January 4th, 2009
My brother-in-law John (on the right on the album cover) plays bass in a band - Monkeytin - who released their new album Brave
last October, but they recently announced that it was now available on iTunes. Being the “freedom-hating” person I am (Christmas saw the household iPod count rise to 4, plus various Apple related accessories, and I’m seriously considering a Shuffle for running and waiting to see if the Mac Mini is updated at MacWorld this week) I duly checked it out and there it was: £6.32 for the full album, or 79p per track. It was also nice to see that they were only available as iTunes Plus (256kb AAC and DRM free).
Before I bought the album I decided to check out Amazon, and I was pleased to see that it’s also availble through their MP3 download service from both the UK and US
stores. This time the album was £4.99 or 69p per track.
Since I’ve never tried Amazon’s download service (and I’m a cheapskate!) I decided to go with them. A brief download/install of their helper application, the purchase of the album and subsequent download later and all was good. Very impressed, both with the price and the service. I’ll be using them again.
Album review coming soon.
Tags: amazon, Apple, brave, itunes, Listening, monkeytin, music
Posted in Listening, Personal | No Comments »
December 15th, 2008
Upgraded to Wordpress 2.7. Completely painless upgrade process. EOM.
Tags: wordpress
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
October 30th, 2008
It’s official - it’s out:
= 14:07:11 -!- mode/#ubuntu-release-party [+o slangasek] by ChanServ
= 14:09:03 <@slangasek> good morning, everyone! I’m pleased to announce that our menagerie of Ubuntu releases has a new member today
= 14:09:28 <@slangasek> the Ibex you’ve all been waiting for has capered its way over the gate - Ubuntu 8.10 is now out
Congratulations to all of the Ubuntu team.
Head on over to http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/8.10/ and grab your copy. Oh, and don’t forget to seed!
Tags: 8.10, intrepid ibex, ubuntu
Posted in Linux, ubuntu | 1 Comment »
October 29th, 2008
I’m not sure what Dustin has done to his feed but a bunch of his old posts showed up again in Google Reader this morning. His post “What’s in my Encrypted ~/Private directory?” struck a chord since I’ve only just set mine up, so I thought I’d breathe some life into his idea of making it into a meme.
Here’s what’s in mine:
dave@treebeard:~/Private$ ls -alF
total 44
drwx------ 11 dave dave 4096 2008-10-29 15:07 ./
drwxr-xr-x 81 dave dave 4096 2008-10-29 15:07 ../
drwxr-xr-x 14 dave dave 4096 2008-10-29 14:59 .claws-mail/
drwxr-xr-x 13 dave dave 4096 2008-10-27 10:09 Documents/
drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 4096 2008-10-15 11:03 .irssi/
drwxr-xr-x 8 dave dave 4096 2008-10-03 13:27 .mozilla/
drwxr-xr-x 11 dave dave 4096 2008-10-29 13:50 .opera/
drwxr-xr-x 6 dave dave 4096 2008-10-16 10:43 .purple/
drwxr-xr-x 2 dave dave 4096 2008-10-17 11:59 .ssh/
drwxr-xr-x 7 dave dave 4096 2008-10-22 20:16 .tomboy/
Just the usual culprits: documents, e-mail and anything that might have passwords/identity information in it.
So what’s in yours?
Tags: encryption, meme, private, ubuntu
Posted in ubuntu | No Comments »
October 26th, 2008
In other, non-technical related, news…
Baking
For the past week I’ve been re-discovering the joys of baking. Numerous loaves of bread have baked and eaten (it’s very difficult to let warm bread go untouched), Flapjack has been enjoyed (although I need to get the quantities right - both batches have had Red Bull style effects!), and yesterday saw Schwuklet #2 and I baking a batch of 50-odd chocolate chip cookies. Currently only 1 remains…
Wooden Spoons
Earlier this year I was given a crook knife (mine happens to be a double-sided one) in exchange for a paracord watch strap. At the time I had a quick go with it and made something that resembled a spoon, but I wasn’t really that happy with - in particular the bowl was far too…chunky.
Yesterday (prior to baking the cookies) whilst laying a fire a piece of wood caught my eye as being perfect for whittling a (slightly short) spoon. I roughed out the shape using my mora and dug out the crook knife to make the bowl, and I’m very pleased with the result. As said, the handle is quite short, so it will be more of an “eater” as opposed to a “stirrer”. I need to sand and oil it, then sort out some pictures.
Tags: baking, bread, Bushcraft, carving, chocolate chip cookies, cookies, crook knife, flapjack, mora, spoon, whittling
Posted in Bushcraft, Personal | 1 Comment »
October 26th, 2008
Netbooks
I’ve been thinking about getting a netbook since I first laid eyes on the Eee PC, and with the next UDS fast approaching the thought of lugging my current laptop (I’ll give you a clue as to why - it’s called Treebeard for a reason) has moved me from just thinking about it to deciding which one will become “my precious” soon. (Sorry - I’ve been watching the extended Lord of the Rings box set.)
