December 09, 2008
VirtualBox
So I've been using Ubuntu 8.10 for a bit and any kinks have worked themselves out. The networking is fine, Samba is a little weird (fine in Nautilus, but not if you gksudo, which seems to be the exact opposite problem reported in forums), so I say "well I'll try VirtualBox now that I've got a motherboard with SATA" - did I mention I got a new motherboard? Pain in the ass. Asus P5Q to be specific. I really wanted a Lanparty but waited a few days too long and they sold out.
Asus promises two things: you will have onboard gig ethernet, and you will be able to connect immediately using their little Express Gate OS. Guess which two things didn't work?
Anyway decided I might as well try the Ibex live disc, found (after a truly miserable search - finding a driver at the Asus site is like...) a solution for the onboard eth0, got what I needed, and had a nice new Ubuntu on top of it. Still don't know how to use Emerald, but the compiz/gtk stuff that I find is very nice. I have many wallpapers with warp effects, yadda yadda.
What was I saying. Yes, anyway, I'm curious to see what my Intel-graphics-card-having laptop Photoshop can do on the nVidia card on the Asus, so I set up VirtualBox, take my hd out of the box and connect it to a sata port, and see if I can boot to the virtual device. Of course it doesn't work, so I start looking around for solutions.
Now note that I can dual-boot the laptop drive on the Linux desktop but I understand that requires WGA verification. Fine, I didn't do it, put the hd back, and won't do it again because I understand the EULA and I don't want to call MS for 15 minutes every time I feel like fooling around with my laptop drive. I can connect to this install via my hub, mount it, and I'm pretty sure I can do a number of things over the network. I just wanted to see if the virtual machine would work if I had it connected to the new mobo.
Anyway, long story short: you can do it, but you have to authenticate. And if you want to go back to native booting, you'll authenticate again. There's a MSFT support thread about this. It's truly hilarious: the tech people try to explain that, if you want to run a virtual install of a hardware profile, you have to buy a new XP license, which pretty much defeats the purpose. It's two separate installs, according to them: one in the hd, one in the virtual machine. Whuh?
I'm think I'm comfy enough with the Gimp and configuring Wine to skip 7 when it comes out.
September 04, 2008
The Conventions
So I've been watching the conventions, mostly on YouTube or some blog or whatever. In Denver, it was interesting to see how popular Obama was, and Kerry apparently has a pulse, but otherwise pretty basic, appealing stuff. Not enough to make me sign on with the Democrats - I don't really like feeling relieved that Biden's not the candidate, only to find him on the ticket anyway - but I liked what I heard.
The Republican stuff is utterly boring and typical, for the most part. The Palin pick had really made me take notice, because what a trainwreck! Everybody loves a trainwreck. I mean, holy cow, that was fun to watch. So I watched Rudy, Huck, a piece of YouTubed Mitt (that guy is as big an asshole as I imagined him to be) and Palin, because why not give her a chance? See what she's like. Between her speech and Obama's, politics were interesting again (though obviously for different reasons: Obama as compelling personality, Palin as compelling personality politics).
The speeches really jolted me - they all (even Huck!, who at least tries to appear to be a genuinely decent person) went deep into the "Republicans are douchebags" script I thought they were going to ditch. What's this "reform" shit? Can't remember the last time I watched a Republican speak that I didn't instantly recoil from. I thought that shit was supposed to change? I could deal with the "celebrity" stuff - early days, whatever. I figured more people would start coming around to Obama after the convention and the dialogue on issues would start.
But it's obvious I can forget about that happening. I don't see Democrats running the usual "remember the Sixties!" crap (as long as they keep Pelosi off stage) but now I see Republicans are going with the usual "we're assholes!" crap. I'm not dealing with another four years of that police-state, culture-war (and actual-war) stuff. If this is the future of the Republican party, I can tell you who I'm never voting for, ever, again.
September 03, 2008
Google Chrome
A neat little browser (Case peeps: set the shortcut to -no-sandbox to get around SEP, for now) - sort of a cross between Firefox and Webrunner, with IE7's chrome style, with all the little thingies that Ff users have been asking for forever. Crash control for tabs - that is a must, and Ff 3 should've taken care of that. Neat drag-to-desktop functionality that is likely Step 1 in the integration of user desktop and RIAs. It's a browser to really learn that integration, and it's got a clean interface, so it seems easy and a little boring. The latter is actually an exciting part of the experience - there's more to find, and much of it happens within the browser window, instead of at the periphery. Prob more after I've used it a little while.
