At any rate, said issue is gone now, with no small measure of relief. This prompts me to proceed with discussing the unboxing and preparation of said Scout. First off, le box unwrapped:

With all the contents, including the Warranty Booklet, a CD which I haven't opened yet, 3 Cell Battery (couldn't find a 6 cell so this is a pain), Warranty Card, Power Supply, CE Compliance Booklet and a gift voucher offering a discount on Norton 360 and a Linksys Wifi G Router for only P2,099 (which is actually a sweet deal).

Anyway, moving on. I slip on the battery..

Open it (yes I'm doing this on my bed for lack of space).

.. turn it on, and I'm greeted with the Free DOS c: prompt, which is of course, useless.

Fortunately with my trusty 1gb. Kingston USB Drive..

.. plus Ubuntu's handy 'Create a USB Startup Disk' feature and a KDE ISO image I recently downloaded for this purpose..

.. I proceed with creating a Kubuntu USB Startup Disk. After which I plug the USB before booting Scout like so:

.. Press F11 while booting Scout, which results in a 'Please select boot device' screen. Naturally I choose the USB option.

And voila! Scout is now ready to install Kubuntu!

It takes a while though, but everything's pretty automated.

Finally nearly an hour later, I have Scout running the very elegant and smooth looking Kubuntu.

Which is as everyone who's ever done this knows of course, is far from over. First you have to update it:

Then you have to fix it so it works and looks the way you want it, such as how I'm installing msttcorefonts here:

The result? After two days, I've decided that I do not want KDE not because it's not pretty and good to work with (it is!), it's just that it's too different from what I'm used to and represents a too - big adjustment for me.

I'm not trying to duck the haters here, I think KDE is great as it is beautiful. I'd have stuck to it no doubt if I'd have started with it, but Gnome + Ubuntu is where I've started, I have 8.10 on my desktop PC (as I showed earlier), and so am not keen on re-learning stuff just to use it. At the end of the day these things aren't toys but rather tools we use to get things done, and so I need to make things as easy and predictable for me. Hence goodbye KDE and hello..

.. Xubuntu, which is what I used on my previous laptop Karen (may she rest in peace). It's very close to how Gnome works and faster.

So that's it, that's my report on my new MSI Wind U100x named Scout and how I got it unboxed and working. A work in progress from which countless blog posts will no doubt, result from hereonwards.

Incidentally, *'Scout' is from the lead character in To Kill a Mockingbird, whole name: Jean-Louise Finch, which I'm finally reading. It is without a doubt one of the most fascinating storytelling efforts I have ever encountered. A true work of art packed in a P175.00 purchase off of National Bookstore, stuffed in my backpocket. A fact whose irony has not escaped me whilst reading it in transit from MOA and back, trudging along the dirty highways and busy pathways of our polluted and over populated Metro.

There's something special about reading a book that transports you to a different time and place. I had come to look forward to these long trips to work just to read that wonderful little book. With it, radios can blare on their pathetic garble, people can elbow and push their way in and around you. In my mind, I'm in 1950s race - divided Alabama, absorbing the trials and tribulations of a 9 year old girl.

As is my habit, I will test it here for a few days before going on and updating the other sites. Which of course would be a completely useless test if I don't write on it, so here I am. Writing. Ok, let's do some highlights as to what's going on, bullet point style (my favorite):

• Super sick but ok again. - Actually I've been worse, but Thu to Sat last week I felt like I was in outer space from a super head cold that completely knocked me out. I've figured out I got it from playing Tekken on the PS2 with my sick nephew. Trading game consoles with a sick kid transferred the virus. Coupled with low energy from sleeping late all the time I was out cold for two days with difficulty of breath, constant dry cough and the worst - pain from seemingly every joint in my body. I'm completely ok now - don't worry my legions of fans, and am actually quite raring to go.

