Simplicitas

Simplicitas is Moving!

2005-10-28T09:52:00.000-05:00

I finally got an email from WordPress.com (not to be confused with WordPress.org) offering me a free account. I've always been impressed with WordPress (from the .org) as a publishing platform, so I was fairly excited to be offered a blog. Thus, simplicitas.blogspot will be closing its doors, and simplicitas.wordpress will be picking up where it left off. (For a list of the tradeoffs between the two platforms, stay tuned to the new blog). Be sure to update your bookmarks and RSS feeds!

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

2005-10-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

Cory Doctorow, author and coeditor of BoingBoing, has released a new book. This in and of itself is not necessarily a momentous occassion (at least if you're not already a fan). The interesting thing is the publication media which Mr. Doctorow has chosen. Yes, he's selling the book in a traditional print format; after all, the man's gotta eat. However, he's also chosen to release the entirety of the book, a chapter or two at a time, as an RSS feed. The feed will also continue to provide all subsequently released chapters, regardless of when you first subscribe to it. Cool stuff - and probably the best (only?) method that I've seen for increasing sales using RSS.

The Intel Ruby

2005-10-21T08:14:00.000-05:00

Is it just me, or is this just as sexy as the OQO?

pwned!

2005-10-20T20:20:00.000-05:00

Alright...so I'm a nerd...but you should check out pure pwnage. Noobs without micro need not apply...

Keeping Track of Your RSS Feeds

2005-10-19T11:01:00.000-05:00

Due to the recent reinstall of Linux on my home machine, the usefulness of the portable apps that I've been talking about has decreased significantly. The reason for this is that all of the ones that I've been using are entirely Windows-based. Where web browsing is concerned this isn't a big problem, as all I have to do is keep my fairly slow-changing bookmarks in sync. This is made simple by FireFox' use of a single HTML file to store bookmarks; synchronization is simply a matter of copying the most recent bookmarks.html file to the appropriate location. (Of course, in Windows, that location is fairly onerous - something like:

\Documents&Settings\username\ApplicationData\Firefox\Profiles\default\inmz3k6d.slt

...but that's another story).

Email is also relatively simple, owing to all of my accounts being forwarded (at this time) to 2 separate IMAP accounts. Since the emails are stored in folders on the server, I don't have to worry about migrating a bunch of saved messages; all I have to do is put in my account information, and I'm good to go.

RSS feeds, however, are a royal pain. To this point, Mozilla Thunderbird has been doubling as an email client and feed reader. However, due to a lack of OPML import/export functionality in the stable version, and support for OPML that can be described as "wonky, at best" in the latest beta version, I end up being stuck with no automated way of updating my list of feeds on any given machine. (Hand-entering RSS URLs isn't exactly my idea of a good time).

Long story short: I finally too Anonymous' advice and signed up for a BlogLines account. The nice thing about this is that they provide a system-tray notifier for multiple platforms - *nix, OS X, and Windows, to be precise. They also have some other nifty implementations, including FireFox and IE extensions. Hopefully I'm on the path to RSS Nirvana...

Product Disclaimer?

2005-10-18T14:44:00.000-05:00

I was taking a look at Mobility Email, another portable implementation of Thunderbird, when part of the project's FAQ caught my eye:

If Mobility Email blows up and takes your computer, your house or your pet dog with it...well...bad luck. Let us know about the bug, and we'll try to fix it in the next release.

Well, at least they're striving for improvement...

World's Smallest Linux Computer

2005-10-18T09:16:00.000-05:00

I found this while I was digging around on the Intarwebs the other day. Yes, folks, you saw correctly - that's a full-fledged computer, complete with RJ45 connector and serial port, that takes up a little more than twelve and a half cubic centimeters of space. Of course, a 55MHz processor and 2MB of onboard Flash (about half of which is taken up by the operating system) isn't going to knock anyone's socks off performance-wise, but they'd be ideal for, say, someone who wanted to build a cluster at home without being served with divorce papers for "re-purposing" the walk-in closet.

Of course, they're going to have to come down in price a bit before I can reasonably afford to litter my house with miniature linux computers; the manufacturer lists them at 99 euros, or about $120 US dollars. When they hit around the $20 USD price point, count me in!

The Badger

2005-10-16T11:46:00.000-05:00

An old friend returned to my PC yesterday. To clarify, I installed the newest release of Ubuntu Linux ("Breezy Badger"). I gotta say, I'm impressed with the polish of this particular release, even after only having used it for a couple of days. Having linux back on this box is almost like I've been living in a foreign country for the past couple of months - albeit one in which the accomodations are nice - and I've come back home, which is the only place in which one can be truly comfortable.

All In the Name

2005-10-13T02:52:00.000-05:00

More terrible things are done, more civil liberties lost, in order "To save the children!" than any other single fanatics' cause. Two examples of this showed up recently in the news, with the former being much more serious than the latter. (Thanks, BoingBoing, /.).

You know what? I have a 14-year-old sister. My 14-year-old sister is smarter than I could've ever possibly been at that age in terms of "the ways of the world". Yes, she needs protection from physical harm - sickos, drunk drivers, etc. - but the last time I checked, there are already laws against all of those things. Outside of that, I see little sense in "protecting" her from much else. It comes back to this: kids are smarter and stronger than anyone who isn't a kid could possibly imagine. They'll be fine; stop using them to push causes...

Custom-built Personal Clusters

2005-10-10T14:53:00.000-05:00

These guys had a booth at the Ohio LinuxFest (yes, I know it was a week-and-a-half ago...I just didn't have time to check out their site until recently).

"...powerful, compact, ready-to-run personal clusters...powered by eight AMD Opteron processors with Direct Connect Architecture, low-latency gigabit ethernet, and up to 64 GB total RAM"

w00t! Now if they just had price listings instead of an "email us for a quote" link, I'd know how many pennies I had to save up...

Driving Traffic to Your Blog

2005-10-06T07:50:00.000-05:00

Some good tips on driving traffic to your blog can be found here (found on digg). Note #13:

"Post often to keep attracting your subscribers to come back and refer you to others in their networks; include links to other blogs, articles and websites in your posts."

...and #16

"Make a commitment to blog everyday. 10 minutes a day can help increase your traffic as new content attracts search engine spiders. Put it on your calendar as a task every day at the same time."

Oops. I guess I gotta work on that...

Ohio Linuxfest 2005

2005-10-02T19:02:00.000-05:00

I went to the Ohio Linuxfest this weekend, and while I was a little disappointed with the free swag (or maybe just bitter at not winning the Nano that they raffled off), I was pleasantly surprised at both the turnout and some of the talks that were given. I have to say that the high point (for me) was the talk about Ubuntu, complete with a preview of the upcoming Breezy Badger release (thanks, Jorge!). The enthusiasm for "the Ubuntu way" shown both by the presenter and the crowd have renewed and increased my interest in contributing to Ubuntu.

