LincolnBlogs
From the twisted mind of me!

I have long been fascinated by different peoples computing environments. Somehow I believe it shows a little glimpse into someone’s mind. With that in mind, I thought it might be interesting to other people as well so I polled a group of my friends who are some of the most influential computing buddies I have. Here is what they sent:

Name: A.W.
What do you do?:
I’m a NetApp Wrangler and Windows Sysadmin by trade. Looking to add storage admin as well (EMC/Cisco).
Tell me about your DE?:
My main workstation is my MacBook. I identify with this machine the most and my desktop environments tend to show my personality and style choices. I like IBM style green on black terminals which I have been addicted to ever since I installed my first AIX machine (a POWERStation 320 that I got for free from my ex-girlfriend’s office). The desktop is a stylized Sylvanas the Banshee Queen of the Undead from World of Warcraft. I don’t currently play the game but I’m into zombies and undead stuff as art and game play (and hot pale powerful gothy women). My Windows 7 machine is a gaming machine and also used to do my work as it’s the best machine to log into our VPN with. It’s an Alienware with the Phobos Red theme and the LEDs are currently all set to red with a pulsating skull on the front. It’s kind of Darth Vader. Alienware does nice themes and some of the nicest pre-installs I’ve ever seen (yes, the first time I didn’t wipe the OS that came with the system)… It has no shovelware. I’ve owned the Powermac G5 Quad for years and bought it to be the last and best PowerPC machine. Eventually I was no longer using it as I supplanted its use with my MBP which I can carry all over the house and use wireless N with. Wanting to breathe new life into it, it became a PPC Linux test box and I’ve found the best environment with Fedora Core 17 Beefy Miracle. I’ve replaced the desktop graphic with something nicer than the default fireworks that is still Fedora themed. The Firefox window is a shot of my home file server control panel. It’s a red aluminum cased custom AMD A4 build with 8 GB of RAM, 6 x 2TB Seagates (SATA3)ZFS RAID6 and a memory stick to hold FREENAS 8.0.4 x64 MULTIMEDIA. Since it’s red I named it after my favorite Motts discontinued beverage: Beefamato.

Name: D.C.
What do you do?:
Programmer and professional Bearded Curmudgeon.
Tell me about your DE?:
vim is my IDE, and I have a window open full screen, split into up to eight or so buffers on my main screen. On a second screen I have terminals for running my code’s tests, viewing logs, and for talking to colleagues who work all over the world – my team is split between Utah, the UK, Moscow, and anywhere else that we can find good people. My windows are all slightly transparent when inactive, as it makes it easier to find stuff if I can see it when it’s behind something else. I do, of course, use focus-follows-pointer and click to bring to front, but almost all my navigation is via the keyboard. When I do need to move the pointer,I use a trackball. Desktop? Yeah, there’s one under there somewhere, but I hardly ever see it. It’s a plain neutral colour with no icons on it so it doesn’t interfere with window transparency.

Name: J.B.
What do you do?:
Senior Software Engineer working on cloud managed digital media systems for the retail environment.
Tell me about your DE?:
Windows 7. I run Linux on my desktop, but I never felt like having the distribution to work to change what’s on my laptop, and I use the laptop the vast majority of the time.

Name: J.F.
What do you do?:
Solutions Architect, Enterprise Services, HP.
Tell me about your DE?:
I alternate between a black desktop and this photo of my favorite car. A friend collects vintage gas station equipment and provided the setting when I took this picture. I try to keep my desktop clean and maintain a folder called “desktop-stuff” for all the junk that would normally accumulate.

Name: J.S.
What do you do?:
Retired network engineer now part time Asterisk/VOIP and wireless consultant.
Tell me about your DE?:
Windows 7 for the most part, but I have a Ubuntu 12 VM running X11RDP so I use Remote Desktop rather than VNC. That’s where I do the majority of my compiling & code editing in Xemacs.

