Going back to Linux

When I first started this blog at wordpress.com it was called “Learning Linux And Loving It”. At the time I had an old Intel based PC that I had been given. Not wanting spend any money on an operating system, I installed a version of Linux called Ubuntu. The version was Warty Warthog. It was horrible. I had awful problems trying to get the machine to run in widescreen, get a soundcard working, and most important of all get a wireless network connection running.

Needless to say, I gave up. This blog has, since then gone through a couple of re-designs, becoming my personal blog when my main hosting was down, and latterly my geek rants blog.

It would seem that things have come full circle. Yesterday I grabbed a machine that was left in my garage, brought it indoors, dusted it off and installed the latest version of Ubuntu - version 8.04 LTS (long term support) Hardy Heron Edition.

So? Initial thoughts? What a bloody revelation. It was a positive experience without the trauma scarring my memory from my earlier experiences. The “new” machine is an AMD Athlon XP2800 running with 512mb RAM and onboard sound and video. A generic wireless card and hardwired ethernet too.

The installation itself was a few guided questions with simple options for the novice (or windows convert) to understand. All the hardware was detected and installed, both network cards, video and sound. The system even detected the most suitable screen resolution as 1280×1024.

Using the OS is a breeze too. OK, there’s a bit of searching on the net for me to figure out what I want to do, remembering that I have to use “sudo apt get” in a terminal for example, but it’s still fun and the knowledge on the ‘net is awesome.

I am going to live with it for a few weeks on my second machine and see how it goes. I can’t permanently convert from Windows because of iTunes for my wife’s iPod, but I might end up using this one as my main machine and just leave Windows on the old machine for the boss to use.

I have found a couple of problems though. I don’t know whether it was just a glitch, WP staff mucking about or if it is FUBAR, but the screenshot below is what greeted my when I visited the wordpress.com support forums a few minutes ago:

Once I have settled in to using it a little more and found resources that I believe are really useful (Donncha already provided a couple, thanks Donncha!) I will put up a new post with those links for others to share. In the meantime if you have any tips or tricks to share I would be most pleased to hear them!

M$ Q1 Profits

The Register reports today that Microsoft’s quarter 1 profits were down by 10.9% to just $4.3bn.

So, M$ is still feeling the after effects of yet another crappy OS in Vista and the only thing that’s really saving it is sales of the Xbox.

M$ has claimed that it has sold 140 million licences for Vista. Even taking into account world-wide sales, that sounds like a hell of a high number to me. If I had been asked I would have said it was closer to 10 million, taking into consideration all the other operating systems available, and that no corporate customer I know of has upgraded to Vista yet. Certainly my lot have stayed with XP and that’s no bad thing. Hell, much of the MoD is still running NT!

So, what’s next for M$? I know that Server 2008 is on its way, and there was a rumour floating round the ‘nets that M$ might break its desktop delivery schedule and replace Vista in 2009, a year early.

In the meantime I also heard that SP3 for XP will be available Monday. Wonder what’s going t break this time when we install it…

If You’re Happy And You Know It…

Here’s a really quick one for Windows Users to try:

Either hit the Start button and click Run or on the keyboard hit the Windows key + R.

You’ll get to the command prompt. Type in the following:

If you’re happy and you know it…

Hit return. The result shouldn’t be any surprise. You’re using a Windows system after all…

EOS 40D - Want One?

Hong Kong based Roland has written an awesome review of the new Canon EOS 40d. If you’re a wp.com blogger you’ve probably already seen (or ignored) it but I wanted to pick up on it anyway.

I currently shoot (semi-professionally) with an old (think 6 years) Canon EOS 10d - 6 megapixels, slow write times - and a variety of lenses. When I heard the rumours about the 40d I got all wishful. Wishful that I could afford one. Now I am glad that I can’t afford one. I don’t want it. That’s not quite true. If I could afford it (like I had ten thousand pounds spare) then I would have one tomorrow. As it i, much like the rest of the world I would struggle to raise the money. Yes, it’s gorgeous. Look at the 3″ screen (below) and apparently it has live preview - something that compact cameras have had for years.