I also attended a LUG workshop that, while geared toward current LUG members, got me interested in seeking out and joining a Columbus or central Ohio LUG. Also of note was the afternoon keynote by Jerry Mayfield, Senior Corporate Business Strategist at Novell. Unfortunately, I missed all but the last half-hour or so of Jerry's keynote, but what I did see I was fairly impressed with.

All in all, it was a good old-fashioned nerdy time, and I look forward to Ohio Linuxfest 2006. To all of the organizers and volunteers: keep up the good work!

More Portable Goodness

2005-09-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

In a previous post I reviewed a couple of portable apps, which seem to be a fairly hot item in this age of on-the-go computing and large external storage drives no bigger than a matchbook. Well, it looks like Mike Tech Show has one-upped me by providing a single zip file with some of the latest and greatest portable apps. I'll be trying it out soon. Strong work, Mike Tech! [Found on digg]

Cooperative Linux

2005-09-27T09:21:00.000-05:00

I happened to catch this article on digg the other day about Cooperative Linux, so I figured I'd go ahead and give it a shot. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about "Linux running in Windows", as my previous experiences with such things had been somewhat lackluster. Still, I decided to give it a shot as I'm still reeling from the lack of Linux on my desktop. I have to say that I was pleasntly surprised.

The difference with coLinux is not an emulator. Rather, it is "a port of the Linux kernel that allows it to run cooperatively alongside another operating system on a single machine". Whether it's because of that or some external factor, coLinux blew away any emulator that I'd tried in the past. Granted, I haven't been able to test out the best emulator that the commercial world has to offer due to a lack of funds, but I can't imagine Debian (my image of choice) running any faster under VMWare than it does under coLinux. Of course "port" is generally a term that I think of as being synonymous with "massive potential for bugs and incompatibility", but thus far I haven't seen any such thing.

One upside to using an emulator is graphic support. As it stands, the only way to get a graphical desktop running coLinux is to use VNCServer. However, this is approximately the same as running a windowed desktop through an emulator, anyway. In short, I think that this is the best free (as in beer and as in freedom) solution currently available for running Linux inside of Windows. Oh...and for those of you that give it a shot, here's a couple of extras: how to grow a coLinux partition and pre-fab swap files of various sizes (you don't even have to run mkswap!)

OQO Upgrade

2005-09-27T08:01:00.000-05:00

It looks like OQO has released a new model of their ultrapersonal computer. Dubbed the Model 01+, it comes with some upgraded specs and is "much snappier" (according to Engadget). Oh...and perhaps the most important upshot: the price of the original OQO Model 01 has dropped $400 in price, which puts me one step closer to owning one. Now how long it will be before the OQO becomes the daily w00t?

Not On Froogle

2005-09-26T15:26:00.000-05:00

So I created a Froogle Wishlist earlier today, and that's all well and good. However, it doesn't have one of the more outlandish things that I want to get, so I guess I'll just have to post it here. Thanks, Gizmodo!

There I Am!

2005-09-26T15:25:00.000-05:00

Several months ago (six, to be exact) I was wondering about my absence from Google. Today, I repeated my search for Simplicitas and, lo and behold!, there I am, third on the list. Of course, that doesn't really help when searching for something that is relevant (in terms of what I've posted about), but it's heartening to know that they're aware of my existence now!

Wish List

2005-09-26T08:22:00.000-05:00

I decided to start a Froogle Wish List today. Yes, I know that everything I want is ridiculously expensive; that's why it's all in my Wish List and not, say, my living room.

This World We Live In

2005-09-25T22:59:00.000-05:00

I was recently talking to one of my buddies about how ol' Mother Nature seems to be taking the world to Hell in a handbasket. I also recently posted a couple of really bizarre things out there, both man-made. Well, put the two together, and what do you get? You guessed it: military-trained dolphins equipped with toxic dart guns. <insert obligatory Dr. Evil joke here> Thanks once again to /..

What's In a Blog?

2005-09-25T21:30:00.000-05:00

I'm proud to say that, due in no small part to a large amount of cajoling by myself, two new blogs have been created. I've believed for a while now that everyone should have a blog. This is not an idea that is popular with everyone, with the most common argument being something like, "But I don't want to read about how Sally had OJ and Wheaties for breakfast this morning." There's an incredibly powerful and simple counter-argument to this; it goes something like, "Then don't".

Perhaps more interesting are the arguments for everyone having a blog. I think that the best and most salient one is that humans, by their nature, are social creatures. The upshot of this for blogs and blogging is that everyone most likely has at least one other person that would be interested in reading his or her blog...even Sally's "Blog About Breakfast". Thus, it becomes a question of motivating would-be bloggers by answering all of their "Why?" with a whole lot more "Why not?" The following are some other helpful counter-arguments for those of you who have a friend they'd like to see start blogging.

"How?"/"Where do I start?":
There are a wealth of free blog providers out there - the long list probably ranges in the dozens - with a range of options and features that should meet just about any casual blogger's needs. Because they're free, there's not any "pressure" to post (another common complaint is "But I won't have time!", to which I generally reply, "You don't need to post frequently, you just have to post.") There are also a few for-pay services out there. Also, many of these have fairly simple interfaces for posting and tweaking the look-and-feel of one's blog, so one needn't be a technical expert in order to be a blogger.

"What do I blog about?":
The obvious short answer to this one is, "Whatever you want." However, that's not quite satisfactory for most people. A better approach is to try to hone it down to something in which one is interested or have some amount of knowledge, and forgive oneself the sin of off-topic blogging; after all, it's your blog. For example, you're in law school? Blog about current legal events. You're a would-be philosopher-poet? Let's hear what you've got. Speak your mind, and I'll pick up the feed.

"Who will read it?":
I basically covered this above, but just to recap, "I will read it!" is the correct answer. Also acceptable for some people is, "Who cares?", but that's heavily dependent on the person to whom you're speaking; YMMV.

Next up: explaining to your non-technical friends Why RSS Is Cool!

How Many Zeroes?!

2005-09-20T20:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, this monitor rig is more than a little bit ridiculous. Yes, you're reading it correctly (if you're reading it at all); that's a 19,200 x 2,400 resolution. [Ed.: commas added for emphasis]

Portable App Review

2005-09-17T10:55:00.000-05:00

I've posted before about having trouble keeping track of which headlines I've seen for all of the RSS feeds that I currently watch. Another problem that I have is keeping all of my bookmarks reasonably synchronized between machines (desktop, laptop, my box at work...), both in term of the bookmarks that I have and those bookmarks' organization (e.g., "Did I put the link to the Mozilla SVG Project in the XML folder, or in the Open Source folder on this particular browser?")

