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Orb Designs Grafitti -- December 23 thru December 29, 2002
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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December 23, 2002 - Updates at 0724 EST
Good morning. Have you finished giving the economy a shot in the arm? We've been done for a while, so when the talking heads on the evening news speak of waiting to hear how the retailers do on this last weekend before this most commercial of holidays, I can only shake my head and acknowledge that we're out of the game. That's not to say that we don't spend money, nor that we don't give where giving's appropriate. But I'll note this, mitigating against a good Christmas shopping season: I haven't heard thing one about the one toy that all children must have, the one toy that has parents clawing each other over the last box in the store. None of that on the evening news. And if there's no blood in the water, then there's no feeding frenzy. Now you have my economic take on the season.
John Dominik weighs in on top context linking, suggesting that he's closer to Bob Thompson's viewpoint - don't bother. Mmmm. Well, I did ask. But I am going to do this for a while, in the hopes that I get a bit more structure to my work on these pages. I really do like structure, you see. It may not be evident at all times, especially when I'm writing well before my first cup of joe, instead of during or after. And yes, John, these pages are crawled by Google, and I've found myself here on searches, embarrassed to learn that I must once upon a time have known something about that for which I was searching. But once here, a top context link can often get me down to the right section, right away.
Unfortunately, there's precious little more to write about today. My yesterday was lost to the weekly shopping and a very bad headache that I woke up with. It never quite went away, and I found myself with eyes closed during the attempt to accomplish just about anything. Some days are like that. I'm off to the office for the morning, I've got what I hope is nearing the end of a project to document a batch of systems. Then we're having the company lunch at some restaurant or another. Tomorrow I'm off, unless something comes up (which I doubt). Thursday I'm working all day, and I have a midday meeting on Friday. So the week isn't going to be a total blow-off, but it'll be spotty.
OK, it is time and past time that I be gone, and the trash still needs to get out to the curb. Have a lovely day.
Top / Email Brian
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December 24, 2002 - Updates at 0900
Good morning. The days are getting longer again, and it's the day before Christmas. I'm home, Marcia's home, and we're taking Sally to the vet, because she's been digging hard at her left ear for a couple of days now. I've cleaned it and kept it clean, but that doesn't seem to have helped. Maybe a Van Gogh treatment would be more effective? Eeeeek. No, okay. Sorry!
I got the last few CDs ripped to Ogg Vorbis format last night, then moved the whole kit and kaboodle over to Garcia, my Slackware box. There the files are shared via Samba for all to use. I even think I could take the laptop downstairs, and link into that wirelessly, and play hundreds of hours of jukebox without a single hitch. Mmmmmm. Once the data was off of Goldfinger, I stripped the root and boot partitions down to bare metal and went for a clean "bleeding edge" Gentoo install, primarily to be a test of the new LiveCD installation image. It worked like a charm, excepting the lack of a network setup utility that had been present in previous editions. So instead of using net-setup, I was relegated to the tried-and-true ifconfig and route commands. But that's done, all is well, and I'm installing XFree86 and KDE 3.1rc5 this morning (and on into this evening - even on a fast box, this takes time). Roadblock, though: kdelibs is failing to build. Time for a little digging.
See you around.
Top / Email Brian
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December 25, 2002 - Updates in the morning.
Merry Christmas.
It is a white Christmas here, at least until today's rain finishes washing away last night's snow. We hope that the Joy of the Season touches you and your family, as it does ours.
Top / Email Brian
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December 26, 2002 - Updates at 0645
Good morning. Welcome to the day after the Christian holiday that the Church invented to give the heathens a party in replacement for their old, frowned-upon celebrations. Marcia and I had a nice relaxed day yesterday, thanks. The dog got the most presents - Huge Surprise! You can see our morning weather, there at left. At one point the snow flakes were absolutely huge agglomerations of ice flakes. The news guy said something about "snowflakes the size of cattle". Well, they were large, but not quite... Sally got a lot of attention from us, good and otherwise. The otherwise is the bits where we are treating her for the ear infection she picked up. She hates that. But she likes belly scratches and perhaps her new toys, too.
