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Orb Designs Grafitti
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Email Brian Bilbrey |
Orb Grafitti is sometimes a conversation, sometimes a soapbox. I use Linux most often, and I write about that and related software frequently. I also have a day job working as a dogsbody for a small manufacturing firm here in the SF Bay Area. Also, Tom Syroid and I recently co-authored Caldera OpenLinux Secrets, unfortunately cancelled by the folks at $LARGE_PUBLISHER. I'm glad you've come to visit, and always happy to hear from you.
EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so, I'll pay attention to your wishes.
G'morning. I think I'll simply stop apologizing for not returning in the evening to write a bit more. Saying I'm sorry would also imply some level of commitment to not repeating the behaviour, but life and work intervene so often that I can't see any way to avoid it. I do like to come back and write more material in the evenings, here. Last night, I was writing, but not here. I did, however, make a lot of progress on the Tck/Tk tutorial I'm working on. So that's some good news, at least.
Yesterday morning was a bit of a hoot. We ended up going to Costco, Orchard Supply and Safeway, all in one run. Not too shabby. The only item of interest from the first stop is a new LaserJet 1100. I've been having a world of trouble with the little Canon inkjet, between bad ink cartridges and related clogging problems, to simple lack of readability and honestly, the thing is drop-dead slow-slow-slow. But it hasn't worked right in several months, and I've spent half a LaserJet in consumables in the last year. Time to bit the bullet. This one works like a champ under Linux, and I'm sure it'll be fine under Windows, if I ever boot into that partition again.
The stop at Orchard was to get some replacement Cherry tomatoes. The seedlings I planted were just too tender and tempting for whatever animal got hold of them, either to eat or line a nest with. So I got some slightly older, hardier plants yesterday (of a different variety). Additionally, I've strung a bit of bird netting around them to provide some protection over the next couple of weeks until they're as safe as all the other, larger plants clearly (as they remained untouched). Pictures tonight if I can manage it.
Finally, Safeway was the standard Sunday stock-up run. Veg, milk, bread, sandwich fixings ... The only bummer of yesterday was that while I strove and struggled with coming up with compact material on Tcl/Tk, and formatting it into the special XML format that IBM's tutorial builder uses, I missed virtually all of a Red Dwarf marathon on KTEH. Ah, well. Mostly episodes I've seen before.
It's going to be an interesting week, so hang in there with me. Until later, sometime. TTFN
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19:26 - Welcome back. Yeah, I got some snaps of the garden in before the light faded. I almost missed it, and used the flash to compensate - I was hard at work on the tutorial, when I looked up and noticed the light was fading. Above, it's all tomatoes and lettuce... the lettuce is making a stellar start. We're going to have to figure out how to cull those down before too long, and I'll also probably have to put up some bird-netting around those tomorrow or the next day, or that'll be history. Below, to the left, we have the two new sets of Cherry Tomatoes, as I discussed yesterday. Something ate (or stole) the small plants that I put in a week ago. To the right are Marcia's herbs.
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Rolling blackouts are back with a vengence - the KGO, the local ABC affilliate, was just running the news with what seemed like flashlights and a Steadi-Cam from the upstairs newsroom. Both my place of business and our apartment are in PG&E's Outage Zone 50, which is reserved for those circuits that have special services on them: Police, Hospitals and the like. In both cases, it's the proximity of a firestation that keeps us powered when the traffic signals, homes and shopping malls go dark all around. It is gonna be a long hairy summer in the Golden State, folks.
Now it's back to work for me, after a brief bite to eat. G'night.
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We're getting an early start this morning, to get Marcia and her bike to work, and to fuel up the Benz. Marcia's going to ride home from work tonight, instead of coming home, then riding in a big circle. Makes sense to me.
Good morning. I did manage finally to get some Patio Farm© snaps up last night, in between stints at this tutorial. One of the real problems with this XML format is that its a bit... tricky, and it's parsing behaviour doesn't quite match the documentation. Close, though. Close enough that I can compensate for it by learning what's right by fixing the "errors" in the content I've already writtten, then taking what I learn from that exercise and documenting it in my semi-automated tutorial building menu I've tacked into Bluefish 0.6.
Now I've got to tackle some 50 overnight messages, from several mailing lists and the Daynotes backchannel. Hope that you all have a lovely day, catch you tonight.
