My Life, Art and FOSS

G Creep

2012-02-02T19:43:00.000-05:00

Recently I have heard a few mentions about Google's "creepy" factor. It was mentioned on TWIG #63 and by Dave Winer from Scripting News. A friend called the other day, to discuss leaving Gmail for another email service. I asked what was the issue, he said he did not like Google reading his email. I pointed him to this Google page, he said it still felt creepy, that his email was being read, whether by human or bot.
I wonder how many users will be creeped out by Google's ad tactics and consolidated Privacy Policy. Or how many users never read Privacy Policies and are used to cluttered websites, so will never even notice. I have had certain Googley things I did not like, but; they never felt creepy. This will be interesting to watch going forward, to see if Google manages to creep me out.

First day of the last of Math( I hope)

2012-01-10T11:13:00.001-05:00

I start math today Advanced Algebra, this is the last class to finish my associate degree. It definitely makes me nervous. Never thought I would understand math beyond basic factoring(that even felt iffy). Either way I have to push through it and get on with the next thing. Functions and logarithm's here I come

Chaged default calendar in Gnome 3 to Google Calendar

2011-11-15T22:09:00.001-05:00

I wanted to use Google calendar for my default calendar in Gnome 3. I followed this tutorial from Webupd8 which integrated the notifications perfectly. But I still had one problem. When I clicked on the Open calendar link it tried to execute evolution.

So to fix this, I wrote a simple script called it .firecal and saved it in my home directory. The script has one line

firefox https://www.google.com/calendar

I made the script executable:

~$chmod +x .firecal

Then in a terminal run :

~$gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.office.calendar exec /home/user/.firecal

Now when I click on the open calendar FireFox opens up Google calendar.

Online Class

2011-11-04T06:46:00.001-04:00

I am taking an online course "Intro to Operating System's" we have to participate in discussion's. Which I thought could be fun and interesting, unfortunately it has been contrary to my normal online community experience. The conversations are thin and boring. I have seen one or two well thought out post only to receive a "me too" or " I agree" as responses. It is really to bad because there seems to be very little passion about computers in this class. This class is tracking to be computer professionals, it scares me. It is sad to me that people pick careers by what money it might make them, not whether or not they have a love for it.

Fixing Samsung Microwave (SMH7185STG) se error

2011-10-27T09:32:00.000-04:00

The other day our microwave started flashing -SE- error code I would unplug it to allow it to reset. Then plug it back in, the -SE- error would come back. So I start looking around at D.I.Y. forums to find answers. Besides the obvious "call a repair technician" one other thing kept popping up, the keypad. I found two options to fix it, expensive and cheap. Of course I tried cheap first, I took the keypad panel apart. Where the ribbon cable from the keypad panel connects to the PCB board. I disconnected and cleaned this connection, and there was quite a bit of residue. For safe measure I checked the other connections they seemed fine. After everything was back together, it worked perfectly. No more -SE- error going on three days now. This is a link to a pdf that will shows how to disassemble the panel.

http://www.microwavedisplay.com/keypad_replacement.pdf

The Little Things 2

2011-10-14T18:41:00.000-04:00

Again the simple things seem worse than what they are. One of the home PC's running Windows 7, would shutdown as soon as the computer finished the startup process. It was in a loop. I ran it in safe mode, checked the event viewer and did a restore point. None, of this worked, I was stumped. As I was waiting for the PC to reboot once more. I looked at the keyboard, the dedicated sleep key was stuck on. So I fixed it, then rebooted the computer and the issue was gone. Apparently a long press of the sleep key will trigger the computer to shutdown. I have to get it through my head, to closely check the hardware first.

Acceptance of an old enemy

2011-10-12T21:08:00.002-04:00

I try not to spend a lot of time thinking about the past. However sometimes it has a way of creeping up on you. I was looking at some old photos on Facebook. It was cool that there were these images documenting that period. One of the comments about me hit a little to close to home. It was he was "a good biker, bad temper" and that was the truth. I hope to have curbed it some since then, but; it has been a demon my whole life. Luckily I never took it out on anyone physically. I can't say if it did or did not hurt peoples feelings. I can imagine it was no fun to be around, acknowledging it has always been a good buffer. This is another acceptance of that old enemy of mine.
Sadly I had some folks around me when I was younger, who just like to see me get angry. I did not have the maturity to see through it.

I can say, now I have friends who have a hard time believing I have a temper. That I guess is progress.

The Little Things(break too)

2011-09-14T22:08:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine gave me a laptop recently and he said that the motherboard was failing. Of course I had to investigate a little further. The actual culprit was the ram needed to be reseated, it has not failed to reboot yet. My own laptop was crashing. I over thought the issue, the first thing I looked to be failing was the HDD, but it turned out to be one of the dimms of RAM.

And today my riding mower started acting odd then it just stopped running. I first replaced the spark plug hoping just maybe that was the issue. It was not the issue, then I started to look at the fuel deleveriy system. Maybe it was the fuel filter, the carbs. So I pulled the fuel filter and noticed that no fuel was coming from the tank. I remebered on the gas cap, there is a small hole to allow the flow of air, to keep the gas flowing. It was plugged up, I cleaned it out and the mower runs like a dream.

The big point of all of this for me, check the simple stuff first. Before looking at big fixes.

Dead RAM

2011-09-07T21:15:00.002-04:00

I had said in a previous post that I figured out which dimm was bad. I started the RMA process today with Kingston, they actually got back with me today. The process is rolling, the advance replacement RAM is on it's way. I do not usually go the advance replacement route,however; I purchased the RAM as a kit from Newegg so I figured Kingston would want me to send both dimm's back. Since school starts tomorrow and I am going to slide down to the Ohio Linux fest on Saturday. I wanted to keep my laptop running with at least the one good dimm, instead of having a paperweight. While I waited for Kingston to verify the bad dimm.

Little Rules

2011-09-07T19:44:00.001-04:00

So today I went to check my email and the work server had an SSL error. So I put in a help ticket about the issue and received back a reply rather quickly. With a note added that employees of my status were not supposed to use the web services unless they were working. So I contacted HR to confirm this and it is true. What I think is silly, is that I can spend 15 minutes on the phone with HR or my direct supervisor and this is not an issue. Checking my email for 2 minutes is an issue, because they might have to pay me. Communicating via email is work, but; a phone conversation is not. Which is even sillier since usually I check my email with my phone. So I wonder where a text message falls in this regard? This really makes me fear working/staying in the public sector once I finish my degree. The little rules have been the ones that annoy more so than the big ideas. I have a few times seen the little rules paralyze progress.

Server Button Shutdown

2011-09-07T19:07:00.002-04:00

Our Ubuntu 11.04 server would not shutdown with a power button press. A little reading led me to find out that it needed acpi and apm installed. To install it I ran

sudo aptitude install acpi acpi-support apm

After doing this the power button works for shutdown.

I followed this blog post.

Getting Ready for School...

2011-09-05T20:42:00.001-04:00

Getting ready for school means wrapping up some things.

Sorting through the old computers I have laying around was one chore. I placed two computers in new homes. One had to be pieced together, the other was ready to go, both received new OS installations.

I was also able to get my home server hardware updated, went from and old DELL with a single core processor with 2 GB of RAM and no SATA connections. To a Foxcon MOBO with a dual core processor, 4 GB of RAM and four SATA connections. All packed in a after market case. This is nice, I am able to quit doing the backup shuffle now. I backup my Linux box to the server using rsync an cron. For the wife's PC I am trying Cobian Backup 10, the verdict is still out. I have the server running Ubuntu server 11.04. I use it to run Zoneminder, and a little internal webpage that I tinker with on occasion. It is running ushare to share media to my GoogleTV box. The set up was easy just edit the config file and off it went.

I also wanted to set up a second router as a switch for our Google TV box and the server. I used DD-Wrt on both routers and followed these setup instructions . That worked perfect all is running well.

My laptop had started to act wonky during all of this. I ran Spinrite6 it returned that my HDD was healthy. I ran Memtest it said I had errors in the RAM. I re-seated the RAM ran Memtest again and everything checked out fine.Shortly after that it crapped out again, I was able to narrow it down to one of the sticks of RAM. Now I will have to go through the RMA process with Kingston.

I had a few not so fun chores one was doing a brake job on a friends Audi. She needed front rotors, pads and rear pads. It went smoothly till the drivers side rear caliper gave me hell and I smashed my thumb on that on as well. GRRRR! The job got finished and the car stops. That is the last car maintenance I will do for anyone but me.The other not so fun chore was replacing the kitchen sink faucet assembly for my Mom.

