Beyond the Misty Mountains

Posts Tagged ‘UTOSP’

So back when I was still in college I went hunting around the internet for a OpenOffice.org resume template. I eventually found one that I liked and started using it for my resume. Fast forward 4 years and I was still using this same template. Now I liked the look of this template but I always hated editing it. It was full of tables and different formatting, the template was originally for OpenOffice 1 and 3 is the current version. Needless to say I never really updated it unless I had to and even then only like a word here and there.

That’s when I discovered LaTeX. Well not really discovered, I’ve known about LaTeX for awhile, just have never looked at doing anything with it. But one day I was surfing the internet and came across a LaTeX resume class file. I loved the look of it and figured if I could get it to work it would be so much nicer than the OpenOffice file.

Lets take a step back for a sec so I can explain what LaTeX is for those who don’t know. LaTeX is an extension of the TeX document markup and typesetting program. Basically you write up a document in plain text with some extra LaTeX markup that describes the documents look. This allows you to focus more on the content of your document while LaTeX handles the typesetting. You can then generate the final look using that plain text. Usually creating a PDF. LaTeX is used most by mathematicians and scientists for writing formulas and by book writers. Here’s an example taken from wikipedia.

Here’s the LaTeX markup:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\title{\LaTeX}
\date{}
\begin{document}
  \maketitle
  \LaTeX{} is a document preparation system for the \TeX{}
  typesetting program. It offers programmable desktop publishing
  features and extensive facilities for automating most aspects of
  typesetting and desktop publishing, including numbering and
  cross-referencing, tables and figures, page layout, bibliographies,
  and much more. \LaTeX{} was originally written in 1984 by Leslie
  Lamport and has become the dominant method for using \TeX; few
  people write in plain \TeX{} anymore. The current version is
  \LaTeXe.

  % This is a comment, it is not shown in the final output.
  % The following shows a little of the typesetting power of LaTeX
  \begin{align}
    E &= mc^2                              \\
    m &= \frac{m_0}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}
  \end{align}
\end{document}

This generates to look like this:

Pretty sweet. That’s something I can get on board with, writing the document in plain text and then generating the final look. So much easier than fighting a word processor to attempt to get what I want. So I downloaded the class file and set out trying to figure out the LaTeX markup. Now as you can see from the example above the markup can be a little confusing at first. Starting out I mostly just copied the markup from the example from the class file, using the LaTeX book on wikibooks to look thing up as I came to them. After this I found The Not So Short Introduction To LaTeX, a relatively short (about 125 page) free ebook. Highly recommended.

So now I have my resume as a plain text file, that is under version control using git. This makes it much easier to go in and make changes whenever I want without having to worry. If I change something that I later don’t like I can just look at the history. Then after I’m done making my changes all I have to do is a “pdflatex resume.tex” to generate a pdf copy to look at. Also because LaTeX is a typesetting system the final output looks amazing.

So there you have it, my conversion to LaTex. Unfortionately the only thing I’ve used it for so far is my resume. It’s too bad I wasn’t enlightened when I was still in college, I would have written every paper in it. So now I keep thinking about what I could use it for. I recently discovered Beamer, a LaTeX class for creating presentations. Tho I don’t usually create slides for my presentations. Maybe I should write a book….

Probably about a year ago was when I first heard of JoliCloud. At that time it was this mysterious thing, an operating system for netbooks that was supposedly leaps and bounds better than what was currently available to run on netbooks. This sounded really interesting to me so I entered my email on their site to get an invite when they released it. Jump to a couple months ago and I get an email to download the alpha version of JoliCloud. Excited, I hurriedly downloaded it and installed in on my Eee pc. Here’s some of my thoughts on it.

I popped it in and started it up and was greeted to a startup screen and boot screen that looked a lot like Ubuntu’s.

I walked through the installer all the while thinking it looked like Ubuntu. I let the installer finish and the system reboot and I’m greeted with the Ubuntu Netbook Remix interface.

And thats exactly what it is, Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The JoliCloud part is an application that is launched when you click that cloud icon. This is where the invitation part comes in as you login to JoliCloud here.

After you login you end up on the dashboard that basically shows what system updates there are and maybe some notification things.

The other tabs are the App Directory (which I’ll come back to) and the Settings tab. JoliCloud is like a social network that allows you to follow people kinda like Twitter.

