Well it's been a great semester, and i plan to go out with a bang. Right now I will sum up my thoughts on Little Brother and talk about I-search.
Later in the finale post i will show you some video of my Ubuntu and Hackintosh Virtual Machines (i'm a geek... can't help it.), Finally tell you all the groups i work for and just what that mystery group was, and a lot more. I do not know what will become of this, If you all want to stick with me, i will keep this up as a linux blog, if not I may keep it up as archive.
Little Brother
Little Brother was an interesting read, while i could have done without the sexual scenes I do like when a book involving technology knows what it is talking about. I loved the fact it included a made up distro of linux and showed of one of the interesting features of linux, With some effort it can run on most anything (you really can install linux on an exbox and turn it into a computer, same was true for the PS3 via the "install other OS" option, i figure it is still possible but a little more annoying to do now. if not, a fix will be in the works.) and found odd perallels to it in knox county schools wondering if they should set up classroom cams to catch inappropriate conduct between teachers and student, the controversy of the full body scanners at the airport, and the recent american demonization of wikileaks.org,
I-Search
I had fun with the i-search though it cost me some sanity and is the reason this post is so damn late. I found it a nice diversion from the other project and my only regret is that i didn't do it sooner. NEVER PROCRASTINATE! I know this is to late to be useful but i have been so darn busy with finals and what-not. I still have a bit of the paper to finish so i will leave it at this.
STAY TUNED FOR THE BIG FINISH
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Of TED and Meerkats
Hello yet again my peers. Two things this update.
Chosen TED talk: Open-Source economies
I choose this topic because I am an active supporter of the open source movement, I even work for a group that is making it's own custom Linux (we are not trying to compete with Ubuntu, we are just making a new Linux crafted for a certain group of people). Anyway I figure it will be fun to see how collaborative efforts are helping to change and evolve the way things work.
Here is the video:
Maverick Meerkat (Ubuntu Linux 10.10)
Maverick (Ubuntu releases are always referred to as the adjective for short) is the newest release of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is made by Canonical a company founded by Mark Shuttleworth, yes the same Shuttleworth that went on the spaceflight. Ubuntu gets it's name from the African philosophy of Ubuntu or "Humanity to others". Shuttleworth is from South Africa by the way. Anyway as part of a long standing tradition Ubuntu's numbering scheme is last to digits of the year a dot then the two digits for the mouth, and since it is on a six mouth release cycle the last to number are always 04 or 10. The naming scheme is alphabetically and done adjective and then animal. The logo is called the circle of friends and is supposed to represent three different skinned people in different colored shirts holding hands in a circle. Anyways enough about the name and logo. A new version of Ubuntu usually brings a few new features, some times the changes are major, like the switch from Add/Remove Applications to the Ubuntu Software Center. Some are mostly technical like the switch form grub to grub2.
On the topic of the origin of the name Ubuntu lets have Nelson Mandela explain it (this video actually came as a sample file in a release of Ubuntu):
New Stuff :
Chosen TED talk: Open-Source economies
I choose this topic because I am an active supporter of the open source movement, I even work for a group that is making it's own custom Linux (we are not trying to compete with Ubuntu, we are just making a new Linux crafted for a certain group of people). Anyway I figure it will be fun to see how collaborative efforts are helping to change and evolve the way things work.
Here is the video:
Maverick Meerkat (Ubuntu Linux 10.10)
Maverick (Ubuntu releases are always referred to as the adjective for short) is the newest release of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is made by Canonical a company founded by Mark Shuttleworth, yes the same Shuttleworth that went on the spaceflight. Ubuntu gets it's name from the African philosophy of Ubuntu or "Humanity to others". Shuttleworth is from South Africa by the way. Anyway as part of a long standing tradition Ubuntu's numbering scheme is last to digits of the year a dot then the two digits for the mouth, and since it is on a six mouth release cycle the last to number are always 04 or 10. The naming scheme is alphabetically and done adjective and then animal. The logo is called the circle of friends and is supposed to represent three different skinned people in different colored shirts holding hands in a circle. Anyways enough about the name and logo. A new version of Ubuntu usually brings a few new features, some times the changes are major, like the switch from Add/Remove Applications to the Ubuntu Software Center. Some are mostly technical like the switch form grub to grub2.