I am ready to focus on algebra so I can be insane for a few months : )

Not Worth It

2011-08-23T07:30:00.002-04:00

After the 99 dollar HP Touchpad's sold out I have seen a few resellers sell out priced at $ 400. I wonder if people know what they are buying or just getting it because of the hype in the news. I tried to get $99 one in hopes of rooting it, but no way for $300. I am still not that interested in tablets enough to get one for 300+. If I got one it would already be running Android and it can be rooted.

Install Fail (another hard drive dead maybe)

2011-08-23T07:24:00.000-04:00

I have had a hold up on installing Kubuntu, my hard drive is acting wonky. The S.M.A.R.T. status says it is healthy, now I am running Spinrite at level 4 to see if it finds anything, so far nothing. I have pulled the drive and tried it in another computer and still the Kubuntu installer failed. I was able to install Kubuntu fine on another laptop. If Spinrite does not find anything it will be another trip to Best Buy for a return.

Job Upgrade

2011-08-12T21:05:00.001-04:00

I started working at the local park service this year as a seasonal. I landed a year round part-time gig with the parks staring 8/15/11. I am kind of nervous since I going to a different location. I really liked the crew I worked with at my seasonal location. I have heard good thing about the park I am going to so I shall soon see.

Watering bucket for a tree

2011-07-24T09:32:00.000-04:00

We have a tree at the curb that I wanted to water. I drilled holes on three sides in a bucket. My reasons are:
- Water the tree at a slower rate
- Keep the water from just washing wash out into the street
- Not have to drag a hose out

First test will be today, I may have drilled to many holes though, oops. If so I can plug some holes with a glue gun or caulk to slow the rate of flow.

A bug at my backdoor

2011-07-22T23:13:00.000-04:00

This beetle is at my back door taking in the rays from the led light porch light. It did not seem to mind taking pictures of it. He is a interesting looking insect he is called an Ivory marked Beetle it was identified on the website What's that bug? Thanks : )

I disabled my Delete key, Oops.(Linux)

2011-07-21T18:18:00.002-04:00

Ok yesterday I was editing a few shortcuts, in the Keyboard Shortcut dialog under preferences in Gnome. I wanted to disable one shortcut, instead of using backspace I hit delete. That actually assigned the delete as the shortcut key instead of disabling it. So then I hit backspace which disabled the shortcut; but, now my delete key did not work. Ok, now I am annoyed and finding out how much I really use my delete key. The fix was simple, I made sure delete is not assigned to a shortcut. Then all I had to do was reboot, that solved it.

Garage Sale

2011-07-21T17:56:00.000-04:00

I was looking for a battery on Ebay today and got to thinking of how my use for Ebay has changed. When I first starting buying on Ebay, it was like a giant garage sale. Where I could find really cool rare things for a few bucks that I could not find locally. It seems like used things go for a premium on Ebay, I watched a used pair of bike forks sell for more than what they would be new. They are still available and would ship for free for less from the actual manufacture. I think people just get caught up in the frenzy of buying and forget to look else where. It felt more like a community when I first used Ebay where now it feels like a lot of little stores. I go to Ebay now to get things I can not find locally that is all. The deals are generally just a little better than buying local, you have to remember shipping as part of the price. Most of my purchases from Ebay are "Buy It Now" options instead of auctions. I find that often I can find deals just as good on Amazon, or even locally at Target or a thrift store. I imagine as long as Ebay is around I will use it as a shopping option, and wax poetically about the good old days ; )

Droid Cannibalism

2011-07-21T15:45:00.000-04:00

Cannibalized an old Droid Eris to fix my friends Eris. His mainboard , sound and trackball were wonky . So I swapped parts from this Eris with a smashed display and he was on his way. Everything went smoothly.

Wake on key press

2011-07-20T23:52:00.001-04:00

I like to be able to wake my computer from suspend by a key press. Unfortunately my motherboard does not support this. So to do so this is what I did

First I ran this in a terminal to find my keyboard:

cat /proc/acpi/wakeup

After running that I get an output like this :

I determined my keyboard was associated to UHC1. To enable my keyboard to wake on key press I ran

echo "UHC1" > /proc/acpi/wakeup

I got lucky that it was UHC1, below shows the UHC1 is now enabled. The process is to run the echo command then suspend the computer and see if it wakes from key press. You repeat this until you find the correct device.

Now that I know what device number and key press wakes the computer. I need I make a start up script

#!/bin/bash
 echo "UHC1" > /proc/acpi/wakeup

I named the script wake.sh and placed it in /etc/init.d/

Then in a terminal I ran this to make the script executable

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/wake.sh

In a terminal again to get the script to run at start up I ran

sudo update-rc.d wake.sh defaults

That did it for me.

Here are the two forum post others and myself posted to get the key press working. There was an older post on another blog that help solve this, but it seems to have gone defunct.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=711747

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=777018

Heading out

2011-07-20T23:08:00.002-04:00

Been lazy this month at least mentally lazy. I got out of math class and it was like my brain locked up, I better get it in gear. Things are about to speed up soon fall quarter is approaching, so that means math 102 is imminent(horror music playing). You would think after doing well the last two quarters I would fell good about this class. Nope it is the opposite fear and loathing of the next class. I interview for another internal job on Monday not real nervous, a little concerned. I feel like I am existing between two worlds the one of blue collar landscaping and the future one of some sort of white collar worker. The switch is coming but I feel like I have no control over the date or when it happens. It seems to be happening to me, the odd part is I feel the old world pulling at me constantly. Everyone's mister fix it guy except not fixing the things I want. Occasionally it is something fun like a computer or surgery on a smart phone. Generally it is lawn equipment or home repairs. I know the later has informed the former, it is just time to find a way forward.

Math Done(for now)

2011-06-07T21:05:00.004-04:00

OK, done with math till fall quarter. I got a 99% on my fourth test. Took the final tonight I did not feel lost should get a B or A overall. Nice to be done now I can focus on some projects I have been waiting to do.

Tomboy notes sync in Linux Mint 11

2011-06-05T20:49:00.000-04:00

I installed Linux Mint 11 on my Desktop today, what a great distro. I wanted to sync my Tomboy Notes with the Ubuntu One Server.To use the UbuntuOne service I just added the server address under "Tomboy Web".

This what the sync dialog looks like after everything is done.

The Server address is :

https://one.ubuntu.com/notes/

After I input the server address I clicked connect, it redricts to a web browser to verify the computer. Then I logged in with Ubuntu One and verified my computer. I went back to the sync dialog and clicked save, then it synced my notes and that was it.

Now just a Final Exam

2011-06-03T01:48:00.000-04:00

I took the fourth test in Algebra tonight pretty sure I past it. A few homework assignments left a Final and I am done till Fall.

Warts and All Pragamtic

2011-06-03T01:45:00.000-04:00

If I say I do not like something it does not automatically mean I love the opposite. All it means is I do not like X not that I love Y. One example is people will think when I say I do not like a town, that I love the one I live in. I live where I live because it is pragmatic, it is cheap in a alright neighbored. Not because I love it, a lot of the choices I make are because of pragmatism over visual aesthetics or comfort. If I followed my visual aesthetics I would have to work eighty plus hours a week or have credit card debt up to my nose. Although sometimes my visual aesthetics are different than convention. I tend like something than what most people see as beautiful. My warts and all sensibility leans away from design of the one button world. I like things that may look like they are out of Star Wars not 2001: A Space Odyssey. A lot time specifically out of the trash compactor from the Death Star. I hope this is OK for people, it does not seem so some days. I see tons of people all being "original" standing in a circle doing the same thing, it is one giant circle jerk. We are all free thinking individuals because some one told us so.... Sadly what most of us do is not unique, but; why try so hard to have the same common denominator as everyone else? Be one big collage of decisions that ebb and flow, allowing you to seek peace of mind and creativity. "Safe" is usually the complete opposite for ones soul. Safe is easy, it is giving up, if it is the decision 100 people have made before, than chances are there will not be much left at the end when you get there. Knock the dust of things reopen an old road start a new one. Never follow the open for business road since 1975. Your soul will wither and die here in a mass decay of box store florescent haze and fast food drudgery. Yeah sure swing buy when it is useful, just do not base everything on it. Just try to be the motley mix of humanity that lets you sleep at night( I keep trying, tonight I am failing : )

Animals

2011-05-30T17:33:00.000-04:00

Today has been a day of animals, dead and alive. I work at a park, early in the day a patron told me there was a goose dead on the bike path. I went out and removed the goose it was a gosiling. It had been struck by a car and thrown up on to the path. After I got the goose removed I headed back to the park as I was approaching the entrance there was a coyote in the road. I was not sure if it was dead until I got out. It was another car strike surprisingly no blood, I removed the coyote as well as the goose. The rest of my work day was without any dead animals.

