News from Great Castle Wilson

Author: adminmcq

  • The new beta of Ubuntu rocks!

    I just installed the latest beta of Ubuntu 7.10 on my old IBM T30. Unlike the last time I tried this, both the wireless and the video worked first try. Woot! I ran the movie player and attempted to stream a video off my slug and it calmly downloaded the required codecs and then played it perfectly.

    Of course, I can’t run the fancy desktop effects, but I couldn’t do this on the old version either, and at least it now notices that it can’t run them instead of attempting to switch and leaving the UI in a busted state.

    This spirit of helpfulness carries through in other places too. When I booted the first time, it warned me that my battery was “busted” because the capacity was down to 32%. Yup, that seems busted to me. Anybody know of a good source of T30 batteries in Ottawa?

    Anyway, I probably won’t start using the laptop for anything important until the Gibbon comes off beta in a couple of weeks, but man it sure is nice to have found a way to make the old beast useful again. As usual, Ubuntu feels much snappier then WinXP did on this box.

  • Giant slug in Nepean

    Take a look at this…

    Apparently, they are building a sports dome of some kind near my parent’s house.

    Unfortunately, it’s right on one of the main roads through the greenbelt, so everyone on the way into the city gets treated to that view. I must say, I don’t find it to be an aesthetically pleasing addition to the skyline.

  • Note to self: Phone wakes at 6:30

    So last night, some time between midnight and 6am, my friend Ken Walker sent me an SMS to let me know that he had just got a new iPhone [WTG, Ken!]. My phone was off, when the message was sent, so Rogers dutifully held onto it and, sent it the next time the phone connected to the network. In this case, that happened when it turned itself on at 6am this morning.

    Now, I leave my phone on the night table beside my bed at night, since I use it to read e-books, and thus the **** BING **** that went off beside my ear at 6am this morning was an excellent reminder to set the wakeup time for the phone to match my own wakeup time.

    Technology! [Soon to replace “Belgium” as the worst insult in the galaxy.]

    (Yes, that was a HHGttG reference.)

  • Offline Blog Editors

    Is anyone out there using separate blog editing software? That is, is anyone using an application to post to their blog, rather than the built-in web interface? If so, which one are you using, and how’s it working for you?

    I’m posting this with the 30 day trial for a tool called MarsEdit 2. It seems to be relatively useful, but I don’t understand why it’s better than just using the browser. Has anyone else tried this app? What else is available?

  • If you’re reading this…

    … then I owe you an apology. I took a bit of a break from blogging when I got back from our family vacation travel, and it’s taken me a while to get back into writing. I’m not exactly “re-charged” yet, but I’m ready, so here goes…

    Demise of SplashBlog

    As you can see, the widget in the sidebar that was displaying pictures has been disabled. See the text box for the current state of affairs, but never fear, the pictures will come back. I really like the immediacy of taking pictures with my phone and having them show up automatically in the blog. It’s just going to take a bit of work to re-enable them.

    Vacation Pictures

    Speaking of pictures, I did get my vacation shots up on the web in my Gallery2 site — no, that link won’t work any more; I might replace it with something better at some point. You won’t be able to see them unless you log in, so if you want to take a look you can send me a note and I’ll tell you the password (if I like you. ;-)).

    If you do check them out, watch out for The Black Spot. Unfortunately, the CCD on my camera developed a dark spot (while we were in Kingston) that is clearly visible in any of the images where that area is approximately a solid color — like the mist coming off a waterfall, for example. doh! I took the camera to Henry’s when we got back and they happily fixed it for free, but it was too late for the vacation snaps. Oh well.

    A Rogue by any other name

    One of my main “achievements” — if you want to call it that — during my vacation, was to level my horde-side rogue “Caltrop” to 63 [maybe 64 by tonight. ;-)] so that I could get back to playing with the guild on Sunday nights. It was a lot of work — she’s 13 days played — but it was worth it. For those unfamiliar with the game, “13 days played” means 13*24 hours in front of the screen to get her to that level, although some of that was done before my vacation started.

    I read books.

    Over the course of my vacation, I got through seven new books — all in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, of course.

    One in particular that I had been waiting for was the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora, called Red Seas Under Red Skies. I’m not certain I enjoyed this one as much as the first, but I will say that after two full books I still find the mix of grand scope and yet very personal story compelling. I just wish he would drop his habit of trying to fool the reader in the introduction; this time, I actually imagined a better outcome from the confrontation than the author did. Oh well.

    I also picked up Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Sharing Knife books. They were a bit too girly for my tastes, but it was probably good for me to read something where the people were more important than the action, for a change.

    The rest of the books were just pulp. The sci-fi equivalents of the “penny dreadful” — just what you need when you’re on vacation. Speaking of pulp, has anybody ever seen the E. E. Smith “Lensman” or “Skylark” books in electronic form? It’s been a long time since I read them, and I’d like to ride that particular inertialess drive again.

    Whew! I guess that about covers it. Talk to you soon.

  • Waiting for fireworks

    Deb, Dennis and I are currently sitting by the falls waiting for the Wednesday evening fireworks to start. I’ll upload a picture of the lights on the falls at some point. They’re very pretty.

  • bah! they said they had internet access

    Well, so much for posting about our trip while we are on it. I guess I’ll try again tomorrow, but it looks like it’s not working — I’m posting this from the phone. *sigh*

  • Testing 1…2…3…

    Well, we made it Kingston. The plan for tonight is dinner followed by the Haunted Walk.

    the view from our room

  • I’m done.

    It’s good.

    That’s all the original post said. I’m still aware enough to know that this was a reference to the last Harry Potter book, but I figured I’d add the context now in case I forget in the future.

  • Deb travels.

    Readers of the Deblog — sadly, Deblog has been gone for a long time — already know that Deb is traveling this week, but for the rest of you, this is Deb’s annual pilgrimage to Wisconsin for Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp.

    She heads out today and gets back next Tuesday. As usual, she and her friend Mabel are driving there. Good luck, Deblits. See you on Tuesday.