Programming Ideas
Posted by Joe in Programming on June 14th, 2009
So while this has nothing to do specifically with Ubuntu, it’s more a request to the community 
I’ve recently dabbled with some PHP & MySQL on a test server running from my desktop, as I’ve been meaning to learn PHP for a while. I think it’s gone OK, I’ve learnt quite a bit, but it may help that I know some C (setting variables is very similar etc.). What this little PHP learning experience has done (other than taught me some php), is reignite my passion for programming.
I’ve always enjoyed programming, that doesn’t mean I’m fantastic at it, but I really do enjoy it, the only thing I really struggle for is ideas for programs/applications. What my request to you – the community – is, is whether you struggle for ideas as well, if not, then do you have any you’d like to suggest?
Wordpress 2.8
Normally these upgrades go well, but when you accidentally unzip/untar the new version over the top of your current install, things don’t quite go according to plan 
Though kudos to the WP Dev’s, I modified the wp-config file and set all the options (including a different database table prefix), and then I put all my plugins back in to place, and took the time to upgrade a couple I needed to do. Finally, after a deep breatth, I ran what would normally be the installer, which said “Your database needs updating”.
And that was all, so considering my potentially costly foul-up, things actually went very well I’m quite impressed!
Speedtest Meme
Posted by Joe in Uncategorized on June 11th, 2009
Mine is a little low considering when we signed up the ISP said “you’re looking at around 6.5Mbps”
Drupal?
So I’m trying out a test install of Drupal on my PC, and considering switching the site over to it. Though I have a few issues…
1) Do I keep this blog on Wordpress, or do I attempt to migrate it over to Drupal? I love WP, it’s simple, easy to use, got a load of plugins I like and that I use. But then Drupal supports blogs, so I could just use the 1 software solution and be done with it, slightly less resources on the server – win all round? But Wordpress is set up.
2) Drupal supports dynamic content. This is an issue for me, because I feel as though I would have to take advantage of it, but I never have anything to update my site with (as you may have noticed!!).
3) There’s too many settings to configure!!! The first screen presented by Drupal’s admin section is just an array of settings, such as the plugins, themes, etc. I don’t know where to start. I suppose if I take the time to read and research about Drupal, it would be better.
The thoughts come as I have a broken wrist and can’t really go out too much at the minute (I can’t drive 
). But it’s been something I’ve considered for a while, it’d be much better than the iWeb pages I have up in place at the moment, and I could probably put content about life in general on the main page instead.
I would like to hear from others who use Drupal to get a rough idea of what they think to it, and whether it would be worth switching to.
Estoy LoCo
That’s about the extent of my Spanish these days. I really ought to bring myself up to scratch, I used to be quite good.
Anyway, enough of my reminiscing! As ubuntu-geek posted earlier in the week, there’s a new LoCo Administrator on the forums. I know this is basically a repost, but I felt I should actually post it myself.
Many thanks first of all, to the Forum Council who agreed to give me the position in record time after I fleetingly suggested that I’d be interested if there was no other volunteers!! Secondly, to any LoCo teams, as Ryan said, don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need something sorting out with your forum, or need one creating. (I’ve even gone so far as updating my contact details on my wiki page!).
Jaunty Torrent Stats
Long time no post!
So…some 3 weeks after the release of Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) I figured I’d share my torrent stats for uploading 9.04’s release, so here’s a little snapshot of my rtorrent screen right now (I’m still uploading it)
ubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso
done 699.0 MB Rate: 18.1 / 0.0 KB Uploaded: 71222.0 MB [ R: 101.90]
ubuntu-9.04-desktop-amd64.iso
done 696.7 MB Rate: 12.0 / 0.0 KB Uploaded: 47434.9 MB [ R: 68.08]
ubuntu-9.04-alternate-i386.iso
done 697.5 MB Rate: 10.1 / 0.0 KB Uploaded: 58518.9 MB [ R: 83.90]
ubuntu-9.04-alternate-amd64.iso
done 698.4 MB Rate: 1.4 / 0.0 KB Uploaded: 35663.5 MB [ R: 51.07]
So I work that out to be a total of 212.84GB uploaded back to the community Anybody else wanting to share theirs…feel free
Dropbox
From what I recall, quite a few people have heard of, or even use Dropbox.
Dropbox is similar to Apple’s iDisk, in the respect that it is an online backup/data storage facility. The only difference is, dropbox will give you 2GB of free storage, just for signing up. There’s also an option to pay either $9.99 per month, or $99 per year, which will upgrade your storage capacity to 50GB. For me personally, I don’t (yet) need any more than the 2GB, though I may consider looking into the 50GB option in future.