Several solutions to these types of problems exist - for example, BlogLines for RSS feeds, and of course del.icio.us for bookmarks - but most (all?) of the ones that I've seen are web-based. It's not that being web-based is a problem, it's just not what I consider an ideal solution to my particular problems. One of the major reasons that I started using Thunderbird and Firefox is the fact that they have extremely similar and fairly user-friendly interfaces, as well as the fact that Thunderbird allows me to read my email and my feeds; thus, it would seem that using 2 different web services to organize my information, in addition to both Firefox and Thunderbird, is a step backwards. (If you don't know why, scroll to the top of the page and read carefully...)

The bottom line is that I've been unsuccessful in finding a solution to either of these problems - until now. Enter Portable Firefox and Portable Thunderbird - versions of their respective programs that are able to be installed on a USB key. "But why not just install regular Firefox on a USB key?", you ask? Well, the short answer to that is that this approach doesn't quite work. While the binaries in this case would in fact be stored on the USB key, all of the "Profile" information would be stored on the local hard drive of the machine on which the install took place. Thus, when trying your USB key installion on another machine, surprise!, all of your bookmarks have disappeared! The same goes for Thunderbird's account information, including all of the RSS feeds that you spent an hour entering in by hand since Thunderbird doesn't support OPML imports (yet!). The portable versions of these two programs essentially are configured such that all data that they need to operate - including bookmarks, address books, and account information - is stored directly on the USB key.

The downside to this arrangement is speed. My machine at home has two 10,000RPM Western Digital Raptors, arranged in a RAID-0 configuration, and disk speed is something that I've come to take for granted. My USB key, on the other hand, is a chinsy 128MB piece of crap that I bought for 10 bucks or so on sale at a MicroCenter. This is important to note, as access times differ between USB keys. Essentially, this means that using either of the programs off of the USB key - Thunderbird in particular - is painfully slow at times. However, both of the portable apps are beta versions, and the speed issue is the only problem I've had so far. I think that furture releases have the potential to be much faster, and I plan on (hopefully) getting a new USB key before too long, anyway - hopefully one with some kind of security features, since I plan on toting my email around with me.

All in all, I give both of these apps (and their developer, John Haller), a hearty thumbs up, and I look forward to checking out a couple of John's other projects (Portable Nvu, Portable OpenOffice.org).

Wearable Displays

2005-09-15T12:29:00.000-05:00

I've seen a few wearable displays before, but never something quite like this.

The Strangeness Keeps On Comin'

2005-09-15T09:25:00.000-05:00

Okay...I try to keep things pretty tech-oriented around here, but there's just too much strangeness going on in the world today. Apparently the recent solar flare has caused some kind of cosmic disturbance - maybe that's why I've posted 5 times in 2 days; w00t! - resulting in products like this: The Portable Bidet/Digital Camera. Wow.

From the Bizarre to the Macabre

2005-09-15T08:24:00.000-05:00

Anyone in the U.S. will tell you that they're fed up with high gas prices. In fact, I know several people that are willing to give you their entire half-hour treatise on Iraq, gas prices, and the Dubyament at the mere mention of paying 3+ dollars per gallon at the pump. Apparently outside of the States they do things a little differently. "How differently?", you ask? How does a dead cat-powered car strike you?

Excerpt:

"[The inventor] said around 20 dead cats added into the mix could help produce enough fuel to fill up a 50-liter (11 gallon) tank."

I have /. to thank for making me almost choke on my coffee this morning...

A New Favorite Game

2005-09-14T09:04:00.000-05:00

It might not have displaced the cryptogram as my all-time favorite puzzle game, and crossword puzzles will always have a special place in my heart, but Sudoku is fast approaching the #1 spot.

Atom Link

2005-09-14T08:56:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I didn't realize this before, but Simplicitas appears to have been guilty of my number one Blog Pet Peeve - that is, not having an explicit link to an RSS or Atom feed of some kind somewhere on the page - until now. Check out the page footer. I'm a little surprised that my dedicated readership hasn't raised a clamor before now (har har har).

For those of you too lazy to scroll to the bottom of the page:

http://simplicitas.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Hilarious Sun Ad Campaign

2005-09-14T08:48:00.000-05:00

Yes, I realize how lame it is to re-post something that showed up on /., but the "rejected" drafts for Sun's new ad campaign almost made me laugh out loud. (Also seen on digg).

NerdTV

2005-09-07T08:23:00.000-05:00

I was scrolling through my feeds today, and I saw (on /., of course) that the first episode of NerdTV had been released. Video, audio, and a plain-text transcript are available. My favorite comment (from Bryan):

A little correction for the original poster. vi is interactive TV. If you just want to watch TV, I suggest less.

If you're a nerd, you should get that...

AJAX + RSS? w00t!

2005-09-01T15:06:00.000-05:00

I gave AJAX a bit of a knock the other day. Actually, I gave the buzz surrounding it a knock, but that's not the point. This is one small example of why that buzz exists. Pretty cool stuff.

I'm not sure whether blog etiquette requires me to include the original link when it comes from the same site, but here it is just in case. (Damn shame Blogger doesn't do trackbacks...)

Update: I can't believe that I didn't see the buzzword opportunity until just now! What am I talking about? Well, AJAR, of course!

Nerd Alert!

2005-08-29T08:33:00.000-05:00

I heard this little beauty on Bob & Tom this morning:

A hydrogen atom walks into a bar, looking depressed. The bartender asks,
"Why so sad?"
The hydrogen atom responded,
"I've lost my electron."
To which the bartended replied,
"Well, are you sure you lost it?"
The atom,
"I'm positive."

Yes, I know it's an awful joke, but I got a kick out of it. The joke was one in a string of physics-related jokes, in honor of 2005 being the World Year of Physics, and it made me wonder where I would be right now if I'd decided to continue my pursuit of a degree in physics, as opposed to computer science...

If You Name It

2005-08-20T08:26:00.000-05:00

...they will come. I'm talking about the creation of ~~acronyms~~ buzzwords that lead to ridiculous hype about pre-existing technologies. The specific example that I'm thinking of is AJAX. Another good example would be Ruby on Rails, although it's not quite as hyped as the former. And, of course, there's always the convergence of the two. (demos!)

Perhaps this happens because "AJAX" (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, for the uninitiated) is a bit more succinct than "Kludge for Pre-loading [data] Using Hidden (i)Frames that Developers Used Long Before Such Things had an Acronym"; the acronym is certainly more euphonious than KPLUHFDULBSTA (kuh-PLUF-dul-BUS-ta?)...

BOFH Goodness

2005-08-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

An excerpt from the latest installment of The BOFH:

"But seriously, he was [a spy]. His code number was double-oh F."

"00F?"

"Yeah, they switched to Hexadecimal when the digits ran out."

"Ridiculous!" the PFY snaps.