We cooked a holiday bird, and had turkey, mashed taters, gravy and cranberries for supper. In other gift news, Marcia was the recipient of something sparkling for her wrist, and she gave me a new Trivial Pursuit set, and the LOTR:FOTR 4 disc CD set. So our day yesterday was consumed with watching all four discs of that. I was pleased to note that some of the scenes I'd missed when I watched FOTR in the theatres were back in the extended cut. The appendix discs were also quite interesting, especially to me the bits about how they handled working with characters who are of dramatically different size, but are mostly normal size adult humans. Cool stuff. The downside yesterday is that by evening I'd started feeling kinda ratty - like a mild flu bug. Can I attribute the frequency of these hits to the first flu shot I've gotten in 25 years? I think so, but Marcia disagrees. I don't feel super this morning, but I'm OK.
Today I'm off to Rockville to babysit the machine that misbehaved for Mike the other day. I suppose. I've got some mail to share, but that'll have to wait until tonight or tomorrow. Have a lovely day!
Top / Email Brian
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December 27, 2002 - Updates at 0715
Good morning. Welcome to Friday, immediately following the second "Monday" in less than a week. While two Friday's are a good thing, two Mondays are a terrible thing indeed. But things went generally well yesterday. Nothing broke on my watch, and that's OK. So I spent a significant amount of time working on getting a version of VNC working on Solaris 2.5. There's a new version (new to me, anyway) of the x0rfbserver software, found at forum.hexonet.com. Well, I didn't get it working, but I made progress. Big hunks of the library and application are now compiling properly. I couldn't go too far without asking a few pointed questions however, and the gentleman with the answers is on holiday. He'll be back today, but I'm not going there today. Maybe early next week, neh?
I've decided to let the old email go. So in the interests of a good chuckle as a replacement, here's a joke I found on the Homesteading message board that I visit occasionally...
CANADIANS WILL HELP AMERICA WITH THE WAR ON TERRORISM!
WE HAVE PLEDGED:
- 2 BATTLE SHIPS,
- 600 GROUND TROOPS,
- 6 FIGHTER JETS.
AFTER THE AMERICAN EXCHANGE RATE, THEY WILL END UP WITH:
- 2 CANOES,
- 6 MOUNTIES,
- AND A BUNCH OF FLYING SQUIRRELS
Well, I thought it was funny, anyway. Y'all have a great weekend, so we can hit next week hard. That's needed since we have another two-Monday week yet to go.
Top / Email Brian
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December 28, 2002 - Updates at 1017
Good day! A nice, long lie-in this morning has probably helped my health, if not my energy or motivation. That is, I needed the sleep. However, after sleeping the better part of eleven hours, I seem somehow never to fully wake up. I think about doing something, but by the time I get there, I've forgotten what I was going to actually do. Weekends are good for that, anyway. Of course, I really do want to get some things done, both around the house, here-ish.
We've got Marcia heading out to California for meetings in another week, so this weekend we're going to clean up a bit, dismantle the tree, and other such chores. The laundry is done, finished over the last couple of nights. But we can always find more jobs that need doing. Here, I want to finish up the Rekall writeup for LinuxMuse. It's been hanging about for too long, and I have an idea about how to finish it up, so I'd best do that before I forget, neh?
I brought the webcam back online again, for the first time since remodelling Goldfinger a week or so ago. I'd had trouble tracking down one library that was needed for my script to work properly: libttf.so.2. It's a part of the old Freetype package, and that library's been abandoned in the more recent versions of freetype, a victim of progress. Fortunately, I remembered that I can have both old and new versions of Freetype on my system simultaneously. So I simply built and installed the old Freetype with this command: ebuild freetype-1.3.1-r3.ebuild merge. Note that none of the packages that I installed via Gentoo's portage system required Freetype 1.3, that's why it wasn't installed. No dependencies mean the software isn't installed. It was one of the programs that I use to generate the webcam image that calls for that old library. Now it's working again, following a bit of tweaking of the permissions to the video device file.
We had a good customer meeting yesterday, where we tried hard to do the right thing: Listen. One of my failings from time to time is to decide how a thing should be done or accomplished, then start planning out that route, without paying attention to the needs of the customer. That is, there are many "right" methods of reaching the goal, some more efficient than others. The "rightest" way is the one that the paying customer asks for. So we knew that there were several ways to get from where we are to where the customer wants to be. And we listened. We'll provide the requested solution, done the way we're asked to do it. It may not be the best foundation for future work, but we made the argument for our preferred alternatives, then capitulated to the customer's will. And that's just fine - we understand who pays the rent - paying customers.