• It's KE's 2nd Bday today. Wrote a longish piece re how I felt about it, which was like a status report of how things are. Hope people get excited about KE 2.0, coming soon, but MomEx first.
• PLUG is going to join it's first IT event after, I dunno, half a decade? Longer maybe? I organized it, which is to say, I said yes to the organizer's ex-deal proposal, and announced it on the mailing list. I have high hopes for PLUG, and am hoping the event will serve as a rallying point, a step towards bigger things. I have already indicated however, the limited involvement I can provide, which looks like its even more limited granted the increasing number of activities I will be undertaking for Kikay as December approaches. I imagine however, that the same is the case for most of us eager to help, and I'm convinced if we all do our little parts good things will happen. As is applicable to most anything, actually.
• MomEx will be working on a joint project with another website plus a sponsor for a series of events, and the schedule's gonna be tight. There's a web project in there as well that I wanna take on because, well, I want it done right - and frankly, just sourcing it out to some webdev kid, talented or otherwise, but sans a stake into whether what we'll do will be a success or not is most likely not gonna cut it, really. I should know, I understand that process a lot. I'm gonna be upbeat about that and see to it things'll work out nicely for all of us.
• There are soooo many things that are gonna happen for KE. I really dunno where to start. No, I mean, seriously. I need to get a list going and try to get a grasp of priorities. A lot of people want a piece of the site and the fact that it's the last quarter push for 2008 means I'm being asked to send proposals and discuss this or that. I'm raring to go but really, I gotta be prepared before I even open my mouth or go to a meeting. I have to make sure we don't miss out on anything and respond to anyone who's shown even mild interest. The last thing I want is for the period to pass without closing down at least one or two deals and start kicking myself later for forgetting to respond to a query. I hear my ex-boss's voice in my head when these things happen, sarcastically asking me if I tell myself I've 'too much money already, thank you!', and hence would not act on new opportunities. The man, as I said in a previous post, chases opportunities down like a ravenous wolf with its eye on a rabbit, pursuing each like its last meal. Well if there's anything I've learned running my own biz, that analogy isn't too far from the truth. Each deal may very well be your last. It's entirely up to you to figure out if you're eating well tonight, or hugging your pillow tight to drown out your empty stomach's growl. That's the way of the world and frankly, it's the way I like it. There really isn't two ways about it. Knowing that the world isn't kind to lazy asses, and conversely, merits the sedulous cuts the bullcrap and puts things in the right perspective, as well as challenges me.

Hmm what else. That's it for now I guess. Mostly I'm just glad I'm not sick anymore. This happens maybe once a year or every two years, and while it sucked I knew I'd had worse, so I pretty much just babied myself and slept it out my system.

Today was a nice day, bright and sunny, and I got a bit of work done as well. Writing about KE's 2nd Bday helped focus me on what I needed to work on plus why I was doing what I was doing in the first place. Again, reminiscing about another old boss helps. When I told him my decision to leave to do what I do, he said, without being a downer (proper Englishman that he was), about the challenges that I faced in the highly competitive field I was going into.

To which I said, that after all that was said and done, I cannot not do it.

He looked at me and asked me to repeat what I said, and I was glad because I wanted it to be clear. I said:

I cannot NOT do it.

Of course he got it. He nodded his head vigorously, I presume to be at comprehension of what I was trying to say, and comprehension of why, regardless of challenges, that I needed to do what I do. I cannot see myself not doing it. It is just something that needs be done.

He then grunted his appreciation and shook my hand, thanked me for helping him out. Right now I feel like the way I did when I left his business, ready to work on my own.

Except this time, I'm smarter.

I used WordPress Import, a pretty powerful tool which is still in development mode. On the surface it's a straightforward process of installing the module, uploading your WordPress .wxr file and then mapping out which posts are 'owned' by which users (aka authors). It then transfers both posts and comments associated with it.

It becomes a hell of a lot more complicated though when your .wxr file is 17mb. like mine, and I have nearly a hundred different subscribers and authors.

The actual migration is extremely resource intensive, so to upload the big file and handle the job you need to tweak these things: One, php.ini to allow for a large upload (the default is only 2mb.), and Two, Drupal's settings.php to allow for both a longer session time and to for more RAM to do the job, otherwise you will receive errors midstream like I did, and only transfer, say, half your posts or an increment instead of all.

To be specific, I changed the line at php.ini from this:

; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 2M

to this:

; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 64M

Then you'll need to add these two lines to your settings.php:

ini_set('memory_limit', '128M');
ini_set('max_execution_time', 0);

Naturally you'll need to restart the webserver and make sure everything, including your other sites hosted on it, is fine. If you're doing this on a live server (meaning there are people reading the website), you need to do it quickly, then return the settings to their original immediately.

It so happened I bought a new domain so I'll be practicing on that one first before finally jumping onto MomEx.

Another issue that's been licked is the 'Clean URLs' problem. As I use Lighttpd, using .htaccess rules is out of the question, but I managed to find a good tutorial here, and another one that deals with imagecache issues, an important feature to handle images, using Lighttpd here.

There's only one more issue I need to fix before finally getting it all together.

MomEx's pageviews are counted by a WordPress Plugin called Clickcounter, which as the name suggest, registers a 'click' everytime someone views a page and displays it on the page plus stores it in the db.

A transfer to Drupal will negate all the registered hits! Drupal has its own click counter equivalent I'm sure, and I could probably tweak it to start counting where it left off, but that would require some MySQL magic which I'll have to investigate.

