jonathan stegall

I have had an account with del.icio.us for a long time; a couple of years or so. Typically, I very rarely use it. I would import all of my Firefox bookmarks into it, and then forget about it for a while. I would come back a few months, or a year later, and realize that the entire thing was different than my bookmarks currently were.

Interestingly enough, del.icio.us does not give users the ability to delete all of the bookmarks at once. So, to avoid having to go through over 1,000 deletions manually, I would just delete the account and start it over again with the same username.

The other day, I decided to start over again. But this time, I intend to use it to store things that are of interest to me on a daily basis. For example, the presidential typography article. Good blog posts, inspirational designs, interesting news, and so on. You can see my del.icio.us bookmarks.

Each day, at least for now, I will have the links of the day posted automatically. If there is any interest in this, or if I find it enjoyable, I’ll keep doing it.

See this article. Microsoft hopes to better compete with Google and to do so it is offering $44 billion for Yahoo.

There were many rumors of this kind of thing happening at various times in 2007. John Gruber had this post in May, which is worth a read.

Today, Sun Microsystems announced an agreement to acquire MySQL AB, the developer of the open source MySQL database that powers Google, Facebook, and any number of other websites around the world. Interesting news.

For everyone who uses PayPal and/or eBay: the PayPal Security Key.

It’s a device that generates a temporary 6-digit security code every 30 seconds. Use it every time you log in for added security.

Brilliant idea, and one that really shows that ebay/PayPal are really taking security seriously, regardless of issues they have had in the past. I feel much better about using their services. In addition to this, this device is developed by VeriSign, who is used by approximately everyone. It could only be a good thing if more ecommerce sites and shoppers began to use this device.

So I’ve been successfully using Ubuntu for two weeks now. I have several initial reactions, and other thoughts. I’ll talk about what I don’t like first, and then about what I do like.

What I don’t like

My main issue thus far has been my graphics card. Which, of course, isn’t Ubuntu’s fault at all. I have my graphics card working very well with Ubuntu, so it’s not that my graphics card is junk, either. The issue is that it doesn’t seem to be able to run Beryl, which from what I hear is the eye candy of Ubuntu. I like eye candy, so I’d like to be able to run Beryl.

Other than that, my issues are with the software companies inability or unwillingness to make software that I use compatible with Ubuntu. One of these is iTunes. I love iTunes. I’ve been using Banshee on Ubuntu, and it’s a great player. It has a great interface, great organization, great everything. My main issue with it is that it doesn’t know about my podcast subscriptions, presumably because they’re in an iTunes formatted XML file. So this is a really minor thing.

A related issue is that there is not a 64 bit version of Last.fm for Linux. I’m a huge fan of last.fm, and use it all the time. When I play CDs in iTunes, the last.fm player knows what’s being played and adds it to stuff that I’ve played, and lets me recommend it, or tag it, or whatever. Banshee doesn’t appear to do these things.

Adobe is my other issue. I tried downloading gimpSHOP, just to play around with it and see if I could get used to it enough that I could occasionally avoid rebooting into Windows to use Photoshop. Nope. Can’t do it. I love Photoshop. As much as I sometimes hate it and am frustrated by it, I don’t want to imagine life without it. Flash and Illustrator are also things I couldn’t do without, but I don’t spend an incredible amount of time in either, so it’s a smaller issue for me.

I’m not very impressed with the text editors, and I think the default is better than the several downloadable ones I’ve tried. Sorry about that one. I think Notepad++, which appears to be exclusively Windows, is far better.

I’m sure there is a way to do this properly, that I just haven’t learned. If I’m logged in to my default account, which is not the root, and I double click to open a text file that is only editable by the root user, I’d like to be able to have a graphical equivalent of the sudo Terminal command, so that I could edit said text file without having to use the Terminal. I actually like the Terminal, and find it incredibly powerful, but sometimes I just don’t want to look up commands that I haven’t learned yet, just so that I can edit a text file that Apache uses.

What I do like

Ubuntu is a great operating system. I love almost everything about it. It has a great community on a number of different forums, all of whom were amazing in helping me through my various issues in getting Ubuntu working in the first place. It’s an incredibly powerful system, and it runs very fast for the power that it has.

Mozilla has been amazing for me. I can share my Thunderbird and Firefox profiles between Windows and Ubuntu without the slightest issue. FileZilla (no relation to Mozilla) has also been wonderful, as the beta version of my favorite FTP application runs very smoothly on Ubuntu.

Back to the Adobe thing, for a positive note, Dreamweaver isn’t a big deal for me. I like Dreamweaver, and I plan to use it whenever I have to do web edits in Windows that need a directory tree, but I’ve been using Eclipse, with some plugins for PHP, Python (which I hope to learn soon), JavaScript, CSS, and XHTML, and love it. It exceeds the expectations I had, prior to trying it out.

On a similar note, Apache on Ubuntu is far superior to any implementation of it that I’ve seen on Windows. I’ve tried several of the packages for LAMP development on Windows, and their weirdness is one of the reasons I wanted to try Linux. Initial setup, configuration, and changes on Apache and the development things on top of it are a breeze for me, compared to the way they were on Windows. This also exceeds my expectations.

The overall interface and methodology of Ubuntu is wonderful. I love the themes (in spite of not being able to use Beryl), the customizability, the ease of configuration and administering and all those other common tasks; many of which are not very fun on Windows. Not to mention the ease of adding software! The repositories are huge, and full of amazing software that can all be updated at once. I’m amazed by that one.

Other initial thoughts

For what it’s worth, I haven’t lost my Mac envy. My ideal setup, at this point, is to get myself a MacBook Pro (drool), get rid of Windows on my desktop, and use Ubuntu as the desktop system/home server. To use Ubuntu for certain development tasks, file storage, learning things, times when I need a desktop, etc. and use the Mac for design work, iTunes, other development stuff, and portability.