Now to get to work. Maybe winning any one of the lotteries would be a better idea? But then I'm really not the relaxing kind of guy, so lots of money wouldn't slow me down much, just make some decisions a little easier... <grin> Have a lovely Saturday.
Top / Email Brian
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December 29, 2002 - Updates at 1031 and 1534
Howdy. How was your last Saturday of the old year? Ours was fine, thanks. The good news, from my perspective, is that we've dismantled Christmas for another year. The ornaments and bears, table linens and candles, lights and baubles are all packed away in their boxes, hidden at the back of the garage. The tree lies on its side, forlorn by the side of the road, alone. Alone as we are the first house in sight on our block to banish our tree. Some, of course, use artificial trees, and so probably don't dispose of those. Silly people.
Also yesterday, I made good progress at getting restarted with the Rekall article. I had to rebuild my test environment, as it was blown away when I rebuild Goldfinger a week ago. So I reinstalled MySQL and the Rekall demo, then shook my head as I realized that I'd also destroyed my sample data and application that I'd been using for writing the article. The /var filesystem hasn't been on my list of keepers when I do rebuilds in the past, because I don't normally keep anything there, and the bits that are there are large hunks of the Gentoo Portage build process that are install dependent. Those I want to go away when I remodel. So I've added to my system rebuild notes: Save /var/lib, and possibly other spots depending on which apps I'm running at the moment. Silly me.
So in response, I've built a new set of tables, and some forms and bones of a Rekall application around them for finishing up the article. I'll be continuing with that effort today. Additionally, we've got shopping to do, a long, leisurely walk for us and the dog, and other fun bits. But first, why don't I take you on a tour of the Daynoters - it's been a while since I've done that. While I've been better about keeping up with most of them over the last couple of months, I know that that comes and goes, in opposition to other demands on my time. I'm sure the same is true of y'all, so let's take a stroll that way. We'll start now, and finish up later today...
Jerry Pournelle is continuing strong, both on his site and at Byte. He's got a new puppy, a Husky named Sable, cute as a button. For a stern blend of politics and tech, Jerry's got my one-stop shop. Bob Thompson's been pretty busy, grinding away at the Third Edition of PC Hardware in a Nutshell. But don't wait for that ... if you want to buy, build or upgrade a computer, the current edition will help you today! Tom Syroid has been doing the holiday/family thing, and relaxing just a bit - that's a good thing, my friend. Oh, and they've got a new digital camera, so there's pictures to be found, at last. Maybe we'll finally get one of Tom taken sometime in the last decade, neh?
Bo Leuf is continuing his daily routines on his WikiWiki site. If you don't know about Wiki, it's an editable web interface that allows reader interaction and editing. Of course, if you really want to know, then get Bo's book. Shawn Wallbridge has been on hiatus since last May, but I've heard from him, from time to time. Hope springs eternal that Shawn will return to posting one day. Svenson is still your best bet for weather in the Low Countries, with a temperature and precipitation report leading off each day's post. And of course, eating, exercise and technology are also prominently featured on the site, along with a usually interesting question (the most recent: Why is there an expiration date on sour cream? Do you really want to know the answer to that one?).
John Doucette has been keeping up a steady pace, both at work and on the home front. He and Emma moved into a new house (and I mean new, not just new to them) this last year. John gets to spend his days working hard on assorted admin jobs, and often mucking about with cool Linux solutions. Chris Ward-Johnson, aka the venerable Dr. Keyboard continues his daily writings at Chateau Keyboard, among many other places. He's slowly drawing other Daynotes writers to him, like moths to the flame, in the south of France. Soon, I think, we'll be calling that area an enclave, no doubt. Chris has got a new PC Troubleshooting book out now - check it out. And me, well, I'm still here, aren't I? Yes, I include myself because this is my "spot" in the list, as it were.
It is actually time to go shopping right now, so I'd best be on my way. I'll finish up the year-end Daynotes tour for you a little later today. Take it easy!