"No, ridiculous was the first attempt using Dewey Decimal. By the time you'd finished warning them that you were 'secret agent double-oh 327.1PFY' they'd have already lowered you into the vat of acid and organised dinner for two followed by dancing with Moneypenny."

Sprog

2005-08-12T08:33:00.000-05:00

I stumbled upon Sprog this morning in a rather accidental and quite serendipitous way. Excerpt:

What is Sprog?

Sprog is a graphical tool which anyone can use to build programs by plugging parts together. In Sprog jargon, the parts are known as 'gears' and they are assembled to make a 'machine'.

I know, I know - you're thinking, "First he installs Windows on his home machine, now he's talking about using GUIs for scripting? Has he gone off his sprog?" Perhaps I have. However, this project comes fairly close to an object modelling idea that I've had kicking around in my head for a while (think object widgets with draggable I/O pipe connectors...or something), and it's nice to know that at least some of one's ideas are reasonable.

2560x1600?

2005-08-12T08:27:00.000-05:00

I apologize for turning this blog into a hardware wishlist for the last...uhh...too many posts, but this was just too good to pass up. It might just have to replace the beautiful Dells that I mentioned before. This is what I'm talking about! Obviously, I'd prefer the 30", but any of them would do...

CPU Cooling

2005-08-11T09:37:00.000-05:00

I've been looking for some kind of CPU cooling solution for a while now. Fans just aren't quite getting the job done despite sounding like a jet winding up in my office at home, and I'm just not a big fan of water cooling - something about the possiblity of turning my high-end machine into a $3,000 pile of soggy shorted-out nothing is just not appealing to me. I've been looking for alternative solutions, but most of them are too expensive or too ridiculous. Here's one that would seem to be both.

More Keyboard Goodness

2005-08-11T09:34:00.000-05:00

I know that I've posted about over-expensive keyboards before (otherwise, there would be no "More" in the title of this post), but I think I may have found one that's actually worth it - where "it" is defined as about 80 bucks.

A New Item for My Wish List

2005-07-25T15:06:00.000-05:00

It's looking more and more like my 19" AccuSync CRT (one of my 2 desktop monitors @ home) is gonna go pretty soon, so I've been looking around at monitors. Granted, I could get another 19" CRT relatively cheaply, but I've been looking at 1920x1200 LCDs (because they're sweet). The difficulty lies in the number of zeros to the left of the decimal point that is usually associated with such a display. However, while poking around out there I stumbled across this, which I believe to be a more than reasonable compromise in terms of screen real estate to dollars-spent.

Web Hosting is Cheap!

2005-07-25T11:53:00.000-05:00

I was recently doing a bit of research into how cheaply one could get a few GB of webspace, and I was a little shocked at just how cheap it's gotten in the last few years. Granted, there are more expensive "solutions" out there if you're looking for something more complex than just a few web pages; but even managed servers can be gotten for a pittance these days. Hmmm...perhaps I'll resurrect the ol' self-maintained blog...

The Linux Desktop

2005-07-14T07:54:00.000-05:00

An interesting and strangely coincidental post showed up on /. today pointing to an opinion piece about whether or not Linux is "ready" for the desktop of Joe User. I found it interesting because some (not all) of the thoughts in both the article and the posted comments mirror my own, and coincidental because of my momentous (for me) decision to put Windows XP Pro on my machine at home...for the first time since I bought it almost 2 years ago. (I was a little wary of what my box' reaction would be to the installation of an alien OS; it took it rather well).

I would have to say that the major impetus for the install was my newfound addiction, which comes in the form of a new MMORPG named EVE. Incidentally, Cedega actually ran the game rather well, with only a few of the usual trouble spots (infrequent CTD, wonky mouse pointer). However, upon installing XP I started to realize that there were niceties accompanying Windows that I'd forgotten about since I hadn't used it on that machine. For instance, now all the features of all the (very expensive) hardware that I purchased are actually available. Being a programmer and general all-around nerd, I was willing to live with some decreased functionality user-experience-wise as a tradeoff for all of the programming environment benefits that Linux had to offer, but it's nice to know that my $300 video card and $200 sound card are, in fact, worth that. Also, I'm now able to use the (Windows-only) software RAID capability that my mobo provides.

The downside to all this is that it's simply unacceptable for me to not have Linux on that machine; the productivity decrease would just be too great. Thus, I'm faced with the option of dual-boot or VMWare. I'm much more seriously considering the latter, as it seems like a much more "best of both worlds" approach than having to reboot every time I want to use Feature X of operating system Y. In a perfect world I would be able to afford an identical (power-wise) second machine, sans monitor and expensive graphics/sound options, on which I could put Linux and develop to my heart's content...but it's unlikely that I'll find a spare $2500, say, doing the laundry. I guess the only thing left to do is start investigating educational pricing for VMWare...

How do they do this stuff?

2005-07-06T07:37:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm used to Google producing some pretty cool stuff. However, Google Earth r0X0rz my s0X0rz unlike any application that I have seen in a really long time. This thing pulls in geographic data on the fly (yes, you can see your house from here!) while maintaining reasonable rendering during fairly short load times. Add to that smooth panning, rotation, and zooming. It has to be illegal to make an application that is this cool work this well!

The Cute Four

2005-06-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

On the one hand, this might be one of the goofiest things I've ever witnessed in an mpeg. On the other, it kinda makes me want to work for Trolltech. ...and it's kinda catchy, to boot!

"C'mon do the Qt 4 dance"

Carpal Tunnel: Worth It?

2005-06-29T08:29:00.000-05:00

I'm a software engineer. I spend a good deal of time sitting at a computer and typing. I feel that I'm pretty up-to-date on the sorts of damage that can be done by a substandard keyboard, no wrist-rest, incorrect posture/style, etc. However, this does not look like something I'd be likely to buy any time soon.

I only put this on here because of the rash of ridiculously overpriced keyboards that I've seen lately from various sources.

If I were to blow more than, say, $20 on a keyboard, I would be more likely to choose this one. There are two very good reasons for this:

1) It wouldn't cost me $500, and
2) It would enable me to say that I was a 1337 h4X0rz!

flickr

2005-06-16T12:37:00.000-05:00

So I've decided that perhaps having a photoblog might be a good way to motivate me to actually use the digital camera that I got a few years back. I've only posted one picture thus far:

...but hopefully more will be forthcoming soon.

[Start your own photoblog!]

Grid Computing Project

2005-06-14T10:50:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting conversation with Professor Mario Lauria (OSU) yesterday about the work that he's been doing in grid/distributed systems and potential projects that I could come up with that might fit into that model of computation. One of the possibilities that we discussed was using something like the SETI@Home model (or one of it's open-source equivalents) to provide a direct benefit to the end user. Specifically, say that there was a screensaver that would run and, say, compare each record in a library's catalog to WorldCat overnight, alerting staff of any inconsistencies or discrepancies (or even directly fixing errors).