I know it sounds a little vain to want to keep all those registered hits but hey, we worked for those, some of which have gone up to the thousands. It'd be a pity to just lose it all.

When I do get that fixed there's the issue of finally migrating the site while it's online. That means I'd have to take it down for a a day or two just to make sure everything works. I can probably start on it in the morning and if I don't get it working, use the backups and go back to the old site in the evening, then start again the next day. The documentation I've read never mentioned these, as they all assumed you'd be migrating to a different domain. Migrating from WordPress to Drupal using the same domain is something new, so I plan to document it.

As with most daunting techie tasks I'm usually overwhelmed at the start but I eventually get over my wussiness and fix it, usually realizing it wasn't all that hard as I thought it was. In other words, I'm confident, and let's face it, getting something to work when a minute ago it seemed impossible feels GREEEAAAAT.

I'm excited about the fancy stuff I can implement once I get it on Drupal for sure, but the tremendous geekiness of it all is partly why I'm doing it as well I think.

Asides: I wanna show posts (or post titles, or post titles with excerpts) from specific categories on the sidebar. I have done this with limited success on BallEx on a category I called 'PBA Notes' (ftg. news fresh from the PBA), but unfortunately WordPress counting mechanism counts these posts as part of the posts that it should display on the front page, so everytime I post to the PBA Notes category, it removes a post from the index. It's not a terribly difficult issue and is 'resolved' somewhat by merely posting more (which I should be doing anyway), but it's kept me stumped for too long a while already, and prevents me from putting even more categories on the sidebar. At the moment the setting on BallEx for 'Options > Reading > Blog Pages show at most:" is set at 30.

As I mentioned on this post, the best Aside Plugin seems to be Katesgasis' Sideblog, but it has unfortunately not been since 2006.

Limited User Info: A lot of other WP users out there wanna do this as well. I'd like to put more relevant fields for users, such as address, mobile numbers and so on. Drupal users know this is very easy with CCK + Views. I haven't visited this issue for a while though, so there may have been developments.

Postie: Postie is a plugin that allows you to publish posts via email. While WP hanoles that natively using (the very simple) wp-mail, Postie allows great flexibility such as category, author, subject, comments closed or comments open, and even set a delay from 1 day to 1 minute. It's terrific if you are, say, posting from the road, or like me, which needs to publish multiple posts to multiple blogs at any given time. It also allows for an automated system that will allow me to post rss feeds or emails from mailing list subscriptions. In other words, I don't have to login each time. Instead, I just send an email. It's wonderful.

It also has not been updated since 2005. Recent comments on the Postie page are mostly requests for updates and pledges of donations, but no go. I am unsure if Drupal has a direct solution to this problem, but for some reason I am confident I can either find one or hack one in.

EventCalendar RSS: For some reason the RSS feeds for the EventCalendar category (I named rather unimaginatively as 'events') RSS feed does not work, inspite of using the instructions here. Meanwhile, I've managed to get all RSS feeds for all categories (and all my blogs) to work properly, so in other words, I'm stumped yet again. This is frustrating as I really wanna do fancy things with my Events Feed - something that's been on my todo list for.. months I think.

Updating: Finally this is an issue that has to do more with blogging software per se rather than WP itself. I read an interview once of BoingBoing.net's owner saying that we shouldn't be afraid to update specific posts as necessary, even if they've been posted already (as opposed to making a whole new post, especially if the updates are merely incremental). The solution is to edit the post and write 'UPDATE:' or something like that, underneath. This isn't very elegant.

I wanna look for a better solution for situations such as those. The dates and permalinks to posts that have been updated remain same, so on the surface, there is no indication that it has been updated. Once a post has been updated and re-updated, it's RSS feeds, I believe, still shoot off to RSS readers, but they look like the same post (unless the subscriber of course, investigates to check if there's something new). Otherwise if they just look at the title and excerpt, it looks the same. There must be a better way.

Drupal things I can do in addition to resolving above issues:

A much better Shopping Cart: I've been bleeding for a better shopping cart than the handmade one I have. I am currently testing Drupal's Ubercart.

Forum: Drupal's simple forum is way better looking than phpbb. PhpBB, from which I trace my programming roots, is great, no doubt about it. But it also doesn't look very good imho, and aesthetics is important whilst dealing with my target audience (girls and moms). Besides, if I use Drupal's Forum, it can integrate with other services like the blogs, and can be turned into a service that I really wanna try (which shall remain secret because I don't want anyone preempting me).

In summary I basically wanna take my blogs to the next level, and convert them into full fledged, gloves are off, firing on all cylinders, WEBSITES. Featuring community abilities, membership, relevant user info, public and (membership only) private information and so on.

