Tag: geek

Learning Linux

The best way to learn how to work with a new operating system, I think, is to have something not work right and then try to fix it. If everything is working perfectly, you learn nothing about the workings of the OS.

Ubuntu on my Dell Mini has been working perfectly in all of the stuff I will likely use it for. However, one of the reasons I wanted a Linux-based netbook was to see how easy/difficult/whatever it would be to use for my classroom computers. Since most netbooks come with XP Home, which will not work properly on a domain (no easy way for kids to access their accounts) I thought maybe Linux might be a solution, provided I can do everything with Linux that I currently do with Winders with my students. And I’m thinking more & more that netbooks will be the way to go when I get my new classroom in 2010. (No room for PCs in my new room and netbooks are half the cost – at least – and half the size – at least – of normal laptops.)

The Ubuntu on my Mini had everything I’d need in my classroom (a word processor, spreadsheet, web browser, pdf reader) except for Logger Pro. Logger Pro is a graphing program by Vernier that goes one step further than their earlier (and still brilliant) graphing program Graphical Analysis: it can interface with the LabQuest handheld units which we use in physics. LabQuests allow you to connect various scientific probes to it and gather data which can be viewed on the LabQuest or uploaded into Logger Pro for further analysis and eventual pasting into word processors for lab reports. Vernier already had Logger Lite available for such a purpose, but Logger Lite doesn’t do all of the analyses that I use in physics nor can it be used as a stand-alone graphing program.

So I checked on Vernier’s website recently to see if there were any plans to port Logger Pro to Linux. And sure enough, there was a link to join their beta testers on Logger Pro for Linux. I joined the group, deleted my VirtualBox Winders 7 and stuck Ubuntu on there. It installed peachy keen, but I just couldn’t get the virtual USB to connect to a LabQuest. No matter, I had a Dell Mini on the way, I’d test it then.

The Mini arrives and I play and learn and eventually get around to installing Logger Pro. Which, unlike on my VirtualBox, doesn’t go well. Indeed, after the drivers supposedly installed, the Logger Pro program told me it didn’t have all of the dependencies on the machine and wouldn’t install. I posted to the beta forum and waited for the Easter holiday to be over.

Sure enough, I got a response Monday from one of the Vernier techs. A couple of e-mails passed by, I learned a lot about installing & uninstalling using dpkg, and the first Vernier tech put me in touch with one of the actual Linux gurus who’s working on the software. While corresponding with him, I’ve learned to do even more things, such as unpackaging i386.deb files and repackaging as lpia.deb files, compiling a new driver using make, and stuff like that. I thanked the tech at Vernier for getting the opportunity to do all this stuff in order to learn more about Linux. His e-mail to me today started with “You rock!” That made my morning.

Anyhoo, after work today, I built a kernel specific driver for my Dell Mini and tried Logger Pro (which I had gotten successfully installed yesterday after the i386 to lpia conversion) with the LabQuest once more. And there it was! Data from the LabQuest (temperature probe attached) on my Dell Mini. I was so excited, I boiled some water, called dad up to come over for a Geek Emergency, and reconfirmed Newton’s Law of Cooling with a cup of boiling water and Logger Pro. Dad was as delighted as I was. (We are geeks, remember.)

So anyhoo, success with Linux and Logger Pro. I’ll continue to test with other probes. I’ll be interested to see which dialog boxes are too large for the netbook screen. (I know the interface list is just slightly too large, but that may be something we may not use in my class.) So anyway, according to one Vernier tech at least, I rock. 🙂

*blush* Boy is my Netbook Red!

I waited and waited for Acer to get the right combo for their Aspire One (Linux, SSD, *and* a 6-cell battery) but they never could. Then Dell started lowering the price on their 9″ Mini and it was tempting. And then they had a one-day sale with a further $50 off their Linux, SSD, 4-cell Mini. And they had red ones. So I had to order it. (8GB SSD & 1GB RAM for the curious.)

It arrived today. Woohoo! Dad’s arrived yesterday and we all agreed it was really cute and cool. (His is white.) He’s decided that he loves Ubuntu. Had the easiest set up of a computer ever. My own experience today was equally pain free. I took photos during the opening and all that, which I’ve posted to my Pagefillers Gallery. Here’s a photo of the red lovely (downloaded & edited on the Mini, then uploaded to Pagefillers.com):

The verrrrrry rrrrrrrrrrrred netbook.