When I got home I was greeted by a chubby ground hog in our live trap, he had been raiding our garden. He was reallocated to a friends farm : )

Flowers and Garden

2011-05-28T23:47:00.000-04:00

We inherited roses with the house they did not bloom for the first few years. It turned out I was cutting them back to far. Our garden is taking off, and we got two volunteer potato plants in our compost. The Hostas on the hill that were planted three years ago, they are giants this years taking up nearly twice the circumference from last year.

New Job

2011-05-20T22:14:00.001-04:00

I started a new job, it is fine everyone seems decent. Should be OK for now. What I am tired of is everyone expected me to be excited or even grateful that I have a job. Even if the pay is barley above minimum wage. I spent nine years as a landscaper, I always did a quality job when I worked. At the old job I kept my boss a float some day's with a screw and super glue. I did a lot of the maintenance for the boss and even kept their computers up to snuff. So now I took a job not paying me as much I am worth. I did this mostly because the location is convenient and the hours work with my other plans. There are opportunities for advancement with in the organization and that is nice. The pay scale is what it is, everyone starts out low(regardless of skill) and moves up. That is what I agreed on so there is no hard feelings about it. But no I am not excited because I have a job, I am fine with it because it will help with other goals. If I wanted a job for the sake of having a job, I had other landscaping possibilities with more pay. The hours would have been in direct conflict with my other plans such as school. I think family and friends expecting me to be happy with such a low paying job is sad. The only time they should expect me to be happy or excited. Is when I am doing something that is inline with my vocation something that challenges me, something I really care about. There are people where I work that are passionate about the job, they are where they belong, they are excited. I am not excited nor am I grateful, my own back and blood got me here. I am OK with the agreement I made with the employer, thats all.

Silly Transcribed Voice Mails

2011-05-20T21:52:00.000-04:00

Below are three transcriptions of voice mails from Google Voice.
They cracked me up I was able to get the gist but it a little deciphering. So I thought
I would share : )
I do like Google Voice I really like being able to listen to my voice mail online,
If I am at my computer.

Hey G, B I'm a big dummy I didn't listen to the but I need computer. I've got the blue screen

So I don't know if you can. Working magic and save anything.

As I took the hard drive over to your house and that's department. So I was on the dot.

But she hasn't with on or something. What'son there, but, either way, just give me a call back.

Home your voicemail, hey.

Hey, east, on the phone drop it off and tomorrow after work.

I stopped working on, our country in my head join the call me back. If not, and I will for alright, have A the.

Hey. Sorry I didn't see your call until just now. So if you want call me back.

If you do call me on my team mobile phone That's, xxx-xxxx. I think.

I love you bye. The bumper works. Bye. Yeah.

Burn out

2011-05-15T20:16:00.000-04:00

Ok, I am officially burnt out from 12+ hours of math home work this weekend and being nervous about the new job. The question I keep asking about both "is it worth the trouble?" I have four weeks of math this quarter till fall. And 13 hours till I start the new job. : P

6 Years : )

2011-05-12T02:54:00.000-04:00

Grimy Day

2011-05-11T23:14:00.000-04:00

Today was humdrum started off with a good breakfast but surrounded by bad conversations. Driving around town was a bit depressing. I had an urge to go home pack up(important stuff only bikes, computers and the dog), pick up the wife and hit the road. As the day wore on it got a little better had some coffee with a friend the conversation was good, got some good beer for later(which is now). Still the town is just kind of sad, feels rather hopeless. Not sure if I can do much more than smile and push through it.

Celeste Lounging

2011-05-04T10:01:00.001-04:00

Celeste before her spring haircut

Another painting has a home.

2011-05-04T09:58:00.000-04:00

"Ode to Judas" 2009

This piece had three different people interested finally it has a home! The person who has it really likes the piece so I am happy for that. This painting was a self portrait I did in 1996 then I reworked it in 2009. It ended up with the name Ode to Judas because a few people said it reminded them of stained glass and religious allegory painting. I thought that was ironic since I am an atheist so the title seemed appropriate.

Linux games

2011-05-04T09:48:00.001-04:00

Occasionally I enjoy playing games on my computer . I run Linux, this is thought to be a hurdle. How ever I have been introduced to a few native Linux games that more than satisfy my gaming needs.

The two games I played first in Linux were Frozen Bubble and Armagetron. Amagetron is a Tron like game it is still a blast to play. You can play it local or on server

The World of Goo is a physics game that is a blast. It was one I had to play through until I was done (which you are never really done)

I have really enjoyed is by Amanita Design they have three games I have enjoyed plus few short games on their website. The first two are the Samorost series 1 and 2 . My favorite was Machinarium it is listed as their first full length game. They even have soundtracks for the games, also a lot of other cool content on their website.

I have recently playing the Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds Survivor by Frozenbyte games. They have a third game Trine that I have just started playing. The Shadowgrounds games are fun campaign games saving Ganymede from an Alien Invasion. Trine "is a physics-based action game where three characters allow clever solutions to challenges created by hazardous puzzles and threatening enemies. The gameplay is based on fully interactive physics - each character's different abilities and tactics can be used to invent new ways to overcome obstacles and save the kingdom! ".

Other than the first two games I learned of the others through the Humble Bundle

Math

2011-05-04T09:30:00.000-04:00

I took the second test last night I think I did well. Two more test to go plus a final then more math.

Why D.I.Y. lead me to FOSS

2011-04-28T23:55:00.000-04:00

I grew up skateboarding an riding bikes. There were always more broken parts, than money to replace them. Me and my friends would come up with ways to "hack" old parts to get us by until we could afford new ones. Sometimes these hacks would become a standard tweak. This behavior has naturally just progressed to a lot aspects of my life.

What got me to start my path to FOSS was two experiences. One was a trying to fix an XP install that had dll that got borked. I used a live cd of Ubuntu to fix XP. When I was doneI repartitioned my HDD and installed Ubuntu alongside XP . How cool was that, quickly Ubuntu became my default OS, there was not some ideological reason for this I just enjoyed using it.

The second thing that happened actually before the OS failure. I thought the idea of downloading music from itunes was great. Until I found out that my music would be locked down. There was no way to access the music with anything but itunes. Or transfer the music to any other player other than a ipod. I decided at that point to only buy the physical cd's and copy it to my computer, unless I could download the music DRM free. I did not buy a digital download from a big seller until Amazon MP3 was opened up. I believe apple has since changed the way itunes manages users music. Of course I am not sure since I have not used itunes since 2006 and never purchased music from them.

As I started using Ubuntu more I was glad I had that internal cringe to itunes early model. I did not have to deal with any DRM encumbered files, I have seen this be a headache for a few friends. The format my music was in, could be played in Ubuntu with no issue. I did have to install a mp3 codec, but; at that time I still had to do that in XP Windows media Player.

There are times when I have to use other than FOSS software. such as the course ware (ALEKS) I am using for school requires Java and will not run using icedtea(the open source implementation of Java). I do keep a VM of XP around for some even rarer occasions.

My move to FOSS software was one of fun and learning. It has been in that spirit I continue to use FOSS. There was a point when, some things were harder for me, each time I pushed through one of these walls it has brought me further into the FOSS world. The eight hours I spent trying to get my ATI card to handle 3D and run beryl was a big one. I really got a kick out of the process and quickly learned the power of the command line. Since then I have setup a home server that has multiple uses. I have learned quite a bit about computers overall. it has even made more knowledgeable about other platforms as well.

This D.I.Y. way informs my life, and FOSS complements those values.

Foxy

2011-04-14T15:40:00.001-04:00

Better than TV

2011-04-13T00:49:00.000-04:00

Zion and Bryce Jan 2002

2011-04-13T00:35:00.001-04:00

3 Emotions

2011-04-13T00:22:00.001-04:00

The First to Last: My Two Dogs

2011-04-13T00:10:00.002-04:00

HDD Crash

2011-04-10T22:57:00.000-04:00

My HDD died Saturday, luckily I have been diligent about my backups. So I have no horror story to tell. I was using the computer and it started running wonky so I shut it down and tried a restart. Nothing hppened it would POST then just hang. I ran two different utilities to check the drive. First was Gwscan on the Ultimateboot CD Gwscan returned no drive found. After that I tried Fedora because they have the S.M.A.R.T. tools installed by default and I can run it from a LiveUSB stick. So I booted up and Fedora returned "DISK HAS MANY BAD SECTORS" on the drive.

