At work we the engineers finally got dual monitors and graphics cards to boot. Well, I will add that while the dual monitors are nice, we got a pci nvidia card with only 128 mb ram. So running compiz on this tends to make things a bit boggy.

I want to add that setting up the Nvidia dual display was a bit tricky at first, but once I got it down I was able to help all the other engineers. Two of us have dual displays running separate instances and one has an extended display which I believe is called twinview? Maybe not. Anyway, compiz stuff like the cube does not seem to work on an extended desktop. It works fine on the separate desktops though.

This is the second time in as many weeks I have had to work with dual displays. I must say, this is an area of work X really needs to work on. It should not be that difficult. It seems that it either works out of the box or you are going to be tweaking the hell out of your settings. Case in point, our lead got an IBM tablet which is supposed to work fine with dual display, but try as we might, we could not get it working. And this is with Hardy. Alas… I am almost beyond the main topic of my post.

Since I found that switching off compiz produced a snappier desktop on my dual display I figured, why am I still using Gnome here? It’s not that I don’t like Gnome, but I am more aligned to fluxbox and such. I almost gave Xfce a shot but then I said to myself, it’s been a while since I ran windowmaker. So I set about rolling with that.

I must say, I miss windowmaker, it’s a great, cool looking, lite weight window manager. The speed is perfect, the responsiveness is out of this world, plus I have a collection of cool dockapps to entertain myself - Bubblemon (oh no! all this stuff running has my duck floating upside down!!! Must be ff3 killing him), Moonclock, wmweather, network monitor, wmmix and fish-clock. Yeah, I know, fish clock is an analog clock, go figure. At least it’s not big ass! But wait it gets better.

Ok, so I am rocking along when I realize that when I fire up amarok I have no way to control it as windowmaker does not have a panel. Uh oh, what to do? Well there are a number of panels you can install and I settled upon pypanel. It’s lite, unobtrusive and fits the bill perfectly. I tried avant-navigator, but that requires compiz and also Matchbox-panel, but that mucked with my windowmaker settings. So pypanel it is. Now I have all I need.

On a side note, I just realize that pypanel also has a digial clock in it. Uh oh, I have both a digital clock in the bottom right-hand corner and an analog clock on the dock panel. Holy crap, I’m recreating the vista desktop with software like 5 years old or more!!!!

Here is something interest to keep in the back of your mind. The latest version of ext3 file systems have support for 256 byte inodes in preparation for ext4. The legacy version of GRUB (0.97) series only support up to 128 byte inodes but there is a patch that most distros are applying.

Tonight I helped a person on irc who could not boot slackware 12.1 from the GRUB installed by Ubuntu in the mbr. He did not want to overwrite grub with lilo, which slackware uses. When he would try to boot slackware from grub he would get the error: Bad file or directory type. After some sleuthing I figured it was the 256 byte limitation and verified using tune2fs -l his_hard_drive that slackware’s root partition was formatted with 256 byte inodes.

I noticed that the version of Ubuntu he was using, Hardy, had the 256 byte patch applied to grub, but this was an upgrade from Gutsy. It appears that when the Hardy upgrade is run it does not install grub again. So I had him run grub-install his_hard_drive and all was right with the world again; he could boot slackware, and that is a beautiful thing.

Now most of you who know me have come to realize that I do stupid things sometimes; mostly to get some yuks. It was to that end that when fellow, ultra-TLLTS community member and integral assistant/contributer to the show Gorkon informed me that you can record straight to youtube with the eeePC webcam; you know that I had to try it out. And why just any old hello or something? Nope, not me I started with my tongue and then escalated to a 37 second video entitled picking my nose with my tongue. Yeah, I am proud that I have a rather large, flexible tongue; and we all got laughs at work.

Well, lo and behold I wake up this morning to receive and email from a fellow who really enjoyed my work and would like to commission me for a 60 minute video of me picking my nose; that is his predilection, so to speak. He offered me $100 bucks to boot. How about that! Looks like I have a career path ahead of me.

Now really, I don’t think I am going to do that. While I could use the $100, I cannot see me picking my nose for an hour. No, that would turn out real bad I suspect. I don’t even want to think about it.

There are a number of distros ready to run on the eeePC, and of course there is a Slackware build. I could have mucked around with eeeBuntu and I have played around with Puppeee; but having found new love with slackware I figured, why not give it a shot.

