New Adventures in Technology

This weekend I decided to reinstall my laptop. Largely because it’s been through two Ubuntu upgrades (8.10 –> 9.04 –> 9.10), and also because it was still on an ex3 file system and my netbook on ex4 is a lot snappier with less memory. I also wanted to reclaim the disk space previously used for Vista, which was largely going to waste.

My method for re-installation is as follows:

1. Back up the whole of my home directory (including hidden files). In my case this was about 83Gb.
2. Do a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10 from USB. This took under 10 minutes, which was a record for me.
3. Do software updates and installation of anything outside the base install that I need (very little in my case). This required a reboot for a new kernel.
4. Copy back the home directory, trying not to do anything else at the same time to avoid config files getting overwritten.
5. Download and install dropbox.
6. Log out, and log back in.

After an hour or so (of copying data) I found myself with an identical looking interface, but with a lot more extra space, a snappier feel, and no loss of data.

It probably took about 2 hours in total (of which 90% was copying data), and I didn’t have to do anything I’d regard as too scary for a non-technical user.

I was going to write a post about the iPad, but I think most of what I wanted to say has been expressed in quite a few other places. Largely, I think it looks pretty, but the lack of customisation and multitasking mean that if I was to get one, I don’t think I’d get the use out of it that the price tag would require, although I do concede that this product is going to appeal greatly to non-technical users.

I should also mention Firefox 3.6, which actually does seem faster than 3.5, and which I’ve been using for a few days now without noticing anything different other than the speed (I like new things, but I also dislike unnecessary interface changes because they cause my brain to have to think for an extra second or two).

Ubuntu users wanting to get hold of the latest releases of Mozilla software might want to try the ubuntuzilla repository which seems to work a treat.

What else?

Well, I’ve not really stumbled upon any other new and interesting technology this week, largely because I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work and have had very little recreational internet time. I have however noticed that Facebook seems to be prompting me to “reconnect” with people I see every day (it’s not suggested Steph yet, but it’s only a matter of time), which makes me wish there was a setting to define people with whom I largely interact with offline. That way Facebook might actually prompt me to talk to people I really do actually need to reconnect with.

I did a fair bit of work on this about a year ago, and then never got round to writing it up. What I was trying to achieve was to have a minimal virtual server running in VirtualBox, which could been seen from the outside world and would appear to all extent and purposes to be a real physical machine.

Start off by creating a new VM. I went with a totally stripped down installation of Ubuntu (from the alternative CD), adding just openssh-server and apache2 to the default install. I called it Ubuntu Minimal (the name will become important later).

Boot up the new VM, and then on the host machine enter the following commands (replacing the name of the VM with what you decided to call yours):

VBoxManage setextradata "Ubuntu Minimal" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/HostPort" 2222
VBoxManage setextradata "Ubuntu Minimal" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/GuestPort" 22
VBoxManage setextradata "Ubuntu Minimal" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/Protocol" TCP
VBoxManage setextradata "Ubuntu Minimal" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/apache2/HostPort" 8008
VBoxManage setextradata "Ubuntu Minimal" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/apache2/GuestPort" 80
VBoxManage setextradata "Ubuntu Minimal" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/apache2/Protocol" TCP

Power down the VM, start it up again, and then you should be able to ssh into it on port 2222 and pull up apache’s “it works!” page by browsing to http://localhost:8008. At that point you can install web apps and do whatever else you want with the server.

It doesn’t take up a great deal of memory, so you could probably have a couple of these running on most computers without any obvious performance degradation.

This week I’ve largely been:

• Listening to the new albums by The Flaming Lips, Atlas Sound, Charlotte Hatherley and Broadcast (all of which I’m really enjoying)
• Updating my main workstation to Ubuntu 9.10
• Learning about Google Wave
• Trying to juggle various work tasks (and not dropping anything hopefully).

Oh, and I still hate this time of year. Even though we had no annoying begging children this year, there is still the firework-hating dog to deal with.

To me, Windows 7 doesn’t seem much of an improvement on Vista. What is does do is return to making me think that the look and feel was modelled on a child’s toy. With XP it was Fisher Price, with Vista it was some flashy Japanese toy that looked good but no-one played with. And with 7 it is Lego. Just look at the dock and tell me I’m not right.

What with Snow Leopard being underwhelming, and Windows 7 not exactly making me want to switch back, I think Ubuntu 9.10 has me totally sold in the Autumn 2009 OS wars.

But there again, I’m ever so slightly biased.

