I am a ROM addict

I do love my nexus one. As far as tech goes, especially phones, it may seem a bit outdated but with CM7 roms, custom kernals, and scripts like dark tremors apps to ext and chainfire, it performs beautifully and definitely outperforms newer phones with better hardware that haven't been rooted or modded.

Only thing is, when I get ROM crazy, I can spend hours playing with different configurations and trying out different things.

Last night was one of those nights - filled unfortunately with troubleshooting. Only to discover a simple fact that has been pointed out on the xda forums repeatedly - ClockworkMod's formatting of the ext partition of the sd card renders it unusable. I didn't realize that CWM was formatting sd-ext when I was doing a data and cache wipe!!!

So... all installs with data and cache wipes are going to either have to be done manually, or when the initial ROM is installed, power down and take out the sd card and format the ext partition on my ubuntu machine (or do it via usb?).

Don't forget, dummy!!

Project: Sleep and Remote Wakeup

Problem:  I have a main computer that I utilize as a server for media both at home and away.  There are times when I really don't need it that often and it represents a waste of electric power.
Just having it sleep presents two issues: 1. being able to wake it remotely when I want to access it  and 2. when it does sleep I need to ensure that if virtual machines are running that they are apropriately shut down / put to sleep and woken up as well
Solutions: test how virtualbox machines are handled when the computer shuts down to sleep mode.  I don't think hibernation is necessary.  Sleep mode will present enough of an energy savings.
Use a shutdown utility that runs a script prior to entereing sleep mode and write a script that will shutdown / save the machine state of the virtualbox machines as well as one that will bring them online when the machine is activated.
lifehacker article wake on lan: http://lifehacker.com/348197/access-your-computer-anytime-and-save-energy-with-wake+on+lan
lifehacker article energy:
energy: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html


Edit 8/8/2011:  Using the wake-on-lan feature with ddwrt made the waking up from sleep issue very easy to fix.  Currently I just access the web interface from any device with a browser and wake the server up via that route, although soon I plan to put a script in place so that all I have to do is access the router via ssh and wake it up that way.

To see if the server is active I access the router via ssh and use the 'arp' command, which lists any currently active local ip's.

It only takes about 2 minutes for the server to wake up from sleep mode and be available for access to music or ftp.

The virtualbox server (ubuntu linux) wakes up and sleeps with the primary os with no issues.

Thoughts on "Social Media"

With the quick rise in Linkin's stock price after its IPO, with something like a 140 percent increase in a few hours, the term social media was suddenly a very hot topic on every news show. The term was used a lot during the recent uprisings in the Middle East as well, with twitter and facebook being garnered with far too much credit in those situations. Or were they? I'm not sure, for though twitter and facebook may not have been directly responsible for many people taking to the streets they must have played a major organizational role. It would probably be most accurate to say that they made something easier that would have happened in the first place - namely the organization of mass demonstrations.

One thought the keeps coming to mind, however, with all these correllations between social media and democratization, is that these things rely on something that I am sure must be ultimately very fragile - a mobile or wireless network and at its most basic level an electric grid, or source of power.

It would seem to me that ensuring these two things are available without government infrastructure, or even better infrastructure that can be made available for use without government control - would be of primary importance to any person concerned with personal freedom.

I don't feel like I have the know how to make something like that work, but what would it take? I know that it is possible to make networks out of several devices - ie I think you could have several routers close enough to each other that could connect to each other and therefore create a network. How much power would be necessary to run each router? Enough to be powered by a portable solar cell? How wide could such a network extend?

I imagine a scenario where a network of routers and attendant solar panels are placed in hidden and secret locations spread out over a large area and a map is provided to the group. When some dictatorial authority takes down the communities wireless communication, this network is activated by people setting up and switching on assigned stations.

Research questions:
How would such a network work? What would be its capabilities? Would it have to be centralized with a primary server or decentralized (this relates to an article I am barely remembering about creating decentralized closed mobile networks with only routers)

Using Dropbox for Study and Wiki Maintance

One of my primary uses for the dropbox service is as a centralized folder for keeping my notes, as a backup and in rough draft form before posting them to my nursing notes wiki. The final wiki format is excellent for organization and study and makes my notes easily accessible from anywhere - with a browser and internet connection. This latter requirement is solved by dropbox as well in that it synchronizes your folder locally across any device you install it on in case you find yourself in a situation where you have not network access (*gasp*).

Given my propensity for using different operating systems this is especially valuable to me since I can keep my notes synced through linux, windows or android using any generic text editors. On linux I prefer geany, on window - notpad ++, and I'm still working on an android version.

Editing the file while in the connected dropbox folder, which syncs every time I save my work, is an excellent way of ensuring my work is backed up to an external server as well.

My only problem with dropbox in the past has been space limitations when uploading applications for cross device use, but with text documents this is never an issue. I have explored alternatives, as well, which I use for larger files - see (link to later blog post) for those ideas.