The blog ability will always be its main draw. Great Writing and Content is what makes really good terrific blogs in the first place. People love to read, learn and be entertained, and that's what blogs deliver. But once they're 'there', I wanna make them do other things as well, and WP falls short of that because that's not what it was designed for.

I think I'll do MomEx first. It's gone from being number 1 in its category at PhilTopBLogs to number 8, so it needs more help than the others.

I have reverted this to use WordPress Default, and am not using permalinks at the moment.

I am investigating the sql file and my (very few) plugins but I don't know if the issue is there. I think it may have to do with rules for Lighttpd. Using lighty has been a struggle really, especially when you encounter errors, because at the back of my mind I often wonder if it has something to do with it.

And no I didn't make a backup, so SEO with this site is screwed. I'm glad this blog is only targetted towards friends and family. Otherwise if I had done this to Mom, Kikay or BallEx I'd be banging my head against the wall right now.

UPDATE!: Reported it here, and realized I was not alone in the issue, as there are reports of permalink errors worldwide on what I suppose are non - Apache webservers (lighttpd, IIS, etc.). I realize I have the option to restore this blog by downloading the most recent version (2.5.1) and getting the backup sql from yesterday, but I think I'll wait for a resolution instead. Besides this is just a personal blog, unlike the others.

Thank God for wp-backup which I programmed to email a sql backup copy to my gmail everyday. Of course I auto-archived it on Gmail, so I totally forgotten about it. Isn't it great when things just work?

As for WordPress 2.6, this issue looks like its on its way to becoming as bad as the categories to tags issue that went unresolved a few versions ago. I'm glad it's not a security update because damn, I can't update all my blogs until this error gets resolved.

UPDATE AGAIN!

As of this post, you merely need to go to Settings > Permalinks then enter the word 'Category' at the 'Category Base' and 'Tag' at the 'Tag Base' like this:

and Voila! Fixed. Super thanks again to Otto, for consistently saving the ass of bloggers all over (including mine) consistently for years (yes years).

Won't be updating the other sites yet though. I gotta wait till everything gets resolved first before I commit the other blogs. Downtime with those things gives me high blood pressure, dizzy spells, panic attacks, demonic visualizations, end of the world cataclysmic visions and rheumatism.

Dear People of PLUG:
A week ago I received a proposal from a company called Firsteventsasia (Firsteventsasia.com).

They do events, and are holding one of those generic IT ones called 'Philippine Information Technology Expo and Business Solutions Summit' on Sep 30 - Oct 2 at Philippine Trade and Training Center, Roxas Blvd.

Anyway they want an ex-deal. They are giving us a venue for an EB / gathering in exchange for plugging their event on our website.

Here's the text from their proposal:

Philippine International Information Technology Expo 2008 Information Technology for the Enterprise "Bridging Digital Divide in the Country Today"

On Sept. 30 - Oct 2, 2008, we will be holding the Philippine Information Technology Expo and Business Solutions Summit with a theme "Bridging Digital Divide in the Country Today" back to back with a IT Jobs Fair at the Philippine Trade Training Center Roxas Boulevard Pasay City. .

EVENT HIGHLIGHTS
- Multiple Conference Tracks with top level executives speaking on the podium!
- A plenary session geared to address technological advancements and the digital divide in the country today
- Country Pavilions by participating countries
- Job Fair for the IT enabled services industry

In view of all these, we would like to have you as one of our supporting associations for the event. By being one you will have the following benefits:

a. You may give your collaterals or leaflets at the venue
b. Your Logo and Company will be tagged as Supporting Associations and be included in the event advertising materials like Posters, Magazines and Newspapers
c. Your Logo will be included in the Invitation Letters sent to IT Company Offices and Website Media Partner Pages
d. Your Company Logo will be included in the event website for 1 year with active link linking to your website
e. Your Company will be acknowledged 10 times per day on the event
f. You may do a presentation at the stage area (this is on a first come first serve basis)

If you need a booth/E. B Station in our event, you can request to us as early as possible so that we can arrange it as early as possible also.

In exchange for all these we will only ask to place a banner ad to be prominently displayed at your website months before the event and usage of your organization logo.

You will greatly honor us with your support in this endeavor. We believe that this ambitious undertaking would be more possible to happen with your company at our side. Please don't hesitate to call me in our numbers below for any inquiries. We would like to thank you for your time and more power to you and your company!

I'm particularly interested in the 'presentation at the stage area' and 'booth/EB station'.