On the topic of the origin of the name Ubuntu lets have Nelson Mandela explain it (this video actually came as a sample file in a release of Ubuntu):
New Stuff :
- Pay option and PPA (non-official download channels) support added to Software Center.
- Shotwell replaces F-Spot
- Ubuntu One now features phone contact backup and is now integrated into nautilus (default file browser), now allowing you to select files other then Ubuntu One to back up.
- Rhythmbox (the default music player) is now has previous, pause/play, and next buttons in the sound menu.
- Nautilus now has a Coverflow view (press F4 to activate) and a built-in terminal (press F7 to activate).
- Compiz and the new Xorg have a problem involving the wallpaper plugin. (Not a super easy to set up plugin so this error does not affect everyone) - FIXED IN LATEST XORG UPDATE
- Some PPAs do not yet support the maverick meerkat, you can either remove them and wait or rename them to lucid (later is not recommended for normal users as it is at an intermediate level to do and may cause dependency errors)
- Info boxes on google earth are not working, looking into if this error is from the package, if my 64-bit system is missing some 32-bit system libraries, and such.
- Those Funny Funguloids now starts but crashes. (error in game library that needs patching)
- Wine (windows emulation layer) sound is creacking on some games. (possible error in wine sound running trough pluseaudio)
Hallelujahs (stuff that works for me finally):
- Earcandy (fading sound manager, ex: music fades out when someone skypes you and fades in when they hang up) now works.
Well that is all the stuff I have space for. Hopefully i can do a demo video by next post. Till then have a good day.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Fall Break
So end another week. Given it was only 3 days... which i found quite nice. I have had a busy 3 days, a Psychology test on Monday, the last day of FYS101 with a trip to the UT garden (beautiful place... was cold as heck that day though... really from 90 to 40, what is with the weather this fall). Sorry i looked like an idiot on Monday, lying about having technical problems, I had a very busy weekend of homework and had forgot about our presentations, and I figured technical difficulty would let me have till Wednesday, never occurred to just ask to turn it in then, guess i am used to the "due on the assigned day, even when there are other times to turn it in, Unless you had a problem with the presentation. But this serves as a lesson to all, one, ask your professor if you can have more time if you need it and the thing has other days you can turn it in and two, don't lie about technical problems to someone who can use linux X3. Anyway, i have been losing a lot of stuff lately, my mailbox combo, my dragon claw holding a marble necklace (i hope i left it at home), my Ubuntu install (When i was tying to reinstall it i split my personal file from it and then tried to reinstall, but i didn't move the file because it was 30gb, but then the uninstall deleted it and i could not recover it, but other then a few IM logs i only lost some notes but i managed to get copies from my peers), and this little rubber thing from my laptop cooling stand. Also this coming Sunday, on the 10th, Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" is released, so i might review it for you guys. Oh and my contextual analysis will be on the Hitler image again. Have a great fall break.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Personal opinion on linux (with review of children of men)
Yet another week, yet another blog post due, yet i have nothing to write about, so i shall open by talking about children of men. I found children of men to be a very interesting post-apocalyptic hope movie. While a bit of it seemed the generic "all the 'good guys' die in the end protecting the girl" at times it conveyed a strong message about hope and corruption. It was a good film overall and worth giving a shot.