Testing Scribefire

Yikes!  Over a month since any entries!  Ok, time to put this blog into the scribefire extension and try and make some use of it to spur a bit of flow.

Not that I have been totally without words.  I have been wiki mad the last couple of months, really exploring the possibilities of mediawiki on my server and starting to use it as a journal - journal in the cloud that only I have access to ( I hope!)  No passwords there just a lot of fairly uninteresting drivel about whatever is going on inside my head at the moment.  If someone was so interested they hacked in that would be fine!!  Unfortunately i highly doubt this would ever be the case.

This blog entry, then is just to see how the scribefire extension will work as far as posting to my blog.

Am I A Buddhist?

Considering the username for this blog and the associated twitter account this would seem to be a sensible question.  Honestly, it is one which I tend to ask myself from time to time!

For most of my life, and even today, I rigorously follow the adage "I would never join a club that would have me as a member."  Part disillusionment in my young hippie days, seeing the same ego, alpha male/ female games being played out among various supposedly egalitarian groups, partly an inherent distrust in any kind of authority that has dogged me from the days of my catholic school youth when the first seeds of realization that I was being lied to began their very very painful growth, this adage has become a part of me.

That being said my interest in and attraction to Buddhism is rooted in just this sort of emphasis on personal experience over the acceptance of any written dogma.  I do believe it is ultimately useful to adhere to a specific system of spirituality in order to be able to measure progress and make use of the experiences of others.

A large part of spiritual study, practical spiritual study with a real impact on my life and therefore the lives of those I come in contact with - especially my children - is about behavior.  Awareness of one's own behavior, of the causes and of methods for altering behavior.  From my limited study Buddhism offers a very powerful insight and methodology in this realm.  Behavior is essentially the realm of psychology, and I feel that Buddhism is a very advanced science of human psychology.  (My senior thesis in religious studies was on this subject).  With an emphasis on personal responsibility and experience over any sort of divine intervention and interpretation , it is a most practical methodology as well.

In the sense that Lama Surya Das explains being a Buddhist in his book Awakening The Buddha Within (which I am currently reading)-

I personally feel the  most important criteria or characteristic of Buddhist spirituality is a sincere commitment to the possibility of spiritual awakening and enlightenment, combined with an open heart, an inquiring mind, and daily awareness practice based on ethics, meditation, and wisdom.

- I would answer the blog entry's title as Yes.  This blog will serve to be, I hope, an extension of that commitment to inquiry and awareness practice.

And a place to talk about computers and gadgets, of course!

Right Work - 1

I had a difficult time comeing up with a title for this blog entry and maybe just should have left it untitled, but essentially it is just one of many blogs concerning thoughts about my career as a respiratory therapist.  Obviously, working in hospitals doing emergency and critical care provides plenty of food for thought!

The title is a reference to one of the Buddha's Eightfold Path.  I have found that as powerful as working with the sick and dying can be in spirtual work, it is also just as much a hindrance.  I think that I may have hoped that just being in this type of career would lead to some kind of spiritual awakening, as foolish as it sounds as I write it.  The fact is, of course, that without practice and right intent, this type of work can build huge barriers in the form of despair, egotism, frustration, and anger.  The situations one is exposed to can easily feed all of these, as I have experienced first hand over and over.

I have found that I can be addicted to the cycles of despair and anger and numbness that are inevitable when consistently faced with every kind of  human tragedy.  As I forge ahead with this blog and again explore my self in relation to the events of my life I hope to record some insights that I can refer back to and may even help someone else.

Well, the tone of this blog will remain conversational and so my entries may wander a bit or go places I did not intend, so I think I will keep this one general in subject, basically an insight into where I will be coming from.  I am very emotionally involved in my work and it can be very dramatic.  I look foward to trying and putting my experience into terms that will promote positive spiritual growth instead of contributing to cycles of despair and burnout, anger and negative emotion.

The Operating System Conundrum: Windows vs Ubuntu and beyond

Well it's a common enough problem - A Linux lover living in a Windows household with a common computer.  Oh what is a geek in search of nerdvana to do?

 My current configuration involves two of the standard solutions.  I have a dual boot system with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10 with room for other flavors of Linux if I somehow manage to find the time for  such play.  The majority of the time Windows 7 is running and I have resigned myself to having this as my primary OS.

Within Win 7 I have several user accounts, as I wrote in an earlier post.  This machine is the server for media in and out of the house.  One user is designated for this purpose and under that account I run the fantastic application Virtualbox.  Virtualbox allows me to basically run several computer systems in the same physical space.  One virtual machine is a linux server that I use for ftp and as an apache server.  I also have Subsonic server running which I use both in and out of the house to stream all my music.  I occasionally use tonido web server as well.  All files are accessed from the primary Win 7 OS using the shared folders feature.

I find this method of using a virtual machine extremely useful for several reasons, the virtues of which I will extoll in a later post.

I also use this machine for my primary desktop when I am using computer.  In full desktop mode it feels like I am on a native Ubuntu machine.

