux), just assumed that of course there was a graphical installer.  It didn’t cross my mind that there wouldn’t be, and I certainly didn’t know it was the first time one had been included!

I’m a fairly technical person, so it’s not an issue for me.  But I’m really interested in seeing (at least one) mainstream challenger to Windows, with significant market share (preferably two or more).   So when I hear that Dapper Drake is “LTS” (Long Term Support) and “polished”, I’m thinking Windows and Mac (and hoping as good or better in all areas).  Some might laugh to see Windows and polished in the same sentence, as I am.  But you have to remember that the world sees computers as Windows.  Linux is better in myriad ways, as is Mac OS X.  And each is good for specific purposes.  But unless Ubuntu has immediate, short-term benefits over Windows, you are going to be hard-pressed to get Windows users to switch.  (I’ve got a screenshot I’ll put up later illustrating how an old-school linux user’s worldview differs from your average citizen, and why it has been hard for linux to take over the desktop market.)

This, by the way, is the reason that the first thing I did on Ubuntu was check out the games, looking for Spider in particular.  That’s because that’s what my mother-in-law does on the computer – plays Spider.  If she can do that as well or better on Ubuntu, fine.  If not, go away.

One last comment, since I brought up Apple and inflated expectations earlier.  I was quite pleased with WWDC, and I suspect anyone who was displeased wasn’t really grounded in this universe before the keynote.  The indications were all over the place from most respectable bloggers on what to expect (linked post is from after the keynote, but reflects my thoughts).  I’m happy, because it sounds like Apple will again deliver things I actually need (eeeaasy backup) and want (spaces).  They seem to be pretty good at doing that.