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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 29, 2001 - Updates at 0800
Good morning. That's right, it's ready. The project that Greg and I have put together is called LinuxMuse, and we're finally pleased to invite you in. News that we think is interesting. Focused articles ranging from application and distribution reviews, to setup and how-to works where we try to improve the Fine Manual that you need to read, and opinion pieces. We've got a couple of articles up, more in the editorial mill. Of course, there's also message boards for feedback and conversation. Welcome.
We had a busy weekend, putting finishing touches on the CSS code that formats our site for most viewers. The only hitch should be Netscape 4.x browsers, which know jack-all about cascading stylesheets. However, we're working on a separate implementation for older browsers - it's just not there yet. Still, all the data is there, just not as nicely formatted. And content is, after all, King, right?
Of course, that isn't all that went on this weekend. Myrna, Roger, Marcia, and I took the dogs out for a run yesterday. Sally hasn't had much time outside, off leash. She rather enjoyed herself, although she doesn't play well. Really, she explores more, but pretty much ignores other dogs. This annoyed Laddie to no end.
Of course, Sally did a lot of napping in preparation for the big day. This snap to the left was taken on Friday, where Sally was not only sleeping, but performing some odd type of skull shape modification therapy at the same time. Yeah, she like sleeping in close proximity to angular bits of furniture. And really, all the running about plumb tuckered her out yesterday. After the park we went to Roger and Myrna's for Sunday lunch, and the dogs mostly relaxed, only playing a little bit at the house (well, Laddie tried to play, Sally tried to relax). When we got home, Sally drank half a bowl of water from her bowl, went out to pee, then came in and did her "play comatose" trick for several hours. She woke up a little for dinner, and again in time to go to bed. Right now she's imitating a lumbermill on the floor behind me. Heh. Poor kid.
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The garden's doing quite well. I have some more tomatoes to put in... yes, more! We picked up a couple plants of Sweet 100's Cherry tomatoes. Also one cucumber, which I'll drop in the end plot sometime today in place of the most feeble new squash plant.
Now I'll leave you to have a look at Linuxmuse. Please tell us what you think. Thanks a bunch!
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April 30, 2002 - Updates at 0745
Good morning. Lots of interesting things going on. First, thanks very much. We're drawing lots of traffic and a few early-adopter subscribers to the all-new LinuxMuse site Greg's got a new article up today all about the search for the perfect editor, and I'm pushing on a piece about Sudo to follow up on the vulnerability announcement that I posted yesterday in News.
My job search continues apace, I've got a couple of interesting leads to explore while I wait to see if the job I really want is really going to happen. And I have to keep looking - if I wait, and nothing happens, I've lost a lot of time and income. Unemployment insurance out here is really... overrated. It sure wouldn't pay our bills. So what is it insuring? That I can afford to buy a cardboard box, a case of ramen noodles, and live under the freeway? Fortunately, Marcia is gainfully employed and we're nowhere near that state of matters. But lots of folks are in dire straits.
The columnist known as Robert X. Cringley lost his son, Chase, to SIDS a week or two ago. The child was in his lap, while Bob did his email. And Chase just stopped living. My heart aches for the guy. I missed this news last week, but tracked into the story via Doc Searls yesterday. Cringley talks about the efforts in the 80's and early 90's to find the causes of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and how the research just tapered off. I remember. When I was at Nellcor, one of my projects was working on the Pulse Oximeter (tm) sensors for neonatal monitoring. We also sponsored an effort to work on SIDS and the possibly associated sleep apnea problems. At the time, a not-insignificant number of people put their kids down each night with a Nellcor box that monitored pulse and blood oxygen levels. The thinking was that the alarm would either wake the child, or the parents in time to make a difference.
Those studies were still going on when I left the firm in 1990, and I didn't keep up with the state of things in that arena. Evidently we didn't learn enough, back then. What Cringley recommends in his article is a good idea. Comprehensive monitoring of a statistically large population of infants may indeed reveal the data needed to diagnose and treat kids who are prone to SIDS. Of course, it may not, and we cannot decide what we're going to get before we make the effort.
Now to get on with my day. As always, I'm glad to hear from all of you, on any topic. I'm not publishing as much mail these days, because more of it is more ... private. But public topics are cool, too! See you around...
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May 01, 2002 - Updates at 0745
Good morning. I've got a really full plate today, so I'll just point you at yesterday's effort over on Linuxmuse: a new article on Sudo. I've also got to update my site-mirroring script. I'd modified it to remove the attempted update to my Syroidmanor mirror that Tom kindly maintains. That was down during Tom's house move and the ensuing connectivity problems, so I disabled that part of the upload script. Carl Sanders brought it to my attention this morning. Thanks, Carl!
Now to get into a busy, busy day. I may be back later, perhaps not. It is SVLUG Meeting tonight, we'll see how much I get done.
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May 02, 2002 - Updates at 0700
Good morning. Yesterday disappeared in a haze of housework, dog-bathing and more. I'm also fighting with the city and the landlord about who is responsible for the roots in the sewer lateral run. Ah well. Also today, we've got Marcia's MRI results to contend with. Probable outcome: a scheduled knee surgery. Sigh. I'm a bit distracted. Sorry. Catch you later.
