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Published On: Jan 28, 2004 11:00 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Jan 28, 2004 11:00 AM
Wed - January 28, 2004
Water in the Gas Tank
May we live in interesting
times.
Well, everyone knows about the sudden stall that the Dean campaign has hit over the past week. First Iowa placing Dean third, well behind Edwards, and now in New Hampshire a double-digit second behind Kerry. And the strangest thing is that Dean was ahead of everyone in about every single poll out there. This sudden lurch from a strong first to desperately needing a defibrillator has come as quite a shock. All my fellow Dean supporters are standing around numb wondering where it all went South.
Of course, as they say, "It ain't over until it's over." There are justifications one can give for not declaring the patient dead yet. I just wonder if they are valid, or if we are trying to dampen the blow. (Of course, the moment we feel in our hearts we've lost, it's over.) There's argument that the next races in the South will not give Kerry any further leads as Clark and Edwards enjoy their strong demographics. MN has a huge number of delegates compared with these early states, with the possibility of a comeback. And finally, California and New York have such an overwhelming number of delegates.
It'll come down to whether the voting American Democrats emphasize voting for the candidate they believe in or the importance of showing the illusion of strong, unanimous support for a front-runner. (It's that damned "delectability thing" from a slightly different perspective.) If we go for the latter then Kerry has already lost, unless he does something incredibly stupid.
A few weeks ago someone declared the race "Dean's to lose" meaning Dean would win unless he faltered badly. Now the same goes for Kerry.
For those people who want to hear something funny, I came across two music mixes where someone put Dean's infamous speech/screech to music. Check out Crazy Go Nuts and Keep Dean Alive.
Speaking of music, I went and upgraded to Apple's iLife '04 so I could try out the new GarageBand application. The demonstration by Steve Jobs on the MacWorld Expo Keynote had looked way cool, so I decided to give it a try.
Like Apple's other "iLife" applications like iPhoto, iTunes, iMove and iDVD, it has a really simple-yet-powerful user interface. It is incredibly easy to assembly a bunch of "loops" (2- or 4-measure music lics in a specific instrument that you can repeat ad nausium) to create a song. It requires really no musical ability, and now you too can create monotonous house music!
I went to an online discussion group where people were talking about the app and posting samples of music they put together. They all sounded basically like music, but most were horribly tedious. I know I should be more generous for people who have never created music before, and if anyone stays with it, they might actually make something worth listening to.
Actually, it is pretty incredible how easily a person could use these well-integrated Apple applications to assemble pictures, digital movies, hand-crafted music and assemble it all onto a DVD. The ability to put artistic creation into the hands of the Ordinary Joe is pretty incredible. I sure wish this stuff was accessible when I was a kid. I'll bet Tom Loehrke and I would have assembled some pretty damned cool stuff!
In case you want to hear an example of a GarageBand-created song, I spent about 30 minutes slapping something together. Take a listen to this. Not much to listen to actively, but it could be a great background to a road-trip home movie.
Well, everyone knows about the sudden stall that the Dean campaign has hit over the past week. First Iowa placing Dean third, well behind Edwards, and now in New Hampshire a double-digit second behind Kerry. And the strangest thing is that Dean was ahead of everyone in about every single poll out there. This sudden lurch from a strong first to desperately needing a defibrillator has come as quite a shock. All my fellow Dean supporters are standing around numb wondering where it all went South.
Of course, as they say, "It ain't over until it's over." There are justifications one can give for not declaring the patient dead yet. I just wonder if they are valid, or if we are trying to dampen the blow. (Of course, the moment we feel in our hearts we've lost, it's over.) There's argument that the next races in the South will not give Kerry any further leads as Clark and Edwards enjoy their strong demographics. MN has a huge number of delegates compared with these early states, with the possibility of a comeback. And finally, California and New York have such an overwhelming number of delegates.
It'll come down to whether the voting American Democrats emphasize voting for the candidate they believe in or the importance of showing the illusion of strong, unanimous support for a front-runner. (It's that damned "delectability thing" from a slightly different perspective.) If we go for the latter then Kerry has already lost, unless he does something incredibly stupid.