I thought about using a utility like Spinrite to see if it could save the drive. I realized Spinrite cost more than a new drive, so I just bought a new drive. I found one locally for ten dollars more than at Newegg.com. It was worth ten to have the drive now. I got the new drive installed, then installed Xubuntu for the OS got everything tweaked they way I wanted and reloaded the data. Now everything is running smoothly, like nothing happened. I will have to RMA the old drive since it is under a year old. That was my big weekend other than doing Math.

What Math feels like to me

2011-04-10T22:27:00.001-04:00

2A/h^2cd !! x=1/2πfc!!!!V-1/3π/r^2!!!A=LW !!! 2y=3x-1 22.05>m!!! "Sorry your out of time" F@#$HI%MOT^&*FSCK(())!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Crunch! !!!!!! : /

Quote from R.P. Feynman

2011-04-08T00:29:00.001-04:00

"It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing."

Math

2011-04-05T11:24:00.001-04:00

Ugh!

Why can't you stay in your own yard

2011-04-03T20:48:00.000-04:00

I have gone out with friends and have a nice time but it seems every time we go somewhere sooner or later someone has to start problems. I never understand this. why can't people keep to themselves have a good time with their friends and not ruin my time.

I also ran into to some one I thought I considered a friend now I wonder. When they start the conversation with a verbal jab below the knees. You know why can't you start the conversation with hey how have you been, how's life.

This bothers me because I carry this stuff with me like a ton of bricks. I have a very hard time purging these types of events from my mind. Makes me want to become a recluse.

Two More Prints

2011-04-01T13:28:00.000-04:00

I did one print of Ansel Adams and I did a test print of one that I am working on of my dog that died last winter. The original image is of her when she was a pup.

Dry point test run

2011-03-31T02:03:00.002-04:00

I have wanted to do some more dry point prints. I was looking at some of the older artist and they did a lot of postage stamp prints. I thought I would be able to pull off smaller prints at home with a make shift press. So far not so bad, I will keep tweaking the way I press the images, or get lucky and find a small book press somewhere. Here is a few shots of my first test run plus the original art.

A doodle/sketch I did during Geology seemed like a good image for a test run.

Squirrel's

2011-03-29T13:19:00.000-04:00

Looking out the window I saw these two squirrel's warming them selves on the neighbor's shed roof.

A few seconds later I saw them cleaning each other, pretty fun to watch them just lounging. Usually they are running around like manics grabbing walnuts and escaping from being lunch for some animal.

Math:Art

2011-03-29T12:55:00.002-04:00

Just doodling on my scratch paper.

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Over thinking the Problem

2011-03-29T11:32:00.001-04:00

I have an LED lamp that I purchased from Target, but; where the power block connected was a bit wonky. The Light would flicker on and off, unless you had it in just the right spot. Well the right spot was getting harder to establish. I had been on the hunt for a new power block, but; the specs were odd. Finally it occurred to me just cut out the connection and hardwire the power block. This worked great after I cut them out. I soldered the power block wires together with the lamp wires insulted the wires and then I was done. The lamp can now be moved with out shorting out, why it took me three months to get here I am not sure. I will blame it on algebra.

This is fun and cool for me

2011-03-26T02:09:00.000-04:00

We had dinner with my Mom and Neil tonight. We were supposed to bring some images of Mom's quilts with us that my wife took. We got caught up in talking and forgot them when went over. So instead of driving back and forth again we took another route : )

The images were copied to a usb drive(orginally to be taken to Mom's). So using scp to copy the images form the USB drive to the home/dog cam/zoneminder server. In the router running DD-WRT a port was opened up to allow FTP traffic through. Using Logmein to Login into Mom's Windows 7 box, to open up an explorer window. In the address bar type the FTP address and drag and drop the images to her desktop. Log out close the port and rm the files from the server and done!

That is cool and fun for me : ) Below are the quilts, I like the orange one best.

Updating my Debian Server

2011-03-23T15:18:00.000-04:00

My Debian server(Dog Cam) was still running Debian Lenny, and I was having permission issues with Zoneminder. I had read a few post that stated updating to a newer version of Zoneminder solved the issues I was experiencing. So I thought I would take care of two things at once. By updating Debian from Lenny to Squeeze this would also update Zoneminder. And that did the trick, motion detection in Zoneminder now works.

Here is what I did to update
I opened terminal and ran a text editor:

#nano /etc/apt/sources.list

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.6 _Lenny_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20100905-11:24]/ lenny main

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.6 _Lenny_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20100905-11:24]/ lenny main

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian-backports lenny-backports main contrib non-free

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free

#lenny
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
# volatile sources
deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main
deb-src http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main
#security-lenny
deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free

I replaced the all instances of lenny with squeeze. I had to also update the volatile sources from

deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main
deb-src http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main

deb     http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian squeeze-updates main contrib
deb-src http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian squeeze-updates main contrib

This what the updated sources.list looks like:

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.6 _Lenny_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20100905-11:24]/ lenny main

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.6 _Lenny_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20100905-11:24]/ lenny main

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main contrib non-free

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free

#squeeze
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
# squeeze release replacement mirrors for volatile sources
deb     http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian squeeze-updates main contrib
deb-src http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian squeeze-updates main contrib
#security-squeeze
deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free

3 Projects done

2011-03-20T13:26:00.000-04:00

I was able to get three projects wrapped or finished this weekend. The garage was in desperate need of cleaning up and shuffling of winter equipment into storage and summer stuff out. Now all I need to do is take my Mom's porch swing over to her house and sell the Homaco 2-Post Relay Rack that I have in there.

I finally finished electric outlet to the attic, I had been dragging my feet to finish that one. But now it is done so no more dragging the extension chord down to run the fan.

Last but not least I flashed my router with DD-Wrt firmware, well worth it. A favorite feature is being able to assign static ip address from the router by mac address. Instead of having to set a static address on each device, this will be a time saver. The factory firmware seemed to be dropping wifi connections a lot. I was restarting wireless on devices, because it was not communicating correctly even though it was connected. That problem is gone it also seems like my signal strength is better. There are many more reasons which I will go into later.

Recycled batteries, lightbulbs and ink cartridge

2011-03-20T13:09:00.000-04:00

We had stock piled s few burnt out CFL's old cell phone, laptop and photo batteries. We also had a few alkaline batteries, I wanted to dispose of them in the correct way. I found that Home Depot will take old CFL's as well as batteries from power tools. Our local parks have a drop off at the 2nd Street Market they accept all household batteries. They have a box at the West end of the building for the batteries. Then I took the old ink cartridges to Office Depot. If you have one of there buyer cards, they will give you some points/credits than can be redeemed later in the store. Overall it was painless I needed ink from Office Depot so it was on the way, Home Depot is around the corner from Office Depot. We shop at the 2nd Street Market, I was able to take the batteries when we were shopping. I am glad they have made this convenient, it made it much simpler for me. That is is always a plus.

1/4 done 3/4 math classes to go

2011-03-17T15:11:00.001-04:00

OK, passed my algebra final with a 80% that's means I passed the class with a B. Now I feel like I need to practice algebra while I am off this week. I purchased my new math book .As you can see it is just an access code and all of the material is online . The crazy part is I still will have to attend a class . I will be interested to see how the class is setup .

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ENT Rip Off

2011-03-16T15:58:00.000-04:00

We wonder why our health care system is so askew. I went to an ENT on the recommendation of my regular Doctor. I sat down with the ENT for 20 minutes he spent three minutes looking up my nose not with a flash light or anything we think of as technology. What he used was tech back in the 1800's maybe. Then he told me what I already new that I have a severe deviated septum. He explained what the surgery would be like and how long it would take. I then spent five minutes with his assistant who scheduled my surgery. So I paid my ten dollar co-pay and left, well then my insurance company would not pay for anything until we gave them prove of marriage. We did that and then my wife's job paid the insurance company late so we were technically terminated until the payment was caught up. In all of that I saw what the ENT charged 444.00 USD holy f@$k really. For twenty minutes, we still may be on the line to pay that. That just pisses me off, my regular Dr. gave me a shot of steroids for my nasal congestion, did blood work, a full physical, a tetanus shot and took a biopsy of a suspect spot. All of this over two visits for maybe 500 USD that feels fair. The ENT seems like a rip off, I am not sure what all of the answers but I believe things like this are part of the problem.