Name: K.H.
What do you do?:
I’m a senior engineer on the Enterprise Infrastructure Team for a state government. I wrangle Tivoli Storage Manager, VMWARE, DNS, Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP, legacy and modern UNIX/Linux, SANs, some LAN/WAN, provide support to the CISO in all areas of infosec as needed, and function as troubleshooter of last resort for any given problem.
Tell me about your DE?:
Windows 7 would not be my first choice, but since I have to use Windows-only apps in the execution of my duties, it is the best for the job. I run two monitors, which have different resolutions, but this is the best that can be managed on a restricted budget. Ideally there would be two 23″ monitors, but if we’re dealing in ideals, I would have an Alienware laptop instead of a Dell. The theme is a transparent space-based theme courtesy of NASA, but the background is an image from Stickman featuring some of my favorite tools. Rather than hide the start bar, I leave it up all the time for quick access.

Name: L.F.
What do you do?:
I.T.Manager and Senior Linux Admin, LAMP developer, scripter and all miscellaneous duties as assigned.
Tell me about your DE?:
Mint #newest_version running my usual slew of apps and xterms on 2 dual monitor machines. Dark wallpaper is currently a “black leather”. I like dark unobtrusive wallpapers best to avoid distraction. Windows running in a vm, where it belongs. Just can’t have enough desktop real estate you know! And, yes, that’s mutt for email – best client out there.

Name: M.H.
What do you do?:
I’m an I/T support specialist and dispatcher.
Tell me about your DE?:
I have quite a number of different desktops really. In fact I always have had. When they get cluttered I throw things into folders and eventually archive them if I don’t want to delete them. (My folder structures in my home directories is horrible.) Each system I use has a different purpose. The desktop here is my home daily driver. Multiple screens often dictate what wallpaper I use though frustratingly it’s hard to span wallpaper across multiple monitors. At home I usually use single displays but at the office I use four screens total. Working on adding another one. As for colors I prefer a darker theme with light lettering. For terminals I prefer a black background with amber text or as close as I can get using a color picker. Green if I don’t have amber as a choice. Translucent terminals look nice initially but are a pain for me to focus on.

Probably you have either listened to me or read my thoughts or both for several years now, but it occurred to me today that someone out there might be interested in seeing what actually drives the LincGeek.

I currently live in Pennsylvania, but I was born and raised in Upstate NY, with a brief stint in Washington state. New Yorkers and hillbillies are my people and I understand them. Washington is some of the most beautiful country I ever spent time in and I hope to at least visit out there again someday.

Well, first and foremost, computers and Linux are my personal crack. I started on a life long obsession with computers back in 1983 with my first Vic=20 (Thank you William Shatner). I learned to program in BASIC and from there it was all over until I met Linux in the 90s, then that added into the mix.

I like the fastest computers I can get my hands on. I like Apple computers (more for their quality and aesthetics than OS – they do tend to run Linux very well). I love my Kindle, my Android phone and my Asus TF300T Linux Mint is probably the nicest version of Linux I have ever run and I use that almost exclusively as my desktop OS of choice. I am RedHat certified and use RHEL and CentOS for the vast majority of my enterprise and personal server needs, because, IMHO, it’s better than the rest.

I am a music lover. I dig 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, Big Band, Jazz, Funk, Disco, Bluegrass and Classical music. I was a hardcore low brass musician and vocalist in my school years, even making it into “Who’s Who In Music” in my senior year in high school, and those are some of my most cherished and fondest memories. Rap is *NOT* music, by the way.

I have been married once, to my college sweetheart, for almost 20 years now and have an adult (she thinks so at least) daughter, currently in college. I am a Conservative Libertarian, politically, and a proud Christian.

Although I am now diabetic and stick mostly to various forms of Chicken and veggies, I LOVE good food. my favorites are good Irish cooking like my Grandma used to make. Corned Beef and Cabbage. And she made a monster macaroni and cheese too. I would literally hurt someone for some of that again. I strongly believe that vegetables are what food eats.