A few weeks ago someone declared the race "Dean's to lose" meaning Dean would win unless he faltered badly. Now the same goes for Kerry.
For those people who want to hear something funny, I came across two music mixes where someone put Dean's infamous speech/screech to music. Check out Crazy Go Nuts and Keep Dean Alive.
Speaking of music, I went and upgraded to Apple's iLife '04 so I could try out the new GarageBand application. The demonstration by Steve Jobs on the MacWorld Expo Keynote had looked way cool, so I decided to give it a try.
Like Apple's other "iLife" applications like iPhoto, iTunes, iMove and iDVD, it has a really simple-yet-powerful user interface. It is incredibly easy to assembly a bunch of "loops" (2- or 4-measure music lics in a specific instrument that you can repeat ad nausium) to create a song. It requires really no musical ability, and now you too can create monotonous house music!
I went to an online discussion group where people were talking about the app and posting samples of music they put together. They all sounded basically like music, but most were horribly tedious. I know I should be more generous for people who have never created music before, and if anyone stays with it, they might actually make something worth listening to.
Actually, it is pretty incredible how easily a person could use these well-integrated Apple applications to assemble pictures, digital movies, hand-crafted music and assemble it all onto a DVD. The ability to put artistic creation into the hands of the Ordinary Joe is pretty incredible. I sure wish this stuff was accessible when I was a kid. I'll bet Tom Loehrke and I would have assembled some pretty damned cool stuff!
In case you want to hear an example of a GarageBand-created song, I spent about 30 minutes slapping something together. Take a listen to this. Not much to listen to actively, but it could be a great background to a road-trip home movie.
Posted at 11:00 AM Read More
Fri - December
5, 2003
Itching to Write Again
Not much to report today. In a few hours I'll be
meeting with one of my committee members to go over the masters paper. I suspect
he will make comments, suggestions and requests that will have me busy for the
next week. (I've also got to make overheads for the presentation/defense, and I
suspect that will take a lot of
work.)
I'm really itching to get on to the other things in my life. I wish I could have defended today so it would have been behind me. I'm anxious to get my computer business back up to life. I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to the late nineties when I was making well over $100K a year, but living within the poverty line is just getting old.
I'm also itching to write again. One thing that I've been interested in and following for years is the (Open Source) GNUStep project . For those not in the know, let me give some background.
About 15 years ago, Steve Jobs returned from his forced exile from Apple by introducing his NeXT company with its NeXT Cube computer running the NeXTStep operating system. NeXT was arguably 10 years ahead of its time. It was said that a programmer well-versed in NeXTStep development was about 10 times as productive as a typical developer. Eight years later NeXT and Sun paired up to release the OpenStep specification, an open spec, in the hopes that this incredible development platform would be moved to different architectures (including Windows). Sadly, the world did not beat a path to their door and OpenStep started to die a sad death as it faded into obscurity.
Four or five years later (late 90's) Apple welcomed Steve Jobs back as CEO, and before long the next generation operating system, OS X, was based on... you guessed it! OpenStep! They call it the Cocoa framework (huh?) but it's OpenStep. Steve Jobs has stated in a keynote speech that the superiority of Cocoa (OpenStep) is what has enabled Apple to pump out new & improved versions of OS X on yearly releases, as well as the popular iLife applications: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, etc.
Well, nobody should be surprised that GNUStep, an Open Source implementation of OpenStep, has been brewing for years. It's goal has been to bring the OpenStep system to various Unix/Linux platforms. (And eventually Windows.) Its progress has been slow, its visibility has been minimal, but fortunately it has progressed forward until today when they have their frameworks almost 100% complete and their development environment is somewhere around beta-quality.
What I'm wondering is why there hasn't been a rush of developers who would like to write powerful Apple (Cocoa) applications, and quickly offer native Unix/Linux ports as well. Granted, Apple now has good X11 and Gnome support, so a person could start in Linux and port to Apple, but I really think people should be taking advantage of this "revolutionary" development system that is, in my own humble opinion, a "best kept secret."
So I think when I get a chance, I'm going to try and write a simple application in OS X Cocoa and under GNUStep and document the process. Either I'll help pave the way for people to start experimenting with Cocoa/GNUStep as a cross-platform environment, or I'll prove that it's still not a viable solution. I hope it'll be the former.