This is just one small example of the sorts of things that we talked about. I've got about a week to come up with a more solid project for Prof. Lauria's research seminar this summer, and we generated so many potential ideas that I'm not quite sure just where to begin!

DataTiles

2005-06-10T10:14:00.000-05:00

This, my friends, is quite simply one of the coolest things that I've seen in a long time, in addition to one of the most novel physical interface concepts. Granted, I'm sure that there is some amount of "smoke and mirrors" going on here - it can't simply work that well for all general applications. However, the concept - and the possibility that it could work for general applications - is pretty tremendous.

[Originally found at Gizmodo].

Just How Scary

2005-06-09T08:43:00.000-05:00

...can the Senate make the PATRIOT Act? I could see a brainstorming session going something like this:

"Okay, so here's what we were thinking...wouldn't it be sweet if the FBI could not only subpoena personal information about the clients of banks and libraries and stuff, but could approve their own subpoenas themselves? I mean, who really needs the judicial branch of the government, anyways?"

"Ooh! I've got an idea! In addition to that, we could have these special, secret subpoenas!"

"I like it!"

...2 months later:

"I'm from the FBI, and I'm going to go through all of your client's personal records. Oh...and if you tell anyone about this, you're going to jail!"

Yeesh.

Procrastination

2005-06-04T19:20:00.000-05:00

...is killing me (and my GPA) softly right now. I just can't seem to focus. I sit down at the computer...and immediately start doing things that aren't productive in the context of finishing my final lab and preparing for my final exam. (Case in point: this post).

Aside from RSS feeds and email (easily the worst of the procrastination tools), one of the major sources of distraction is Deviant Art. I swear, when I have something I have to get done, nothing is worse than the temptation to go cruising through their galleries looking for a new wallpaper or some bit of interesting art.

Another addictive habit is surfing around on Wikipedia. I start out looking up something that may or may not be relevant, and by the time I'm done clicking links, it's 2 hours later and I'm researching something completely unrelated to my initial query.

If I get bored with either of those two, I end up poking around random blogs on Blogger. It's kinda hit-and-miss (more of the latter, to be honest), but it's interesting to check a few of them out and see what's going on out there. Maybe one day serendipity will kick in, but so far I end up just seeing a lot of ad blogs, or your standard, "I had toast for breakfast today. Yay." sort of blog.

Homebrew Clusters

2005-06-01T07:38:00.000-05:00

If these guys can do it, why can't I? (Here's a hint: the answer involves the terms "mortgage" and "disposable income"...)

I'm Back

2005-05-31T08:36:00.000-05:00

...after a week off the grid. I would've thought that a week in Cancun would've prompted some hunting for a free Internet station at some point. The hunt proved unnecessary - there were a couple of machines available in the lobby at the resort - but when one is on honeymoon and it's 90 degrees outside, with 3 pools, a beach, et cetera, one would be surprised how little that sort of thing creeps into one's mind.

However, now it's back to The Grind. Time to brave the flood of email in my inbox...

Elevator Interface

2005-05-18T08:20:00.000-05:00

Okay...since interface design is something I've blogged on before, I thought that this post (Techdirt) was too good to pass up. The gist: wonky elevator UI design in a swanky New York hotel requires user education for operation. Did that sink in? An elevator that requires training in order to be used effectively. I guess that this would be pretty solid evidence that, in some cases, it's much better to imitate than to innovate!

RSS -> IMAP

2005-05-14T12:16:00.000-05:00

I've been looking for some kind of a "better way" to read RSS feeds. As of right now, I'm using Mozilla Thunderbird as an email client. Thunderbird is nice in that it doubles as an RSS reader. The problem here is that I use several machines - work, home, laptop - on a daily basis, and I have trouble keeping track of what I have and haven't read. For example, when I get home from work and update all of my feeds, most of the feeds marked as "new" are ones that I've already read at work. The other issue is that, if I close Thunderbird, it stops checking feeds; unless I leave it open, there's a chance of missing a news item. This can be a blessing (I don't end up with 2,500 feeds to catch up on on Monday), but I'd prefer to have all of the news items and simply be able to ignore them.

rss2email (no reliable link available) will (sort of) allow me to do what I want to do. It will check all my feeds for new items, and forward them to an email account. Since I have an IMAP server running, this solves the problem of keeping track of what's been read. However, I'd also like them to be sorted into folders - which would mean configuring maildrop to do this on the server side, or configuring each of my Thunderbird clients to filter the messages as they come in. This is a pain, and it seems like there should be a better way.

Ideally, what I would like is a daemon that runs on my server at home and checks feeds, automatically placing them in some directory structure according to feed, and that keeps track of which items I've already viewed. Allowing me to tag/label things in different ways would be good, but not necessary. Unfortunately, I haven't found anything that will do this just yet. The search continues...

Hostnames

2005-05-13T07:47:00.000-05:00

This morning I was musing on possible hostnames for different systems. The first computer that I ever actually owned (Gateway P2 266MHz) pretty much had whatever generic hostname Windows 95 decided to give it for most of its life. Recently, I've overhauled it for use as a file/email server, at which point it received the fairly generic title of homesrv1. My second machine (Dell P4 1.5GHz) retained the awful Windows hostname for about half of its career. After my (inevitable?) switch to linux, that ol' Dell was dubbed TheBox. I liked that name, so my current machine (custom P4 3.2GHz) retained the name. (I'd thought about adding a "Jr." to it, but it ended up just being a hassle.) Thus, when I got a laptop (Averatec 3225HS) it seemed only natural to slap on the moniker TheBook.

The joke is getting a little old at this point, so I need to start coming up with something a little better - especially if I ever get that chance to (read: have the money to) build a cluster. I was thinking of something like BigIron for the master node, and Fe-x-y for all of the compute nodes. Clever, no? However, it's doubtful that the "iron" will be all that big; it's more likely that it will be more like this 12-node mini-itx cluster (named, incidentally, PROTEUS). Thinking in the same vein, I could just name it LilIron, and retain the same compute node names.

Alternately, I could start naming my workstations after Greek heroes (Perseus and Hercules seem like fine names, after all), and name the cluster Hydra with compute nodes being, of course, head-x-y.

I think I've put way too much thought into this...

Something New to Try Out

2005-05-12T12:46:00.000-05:00

I've decided to go craaaaaazy-nuts and try out an OS that's (gasp!) not linux! 'Then what is it,' you ask? FreeBSD. No, it's not because 'i want to 1337 powerlevel my h4X0r skillz! lunix is teh suck!'. It's simply because I've never tried it, and it's time to remedy that.

Debian: Inital Thoughts

2005-05-12T11:15:00.000-05:00

As I said, I decided to go ahead and give Debian a shot in my quest for a stable, streamlined, secure distribution. The good news: Debian fits that description. The bad news: if you take the (implicit?) requirement of being reasonably up-to-date, Debian fails miserably. I've heard the various jokes about Debian being a little behind - one was something along the lines of "While Debian's kernel and packages are out of date, it makes up for this by being more complex and difficult to use" - but I didn't quite realize the extent until I'd installed it.