The App Directory is the main thing of JoliCloud. From it you can install any application with one click. As you can see in the picture above of the App Directory there are normal applications like Skype and VLC, then there are webapps like Gmail and Facebook. You can install any of these apps with a click of a button.

After you’ve got something installed you go back to the Ubuntu NBR interface (by clicking the home icon in the upper left) to launch it. For the webapps they open in a full screen window.

So I was curious how it was doing this, mainly the JoliCloud app and running the webapps. So I went hunting around the system and found that all its basically doing is using Mozilla Prism. Prism is a browser like Firefox, but it places an icon on your desktop and ties that site to a single browser window. This makes it seem like the webapp is a normal desktop app. As far as the JoliCloud program, it’s just another site running in Prism that hooks into Ubuntu’s apt system to install programs.

So there you have it, it’s Ubuntu NBR using Mozilla Prism. Not as revolutionary as you would hope. Sure its optimized some for netbooks, but so is something like Eeebuntu. I don’t care much for Ubuntu NBR, mainly Maximus, the thing that runs every program as maximized, and the way it shows items on the taskbar. I think it also comes down to the fact that I can install programs from the command line just as easy as clicking an icon. And if I want to run a webapp in a single window I can just install Prism and set it up myself. When it comes to my netbook usage, I’m usually pretty minimal. Firefox and a terminal are the apps I use most. With the ocassional pdf or movie viewing. So for now I’ll keep looking for a setup I like on my netbook. I’m really hopeful for KDE’s plasma netbook shell that they are developing.

-Dexter-

Between the launch of Endeavour on STS-127, LRO sending back pictures of the Apollo landing sites, and the 40th anniversary of landing on the moon, I’ve been thinking about space a lot. The other day I was discussing NASA’s future plans with a friend, about the design of the Ares I and Ares V and NASA’s plan to return to the moon. The conversation then went into the establishment of a base on the moon. And saying that struck me as something that’s only in science fiction, a “moon base”. At the time it just seemed terribly absurd.

But then I thought about it and it doesn’t seem so crazy. There have been people living in space stations orbiting the earth since about 1971. First in the Russion Salyut stations and later Mir, then the US Skylab, and now in the International Space Station, which has had a perminant crew since November 2000. A crew that went from 3 people to 6 this past May. At this point I would say we’re pretty experienced with things like building habitations in space and dealing with the effects of micro-gravity on the human body.

So living on the moon really wouldn’t be that much different. In some ways I think it would be easier. The moon has 1/6th the gravity of earth, making tasks like eating and getting around simpler. Also being on the moon would give you places to go. You could put on your suit, step outside the outpost, and go for a ride in your dune buggy, play a round of golf, or watch the earth come up.

The idea is to send up an outpost piece by piece. Basically like single rooms that you could link together to build the place. By now I’m thinking this is totally possible. And not only that, but possible within the next several years. If I ever get a chance to vacation on the moon, I’m taking it! Science fiction is becoming reality.

-Dexter-

So I’ve been working on this for about a month and finally decided I needed to get it up now or I was never going to. So after a few days of fighting with the method I was using to install WordPress and a couple plugins, here it is. This is my second design of the site. It incorporates things from my first design, mainly the colors, but unlike that first version, this one isn’t ugly. At least I don’t think so, I’m really liking this design.

I have a lot of plans for things I want to add to the site and I’ll be working on that in the near future. I also hope that now that I have a design I like that I’ll be more inclined to use it. I already have a couple of new posts in mind so keep on the lookout for that.

Let me know what you think of the new look in the comments.

-Dexter-

Being the geek that I am I have more projects that I am working on than I can ever hope to finish. Recently I decided to add another one to the list.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve had the itch to get back into 3D Animation. Its been a few years, since college, that I’ve done any animation. So I decided to download Blender and go through some of the tutorials I have. One of the things I have is a Blender 3D Design Course. I was happy when I fired Blender up and I still remembered some of the keyboard shortcuts. I also like some of the new features that have been added since I last used it.

To start off the course it went through a tutorial to model and animate a little submarine.
(sorry wordpress doesn’t like my flash video)

The next lesson was about basic modeling skills. The first tutorial from this lesson was modeling a sofa.

Then it had you apply a texture to it.

The 2nd tutorial was modeling a simple hand.

Then adding an odd texture to it.

