Mike Pelley's Musings

What?!?!  Two posts in one day!

I’m watching TWIT-TV- a great Internet TV “channel” for your inner geek.  Anyway, I wanted to watch the July 3rd edition as Jerry Pournelle – who I have read since his early Byte magazine days – was on that show.

I plugged my Mini 10v (the original 1011) into my 47LG70 LCD television via the VGA cable.  Lo and behold – unlike my Windows 7 installation that I killed off for – Ubuntu recognized it better than Windows 7 did!  It won’t do 1280p  (likely due to RAM issues) but it runs 720p quite well.  TWIT-TV works just fine with its HD display.  Display selection seems to work better than Win7.

Ubuntu, Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice (despite it being now owned by Oracle – time will tell…) is good enough it seems.

It’s summer so I tend to spend more time outside. This means cutting the grass (natch…), visiting people and places, and reading.

I read both fiction and non-fiction. Last book was the latest Clive Cussler (yes, it is Harlequin Romance for guys) release called The Spy which isn’t one of the Dirk Pitt series. Based around the turn of the 19th century (you know you’re getting old when you think “turn of the century” you think 19th-to-20th century and the yunguns today will think 20th-to-21st. Again, Natch…. Anyway, it is an different time and I like it.

Anyway….

I’ve been running Ubuntu 10.04 (upgraded from 9.10) on my Dell Mini 10v (the original Inspiron 1011) for the last 9 months. I originally installed Windows 7 RC and then RTM and, I have to say, that Windows 7 is MUCH better than Windows XP. Those of you who have used both will agree; for those of you who haven’t you should at a least get the evaluation version and try it. The only complaint that I have is that no operating system for a general purpose PC or laptop is not worth more than $100 new. I’ll go further and say that an upgrade isn’t worth more than $50. So, because I didn’t way to pay for Windows 7 for the netbook and I didn’t want to use XP as my standard OS. I’ve used Ubuntu when it first became popular (I’m an old Red Hat fan but after Red Hat 9 I wasn’t fussy about Fedora – anyway…) and decided to try it again.  I remembered that you used to be able to buy a Mini with Ubuntu Netbook Remix so it looked like a good choice.

I didn’t want to waste too much space on Mini so I only put aside 10 GB for Ubuntu.  Of course, I liked Ubuntu better than Windows 7 on it!  It uses less memory (I still only have 1 GB because putting in a new 2 GB DIMM is, frankly, ridiculous – could this have been a sop from Dell to Microsoft to let them install Windows XP?  “If you make sure you can’t upgrade the Mini to 2 GB it will be fine to sell it with XP” – simply supposition  on my part!) than Win7 and I can get all the apps I need under Ubuntu!

However, as I was transferring some movies from DVD to the hard disk I quickly found I had run out of space.  The answer: simply shrink the Win7 partition and increase Ubuntu partition.  The truth is that I got lazy and tried to try the easy way out – boot with the Ubuntu 10.04 install CD (yes, still small enough for a CD!) and use the partition manager from the install to resize the partition.  Well, I could easily shrink the Win7 partition but the Ubuntu partition wouldn’t resize.

Oh well, reboot to think about how to resize.  Lo!  Grub’s black screen of death.  Obviously, I killed Grub and needed to re-install the boot loader.  Thankfully, I have far too many systems in the house (my wife would suggest that more than on computer in the house is two too many 😉 and it was just to drop down to the office and do a search.   Google, being your friend, gave me the answer and after manually running through the boot loader commands I had the Ubuntu partition up-and-running.

I still had the problem of being out of Ubuntu space.  Back to Google again.  I found the solution with the obvious: GParted (see http://gparted.sourceforge.net/index.php).  This is a GREAT utility no matter what OS you use.  Also on the GParted page is the link to the UNetbootin (see http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/) which is how you can create a bootable Live USB drive.  GParted has the instructions to create the boot USB drive.  Works like a charm – recommended as well!

I was trouble-shooting a problem with what was (is) excessive CPU usage on my Dell Mini 10 netbook.  While looking for why the process  called “background”, which is somehow related to the X.org implementation, someone mentioned that for those of you who use the command prompt regularly a good replacement for the top command is htop.  It is curses based and allows you to use the arrow keys to go up and down the processes listed and then hit F9 to kill the task.  No more typing in the PID (or in my case sometimes mis-typing the PID – damn small netbook keyboard 😉 ) of the task that you want to kill.