Of course, I can't start writing until (a) I've defended the Masters Degree next week and (b) I'm around a Linux system where I can do the GNUStep installation and configuration.
(And again, I keep wondering if there's any way I could ever actually make some money doing this article writing. If anybody has some good suggestions, I'm all ears!)
I'm really itching to get on to the other things in my life. I wish I could have defended today so it would have been behind me. I'm anxious to get my computer business back up to life. I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to the late nineties when I was making well over $100K a year, but living within the poverty line is just getting old.
I'm also itching to write again. One thing that I've been interested in and following for years is the (Open Source) GNUStep project . For those not in the know, let me give some background.
About 15 years ago, Steve Jobs returned from his forced exile from Apple by introducing his NeXT company with its NeXT Cube computer running the NeXTStep operating system. NeXT was arguably 10 years ahead of its time. It was said that a programmer well-versed in NeXTStep development was about 10 times as productive as a typical developer. Eight years later NeXT and Sun paired up to release the OpenStep specification, an open spec, in the hopes that this incredible development platform would be moved to different architectures (including Windows). Sadly, the world did not beat a path to their door and OpenStep started to die a sad death as it faded into obscurity.
Four or five years later (late 90's) Apple welcomed Steve Jobs back as CEO, and before long the next generation operating system, OS X, was based on... you guessed it! OpenStep! They call it the Cocoa framework (huh?) but it's OpenStep. Steve Jobs has stated in a keynote speech that the superiority of Cocoa (OpenStep) is what has enabled Apple to pump out new & improved versions of OS X on yearly releases, as well as the popular iLife applications: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, etc.
Well, nobody should be surprised that GNUStep, an Open Source implementation of OpenStep, has been brewing for years. It's goal has been to bring the OpenStep system to various Unix/Linux platforms. (And eventually Windows.) Its progress has been slow, its visibility has been minimal, but fortunately it has progressed forward until today when they have their frameworks almost 100% complete and their development environment is somewhere around beta-quality.
What I'm wondering is why there hasn't been a rush of developers who would like to write powerful Apple (Cocoa) applications, and quickly offer native Unix/Linux ports as well. Granted, Apple now has good X11 and Gnome support, so a person could start in Linux and port to Apple, but I really think people should be taking advantage of this "revolutionary" development system that is, in my own humble opinion, a "best kept secret."
So I think when I get a chance, I'm going to try and write a simple application in OS X Cocoa and under GNUStep and document the process. Either I'll help pave the way for people to start experimenting with Cocoa/GNUStep as a cross-platform environment, or I'll prove that it's still not a viable solution. I hope it'll be the former.
Of course, I can't start writing until (a) I've defended the Masters Degree next week and (b) I'm around a Linux system where I can do the GNUStep installation and configuration.
(And again, I keep wondering if there's any way I could ever actually make some money doing this article writing. If anybody has some good suggestions, I'm all ears!)
Posted at 09:08 AM Read More
Mon - November 24, 2003
Rebuilding the new server
Sorry I haven't written an entry in a while. The
weekend has been quietly busy. I've bounced between editing the masters paper
(more), trying to contact committee members, going to the gym (the pain in my
hands is getting worse), and rebuilding my
server.
After the news about Red Hat abandoning it's public Linux distribution I decided it was time to move to a different distribution. I considered Debian but looking on the web it just didn't look like it was current enough. The last stable release being almost a year ago. The choice was between SuSE (recently acquired by Novell) and Mandrake. I chose the latter, buying their 9.2 distro on DVD.
Damn I wish more people would publish on DVD rather than CD. I think the last Red Hat distribution took up four CDs. It almost reminds me of the old days of "floppy swapping" when you had to go through ten disks to install a major package. I remember getting my first CD-ROM drive and marveling at how suddenly painless the installation was.
Since I've spent the last three years being pretty much dedicated to OS X, I find that I'm a little out of touch with the Linux world. Specifically, I haven't been looking at all the software packages that are now available for Linux (or FreeBSD, etc.). Granted, a lot of the core applications have been ported to OS X via the Fink project, but still I was blown away by the number of Multimedia and "Office" applications now exist. Who said Linux wasn't ready for the desktop?
