A Conservative Techie

Speedcrunch is the default calculator application in Kubuntu and one of the problems that is has is a missing handbook.  So I have started working on the manual to get this finished which is currently in Speedcrunch’s subversion branch.  As part of that, I have been following the mailing list for speedcrunch.

One of the cool things is that Speedcrunch is using Google for storing its code and also the wiki portions which I’ve never used be

Here is the roadmap for the next release 0.9.  Interesting read and I’m enjoying the tie in between svn and the wiki.  Anyways here is the roadmap.

In other posts, I’ve mentioned how terrible of a president Robert Mugabe is and how awful the situation in Zimbabwe is.  In an article in the Washington Post, there is a story about Mugabe printing more money to pay for projects that don’t have the needed funds.

President Robert Mugabe has promised to print more money to fund municipal projects, a government newspaper reported Saturday. The pledge came despite hyperinflation that has created severe shortages of cornmeal, meat, milk and other staples.

What a sad situation for the people there.  Officialy the rate of inflation is 4,500 percent and creating more money will do nothing except drive up rate of inflation.

Further from the story we learn that pharmacists are urging AIDS patients to stock up on their drugs because the manufacturers are running out off the raw materials to make those drugs.  ALso in the largest hospital 10 out 18 kideny dialysis machines are broken.

SO what does the great Mugabe blame the problem on?  His failed policies?  Problems that he has created?  Nope those stupid Western countries that have imposed sanctions on his country as punishment for his crimes.

Remember his country is chair of the UN Economic Council.

According to this article two new TV stations and their assigned call letters were announced in a listing from the FCC.   I don’t know which one I want to watch more.

In Wailuku, Maui, KUNT will be a low power digital TV station that is not built yet and in Arizona, KWTF another low-power TV station.

Apparently the creation and assignment of call letters is an automated process, which has also create KCUF-FM in Aspen, Colorado.  For those slow-witted, that’s the F-word backwards.

Just saw the release email that Gutsy Tribe 3 has been released, so fire up your downloads and start testing the release.  Gutsy is the new release and Tribe 3 is the 3rd Alpha release of this version.  For more information on Tribe 3, visit the wiki page, done once again by the great Rich Johnson (nixternal) along with help from others.  For feedback, visit the feedback page.

Seriously, I can’t believe this, a Senator is suggesting that sex education is alright as long as it is “age appropriate” or whatever that means.  Iex can’t imaging teaching sex education to kids.  I have friends with a kindergärtner and I should to think of her learning about sex.  And who decides what is “age appropriate?”  Is there going to be some for of government run organization that figures this out or will we leave that up Planned Parenthood?  Will your 4 or 5 year be taught about trans-gender people and homosexuals?  What values will we be teaching to these kids?

Whatever happened to waiting to teach kids about the “bird and bees?”  Why can’t parents be responsible for teaching responsibility and about life?  I would be very upset if my kid came home and told me what he or she learned in class and it being about sex.

Found this very intersting.  As mentioned before I’ve spent a large amount of time goofing off on a mud named Hexonyx that I used to play. (Currently the site and the mud are down due to computer problems)

Anyways very intersting interview with the father of MUDs.  I remember when Hex started to loose its player base to Everquest and how we as admins struggled to find a way to set us apart from every other MUDs in order to attract new players.  I remember the days of runs of 10+ people to try and get that 1 piece of gear that would add +1 dam to your rolls.  Oh well, those days are mostly over.

It’s very rare that Rich Johnson, aka Nixternal, and I disagree but today we do.  Rich let me explain where we disagree and also then ask a question that I don’t quite understand.  I do not agree the post is the worst writeup in regards to Ubuntu/Linux, I do think there is a problem with power users/Windows Admins moving to Ubuntu/Linux.

In an article on Information Week’s website and also the original post, along with several email lists including Kubuntu Users, I would agree with a lot of the points the made by the original article and even some of the follow posts by commentors.  There are still a lot of pain points involved in moving to Linux and also Ubuntu/Kubuntu that a lot of technologists are still having moving to the other operating system.  I think this is the problem that a lot of people do not seem to recongize.  For someone that has used Windows for years there is a way of doing things that is totally different then how things are done with Mac OS X or even Linux.

I know those that contribute to LInux development have spent a lot of time helping people who are brand new to Linux but aren’t power users, you know those type of people, my parents, my grandmother, etc… THose that want to get on that Internet, which is colored blue…. and do email from Yahoo, because they AT&T DSL or whatever… and these people get Ubuntu/Kubuntu.  You tell them to click on the new Internet Icon, which is Firefox and they can email and chat and do everything they need to do.

However the problem is these people are technically savy people, they can rebuild their computers themselves, heck they may even admin several hundred windows boxes at work.  But to do Linux work you have to think a different type of way and there is a new way to do things.  But we as Linux developers/evangelists have done nothing to help these people out.  We have documentation that is geared towards the beginner user, but not to the technological savy, power Windows and this is a problem.

The problem is this:  My family knows I am a computer person, I am a network admin who administrates Windows computers.  I visit my folks and they ask me questions about their computer, so I fix them.  And what type of problems am I fixing?  Windows related issues, why because that is what I know what to do.   I may have tried Linux, but when I run into problems I turn to the documentation…. Problems installing I should look at the install guide, but there is nothing in there to help me troubleshoot, etc…  So because I can fix Windows problems, my family is going to keep buying Windows computers, instead of trying out Linux because if they try Linux and I can’t fix it, they loose their “free” tech support…”

Sorry about the long post, I think I rambled a bit.  Here’s my second question:  What is so friggen hard about installing Windows?  I drop the disk in and follow the install, connect to the internet and install updates.  Now there’s a 99% chance the computer I am installing Windows in has a restore disk, so I drop the restore disk and follow the restore directions…. Wish I had a Kubuntu restore/recovery disk provided by my computer manufacture….

In a new blog post, Mark Shuttleworth proposes a new “free” laptop.  A laptop that is built using the Open Bios Project to provide the Bios and also comletely free software and drivers.  He has created a new mailing list to track those that are interested in purchasing a high performance laptop, not some low quality laptop, but a high end laptop that people would be interested in using and purchasing.  Feel free to read his blog post and then sign up for his mailing list so the idea can gain traction.

The Official Ubuntu Book (2nd Edition) is officialy out nad and can be ordered from Amazon.  Saw the update on Mako’s blog and also received today my author copies, though only 2 this time.  Feel free to order from   or your local bookseller

This is not original from me, but I am passing it along.  On this site, which I read as often as there are new posts, the author has posted a notification policy for Altiris in regards to having inventory solution change the status of non-active computers to active when the return inventory data.

This is really more a reminder for myself, but wanted to keep it so I don’t forget.  If you set a computer to in-active through Asset Control, then this policy will change those computers to active when new inventory data is received from them.