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Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.. |
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April 22, 2001 - Updates at 0630
Good morning. Well met, my friends. After a long weekend spent testing WineX 2.0 with the able assistance of Diablo II: LOD, I can say that other than sound performance (perhaps an integration problem?) with the ALSA drivers, this is pretty solid software. Greg, I think, tested with more games than I've even heard of. However, we also included network play in our testing, just for completeness's sake.
With that out of the way, it's time to jump back into job hunting. I need to look at that resume again. A number of people made the thoroughly valid point that I need to write to my market properly. That market is NOT the guy or gal I'd end up working for, but the HR person who performs first tier culling. Mmmmm. On the gripping hand, I have a reasonably firm offer for a job that's really perfect for my skills and growth path. Unfortunately, that's a couple of months away. I've got to decide what to do, or I'll end up watching Oprah...
I'll treat this like fishing, I think. I'll bait the hook properly for the fish I need to catch (H.R. Flackus), throw the line in the water, and pretend I don't care whether there's a bite or not. I'll continue skills-tuning, working on PHP and the like. I'll remain available for work, and see what happens.
Well, my stomach isn't settled on this yet, but that might just be the coffee. I'll ruminate on it, and see where it takes me. Thanks for bearing with me through this. See you later!
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April 23, 2002 - Updates at 0657
Good morning. The garden's going well. The carrots are coming up, the beans are exploding upwards, and the tomatoes are simply amazing. I should have visible fruit set already on the latter, but haven't looked too closely yet. Lots of flowers, though.
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I spent a medium part of my day yesterday, and a big hunk of my energy and back, on prepping a new planting bed. Also I replanted our herb boxes, and replaced a flower that I got Marcia at Valentines that succumbed to something fungal followed by a deluge of aphids.
While I was doing all this work, Sally was outside with me. Now normally she's what you might call a dedicated indoor napping dog. But she came outside, and slept on the lawn for quite a while, during which time I did the pot planting. When I brought out some tools, the green recycling can, and moved to the end of the garden, she decided that it was time to be somewhat safer. So she wandered onto the concrete patio pad, and laid down ... then hopped right back up again -- it was just too hot. So she went over against the house, and curled up underneath one of our planting tables. There was just barely not enough room, but she coped.
At right you can see the bed at the end of the yard, in its before state. When I did all the yard work last year, by the time I got to that end of the yard, I just ran out of steam. I ended up doing very little soil prep there. I stuck in a row of four Japanese Boxwoods at the back, and put three little Chrysanthemums up front. It was ugly, but I figured to throw down some chipped bark there one day soon after. However, the 'Mums just plain took off. They overwhelmed the poor little Boxwoods, and really cleaned up that end of the yard.
However, I want more planting space for Zucchini, especially since the potted ones don't appear too healthy. So I ripped out the Chrysanthemums, dug up and reserved the Boxwoods, and started turning and amending the soil with a couple of different additives to lighten it up and provide a little more fertile environment. The soil is naturally fairly heavy, with a large clay component. There's also lots of small rocks in it, at that end of the yard. So in the process of amending and turning, I raked the rocks out several timed, pitching them up against the fence. That'll provide an addition to slight decorative border already provided by the larger stones. Then I replanted the boxwoods in a short row along one end. I'll get new plants to put in today or tomorrow.
I'm currently having another look at the Linux distribution formerly known as Redmond Linux. Published by a company called Lycoris (possibly rebranded???), they have some nice tools for interoperating with an established MS network, and a look that's designed to appeal to the migrating Windows user. I'll have a writeup on this available soon, here or elsewhere.
Now to get on with my day. You have a good one, too!
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April 24, 2002 - Updates at 0730
Good morning, I guess. I am turned 41, about an hour and 15 minutes ago. How much is that like milk left in the 'fridge way past its expiration date? Chunky, crusty, and more than a bit sour. Sounds like an apt description. Oh, BTW, I hate birthdays. I'm pretty sure it's genetic, although it might be nurture too, since my father's attitude about the passing years was to ignore them. We note his birthday at our peril. Anyway, there, that's out of the way for another year.