So my plan is to build a "backup server" with all new software that can switch-over and handle all my current server's tasks. I might just keep the two running while I'm in Colorado defending the masters degree so I have a failover system. Then I'll retire the old machine (216 days of continual uptime so far!) and install the new image onto it.
I can't help but wonder how many of "my readers" (ie. you) who aren't computer geeks and whose eyes glaze over at the mention of all of this. Truth is I really quite enjoy doing computer administrative work, especially when it gets to be simply a "side job". I'm sure I would hate doing it full-time, but this allows me to get that male "tinkering under the hood" need satisfied.
After the news about Red Hat abandoning it's public Linux distribution I decided it was time to move to a different distribution. I considered Debian but looking on the web it just didn't look like it was current enough. The last stable release being almost a year ago. The choice was between SuSE (recently acquired by Novell) and Mandrake. I chose the latter, buying their 9.2 distro on DVD.
Damn I wish more people would publish on DVD rather than CD. I think the last Red Hat distribution took up four CDs. It almost reminds me of the old days of "floppy swapping" when you had to go through ten disks to install a major package. I remember getting my first CD-ROM drive and marveling at how suddenly painless the installation was.
Since I've spent the last three years being pretty much dedicated to OS X, I find that I'm a little out of touch with the Linux world. Specifically, I haven't been looking at all the software packages that are now available for Linux (or FreeBSD, etc.). Granted, a lot of the core applications have been ported to OS X via the Fink project, but still I was blown away by the number of Multimedia and "Office" applications now exist. Who said Linux wasn't ready for the desktop?
So my plan is to build a "backup server" with all new software that can switch-over and handle all my current server's tasks. I might just keep the two running while I'm in Colorado defending the masters degree so I have a failover system. Then I'll retire the old machine (216 days of continual uptime so far!) and install the new image onto it.
I can't help but wonder how many of "my readers" (ie. you) who aren't computer geeks and whose eyes glaze over at the mention of all of this. Truth is I really quite enjoy doing computer administrative work, especially when it gets to be simply a "side job". I'm sure I would hate doing it full-time, but this allows me to get that male "tinkering under the hood" need satisfied.
Posted at 05:46 PM Read More
Tue - November 4, 2003
Red Hat: the End of an Era!
I just read the most shocking news on Slashdot: Red Hat is
no longer going to develop their public Linux platform! I guess they will
continue to develop their "enterprise package" intended for big ass servers, for
which they charge obscene amounts of money, but the package that they make for
the Average Joe:
DEAD!
To say this is the end of an era is an understatement. The old Red Hat version 3.3 was the first version that I ever installed on a computer back when I was working for the USDA Forest Service in the mid 90's. I've worked with every version all the way up to 9.0. (For that matter, I've PAID for almost every version as my way of offering support for the company.)
If I were to speculate, I would say Red Hat is now annoyed with the GPL license that basically stipulates that they must offer (via FTP) anything they develop with GPL software for free. It's the strange license that actually made Linux take off and become the success that it is, but I guess that's not good enough for Red Hat. Wow! I really consider that equivalent to turning their backs on the community that actually made them what they are today.
Seriously folks, I'm reeling from this one! I guess I'll be moving my own server to either the Mandrake or Suse flavors. It'll be interesting to see who becomes the new industry leader, for I refuse to believe Red Hat will hold that honor any longer.
Wow!
To say this is the end of an era is an understatement. The old Red Hat version 3.3 was the first version that I ever installed on a computer back when I was working for the USDA Forest Service in the mid 90's. I've worked with every version all the way up to 9.0. (For that matter, I've PAID for almost every version as my way of offering support for the company.)
If I were to speculate, I would say Red Hat is now annoyed with the GPL license that basically stipulates that they must offer (via FTP) anything they develop with GPL software for free. It's the strange license that actually made Linux take off and become the success that it is, but I guess that's not good enough for Red Hat. Wow! I really consider that equivalent to turning their backs on the community that actually made them what they are today.