Then I read Roland’s excellent review (probably the first in the world and one of the most in-depth) and I saw one word that put me off. CMOS. Yes, it’s actually four words, you get my point.

I am absolutely scratching my head though. The CMOS sensor is all well and good, 10 megapixels or whatever, but it’s not full frame. You still have to take into account the 1.6x crop factor. For most people that won’t make any difference at all. What you see in the viewfinder is (essentially) what you get on the image.

But that means that my 50mm f1.8 Canon lens is actually an 85mm when connected to my 10d (or the 40d). My 19-35mm lens is actually 30-56mm and my 70-300 comes out to 112-480mm. I have nothing that will work as a wide angle.

I could go and by the Canon EOS 5d (12.7 mp full frame) but that’s retailing at £1599 in the UK right now and I can afford that even less than the 40d.

I know that Canon used the CMOS to keep costs down but surely economies of scale apply? If they started using the full-frame sensor from the 5d in the lower range then surely the cost of the sensor would come down and the price of the camera would too?

Grr! As much as I want to upgrade I will not be buying a new camera until Canon put the full-frame sensor in a reasonably priced body. And don’t tell me to buy a Nikon! I would have to change all my lenses. And anyway Nikon suck…

Yet Another Reason To Avoid Blogger

We all know that Blogger is the root of all blogging evil. It’s been well documented in the past that Blogger has been hacked and malicious scripts, viruses and malware installed on users’ blogs.

BBC News is reporting today that Alex Eckelberry from Sunbelt Software noticed booby-trapped links on 27 August.

From the report:

Now many hundreds of blogs on the site have been updated with a short entry containing the link.

Mr Eckelberry said it was not yet clear how the links were posted to blogs. The bogus entries could have exploited a Blogger feature that lets users e-mail entries to their journal.

You would have thought that after the first three widely publicised takedowns that Google (who own Blogger) would have tightened security on the application. Apparently not.

Among the other recipients of spam e-mails generated by the virus are users’ mail2blogger accounts, which allow them to update their blogs via e-mail,” said the spokesperson.

The email addresses on mail2blogger accounts are stored in Blogger so that the system can associate the account with the email address. A simple (relatively of course) or an insider would be able to get said email addresses and pass/sell to the “gang”. This would mean two things:

1, The “gang” would be able to post the malicious scripts to blogs via cloaked email.
2. The “gang” would be able to email the script to the owner of the email address infecting their computer and causing it to pass on the script in the usual virus like manner.

I don’t know about others but I try my hardest to avoid blogs hosted by or running Blogger type software. Yes, I may be missing out on decent content but I just really can’t stand the interface, the spam advertising, the porn and the black templates of death.

My suggestions:

1. Avoid any blogs on blogger.
2. If you want to blog, use a decent service. Yes, it’s very restricted but so far there have been no reports of hacking into the system.
3. Get a Mac.

Your Facebook Status in your WordPress.com Blog

Do you use Facebook? I have done for about a month now and am rather enjoying it. It’s like MySpace without the Emos! My profile is here. If you’re using FB then feel free to add me. Let me know who you are by commenting here so I can tell who’s who though!

One of the facilities is the “Status Update” where you can tell your friends what you are doing/feeling/pondering/whatever you like. Think of it as a Twitter for Facebook. It’s not much use unless you want to let your friends know what you’re doing.

Well, thanks to Adam at Pomomusings there is a way to share your Facebook Status Updates on your blog. He has actually created a small plugin called Facepress Statuspress which, when used with the hosted version of WordPress will allow the blogger to display their Status Updates in the sidebar.

Knowing what WordPress.com bloggers are like for Gucci widgets, I thought I would explore the possibility of displaying Status Updates on wp.com blogs. And it’s easy! It uses the RSS feed for your Status Updates. You can find the RSS feed like this:

1. Go to your Facebook Profile.
2. Click on the Mini-Feed bar so you can see all of your recent activity.
3. Click “See All” on the top right of that box.
4. Under “View” on the right, you’ll see a long list of “Stories” - click on “Status Stories.”
5. Underneath the list, you will now see “Subscribe to these Stories - My Status.”
6. Right click on “My Status” and Choose “Copy Link Location.”

