Ubuntu 10.04
I have been using Ubuntu 10.04 beta for just over a week now. This definitely beats the pants off of all the problems with resume from suspend and frequent random freezes I was having with 9.10.
It is fairly interesting to actively participate in the beta process as well, using the software as I normally would and submitting detailed bug reports when/if something goes awry.
KDE 4.4 Release Candidate 1
I have had a Kubuntu install on a partition of my MacBook Pro for a while now, but this week I added the Kubuntu beta PPA to my apt repository and upgraded to the KDE 4.4 Release Candidate 1. It was not a smooth painless process by any stretch of the imagination, but once I worked out some of the kinks and wrinkles, it is working pretty slick.
After adding the beta PPA, I opened Software Settings > Add and Remove Software (KPackageKit), refreshed the update list, selected all updates, and clicked apply. A few minutes later it was installed and I rebooted, but… there was a problem. After logging in, plasma-workspace immediately crashed. I could still bring up the run-command interface and launch a terminal, but this frustratingly blank screen was not what I was hoping for. After trying several reboots and trying to log into KDE recovery mode (to no avail), I launched a terminal and did ’sudo apt-get install dist-upgrade’. It downloaded some more kde-base and kde-workspace packages. I rebooted and… WOO HOO! KDE 4.4 RC desktop!
I still don’t know if some of the packages broke or didn’t install correctly the first time or what, but it is working now, and I am enamored.
Here are some screenshots:
Update 1: I have so far been unable to get the smooth-tasks plasmoid to not crash the plasma workspace. I am hoping that a fix is on the way soon. I miss my smooth-tasks 
Update 2: I installed the KDE development packages through apt-get, including kdebase-workspace-dev and used Mercurial to checkout the latest source code from bitbucket. After building and installing, smooth-tasks works great! 
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Waking up in Vegas
I had the house to myself tonight so no one complained that I was up all night recording videos in front of my webcam.
Tags: Acoustic, Cover, Katy Perry, Waking up in Vegas
Posted in: DFPA, Daily, Guitar ✯ No Comments Yet
Blue Jets and Bouncing Green Frogs
As I mentioned in my previous post we spent last saturday in Green Bay at a family get together. Evelyn and I got a chance to get crazy and enjoy some of the park equipment. Photo credit to Mom Andria for the Evelyn/Dad action shots, and Uncle Andy took the group photos of the three of us.
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Bocce with Andy
We had a little family get together this weekend in Green Bay, WI. About half of my extended family lives in WI and the other half in the upper peninsula of Michigan (Yoopers, eh?)
I don’t get to see my brother, Andy, too often since I live in Sauk Praire and spread myself way too thin, and he lives in Milwaukee and is smart enough to not own a vehicle (I am envious of the fact that he is totally self sufficient and independent on a level I can only observe, but that’s another post all together…).
We met at Colburn Park, which is a really nice place. I have never been there and I was impressed. They had shaled bocce courts, so Andy and I tossed some ceramic balls around for fun.
International projects
I am pretty excited about a new project I am working on with @mallmus (Adam Wintle) from MallmusMedia. We are keeping it on the down low until we get a basic working alpha, but it is an addon for the MODx content management system/framework.
I have been busily chopping away at the PHP code, Adam has been working on the site, and we have spent a lot of time on Twitter and Google Chat bouncing ideas about imagery, design, and interface off each other. It’s a bit challenging given the 6 hour time zone difference. Luckily neither of us ever sleep, EVER.
Posted in: Web Development ✯ 6 Comments
ASCII Logo
I love ASCII art. I think it is amazing how we can trick our eyes into seeing pictures where there is only letters, numbers, symbols, and spaces. I uploaded my logo to the GlassGiant ASCII art generator and it spit this out for me.
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Opening day of yard work season.
Ok, yard work season may have officially opened weeks ago, but not for me. I really dislike mowing my lawn. It’s a pain in the ass. A few of our neighbors spend a lot of time (and money) on their lawns. It’s frustrating for two reasons.
- My lawn sucks. There is hardly any nice grass. It’s mostly the thick blade crab grass and whatever the hell will grow in sand. The few square inches of lawn that I have where nice grass actually grows is like the Amazon rain forest. 90% of my lawn grows 0.001 inches per month and the other 10% grows like 40 feet per week. And it’s thick, like the back hair of every shirtless idiot on COPS, so the lawn mower sometimes just stops when I am rolling over it.
- I hate mowing!!! It sucks. It’s so fricking boring. I can think of about a hundred things I’d rather be doing, like playing the guitar, working on web projects, hacking the interwebs, getting shot in the face with a crossbow, whatever.
Also, Andria wanted a fountain for mother’s day. She insisted that we pick one up this weekend, citing the fact that “there will be none left next weekend”. She is happy with it, and apparently Olive LOVES it, so… a terrific gift indeed (pats self on back).
Anyway, It was actually a nice day, and you can probably tell by my skin tone that I don’t see much of the outdoors. If any good can come from this, I guess it is that it was a light workout, hopefully staving off a myocardial infarction for now.
Tags: Fountain, Lawn, Mowing, Outside
Posted in: DFPA, Daily, Photography ✯ 2 Comments
End of April
It has been a busy week at the hospital. Andria and Evelyn have been back with the grandmas for most of the week, so it feels I haven’t seen much of either of them in a long time. We did get to have some fun outside on Tuesday. It was a semi-warmish springlike day? Nice enough for some pictures anyway.
Posted in: Daily, Photography ✯ No Comments Yet
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