Not only is the default kernel still from the 2.2 branch (2.2.20, to be exact), the packages are just as outdated. Examples: Apache 1.3.26, gcc 2.95.4. I needn't continue; my purpose here is cerntainly not to denigrade the maintainers and developers who are working on Debian. It has many good things going for it, not the least of which is (in my opinion) the best package manager currently available. In essence, I think that it is an excellent starting point for a good linux distribution. Perhaps that's why there are so many Debian spinoffs out there...

A New One to Try Out

2005-05-09T12:33:00.000-05:00

Well, my search has resulted in a result, even if it's not really what I was looking for. I've got a spare box sitting at home, and I'm going to give Vector Linux a shot. From what I can gather, VL is a Slackware spin-off, with some updates - the major one being the 2.6 kernel. I have a feeling that VL isn't going to be any more stable/secure/etc. than any other distro out there, but I'd like to give it a shot nonetheless. What have I got to lose, besides all my "spare time"?

Update: Changed my mind; I'll be doing the Debian thing. Don't know why I didn't think of that in the first place, since my current distro is a Debian clone...

Server Distribution?

2005-05-09T07:56:00.000-05:00

I'm on the hunt for a new distribution. I've gone through several distros in my time, and I've stuck with Ubuntu for a while now. Usually, I end up trying out a few new ones every year or so just to make sure that I'm not missing out on something spectacular, and then end up settling back down with the distro that I had before I started. This time, however, I'm looking for something a little different.

Every other time I've gone looking for a distribution, I've been looking for something that's "a little more slick" wrt the desktop. This time, I'm looking for essentially the opposite. I've poked around all of the usual channels a bit, but thus far I've been unable to find what I'm looking for. I'd like something that's fairly small (wrt disk and overall memory footprint when running), secure, and easily maintaintable; in essence, a distro that would be well-suited to a high-availability, low-cost server environment...without all the bells and whistles that the more desktop-centric distros have to offer.

The difficulty here is manifold. First, I'm not used to searching for a linux distribution w/o looking at screenshots (which, sadly, often have more of an impact on decision-making than they should). A second related problem is that "beautiful desktops" have become quite the marketing point for a lot of distributions (due mostly to the first problem).

A bigger issue is one of "familiarity". It would seem to me that a system's security has a fair amount to do with just how familiar the admin is with the ins and outs of that system. Every linux distribution has its own little quirks, no matter how rigidly the maintainers try to stick to some kind of standards. For the most part, this is a good thing. Everyone has their idea of how Things Should Be Done (tm), and in general it's nice to have your choice of multiple ways of doing things. Presumably, this gives the sysadmin the chance to find a distribution that does things in a manner that he/she finds to be appropriate for his/her needs. However, this also means that changing distributions can be a hassle.

For example, say I have a choice between two systems. One has a flawless implementation of SELinux enabled by default, but the system is organized (directory/file locations, config scripts, etc.) in a way that's completely alien to me. The other doesn't have SELinux, but is organized such that I can find everything very easily - either by intuition, or simply b/c the locations of things closely mirrors the distros that I've worked with in the past. I'm much more likely to choose the second distro; I like to have control over the system that I'm using, and I have a better feeling about the security of that system if I know where everything is and in what manner it's configured.

Anyhow, the bottom line is that I still haven't found what I'm looking for. The hunt continues...

One Smart Guy

2005-05-03T08:24:00.000-05:00

Jim Gray fits the description above...and then some. They don't give you the Turing Award for nothing, after all. While this post was /.-inspired (article), I've been impressed with Jim Gray ever since he gave a presentation at the Distinguished Speakers Seminar Series at work - far more impressed than I've been with any of the other speakers. That's not to say that our other speakers weren't impressive; I think that Jim just struck a cord with me because:

he's brilliant in a way in which I would like to be brilliant, and
he's brilliant in the field that I am currently pursuing

Anyhow, if you have any interest in computer science, and/or want to keep current with Where Things Are Going (tm), keep an eye on Jim. He's at the forefront, no doubt about it.

Another thing for my "Wanted" list?

2005-05-02T20:38:00.000-05:00

The Reg posted an article today about a personal cluster being made available through a (small?) company named Orion Multisystems. If you don't feel like poring over the specs - and you should - it's a 96-processor Fedora Core 2(-based) box. Maxes out at 192GB total DDR RAM, about 9.6TB total storage. All this in a 17"W x 27"H x 25"D box, for the low low price of around $100,000 (give or take...do you want power windows and A/C?)

This has got me stoked. Not that I'll be buying one any time soon - taking out a second mortgage to buy a computer, however sweet, would most likely put more than a little strain on my checkbook and my relationship with my soon-to-be-wife. It's more the fact that this monster is being sold as a "Deskside Cluster Workstation". It begs the question: How long will it be before enough scientists/engineers/etc. snag these that it becomes feasible to start cranking out slightly lower-end (read: lower priced) models?

Build a Better Washing Machine...

2005-05-02T12:19:00.000-05:00

From the Beeb: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4504393.stm

Excerpt:

A Spanish designer has come up with what could be the perfect solution for the woman who feels frustrated that she has to do all the house chores.

Ha! If only they knew who does the laundry at my house! Of course, I s'pose that this tech works both ways...

Postcard Confessional

2005-04-29T13:56:00.000-05:00

I know that it's quite lame to post simply saying "Look what else X posted." Well...let's double up on lameness by posting about a post about a blog...

Seriously - you should check this out.

Asymptomatic

2005-04-29T08:51:00.000-05:00

I've been watching Asymptomatic's feed for a while now, mostly because I like the author's style. His FFAFs make me wish I could go back to WordPress. Blogger is alright, and it does just about everything I want it to do...but there are benefits to hosting your own stuff. The original reason for my switch was the fact that I can't seem to find an ISP that will give me a static IP (at least not without requesting my first-born child in return for a needlessly expensive "business solution"). However, now that I've found a reasonable fix for that, it would seem that it's either just laziness or a lack of time to devote to administration that is keeping me from managing my own site. I'll be nice to myself and claim the latter.

VIVAAAAAAAAAA LAS VEGAS

2005-04-28T07:53:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since the last post. What's happened since then, you ask? Well, other than having to change my wedding time, going to Vegas for the bachelor party, 3 (fairly grueling) labs, and a midterm...not much. When's a guy supposed to get a chance to sit down and blog?

More Mini-Gadgets

2005-04-15T08:46:00.000-05:00

As you may have guessed, I'm something of a "gadget freak". Well...it looks like there might soon be a rival to a couple of things on my most-wanted list.

