Archive for category Other
Lack Of Motivation
Things like this really bug me, which, given the subject, it really shouldn’t! I don’t know if I’m alone here, but suffering from a lack of motivation to do something you normally enjoy frustrates me.
A couple of examples: I’m working on a project with one of my friends (a Java application, for the more curious of you), and from time to time, I’ll sit and code into the early hours of the morning without realising…other times, despite enjoying coding, I’ll open up the code, look at it, and think “I really can’t be bothered”, despite the fact earlier that day, I was totally motivated and yearning to do it.
I’m not sure why this happens, or if it happens to anybody other than myself, but it doesn’t stop it being any less frustrating 
Anyway…time to go back to work!
iDroid
Before I start – no, this isn’t a Star Wars post 
Sorry!
I currently have an iPhone, and no, I’m not ashamed to admit it, though it is a little awkward that I can’t sync it with my desktop. I’m also not ashamed to admit that I love it, I really do. But as with a lot of things, I find the Apple design of the phone a little restrictive. Sure it’s polished, and it looks sleek and sexy (to some at least), but I just can’t help feeling that I’d prefer an Android phone.
I’ve been looking, albeit briefly, at what Android phones are available on the UK market. Out of the choices, I think I’d prefer a Nexus One, though as far as I’ve seen – they’re Vodafone exclusive, and I’m on an O2 contract, so it’s a no-go. I’d love to hear from some of you guys that have Android phones, and what phones they are, because I’m definitely in the market!
Happy Holidays 2009!
Just a quick one to say Merry Christmas to all!
That said – I know some won’t celebrate Christmas, so Happy Holidays (whichever holiday that may be!) I hope everybody has a great time, and a good new year.
Machine Naming Convention
Following Laura Czajkowski’s post about machine naming conventions, I thought I’d post mine
Initially, my machine’s were named after characters from the Devil May Cry series of video games, though I changed that around 6 months ago, and went with something different, and with far more room for expansion….names of planets from the Star Wars Universe.
Currently, my desktop is kashyyyk, my laptop is naboo, my VPS is tatooine. I’m currently thinking of the less desirable planets to name the Windows PC’s in the house
Un Pequeño Agradecimento
Not sure if the phrase “A Little Thanks” is used a lot in Spanish speaking places, but that’s what I want to do
I did Spanish for a number of years (I believe it was 5, in total), and I enjoyed it, though I never really tried…to this day I’m surprised I did as well as I did in the subject. Recently on a trip to London, I spoke a little bit of Spanish, and read a short story entirely in Spanish – as the person I was staying with has learnt from colleagues at work, thus, had that book.
However I’ve kept it up since returning, I’ve even changed my Facebook language back from ‘English (Pirate)’ (that was a good 9 months though!) into ‘Español (España)’ which is helping me remember things…though Facebook notifications are pretty standard. So the main thanks I have to give are to the Spanish speak sub-forums on the Ubuntu Forums. For the main part, this includes the Argentina & Chile LoCo Teams – I’ve been reading threads in there, and for a large part, understanding them. It’s helping quite a lot, and for that – thanks for having your forums, & such a good LoCo team!
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.
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
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
, as it is a little confusing, it’s the following:
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
Privacy Becoming A Thing Of The Past?
More and more it seems to be the case that privacy just doesn’t matter to Governments anymore. It’s becoming a sad state of affairs in the UK now as well.
I was just reading an article on slashdot after being linked to it on IRC. And I have to say I’m frankly appalled that anything like this could even be passed as a viable and privacy respecting piece of legislation. Basically it says something along the lines of:
UK Police, in collaboration with other EU authorities will have the power to remotely search people’s PC’s to find evidence et al. All without a warrant.
Wait…I’m sorry what? So apparently, as a UK citizen I’m supposed to sit here and have some random people hack into my network and have a snoop around my PC for any evidence. Now I’m assuming this would only be if you’re suspected of a crime, but either way it’s not ethically right to be permitted to do this. It’s equivilant to me thinking “Oh hey, I think that car might be fun to drive” and promptly walking into a showroom, and stealing it, then (possibly) bringing it back later (possibly) intact.
It just seems to me that the UK is becoming more and more of a Nanny/Police/Health & Safety Obsessed/Big Brother state, and I’m getting increasingly frustrated with it. I wouldn’t want to have to move abroad just because of some quite frankly idiotic policies, but if it comes to that, it’s something I’d have to do. I don’t want to be living in a real world 1984 (the book)/Orwellian nation .
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m pretty much 99% opposed to this, but if anybody can provide a good counter argument as to why this should ever be permitted…I’d love to hear it
2 Other Sources:
Slashdot Article
Times Online Article
Happy Holidays!!
Just a quick one to say Merry Christmas to all!
Though I know some won’t celebrate Christmas, so Happy Holidays (whatever holiday you’re celebrating). I hope everybody has a great time, and a good new year.
I’ll be back then (hopefully!).
Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) Pt. 2
So I’ve had 8.10 installed for just under a week now, and so far, all is well
I have actually been making use of a tabbed Nautilus (yay!) which I didn’t think I would. I’ve also been using my VPS to torrent the desktop and alternate versions of Intrepid (32 bit versions). Stats of that at the time of writing are:
Desktop – Uploaded: 8126 MB
Alternate – Uploaded: 1680 MB
As you may have guessed – the alternate iso has only been seeding for a day or so. But this is what VPS’s are for I’ll continue seeding until Sunday night (GMT).
As for what I think of Intrepid on my laptop…well…I love it (as always). The only downside to it that I can complain about is the fact that unless I play my audio at near inaudible volumes (thus defeating the object of audio ). The sound distorts like a music concert recorded on a mobile phone (cell phone for the Americans reading this ).
Luckily – I don’t need to use the sound a lot, I’ve been playing my music from my iPhone and it’s dock, as it has a lineout on the rear of the dock
All in all – I think Intrepid is a decent release, though I totally understand people sticking with 8.04.1 as it’s an LTS. I mean, I was considering it, but I love upgrading!!
In other news – that isn’t worthy of it’s own post – I’m going to be going to a LUG meeting next week, it’ll be the first time I’ve ever been, so I’m a little nervous, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. I’ll let you know
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