I like my coffee with (nonfat) milk and sweet-n-low. Buy it from Wawa because Starbucks coffee is overpriced and bitter yuppie coffie IMHO. I like an occasional good cigar (Acid Blondie) and enjoy them most when I can smoke them and hang out with my friends. (Edit, I am a confirmed Vaper now – RY4 absolutely ROCKS!)

I am not a drinker. If and when I do imbibe, I do so with Scotch or Whiskey as I believe beer must be what urine tastes like.

As you can probably surmise, I am highly opinionated, and as I have a monster sized guilty conscience and I am not at all politically correct, so if you ask my opinion, you are liable to actually get it.

I still think the occasional fart joke is funny. I hate unproductive meetings and long phone conversations. I try very hard to be honest, forthright, fair and maintain integrity.

I am a pet guy and love small furry mammals of all kinds. I have and have had cats, dogs, rabbits, mice, rats, ferrets and even a smattering of budgies and small lizards.

And now you know all about me!

Almost everybody knows I have ferrets, and many of you have heard me talk about the phenomena of ferret math. The downside of this is when you have to say goodbye to one of your fuzzy friends. Today was just such a day for me.

Ferrets, for those of you not in the know, are not really a creature of nature. Having been bread in captivity for eons, they do not survive on their own. Their survival traits have been almost completely bread from them and they are not much like their ancestors any longer except in appearance. This also brings with it a horrible genetic disposition to certain cancers and diseases witch are all too common in modern day fuzzies.

Today, my friend Teddy was put to sleep. Teddy mysteriously contracted something resembling cancer in his mouth, which rapidly spread into his sinuses and eyes. I am glad to see him go only in the sense that I hated to see him suffering. Teddy came into our home about 3 years ago and was a little fluffy snuggler. He was literally a little teddy bear, which is how he got his name. It was only weeks later that we found his mischievous side that he also really enjoyed pinching my wife Hey, I do too!

Teddy is survived by his life long friend Puff, our only remaining ferret, and, of course, 2 cats, a dog, 2 rats and his beloved humans.

I am gonna miss you friend. Safe journey. I promise to keep pinching my wife for you until we meet again.

OOOF!

So today Dann sent me a message telling me that the LinuxPlanet.org sites hadn’t updated in like 20 days. Apparently he’s the only one that noticed.. :/

I fixed the feeds and we are all up and running now. At any rate, if you *do* actually use the service, whether ti is down or not, feel free to drop me a note and let me know how it’s doing now and again at linc dot fessenden at gmail dot com!

I saw the news mere minutes after I got my newest mac. I just picked up a nicely used 17″ iMac. I may even have to name it “jobs”…

Much as many of my opensource cohorts are occasionally at odds with Apple, the company, I believe whole heartedly that we have lost a real visionary. He had a big hand in not only making personal computing a reality, but also beautiful. Apple has always pushed the idea that not only should functionality be a consideration but aesthetics as well. I can only hope that Apple can keep up with his legacy.

   Early last week I had another burst of reading activity on my Kindle 3. Reading for me tends to come in spurts when the rest of my life doesn’t interfere and it had been a while. I loaded up the Kindle with some new goodies (Sh*t my dad says is hilarious, btw) and started peeling through not only the books but also the menus, setting things up just the way I like them.

RANT: As a side note here, why the heck are collections so freaking difficult to setup? I mean come on Amazon. Make them work by directory structure or something easy, or at least fix it so that when you add to collection, you are only shown books not already in another collection by default. OK, rant done

   Anyhow, as I was reading and setting up different collections, etc. I noticed a familiar recurring problem. The short history is when I got my Kindle 3 I noticed every so often the e-ink would not fully display, but only display VERY faintly. I called Amazon and they had me update the firmware but ut was really hard to tell if that fixed it as it was not a constant thing. Queue up last week and I notice this a LOT more. Not only while reading the books, but now in the menus, etc.. So, I called Amazon right up as they instructed me to do the last time I noticed this. They IMMEDIATELY sent me out a replacement. I mean I had it the NEXT day, during a snowstorm. There was no arguing, no listening to some low end tech worker flip pages on the other end of the phone, no shipping or return costs, no hassle whatsoever. THIS is what customer service is all about and it’s easy to see that Amazon stands behind it’s products. This is why I will always recommend the Kindle. I don’t know what the other guys service is like, but Amazon is absolutely tops every time I have had to deal with them.