Current favourites are:
- Dell Mini 9 - This one scores bonus points for coming with Ubuntu pre-installed, but I fail to see why paying an extra £30 for the Microsoft Windows version also scores you an additional 8GB storage and a better webcam
- Asus Eee PC 900 - Eee PC may be the original, but is it the best? On the good side lots of people have them, so support is good, and there’s a dedicated Ubuntu community. On the bad side I find their styling a little… bland
- Acer Apsire One - Good points: cheap (see below), nice styling. Bad points: Not 100% with Ubuntu (even Intrepid), cringeworthy advert
I was this close to picking up an Aspire One (this morning after calling into PC World on the way back from fixing my mother’s wireless card. They have the A110AB in store for £179.99 - very, very tempting if it wasn’t for the incompatibilities listed on the Ubuntu wiki.
Ignorance
Unsurprisingly the netbook “aisle” (more of a large shelf really) was very popular, with a number of families looking at the various offerings, and one guy testing his phone with an Eee PC to see if mobile internet worked (it did, but he was testing on a Microsoft Windows model).
There were various conversations about which make/model was best and whether they should go for the Linux or Microsoft Windows version, and - of course - I couldn’t help being drawn into these. Fortunately the Schwuklets were kept busy with Frozen Bubble on one of the display Eee PCs.
Nuggets of wisdom being imparted from the PC World staff to potential purchasers:
- Linux is for basic users
- Microsoft Windows is more advanced than Linux
- Linux is “sort of” compatible with Microsoft Windows, but not vice versa (OK, this is “sort of” true, but they put it in such a way as to steer the customers towards Microsoft)
- If their kids get used to Linux, they will have trouble using Microsoft Windows
- If you buy a Linux model, you can install Microsoft Windows on it provided you have your license key. They even offered to do this for a fee
Whilst the last one might be true, it would presumably only apply to bought copies of Microsoft Windows - I’m almost certain OEM licenses are non-transferable, and I’d be surprised if any were (especially with the activation rigmarole). This seems particularly bad advice to be giving to people, especially the sort who are shopping in PC World in the first place, as they have probably never bought an operating system in their life!
It was disappointing to see most of the interest in the Linux models were purely based on price and usually followed up with the inevitable “can I get Microsoft on it?”. For the vast majority of people buying these types of devices Linux will more than meet their requirements, but it seems like we have a ways to go on convincing people of that.
The fun part was when I was getting involved in these discussions, one of the “assistants” had the cheek to ask “what makes [me] such an expert?”. If only PC World still had a decent section of books…
Note to self: I must not bait staff in computer shops. I must not bait staff in computer shops. I must not…
Tags: acer, asus, dell, Linux, netbook, pc world, ubuntu
Posted in Linux, ubuntu | 20 Comments »
October 10th, 2008
Around this time yesterday I was most of the way through upgrading my main laptop to Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex).
So far, everything seems to be working as well as if not better than before, with a couple of exceptions.
The good
Besides the obvious improvements, a couple of things stand out for me so far:
- Suspend/hibernate “just works” for me now. This always used to be a problem, but not any more
- I love the NewHuman theme (but see “The bad”)
The bad
- Network Manager - although greatly improved - will enable both wired and wireless simultaneously (good I hear you say), but the icon only shows the wired status with no indication of the wireless signal strength. Confused the hell out of me earlier when I thought my ADSL connection was playing up, but in fact was connected to a very weak wireless connection
- Claws is my MUA of choice because of it’s superior IMAP handling, but when combined with the NewHuman theme is unusable thanks for the pale, pale grey text on a white background in folder/message views
- The same text color problem afflicts Firefox, particularly when using Wordpress (like I am to write this post!)
The last two correspond to bug #243957, but I haven’t found (or reported) the right bug for Network Manager yet and #262152 seems like the right candidate for my Network Manager problems.
Overall I’m more than happy with Intrepid, and have had no stability problems either.
Tags: 8.10, claws, intrepid ibex, ubuntu
Posted in Linux, ubuntu | 1 Comment »
October 5th, 2008
Monday October 6th 2008 is the second Ubuntu Testing Day where we will be focusing on testing of upgrades of 8.04 (Hardy Heron) to 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex).
What is a testing day?
The Ubuntu Testing day is a special day where the Ubuntu Community comes together with a shared goal of testing an specific set of ISO images (Alpha, Beta, RC, Gold or Point releases). Taking the idea from the Ubuntu Bug Day, we want to apply the same concepts to ISO testing.
Who can join in?
Everyone. You don’t need to be a developer. You don’t need to know how to code. Everyone is welcome. If you don’t know how to help, then just stop on by and we’ll explain everything to you. In fact, one of the objectives of the Testing Day is to help people willing to start testing Ubuntu to make it better.
How to join in?
Come to #ubuntu-testing on freenode IRC. We will be there all day and night helping to resolve any testing queries you might have. Normal testing activity takes place in #ubuntu-testing at other times also.
What we will be testing?
This time we will be focusing on testing distribution upgrades. If you want to upgrade your Hardy system (*buntu 8.04) to Intrepid (*buntu 8.10) this is a great way to help on your way.
Also, my colleague Marc Tardif (cr3) will be giving a session at the #ubuntu-classroom IRC channel at 15:00 UTC about the testing infrastructure, giving an overview on the tools available to make Ubuntu testing easier and more fun.
Please, join us tomorrow and help make Ubuntu even better!
Tags: 8.04, 8.10, hardy heron, intrepid ibex, testing day, ubuntu, ubuntu-qa
Posted in Linux, ubuntu | 1 Comment »