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GRAFFITI -- January 04, 2010 thru January 10, 2010>> Link to the Current Week <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. About 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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January 4, 2010
2014 - Possibly interesting to some folks - I'm back to editing in Bluefish on my Linux box, at least in the short term. That might extend a bit. You see, I've run into a couple of hitches with my OS X experience that I want to explore further before heading down the Whinging Path. All of the Monday evening chores are done, and I'm mucking about with Amarok in the background while I do this, and consider what to have for supper. Yeah, it's a horrible fate, really. Back later if anything interesting comes up. Ciao!
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January 5, 2010
1956 - So. There's stuff I like very, very much about Apple. The gear itself is solid and generally gorgeous: masterpieces of industrial design. Some of the software is also stellar. I especially like Mail tied in with Calendar and Contacts. Works on the iPhone, also works connected with the Exchange server that I must communicate with from time to time. Some of it, like the bass-ackwards method of burning ISOs in the Disk Utility, make me bonkers. And then there's the schizophrenic part of the equation. The new iPhoto, part of iLife '09, is elegant, speedy, useful, and has über-cool features like Faces. But. But. But the pictures aren't stored in the filesystem anymore. Okay, so I just did some more exploration. Even though the iPhoto directory appears in the Pictures as a portal to the application, and you can't navigate down into it using Finder (WTF???), I can go down the chain and find all of the original images in the filesystem. That makes me quite a bit happier. I had mistakenly been of the opinion that since I couldn't get there with Finder, the pictures must be all database-ized, and that made me sad. Portability, especially of original media, is important to me. And still ... I've been using OS X for mail, for music, and as a charging station for the iPhone. And I feel like it's making me stupid. That is, I'm not being challenged. I like learning how to do new stuff, and with the Apple gear, mostly it just works. Where's the challenge in that?
Although I've been using Ubuntu as my primary desktop at work, I'd been pretty much living in OS X for the last 3 years. As that hardware starts to get older, I'm thinking about what comes next. And it may still be Apple gear. Unless I can get some VPN client to connect to the mothership from Linux (not currently a happening thing), I'd need either OS X or Windows. How likely do you guess the latter possibility is? Okay, even Windows 7 is a fine Gaming OS - that's how it's working for me, anyway. Okay, enough ruminating. I *do* want to spend more time in *NIX, so here I am. I've also got some aspirations on Solaris, but am loathe to commit deeply until the Oracle shoe drops.
I am entertained and intrigued by Robin Sloan. I was an "investor" in his Kickstarter project, that turned out to be Annabel Scheme. I got my copy of Annabel Scheme just before Christmas. Last night and this evening, I finally had the decks cleared enough to read. I like it a lot, I expect to be reading much more from Robin Sloan over the coming years. Other things I'm enjoying - I continue to appreciate Pomplamoose Music. Nataly and Jack make me smile, and they make my ears happy. And now I'm listening to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Gil Shaham playing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Yum! And speaking of Yum!, I'd better go figure out dinner. Ciao!
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January 6, 2010
2252 - Damn you, Mike! That's all. Ciao!
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January 7, 2010
No Post....
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January 8, 2010
2132 - I'm fighting a bug, probably the same one that gave Marcia two unexpected and unpleasant days off earlier this week. One can but hope that I battle it off. And instead of working on sanding and painting, I've been "relaxing" by working with Linux From Scratch. I tried a tricky way at first, to get it installed in a VM. The trick ended up on me, of course, with a non-bootable system. That didn't work, so I've started over, using an Ubuntu Live CD of uncertain vintage, 8.04 I think, to host the new VM build. Wish me luck, health, or both. Grin!
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January 9, 2010
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January 10, 2010
1440 - Well. Feeling better today. I moped about feeling under the weather most of the day yesterday, as did Marcia. I puttered some more with Linux From Scratch, and ended up with a booting system by mid-evening yesterday. There was plenty of shoeshining on the task, though, as my focus level was approximately that of a five year old ADHD aspirant. Today, after shopping, I went through our refi package and got it ready for the trip to the notary tomorrow. Yay! Now to putter again with LFS, adding what's needed to get X.org running. Oh, yeah, here's a fun link of things not to do if you code for a living: Things I am not allowed to do any more.
Obama has decided on a 30K surge in Afghanistan, then drawdown after 18 months. Clearly, there are some policy goals to be met in that schedule, with those resources. I'm not sure what they are, but I personally don't think it does anything but allow us to say that we can't protect the Afghans from themselves if they won't help, after another year and a half of blood and treasure spilled. I'm sure that we'll make plenty of positive contributions and differences in safety while we're there. But after? As long as the Afghans tolerate terrorists in their midst, they're in danger. Kind of like our acceptance of the TSA, eh? Yeah, I know ... but security theatre isn't very entertaining, really. Our condolences to the families and units of the fallen.
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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.
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