Another prominent Daynoter has given up on learning Linux this time around. I understand his reasoning - His computing environment is a money machine, and while he spends the time to learn a new operating paradigm, and pick up the quirks of a whole new set of applications, he's not earning. Originally I thought that it was going to be a slow transition, with machines side by side, using one, learning on the other. Instead it became a plunge into the deep end, a bit of thrashing around in the unseasonably cold waters, and a leap out of the pool, shivering into a familiar towel.
This, of course, is what Microsoft is really counting on. People have a great degree of familiarity with the Microsoft way of doing things, with their generally unified interface, and with the hoops and fences and workarounds neccessary to get the job done. It's not that Microsoft produces bad software, much of it is quite good. But the company itself is predatory - it has to be. The corporate rule of capitalism is grow or die. But if all the applications, and the operating system, are good enough, then you only are selling to new users. Upgrades, regular upgrades are the revenue stream to be coveted.
Now, you don't need to upgrade... but there are security problems, and Microsoft isn't exactly motivated to produce security updates for software that they have a newer (and more revenue producing) version of. Again, note that this doesn't make them BAD, they are playing the game by the generally agreed upon rules. But back to my main theme...
Any new OS and suite of applications is going to be hard to learn. There's a long learning curve for Linux, for the desktop paradigm, for each application. Well, not as "long" as learning a spreadsheet to begin with, or trying to understand all the features of a modern word processor. However, there are habits to unlearn, key combinations change, where features might be found in the menus are/can be different - it's not a walk in the park.
So you choose. And the choice is purest guesswork. Remember the Microsoft tagline question of a few years ago: Where do you want to go today? They don't care WHERE you want to go, as long as you continue to buy and upgrade and buy and upgrade. You are happy today with Win2K, and Office2K. It doesn't have that nasty product activation scheme, it's reasonably secure, and so on. Good. Microsoft is going to change the file formats for it's applications, and those won't be readable by the Office2K apps. You know it. I know it. Remember the motto says Grow or Die!
The mistake that people make is to think that maybe it'll be better, or easier, in a year. Um, nope. You have to learn all the new stuff, still. That's all still in the future for you. And migrating your data out of MS applications will still be a pain in the ass. So, you try something hard today, and determine that you don't have the time and energy to learn it now. OK. But please be aware that it'll still be hard in a year, you still have the quirks and habits of an MS mindset to unlearn, then the Linux tools to pick up on.
I worked with both side by side for a long, long time. For most of the last 5 years, I've run Linux nearly exclusively at home (except for gaming, and Word for the book), and a mixed Linux/Windows experience at work. At this point, in the applications arena, I am equally comfortable in both environments. For the underlying OS, I prefer Linux all day and all night. And there are features, like X cut and paste (where I need no keystrokes or menu picks to highlight and paste most of the time) that win over MS functionality hands down.
When you decide it's time to learn Linux and it's associated tools, utilities and applications again, I'll still be here, OK?
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April 25, 2002 - Updates at 0700 and
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Good morning.Looking back, it wasn't a bad day. Yes, John, I know that I share a birthday with Shirley. I've always been so ... proud </sarcasm>. I took the late afternoon and evening off yesterday (usually I'm writing something, or tinkering). We went out to supper at Casa Lupé, our favorite Mexican cuisine stop, where Marcia had a chicken enchilada, I had dos burritos carnitas, and we both ate enough chips and salsa to refloat the Titanic. Yummy stuff. Coming home, we relaxed out on the patio for a bit, reading and listening to classical music, then inside for how-to night on KTEH (one of our three local PBS stations). A very nice, relaxing evening.
I have some mail with and about Bob and his recent Linux adventures, but I'm now decided to drop the matter. How you compute is your choice. Bob has strong and compelling reasons for his decision, and I cannot fault him, although I choose to disagree. I like living in a place where we're allowed to disagree (although, for how much longer?). My choices are clear, and public, as are his. And we all know that in order to accomplish some tasks, I still fire up Windows, although I haven't in a couple of months now. When I help out $PRIOR_EMPLOYER, I ssh into the office, then tunnel a VNC session to one of the three machines I've setup for the purpose, two workstations and the main NT server. Tools are things to get the job done, and from that perspective, the right tool is the one that lets me get the job done quickly and productively, so that I can go back to what I enjoy. That is, enlarging the Linux side of my toolbox, stretching (or breaking out of) the envelope where I can.