August 18, 2008
DAV for Linux users
I use WebDrive for getting files to my Filer and to the directories I have access to. Yet I run Ubuntu and Damn Small Linux on my desktop, and just nuked my last remaining connection to Win98 so I could try out different window managers (Linux-ese for "things we pretend are cool but seem to exist only for people to make themes, and, oh, transparent tabs"). Today I thought I'd get better at Bluefish so I'm all "right no problem I'll just hook it up on Nautilus because Nautilus does everything through its elfin magic." But no. No elfin magic for J.
So I went to the usual places for WebDrive support, which seems located exclusively at the WebDev blog, and there's nothing I found for Linux DAV stuff. Nothing on forums.case either, but I have a low tolerance for forum's search results.
So apparently Ubuntu is bad at DAV. Really it just came down to a new line on /etc/fstab:
Open up yr package manager. Get davfs2 (which I guess would be [sudo apt-get davfs2 etc at console - but just use synaptic]). I believe you will also have to have neon's libraries installed; can't remember if that's automatic.
Configure davfs2: [sudo dpkg-reconfigure davfs2]
At the prompt to mount as ordinary user, answer yes.
You'll be prompted for a group name. Provide a group name (default is "davfs2" I believe).
Then it'll ask you for a user name, if you want non-root access. Nobody uses my computer, so I said yes. This is up to you.
The pop-up will then provide you with a line to add to /etc/fstab. You might ignore this; I, computer genius that I am, actually tried to ctrl-c it. Whatever the case, you'll put it in to fstab later.
Create a folder for your mount point; I used /mnt/
Open /etc/fstab in preferred editor. Geeky: [sudo nano /etc/fstab] Non-masochistic: [sudo gedit /etc/fstab] We're all adults here. Let's admit that we don't use gvim and emacs for everything, hmmm?
So, anyway. Add this line to fstab, using the
[https://www.case.edu:8000/caseID/foldername /mnt/whatever davfs rw,user,noauto 0 0] for mounting directory files if you administer a website.
Do [https://filer.case.edu/dav/caseID] as the file system if you want to get to your filer.
Save and close fstab. At your console, mount the file this way:
[sudo mount filesystem], where filesystem=the URL you added to fstab
Console will prompt for username and pass. Then you should go back to Nautilus and see your new directory mounted in the filesystem. Worked for me at least.
DAV for Linux users
I use WebDrive for getting files to my Filer and to the directories I have access to. Yet I run Ubuntu and Damn Small Linux on my desktop, and just nuked my last remaining connection to Win98 so I could try out different window managers (Linux-ese for "things we pretend are cool but seem to exist only for people to make themes, and, oh, transparent tabs"). Today I thought I'd get better at Bluefish so I'm all "right no problem I'll just hook it up on Nautilus because Nautilus does everything through its elfin magic." But no. No elfin magic for J.
So I went to the usual places for WebDrive support, which seems located exclusively at the WebDev blog, and there's nothing I found for Linux DAV stuff. Nothing on forums.case either, but I have a low tolerance for forum's search results.
So apparently Ubuntu is bad at DAV. Really it just came down to a new line on /etc/fstab:
Open up yr package manager. Get davfs2 (which I guess would be [sudo apt-get davfs2 etc at console - but just use synaptic]). I believe you will also have to have neon's libraries installed; can't remember if that's automatic.
Configure davfs2: [sudo dpkg-reconfigure davfs2]
At the prompt to mount as ordinary user, answer yes.
You'll be prompted for a group name. Provide a group name (default is "davfs2" I believe).
Then it'll ask you for a user name, if you want non-root access. Nobody uses my computer, so I said yes. This is up to you.
The pop-up will then provide you with a line to add to /etc/fstab. You might ignore this; I, computer genius that I am, actually tried to ctrl-c it. Whatever the case, you'll put it in to fstab later.
Create a folder for your mount point; I used /mnt/
Open /etc/fstab in preferred editor. Geeky: [sudo nano /etc/fstab] Non-masochistic: [sudo gedit /etc/fstab] We're all adults here. Let's admit that we don't use gvim and emacs for everything, hmmm?