Good News? please

2011-03-14T02:47:00.000-04:00

I just want to turn on the local news for once and be disgusted because all they do is talk about is nice things. I know things happen and it is important to report some of this information. At some point it just becomes drivel and takes the meaning away from things when they really do matter. We are all in a panic about the next worst thing, even the happiest people I know are like this. They do not even recognize it, when the first thing they say to me or others is did you hear about bad thing x . No I did not, and before you tell me is it relevant to my life. Next are you going to be upset when I get agitated about whatever the bad news it is. If you answer No to the first and Yes to the second than maybe keep it to yourself. Or do not feel empowered to try to calm me down, that just makes it worse. We all seem to be purveyors in horror and bad news, really think about the last conversation you started. Was it about something happy or fun, or was it about something terrible about your job, the state, country or another country. If you started with a negative maybe start with a positive and as a side note make people aware of a situation. If you have no constructive ideas stirring the pot at work or home is just being dramatic. And you are making other peoples lives harder. They already no what sucks at work or home or even around the world. I want to be informed about things around me but I wish news casters and people would tell me the facts and then be quiet. I do not care about your opinion or speculation, if I want either of those I will seek them out from a professional or academic in the related field. I do not want them from some one who has been near something a dozen times. That does not make you an expert. how many of have we been in a car and can not even change our own oil. I am near a car every day it does not make me a professional mechanic. I can tell you my opinion about other drives about traffic and even road conditions Since I am not an expert, each of these are subjective based solely on my own personal bias. I am guilty of some of things I need to work on what I lead off with in a conversation. It weighs heavy on other people i want to tell them good news. I want to hear good news something exciting to you. Your passion your hobbies, what drives you. Horror and drams gets ratings, my life is not based on what the Neilsen family thinks so ratings don't matter. tell me about your new socks and how much you love them. I might tell you about how a leading / effects rsync when I do backups, if it excites me or you that is good.You should want to hear that from people even if you are not sure what they mean but they are passionate. If you have a flat I want to hear from so we can fix it and help you move on with your day to something you are passionate about.

My new Music player:Android HTC Incredible

2011-03-11T10:44:00.000-05:00

We have a phone service with Verizon and we were do a free phone. So I purchased the HTC Incredible to use mostly as a Music Player. The Music player I bought a Sansa Fuze+ the GUI is to clunky when dealing with a large music collection. It did not a have a search option or folder navigation. It was also very picky about ID3 tag format, all of this made it work to use. The HTC has been the opposite it runs smoothy I had my pick of music applications in the Android Market. I choose Songbird,

I am familar with the Songbird
it supports ogg vorbis
it has a search function
it also scrolls easliy
not picky about ID3 tags

The only things I could see as a problem are

Songbird does not have folder view
if you have a DRM encumbered Music collection there are no options for playing these files. That has to do with who sold you the Music and not Android. Microsoft and Apple could easily port itunes or a player that plays DRMed wma's. That just have a financial interest in you using their devices.

This is why I recommend people to stop buying Music through itunes or the Microsoft equivalent or anyone who sells digital files with DRM. Amazon Music does not use a DRM scheme nor does Play.com. Jamendo is another way to check out small artist for free or a small donation.

The HTC has been stellar, I do not use it as a phone the $30 dollar ransom that Verizon wants for their data package is a rip off. I am sure as soon as I would add Verizon into the mix it will take the HTC from a 5 Star to 3. As a Music player and a WIFI device it has been great. I can check my email while listening to music that is all I need more actually. I will post later about a few of the applications I am using that I really like.

Math

2011-03-11T10:07:00.000-05:00

I finished my 4th Math test I did not do as well as I thought I would. I got a 79% on the test I am running a 87% I am not happy with this. When I compare it to the course average of 52% I guess I should be happy. I have the Final next week so we will see how I do on that, I generally bomb test so.... I figured out I need to get a 72% or greater to get a B, 42% or better is a C. I will be disappointed with a C but I guess better find a way to make it OK. : p

Letter I sent to my Senators and Representative

2011-03-09T10:36:00.000-05:00

Dear Sir
America Invents Act looks like a mistake to me. Because of this reason alone, making the patent system a first-to-file system rather than the current first-to-invent system. This strips the control of the invention out the hands of the inventor. It will give control to those who can file quickly and efficiently but may have never invented a single thing, similar to Patent trolls. I would expect to see the patent office inundated with patent disputes because of this Act. Between this and COICA, it really seems from where I am standing. All of the control is being channeled to well established companies and away from the garage/internet inventors and small business. Small business keeps paying higher taxes and has to pay to play schemes of the bigger companies. This seems like one more burden to make small business and home inventors less viable. One other problem I see with this instead of inventors sharing their findings(which might help another project) they will be inclined to hide their finding until they can file. I just think this like COICA will do nothing less then to stifle creativity and make us all behave like a bunch of greedy little piggies.
Sincerely,
Steve Burdine

Busy creating doing math and burning up braincells

2011-03-05T20:35:00.000-05:00

Been busy with school have got in to a creative bend recently so the art is pouring out. It is always an odd thing the way creativity waxes and wanes for me . I have two new paintings I am working on

I also been toying with making electronic things but nothing had come to me until the other day. I heard a podcast talking about making a bristle bot. I did not have an old tooth brush that fit the bill. So I made it out of card board, wire and old vibration motor from a cell phone.

I have also been getting my bike ready for riding season. My tires had worn flat in the back and I was sick of my bullhorn handle bars. I just installed new tires and bars I have to wrap the bars yet then I am ready to go!

Math is going well I am maintaining a high B average. Keep my fingers crossed and we will see how it goes. I have four more quarters of math to go before I am done. Three quarters of algebra to take business math.

Math Test

2011-01-26T01:21:00.000-05:00

I got a 91% on my first Algebra test now just to keep that momentum going. I have to keep my nose in the books : )

Hometown

2011-01-26T00:41:00.000-05:00

I remember going to some of the Steel towns in my teens and in my twenties. At the time I thought how dark the mood was in those towns how hopeless it seemed. I never began to think of my town every being that way, we had GM, Mead, Chrysler, NCR and Emery. Things were well in my town people had money and jobs and you could usally find a decent job. Now things look a lot like what I remember the steel towns did a decade or more ago, there is a malaise in our town now. I suppose there is a chance things could get better. Some of the steel towns made changes and are doing better. I am just not sure I will be able to wait that long, things to think about. One thing I am glad to see in my town is the Art community is still alive. There are still creative things going on, that is good. It will never be the town I grew up in, but; maybe with a collective will it can be a better place.

Bad Comparisons

2011-01-26T00:01:00.000-05:00

I am reading a new book, about the anti-vaccine movement. One point that bothered me is the comparison of Doctors who give vaccines to kids, to people like Josef Mengele. Do we realize the horrors that went on in the concentration camps? To trivialize these horrors I believe is a shameful thing. We have all seen political, physical and personal things that seem awful. But very few alive today really have an idea of what living under Nazi rule was like. Even fewer know first hand the horrors of what was done to the Jews and other minorities in Nazi Germany. So to compare what the Government ask or a Doctor "insist" on doing, but; yet you can still say no to. This is a big difference from having no choice at all. The victims in the concentration camps were treated like live stock; there to run twisted experiments on. How many of us have really experienced this ? I know I have felt like someone else is making the choices for me that I do not like. The major difference is I can move, I can get educated I can walk away from all of this with out any physical repercussions. Bottom line is we all have a choice, the people in the concentration camps did not. So lets stop comparing our leaders to Hitler, lets stop trying to elevate a personally bad situation to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Not to let people of the hook whom have done something bad, but; to create and honest debate. Instead of ad hominem attacks, that is just to easy and lazy.

Recording old Punk records.

2011-01-25T23:34:00.000-05:00

Over the last year I have used Audacity to split tracks of punk records I have copied to a digital format. It is fun to be able to listen to these records when I am not at home. I am sure I am doing an awful job of it, a true audiophile would never use the lo-fi way of recording I have used. Although there is something to lo-fi way that speaks to recording punk records.

My process is t I plug in my IAudio 7 player in to my receiver and record the records with it. Then after that I transfer the resulting wma to my computer. I have to convert it into a file type Audacity will handle. I use Sound Converter for this task now I can open it with Audacity. With Audacity I can copy each track from the sound file and create and export a new file. Audacity will also add a ID3 tag for me, I use that as a book mark. After I have all of the tracks split up, I use Easytag to retag them as a batch. This way I can make sure that I do not have any typos. I can rename each field as a batch when needed. i.e. Artist, Genre and Album name. Easytag will also let me add album art to the tag if I like. I may do this but I also add a file called folder.jpg to the album folder I am working on, then I am done.

I have thought about learning to tweak the sound quality but for now this method works. I am guessing I would need to be able to capture the sound file in a higher quality format. That is home work for another day.