You can find more information and distributions at the htop page in sourceforge.

With the reset of the items in the news – the Auditor General wanting to look in the MP expense accounts, the Afghan detainee reports, the G8/G20 expenses ($1.1B+ really), etc – the issue on Canadian copyright protection seems to be sneaking under the radar.

The National Post in the article Conservatives to unveil national securities watchdog: sources states:

All signals suggest Heritage Minister James Moore has triumphed over the objections of Industry Minister Tony Clement, setting up Canada to march in excessively protected lockstep with a United States that boasts the toughest laws against pirated music or movies on the planet.

It may well be a legal constraint that’s impossible to enforce, but the rumble out of the PMO suggests the new law will ignore the extensive public consultations that advocated a go-easy take on copying of CDs and DVDs in favour of robust anti-consumer limits on transferring or sharing content.

Of course, it is starting to seem as if I shouldn’t be surprised. It appears to me and other that the Prime Minister is molding his position into President of Canada and the Prime Minister’s Office (the PMO noted above) into his cabinet – a/k/a the way the US Government is structured. Now, if we could only get rid of the Governor General and elect our Senate (with two seats per province) we’d be all set. But I digress…

This issue is sneaking under the radar. In fact, it almost seems that we are setting up to repeal the video tape copying decisions made over 25 years ago. I’ve heard it said by some knowledgeable people that this may make time-shift recording illegal (maybe it would have to be re-fought in the courts – the broadcasters don’t like it so they would like to have this battle re-fought).

And, of course, you wouldn’t be able to download that song to your PC and then transfer it to your iPod or USB memory fob or to a DVD/CD for the car. It would be locked to the device that you licensed the right to use the song, etc on. To use it elsewhere you would have to “break” the digital locks and this would make you a criminal. You would have to buy a right to use for each device – one for your PC, one for your iPod, one for the MP3 stick you use in your car. Crazy.

One thing to remember: We already pay a levy on each MP3 player, CD/DVD we purchase to deal with “illegal” copying. While I hate citing Wikipedia (I believe you should really go to the sources and quote them) but I’m lazy this morning. The page Private copying levy cites what you pay out to be redistributed. I wonder if that levy will go away?

You should also take a look at Michael Geist’s site it has a great deal of information on this (and other) subject.

I just read on CBC.ca and simultaneously heard on CBC Radio 1 that Art Linkletter has died at the age of 97.  I can remember as a kid listening to rebroadcasts of his shows on the radio as me and dad ate breakfast.  They just ran a clip that goes:

Mr. Linkletter: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Kid: A bus driver or a pilot.

Mr. Linkletter: What would you do if you were flying a big plane and all four engines stopped?

Kid: I’d say “Our father, who art in heaven…”

Funny!

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Bell Appeals CRTC Decision To Bill By Amount Downloaded

I just read on CBC that Bell is appealing the CRTC’s decision that Bell had to start charging ALL of its customers by the amount they download per month before they can start charging in this way to their wholesale customers.  From the CBC site:

The company is disputing the regulator’s requirement that it move all of its retail customers off unlimited download plans before it can implement so called usage-based-billing on its wholesale customers, which are typically smaller companies that rent portions of Bell’s network in order to sell their own internet services.

While we have no real choice in the Metro St. John’s, Newfoundland, area – we only have Bell-Aliant and Rogers – at least we don’t have caps with Bell-Aliant.  At least not yet.

I really think that the CRTC and their political masters have to get the balls to divide our Internet providers into three parts.  One part for the infrastructure and only the infrastructure.  One part for the network access and only the network access.  And one part for content and only content.  Bell, Rogers and Shaw are all conflicted.  They all own infrastructure, network access and content.

And those in power think that there is no conflict of interest?  Bah sheep.

Free E-mail Certificates

I found this great free site for e-mail certificates.  Just in case you don’t know, you can add a digital certificate to your email to allow you to encrypt and digitally sign your emails so they cannot be intercepted, read or modified by anyone except the person you sent them to. These are “real” certificates, not “self-signed”, that are recognised world-wide.  The certificates are from Comodo and can be found here.  They also have a number of other free security products – recommended look.