Seriously folks, I'm reeling from this one! I guess I'll be moving my own server to either the Mandrake or Suse flavors. It'll be interesting to see who becomes the new industry leader, for I refuse to believe Red Hat will hold that honor any longer.
Wow!
Posted at 10:09 AM Read More
Tue - October 21, 2003
My Life Stops Here
My life stops
here.
In other words, everything is going to grind to a halt for a few weeks. Yesterday I turned in a first draft of the master's paper. (And got appropriately yelled at because I actually missed a paperwork deadline by about two weeks.) The deadline to defend the thing is November 12th, so sometime before that I will hopefully be standing somewhere in Colorado State University in front of a (hopefully) small audience defending the work I'd pretty much abandoned five years ago.
Yes, I would rather have major dental work done without anesthesia, but at least I'll be able to finish something I've put off for far too long. So I shall suffer ahead. I've got an aggressive revision schedule ahead of me. The first draft was very "first draftish" with the intent of getting something slammed out rather than focusing on substance and polish. This morning my task is to actually compile a list of sections that need to be revisited, notes of "insert something here" replaced by the prerequisite material, places where it's not making any sense. (Writing math stuff in English so that a reader can actually follow is an art. A very difficult art.)
Would you believe I woke up in the middle of the night last night with a new thought about the subject material? This is like something I would consider a valid week of new research for the topic. I'll have to work it into a footnote or something like that. What's disturbing or frustrating about this is (a) I can't get any interrupted sleep without thinking about this thing and (b) five years later my brain has had enough time to chew on the problem that the work I've already done seems stupid and trivial, and I see several new directions where I should have gone, but didn't have the foresight at the time.
Actually, if anyone wants to see this miserable first draft, it's in PDF form here . Not that it's likely to make much sense.
In other words, everything is going to grind to a halt for a few weeks. Yesterday I turned in a first draft of the master's paper. (And got appropriately yelled at because I actually missed a paperwork deadline by about two weeks.) The deadline to defend the thing is November 12th, so sometime before that I will hopefully be standing somewhere in Colorado State University in front of a (hopefully) small audience defending the work I'd pretty much abandoned five years ago.
Yes, I would rather have major dental work done without anesthesia, but at least I'll be able to finish something I've put off for far too long. So I shall suffer ahead. I've got an aggressive revision schedule ahead of me. The first draft was very "first draftish" with the intent of getting something slammed out rather than focusing on substance and polish. This morning my task is to actually compile a list of sections that need to be revisited, notes of "insert something here" replaced by the prerequisite material, places where it's not making any sense. (Writing math stuff in English so that a reader can actually follow is an art. A very difficult art.)
Would you believe I woke up in the middle of the night last night with a new thought about the subject material? This is like something I would consider a valid week of new research for the topic. I'll have to work it into a footnote or something like that. What's disturbing or frustrating about this is (a) I can't get any interrupted sleep without thinking about this thing and (b) five years later my brain has had enough time to chew on the problem that the work I've already done seems stupid and trivial, and I see several new directions where I should have gone, but didn't have the foresight at the time.
Actually, if anyone wants to see this miserable first draft, it's in PDF form here . Not that it's likely to make much sense.
Posted at 08:45 AM Read More
Sun - October 19, 2003
Finishing the masters paper
My brain is
tapioca.
I've spent the last two days sitting at the laptop, doing my best to unthaw the part of the brain that once dealt with that field called "Statistics". The final paper has 5 more pages on it. (All that effort for 5 pages! I hate writing math stuff.) But we're chugging along.
I'm happy that over the last month I was able to bring in some extra money. (More than half came from the acting gig, believe it or not!) Although part of my brain is screaming that I should be cold-calling and bringing in new clients, the other part of my brain is telling me to shut up and focus on the paper.
And so on I type.
The only break has been mid-day going to the gym. I've found it SUBSTANTIALLY increases the amount of time I can type before my wrist and shoulder start falling apart again. In an hour I'm going to go have dinner with some friends. We've got a traditional Sunday dinner which I try never to miss because this group is a bunch of really cool people. (Alley introduced me to them.) It's good anyway because after 8 hours of math typing I'm really in brain fry.