1534 - I'm back, to finish up the Year's End Daynotes Tour... Matt Beland is still "Gone Exploring", but I hear from him from time to time, and alongside his day job, he's setup a hosting business called Factory55 - If you're looking for hosting (and if Greg and I are too busy to take on someone new), then you could hardly do better. Dave Farquhar remains a staple in my web diet, with his daily writings over on The Silicon Underground. While I don't always agree with what he says, I read there anyway, because he makes me think. That's true of all of the Gang, actually. Steve Tucker keeps up a steady patter at his Wakeolda website. We managed somehow to miss meeting Steve and family on our last trip down to NC, we'll have to rectify that in the future.
Dan Seto, our Hawaiian representative on the list, calls his writings Miscellaneous Ramblings - they're anything but. He thinks well and writes carefully, thoughtfully. I find him refreshing, and lucky Dan, he's got one more semester to finish out this current segment of his continuing education. Jim Crider's been away from the web for nearly a year now, and it hasn't been a good one, according to reports. But he may return to writing one of these day, according to Dan. The other Dan, Bowman by name (but not by trade) has both Daynotes and Blog on his site, The Timesink. All I know is that he plans to "Wire cat 5 to garage" ... I thought he only had two cats???
Ben Rota, in his super-hero alter ego as Ator of Ars Technica, puts up a post perhaps three or four times a month, more when his conscience gets the better of him. He plays with some sweet toys as a part of both his day gig, and at home. Moshe Bar has dropped out of the writing scene - I'm not sure why. Probably because between being a popular open source project lead, CTO of a new company, writing columns for Byte, teaching at University, and being a new husband to a gorgeous bride, time was missing to do Daynotes. Maybe he'll come back one day. Bob Walder has also apparently called it quits for the public portion of Daynoting, although 'is site, View From The Edge, is still up.. He and Lynne abandoned that marvelous cottage in Wennington, moving to the South of France (pictures found here - Nice Place!!!).
One of the few still in the UK, Phil Hough keeps his Diary up in top form, without fail. It's fun to note that even when we're supposed to be celebrating, instead some of us check our web statistics to see who was in on Christmas day. Very weird, eh? Frank McPherson still has connectivity in that Cave of his - Frank writes about a lot of stuff, not least of which are his books about How to do everything with your Pocket PC.... errr. Everything, Frank? On the other hand, Jon Hassell has been a busy guy, too. Between his day job, the Radius book from O'Reilly, and Ana, he hasn't felt guilt about not posting since September. None at all, right?
Al Hedstrom has been away from our company for a bit - there's no post to Dad's PC Chronicles since June. Hey, Al - what's going on? Jon Sturm, the self-labeled Pompous Git, reads voraciously and passes on the best of what he's found to us each day - he makes me think harder than most, heh. That, and he's built the coolest house I've ever seen! John Dominik's site buoys me up nearly every day. His Daynotes On A Budget chronicle his life, in sometime excruciating detail. He's bright, competent, a techie, husband, dad, new homeowner, and out of a job for several months now. So John makes lemonade. Hire him!
Mike Barkman writes the Icarus Kronikles about any variety of things, from life in New Zealand to photography to his somewhat extensive travels. He's also met in person a few of the Daynotes Gang, and I'd have to grant that he's travelled a lot farther than I did, to do so. Greg Lincoln is asypmtotically approaching an minimum. The good news is that it is rather like Zeno's paradox, and you can never reach zero. While Greg hasn't posted on his site but three times this year, he's written several articles for our LinuxMuse site. Mat Lemmings (who is still missing a 't', to my way of thinking) has some of the worst luck with cars of anyone I've ever known. The good news from the perspective of the rest of the world is that every time your car works when you don't expect it to, you can thank Mat for absorbing your bad karma about cars - it happened to him instead. There's much more to Mat and his Daily Scribbles, of course, and you need to keep up with him. Be warned though - Mat's been known to post pictures that aren't work-safe. Finally we have Dave Markowitz. Dave's a new dad, huzzah! He also does cool stuff for an IP provider here on the Eastern seaboard, and I really can't think of why we haven't been to visit yet, except that getting settled into a new part of the continent has taken up far more time than I could have imagined. Dave writes on Building Tux, about Linux, work, home repairs and range shooting, among other topics.
I can't recommend all of these sites highly enough. Really, I can't. Heh, just kidding. I read several every day, and every one of them at least weekly. Thanks for taking the Daynotes Tour with me - it's been fun. Catch you next week.
Top / Email Brian
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Last Week
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Next Week
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.