What I like most about Dropbox is that it’s cross platform. For me this is fantastic, because I run Ubuntu (9.04 64 bit if you’re interested) on my desktop, and my laptop is an aluminum Macbook. Now I had the problem of somehow remembering to put things in the Dropbox directory so that they would get synced to the server and thus between my 2 machines.
Solving that problem was a lot easier than I could’ve expected. No thanks to my friend Gabby, who told me what he had done on IRC. Using ln -s you can create soft links to the directories to/from the Dropbox directory, and any changes you make to that directory outside of the Dropbox directory, get automatically synced. Put simply, if I make any changes to something in ~/Documents, it automatically gets backed up/synced to Dropbox. Awesome!!
If you’re unsure of the syntax of ln, as it is a little confusing, it’s the following:
ln -s target link_name
And finally, if you want to join Dropbox because you haven’t already, following this link will (according to Dropbox) get you a little bit more space
Edit: I’ve just been informed (thanks Matteo!) that the referral links don’t seem to be giving extra space any more. This is likely because Dropbox limits the amount they give out. Please feel free to use the link at the end of the post if you want, but don’t feel obliged to if you do want to sign up. Join Dropbox
Laconi.ca
Now I’m sure most of you have heard of twitter? Ok good, that’s a start. Identi.ca? Even better.
Identi.ca runs on open-source software called Laconi.ca. It supports the Open Microblogging Standard, and in my opinion, is better than twitter. There’s 2 main reasons I say this:
- It doesn’t have the same downtime as twitter. A microblogging service that has downtime as often as twitter doesn’t present
a good service. If I’m out, and I want to update my friends, I expect to be able to fire up LaTwit (my application of choice for
my phone, as it supports Laconi.ca AND twitter). - It isn’t limited to one site like twitter. Identi.ca runs on laconi.ca as does The TWiT Army & Open Microblogger,the beauty of it however, lies in the
ability to subscribe to users on other laconi.ca based sites. So lets say that army.twit.tv/randomguy123 wanted to subscribe
to my feed at identi.ca/joeb454, that’s totally possible. Then I can subscribe to randomguy123 over at TWiT Army and receive
his updates on identi.ca.
Number 2 is what I like the most, if/when laconi.ca based microblogging systems catch on, or other microblogging software begins to implement the Open Microblogging Standard it should allow for a huge network between users, no matter what service they choose to sign up to. Although the networks can be closed as well from what I’ve read. You can stop people signing up to your laconi.ca installation if necessary, and of course if you want to restrict who follows your notices, simply block them, and then you have a semi-private network.
Personally I’d like to see more people move over to laconi.ca based systems, and status.net (a recently announced project) looks very promising. I’m also pretty interested in the development of laconi.ca, as it already has some awesome features (the XMPP service for one), but time will tell, so I’ll sit tight and see what the future holds for Open Microblogging
Ubuntu Forums News
I know that ubuntu-geek has already posted about this (and probably jacob too – way to steal my idea!).
We have some new staff over on the forums! bodhi.zazen & bapoumba have been made members of the Forum Council – thus, forum administrators, and we have 4 new moderators on the team too. They come in the form of tinivole, forestpixie, cariboo907 and Michael.Godawski.
Congrats to all, it’s great to have you on board, and I’m sure you’ll do a great job
Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) – My Thoughts So Far
As I’m sure plenty of you are aware, Ubuntu 9.04 is due to be released in little over a month’s time. Testing is in full swing (Alpha 6 at time of writing), and the beta should be coming in 2 or 3 weeks (that’s a guess on my part, please don’t hold me to it!). I figured it was about time to try and install it, partly because I’m interested to see how well it currently runs on my dual-head setup, partly because I need to write an article on installing it for Linux Identity
So – I popped in the Jaunty Live CD, got to the boot menu. All is going well so far, I expected it to not boot though due to my graphics card (Nvidia 9500GT) and a Dual-Screen setup….ok I’m on the desktop (that was quick!). My dual-screen setup was detected just fine (with both monitors at the correct resolution no less!) I was already impressed just from that. I had a play around, and it took me all of 5 minutes to decide that I wanted to give it a proper try out, and to backup my home and install it properly.
1 reboot later, past the (in my opinion) great new GDM theme and nice new splash screen, I’m logged in, installing my nvidia drivers (180.xx) as recommended by a little pop-up. After that install and reboot, I get compiz effects working great, as well as an extended desktop – awesome!
After a bit more playing, I have the dust theme installed (it’s come a long way since I last used it), as well as having emesene using the new notification system (which I have to say looks great!). I’m also running on an ext4 based system, and so far – all is well. Hopefully I’ll have more to say when the beta is released, but this is running on my main desktop, so it’s getting plenty of use
UPDATE:
I’ve got to say, after using jaunty some more this morning, one thing struck me…it’s REALLY quick. Boot is way faster than 8.10 and running general. Shutdown is quicker too