So, anyway. Add this line to fstab, using the
[https://www.case.edu:8000/caseID/foldername /mnt/whatever davfs rw,user,noauto 0 0] for mounting directory files if you administer a website.
Do [https://filer.case.edu/dav/caseID] as the file system if you want to get to your filer.
Save and close fstab. At your console, mount the file this way:
[sudo mount
Console will prompt for username and pass. Then you should go back to Nautilus and see your new directory mounted in the filesystem. Worked for me at least.
Minority Acronym Syndrome
True and False: Moodle and Joomla are CMSs.
Additionally, MAS might not be the best acronym for this syndrome. Too medical. Maybe the "A" should have some kind of diacritic.
July 30, 2008
NY Times Discovers Internet, Gets a Xanga, Calls Itself ._-tYmEs-_. Polls ensue
Literacy Debate - Online, R U Really Reading? - Series - NYTimes.comApparently, some "kids" like to go "online" and do "stuff." Oh, Chicago, don't let the East Coasters have all the fun:
R U ambu-textrous? -- chicagotribune.com
"Some state officials" are at "the heart of a passionate debate," which is "heating up" according to the NCTE. I think the debate is about literacy. Because, as far as I can tell, the only question being seriously asked is whether web-reading children are actually literate.
Oh, the Times article starts out all open-inquiry, with its "just what it means to read in the digital age" stuff, but it gets right to the point soon after:
As teenagers' scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading - diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.Indeed, some do. But others don't:
But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.Do these people know what broadband access costs these days? Hell yeah they ought to give us a discount. So, to recap, the Internet is pretty much the Web. It's one place, and you go there to read stuff. This is either good or bad depending on which group of tendentious busybodies you speak to.
Even accomplished book readers like Zachary Sims, 18...Ok, I've had enough. "White upper-middle class kid from our reading area read books good!" Film at fucking eleven.
Anybody - including the "Web evangelists" - care to argue it's the parents who are increasingly illiterate? Take another look at that Trib article. Thirty-two yr old crosses busy urban street while texting. I'm sorry - students need to learn literacy skills? How's that now?
Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different...uhhhh...wait. Counting down to use of the word "cyberspace" in three, two, one...
On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author's vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends.Someone's been reading their Landow and Ryan. Though it's true - the "end" I "composed" was the article on Jay Adams.
The point here is to be snarky. Sure. The news outlet wants to provide narratives that reinforce (or instill, or attract) the beliefs of their dwindling subscriber base. Fine. But this article isn't about literacy, the "digital age" (whatever that is), or the differences between a narrowly-defined "print" culture and an undefined "digital" culture - it's just about the moral panic that analog (paper? whatever) media devices seem to carry with them into every transitional stage. I'd be more apt to pay attention to the sociocultural cues that inform definitions of literacy if the discussions that emerged attended to matters of infrastructure and presentation at any data point far enough removed from the middle-class living room that it actually extends past the schools that the readers in those living rooms attend. And without the "culture of distraction" or "digital media=Jesus" foolishness that dominates both the broader and academic discussions on the topic.
For instance, remember television? Television is like the Timothy McVeigh of media morality. So evil and new in its time, so picked on as event - only to be brushed aside by a newer, more all-consuming evil. Alfred P. Who? Broadcast sets phased where? They're both dead! Long live the GWOT/INDUCE/Moodle/PRO-IP/Patriot/MUD Offensive. Whither poor comic books, also, currently feted on The Valve and such other hidebound traditionalist outlets for print that has funny little brackets! Alas! I'm going to that conference on fan fiction!
I don't think literacy should be boiled down to the output device and reader's immediate visual context. There's nothing particularly digital about the habits - the article is about reading habits, preferences, not literacy - that the children in the article seem to display. And there's nothing particularly analog about the habits the adults display. The Times is laid out using a networked computer in a newsroom. I've worked as a copy editor - I got paper templates on a Mac with ad space placeholders, I used Quark and editing programs and got wire stories off the network, stringer stories via email. Print is not print and digital is not digital because one can easily become the other. I can make this post into a PDF document and I can read a book as a PDF document through the same software, using the similar and different storage media, transfer it to similar and different storage media, etc. We're dealing with documents. If you want to talk about it in terms of paper pages vs. screen pages, well, don't. The only thing this sort of article proves is that, if this is actually the debate, we're neither in a print, digital, network, information, nor knowledge society/culture/economy, but just a bunch of document enthusiasts.