   Shortly after I got my new Kindle (read hours) I got horribly sick (sinus infection) and have been that way for 4 or 5 days now. During my occasional bouts of lucidity and while waiting for the NyQuil to kick in again I was reading through my facebook posts and noticed Tom Higgins mentioning that he was enjoying using Subsonic, which is a new (to me anyway) software that manages your music collection for you. It’s a server side app with some seriously nifty clients you can run on you android phone, which made it catch my eye. I have (and still do for now) been using Kplaylist for quite some time and I really like it, but, hey, nothing wrong with checking out new things, right?

   Well, the thought of me trying out some new music collection software got me looking at my music collection. You know what this is like. I have been hanging on to my music in digital form for better than 10 years, so, it’s substantial / sizable, in different formats, mixed up, formatted and named badly, bad mp3 and ogg tags, etc.. What’s a guy to do? Well, I searched around a bit and found a whole lot of programs for Linux that will let you manually fix tags. Ick. With thousands to do I kept searching. I found a bunch of programs for windows and mac that will help you reorganize and fix your collection, and, eventually, I found ONE that will do the same on a Linux box. It’s name is MusicBrainz Picard I have been using it here and there (still sick) for a couple days now, sicking it on a directory of my music collection here and there. It sure beats doing this all by hand! It’s not perfect software by any means, but it sure will be a timesaver compared to the alternative and the more people that use it and update those databases, the better it’ll work. Check it ut, I think you’ll like it!

We just mentioned on the last LinuxLink TechShow that we are starting a mailing list. Our intention is to provide a way to more easily disseminate information during the week to our listeners, have a place for some interesting conversation, ideas and help, and have a sort of virtual user group. If you would like to join in on the fun, point your browser to: https://www.thelinuxlink.net/mailman/listinfo/tllts and sign right up! I’ll see you there!

  I don’t even remember where the idea came from, but it was decided that after 365 shows, that’s one for every day of the year, folks, that we would consider that “season 1″ for the LinuxLink TechShow, and we would then, finally, start on “season 2″. Those 365 episodes comprise 7 years of weekly recordings and add up to roughly 30 days of continual audio, day and night. I guess you could say we have been doing this for a while….

  Since last year’s Ohio Linux Fest we have had a few TLLTS Elders meetings to decide upon what we saw as the problems of the first TLLTS season, what we could do to fix them and what kinds of things we wanted to pursue for season 2. We tried to take into consideration the things we had positive and negative comments on from our listener base and years of our beloved “hate mail”

  First and foremost we needed to address our constant audio issues. Long have we had complaints about our audio so we needed to make that a priority. We do have a very complicated setup in that area due to our arrangement of multiple hosts and guests in multiple locations, local and remote, not to mention the extra issues caused by being a live show, which causes us to add even more audio sources. You see, we don’t postprocess audio and dub things in later like promos and intro/outros. They happen as we roll along live, just like everything else. As it turns out though, a lot of our audio issues were actually caused by NOT using the Linux built in goodies. They were caused by our analog setup (mixer, compressor, cabling, etc..) Once we identified that we actually could remove that mess all together and just go digital, things got a lot better pretty fast.

  Other and maybe minor things we needed to address had to do with the loose format of the show, the show and guest planning and general preparedness, the timing of things during the show, regular guest hosts, the website and things of that sort. Boy, there sure were lots of things to work on!