The 3rd tutorial in the lesson was modeling a snowman scene. I went a little further than the tutorial did. First this is how they wanted it to look.

I decided the straight black arms, black nose, and circle mouth all looked kinda stupid, so I made mine better.

The next lesson has you animating the snowman scene and I’ve already been thinking about how I’ll make it better than what they show.

All in all I’m having a lot of fun and look forward to learning more about Blender than I have known in the past. I’ll have to dig up my stuff from school and post it.

-Dexter-

Hello Planet!

So today Herlo noticed that my blog wasn’t on the Utah Open Source Planet and decided to add me. I’ve been meaning to get myself added but thought that I should wait until I started writing more tech-ish content. Well looking at the past things I’ve written most are pretty tech-ish in nature. Guess I’m more of a geek than I thought. So I guess its good that I finally got added to the planet. Except now I might have to get rid of my “nobody reads my blog” shirt…. hmmm. Anyway hope you enjoy it.

-Dexter-

So here we are at the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference. I’ve been excited for this over the past few weeks. Got some really nice swag. Got a nice new messenger bag, several t-shirts, a cool little penguin, and other small things. Presentations were been good. Hit up a python one to begin with. Learned some nice beginner python stuff. Then went to a wordpress performance one. Joseph Scott did a good job presenting ideas to speed up a wordpress site. I then went to a SSH Tips and Tricks presentation. Learned some cool stuff about secure tunnels. After that I got roped into the Guru Labs Trouble Shooting Challenge. Only managed to figure out 2 of the 6 questions. Still glad I didn’t go down the sysadmin route. The first day ended with keynotes by Mac Newbold of Code Greene and Paul Frields of Fedora. Mac talked about the benefits of using open source in a business. Paul talked about the Fedora community.

Day 2 started with Chad and I missing the first round of presentations, cause neither of us can get up that early. The first presentation I made it to was Linux Media, Security and Automation which was an interesting talk about setting up your house with security cameras and motion sensors and light dimmers, all controlled by Linux. Unfortunately I thought he spent too much time talking about the costs and the interoperability of the different items, than talking about the hardware and how to set it up and stuff. Next I went to HOWTO: Start an open-source radio station presented by Michael Place of utah.fm. This was a cool talk about what it takes to create an online radio station. It was a surprisingly relatively inexpensive project.

There was then a lunch break followed by that days keynotes. Friday’s keynotes were by Michael Place and Joe Brockmeier. Michael Place is the author of Schlock Mercenary and talked about how he’s making money off of a free comic. He was a great presenter and I’m going to have to add Schlock Mercenary to my reading list. Joe Brockmeier is the project manager for openSUSE and talked about where openSUSE is today and where its going.

Things at the conference got a little out of whack after the keynotes and presentations ended up getting pushed back or something so I spent the next presentation slot hanging out in the exhibiters hall talking to people like mindjuju, fungus, and John Taber. Next I went to the Vim and Python presentation which the presenter didn’t show up for so Kevin Kubasik tried to fill in and was able to talk a little bit about vim but unfortunately I didn’t learn anything new.

After the presentation there was a geek dinner over at Tucanos in The Gateway. There were like 50 some odd geeks and geekettes there. The food was great and the conversations with all the other geeks were interesting. UTOS payed for Brazilian Lemonades for everyone, which were delicious. After the dinner Erik and I managed to catch the last train of the night.

Saturday I started off the day with an Ubuntu keynote. Christer Edwards talked about using Ubuntu in the enterprise. Next up I went to a presentation by Kevin Kubasik on Writing Web Crawlers. The way he was doing web crawlers was quite advanced and way better than the way I used to do it. Then I went to Tools for Video and Images which talked about the various programs for dealing with images and video on Linux. After this we had lunch provided by The Smokehouse.

After lunch there wasn’t any particular presentation that I was intent on going to see and I was quite tired so I called it quits. I went home and promptly crashed on the couch for about 3 hours.

Overall I had a great time at UTOSC this year. Got some nice swag. Learned some new things. I’m looking forward to next years.

So after watching the amazing Dr. Horrible for free more times than I can count over the weekend, I decided I would support their efforts and pay for the downloaded version. That and I really just want to watch it more.