Update: This thing looks pretty crazy, too...

PATRIOT Act Woes

2005-04-15T08:37:00.000-05:00

I had a friend send me this email today:

Dude, check this out--from the guy who brought us the Patriot Act....

Bush: 'I Don't Want You Reading My Personal Stuff'

...my response:

I saw this the other day, and it made me laugh in a "this isn't really funny" sort of way. The PATRIOT Act makes life difficult for a lot of people - [my company]included. When the act was first introduced, there was a mass deletion of data in libraries due to a (well-placed) paranoia about the Feds showing up and snatching all of their user and circulation data. Also, libraries put systems in place that more or less immediately delete circulation records after items have been returned. No data retention = No data mining. It's terrible because we could do so much if we had historical circulation data, but libraries simply won't keep it because of this shite.

Anyhow, that's my two cents on the PATRIOT Act. As for the Bush thing, I think that it's a typical reaction by a politician/rich white man. "I endorse this legislation 100%...as long as it doesn't affect me or my comfort at all..."

Rather Old Iron

2005-04-13T10:49:00.000-05:00

@home:
$uname -a
Linux TheBox 2.6.10-5-386 #1 Tue Apr 5 12:12:40 UTC 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

@work:
$uname -a
Linux hostname 2.4.21-27.0.2.ELsmp #1 SMP Wed Jan 12 23:35:44 EST 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

@school:
$uname -a
SunOS kappa 5.8 Generic_117350-22 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-480R

Wha-?? Yes, this is at a large research university. And yes, SunOS 5.8. Actually, that's not so much what I have a problem with so much as the user space apps available. I think the available version of make predates fire...

Long Weekend

2005-04-11T11:32:00.000-05:00

As the title would suggest, I'm pretty beat and I've got nothing to show for it but one hell of a sunburn. I did manage to get Hoary Hedgehog installed, but I haven't had time to work out all of the kinks of a fresh install just yet. The things that I have gotten straightened out came along pretty smoothly, so I have high hopes. Unfortunately, between wedding plans and homework I won't have much time to mess with it this week. It was a fun weekend, though, and well worth it...

Hoary Hedgehog Pushed Back

2005-04-07T08:55:00.000-05:00

It seems that the release date for the latest, greatest version of Ubuntu (originally scheduled for Wednesday, April 6) has been pushed back by a couple of days. Frustrating...but perhaps I'm just obsessing...

Astronaut's Favorite Movie

2005-04-07T08:43:00.000-05:00

I was listening to Bob & Tom this morning, and they were doing a phone interview with astronaut Dr. David Wolf. When asked what his favorite space movie was, he replied with an anecdote about how he watched the movie Alien once while in a remote corner of the International Space Station. (Perhaps it's redundant to call it a "remote corner"?) Anyhow, I got a kick out of it. Can you think of a creepier possible situation in which one could put oneself?

Wearable Screen

2005-04-05T09:33:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how long it will take for things like this to be mainstream enough to be feasible (i.e., cheap enough, enough support/software, etc.). What I do know is that I'll be first in line when they are!

Where am I?

2005-04-01T08:20:00.000-05:00

I tried a while back to submit this site to that search engine that we all know and love. I don't know what the deal is, but it doesn't seem to be getting indexed. Hell...I even tried explicitly searching for 'simplicitas.blogspot.com'...nothing. I'll have to check the Guiness book for lowest PageRank; I'll bet I at least get honorable mention.

Home Sweet Home

2005-03-28T13:44:00.000-05:00

My plan of lazing around the house all weekend was pretty much destroyed by my family. I guess that's to be expected around the holidays, though. There was a lotta good food to be eaten, though, so I can't complain too much. Just wish I had a day off coming to me...

It's Almost Over

2005-03-24T19:16:00.000-05:00

Well, I just transfered all of my output data to my USB key and wiped the hard drive clean on the workstation they gave me. Now I'm just waiting for my ride to finish up her expense report, and I'll be headed downtown for some dinner and a few much-needed drinks. I'm not thrilled about the 8 hours of travel tomorrow (6 if you account for the time change...but still, a 2 1/2 hour layover is no fun), but I'm looking forward to taking a shower in my own shower, reclining in my own recliner, and sleeping in my own bed. Anyhow, it's time to pack up the laptop and roll out!

Another Day...

2005-03-22T19:41:00.000-05:00

The grind is starting to get to me. Nothing is going to plan (as usual), so I've been spending quite a few hours trying to get things back on course. One of the biggest problems is the screwy network topology out here - I can access the VPN at the hotel, but I can't do it *at the office*! Blows my mind...

Business Travel

2005-03-20T22:12:00.000-05:00

...is not as great as it's made out to be. It generally comes at the worst time - like at the end of a pay period, but just before you get your paycheck, the week before classes start, when you're trying to finalize wedding, honeymoon, and bachelor party plans...just an example, you understand. :-) Anyhow, I guess that I'm glad I get to do some travelling for work, I just wish the timing was better. I'm here, though, so I guess I'll try to make the most of it. The Boss is about to come and feed me (she made ~~caribou~~ elk!) right now, though; more later.

Hoary Hedgehog : coming soon

2005-03-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

As anyone who reads this blog is likely to know (read: no one is likely to know), I am a bit of a distro junkie. Thus, I'm starting to get kind of antsy about the newest version of Ubuntu linux (Hoary Hedgehog) slated to be released next month. I've already downloaded and tried out the live CD of the preview version, and I really liked what I saw. Kudos, Team Ubuntu; keep up the good work!

Update: Looks like Fedora Core 4 will be coming out shortly after Ubuntu 5.04 does. We'll see which one I end up liking the best!

Return to the UnderGround

2005-03-14T08:05:00.000-05:00

I had big plans to go to bed early last night. I'd been sick about half of last week and part of the weekend, and I wanted to start my Monday off right and rested. So, I told myself, "Self...you're going to bed early tonight." What my self forgot to mention to...err...myself...is that I'd just gotten a new game that day that was just itching to be played. Yes, the Knights of the Old Republic syndrome has re-awakened within me; no doubt I'll be spending countless hours locked in the Bat Cave until I've beaten the thing. On the up side, though, I've learned to be more honest with myself about when I'm going to go to bed after buying a new game...

Sweet Googly Moogly!

2005-03-11T11:11:00.000-05:00

This might be the most ridiculous-looking ride I've ever seen in my life! Take a look, kids!

(Thanks to Asymptomatic for the link.)

Another Cool Toy

2005-03-09T19:00:00.000-05:00

This seems to be the only competition to the OQO that I've found. It's something of an "ugly duckling" in comparison, but the specs are a little better (pay special attention to screen resolution). It's not currently available, so it looks like it'll be a race between the two - i.e., will the Vulcan be released (and cheaper) before I can afford the OQO. One way or the other, this warrants a new link on the ol' blog page...