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17:55 - BIG IMAGE WARNING - that desktop shot is 165K, and it's shrunken from the 1280x1024 that I run on the 19" tube. What's going on here is a display of the configurability of the latest iteration of the Bluefish HTML editor. As previously noted, I have a whole suite of custom XML tags that need to be just perfect for the IBM Toot-O-Matic (yeah, I know, but it ain't my name for their program) Tutorial builder program. I can specify which text goes before the cursor (or highlighted text) and which goes after. Additionally, I can specify up to 10 variables that are used to fill in the blanks in each tag.
The example shown in the dialog box (upper left in the screen shot) is of the main tutorial tag, which has lots of variables to pay mind to. In use, a dialog box pops up with a field for each variable, and the prompts as shown. There are a couple of kickers to using the Custom menu editing feature of Bluefish. Do not exit that dialog by any button other than OK, or all of your changes are lost. Secondly, select Options --> Save Config to preserve your changes, otherwise your changes are likewise lost. Of course, neither of these event happened to me on separate occasions after I'd been editing menus for over 1/2 hour each time. Nah, nope. I actually recommend correctly exiting the "Bluefish Config - Custom Menu" dialog every two or three items, and saving the changes.
One last gotcha that can be initially annoying is that the items appear in the menu in their order of creation. Period. No GUI tool to reorder the menu items if you've put them in the wrong order. There's a way to cheat, by putting them all in, then selecting each item in the order you'd like them to appear and deleting the original item, but that's a bit cumbersome. Time to drop down to the actual configuration file, ~/.bluefish/rcfile. Here's a short excerpt:
... custom_menu_ccs: /Toot-O-Matic/Formatting/Code:<code>:</code>:0: custom_menu_ccs: /Toot-O-Matic/Formatting/List Item:<li>:</li>:0: custom_menu_ccs: /Toot-O-Matic/Formatting/Unordered List:<ul>:\n</ul>:0: custom_menu_ccs: /Toot-O-Matic/Formatting/Ordered List:<ol>:\n</ol>:0: custom_menu_ccs: /Toot-O-Matic/Formatting/Paragraph:<p>:</p>:0: custom_menu_ccs: /Toot-O-Matic/Formatting/Line Break:<br />::0: custom_menu_ccs: /Toot-O-Matic/Formatting/Italic:<i>:</i>:0: custom_menu_ccs: /Toot-O-Matic/Formatting/Bold:<b>:</b>:0: ...
Sure looks easy to not only reorder menu items from here, but indeed to create new ones without the pointy-clicky interface in the way (which can be annoying when there are lots of boxes to be filled in, only to create one-liners like above. And in fact it is easy, but as always when mucking about with a config file, first create a backup (in this case I typed mv rcfile rcfile.old.010320.01 - versioning is a Good Thing [tm] )
So what is it - Everyone honk your horn outside my office window in an attempt to piss me off day? I'll borrow an RPG or five from Thompson, and we'll see who's laughing afterwards. No, not the cars with people in 'em. It's not their fault they're morons. The road in front of them. Grenades are the next best thing to the Acme Instant Hole [tm], and make mighty nice quicky potholes...
Now I have other things to tend to, from building a supper for two, to mucking about a bit with SuSE 7.1 on Gryphon (Tom knows I don't give up - I beat'm into submission, one way or t'other), and writing some more of this tutorial. Y'all have a nice evening. G'night.
"Hullo." as Pooh said, on more than one occasion. I've got SuSE 7.1 successfully running on Gryphon, as of last night. There were a few hitchs, but nothing catastrophic like the Grinch install. I'm now reasonably certain that the failure on Grinch was the result of using the Sax (SuSE X Window configuration tool for X 3.3.x) instead of Sax2, which is tasked for X 4.x. However, in that case, leaving the system with a damaged partition requiring reinstallation was a bit over the top. Absolutely reminded me of the Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 eServer product, which could not be used to re-partition a hard drive with data that you wanted to keep, because it destroyed the partition table. A very not-good thing, either.
Getting a good start on the day, and it's liable to be an eventful one. I have testing to do with Jack on the latest prototypes for a new Cat5E patch module - now we're varying the ratios of capacitance to inductance in the jack compensation. This'll be a stellar product once it's done! Additionally, I am going to call and find out why we don't have the truck back yet. This looks like fun, too. Marcia's already lining up dealerships for trading in this beast. I know, new engine and all that, but she doesn't trust it anymore, and I can't blame her.