I'm thinking this is a good chance for us to hang out and get together, while checking out the other stuff going on at the event, and maybe hold a nice conference or two, where people can just talk about stuff they're doing (like topics we discussed in an earlier post). I'm not really interested in promoting PLUG - instead we can use this event to get a chance to meet and greet, do a show and tell, and if someone has a prepared topic to talk about, discuss stuff there.

I'm willing to 'man' the booth (if we'll get one), and help sched an activity or two. We can be very informal about this, and just work out stuff as we go along. In other words, no stress sana (who wants that?)

The good thing about this is that there is NO COST on our part. Pawis lang, 'ika nga.

what do you think guys? I wanna get some 'yeah looks good' votes before saying yes, or if there's an argument against doing such a thing, let's hear it.

Gary

Above is my sad, dead PC, about to be rejuvenated. I can work on it from where it is so I didn't pull it down.

So first I proceeded to remove the old power supply.

Off it goes.

And here's the new one.

Compared to the old one. The old one's still ok. Need to find a use for that.

Then I pull out the old mobo. As easy as it looks.

I try to remember where every cable goes to for later. These things can get tricky.

And finally, le piece de resistance. Unboxing my new Asus M2N-MX SE Plus Mobo.

There it is. Two PCI slots, two SATA slots, Socket AM2+, Nvidia chipset, DDR2 1066, 10/100, etc. etc.

And there is my PC casing, mobo - less, ready to be mobo - fied!

But first, lets slap in the new power supply.

...

...

as well as that new tin plate that goes out to the back..

I install the processor beforehand. Need to be careful with this, so better do it on my desk.

And there it is. An AMD 64 Athlon, Socket AM2, LE-1640. Pretty run of the mill these days. But I'm going for reliability and its more than adequate for my needs.

So anyway we proceed with the unboxing!

.. and the unboxing..

.. ok we got the fan..

.. and more unboxing..

.. jeez how many trees do these people cut down for their packaging?

So there it is, the processor and the fan.

A better look at the pins.

Here's the bottom of the fan, with that pasty white substance it needs for cooling. DO NOT touch that.

Ok this part you need to do quickly to avoid dust (yes I washed my hands first). There's a hinge on the side of that white area where the processor's gonna get slapped in. You'll need to pull it upwards like this.

At a corner of that white area is a place lacking a pinhole, with a triangle that stands out. The processor also has a corresponding corner with that gold triangle. You need to match the two.

So you align the two, and just slap that in there nice and tight.

Then proceed to swing the lever downwards, snapping it in.

.. like so..

.. and lock it in place.

There it is, locked in place. Kinda like a safety pin.

Now for the fan! Match it against those black locks at either end.

Here's one end. You start with this.

Here's the other, with a lever. You put this in last. Once you get the lock to go one side, get the other lock to go in this way.

After which you swing the lever from one end..

.. to the other, like this. It looks complicated, but trust me it was waaaay harder back in the day, without these levers. You had to use a flat screwdriver and lots of muscle, risking slippage and driving a gaping hole straight into your motherboard.

That big black fan needs power, so here's where you plug it in.

Tada!

Now to get it in there.

There are screw holes on the mobo and corresponding ones where the old mobo was. It's just a matter of finding them and screwing it in using the old screws.

like here..

.. and here.

There's a big black 24 pin power cable from the power supply to the mobo. Slap that in.

And now, the RAM. A Corsair 1gb. DDR2 667MHz piece. My mobo will take up to 4gb., but the farthest I forsee myself buying is 2gb. in the next year or so. Maybe not even if it's fast enough.

Slap that in Slot A1 (or something like that). It's usually the slot closest to the processor. At least for Asus mobos, dunno about others.

It's only got one PATA slot, the computer industry's attempt to get us to move to (useless) SATA. I have a PATA hard disk and DVD-RW, so I slap that in.

There's also a power cable from the power supply going to an area near it. I really don't know what it's for, but the power supply manual (yes I read the manuals), says I should or it won't even start. So I do it.

And now the tricky part (we're almost finished)! The dreaded front end power button, LED hard dish and power lights, reset button and USB connections.

Dreaded because each tiny pin cable is individual and has no relation to the other, so you can easily mix this up and FRY YOUR MOBO. I'm not kidding. The reason they're all apart is because PC Casings are all different, so they can't standardize.

I have to get these..

.. to connect here..

.. following these instructions. I get it right eventually, but it wasn't easy.

And now the finishing touches! The all - important stickers!

To prove to one and all who enter my work area (like, a nephew or two), that I am using an Asus board with an Athlon 64 Processor! Fear Me! (yes those other stickers are from other PCs I've set up. There are more on the front of the PC).

Now for a little cleaning.

Make sure everything's bright and shiny, to welcome in the new mobo. Then a deep breath... and..