So I goto their site and click the link to get it from iTunes. This takes me to a browser page asking me if I have iTunes installed. For some reason it pops up the confirm box twice for me to click yes I have it.

iTunes pops up and takes me to the page for Dr Horrible. So I click the ‘Buy Season Pass’ button. This pops up a box asking for my account name and password. Now I have an iTunes account but I only ever used it way back in the day with those free pepsi songs. So I enter in my password and iTunes thinks for a second then realizes it will need my credit card details. Expected. So it pops up the account login box again before it takes me to the credit card page.

I enter in my credit card details and billing address info and click done and I’m taken to my account page. I’m sitting here wondering ‘am I done?’. Is it purchased? Is it downloading? A few clicks around iTunes and a trip to the ‘purchased’ section reveals that I have nothing downloading. It didn’t purchase anything.

So now I have to go start over. Which for some odd reason a trip to the my account loses your iTunes back button. I have to go back to the website and click the iTunes link again to get back to the page I was in in iTunes. Click the ‘Buy Season Pass’ button. And it asks for my password again. This box has no remember password feature.

This time I come out successful and a downloads section appears with 3 files downloading. Finally.

If this same user experience existed in online shops no one would ever use them. Seriously, can you imagine having to add something to your shopping cart. Login to proceed. Login to enter you billing info. Have to start over with adding it back to your cart. Login again to purchase.

So much for Apple usability.

update: To add to this, downloading through iTunes is painfully slow. Then when I went to watch them I popped them into the best media player around, vlc, and all I got was black. Turns out they are DRM protected m4v files. So the only option is to watch them in either iTunes or quicktime. Both of which chug barely able to play them. So after searching the web for something to strip the drm from the videos, like I did the few audio files I got from iTunes, and not finding anything usefull I turned to the amazing bittorrent and found a high quality rip to download. So now I have the unwatchable DRM laden ones I payed for and the watchable bittorrent ones.

Welcome back Firefox 2.

That was how my Firefox Download Day went. I installed FF3, played with it for awhile, then reinstalled FF2. I was a little unimpressed. I wish I could like it, it’s got some really great features, but for now I think I’ll stick with 2. The couple things I don’t like are just too big for me to want to cope with.

The first and big one is the “AwesomeBar”. That thing is really not that awesome. Over the years of using the internet I’ve become very attached to the model of I type into the urlbar and it shows me url’s that start with those letters that are in my history. I don’t need my urlbar searching in my bookmarks. If I wanted to find something I had bookmarked I would go look for it in my bookmarks. I want my url bar to look in my url history.

Another thing is that when I click the dropdown arrow on the urlbar I expect to see a list of urls that I have typed into the bar. In firefox 2 you can open that dropdown and see the list of urls and arrow through them and hit the delete key on ones you don’t want in there. I would do that and basically keep a list of recently visted url’s that I could quickly jump to. Firefox 3 shows like the last few pages I have visited. That’s what the history menu up in the menu bar is for.

Also I miss the ‘go’ button on the urlbar.

The other big thing I was less than pleased with was the new behavior when you visit a site with a semi invalid ssl certificate. In firefox 2 it would popup a message telling you why the ssl cert was bad and ask if you wanted to continue to the site or leave. In FF3 it blocks you outright and you have to go through this mess of setting up the site as an ‘exception’. Call me lazy but I like to just hit the OK button to get to the site.

The reason this bugs me more than it probably should is that being a web developer I have development machines that have self signed certificates. Which is ok cause they are just used for testing https so they don’t need to be signed by a CA. Also my firewall uses https for the web interface to it. The ssl is completely valid and encrypts my traffic. Firefox 3 just doesn’t like it cause it’s not signed by a special CA. Yeah I could setup these 3-4 machines to just be exceptions but I come across sites that use self-signed certs on a fairly frequent basis and I just think it would get annoying to have to go through the steps you have to in FF3 just to get to them. Especially on the ones I only want to allow the ‘bad cert’ temporarily.

Lastly are my extensions. I had like 12 extensions that it said weren’t compatible with firefox 3. I’m sure in time these will get updated to work with it, but in the meantime being without them is like having pizza without the cheese.

There are a lot of new features in FF3 that I did like. Things like the new download manager. Being able to tag bookmarks. The new theme looks quite nice. Speed and memory improvements. The new way the remember password thing works. I really think if I could just get the urlbar to work the way it did before I would switch immediately. I’m sure in time I’ll switch and probably be forced to get used to the ‘AwesomeBar’, but until then I’m happy with FF2.

-Dexter-