The Surrealist

2005-03-09T18:36:00.000-05:00

I found this little gem by accident today while surfing around on random BlogSpot blogs. Check it out!

Eh?

2005-03-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure I'm convinced, but apparently there are enough Cannucks out there to warrant a site all about how "Canada Kicks Ass"...

The Nipple, or A Note on "Intuitive Interface Design"

2005-03-05T12:47:00.000-05:00

intuitive - spontaneously derived from or prompted by a natural tendency

Being a software engineer, interface design - in particular the creation of intuitive GUIs for computer applications - is a topic of interest for me. Most of the people that I hang out with frequently have heard, all or in part, my rant on what people consider "intuitive" with respect to application interfaces. Most of them are probably tired of hearing me spout off about it at this point; none of them are software engineers, and they don't feel quite so strongly about it.

At any rate, I recall reading somewhere once that "The nipple is the only intuitive design." I thought this to be a particularly sanguine remark. Babies are born with an instinct to suck, and the nipple is essentially made for that purpose. Thus, when taking the above definition literally, the nipple is one of the 2 or 3 truly intuitive interfaces. Continuing in this vein, it follows that there is no such thing as an intuitive interface for a computer application.

In the spirit of the word, however, let's expand the definition of "intuitive" to include anything that is fairly easy to figure out given a bit of time. This is where the frustrating part emerges. People who are not engineers or designers (read: management) make the fatal mistake of exclusively equating "intuitive" with "just like Windows". I can't tell you how difficult this maks my job sometimes. Yes, most of the people in the world who will be accessing a given application either use Windows or know how to use Windows features - this makes Windows-like application features fit into our loosened definition of "intuitive". The critical flaw comes about when thinking that this is the only way in which to design an application in a way such that people will be able to use it. To all of those people who think in this way, I've got news for you: Microsoft is not the be-all, end-all of interface design! Granted, they have quite a bit of experience, and in general they do thing fairly well. But for some things, there are just better ways.

I've got to get moving; got a 2 o'clock appointment. More on this later...

The Winds of Change

2005-03-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

Until last night, I'd been using Enlightenment as a desktop environment. I got "the itch" to change things up a bit, though, so I decided that I would give Xfce a shot. Thus far, I'm liking it a lot. Enlightenment has it beat in terms of slickness and innovative design, which goes a long way; however, despite having been around for 5 years, Enlightenment DR16 still doesn't handle everything correctly. Yes, yes, "Good Things Come..." and all that - but there comes a point at which a well-polished window manager That Just Works (tm) is a welcome port in a raging storm of bleeding-edge apps compiled from CVS repositories.

Granted, I just installed it, but I'm liking what I'm seeing thus far. For me, the primary reason that I haven't fled back to my beloved beautiful Enlightenment desktop is the amount of configurability available using Xfce. The desktop/WM can and should be one of the most configurable pieces of software that one runs - unlike some WMs I know. After all, a comfortable environment is a productive environment.

On a side note, my 2-day-long attempt to do a Stage 1 install of Gentoo on my laptop ended in miserable failure when the machine failed to boot. Solution: re-install Ubuntu. Granted, I could've probably gotten it to work eventually...but I don't have time for that level of tweakery at this point.

Pater Noster

2005-03-02T06:12:00.000-05:00

Being the product of Catholic school (second grade through high school), as well as a student of the Latin language for several years (7th & 8th grade, 101-104 in high school, and several college courses), I decided that I would try and recite the Latin "Our Father" from memory. The Pater Noster was something that was more or less drilled into my head for many years, so I didn't think it would give me any trouble. Below is the Pater Noster; the part that I had to look up is in red.

Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in temptationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.

Not bad, for someone who's been away from both the language and the faith for several years. The funny thing is, the part that I couldn't recall without help is the same part that we would mumble through in class; I think there are too damn many esses or something...

Distro Junkie

2005-02-28T18:18:00.000-05:00

I just went through a stack of spooled CDs containing burned ISO images of the various linux distributions that I've downloaded over the years. There were about 50 assorted CDs/DVDs on the spool in all; this made me realize that I am, in fact a, Distro Junkie - the type of person who impulsively downloads the latest version of any given distro, regardless of whether or not I actually intend to install it or not. In my defense, most of them were distributions that I've actually installed and tried out. Here's the short list (roughly in reverse cronologic order):

Ubuntu [Warty Warthog] (currently installed on both of my machines)
SUSE [9.1 Professional]
Fedora Core [1, 2, 3] (Note: FC3 was never fully installed)
Mandrake [9.2, 10.0] (These didn't last long with me...)
RedHat [7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, 9.0] (I was all about RedHat for a long time)

...and those that I downloaded without ever installing:

Gentoo [2004.3-r1] (recent; I actually intend to try this out soon)
Debian [Woody]
Slackware [10.0]

Hell, I even had Solaris 9.0 and FreeBSD 5.1 sitting in there! What distros have you tried out?

A Bit Steep...

2005-02-28T14:54:00.000-05:00

Google Mini is cool and all, but I wonder exactly what kind of a market there is for this sort of thing.

Personal Cluster

2005-02-28T11:35:00.000-05:00

For a while now, I've wanted to build my own cluster. My original inspiration came from this article about Glen Gardner's creation using Mini-ITX boards. Of course, immediately after reading it, I hit up PriceWatch and starting crunching some numbers...and of course, the eventual result was "Too expensive, no matter how ya slice it." Small single-machine numbers become large quickly when multiplying everything by 12 or 24. At any rate, unless I come into unexpected money soon or find a sponsor, it's unlikely that my scheme will come to fruition. Still, it's nice to dream...

First Thing's First

2005-02-28T10:54:00.000-05:00

I suppose a reasonable first thing to do would be to paraphrase some of the things that I had on my previous self-hosted blog. However, duplication of effort is not something that I'm interested in, so I'll just say that if you're interested in hosting your own blog, check out WordPress; excellent open-source software. That said, the only thing from the old blog that I do wish to give a repeat mention (perhaps in the hopes that some kind soul will float me the $$$ for it) is the OQO.

Simplicitas - The Beginning

2005-02-28T10:33:00.000-05:00

simplicitas -atis f. [simplicity; straightforwardness , honesty, candor].

Simplicity is something that I generally attempt to strive for, with the only exception being a penchant for complex technological gadgets that is usually unfulfilled due to a lack of funds. There is a time and place for complexity, but it is generally overrated.

At any rate, the purpose for this blog is as yet unclear. The reason I've started it is that hosting my own blog was beginning to become a bit of a hassle, mostly in terms of uptime (no static IP, killing everything when I install the latest distribution, etc.) So why not let someone else take care of it for me?

As for the sorts of things you're likely to see in this blog, it'll be mostly geek stuff. If you like /., you may very well like my blog. Enough of that...now back to work.