Then I have an afternoon errand to take care of, after which I'll be here this evening, banging away at the tutorial writing gig. Some days my eyes just cross of their own accord, but I keep on sloggin through. One foot in front of the other gets me by, or better.
Meantime, y'all take care of each other and those you love, watch out for bicylists (two of 'm have been run down around here recently), and I'll see you later.
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Good morning. The latest truck news is that the engine, which has been wending its way across country from Indiana (of all places), is now in Sacramento. The Duane informs me that this means the engine should be here tonight (I've heard that one before, but we'll see). This means that it's likely to be Monday before we see our truck again. Wheeee-hoo.
Meantime, Marcia's not waiting for it anymore - she's gone already, riding her bike to work. But then, that's a six to seven mile trek, not the 22 or so direct that mine is (including freeways that I couldn't ride on. My guess is that a ride to work for me would be 25 to 30 miles, depending on route. Probably the safe way for me would be to ride up to the Dumbarton Bridge in Menlo Park, then across and into Newark that way, instead of across at this level, then north. Mmmm. Not this week, let me tell you!
The book's listing on Amazon has changed from "...currently on back order..." to "...out of print.". I suppose in a real sense, that's true, since the book is completed, just not in print. A subtle point, but one that doesn't totally escape me <g>. Anyway, it was an interesting and learning experience, like virtually everything else I do. If I learn something, it isn't a loss. (Now see!!! Acceptance! Isn't that the last stage? <g>).
On the SuSE 7.1 front, I've got just about everything working right. SaX2 is the right program for the job apparently (at least for adjusting the video parameters). However, I didn't even need to approach that utility on Gryphon, since X 4.0.2 came up perfect the first time. Last night I updated to KDE 2.1, and I want to build a custom kernel that has all the bits I want in it and no more, so that's on for this weekend. I did an stock install, rather than a kitchen sink, and there are bits that I use missing yet, as well. So I've got some spelunking on the CD-ROMs yet to do. Finally, I have yet to get the CD burner working. Don't know why not, but since I've got paid support, I might as well ask, eh?
Also, between now and Sunday night, I plan on writing up to about the 3/4 point on the IBM Tcl/Tk tutorial. That leaves me all of next week to finish and tune. Then I can send the draft out for review, fixes and review again before the 4/9 due date.
I suppose I'd better organize myself for work. Still a lunch to assemble, and coffee to heat. Y'all have a lovely day!
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No Yippee-Skippee's here, no siree! Just a sigh of blessed relief as this week wraps to a close. Got a couple of things accomplished last night. First, I flashed the latest kernel and root disk from Agenda Computing onto Galileo the VR3d, and mucked about a bit until I got the proper bits working - turns out I had to run a restore defaults cycle to take full advantage of the features and applications. No one had actually said that was the solution, but I figger'd that was a likely suspect - the filesystem contained lots of remnants from the previous flash and restore cycle, including some changes I made myself. So I backed up the little data I currently have on the box and voila, everything works.
I have a much greater appreciation for the work of Henny Youngman and Rodney Dangerfield now. Writing this Tcl/Tk tutorial is challenging. I'm slogging my way through, and it'll be good, right and on time, but... This is OK, I like challenging. However, it turns out the trick is to write useful example code in the space-limited Tutorial HTML pane format that IBM requires. I have perhaps 20 lines, 25 to 35 characters wide, in which to write the example that is discussed in the text of the pane. That in itself might not be a problem, but space constraints dictate that I cover as much material, as quickly as possible, so I am trying to demonstrate four to seven language features in a single code fragment that size, coherently (rather than just a bunch of unrelated command lines that read like a Nutshell (tm) reference). It's interesting, actually. Why Youngman and Dangerfield? It feels a lot like writing one-liners. Not much time for a setup, have to catch the audience and make'm laugh (or rather, teach them something) in a very short space. That's where the need for a coherent set of examples comes in.