Also, i was doing some study about my laptop and running linux on it and i ran into a fourm that quouted the old, "linux has less than 1% of all desktops", in the news there where stories of android and iOS (the iphone/ipod/ipad OS) taking over some of linux's 1%. The I read a think on why android may not be good for business in which it cite that in it's around 18 years of live linux has a tiny 1% (which maybe like a 1 million users) of desktops while windows has 94% and mac has 4%. They however forget to take into account linux came into the game latter then the two and has had almost no commercials and only you select software shops even stock the CDs (Retail stores like Best-buys don't carry them, the best bet to find them is a computer store that stocks lots software since it is unlikely that little computer stores will carry them either.) You may wonder how you get a copy then, well most the time you have to burn a CD/DVD of the distro (short for distribution basically it is the version) you want to install. You can also make a liveUSB or a virtual machine and some even install in a folder on windows and let you run it from there. But the install CD is the most popular and it has a great feature called liveCD (it technically is still called that on a dvd but you could call it a liveDVD to), with which you can run linux directly from the cd (it will be slower then if actually installed) which is a great way to test it. The closest thing on windows is to burn a disc with the PE (preinstall enviroment) on it, and it normal looks nothing like a full windows install and is ment more for repair usage.
But anyway i am going to tell you some things i like about linux.
1. Package Management - If you bought a windows7 laptop from bestbuy you may have seen there software installer and you may have thought GOOD LORD how awesome that i can download any of these programs i want with the push of a button without having to google for them. If you also wondered why no one did it sooner... turns out linux did... A LONG time ago too. Package management allows you to download programs from a repo (short for repository). You just boot up a package manager (different distros and even desktops have different ones) then you use a filter or search for the name of the program an then just give it's ticker box a click and it will tell you if there are other programs it has to install to get it to work or if and why it can't install (this can lead to dependence hell it is recommend you stick only to repos provided by the OS unless you know what you are doing.)
2. Almost no viruses - I have yet to get a linux virus, as with mac they are few and far between. That is not to say linux as no anti-virus, it does but mostly the anti-virus is to that you don't unknowingly send a windows virus to a friend since it was harmless to your computer. On of the main reasons linux has fewer viruses ofhter then the fact no one targets a market of less than 1% is the fact that you are rarelly running with full admin rights
3. Root and su/sudo - Root is the master user, the one that can do whatever they want, the one with the power to rm -f / (that will delete your entire harddrive kids) and you are and are not him (it's a universal him, ladys... read it as her if you must) you should have your own account with a much more wicked nickname (for the example lets give Smokey his own account called Smokey.) Smokey then logs in as himself and not root but when he needs to have root's powers he can su to root (or any other user if he has there password or if he uses su from root he doesn't need your password X3) but if he just needed to sync up the clock he could use sudo which lets you run a command as root if you know roots password (or on some systems your own will work to keep root access safe.)
3. NTPDATE - NTPDATE just keeps your clock and calander onto time... that is all
4. Compiz - Compiz is a real-time 3d desktop. the closest things on windows just take a still image and add it to the 3d while compiz uses the real desktop in real time meaning you videos will just keep playing. It has a lot of useless eyecandy but can be useful or just plain fun.
5. The command line - One of the most hated things about linux is the command line... people don't like to type commands... that is just soooooooooo DOS. However the command line in combination with the desktop can be useful and fun. There are some command line tools that are awesome, such as mencoder or ffmpeg that let you convert your .mov's to .avi's. you can even use that to turn your flashes (which save to /tmp) into a format that can actually be read.
6. The cool little tools i have found - In linux i found the awesome testdisk harddrive data recovery tool and xvideoservicethief which lets you download videos from the likes of youtube (and some not so savory places as well.) the is even a totally non-pornographic image viewer called pornview (great program to view image of kittens with just so that someone looking for juice blackmail on you finds only cheezburgers.)