It Works!

.. everything looks alright..

Everyone say hello to Kubuntu 8.04 LTS!

And we start our installation journey.

And with that, ends this picture story. Obviously its working now, since I'm using it to write this post!

I've completely installed Ubuntu Horny Herod and here are my notes. BTW I know that's not the name, I'm just protesting against the downright fugly name. Can't they give it a proper, cooler name? I mean, 'Hardy Heron'?! I can't imagine the general populace to get turned on by that name, really.

Anyway, here's some thoughts:

1. Downloading the Ubuntu Torrent was a breeze. Installation isn't for newbies as I chose to do manual partitioning instead of the guided stuff, which confused me more than helped. I had two 40gb. partitions and I wanted to install Ubuntu on the first (NTFS) partition, while retaining access to the 2nd (FAT32) partition. Otherwise I kept the rest at default (monitor, keyboard, network settings, etc.) and that's fairly a no brainer. Newbies won't have a hard time installing on a fresh machine and IMO, this is just as easy or easier than Win.

2. On the other hand, updating after installation took an hour ++, which again can turn off newbies eager to get going. I played around with it a bit then realized that Update Manager had something like 129 updates raring to go, so I scheduled to do that when I watched TV instead.
3. The default burnt orangey theme is ugly for lack of a better term. It dawned on me that Kubuntu (KDE powered Ubuntu) might've been the better choice, because KDE was (is?) known to be the prettier one and Gnome the more hardcore. I've switched to the clearlook theme and its prettier, but to get really mainstream, we need 'stunning beautiful' rather than just 'passing good to look at'. Need to check options here.
4. For my own needs, I immediately installed Bluefish, which I'm using to write this. From what little I've used, it's just as intuitive as my previous favorite, Homesite. Also installed Filezilla, and then realized I didn't back up the URLs and passwords of my FTP accounts. Brilliant. Spent an hour or two setting that back up to spec.
5. I thought I'd get working on WINE to get Photoshop 7 going, but I worked on GIMP a while ago to resize a few pics and, true enough, (some) of the keyboard shortcuts and commands (seem) to be applicable. I really need to figure out whether Photoshop will really work on this or not so I have to install it, but if GIMP can do the everyday stuff without me having to relearn everything, hey why not?
6. This package bundles Firefox 3 Beta 5, which improves on auto - complete when you're typing in a URL on the browser, giving you lots of choices, which is cool. I certainly hope Firefox improves from the extremely buggy previous versions I was using the last time. For a previously no - name browser brand to make it in the cutthroat industry they're in, they've gotta not drop the ball. Unfortunately, I've been less than happy with previous versions so I'm hoping this one doesn't suck.
7. The most contentious issue that needs to be dealt with is that of the instant messengers, which if we're gonna introduce to internet cafes need to act and look as much like Yahoo, MSN or Gtalk as much as possible. Without which, we're gonna have some issues. I'm trying Pidgin right now, and Kopete afterwards, so we'll see.
8. Lastly, gaming needs to get done, so I'll try Warcraft first, and maybe some other popular thing like Counterstrike later.
9. I'm due to upgrade my PC soon, so I'm really looking forward to getting a better video card to handle Gnome's fancy window switching and other effects. Now that's seriously cool stuff. Dragging and dropping windows and coolly moving across windows can really get people's eyes popping. Even I'm kinda floored by it all, moving things around this way and that. But it's a resource hog, obviously, and one that my 4 year old PC can't hardly hack sometimes, especially, I assume, if I start using WINE and such. At any rate, that's in the works.
10. Incidentally, as mentioned the video card issues are my biggest problems. Scrolling up and down gmail is a pain, as it struggles to cache. I'm positive the issue is either on a setting or a different driver altogether (I'm using something that sounds like an alternative 'try if you dare' video card driver), but right now it's extremely sucky and slow. I'm sure there's a fix somewhere, it's just a matter of Googling.
11. And finally, I need to start learning keyboard shortcuts asap. Keyboard shortcuts is possibly the single best technique one can do to improve productivity. You can cut down the speed of writing a blog post by at least half by learning how to quickly turn on / off apps, move them around, resize them, etc. I think it's this single thing that kept me from doing the switch. The idea of relearning years of shortcuts made me ache. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to assign shortcuts to apps I put in the panel, and the help is annoyingly unhelpful.

The PLUG plan to introduce a distro specifically for internet cafes was instigated by myself, really, and was brought about by clamors from a cousin who owns a cafe and some people in the mailing list as well.