There is a great little project over at http://slackeee.strangled.net/ but the documentation is a bit sparse and furthermore, I don’t want to just go ahead and replace xandros on there just yet. I want to install it on my 4gb flash card. That’s where things became a bit tricky. You see, I was not interested in making the flash card bootable as I could just boot from grub and point it to the flash drive. Thus, it took out some of the how-to’s on install slackware to a flash drive.

To that end, let’s just say for now that it took a lot of tinkering to figure out which kernel to boot and how. I used the 2.6.24.5-smp kernel with 12.1 and got it to boot to the flash device, but I needed to create an initrd image to get it to use the flash as root. Even more, I had to configure the intird-tree to include the sda device nodes. Fun stuff.

When I got the build booting that is when I realized that just untarring the packages onto the flash card is not going to be enough. That’s where the beauty of slackware package manager comes in. I just mounted the flash card on my slackware workstation and fired of installpkg with the -root switch pointing to where the card was mounted. A bit later I had a basic system.

I culled some more packages from the eeePC slackware project as I had difficulty building the ehternet drivers. Luckily, they also had the wife and ucview packages already to go so I took the lazy way out.

There were some more files I wanted so I used Chess Griffin’s sbopkg to build some non-slackware packages from the slackbuilds site. Great tool Chess. Now I am slackpkg’ing down the stuff for X and we shall see how it all goes. Whoohoo!

I got some work to do but I am psyched. Maybe someday soon i will write this up into a how-to.

I take a bit of pride in running my own services. I like the fun of configuring email servers, web server and other applications for personal and for communal use. I like to share.

I like to tinker with applications and such and try out new things. Who doesn’t? Anyway, what I am not too keen on is using outside services like gmail, google docs, any of the windows live services and social networks like myspace and twitter. This is largely a personal decision and not anything against those services or the technologies they use. In fact, they are quite good services. I personally like to do as much myself as I can.

It is with that interest that I have embarked upon attempting to centralize a few key applications so that no matter where I am or what system I choose to use, the same information will be at my fingertips.

Case in point, my email. I use imap so that my email is kept on the server and I have access to all said email from any client I choose to use. Be it thunderbird from my eeePc or main workstation or squirrel mail from work or a remote workstation; all my email is right there, right now.

I wanted similar capability from my calendars. I don’t want to be pigeon holed to a specific application or an online service. I like my calendar app to support ical format and be able to read and write to a webdav server. Sunbird and Thunderbird’s Lightening fit the bill perfectly; but were a bit too bulky on the eeePC. So I choose korganizer on the eeePC and now I have my calendar whereever I go. Be it work or home calendar, I can update and be reminded no matter where I am. The only snafu I had was trying to get evolution to work with my webdav server. It would read the calendar but it could not write to webdav. I could write to caldav though, but that is a completely different service.

Probably the last hurdle for now was getting a centralized rss aggregator. I had been using Thunderbird’s forumzilla to pull down my feeds and store them on my imap server; but the problem with this is it looks horrible through squirrel mail. Plus, with the eeePC I figured it would be great to look into some other aggregators like liferea or akregator. I like both of those but was more partial to lifrerea. I was all poised to use rsync to maintain state between where I was using liferea when I learned, to my chagrin, that the version of liferea on Hardy stores the state in a new format incompatible with the older version that is on my eeePC. Bummer. So I decided to try out akregator. But try as I might, I could not get state to maintain. Sure I could rsync my feed information back and forth but those items I have already pulled down and read were not carried over. I could not figure out why? This information must be stored a location other than .kde/share/apps/akregator.

Well, ec_lug to the rescue on our irc channel today. He recomended checking out blogbridge, a java based aggregator that provides a syncing service from their server. Now I was a bit skeptical but I figured I would give it a shot. It’s a pretty good application. I set up some feeds on my eeePC and account on their server and set about doing the same on my workstation at work. I synced with the server and all the feeds plus state were retained. This was cool. I added some more feed, did a sync and was presented with an error. I could only sync 2 times per day with the basic service. Bummer.

Now I am not one to begrudge anyone making money and if you are looking or a stand alone aggregator to run on multiple systems and keep synced BlogBridge and their service is an excellent choice. But note that I had previously mentioned that I prefer to maintain my own services. So, not to be undone, rsync to the rescue. I set up some syncing of the .bb directory and now I can transfer my settings and state between all my machines within a few seconds. I love it.

So definetly give blogbridge a look-see.