7. Online help - Help is just a google away... really, just google the error.
Those are just some of the reasons i like linux. Stay tune... next non assignment related blog might just feature video footage of my desktop
tata for now my tiggers. ^_^
Also, i was doing some study about my laptop and running linux on it and i ran into a fourm that quouted the old, "linux has less than 1% of all desktops", in the news there where stories of android and iOS (the iphone/ipod/ipad OS) taking over some of linux's 1%. The I read a think on why android may not be good for business in which it cite that in it's around 18 years of live linux has a tiny 1% (which maybe like a 1 million users) of desktops while windows has 94% and mac has 4%. They however forget to take into account linux came into the game latter then the two and has had almost no commercials and only you select software shops even stock the CDs (Retail stores like Best-buys don't carry them, the best bet to find them is a computer store that stocks lots software since it is unlikely that little computer stores will carry them either.) You may wonder how you get a copy then, well most the time you have to burn a CD/DVD of the distro (short for distribution basically it is the version) you want to install. You can also make a liveUSB or a virtual machine and some even install in a folder on windows and let you run it from there. But the install CD is the most popular and it has a great feature called liveCD (it technically is still called that on a dvd but you could call it a liveDVD to), with which you can run linux directly from the cd (it will be slower then if actually installed) which is a great way to test it. The closest thing on windows is to burn a disc with the PE (preinstall enviroment) on it, and it normal looks nothing like a full windows install and is ment more for repair usage.
But anyway i am going to tell you some things i like about linux.
1. Package Management - If you bought a windows7 laptop from bestbuy you may have seen there software installer and you may have thought GOOD LORD how awesome that i can download any of these programs i want with the push of a button without having to google for them. If you also wondered why no one did it sooner... turns out linux did... A LONG time ago too. Package management allows you to download programs from a repo (short for repository). You just boot up a package manager (different distros and even desktops have different ones) then you use a filter or search for the name of the program an then just give it's ticker box a click and it will tell you if there are other programs it has to install to get it to work or if and why it can't install (this can lead to dependence hell it is recommend you stick only to repos provided by the OS unless you know what you are doing.)
2. Almost no viruses - I have yet to get a linux virus, as with mac they are few and far between. That is not to say linux as no anti-virus, it does but mostly the anti-virus is to that you don't unknowingly send a windows virus to a friend since it was harmless to your computer. On of the main reasons linux has fewer viruses ofhter then the fact no one targets a market of less than 1% is the fact that you are rarelly running with full admin rights
3. Root and su/sudo - Root is the master user, the one that can do whatever they want, the one with the power to rm -f / (that will delete your entire harddrive kids) and you are and are not him (it's a universal him, ladys... read it as her if you must) you should have your own account with a much more wicked nickname (for the example lets give Smokey his own account called Smokey.) Smokey then logs in as himself and not root but when he needs to have root's powers he can su to root (or any other user if he has there password or if he uses su from root he doesn't need your password X3) but if he just needed to sync up the clock he could use sudo which lets you run a command as root if you know roots password (or on some systems your own will work to keep root access safe.)
3. NTPDATE - NTPDATE just keeps your clock and calander onto time... that is all
4. Compiz - Compiz is a real-time 3d desktop. the closest things on windows just take a still image and add it to the 3d while compiz uses the real desktop in real time meaning you videos will just keep playing. It has a lot of useless eyecandy but can be useful or just plain fun.
5. The command line - One of the most hated things about linux is the command line... people don't like to type commands... that is just soooooooooo DOS. However the command line in combination with the desktop can be useful and fun. There are some command line tools that are awesome, such as mencoder or ffmpeg that let you convert your .mov's to .avi's. you can even use that to turn your flashes (which save to /tmp) into a format that can actually be read.
6. The cool little tools i have found - In linux i found the awesome testdisk harddrive data recovery tool and xvideoservicethief which lets you download videos from the likes of youtube (and some not so savory places as well.) the is even a totally non-pornographic image viewer called pornview (great program to view image of kittens with just so that someone looking for juice blackmail on you finds only cheezburgers.)