To my mind, I cannot see a better purpose for the Philippine Linux User's Group other than to embark on, albeit ambitious, projects like these. I've decided I wanted to embark on an advocacy, and as such promoting FOSS and Linux seems to be right up my alley - something that I think I can contribute best in. I say this in the light of the fact that we, as individuals, have the opportunity now more than ever to join and / or to start in a plethora of choices of activities such as these. While I can, for example, spend time in charities and such, I think my effectiveness doing so would be limited. On the other hand, promoting Free and Open Source is something I can really sink my teeth into. Something that I understand and therefore can see that I can make a big difference at.

And so we start with this, one user (me, today) at a time. This'll take at least six months or so, given work schedules and such, but we'll get there. In iCafe parlance, all their bases will soon belong to us.

See I was trying to get the valid XML feed for a particular Tag or Category from this blog, a process I've instigated on PLUG's mailing list, so that the PLUG website can aggregate feeds tagged as 'plug' or 'open source' or 'foss' voluntarily submitted by its (currently 130+ strong) membership.

The problem was when I try to get the feed URL, for example:

http://www.lefthandedlayup.com/index.php/tag/plug/feed

I get this error:

XML Parsing Error: xml declaration not at start of external entity
Location: http://www.lefthandedlayup.com/index.php/tag/plug/feed
Line Number 2, Column 1:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
^

After weeks of searching and asking at the WordPress Forums to no avail, I've finally tried validating at Feedvalidator, which recommended amongst other things, I check my wp-rss2.php.

And there I found it. What looks like this:

should be like this:

In short, remove the spaces on line #9 on your wp-rss2.php. Now it's validating. Check it here.

Can't wait to apply it on the other sites. Basketball Exchange, in particular, has got XML errors up the wazoo.

The latest case that has caught my attention is the Nokia Ogg issue, or to be exact, Nokia's claim that the Ogg Format is proprietary and hence must be removed from w3c's web publishing standards for html5. The best article I've read explaining this so far is from Ars Technica, and by 'best article explaining this' I mean 'I've only needed to read this 15x to understand it.

It's a very complicated issue that reads more like a legal document rather than a technical white paper. In essence what Nokia appears to want to say is the ff.: (lifted from same article)

1. W3C shouldn't make any standards relating to codecs. Leave that to other standards bodies like ITU-T and ISO/IEC.
2. There are over a billion PCs in the world today, many connected to the web, but these numbers are tiny compared to traditional video playback devices like DVD players.
3. This industry is used to paying license fees and royalties for video codecs like MPEG-2.
4. This industry is used to making money, and it doesn't care about keeping things free.
5. Web codec standards should be either free or low-cost to implement.
6. Web codec standards should support DRM to placate Hollywood, but DRM implementations should be optional.
7. H.264 for video and AAC for audio would be Nokia's recommendations for codecs.

The questions arise partly from the manner with which Nokia chose to explain their position, occasionally including typos, emoticons and (again as quoted) "the author constantly puts "free" in quotation marks, as if to raise doubt about whether something that is available for free is actually free.

Then there is Nokia's somewhat spotty reputation with regards to DRM, occasionally resorting to methods regarded as 'underhanded' by the community, as published in Engadget starting with here where they excitedly (and I don't blame them) announce news of Nokia's 'Comes with Music' program, only to discover hidden costs as detailed here.

Then finally there are merits of their argument itself, or lack of it. I'll leave the rest alone, but issue #6, which accounts for Hollywood as the moving force behind implementing DRM seems to me the most myopic of all.

If the last few movies I enjoyed (Tropa de Elite and Lust, Caution) are indicators of anything, it's that Hollywood in the next decade will play a vastly smaller role. Credit better movies outside of Hollywood. Credit cheaper and better technology. Credit rising stars, directors, actors and producers, all just as good or better than those in Hollywood. Even credit the ongoing writer's strike if you like, an indication that far too much money is spent on stars rather than the people who really count. And yes credit the Internet. The Internet always play a bad role as far as music and videos are concerned, so yeah let's not forget to credit the Internet.

The future shows a far more wider, bigger and larger scope than accounting for the interests of industry leaders today. Ten years from now, I am absolutely positive that DRM is going to be viewed as a laughable effort to try and dispel the obvious - people do not want to be shackled by the imposed limitations on the media that they buy. And even more laughable are methods such as hidden costs and attempts to kill off an open source format like Ogg by finding loopholes in it's history.

The result? It's obvious to me. If a Nokia gadget is not gonna let me listen and own my music or video in a manner I deem fit for my use, I'll go and buy a Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens, Philips, Bird, or any other type of phone that will. If using Ogg Vorbis, which is not all that popular to begin with, is apparently going to infringe on someone's rights, then the industry which thought of Ogg in the first place will just go ahead and make Ogg 2.0 - it may not necessarily be better, but will certainly not be unhinged by Nokia's or anyone else's legal hullabaloo later on.