I was hoping to send a draft off to Hari tomorrow. I've got a lot to still do about the ACAS software Dave and I did. That'll take a full day at least. Then there are about six places where I couldn't deal with the mind-numbing typographical layout so I just typed "put a section in here that walks though such-and-such step by step". I think it'll take another day to get those filled in.
So hopefully Wednesday I'll be beaming it over to Hari and see if he thinks it'll pass the test (with obvious fixes and updates).
God I'm anxious to get this thing behind me.
I've spent the last two days sitting at the laptop, doing my best to unthaw the part of the brain that once dealt with that field called "Statistics". The final paper has 5 more pages on it. (All that effort for 5 pages! I hate writing math stuff.) But we're chugging along.
I'm happy that over the last month I was able to bring in some extra money. (More than half came from the acting gig, believe it or not!) Although part of my brain is screaming that I should be cold-calling and bringing in new clients, the other part of my brain is telling me to shut up and focus on the paper.
And so on I type.
The only break has been mid-day going to the gym. I've found it SUBSTANTIALLY increases the amount of time I can type before my wrist and shoulder start falling apart again. In an hour I'm going to go have dinner with some friends. We've got a traditional Sunday dinner which I try never to miss because this group is a bunch of really cool people. (Alley introduced me to them.) It's good anyway because after 8 hours of math typing I'm really in brain fry.
I was hoping to send a draft off to Hari tomorrow. I've got a lot to still do about the ACAS software Dave and I did. That'll take a full day at least. Then there are about six places where I couldn't deal with the mind-numbing typographical layout so I just typed "put a section in here that walks though such-and-such step by step". I think it'll take another day to get those filled in.
So hopefully Wednesday I'll be beaming it over to Hari and see if he thinks it'll pass the test (with obvious fixes and updates).
God I'm anxious to get this thing behind me.
Posted at 05:31 PM Read More
Sat
- October 4, 2003
Gay Disney and iBlog Errata
Just a few quick notes. My life's been full of stuff,
but I don't have much time to type. I went to Gay Day at Disneyland... alone. My
friend Doug got a spider bite on his face a few days ago and is bed-ridden.
Warning: never go to Disneyland alone. It is one of the loneliest and most
depressing things you can ever do. Not only do people not go there alone, groups
of friends who go always make sure they have an even number among them so nobody
goes on rides alone. I though I'd meet some people and have a fun time. I was so
lonely it got depressing.
There's a small fix to my web page about iBlog . Jon Taylor e-mailed me asking whether I'd actually tried setting up .Mac homepage security on a subfolder. It worked in theory, but I hadn't had the time to put it into practice. At his request, I tried and it doesn't work. Grr. A quick correction is on the aforementioned iBlog page. I still intend on writing an in-depth article about the application. Stay tuned.
There's a small fix to my web page about iBlog . Jon Taylor e-mailed me asking whether I'd actually tried setting up .Mac homepage security on a subfolder. It worked in theory, but I hadn't had the time to put it into practice. At his request, I tried and it doesn't work. Grr. A quick correction is on the aforementioned iBlog page. I still intend on writing an in-depth article about the application. Stay tuned.
Posted at 09:05 PM Read More
Thu - September 25, 2003
Web Hosting on Leftover Equipment
As much as the generic "System Administrator" job
sounds like Hell to me, there are aspects to it that could be fun. This website
is bring run off of a 5 year old "leftover" Gateway computer that's sitting
beside my TV/stereo. (Really, my roommate's TV/stereo.) I set it up initially to
be the file/mp3 server for the house. Then a friend wanted me to design and host
her web site. I told her it may not be prudent, but she wanted me to do it so I
figured out how everything was supposed to
work.
Now I'm actually hosting at least half a dozen small low-traffic web sites, including my own. That's cool. Yesterday Hans mentioned he was considering abandoning his Hotmail e-mail account. I suggested he should look for a service that offers IMAP based mail. Then I decided to play around with Linux and see how hard it would be to actually offer him IMAP email service. Et voila! Now he has IMAP email, served from my leftover Gateway. In addition I configured a webmail server so he could access his email from behind the corporate firewall at work. I also configured a program on his Handspring Treo PDA/phone so it dials in through Sprint and accesses his new email.