So there have been a lot of rumblings lately regarding the status of the OLPC and the possibility of the foundation shipping OLPC’s with Windows XP installed. This has even prompted Richard Stallman to cast his 2 cents into the mix: can we rescue the OLPC?. On the heels of the greats I will cast my opinion into this mix and mull around usability issues.

I had the opportunity to play around with an OLPC, albeit for a very brief stint, at OLF 2007. The device looked rugged, was approachable, colorful and begged to be played with. I guess that is something, especially when it’s geared towards children. The OS was derived from Fedora and sported the Squeak interface and opensource version of the smalltalk interface. When I played with it the first thing I noticed was that Squeak was very slow, compared to what I was used to. But mind you, this is a low end machine, yet I could see this being a source of frustration.

More to the point, though, is Squeak usable? In my mind, I have no doubts that Squeak is usable but the problem lies in the fact that Squeak is alien compared to what most people are accustomed too. Thus, Squeak tends to get very poor reviews; even from children; but I have yet to hear complaints from the children these computers are aimed at.

To the general lay person in the US or Europe, when you mention a computer display the first thing that comes to mind is Windows. Most people these days have been pre-exposed to windows, have been taught on windows and thus, that is their expectation and comfort level. We can debate all day and night whether the Windows interface is usable the plain fact of it all is that is what most people have struggled to learn; and believe me it is a struggle. Some people pick it up fast, some people take a lifetime of exposure, but most people are resistant to take on a different interface.

Case in point, when I worked for the school district and they started integrating more iBooks and iMacs into the district there was a lot of opposition. Nevermind the usability hype surrounding OSX, people were not comfortable with it. They wanted the Windows layout, because that was what they had been “forced to learn.” This same sentiment was echoed about 5 years hence when many of the elementary schools went from the Apple OS 7 and 8 to Windows 98. It was a chore for them to learn a new environment; but struggle through they did.

The kids on the other hand had no problems switching between the interfaces. Going from OS 7.x to OS X to Windows was not as difficult a transition. They approached the computers with excitement and eagerness; two emotions lacking in the adults, teachers - theirs was dread.

Now I don’t want to go off on the stability of these systems in as much as they were difficult to keep running the way we wanted them too. That, coupled with security and outdated software made for some interesting times and bless those teachers as they struggled through as they did.

Anyway, back to my point, the OLPC is geared towards kids who approach the technology with excitement and eagerness. I suspect a sentiment shared by many adults who are getting their hands on this technology for the first time. On other hand we have a whole host of reviewers, both young and small, who come to the table with pre-exposure to windows or mac and expectations to be fulfilled. That’s a tall order right there. So given that, I think it is only expected that there would be a lot of outcry against the interface and a rally to put something more familiar on there. And thus they reach for windows.

What if the OLPC chose icewm instead? or they went the route Asus did with the eeePC and the Xandros simple interface? I think hands down the Xandros interface is an excellent design. It is very approachable dead simple to use and provides the ability to customize based upon the users comfort level. Kudos to Asus for that.

But would the Asus interface fare better than Squeak in the hands of the children the OLPC was designed for? That is a damn good question and one I postulate would not matter much because these kids would be eager to get their hands on anything and play.

It’s very hard for me not to choose the Asus interface largely because it is what I am used to. Sure, these days I prefer Fluxbox and Gnome to KDE, XFCE or IceWM, but I have a softspot for WindowMaker. The interfaces I gravitate towards are usually minimalistic and different, but easier for me to navigate. While they deviate for what is considered the “Norm” they still share some common elements - file menu, task bar, and icons. Squeak on the other hand is more of an interface than a desktop and maybe that is what turns me off. Same with the Asus simple desktop, it’s and interface, not a desktop that I am accustomed to.

I think where Asus succeeds is they mix enough of the familiar with a more simplistic interface. Lower end desktops like the gOS using e17 and Squeak deviate far more from what people expect and thus are received by seasoned users and general users of computers with confusion and resistance. And who has been reviewing the OLPC? Yup, seasoned users.

Thus I think it is only natural for there to be resistance to the OLPC by many Americans and Europeans as it is an interface alien to them. Will they ever accept the different? Human nature would posit a lot of resistance.

So how can usability make headway in the land of habits when the habits are consider lacking in usability? Darn good question.