Oh, I've just posted a new article up at LinuxMuse. It's a review of Lycoris Desktop/LX. Check it out.
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May 03, 2002 - Updates at 0730
Good morning. Well, we looked at all the films, perused each of the many MRI slice shots, and discussed all the alternatives. All but one are palliative, symptom-masking and delaying tactics at best. So we've got Marcia scheduled for knee surgery next week, with several different things for this competent surgeon to clean up and/or repair. Think good thoughts for my sweetie, if you please. Thanks!
For those of you living in caves (okay, caves with wired or wireless connectivity, but you only read my site for some wonderful, yet odd reason), OpenOffice.org v1.0 was released this week. This is supposed to be the giant killer. But I've got a problem. This software doesn't cope with the Microsoft-extended ISO-8859-1 version character set. That's right. Smart Quotes and their ilk, like the big hyphen, stylish right arrow, etc. I opened up one of the original Word submission documents from the Linux Book that Tom and I wrote. Poof, came right up. Wow. Comments work (they're called Notes). Track changes works completely, right down to color changes and float your cursor over the text to see who did the change, when. But then I started to notice '?' and extra spaces strewn throughout the document.
I was just exploring this the other day, prompted by a comment from Jackie, over on the LinuxMuse site. In response at that time, I went a-Googling, and came up with this link to a LinuxPlanet article: Nobody Expects the ISO-8859-1 Inquisition! It's instructive, but not helpful. That is, I came away knowing more than I did, but not how to solve the problem. Just one day later, OpenOffice lands, and I run into the same darned thing. I have yet to understand how to resolve this conundrum. So I'm going to stay on that beat for a while before writing up my series of OpenOffice articles for LinuxMuse. Thanks for your patience, and any ideas if you have them.
Now to get busy. See y'all later on.
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May 04, 2002 - Updates at 0930
Good morning. Well, I've had a considerable amount of success in the last 24 hours. First, there was a follow-up email regarding my OpenOffice font question from yesterday:
How to fix Smart Quotes in OpenOffice...
From: "Jon Barrett"
Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:54:46 -0400Have you looked at loading the Windows CP1252 superset as your 8859 codepage? http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html. Just a thought
Jon
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Jon Barrett
Kensington, MD
Thanks.
I haven't figured out yet how to incorporate the good information on that page into my systems, much less into OpenOffice. However, after much experimenting, it appears that if I utilize the MS font Charter, I get most of that stuff appearing correctly.
Personally, I'm finding it all to be demonic. *sigh*
And that appears to be the case. What I find puzzling is that the folks over at OpenOffice.org (which is still a lot of Sun people) simply don't seem to understand this problem, nor how to solve it. As I saw in a recent article, Abiword understands the problem and deals with it (although Abi handles other things badly). Anyway, here's the "fix", and yeah, it's a kludge, but it mostly works. The assumption going in is that OpenOffice.org1.0 is installed as a network install on the system (/path/to/install/setup -net), and that user installs are done as Workstation (where the programs and everything stay up on the "network" directory, in my case /opt/OpenOffice.org1.0/). Also, I've already got the Charter font on my system. I'm not exactly sure which application brings it in, though. I do have font data for it from CUPS (the printer administration software), but ???.
That's indeed almost the case. I've found that this part of the software is still a little buggy. Searching through the Issuezilla section of OpenOffice.org, I've found several reported bugs, and as I noted, no real comprehension on the OO side of the fence about how to make this work. I'll have to send them an email, maybe I can help them understand.
I also finally got Mailman (http://www.list.org/ running last night. It turns out, after searching in Google just a little bit, using the correct search terms, that I had worked on and solved this problem before. So, with a little bit of elbow grease, and a few mods to the procedure to match our current security and authentication setup: Voila! The Talkabout Mailing List is once again alive. Later today I'll bring up the Netwidows list for Marcia, and that part of things will be complete. Whew!
Now to get on with the day... See ya later.
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May 05, 2002 - Updates at 0905
Good morning. So, I was outside in back yesterday about midday, weeding and such, when a flight of three F16's blew by nearly overhead at about 500 feet, headed into the Federal Airfield at Moffitt. I snagged the camera and snapped away as they circled in away to the north, one at a time, for their landings. The picture doesn't do it justice - my eye has much better resolution. But we get these planes in and out, usually daily, following 9/11. Before that it was pretty dead around here, since they closed the airbase as a military facility. Then, as I kept weeding away and pruning back some of the growing tips on the tomatoes, I spotted the first fruit. Woo hoo! We'll have fresh tomatoes next month.
Today's task list includes a Costco run, not just for the standard stuff, but for items to keep Marcia occupied while she's fairly immobilized, post-surgery. Books and movies and such. I'm writing up the first in my series of comparison's between OpenOffice and MS Office tools, this one on the word processors. It'll be up on LinuxMuse in a day or so. And I've got some Aloe plants to set. So a busy day ahead. I'll see you around.
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Last Week
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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.