Sansa Fuze+

2011-01-18T20:54:00.000-05:00

I looked at quite a few music players to use with Linux, before purchasing this one. I had an older Fuze an a Iaudio7 and had a good experience with both. The Iaudio9 did not have enough disk space or expansion options. Plus the price was more than I wanted to spend.

So I purchased the Fuze+ it covered my wants and price.
* supports Linux as a mass storage device.
* supports .ogg vorbis
* 16 GB capacity
* has a micro sd expansion slot
I read in one forum that some where having problems with resuming podcast, it plays podcast and resumes where I left off with no issues. So I think maybe since I updated the firmware this resolved that issue. I was glad to see they went to a micro usb connection instead of the old proprietary connection. It does not have folder navigation on this player like the old Fuze. I am never sure why companies take away simple functions like this when releasing a new model, hopefully they would add it again soon. Thinking it would have folder navigation I just copied all of my music over from the old player. That was a mistake come to find out a lot of my music was using a version of ID3 tags that were not compatible. So I had 550+ unknown artist, I would have never noticed if they would have implemented folder view. After searching a few forums I found the answer on the Sansa forums on how to correct the tags.
The tags have to be in this format:

ID3v2.3 iso-8859-1

for album art I used

300x300 pixels and name it folder.jpg

I used Easytag to correct the tags, the tags were not updated in the player database. Ugh! I was ready to stomp this player, so some reading turned up an answer. The easiest way to update the tags is to delete all files in the root of the player that start with

STDB*

That did it finally it is running acceptablly, folder navigation will make it perfect for me. It has touch controls which I could car less about, I liked the scroll wheel better. Although that is what broke on my old player.I find myself punching at the screen quite often. I think if you are going to go with touch controls just go with a full screen touch.

I would have rather had an android based player. Unfortunately none of them came close to specs I was looking for, the closet player was the HTC Galaxy. Since the HTC is a phone that made it a no go. Archos players were next on the list , but; there capacity at the size I was looking at was unacceptable. Maybe next time Android see you in four years.

Art, dogs and dogfooding

2011-01-18T20:28:00.000-05:00

I was online recently and saw that someone had used a piece of my art in another piece. That was flattering although I would have liked to have been given attribution. This was a piece I did long before CC licensing, I would have never copyrighted something like this. I actually do not care to much, I thought it was an interesting moment for me to finally come up against my beliefs to see how I reacted.

This was the second time of recent were I came up against my beliefs, the metal of my resolve was tested. When my oldest dog passed away I found no comfort in the idea of her going to doggy heaven. What I found comfort in was that she was no longer going to suffer from the horrible seizures she was having. I found comfort in the fact that her remains were going to be used as fertilizer. My Father In law said she was now to doggy heaven and frankly that just urked me. I know he meant no harm it just ran through me at the moment. I left it alone and my that wife corrected him which I appreciated.

I think it is great when we have the opportunity to see if the things we believe in help us with integrity, respect and comfort. Life is long and living in world trying to conform because you "should" will just make it miserable IMHO.

Dirty games

2011-01-05T01:16:00.000-05:00

My friend is going through some serious times. His Daughter was molested by a trusted older friend. Well now that the x-friend is facing jail time. He is now using shared private information to try to get them to drop the case, basically blackmail. He is also saying that they did not fulfill some contracts with him. That my friend thought were based on a hand shake, and the contracts were fulfilled. There is not a dark enough corner in the worst jail for people like this man. The saddest part to me is, because he and his Preacher brother have a lot of money. They will do all they can do to drown my friends financially from ever seeing justice. This whole situation disgust me for so many reasons. I will not even go in to the reasons, but; it is just sad.

DIASPORA

2010-12-08T19:31:00.001-05:00

DIASPORA, originally uploaded by highfructose327.

Received a note and a sticker from the guys at Diaspora. Looking forward to getting an invite as they roll them out.
joindiaspora.com/

inspired by trash

2010-12-08T16:44:00.001-05:00

inspired by trash, originally uploaded by highfructose327.

Some more rust circles. Not sure where this experiment is going. I am getting a kick out of messing with paper right now.

More Hacking on my webpage

2010-12-08T10:49:00.003-05:00

I was looking at some Creative Commons CSS style sheets. As I was looking at the source pages I realized that it made some sense to me. So I started hacking a page together came up with this

It has a drop down menu and a search bar which are new and the layout is different. Below are some of the resources I used. One which helped was a color picker to choose the color and there corresponding color code. I will put some images in the background later.

UPDATE:

http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

20_Useful_CSS3_Menu_and_Navigation_Tutorials

http://www.owmx.com/

http://webhost.bridgew.edu/etribou/layouts/index.html

http://www.colorpicker.com/

Life unseen

2010-12-06T16:04:00.000-05:00

I know it is cliché at this point, but when you stop and look there is cool stuff to be seen. I was clearing a light layer of snow of the drive way and saw a bunch of frozen footprints. I am guessing they were Red Squirrels looking for food. Mostly because it was under the the tree they guard during the summer, Grey squirrels beware. Nearby I saw some cat footprints looking for squirrels I am guessing. Here are a few pictures of the footprints and a closeup of a vine a little color in winter.


Squirrel prints under the tree

close up 1 of squirrel prints


close up 2 of squirrel prints

what I believe to be a cat print


from a vine on the squirrel tree

HTML fun

2010-12-05T13:21:00.000-05:00

The Dog Cam project has opened a new can of worms. Since I have a defacto web page, I have started messing with it to see what is possible. Currently I do not have it linked to the outside world. I do have a DNS that I able to make it live pretty easy but it would be a generic domain name. I can not see paying for domain name and the service for tinkering around. Also I am no 100% sure I want to host it locally. I have and whopping five links. Three redirect to external sites while one shows a local copy of my resume and the other is the Dog Cam. I imagine I will go live with it at some point but for now this is the big excitement. I am sure I will edit it more I believe the next step is to look at CSS style sheets

Screenshot of my exciting web page

Art from what would have been trash

2010-12-02T14:58:00.000-05:00

These two pieces of paper were placed under the legs of a table when I steamed the carpet. I pulled them out from the legs, they had these rust color rings. Then I just started drawing on them outlining the rust spots, then it became it own thing. I may do more, they were a good meditation.

Freecycle and Goodwill

2010-11-30T15:06:00.000-05:00

We had some bedding we were not sure what to do with, so I emailed our local Goodwill to see if they would accept it. They said Yes they would take used pillows and comforters.

Before I had received a response from Goodwill, I thought I would see if anyone in our local Freecycle was interested in the items. Sure enough I had found homes for these items, as well as a few other odd things. I had a bucket of 1" tiles and 4" clay tiles that someone was able to use for mosaics. I usually take extra things to Goodwill,if they are really odd things I put them at our curb, if no one takes them, then I try Freecycle.

Another nice thing Goodwill does with the help of Dell; they accept old computers and hardware. They use/resell what is still good and recycle whatever is not usable.

I would recommend everyone checking out there local Goodwill and Freecycle group. All of this may take a little more work then throwing stuff in the trash. I think it is worth it, it may save someone else a few bucks. It has saved me a few dollars along the way.

Ok paid for school!

2010-11-29T14:13:00.000-05:00

I have paid for my math class. It is kind of like paying someone to sand the skin off of the back of my hands. I choose my Prof via the Rate My Professor site, which was very helpful. Now I will have to wait to see if it was accurate.

I have had a hard time paring up with Math teachers. The last teacher at this same school was very busy in his personal life. He would slack on answering email questions.He sent us all an email telling us how busy he was outside of our course. I have to say I do not care, I was there to try to learn Math. The teacher before him at the same school would not stay focused. He would start teaching us the method we were supposed to learn. Then he would delve off in other methods. He would say "you could also do it this way, but not on the test" really I do not need ten ways to do it. I want to get it down one way solid, before I move on to all of the tricks.

Before them I have not had math since highschool, I honestly can only rember three math teachers from K-12. One teacher was primarly a science techer who got stuck teaching math. Another in 7th grade seemed like he was stoned the whole time. The third teacher I remember, was when I was not attending school much. On occasion I would show up to school, usually to catch up on Art. Some how I always showed up on test day, which I actually did well. It may be too bad that I did not attend her class fulltime I think she may have been a good Math teacher for me.

Enough looking back, I am hopeful that my new Math teacher will present the work in a way I can understand and learn.