Virtualbox is an extremely useful tool, especially for those who are thinking of making the switch to a linux OS - which I highly reccomend doing, if not for all the time every day use, then at least as a way to educate yourself a little bit about alternatives that are available, especially if you are in the inevitable situation of a Windows meltdown.

Surprise Friends and First Impressions

Well, friends may be too strong a word but there is a guy at one of my jobs that I always enjoy talking to, mainly because for a long time I thought he hated me.

The environmental services guys can be a bit standoffish there, at both jobs really.  I remember being in that position, most of them probably see me as a 'suit' with the scrubs and stethescope.  It's weird being looked at that way - like you're too uppity to be a member of that group, mostly because when I was working factories and doing dishes I looked at people I thought might consider themselves my superiors the same way.

Anyways, this one guy used to always give me the fiercest eat shit looks.  He is dominican, I think, and speaks in a very heavy accent.  I always had the feeling though that he wasn't really giving me eat shit looks, though.  In fact, people say that to me all the time - that I have this really mean don't talk to me look on my face when most of the time I am not feeling that way at all.

So I kept at him, saying hello and excuse me and making offhand remarks about the weather or whatever and finally he started talking to me about what days we worked together and how busy it is and then about his kids.  He is a very nice, down to earth guy who loves his family very much and is always expressing concern about making sure his kids grow up to be good people.

First impressions for me are visceral.  They have little to do with my actual interaction with a person and more to do with the feeling I get.  Someone like that guy who looks mean but I feel good about, I'll keep trying to talk to.  Someone who seems like my best friend but gives me that feeling of I don't trust them will NEVER change that feeling.  I have learned too many times and in very hard ways to trust that feeling, by being robbed and stabbed in the back too many times to count.

Intuition is such a powerful thing and so hard to pin down.  I don't always trust my intuition but when it comes to people it has never failed me.

User Accounts for Securing Folders and Files

Our primary computer is also our main server, i.e. all files intended for keeping and common use are stored there and that computer is accessed by all others for content.

Having kids in the house I am constantly updating security measures to keep them away from the movies intended for the big people.  My newest method involves setting up user accounts on the main computer (via Windows) for each member of the family and then controlling access to folders by that folder's sharing properties.

My kids are  young so my methods can be crude.  I am still trying to decide whether I want to use the increasing complexity method of lockdown or full on lock down.  The increasing complexity method allows them to break through - essentially a cat and mouse game that hopefully they benefit from.  Not sure that would be teaching them the right lessons though!

Damn internet.

Morning Walk in the Snow

I try to take a walk in the neighborhood whenever it snows at night. Though it has snowed here quite a bit I am usually working so I don't get to enjoy the time that often. This morning I was up about 430 am, remembering the forecast for snow. This little guy greeted me in the backyard.

I thought he would run from the flash, but they must be pretty used to people because he turned to look at me. He probably just figured there was no way my fat ass could run fast enough to do him any harm!

Most of the pictures didn't turn out very good due to blurring. I really need to get a monopod or tripod for shooting low light, which is my favorite time. And I forgot to activate the CHDK mode on my camera (Canon Powershot) so no RAW formats like I intended. Here is a tree I shot with some post production fun using curves in FastStone Image Viewer.






The first one is the original, with the last being done with a flash. I used the 'kidsandpets' setting then adjusted the exposure up.

Here is a nighttime view of the neighborhood farm near our house:

Grub Customizer tool

Being pretty much self taught by trial and error and having so little time lately, learning how to manage grub2 has never been high on my list of things to care about.  Editing the config file was so damn easy!  Maybe it's just a passive agressive thing, I don't know.  However thanks to The How To Geek and a handy tool called Grub Customizer, I can do things the easy way.  Geez - maybe I should just go back to Windows.  Shut yo mouth!

Actually I found this especially useful because I am using a common computer that is a dual boot system and for simplicity's sake - ie to keep my wife happy - the system needs to default boot into Windows.  I'll be discussing my OS setup in the next blog or so.  The anticipation is building to a feverish pitch I know.  Anyhow,

Head on over to the site for the rest of the story....

 

First Post

The dreaded first post. I opened this blogger account so long ago that I had forgotten about it! Without the first post. So here it is. The first post.

This blog will serve as a very roughly thrown together and barely edited account of my adventures in trying to live a balanced life. Speaking of a balanced life - which honestly I have little idea what that may encompass, here is a link to the TED talk that inspired that bit of I had no idea that's what this blog was going to be about until I just now wrote it....


Balancing Life and Work


OOOOOOO, using some HTML - now that's reaching back a few years into the dusty memory of geek files. I'm quite sure I've forgotten much more than I remember.

Future blog posts will hopefully not, though will probably often, ramble as much as this one. I would like it serve as much as a record of things I have learned and tried along the way, ie as a place of reference, as well as a place to dump whatever personal insights I might be having at any given moment.

And lo, the first post is written.