I love my Dell Mini, but there are a couple of “features” added by Dell that drive me mad. One of these is called Maximus. It’s an application that tells any window that opens on the desktop to open full-screen. It’s particularly annoying with applications I’ve added myself (like Empathy), as the default applications seem preconfigured to ignore it. I’ve had a poke around in gconf-editor (install it with sudo apt-get install gconf-editor if it doesn’t exist already), and the key that needs editing is called /apps/maximus/exclude_class (see below for details):

It’s basically a list of applications that open with the same window size they closed with rather than open in full-screen.

Double click on the key, and you should get the following dialogue:

Click on the plus button, and add whatever applications you need as shown below:

Then click on OK. Next time you open the applications in question they should honour your desired window size.

This guide has all the required info, and worked like a charm on my netbook running 8.04 and my laptop running 9.04 (although it was simpler than the guide suggests in both cases). I’ll hopefully write a more comprehensive guide at some point soon, because I think 3.1 is something that people should consider upgrading to.

I’m really not noticing the fact that I’m running 8.04 on my Dell Mini, largely because I’ve upgraded most of what I use regularly to later versions.

I’m largely posting this because I’ve had to do it twice recently and forgot how to do it both times.

The command to convert a whole folder of images from .bmp to .jpg (on Linux, obviously) is:

mogrify -format jpg *.bmp

It’s really that simple, and is actually a lot quicker than I thought it would be. You need ImageMagick installed, but most distros will have that by default anyway.

This could probably be summed up in a few words (the words being “use symlinks”).

Basically, what I wanted to do was to sync several folders outside my dropbox folder (for various reasons). The solution was to create a shortcut in the folder I wanted to sync, and then moving the link to my dropbox folder.  This can be done of the command line by typing something like:

ln -s /home/folder/to/sync /home/andy/dropbox/synched_folder

This could be used in all sorts of ways, some of which I may blog about over the next couple of weeks.

I’ve been involved with various voluntary communities and societies over the years, and have always been interested in how they regulate and reward their members without there being any sort of financial reward mechanism.

I’m quite lucky to move in circles where financial reward is not the only motivating factor. Everyone needs to eat, but there is also a strong need to create, to help people, to be seen as being useful and to participate in something greater than one person could create on their own. These things motivate me quite a lot, and actually contribute towards why I like my day job so much. But the problem with everything I’ve mentioned is that is doesn’t work for everyone. Just like in the world of work, people need a number to associate with the contribution they make. This is usually represented by pay, but in the voluntary sector there has to be something else, which is why a lot of organisations develop a system to reward members with “points” that represent their standing in the society, and may also allow them access to other benefits.

I’m currently involved with both the Ubuntu community (in particular the Launchpad bug reporting and support software) and Camarilla UK (a live role-playing society), both of whom use some sort of non-financial reward mechanism. Launchpad has a karma system, where each time you deal with a bug or answer a question you get points (and more points if the end user agrees that you have indeed sorted their problem). Karma is listed on the profile of each member, so you can get a vague idea of how much each person has contributed. People who do a lot get thanked, talked about, and generally revered, which makes people feel like their contribution means something. Camarilla UK has a similar mechanism called Membership Class (MC) where people get points for everything above and beyond just turning up and playing games. MC can be used to have a more powerful starting character on the understanding that if you abuse it then you will lose both the character and some MC. In both systems it is assumed that members with a higher “score” will mentor newer members, and should act in a way befitting of a senior member of a community.

And that is where rules come in.

In the working world it is fairly straightforward. We have job descriptions and codes of conduct, and if we don’t adhere to them then we lose our jobs. In the voluntary sector there is no financial reward, but there still needs to be an expected standard of conduct and behaviour. Both societies I work with have a code of conduct, and both have roles and positions to which people can be appointed or elected to. So in some ways it works exactly like a job; just without the money. The one big difference is that Ubuntu doesn’t force people to sign the Code of Conduct (although there are certain things you can’t do until you’ve signed), whereas you can’t be a member of Camarilla UK without agreeing to abide by a (fairly common sense) set of rules. Both Codes of Conduct are very similar (Be excellent to everyone and don’t cause problems being the main themes), and they act more as a set of guidelines than a set of rules.

It could be said that we don’t need these things, but if you look at the number of societies that have folded due to internal squabbling or people not knowing where they stand then it is quite easy to see that we need rules and we need a way of saying “thank you” to people who give their time and their effort for free. I’ve certainly felt more involved in societies that have these things, but there is one more thing that is needed; great people who instill a sense of community and belonging with everything they contribute. Because let’s face it, one of the reasons we do these things is to meet other like minded people who understand that it is possible to thrive in a society that is not motivated by money.