Coffee: pour over and espresso pot

2010-11-29T11:35:00.001-05:00

I had used a drip maker for quite some time, then a couple of years ago I tried using the pour over method. I try things like this because I enjoy the process and trying something new. I had read a few blogs where they talked about most drip makers do not get the water hot enough(195-205F) to extract the flavor from the bean effectively. It interest me to see if there was a taste difference by getting the water to a proper temperature. The drip coffee makers that get the water hot enough were way out of my price range for an experiment. So I tried the pour over method, it did make a better cup of coffee

The taste difference was that of going from Folger's ground coffee to a whole bean coffee from a local roaster. I read that if you use a bur grinder over a blade grinder that it would process the bean better for flavor extraction. I still use bur grinder and I have a blade type also, I must admit my pallet is not discerned enough to taste the difference. Although I enjoyed the process of hand grinding the beans.

I recently purchased a espresso pot for brewing coffee.

A friend a I stayed with used one this way and it makes a nice cup of coffee. It is convenient when I want a quick cup of coffee. Less clean up then the pour over method and it makes a stronger brew.

Censorship in America ?

2010-11-28T12:55:00.000-05:00

This article depress me but I think I need to share it. US Government Censors 70 Websites the EFF has continuity shown how this type of action is bad for creativity and growth of business. I just have to shake my head.

Star Trek -like home computer

2010-11-28T12:23:00.000-05:00

I had to post this it is one cool bit of geekery. It was created by a user on Youtube klapstoelpiloot.

Poetry from J.J. Campbell

2010-11-22T13:14:00.003-05:00

My friend J.J. released a new chap book "Suicide Porn" with Interior Noise Press I always look forward to reading his work. I enjoy his sense of irony,testing the limits of peoples comfort zones. J.J. made me rethink my limits when we worked together 1o years ago at Emery. His latest Chap book has done this again testing my pre-conceived notions of J.J.; with poems like "life on the farm". He writes poems with themes I look forward to, like "my personal pam grier". One of my favorites poems by J.J. from "Suicide Porn" is:

seven kittens

two of my cats

had seven kittens

i'm refusing to

name them until

they make it

through a winter

outdoors

adequate protection

from the elements

mind you but none

from the larger

animals whose

meals aren't

provided by

humans

i figure whoever

makes it to march

will be blessed

with a name they'll

never understand

anyway

literary ghosts

now shitting in

my barn

If you are looking for some honest poetry. Buy his chap book, and support a local artist and small press. Unless of course you are looking for poems about daisies, This may not be for you because some one may be pissing on the daisies here.

First shots with our Kodak PlaySport

2010-11-22T10:13:00.002-05:00

Took our Kodak Playsport for a test run here are the results. It takes decent photos. This is nice if you happened to be some where taking video; You could also grab a quick snapshot of something. If you are looking for high quality photos then you best bring a full fledged camera. The Video at the bottom is also from the PlaySport The video is a good quality, the Playsport is easy to use and very portable, I am happy with it. The one thing to be considered is lighting. It does not have a built in flash, I would guess if you did it would run through the battery. I need not mention that because everyone taking video/photos considers lighting right ;)

Fix for dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.35-22-generic-pae...exit status 2

2010-11-17T18:17:00.001-05:00

I have been get a set of errors listed below, someone posted a fix.

/etc/default/grub: 23: Syntax error: newline unexpected
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.35-22-generic-pae (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I tried dpkg --configure -a and apt-get -f install this did nothing for me. I read that some had success with that combination.

What I did was to open a terminal:

cd /var/lib/dpkg/info

I then I made a temporary directory:

mkdir temp

then I moved the files associated with the error:

mv linux-headers-2.6.35-22*

then I ran

apt-get install -f

and

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

after that the error was gone. I was still in the /var/lib/dpkg/info directory, so; I deleted the temp directory by running.

rm -r temp

Dog cam update: email me when server is down , start wifi and webcam on boot

2010-11-16T23:18:00.005-05:00

The Dog Cam project is done for now. On the last post I said I had a few more config files to edit and I would be done. First thing I wanted to do was to have the Dog cam server connect to wifi when it was turned on without having to log on. To do so I made sure wpa_supplicant was installed and then I had to edit:

/etc/network/interfaces

Adding the part in red below

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.0.0
netmask 255.255.0.0
gateway 192.168.0.1


     wpa-ssid (wifirouter)
     wpa-psk (wifipassword)

Then I added webcam to

/etc/rc.local


#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.

webcam /root/.webcamrc

exit 0

I had to make /etc/rc.local executable

to do that I did:

chmod +x /etc/rc.local

/root/.webcamrc trailing webcam is the config file I want it use

webcam /root/.webcamrc

The final thing was to write a script that would email and text me if the server went down.Using ping, grep and sendEmail


#!/bin/bash
ping -c 5 192.168.0.0 > ping.log ;
GREP_STRING=`grep -c Unreachable /home/USERNAME/.logs/ping.log`
if [ $GREP_STRING -ne 0 ] 
then
(sendEmail -t 0000000000@vtext.com -t recipiant@recieve.com -f sender@send.com -u "Dog Cam" -m "Down" -s smtp.send.com -xu EMAIL-USERNAME -xp EMAIL-PASSWORD)
fi

So I set up crontab:


*/5 * * * * /usr/bash /home/USERNAME/.bashscripts/servernotify.sh

Done for now.

Update on my Boinc/Dog Cam project.

2010-11-14T23:14:00.001-05:00

Today I wanted to move the Boinc/Dog cam box out of the way. I decided to hang it on a wall with two angle brackets to support it and bungee cords to keep it from falling off. The HDD was loud so I tried a different drive in hopes that it would be quieter. The new HDD is silent, then I installed Debian Lenny. As with Mint 9 I had to install backports to get my wireless usb stick to work. A few more config files to edit and I will be done, I want the wireless to connect and the web cam to start at boot up. Also I want to get my main computer to notify me if the Debian box is not running or connected. Might be an opportunity to look at Nagios all though that may be overkill, for my needs.

The new placement.

Picture from the Dog cam.

BOINC and Web(Dog) Cam Server.

2010-11-09T18:11:00.001-05:00

I had an old DELL Dimension lying around so I decided to make it a dedicated Rosetta@Home machine. I installed Linux Mint 9 LXDE for two reasons were I am comfortable with the distro, two because I planned on using Wifi to connect. I thought my RNX-N100 would just work, not the case.

The Wifi adapter worked with Ubuntu 9.04 kernel 2.6.28-11 and Arch Linux both recognized the Rosewill RNX-N100 and WPA2 worked out of the box. Using Mint 9 kernel 2.6.32-25-generic WPA2 did not work, WPA and WEP were fine. The solution was to install "linux-backports-modules-compat-wireless-2.6.34-2.6.32-25-generic" after that WPA2 was back up and running perfect.

Now it is running in our basement headless using Wifi, The thought came to me after it was down there, to connect my webcam up so we could see what the dogs were up to. I followed a lot from this post to get it up and running, plus surprisingly added some knowledge I have learned along the way. Now we can see the dogs through a web browser. This project inadvertanly lead me to set up a very basic web page. It has four links pointing to my Dog Cam, resume, Art and this blog.

Rosetta@Home

2010-11-09T17:41:00.000-05:00

Recently I installed BOINC on my computer, it is a pretty cool little project. They "Use the idle time on your computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux) to cure diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, and do many other types of scientific research." This seemed like a no brainer, my home PC runs all day as remote server not getting a lot of use, so why not give the idle time away. I decided on the Rosetta@Home project I heard Carl Zimmer talk about it on his Meet the Scientist podcast. it has been fun to watch the results, one of my neighbors had coincidentally installed BOINC about the same time we both joined The Dayton Group.

A bit of a rant

2010-10-28T00:08:00.001-04:00

Why work for a vacation find a vocation that is the vacation. A vocation provides the social stimulation, the new events, the change of scenery that everyone else has to plan. I want to have a vocation, not a "job" or "work" I can appreciate laboring to achieve something. I question when it is done to achieve some one else's goals, most of us live in that place and a lot of us are just fine with it. I was at Emery, my work never bettered the world, never left an indelible mark on humanity. When I bring up Emery World Wide, local people have never heard of the place. It has only been I believe five years since it closed, that is sad but it is a fact.

Why cheer lead a system that only applauds conformity?

It is the Einsteins, the Torvalds of the world I want to emulate. People who did something amazing for no other reason than to scratch and itch.

Some say life is short, I say it is long, youth is short. Flexibility of the mind is even shorter, life is long 70, 80 a 100 years. To live that long in a rigid system prepared by people I have never met is crazy. To live by rules that are fifty years old with out reflection is crazy. To live by rules written by people who did not even have running water, is insanity. There are truths that span the history of humans, there are others that need to die. We are losing ourselves to a time that could have never fathomed a cell phone let alone a toilet. I want to live now, not for a future I can't guess at or a past I remember selectively. So finding a life that is a vocation is my goal. Not living with the ghost of some one else's dreams.