Until then, though, Ubuntu is easily the best system in my house.

So, following the previous post about my Ubuntu dual boot woes, today I have successfully set up a dual boot of XP and Ubuntu.

Steps taken

Steps that did not work

1. Download Ubuntu desktop install file again, as the original CD started showing up with errors in testing

   It’s important to note that I did check the disk for errors before attempting any initial install procedure.

2. Test new install CD - errors reported

Steps that worked

1. Download Ubuntu Server edition and create CD. Test for errors, receive none.

2. Install Ubuntu server, following instructions in the prompts and choosing to create dual boot with XP

   This really was as easy as it sounds. The prompts were fairly similar to the prompts one sees while installing Windows from a CD. Prompts were used to set localization, profile username/password, and so on.

   For partitioning, I chose to leave my master drive untouched, and install Ubuntu on an empty slave drive (which was an option). I created a partition for /home, /root, and /etc. After this, the installer placed GRUB into the master drive for me, allowing the dual boot to occur successfully. I tested both systems boots before continuing.

   At this time, I was booting into an Ubuntu server that was exclusively a command line terminal.

3. Install GNOME GUI to cause Ubuntu to act like a desktop as well as a server. This was done through the following command:

   sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

4. Feel proud of myself

Woo hoo.

I had hoped to delay this post until I encountered some degree of victory, but that doesn’t look like it’s coming anytime soon. Plus, of course, we should always have the courage to speak in the midst of difficulties, and all that mess.

I’ve been trying to install Ubuntu Linux on my desktop for over a week now. I’m interested in learning Linux for its own sake, and in running web applications (like PHP, MySQL, Ruby, Python, etc) in a more native environment. I’ve reformatted my hard drive (I have backups this time) several times due to these attempts. I have never gotten Ubuntu to load successfully, but obviously I have lost Windows several times.

Failed Attempts and Current Messiness

I’ve tried the following steps in an attempt to have a working Ubuntu and XP:

1. XP Master Drive, Ubuntu Slave Drive, no other configuration - this was done by selecting use entire slave drive in the install dialogue.
   • Resulted in having to format the master drive due to Windows not booting.
2. Unplug XP drive, install Ubuntu on slave drive, using entire drive, replug Ubuntu slave drive.
   • Resulted in having to format the master drive due to Windows not booting.
3. XP Master Drive, Ubuntu Slave Drive using entire drive, instructing Ubuntu to put GRUB onto the master drive.
   • Resulted in having to format the master drive due to Windows not booting.
4. Partition master drive with first partition NTFS and XP, second partition Fat32 and Ubuntu, use slave drive for storage.
   • Resulted in having to format the master drive due to Windows not booting.
5. Install XP on the master drive first partition, leaving ~10 gigs of unpartitioned space. Then, using the Ubuntu manual partition to create the / partition at 8 gigs, the swap partition at 1 gig, and the /home partition set to use the entirety of the slave drive.
   • After the install process, Ubuntu did not ask me to reboot my system, and when I rebooted it myself it gave several errors in a list, and stopped shutting down. Windows did successfully boot after this, but when I booted from the GRUB CD, it did not find an Ubuntu installation.
   • This is the current state of my hard drive. The master has Windows on it with ~10 gigs of unpartitioned space. The slave drive is empty. Windows does not recognize it, which I’m assuming means that the Linux install did format it as FAT32.

As noted, several attempts have resulted in Windows being unable to boot. I suspect at least some of it has been due to Ubuntu being unable to boot, as well, but I can’t verify that. Fixmbr has never worked, bootcfg has never worked, and the GRUB CD hasn’t worked. Formatting both drives again and reinstalling Windows has been the only thing thus far that has resulted in a boot of anything.

With the GBUB CD, I’ve tried all the various options that are under GNU/Linux in an attempt to boot Ubuntu after it has been installed. GRUB typically does recognize that Ubuntu is present, but it is always unable to boot it or create the MBR.

When running the Ubuntu installer, it once gave me an error related to creating the user, and then it appeared to continue installing, but didn’t work. Other times, it has gone through the install process, and then appeared to finish. It didn’t ask me to reboot, though.

Looking Forward

In some way, I still hold on to the hope that in the near future, I will have a working copy of XP and Ubuntu, on the same computer. Ha.

From Yahoo:

75-year-old Sigbritt Lothberg is now cruising the Internet with a dizzying speed. Lothberg’s 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic connection in Karlstad is believed to be the fastest residential uplink in the world, Karlstad city officials said. In less than 2 seconds, Lothberg can download a full-length movie on her home computer…

I’m amazed by this. The implications of Internet connections becoming this fast are insane. I think this is another pointer to Everyware. While that excites me, it scares me.

Carnegie Mellon University has created a new version of the ever-present CAPTCHA that many of us use to sign up for accounts all over the web. We all hate it, but most of us understand that spammers would be worse than they are without it. reCAPTCHA is a program that requires the user to enter two words. One word is a known word from its database, and the other word is a scanned image from a book. Massive numbers of books are being digitized every day. Saved for posterity, and all that.

Computers can’t always read scanned pages very well. Often they make a valiant attempt, but they’ll read the word wrong. This reCAPTCHA method allows computers to get new words. If the user enters the correct first word, great. If they enter the second one, whatever book that word is from is one step closer to digital existence, and they can pass the word around a bit to make sure it’s right. That’s awesome.

Scientists in Dundee have announced plans to create a “robot village” in an effort to learn how different cultures emerge in society.

And Isaac Asimov rolls over in his grave. I’m not sure what to think about this. It raises several questions, at best. At worst, of course, it leads us in the direction of I, Robot. Which will it be?