K-Squared Ramblings

Line Items for 2009-07-02

• OK, I think the new server is tested enough for now. Time for lunch. And, I think, a walk. #
• Just watched 2 people tossing things over the edge of the roof of an office building in the distance for several minutes. #
• Think I'm finally getting the hang of this on-screen keyboard. #
• Just turned off our oldest internet-facing server. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it went back to 2001 – almost as old as IE6! #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Flashback Post: New journal

For a while now I’ve been thinking of setting up something where I can just post random thoughts or opinion pieces without taking the time to write an HTML page and update bunches of links. Some sort of blogging software seemed ideal, so I looked at a few, noticed they all seemed to use MySQL, and left it for a while.

Well, I moved the site to a Linux server a few weeks ago, and so I started looking again. And since Katie’s site is currently under the same domain name, we both figured it would be cool to have something we could both post to.

I settled on b2 (shortly before the site ran out of bandwidth), mainly because it was simple, it used PHP, and it allowed me to set up more than one user.

Welcome to Ramblings!

Line Items for 2009-07-01

• It sure would be nice if this ATM had at least 1 horizontal surface so I could set down my drink & not have to mess w/my wallet one-handed #
• Dear #lazyweb: any recommendations for a horizontal belt clip non-magnetic G1 phone case under $20? #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Line Items for 2009-06-30

• Smell of waffle cones from Cold Stone makes me wish I could eat there. Ice cream vs allergies. #
• Ran into one snafu w/Fedora11: xkb error popups every time I wake the computer from suspend. Resetting keyboard worked. #linux #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Line Items for 2009-06-29

• I hate walking away from a sink going full-blast, but when it's fully automatic there's not much you can do. #
• Reset Gnome profile, broke @twhirl – had to delete entire ~/.appdata/Adobe/AIR/ELS/ folder to be able to save settings again #
• Six-String Samurai is a seriously weird movie. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Line Items for 2009-06-25

• This double-tap to unlock feature is probably good for not hitting numbers with your face while talking, but it's a pain for phone menus #
• Um, yeah, that's what I most want from an OS: "Microsoft also plans to offer [Windows 7] in an easier-to-open box." #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Impressed by Smooth Fedora 11 Upgrade

A few days ago, my Linux desktop at work popped up a message saying that Fedora 11 was available, and asking whether I wanted to upgrade automatically. Well, I didn’t have time to deal with it then, and in the past when I’ve upgraded Fedora (either from a CD or from a downloaded image), it’s been a big production, what with running the installer, rebooting, installing updates, updating third-party repositories, and finally rebooting again after all the updates are installed.

So I put it off for a few days.

Today I decided to try it.

The automatic upgrade program is called preupgrade, presumably because it downloads everything you need in order to prepare for the upgrade. It downloads everything while your system is up and running, then sets it up so that when you reboot, it will launch the installer. It installs everything, makes the changes, then reboots into the newly upgraded system.

And then it’s done.

It’s network aware, and works through yum, so it will actually take into account both third-party repositories and anything that’s been updated since the new release. It actually went out to livna.org RPM Fusion and picked up the appropriate NVIDIA display drivers.

Download while you work. Reboot. Wait. Done.

The only snafu I ran into was that it removed my copy of the Flash plugin, but I think I was using the experimental 64-bit one anyway, so it’s not terribly surprising.

I get the impression that Ubuntu has had a similarly smooth upgrade process for a while. And after my experiences moving from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10, I was seriously considering jumping ship. (Hazards of living on the bleeding edge.) But it looks like I won’t have to.

Now I just have to find time to play around and see what’s new!

Line Items for 2009-06-24

• Spent all day fighting computer changes that SHOULD have worked. The one thing that was 100% painless: Fedora 11 upgrade, easier than ever. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Line Items for 2009-06-23

• Just watched Persepolis a few weeks ago. Very good. With the current mess in #iran, @netflix is recommending it #
• Gotta love this story title: Robotic Ferret Used to Fight Smugglers. #
• Drinking…FOR SCIENCE! #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Line Items for 2009-06-22

• Woo hoo! Flash player coming for Android phones! #
• Grr. SimpleTags has been eating the tags on posts that I've edited since installing it. Wish I could remember which ones I've edited. #
• Just got a $2 bill in change. Haven't seen one "in the wild" in years. #
• Spam subject: "2009 is here. are you?" Um, yes, last I checked… #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Do Not Climb on Mickey

Presented without further comment.

The Illusionist: Mini-Review

• Watched The Illusionist. 1st hour, couldn't get past lead characters being colossally stupid. Ending totally made up for it. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Glass Bow

The other day I was walking past a construction site in the Irvine Spectrum area, and noticed a rainbow-like ring appearing in the road. I immediately thought of this mystery photo on APOD and its (rather technical) explanation. Naturally, I had to take a picture myself.

It basically is a rainbow, except formed by reflections in tiny glass beads (used for sandblasting) instead of raindrops. The physicist who posted his (much better) photo to APOD had a better camera handy. And a linear polarizer. (Don’t you always carry one of those?)

Sadly, I only had my phone.

Line Items for 2009-06-19

• You know you need coffee when: you put a filter in the coffee maker, then go back to get…a filter for the coffee maker. #
• It gets better: after that I went to put the bag of coffee back in the fridge. Where I've never kept coffee. Ever. Batting 1000 today. #
• Mall is a lot more crowded than Wed. Sire #
• Darn virtual keyboard. Meant to say, sure, it's Friday, but also I think schools let out yesterday. Waiting in line this time at Jamba #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Line Items for 2009-06-18

• So is dmoz.org dead or what? Applied to edit a category, got the "reply to this to confirm" message, replied…and got user unknown. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Update: I re-sent my confirmation from another address and it went through. Apparently their server doesn’t like mail from pobox.com. But instead of saying so, it gives a bogus “user unknown” error.

Line Items for 2009-06-15

• Some are disturbing, but I like the staple-free stapler: RT @ThisIsTrue: Top 10 Odd Environmental Ideas #
• Aha! The 17 links that have stuck in the linkcheck queue since yesterday are all to posts on the old Spread Firefox site. Archive's locked. #
• Spam: "Para legal information" from…Perry Mason. Wait, shouldn't that be "Perry legal information?" #
• Odd: @opera's #reinvent the web event is launching at midnight Pacific time? #

Powered by Twitter Tools.