Come back to your wordpress.com blog and follow these steps:

7. Go to Presentation -> Widgets.
8. Scroll down the page and find RSS 1 or RSS 2. If you have already used both of those then scroll down a little further and increase the number of “RSS Feed Widgets” appropriately, save and re-load the page.
9. Drag the selected RSS widget to an appropriate location on the sidebar.
10. Click the configure button on the widget and paste in the URL that you copied in step 6.
11. Click away from the widget and then press “Save Changes”.

When you view your site you should now see your Facebook Status updates in all its glory on your sidebar. You can see mine on the right. I changed the number of items to display to “1″, otherwise it was taking up half the sidebar.

Sandbox Went to 1.0

I just noticed that Scott (in a comment on Ryan’s post about 2.3) has released version 1.0 of Sandbox specifically for WordPress 2.3.

Sheesh! Something else to play with! :)

WP23 - My first glance

Woohoo! The blogroll default links are gone and replaced with something useful!

Nice job guys and gals!

I exported this blog and imported to my home server running XAMPP and the WXR played really nice. I’ve heard stories about crappiness with WXR (WordPress eXtended RSS) but I haven’t had a problem.

I haven’t played with the UTW tag importer yet - I don’t have UTW on the XAMPP build. I might set up a sub-domain of my self-hosted site and have a play later.

The Finch Wants A Mac!

Yes, I admit it. I want to turn to the dark side. Yesterday I got to play with my cousin’s (careful! No gay incest here thanks!) Mac Book. Quite simply, it just worked. It was sleek, slick and something else beginning with S (not slimy!) that I can’t think of right now.

I was talking to two guys at work on Friday night and both of them are Mac converts. They gave me the links to a couple of videos on the Apple website, one of them was Steve J’s August 2007 keynote about iLife and iWork ‘08.

So, in a fit, a frenzy and something else beginning with F (not ….) that I can’t think of, the decision was made to purchase a Mac of some description. The question is, which one?

I love the look of the Mac Mini, I already have USB keyboard and mouse and my Gucci (if a little old at 2 years) Acer 19″ widescreen. Getting the Mac Mini will allow me to use the existing gear with a KVM and run the PC and the Mac.

The iMac looks even better but the Mac Mini just makes more sense. I have three monitors on the desk as it is. Do I want another?

But then I think of the Mac Book’s portability. That’s a huge bonus as I have no decent laptop at all.

But then I think of the Mac Book Pro and it’s extra features like the DVD burner and the extra hard disc space.

Aaarrrgh! See my problem? So, I have two tasks for both my loyal readers to undertake should you desire:

1. Help me choose. Mac Mini or Mac Book? I would like to hear your reasoning for choosing one over the other.

2. I would like to see some sites or objective real time reviews of Macs. I know next to nothing about them at the moment and I get the impression that watching a keynote from Steve Jobs is no different to watching Billy G go on about how great Vista is. And we ALL know the truth about that!

If you really want, then please try putting me off my impending purchase (and doom!), god knows how I’m going to afford it…

Crashing Internet Explorer

I hate Internet Explorer. So do thousands of others.

I found a little script that will, when used will crash Internet Explorer.

for (x in document.write) { document.write(x);}

Wrapped within script tags this will every time crash IE. Cool huh!

Well, no not really. On the site where I found this the poster suggests inserting this script in a page and then sending the link to your friends that you know are still using IE. As all it’s going to do is crash their browser, all you’re going to do is piss them off.

Unless you explain (before you give them the link!) that Firefox will handle it properly and this is yet another reason to switch to Firefox.

It would be very sensible NOT to put this on a page with high traffic. It’s just going to drive traffic away from your site, not force them to change to Firefox.

Similarly, how many people do YOU know that have installed Firefox having seen that bloody annoying message at the top of a blog when surfing with IE:

You’re using IEx. Some features are disabled for IE users because it sucks. Please use Firefox and come back again.

Yes, IE sucks. No, I can’t install Firefox at work and no, I won’t be back, thanks anyway. Listen to me, MAKE THE F*****G SITE COMPATIBLE!