And now I feel like a pretty full-function ISP.
It just reiterates how insanely cool Linux is, because you just say "I think I want ___. Let's find out what the Open Source solution is." Then you say "I wonder if that solution is already installed on my Linux server and I just don't know it."
Hans and I are tossing around the idea of offering an all-in-one solution for local people to offer (low traffic) web space, Internet disk space (WebDAV), email, services to cut reels for actors and burn them onto DVDs, etc. I really wonder how many people would bite... If I could get a reasonable number of takers (like twenty) that could pay my tech costs and supplement my income okay.
Ah, the possibilities.....
Now I'm actually hosting at least half a dozen small low-traffic web sites, including my own. That's cool. Yesterday Hans mentioned he was considering abandoning his Hotmail e-mail account. I suggested he should look for a service that offers IMAP based mail. Then I decided to play around with Linux and see how hard it would be to actually offer him IMAP email service. Et voila! Now he has IMAP email, served from my leftover Gateway. In addition I configured a webmail server so he could access his email from behind the corporate firewall at work. I also configured a program on his Handspring Treo PDA/phone so it dials in through Sprint and accesses his new email.
And now I feel like a pretty full-function ISP.
It just reiterates how insanely cool Linux is, because you just say "I think I want ___. Let's find out what the Open Source solution is." Then you say "I wonder if that solution is already installed on my Linux server and I just don't know it."
Hans and I are tossing around the idea of offering an all-in-one solution for local people to offer (low traffic) web space, Internet disk space (WebDAV), email, services to cut reels for actors and burn them onto DVDs, etc. I really wonder how many people would bite... If I could get a reasonable number of takers (like twenty) that could pay my tech costs and supplement my income okay.
Ah, the possibilities.....
Posted at 10:00 PM Read More
Tue - September 23, 2003
Athlon64 "Announcement"
It's a cool time to be a geek. Today marked the launch
of the new Athlon 64 chip, which I pray will bring 64-bit computing to the
consumer market. (If only Microsoft will get off their asses and get Windows up
and running!) Being an Apple freak, it's been cool seeing the 64-bit G5 finally
hit the shelves, and the upcoming OS X 10.3 "Panther" will be
cool.
Hans just bought a new 17" Apple Powerbook last night, so the "new computer smell" is still in the air. Ahhhh.
Hans just bought a new 17" Apple Powerbook last night, so the "new computer smell" is still in the air. Ahhhh.
Posted at 09:58 PM Read More
Wed - September 17, 2003
Kick-starting Business
I'm can feel the business beginning to turn around.
There are some hints of new things to do, good leads for cold calling, and I'm
having an odd amount of fun being a webmaster / web site strategist. I'm working
at strengthening my affiliation with Lee Beth Kilgore . She
does web design work but doesn't do much in the way of web log analysis: setting
strategies for site development, etc. I think she can bring in new business by
offering more management/maintenance services, and perhaps I've got some
complementary skill sets.
All I know is this: I'm sick of being "barely employed", and I'm really in the mood to work. This is a good thing. All is good.
Also, that "day in the life" exercise my friends proposed is going to happen tomorrow. So here goes life under the microscope. The good news: I scheduled a beginning surfing class for that day so I'll have at least something interesting to report on!
All I know is this: I'm sick of being "barely employed", and I'm really in the mood to work. This is a good thing. All is good.
Also, that "day in the life" exercise my friends proposed is going to happen tomorrow. So here goes life under the microscope. The good news: I scheduled a beginning surfing class for that day so I'll have at least something interesting to report on!
Posted at 09:52 PM Read More
Mon - September 1, 2003
Web Site Version 0.8
Version 0.8 - The web site is almost completely up and
functional... finally! I've got to do the contacts section, make sure there's
reverse navigation to the homepage from all sub-pages, then I think we'll be
ready to call it 1.0. This week will be busy getting the business site (zoneent.com ) up, working on
finishing the first draft of the Master's paper, and getting ready for Cold
Calling.
Posted at 09:29 PM Read More