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frugal technology, simple living and guerrilla large-appliance repair

Regular blog here, 'microblog' there

Many of my traditional blog post live on this site, but a great majority of my social-style posts can be found on my much-busier microbloging site at updates.passthejoe.net. It's busier because my BlogPoster "microblogging" script generates short, Twitter-style posts from the Linux or Windows (or anywhere you can run Ruby with too many Gems) command line, uploads them to the web server and send them out on my Twitter and Mastodon feeds.

I used to post to this blog via scripts and Unix/Linux utilities (curl and Unison) that helped me mirror the files locally and on the server. Since this site recently moved hosts, none of that is set up. I'm just using SFTP and SSH to write posts and manage the site.

Disqus comments are not live just yet because I'm not sure about what I'm going to do for the domain on this site. I'll probably restore the old domain at first just to have some continuity, but for now I like using the "free" domain from this site's new host, NearlyFreeSpeech.net.

Fri, 31 May 2013

Mark Shuttleworth closes Ubuntu's Bug No. 1 now that Microsoft's hold on computing is declining

Ubuntu's SABDFL ("self-appointed benevolent dictator for life," as he's known) Mark Shuttleworth just added comment No. 1834 to Ubuntu's Bug No. 1 -- "Microsoft Has a Majority Market Share" -- and closed the bug.

Sure, Ubuntu might have played a small part in knocking off Microsoft Windows as the dominant operating system for computing devices, but as Shuttleworth admits -- and I give him a whole lot of credit for doing so, it's more the move (especially in the consumer space) away from desktop/laptops to mobile and tablet devices running iOS and Android that has pushed Microsoft to the sidelines.

Coincidentally, I've also been thinking about Ubuntu's Bug No. 1 myself lately, and like SABDFL figuring that it should be closed.

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Fri, 24 May 2013

Joe Pass: 'Summertime' (1992)

Here's a Joe Pass solo performance from late in his life. He's playing a custom ES-175 guitar that Gibson made for him and delivered to him in 1992, according to longtime friend and fellow guitarist John Pisano.

The guitar differs from stock ES-175 models in a few ways. It has a slightly thinner body, a single pickup in the neck position (which is like ES-175s with a single pickup, though "modern" ES175s usually are equipped with two pickups), an ebony fingerboard (instead of rosewood) and gold hardware instead of nickel (or chrome).

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Thu, 23 May 2013

Posting with Ode is so easy

I create a text file. Then I push it to the server with FTP.

Without the Indexette addin, that would be it. But since I do use Indexette (which time/date-stamps entries indepenently of the file's own timestamp), I re-index the site via the browser, and the post appears.

Joe Pass: 'All the Things You Are'

This is the video I use when I'm testing systems to see how they deal with YouTube. The video is HTML5-ready, so it'll display in browsers on systems that don't have Flash installed or enabled.

It's a performance from late in Joe Pass' life, and it shows his way with a standard.

Joe Pass: 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life,' live at Montreaux 1975

I had the vinyl of this record, and I probably listened to this track a thousand times. I never knew it was available on video.

Fri, 17 May 2013

When Xubuntu and Debian fail, Fedora it is for HP Pavilion g6-2210us laptop

I've spent just about a month with this new HP Pavilion g6-2210us laptop that shipped with Windows 8. That means UEFI and Secure Boot.

And new hardware. We all know how difficult Linux can be with new hardware.

During the aforementioned month, I did a lot of work in Windows 8. I sent up my whole environment. Even installed Perl. And Python. (It's not like I'm a big-time hacker or anything, but I aspire.)

But it's time for me to get back to Linux. Except that I'm having issues.

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Tue, 14 May 2013

Video: International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield sings David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' ... in space

Not so much irony as planned coincidence, Commander Chris Hadfield -- who is very musical if this is him singing -- does David Bowie's "Space Oddity," aboard the International Space Station.

Hadfield has a YouTube channel, and it appears he really can sing.

Thu, 09 May 2013

Two more static-site generators -- Yeoman and Middleman

Via Steve Kemp's list of static-site generators, I've just learned about the node.js-based Yeoman and Ruby- and Sinatra-based Middleman.

Kemp -- also the developer of the Chronicle Blog Compiler -- is using his own Templer system.

Keep track of all Steve's development on his GitHub page, which I'm putting here more for me than for you.

Wed, 08 May 2013

There used to be an article about Windows 8 here

Unfortunately the Xubuntu 13.04 live DVD ate it.

I was trying to run Thunar with gvfs to open a file over FTP in the Mousepad text editor. The thing crashed and wiped out the data in the file.

So my Windows 8 post is gone.

No big loss, I suppose.

I'm rebuilding it (as a Xubuntu post).

To see if Mousepad is the problem, I installed gEdit in the live environment. You can do things like that with Linux: Try whole systems out with live media and even add software until your memory runs out.

It's fucking awesome.

If you see these words, it worked.