I’ve only got two complaints about the Mini so far – funky keyboard arrangement (apostrophe and dash are in odd places) and the beta version of LoggerPro for Ubuntu wouldn’t install. (Not too worried about the second issue – the purpose of the beta is to get it working for as many Ubuntu and Linux users around – I’m sure the folks at Vernier will get it sorted out.) Dad’s got a complaint about his – his screen keeps going black for no apparent reason. Hopefully Dell (or Ubuntu, if the Dell tech he chatted with tonight actually knew anything) will get his issue sorted out.

Since I’ve been working a lot with Firefox add-ons of late, my Mini does much of what my main PC and laptop do. I’ve got the TwitterFox add-on to keep up with the Twitter folks I follow. I’m using the SyncPlaces add-on to keep my bookmarks synced between the three devices. Like with my laptop, I’ll stick with webmail for e-mail. For non-Firefox programs, I’ve got Pidgin for AIM, Drivel for Livejournal writing (it’s like a bare-bones Semagic), GIMP for image editing, F-Stop for getting images from my camera, etc. I was even able to installed my supposedly Winders-only laser printer on here. Cool beans.

Oh, for music, I figure I can use Pandora and Last.FM. Although the speakers are considerably tinny, with my earphones hooked in, it’s really nice sound. I was tres impressed. It hooked up to both my WiFi and dad’s without a hitch. Oh – and the most astounding thing? It came with a recovery DVD! I didn’t think any computer company sent a recovery DVD along with the machine anymore! (OK, so no DVD drive on here, but I figure we can copy it to a flash drive if we ever have to.)

My next task will be to find DirSync or something similar because I’d like to set up the 4GB SD HC card I’ve stuck in the SD slot to backup my Documents folder whenever I click a button on the desktop (or similar). Don’t think I’ll be filling this little duffer up with a lot of stuff, so the 4GB of space remaining will likely be sufficient. (I can see this coming in handy when doing research/book reviewing in the library when I finally get started on my Masters).

Well, I’ve found a drawback with GIMP on this Netbook – some of the windows are too big for the resolution so I can’t see to change file types or other little things like that. I was going to make a new LJ icon, but I’ll have to do that on my laptop or PC.

Electronica

Of late, I’ve been having a love/hate relationship with my electronics.

First, my DVD player, which wasn’t even a month old, had its HDMI port go kablooey. Bummer. I knew when I bought the Philips DVP5990 that some people were having issues with the HDMI port, but I really liked the idea of a USB port in my DVD player and some upconversion of my DVDs. And I usually have good luck with electronics. Still, this one decided to be a butthead and its HDMI port decided it liked the color pink more than any other color. I went to Philips unhelp site and did everything it suggested for the known issue (if it’s a known issue, Philips, why don’t you FIX IT?!?). It stayed pink. I e-mailed their tech support and they said I should phone ’em. Hell, I didn’t want to waste an evening talking to tech support. So I decided instead to switch to component cables and see how long that lasts. It’s not been a month yet, but so far, so good. Considering my TV maxes at 1080i anyhoo, and these are just upconverted DVDs not Blue Ray, the quality is good enough for me.

My second betrayer actually lasted more than a year – but not much more. The SmartParts digital frame which my folks gave me for Christmas in 2007 died. I did whatever I could think of to snap it out of it, but no go. But I’ve gotten used to having a digital frame in my library. So I decided to research digital frames to see what I needed. 7″ was sufficient and if it did 400×234 images, that was fine cuz I already had a set of images from the SmartParts frame. Although a remote would have been nice, it wasn’t a necessity. After seeing one in person at Staples, I decided that the Kodak EasyShare 720 was the frame for me. And best of all, I found it on eBay for $49.95 incl shipping. What I love best about it is that you can set the length of time between photos in the slideshow mode. I have it set for 30s now – I might go longer in future.

Although I’d had my eye set on an Acer Aspire One netbook, I kept getting disappointed when I couldn’t find the combo I wanted: 6-cell battery, SSD, Linux, a color other than black. So I kept my eye on other netbooks. I’d tried HP’s mini and liked the keyboard, but the battery size was only 3-cell and they were pricier than other brands. Dell had a linux version on SSD with a 4-cell battery, but it was initially way too expensive. And the only free color was black. But then Dell started to lower its price (as only Dell can). Eventually the 8GB SSD with 512MB RAM linux netbook was $249. It was tempting. But as I intended to get a red one and get at least 1GB of RAM, the price kept going over $300. And then came Tuesday… $50 off the linux netbook just for that day. I couldn’t wait to get home to buy it. (Hey, I was pricing them at work cuz I figure netbooks will be my future computer lab there!)