Self Loathing Linux Users

2010-10-27T23:29:00.001-04:00

Every now and then I read or hear a Linux user wax poetically about everything Apple. My first thought is "why don't you switch to Apple if you love it so much?" The part that gets under my skin, is when they start to talk about what Linux needs to do is follow Apples lead. Following Apples lead would only make Linux a clone of Apple. Who wants that? I as many users prefer Linux to Apple, aesthetics too. Use what you like, why look longly at the Apple store with envy. When all you have to do is walk in hand them your Penguin and take a bite from the big white Apple.

Dirt, food and friends

2010-10-10T01:51:00.000-04:00

We have been out with some friends checking out Fort Collins were they live. It has been a good trip we have spent quite a bit of time riding around town checking out the scenes. We have gone to few restaurants and have had some good food We ate at Jay's Bistro on the first day for lunch. My favorite place is Lucille's we had one of their deserts "Beignets - Homemade New Orleans style donuts" and their coffee is excellent.


image from Harmon

We went to a pump/jump track outside of town it was fun a little windy but nice we had a good time.

Owen

Erin


Me

After we finished riding we went for a hike, then back to home base, via the grocery store to pick up snacks. Later we went to see the FoCo Roller Derby girls it was a fun time the girls rocked. One of the girls got injured I hope she is well soon. It was a fun time and odd, two of my teenage worlds collided, Punk rock and roller rinks. when I was growing they were to very different worlds not so much any more. The Punk aesthetic has penetrated the Roller rinks.

It has been fun we miss the mutts a bit we will see them soon :)

Ohio Linux Fest

2010-09-27T16:44:00.000-04:00

I attended the OLF the weekend of Sept 10-12. I for the LPI Exam Cram hosted by D.L.Corbet and Associates. I wanted to attend this class to gauge my Linux knowledge base. I felt like my estimation of my knowledge was pretty right on, I figured going in, I would need to study a bit more before the test. I was afraid I would go in and feel completely lost, I was glad I did not .

After the exam cram I walked around the Short North in Columbus, I started on the main strip. I found myself bored pretty quickly, I dipped back into a neighborhood, it was nice, a quiet neighborhood with a lot of energy, people were out enjoying the cool evening air. I stumbled onto a park it was amazing, found a bench to sketch and watch people as they enjoy the park, it was a nice time. I walked around the block to check out all of the old cool Victorian homes, then headed back to the Hotel. I stopped by a Beer and Wine store picked up a nice IPA and some smokes. One of the guys from the local SIG put me up at the last minute which was cool. We talked for a bit then went to sleep to get ready for the next day.

We got up and had breakfast at the hotel, got to talking and missed Stormy Peters Keynote. Once I got to the OLF, I attended the PC-BSD track by Dru Lavigne she gave a pretty good talk. As the day went on the talks only got better. Ethan Galstad from Nagios discussed how to monitor your IT infrastructure. The community around Nagios is pretty impressive also. John Wills of the Chef project by Opscode shared some interesting info, a little beyond my scope, still very interesting. One of my favourite talks of the day was by Kevin Otte, his talk was about IPv6. He gave a very informative talk and was able to convey complex concepts in simple terms. The audience in all of these talk contributed a wealth of info and asked intelligent questions.

I got a lot of free swag, a cool little foam TUX from the Suse guys. I also got some stickers, live cds and a few t-shirts. The Fedora project table was giving t-shirts away that said "I love(heart icon replaced with the Fedora icon) freedom" but to get the shirt we had to put the shirt on right there. I thought that was a little ironic but funny and cool shirt.

I had a good time at the event I am looking forward to next years event.

Little Tweaks

2010-09-26T14:01:00.000-04:00

IPv6 has caused issues with web browsing in Fedora for me even Google chrome was Slooooow ! so I issued the commands below and that took care of it chrome was back to its expected speed and so was Firefox. I know IPv6 is coming until then I will use this.

"install ipv6 /bin/true\nblacklist ipv6" > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ipv6.conf

service ip6tables stop

chkconfig ip6tables off

I found this info here

2. I added my back up script to crontab

crontab -e

added this line it will run on the 1rst and 15th of every month at 12Noon

0 12 1,15 * * backup.sh

3. I have a few little tweaks using Gconf-editor

In Fedora I have to install Gconf-Editor
Under metacity

I change the apps/metacity/general/action_double_click_titlebar to shade
Metacity composting_manager on
Alt+H to Minimize Window
run_command_terminal Crtl+Kp_Page_Down(number 3 on number pad)

set Terminator as default terminal

Under Nautilus

uncheck any visible desktop icons
click_policy single
media_automount_open off

I use the default Gnome Menu I turn on the menu icons

"desktop>gnome>interface>menus_have_icons" on

4. A few Network tweaks

Set static network address
Install ssh meta package and sshfs

Tweak ssh config files

Install Samba meta package

Tweak smb.conf

Tweak SELinux configuration

allow DNS and Multi-DNS
allow Samba

I intend to set most of these tweaks with a script, but; that is on my long list.

No Dell No Ubuntu, odd.

2010-09-25T17:24:00.000-04:00

I just realized that I am not running any version of Ubuntu or a Derivative. I have been using some version or form of Ubuntu since 2006. Earlier this year I got a new computer giving my Dell to my Mom.

Yesterday I installed Fedora on my desktop in place of LMDE, LMDE was great in all respects except my sound was buggy. I had just replaced my sound card with one that got great reviews of working with Linux. By installing LMDE my new sound card was buggy, and I just loath messing with Pulse Audio to try to track down the issue( I believe it was a conflict between Pulse and Flash) . So I switched to Fedora, I have been running fedora on my laptop for a few months now and have been real happy with it. It seemed like the obvious choice to try on my desktop now,I have got used to using SELinux, it really is not to bad now.

The whole point is it is slightly weird, I switched user names, I am not running Ubuntu or using a Dell PC.

Uni-code input

2010-09-21T18:26:00.000-04:00

I learned this week how to use uni-code input in Linux. The key combination is Ctrl+Shift+U then it will flash a u and next to it I would type say ae, hit enter and it would output "®" pretty cool. I almost never need to be able to do this but once in awhile I might want a "Σ" or "⏏". Pretty fun here are a few links.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1345

http://www.unicode.org/charts/

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?p=5743314#post5743314

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_input

At least delete your data folks!

2010-09-21T18:03:00.000-04:00

I recently was given a few old PC's, I was amazed to find there was still personal info on the hard drives. I always wipe the drives with Dban when I get them like this. I think this is one of those things that we really need to teach people about destruction of data before releasing it into the wild. (Admittedly I have a lot to still learn about it my self). We would never just throw your old tax papers in the trash before shredding them. That is what we are doing when we put HDDs out in the world without at least a deleting the information or formatting the drive. Neither of these truly destroys the data, but; for most people it would seem that way. Ultimatley any data can be retrieved from these disk, it is just how far would some one go to retrieve it. To truly destroy the data you could physicalley destroy the media.

I believe most people are honest and will at least reformat the drive or delete the old files, It unfortunately only takes one jerk.

Here are a couple videos of destroying HDD's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVQFV3Njupc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_O7-rqcHc&feature=fvsr

Facebook drama really?

2010-09-21T17:47:00.000-04:00

I am so surprised when friends start to tell me about drama in their lives, and that it started on Facebook. That is crazy, I avoid drama as much as I can. To have it spill over from Facebook or to Facebook would be to much, of course I have to admit I barley use Facebook. I keep in touch with a few old friends via Facebook one of which I can not get in touch with other wise. So I can not truly relate, I am glad for that.

Installed Fedora13 on my laptop

2010-08-26T10:24:00.001-04:00

I have to say since the first time I installed Fedora 8, compared to now, Fedora 13, they are Universes apart. The look and feel of Fedora now is clean, the available packages are spot on also. The thing that impressed me most was how easily it handled my LUKS partition. The installer prompted me for the passphrase and that was it. When I set up my partition table I was able to select the LUKS partition for my /home. This was great compared to the Kung-Fu I had to go through with other distro installers.

Restore Gnome menu icons

2010-08-26T10:08:00.000-04:00

On the panel I like using the default main menu applet. Well in Fedora, Mint and Ubuntu some of the icons are not there from Places on down to Shutdown. Well to restore them there are two ways the quickest is to run in a terminal

gconftool-2 --type bool --set /desktop/gnome/interface/menus_have_icons true

second way is to use gconf-editor and follow the path

desktop>gnome>interface and check the entry menus_have_icons

and that is it the icons are back.