In other news, Mir's down, Russia is playing tit-for-tat with the diplomat (read gentleman spy) ejection game, and another young nutcase brought a gun to a school and opened fire. What people fail to realize is that you can't stop nutcases by making more rules, more laws, more restrictions. Fundamentally, these only have the effect of restricting the freedoms of those who never were in line to shoot up a school (or any other nutty anti-social thing). People for whom the rules carry no meaning aren't affected by gun control laws, they can figure out how to evade metal detectors, they can get hold of weapons that they aren't supposed to be able to. And that last will be true whether or not the government removes constitutionally legal weapons from the hands and homes of law-abiding citizens. Ah, sigh. There's a story from the past bubbling up, but I haven't time now. Later, later.
Time to hit the road! See y'all on the rebound. Oh, and Lose, Stanford, Lose!!!
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Good morning. Wow, am I ever glad that week's over. High stress from every professional angle in existance. Fortunately, I have my lovely Marcia to distract me, and what's left of my sanity to console me. The worst of it is that stinking Blazer. It will have been in the shop for 6 weeks (count'm) as of Monday. It's not their fault, really, but their customer service really truly stinks. They don't call with updates after promising they will. To me, that also means that they aren't proactive in chasing down the faults in the process that are preventing the truck's parts from getting here, or whatever. I am treading lightly, because they do have our property in pieces in their service bays right now. I'll save the real rant for after I get the beast back. Jerks! I got stuck on hold for over 1/2 half hour yesterday, and went down there for a little face time to let them become aware of my displeasure over their lack of concern. Feh!
When I got home, I was here early, to write and work on the Tcl/Tk tutorial, but was so ... disturbed by the situation that I took some time to garden, instead. Much more calming and sane, given my state of mind. The lettuce is coming up nicely, meaning that the birds were starting to have a field day with the stuff. So I strung up some netting around those pots. That'll do for the time being.
Yesterday evening, we took the night off, and went out to supper. The restaurant is called Tarragon, down in Murphy Square in Sunnyvale (no, Bob, not Sunnydale - the undead do not walk here, they all commute in
Today is a heads-down writing day for me, as Marcia heads out to do girl-stuff - nails, hair, hotwax, painful stuff like that. I guess I'd better get into another cup of coffee and get to work. Later.
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Waiting is. I've got Bind 9.1.0 up and running happily on Grendel, but I have other issues - I probably need to set up PTR records for my internal machines. But for now, it's good enough. I had some firewall configration bits to setup, and router bits to match up to that to make this all work right, and I did this late in the evening yesterday, after puzzling my way through a few Tcl features that I didn't fully understand (I do now, though - definitely don't separate parameters in a procedure with commas, that last would appear as a parm named "commas," which makes for lots of interesting failures later, like $commas not a valid variable... well, of course it is @#%&^@) Anyway, a little more reading and I saw a definition that permitted me to see NO commas. I think I put them in on autopilot (like virtually every other language I know).
Today I did a couple of edits to bring my local systems online with the new nameserver, asked Greg Lincoln a question or two, then fired up Bluefish to put up this post. On tap for today, a Costco run, then more Tcl/Tk writing. I suppose I'd better start getting ready. TTFN.
15:45 - Welcome back! Yup. There's already flowers on the tomatoes (well, at least on one of them, heh). Along with everything else we got done yesterday, I've replanted Sweet Basil in the patio farm, since the first bits that we put in one of the hanging herb planters had failed ... rather miserably. What Marcia doesn't know yet is that her Basil seed is also going to yield fruit (or leaves, as it were), since I see the first little guys poking their heads above the dirt today. We may have lots and lots of Basil before this summer's over. All the other plants are doing well, even the lettuce once I got bird netting around them. One was absolutely ransacked on Thursday, leaving me with no choice but to fence it off until they get bigger. Here's some more pictures of the garden, which is going strong:
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Yeah, I know, the Cherry Tomatoes aren't doing so hot, but then they really seem to thrive as the heat comes up, and it hasn't yet. I'm looking for more progress in the next month.
On the DNS front, everything seems to be refreshing and name serving and all that muck quite nicely. We're waiting for Matt to come online with his stuff, then everyone's backed up three ways from Sunday (oh, right, that's today, huh?). Of course, if the Primary DNS is down, then the chances are that it's a connectivity problem which will prevent the site from resolving. However, the backups will allow the mail servers to do their jobs regardless, and that's a good thing.
I've finished a major section of the tutorial, and am about to dive headlong into the next while I still have my game face working. Marcia has the Oscars to amuse herself with until late this evening. Hope you have a fun day, too! Later!
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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
All Content Copyright © 1999-2001 Brian P. Bilbrey.