So when I got home, I called dad (cuz I’d called him earlier to let him know about the sale and caught him as he was ordering one – heh). While talking to him about his purchase (he went for the barebones one in white which, with tax and shipping, was around $220), I was busy on Dell’s site customizing mine. Although white was now a free upgrade, I decided I didn’t want black or white. Indeed, since I’d been to the site at lunch, there was now BLUE. It was tempting, but I went with red. I also upgraded to 1GB of RAM. Even with those two upgrades, the final price incl shipping & taxes was under $300 (around $280). Yay! Our netbooks won’t arrive until the middle of April or so.

In non-tech news, tomorrow is the groundbreaking for our new school building. At 1:30pm, the entire study body and community members will congregate near where the new building will be built. And lucky me gets to be one of the high school staff representatives to turn over some dirt – woot! I’ll see if dad can get a photo of me turning dirt so I can post it to my blog. 🙂 Keep an eye on the Newton New Building Updates page – there will eventually be a link to a video camera pointing to the job site.

Thank Goodness for DP&L

Yesterday it got up to 70°F and was sunny in the morning. Today it was near freezing and raining all day. And then it went below freezing and was still raining. Our superintendent made a smart call and dismissed school an hour early. After all the kiddies were gone, we teachers were allowed to leave. So I did, and headed off to the polls.

I actually drove today (I usually walk) because of the threat of ice later. I don’t mind driving short distances in ice, but walking home? Gah! My rear window and passenger-side window were covered with ice, but the windshield and driver’s-side window weren’t.

Ohio has Closed Primaries, which means you have to declare your party before you vote. I’m Independent (or at least I was when I entered the church where we vote) and didn’t want to just vote for the one issue on the ballot, so I decided to vote Democrat. (Which is almost as boring as voting Independent in this county, except for the presidential candidates – any other Democrats there were unopposed, though most of the positions were Republican only. I mean, there are five guys vying for coroner and NONE of them were on the Democrat ballot.) I voted for someone I wouldn’t mind seeing as my future president. 🙂 (I know, I know, that’s most of the folks on the Democrat ticket.)

Once I was done with my civic duty (congratulating a first time voter on her way in – that would be Suzanne W, Becky’s next door neighbor, Amy. Doesn’t that make you feel old? Sure as hell makes ME feel old!) I headed back home. I spent a few hours online enjoying myself and was just thinking about working on college stuff when, at 4pm, the power flickered on & off. And on again. And off. Repeat for a few minutes. Finally it went off for good.

So I got onto my laptop and read one of the files for this week’s curriculum class (which I’d saved on the laptop, though I’d forgotten to save the questions the professor asked) and wrote up a short essay on how we do curricula here in Ohio. Was reading the second paper when my laptop warned me it was 10% to go on battery. I turned it off and thought about what to do next.

I realized that I don’t actually have any landline phones that don’t require power (I should get a cheap-o one just for such an occurrence) so I called dad with my cell phone. He was at the Flamingo Hotel getting ready for the big Westar Conference taking place this week. We chatted for a bit, then I said “bye” and decided to make supper. Yay for peanut butter & jelly sandwiches! 🙂

I listened to a David Tennant-read audiobook on my iPod (whose battery lasted long enough for the book and then some) while I ate supper. I even got out my Nintendo Gameboy Advance for a bit and was delighted to see the battery was still charged. Even without power, I was geeking. I love being a geek. (Still, I’m not as cool as elsaf, who, during the Detroit power failures a few years ago, was still able to get online. GEEK!)

Well, four hours and eleven minutes later and we have power again. Hooray for DP&L! Hooray for heat! Hooray for electricity and batteries! 🙂

News Flash: Geeks love Panera Bread!

We left the hotel at 9:30 this morning and arrived in Findlay around 11am. Just in time for an early lunch at Panera Bread! Nevermind the fact that I had perused the ‘net this morning looking for Paneras along the route. Or the fact that I changed my route just to arrive here midway through the trip.

But we are here, having a nice lunch of the Strawberry Poppyseed Chicken Salad & soup. Plus a bottle of Jones Cream Soda (with kitty cats on the wrapper) and a chocolate cookie for me. judiang insisted that we get my laptop out cuz there’s free Wi-Fi at this Panera. (It wasn’t until I was searching last night that I discovered some Paneras don’t have wi-fi! The horror!)

Anyhoo, it’s almost time to eat my cookie (before Judi eats it instead). We’ll be back at the lake in another hour or hour & a half.