Passwords suck. More passwords suck more.
google’fying Nalin’s summit talk summary.
Category Archives: linux
bring out the lug
Reminder, I’m giving a talk on gimp tonight at LUG at NCSU.
islands in the stream
I know a couple of people that read this are up on osx audio, and/or icecast and such, so…
I was reading loopers-delight, and one of the posters detailed a setup they used to stream a live set to the net. Not the newest idea in the world, but I’d never really given it much thought as something I could do if I happened to be playing a show in a venue with some wireless access.
Anyone using icecast or similar tech under osx? I’d probably be running the sound into cubase or Ableton Live to record, so would probably need to stream it from there (perhaps after some basic compression, etc). Anyone done anything like that?
All the phasmatodea stuff is freely licensed anyway. I don’t really expect anyone to listen in, but it would be something interesting to try anyway. Geek value.
Though the idea of adding a big pile of software to the already complex setup I have is probably asking for trouble, I might give it a try one day anyway.
If anyone has any experience doing this under linux, I’d be interested in hearing about it as well. I can always bring along the linux laptop as well.
Some info on doing this via icecast someone from the loopers list posted.
gimp talk at ncsu lug
This Wednesday, I’ll be giving a talk on/about gimp at the Linux Users Group at NCSU.
sial.org
One of the better collections of to-the-point docs about setting up and maintaining linux/unix systems I’ve found.
digg me
Any digg or del.icio.us users out there?
If so, digg me. Or, er, del.icio.us me?
my wiki is bigger than your wiki
linuxtroubleshooting.com is picking up steam, with a couple outside contributors adding lots of useful info.
Also, couple of weeks ago, while fiddling with mediawiki, I setup Interesting Roads Around North Carolina. More or less, just a notebook of interesting places to ride as I find them. Probably useful for cyclists and sports car types as well.
software meme
as per zombiepops and z_kungfu, a quick rundown
of what software I use, by no means complete.
Linux
linux distro
Red Hat, big surprise, RHEL or Fedora/Rawhide depending on what I’m working on. At various points I’ve tried slackware and debian linux. I’ve also tried FreeBSD. But they didn’t really do much for me. I can do the same stuff with Red Hat, and I know it much better. And
linux always seemed to support my hardware better than *bsd.
desktop
GNOME, sorta. I run a pretty minimal config (no nautilus, minimal panel, etc). With ClickToFocus turned off, the way humans use software.
terminal
gnome-terminal I think. whatever I stuck in my panel ages ago. I used to always used a tweak RXVT setup, since I tend to have dozens of terminals open, and it was lighter on mem, but I’ve got tons-o-ram now. All the current gen stuff seems workable, if need be.
editor
vim-enhanced, and emacs. Yup, I’m bi-editorial. vim for doing quick stuff in terminals, email, etc. emacs for
coding, espicially coding python. And vim-enhanced in particular, since normal vim or vi are worthless. I’ll
leave bringing up bare metal broken unices to the admin types.
ide
I guess emacs count. And eclipse when I have to look at java stuff.
mail
mutt for work email, evolution/thunderbird for non work stuff, depending on which one has annoyed me least recently.
im
im at work is for the devil.
browser
firefox
irc
we use irc very heavily at work, I use xchat just because it’s there. Even though it has perhaps the worse server selection screen one could possibly create.
graphics
gimp, gee, big surprise eh…
listening to music
xmms, rhythmbox is overkill for what I need.
osx:
10.4 at the moment
mail
Mail.app or thunderbird, whichever is currently annoying me least. thunderbird at the moment.
browser
firefox
misc
Quicksilver, probably the only app launcher I’ve ever used that actually was faster than a shell in an open terminal.
Desktop Manager, since my brain doesn’t work without virtual desktops.
making music
Cubase SE for recording. It kind of sucks, but I mostly know the ui now.
Reaktor for making weird noises.
Garage Band for fiddling
listening to music
nothing, I don’t have space to store much music on the laptop
fun
MAME
Stella
office
openoffice
editor
stock vim and emacs I got from somewhere
im
iChat
I sometimes use X2vnc and osxvnc/vnc to connect the two. otherwise just ssh/X
If anyone cares, and I missed something, feel free to ask.
gps, riding, etc
So I’ve spent way to much time trying to do something that should be very simple. Download a track from my gps, and display it on a map.
This proved to be much more frustrating that I expected, and finally gave up trying to do it on os x and just did it with my linux box using gpsbabel (tiger seems to have broken the osx version).
Then I wrote a python script to split the GPX file into individual track files, and then used gmapper to display the results on google maps. gpsvisualizer works too, but the maps don’t look quite as nice.
If anyone knows of an easier way to do that on osx, that actually works, I’d like to know.
So anyway, Saturdays ride:
and the sat view:
how to solve a problem
Started searching around Wikipedia for information about problem solving approaches and techniques. Looking for some general information to possibly use to help structure the content of the linux troubleshooting guide I’ve been slowly working on.
One of the more interesting things I found was TRIZ, a problem solving approach oriented towards mechanical devices, based on study of a large number of Russian Patents. The idea basically being to determine the contradictions inherent in a problem, and then attempting to dissolve the contradictions. Take a look at this page to get a better idea.
The first two things that came to my two track mind were of course, what would be the equivalent “contradictions” and proposed dissolving strategies for software and/or creating music. The software case has a lot of obvious analogies to the machinery case. The music (and any “art”) for that matter is a bit more difficult. Need to think about that.
On a similar note, I found a web reference for the list of problem solving ideas I first saw in Conceptual Blockbusting. See the Flexibility in Strategies.
Anyone know of any similar ideas or approaches?