7. Online help - Help is just a google away... really, just google the error.
Those are just some of the reasons i like linux. Stay tune... next non assignment related blog might just feature video footage of my desktop
tata for now my tiggers. ^_^
Friday, September 17, 2010
It's friday, this weeks official post
Hope you all are having a good Friday and then of course an awesome weekend. Sorry about the lack of post... we haven't discussed that much in class for me to blog about that without you all falling asleep and well, I really don't think my life is very interesting, thus why my twitter is so inactive, I mean I am not so egotistical that I think you care that I am at PCB Cafe enjoying some pizza or chilling in the Hess hall lobby watching Scrubs on comedy central. Also I'm rather shy and all so I don't talk about myself that much, I'm a total geek anyway. For example i happen to know mr. Bevill's dell is running Ubuntu Linux 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" LTS with compiz (awesome 3d desktop manager, ask him to show it off next class X3), a custom Conky config (that thing with the clock and the weather forecast), and the avant-window-manager (that Mac OS X looking panel thing with all the black icons on it). Encase you are wondering, the 10.04 stands for april 2010 (numbering is done in year.month format, a major release is made every 6 months(that is April(04) and October(10) by the way) with a LTS (long term service) version released about every 2 years and has desktop support for 3 years and server for 5). Umm... I also run Ubuntu (as well as windows 7... now i just have to make this thing run Mac OS X and i will have my near dream computer).
Oh yeah... if you every got any computer questions, just shoot me a comment or an email to jsaffel@utk.edu, or catch me before or after class... my next class is not till 2:30 so i have the time unless i got to study or such.
Oh yeah... UTK rock, Go Vols. BEAT THEM GATORS! There... that should fill up my UT fan quota for the week. Peace out and all that jazz.
Oh yeah... if you every got any computer questions, just shoot me a comment or an email to jsaffel@utk.edu, or catch me before or after class... my next class is not till 2:30 so i have the time unless i got to study or such.
Oh yeah... UTK rock, Go Vols. BEAT THEM GATORS! There... that should fill up my UT fan quota for the week. Peace out and all that jazz.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Oh my
Well i forgot to make a blog post last week, Been busy with stuff from other classes... umm... made a nice video showing off the use of technology at UTK. That should be up online sometime soon for you all to see. Umm... Yay for the conferences and not having to report to class Monday or Wednesday. Expect a much better blog post for this week a bit later... Cause really... not that much of interest happened last week... other then watching kickass on Friday and getting some free food Thursday... Have a nice week all who read this.
Friday, August 27, 2010
I'll be in my studio, studio
Not much to say, what do you think? Would you use the studio now? Did you know about it before? Was this to short? Did can you spot the AGT reference?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
How to tell if a person is Hitler
Image © 2009 technicolor_pie of Furaffinity.net
I found this image on an art site I belong to and I think this would be a good one to try my project on. Basically this is just a little PSA image someone drew to tell people that it is not appropriate to call someone Hitler (or a Nazi) just because they where mean to you. Have you ever called someone Hitler (like your art teacher when she gave that painting you worked so hard on a "B" because your perspective was off )? Did you stop to think how wrong that comparison actually was? The bold text to the left makes the point that it is more important then the stuff on the right. The serious look on the cartoon Hitler's face shows that message is semi serious (Not of great importance but still worth noting.)
Friday, August 20, 2010
I have to do this for homework.
Greetings professor and classmates, this is my first post/homework assignment to my English 101 blog.
Here is the video i had to watch for class
The video uses clips from Disney movies (Disney is responsible for the longer copyright) to talk about copyright and fair use. Interesting this video shows how far use works by using less the 30 secs for any one movie and properly attributing the original clips to their creator. What do you think about copyright and fair use? Is fair use well enough defined? Did this video follow fair use or has it just manage to escape the copyright nazis all these years? On that subject is copyright too over zealous? Please leave any comments you have.
I was also fascinated how rhetoric is all around us. That every day we us rhetoric and have it used on us as well. How it is used to make us buy, vote, watch, read, and such. Where do you see rhetoric and how do you use it.
I must admit I changed this post after what the teacher said to make it a better. Thank you for reading my humble English 101 blog, see you next post.
I must admit I changed this post after what the teacher said to make it a better. Thank you for reading my humble English 101 blog, see you next post.
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