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Tim Horton’s Rant

I stopped by Tim Horton’s today before lunchtime (around 11:30) today to pick up a cappuccino, or what Tim’s passes off as a cappuccino – whatever, my wife likes them, and ended up going in instead of waiting in the drive through line.  I can’t speak for Tim’s outside of the metro St. John’s area with any in-depth knowledge, but generally walk-in is faster than the drive through.  This, however, seems to be changing.

The big problems that I have with Tim’s are:

1. Since they started selling “sandwiches” the time waiting to be served has gotten crazy.  It was bad when having to wait for a toasted bagel but this makes things worse by an order of magnitude.  You are standing in line waiting for your cup of coffee, which only takes a a minute, and you have to wait 4-5 minutes – or more – for the person in front of you to get a sandwich.  Why don’t they have a coffee and doughnut only line where nothing has to be cooked?  I really hate waiting 15-20 minutes in a line for a cup of coffee.  (Maybe that is why I generally make my own coffee and take to work.)
2. This is an extension to the first problem – they say that they don’t accept Interac because it would affect their quick service.  Poppycock!  Given the length of time I have to wait to get change made from my five dollar bill or the time waiting for someone to get a sandwich made the time to process an Interac transaction don’t count for much.  If they said that they didn’t want to accept Interac because of the service changes – which in my opinion is the real case – I could buy the argument.  But not to impact their fast service you gotta be joking.  Maybe things are better in the capital of Canada, err… I mean Toronto, but this ain’t the case here!

Crazy North Korea

In a Bohemian sort of way I have to admire North Korean.  Not for their government, aggressiveness, the starving of their people; no none of this.  It has to be for not giving up.  This is a laughable real-world, with real-world consequences, of the act in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the Black Knight refuses to give up despite be dismembered (“…come on, I’ll bit your leg off” is what I seem to remember).

The problem with this are:

1. North Korea has the fourth largest army in the world;
2. North and South Korea are still in a state of war from the 1950’s;
3. North Korea’s actions (and apparent understanding of the world, for that matter) aren’t that logical (maybe they are “starting to believe their own press”); and
4. They are trying to develop nukes.
5. Oh, and you’re not sure who is in control of the country!

Not exactly gives one a sense of confidence.

Now it appears that the North Koreans torpedoed a South Korean Corvette (not the car, the warship) and now it appears that the South has proof.  See The New York Times’ article Diplomatic Storm Brewing Over Korean Peninsula

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Perils of Automotive Journalism

I just read this article in the Globe and Mail: Globe journalist’s son crashes $180,000 Porsche You think you’ve had a small fender bender?

• Body work on the Porsche: $11,000
• Repair the garage door: $2,700
• Cost of sending son to driving school to learn how to drive a standard: Unknown, but not cheap
• Having to write in a national newspaper about it: Priceless

I can’t get over Wednesday’s weather.  It was sunny and barely a draft of wind.  And it wasn’t cool.  In May.  In Newfoundland none-the-less! I’m still in shock!

I’m not pleased. ‘Nuff said….

I’m working on an HP Pavilion DV6 laptop for a family member.  Since we’re in Canada (or possibly as likely because this is a big box vendor who doesn’t want to stock multiple versions) we get stuck with the multi-language keyboard that, frankly, sucks.  It has, get this, two backslash/pipe keys one of which takes up half the space usually reserved for the left shift key.   Then it takes half the Enter key and replaces it with the other backslash/pipe key which has been moved from above the Enter key on the far right.   At least I really hope that the English-French keyboard is the reason.  Otherwise, someone should be fired for letting this abomination be put on the market.  This keyboard makes it just about impossible to type “normally”.  I think that a) you can get the US keyboard that is “normal” but b) it would probably cost about CDN$100 and would void your warranty.

The sad thing is that I actually like this laptop.  The screen is big enough – but not too big.  The CPU is fast enough – but not so hot as to melt your lap (and only your lap if you’re lucky!).  There isn’t so much add-on junk software that you need to re-install the OS.  It is light enough to carry around from room to room – in fact, it seems to be the same weight as the old Dell D820 I use for work (and will continue to until they pry it from my cold dead hands or they have something I like – the D820 just plain works) which is only a Core Duo.

For me, that keyboard would be a deal breaker!