  We decided that we needed to tighten things up a bit with the show format. We settled on trying hard to keep the show times from 8:30pm to 10pm (and no longer). We want to try and divide the show into sections, giving time to any interviews we may have while still sequestering some time for us for a little discussion as well. We decided on using some music as a separator, much like we did early on in the show – an intermission. An exciting addition here would be the possibility of also adding in some “shorts” or short topical audio segments dealing with our hosts specialty subjects. These would be not only a way for us to facilitate an important break in the show, but a way to generate some interest in a recurring topic and also provide a possible stepping stone into the hosts discussion on the second half of the show.

  We decided we would like to get not only some more good new guests, but also to revisit some of our wildly interesting past guests to see what they have been up to. Luckily, the ones I have contacted thus far have not only remembered us, but have also agreed to stop by again to say hello Make sure to check the calendar for who’s coming up and send along your suggestions of people you would like to hear from!

  One of the major things I was tasked with working on and updating was the website. I thought the old one was fantastic, mostly because I designed and coded it, but the other hosts assured me it was time for something new I pursued the great and famous Richard Querin who graciously came up with a great looking front page and theme and sent it to me. A little php work and content by Dann and I and you have the masterpiece you see now.

  I have to say that I really enjoyed doing the show for the last seven years. I get to talk shop with my buddies every week. I get to talk to really cool linux/open source celebrities. I get to meet and make a lot of geeky friends from all over the world, people who I have come to consider as almost family ove the last 7 years. It has been a helluva fun ride and I am eager to put a good start to the next 7, so make sure and head on over to http://tllts.org and join in the fun. The prelude to season 2 was recorded and put up for distribution right at the end of OLF 2010 and the official start happens 9/15/2010 @8:30pm EDT. See ya there!

Oh yeah, I have been busy, but I promised myself I would post some stuff as soon as I got a chance. One of the things I wanted to mention was my recent purchase of a straight razor. I bought this shave set from Amazon a few weeks ago and have finally learned how to shave with it without slitting my throat. Really, though, the reason I bought this was I have freakishly sensitive skin and get horrible razor burn just walking past the razor display in a store. The only decent shave I ever had was when I went to a barber and he shaved me with a straight razor. Combine that with Allan bragging about his wickedly cool badger hair shave brush and I was all of the sudden buying a straight razor.

Once I received the razor, I hit youtube for a couple straight razor shaving tutorials (hey I am not stupid), I put in a brand new blade and I was off to the proverbial races. Although I did nick myself a couple times (the worst was on the second shave) this really is not at all difficult and you get fantastic shaves. I highly advocate at least trying this, you will like it, and I can see no easier and inexpensive way to start than with the set I bought. Check it out!

Wow, what a trip. Allan and I drove to SC from my place in PA in the middle of the night, which took up 10 hours. It was a nice drive compared to last year where it was foggy and rainy the whole ride there.

The conference was great. It was 2 days long, and, contrary to what I heard from some people, I thought it was just right. During the talks/conferences there was hardly anyone in the hallways. This tells me that there was something interesting there for everyone. I, however, only got to see Dann’s talk about the linux boot process. It was quite good I thought. The only real downside there was the vendor/hallway track, which was spread out a little too much.

Mordancy made us some SELF ’10 TLLTS shirts, which turned out great and were a hit. We do have some left as well and will be announcing how you can get yours on the show. Gorkon brought cookies and chex mix which were also greatly appreciated. And, of course, there were the books by Prentice Hall (Pearson Ed), APress and the wickedly cool Neuros Link and Nexus One we had to give away. I had a great time talking to all of you who stopped at the booth and I even got the chance to install Linux on a visitors laptop! I also enjoyed visiting with the other vendors and dot org booths there. I still really enjoy being a part of this community. You all are a bunch of great folks!

Probably the best “conference track” there was one tat was totally unannounced and impromptu. On Sunday night, after all was quiet and we were relaxed, Dann, Allan and I had time for a good executive TLLTS meeting. It was really nice to go over a lot of TechShow information, ideas, problems and solutions, face to face, so we could all get on the same page. We are coming up on our second season and we have some interesting things in store.

All in all I had a great time, which was exactly what I expected. I cannot wait for OLF this year nor can I wait for SELF next year. They just keep getting better and better!