In other words, you can go impose your 'rights' on people and underhand your way to force them to buy your music, and they'll just go ahead and find another way.

The following attended the meeting (loosely referred to as 'the group' below):

Ryan S. Ching ryan.s.ching@gmail.com
Victor E. Mendoza vicmendoza@gmail.com
Paolo Alexis Falcone pfalcone@free.net.ph
AC Perdon acperdon@gmail.com
Ian Sison ians@qsr.com.ph
Joebert Jacoba joebertj@gmail.com
Mark Achanzar mark@mymegamobile.com
Gabriel "Gary" Mercado (myself)

The topics discussed were as follows (in no particular order):

PLUG Website -

Paolo explained that the website is not functional due to an upgrade error. As a result he is unable to extricate the contents of a PLONE 2.0x archive file that contains 10 years worth of data. This has been compounded by the fact that since there is no PLUG board to decide on this, he has not been able to determine the proper course of action to take.

Inspite of the unavailability of this archive, the group has decided to establish a new one. While Ian prefers a WIKI type of website, Ryan has offered the services of a local Drupal Users Group which the group had decided to be the best path to take. Ian will volunteer a domain name for the website, while hosting will continue to be at Mr. Jijo Sevilla's server.

The group has determined that establishing a new website is an important priority as this will function as an important way to communicate with its members alongside the mailing list.

Status of SEC Registration -

As Marvin Pascual explained in the mailing list, PLUG's SEC Registration will expire by January 2008. Ian volunteered the services of a lawyer (?) friend who can determine for the group the any renewal fees needed. What, if any, fund raising activities will be done for this purpose will be determined pending determination of said fees.

Paolo further explained that there are several issues that need to be addressed re inconsistencies in PLUG's constitution, such as its inability to call a General Assembly without Board Members, which cannot be formed as well because there is no General Assembly (or something like that - Gary). The group had decided that these will be tackled at a later date, and is second in priority to the SEC renewal.

Electing A Board -
Ian suggested the adoption of an 'agenda - based' approach to electing new board members and leadership. Essentially, this involves an individual or group determining any projects and activities he or it wishes for PLUG to undertake, and actively looking for like - minded members needed to execute these. From these people PLUG's Board would be formed around.

This is in lieu of this author's initial suggestion - the 'traditional' method of forming a Board, which is to ask who amongst the mailing list wishes to join, form a Board, and then solicit suggestions from the membership or otherwise determine afterwards which activities to pursue. Ian argued that this method has met with little success and is likely the reason why there has been little progress.

The group has determined that Ian's suggestion has a higher likelihood of success, and in this light, I have decided to submit to the group my own agenda by the week after posting this.

PLUG History and Future -

Along with discussion over pertinent issues, Ian revealed a bit of history re PLUG, explaining that it has been around since the late 1980s. As a result, the group was further motivated to pursue efforts to revive the organization, not to mention in consideration of the fact that there is a great deal to do in the future as well.

Visiting Mr. Axmark -

While it is recognized that it is important to forge relations with influential persons such as MySQL co-founder Mr. Axmark, who happened to be touring the region at the time, it was concurred that it is too early to do so given PLUG's current state. Instead, Joebert and Victor happened to have separate engagements with him and will extend PLUG's welcome on the org's behalf.

The group concluded the meeting at 8:30pm.

flickmaniac.com

awww yeah. I admit there was a point when I was wondering if I was even gonna resurrect either blog, but I decided, what the heck. The cost isn't too steep and besides, I really don't like the idea of stuff I've written in either blog to just disappear forever. Not that I'm necessarily the most read-worthy or sensible (or even consistent) blogger in the world but hey, I occasionally have my moments (at least I hope so) so I really don't want it all to end up as some .tarball on my hard disk after all that work.

Having said that, I'd like to say I also miss PWIT (Philippine Week in Tech) too, which I was writing for a few months back but unfortunately was put to pasture by Adel. Truth is I have a lot of explaining to do as per the fact I missed out on writing duties on that blog when it was still around, but at the end of the day I kinda feel bad that stuff I wrote on it is gone forever. So Adel, if you read this, please holler if you're interested in working to put it together again ok? I promise I'll be more diligent in my writing duties.

Speaking of which, I'm now off to attend an event for SME Insight, the only dead tree publication I'm still writing for to date. After that is to my client at Ortigas, then an important meeting with PLUG where we need to sort out things.

Details of which require a whole new post altogether, but one I am unable to make due to time constraints. Will endeavor to do so at a later date. For now, see y'all later.