I didn't sleep well last night, and there's still a lot of sand behind my eyeballs. I'll cut this short as a result, for which you should be grateful. After all, you don't want me to descend further into incoherence. Heh. Have a lovely day!
1930 - Syroid alert! I meant to do this earlier, but got hung up with a project, then Marcia's MRI... Tom's offline until sometime tomorrow. The DSL cutover to the new house, the one that was supposed to be seamless, wasn't. He went dark today, and the line at the new house won't light until tomorrow sometime. Meantime, if you're looking for something written by Tom, check out his new Samba as PDC article up at IBM DevWorks. Even before the DSL mishap, he's been busy integrating LDAP with something or other, and you'll be hearing about that before too long. Now for my supper! G'night.
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April 26, 2002 - Updates at 0700
Syroid update (repeat) Tom's offline until today, theoretically. The DSL cutover to the new house, the one that was supposed to be seamless, wasn't. He went dark yesterday afternoon, and the line at the new house won't light until today sometime. Meantime, if you're looking for something written by Tom, check out his new Samba as PDC article up at IBM DevWorks.
Good morning. Marcia's MRI went alright last evening, and now we wait until the second of May for the doctor to tell us that surgery is required to repair the torn meniscus in her left knee. I'm continuing to look for work, including some interesting open positions at PDI/Dreamworks. Wouldn't that just be too cool.
Short shrift, I know, but I'd best be about it. Before I go, I do want to share something with you. I've written about Dana Blankenhorn before - among other things he writes a screed called This Week's Clue. His primary focus is on telecoms and e-commerce, but he tackles lots of stuff and writes well. You can subscribe to the newsletter from the top of his page I linked up there. I read it every Friday - here's an excerpt from today:
Despite all the evil that business and government can do, separately or together, remember always that you hold the ultimate power. You control the horizontal, you control the vertical. You control your wallet, you control your mind, you control your ballot. Don't let the powerful forget that. Use your power every day, and eventually the strong will be forced to knuckle-under.
I'll leave you with that thought. Have a great day!
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April 27, 2002 - Updates at 0830
Good morning. I'd imagine that right about now, Tom isn't too pleased with his connectivity non-provider. I'll give him a jingle later today and find out what's going on and give you an update. Other than that, I have little to report. I put NetBSD on Gryphon yesterday, and since I've not used that before, I'm muddling my way through slowly. More as I learn more.
Meanwhile, it's garage sale Saturday here in Sunnyvale, and Marcia's on a mission. I've gotta go, too. My gig is bearer beast. Ooops. I'm getting paged. I'd best go. Seeya!
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April 28, 2002 - Updates at 0830
Good morning. I've been up and at it for a while, actually. I've done some cleaning and organizing in the kitchen, built a pot of structural caffeine, checked and dealt with the usual light Sunday morning email load, and worked out a couple of details with Greg on the new project. Whoops! I'd best go get some of that coffee for myself, or you'll be able to experience the effects of forehead typing for your self. brb...
Okay. Greg and I are <image of fingertips held just millikrinks apart> just that far from pulling the drapes back on our newest project. Please stay tuned: I imagine that, barring unforeseen circumstance, we'll have the announcement up tomorrow.
Today, we're taking Sally over to see Laddie. Then together with Roger and Myrna, we'll take the mutts over to a dog park to let them fly free for a while. It should be interesting, as Sally hasn't had much in the way of off-leash time, out in the world, since we got her. Pictures tomorrow (or more likely tonight) on Sally's page.
Yeah, Tom's site and others that he hosts still aren't up. My guess: The telco didn't do it's job right. I called last night and spoke to Leah for a while. The move apparently has gone quite well, except for the connectivity thing. They're fully into the new house, and doing the final cleanup on the old place today. Tom was in the middle of something when I called, so I didn't get the skinny on what went wrong and when he'll be online again. Soon, we all hope.
I've got more fine manual reading to do on NetBSD before I can comment on it coherently. I do have X up and running, using Fluxbox as a window manager, and I got Galeon running last night too. That last is a bit of a test, because it requires big hunks of Gnome and all of Mozilla to run right. It does. Woo hoo.
That's all I've got for you at the moment. Take care, see you soon.
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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 © 1999-2002 Brian P. Bilbrey.