Well, I knew we were going to get a new pet eventually, but we did not expect so soon. Things have a way of working out like that, though, for us. No sooner does a pet pass away then another one needs a home. All our pets are rescue cats and dogs. This chihuahua needed a home and fast. The original owners just had a baby and the dog was really jealous. We went to check her out on Saturday and the family fell in love. You could tell this was a hard decision for her original owners, but they had to do something that would be fair to the dog and keep the child safe.

Now I am not a small dog person, I never really have been, but she is a real charmer. What makes it a bit difficult is that she seems to favor females. So she has taken exteremly well to Erin and Paige. Avery is a bit young for her tastes but they get along very well. On top of that, she is a hit with the neighborhood kids and spent most of the day outside playing. I’m getting her to warm up to me, it will take some time I realize.

The only one not too pleased is Miroku. But I suspect they will become good friends soon. I hope…

Dho! I almost forgot to mention her name - Torra (or I think it is). No one can seem to remember that.

Last night our cat Buck (Bukowski) died from complications of FIV. Like his brother Milton (who died last year), his turn around from happy, healthy cat was extremely fast. We had an appointment to put him to sleep this Saturday, but due to his condition rapidly declining I was going to get him in this morning. That decision allowed us to spend some quality time with him last night and the kids had their chance to say good bye. I’d like to think he passed away as happy and comfortable as possible on the porch. Buck loved to be outside and since we moved down here he has been an indoor cat. Last night he wanted to go outside and seemed in much better spirits resting under a porch chair in the cool air night.

Buck and his brother Milton were the first cats Erin and I picked up as a family almost 12 years ago. He was my first orange cat, I always wanted a big orange cat, and a great companion. Brazen but friendly, always looking for a scrap of food, and always nudging for attention; Buck was just an all around great cat. We will definitely miss him. Journey on Buck!

Holy moly, my Arch install blew up. I don’t know what happened but it would no longer mount my root partition. I kept getting the error “Failed to parse block device for /dev/hda2.” I suspect this had something to do with the initcpiofs image missing some modules but for the life of me I could not solve the problem. I mucked around with grub and then booted vial slackware 12.0 disc and chrooted to my arch install and tried to rebuild the initcpiofs, but no good. Nothing worked. So, failing to waste anymore time I decided to just drop slackware on there.

About 20 minutes later I had a slack machine. My main goal for doing this was to get my rss files off of there for the tech show. Yeah, I could have done other things, but I had those files ready to go. Well, it was an easy install and with slackpkg I am up and running with Fluxbox and thunderbird. I may even stick with slackware if I can get the rest of the software I need.

On a side note, I was not able to run the tllts wav file through Levelator. Well, I started to on arch and it froze my system. Thus, I had to force the reboot and that is when everything went to hell. Well, Levelator does not run properly on the Hardy Heron so I was stuck big time there. But I was able to get the wav file onto my laptop so I could create the ogg and mp3 files. They are uploaded but not optimal. Oh well.

I am off to bed. While I love Slackware, I love sleep a bit more. Looks like i have some fun ahead of me!

Wow, why didn’t anyone tell me how wow-a-licious Mythtv really is? (Actually they have, I just have not listened enough!) It’s fun and addicting.

Today I played around with mythweb which allows you to access some myth-related stuff via a browser. You can do nifty things like search the tv listings and schedule recordings along with very basic administration of the settings. You could also stream from there or download a file but right now I have to get a handle on transcoding some stuff because streaming a 3gb video is not a good use of bandwidth. Never-the-less it is cool being able to do stuff from anywhere in the world. Never again do I have to miss and episode of Naruto!

I configured mame so I no longer have to pull those arcade cabinets out of storage when I want to play some of the classics (heh!). That was not too difficult. I just need to get a joy-pad for better control.

The dvd player is working perfectly. What more can I ask for? I took Pat’s advice for administration and have been sticking with ssh and vnc as the xfce4 display on the television is difficult to read at best (computer oriented screens on tv are like that).

I also went through my first rounds of myth-tv upgrading. I’m not sure how after I did the install about a week ago that I had so many upgrades to the system. I thought I upgraded it during the install, but what do I know?

That was a bit tricky as I had to manually ride the process as some packages had since been deprecated and one almost gets into what would be considered rpm hell for apt. But taking it one step at a time I was able to roll through it without much hassle. And that, my friend is what I love about debian based systems.

I’ll tell you what! Playing around with mythtv, configuring and tweaking it, and learning all the things you can do is more fun that actually watching tv programs with it! Ho ha!