Thursday, December 18, 2008

Sonar 2009 - krass.com

The Sonar 2009 - krass.com pages are up. This is probably the last time I do this, as it is just too much work and nobody else is helping me with the wiki.

Sonar is doing a special offer of 125 EUR for the general pass for the three days. The normal price is 140, which is the same as last year. Maybe they realize that they can't raise it every year. Some of the parties were very empty last year.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

more server tuning

In my quest to try out new things and make my rented virtual server run a bit smoother I tried two (for me) new tools:

memcached: I never had a need to use it, because at work we just do websites which nobody looks at. We could really have used this at guideguide, where we basically used mysql to cache some often used data which didn't work too well.

Installation was very easy on CentOS and mediawiki and Django have direct support for memcached. I just had to enable it and change the code for api.bicingwatch.com to make use of the cache.

lighttpd: On the previous krass.com server, which had about ten times more memory I used two apache instances. One for the static stuff and as reverse proxy for the second one for the mod_perl server. Now I am using lighttpd for the static and reverse proxy. I am not 100% convinced by the syntax, but it is rather easy to setup and allows some refactoring of the config with include files.

So for example I have in the main config:

$HTTP["host"] == "api.bicingwatch.com" {
server.name = "api.bicingwatch.com"
server.document-root = "/....../bicingwatch/site_media"
include "proxy-localhost.conf"
}

And in proxy-localhost.conf

$HTTP["url"] !~ "\.(js|css|gif|jpg|png|ico|txt|swf|html|htm)$" {
setenv.add-response-header = ( "X-Forwarded-Host" => server.name )

proxy.server = (
"" => (
( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8000 )
)
)
}


And on port 8000 is the apache and mod_python installation I had before.

Seems to work ok, so that is another thing gone from my todo list.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Paris Condal - Restaurant Libanese


View Larger Map

Another lunchtime restaurant review. I ventured over the Gran Via again on the look out for a new restaurant choice for our lunches at work.

Paris Condal is a small restaurant with an attached snack bar. They got pictures of some food in the window, which usually puts me off, but I had a good experience in Andorra so I went in anyway. The restaurant has maybe ten tables and smoking is allowed. I don't understand why anyone would have smokers in a restaurant, but there you go. The bathrooms are dirty like a dark corner in Raval.

The lunch menu is 9.90 EUR and I had dolmades as starter, couscous as main and a cortado.

Dolmades are rice wrapped in grape leaves on a little bit of boring salad. These seem to come from a tin and were certainly neither fresh or handmade. I wonder what is the point to present something like this in a restaurant.

The couscous was nice, a mixture of minestrone and lamb stew with a bit of couscous. It was very well seasoned and not greasy. But I am not sure if I would call it a mains, in another restaurant it probably would make a very nice starter.

The cortado was good and hot, which was nice.

Overall I give this restaurant one star, because I see some potential and I would try it again.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

System administration sucks

This weekend I moved more websites away from my old dedicated server. The site of my girlfriend moved from mediawiki to a blogger.com account. Our family website is now a planet running on the new virtual server.

And today I moved http://krass.com/ also to the virtual server. This turned out to be a major hassle, because the mediawiki version was pretty old and the mysql server changed from 4.1 to 5.0. As usual with these things I run into charset troubles. After playing for ages with various combinations of iconv and mysqldump I gave up and put a 'SET names latin1' after the connect in the mediawiki code. This is obviously not a good solution, but I can't be bothered at the moment.

I changed the skin to keep most of the mediawiki layout to make it a bit easier with upgrades and userfriendlier for people who already know wikipedia. I will play around with it though to make it look better.

Someone from Wikia contacted me last week again and wanted to know if I wo uld be interrested in moving krass.com to Wikia. I am not at the moment, but if it turns out to be too much work in the future I might take them up on the offer.

I also have to see how the virtual server can take the load, it seems to be a bit underpowered.

Monday, December 01, 2008

Snowboarding in Andorra


Last week Cat had the brilliant idea to go snowboarding in Andorra for the weekend. The snow conditions were just turning right and the Grand Valira snow resort was opening the lifts for the first time this year. So we booked a car, hotel and the ski passes and left for Andorra on Friday evening. To our surprise it was a very quick trip because there was not a single traffic jam.

It took us a while to find the hotel, but it was not far from the El Tarter area. We were staying at the Vall Ski. I have a system of three categories for hotels. The first one are the ones where you feel at home and the atmosphere is more like staying with friends. These are usually small or B&Bs. Another category are the ones where you feel like a king and they provide everything you need without you having to ask, these are usually very expensive. And then there is the third category which is the biggest one and also the one Vall Ski belongs to. In these you feel like being in a hospital. Everything is nice and clean, but the food is horrible and served way too early. You also have to pay extra for everything. The staff was nice though. One evening we went to the restaurant next door with horrible design and menu, which surprised us with very good food by an italien chef.

When we tried to pick up our ski passes on Saturday morning, it turned out that he booking service (from the Grand Valira website) had messed up the booking. Cat spend two hours on the phone to sort it out, but the lady in the call center in Bulgaria was friendly but not helpful. So we ended up buying another set of two day passes. We will be canceling the credit card payment and I hope they will sort it out then.

The weather on the first day was very windy going to snowstorm. Sometimes I lost all sense of speed and direction. In the afternoon it turned even worse, so we had a snack and when we were finished we had the perfect conditions for the rest of the day. Fresh snow and no queueing for the whole day.

Sunday was even better, with more sun and less wind. Overall a perfect weekend for snowboarding and I think I improved my skill a little bit.

Now I am hurting everywhere though. Before we go to Laax in January I will have to spend more time in the gym and on the bicycle to get my fitness level up.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

New computer and Fedora 10

My new computer has finally arrived and last weekend I had time to put it together. With the Fedora 10 release this week I should be having a good time now. Here is what I got:
  • Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe AMD 790FX / SB600
  • 4GB RAM
  • AMD Phenom X4 9350e
  • Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Ultimate
  • 2 * Western Digital Caviar WD10EADS 1TB
  • a couple of new Papst fans
I tried to order things which save a little bit of power and are easier to cool so I can run them quieter. I also decided on a ATI graphics card because they are releasing information about their hardware and are not stuck in the past like Nvidia.

So I cleaned my old computer case, removed the dust from the last five years which required me to take it apart and put the new stuff inside. I first tried it with my old hard disks and Fedora 9, because 10 had not arrived yet.

The computer started and everything was nice and fast and shiny. But after a few reboots the only thing I got was beeeeep - beep beep beep. After a trip on the internet I found out that I picked one of the motherboard + graphic card combinations which don't seem to work. So now I am running with a borrowed Nvidia card until I buy a new motherboard or Asus comes up with a new BIOS.

I obviously also contacted Asus and Sapphire support, but it just confirmed my opinion that this is completely pointless. Asus answer was along the lines of "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and Sapphire did not even bother.

But I still had Fedora 10 to look forward too. And so I installed it on the new hard disks. It is pretty much the same, but maybe I am just difficult to please. Here are some short notes:
  • the faster boot is indeed faster, but I don't care because I don't boot that often
  • the flicker free boot just works if you have the right graphics card and on a full moon
  • NetworkManager still hates me and static addresses ...
  • but now system-config-network hates them too ...
  • and so does anaconda ...
  • so install with dhcp
    change your /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*
    chkconfig NetworkManager off
    chkconfig network on
    service stop NetworkManager
    service start network
  • compiz does not work with either the Nvidia or the ATI card
  • I am looking forward to play with the new versions of eclipse & co
To NetworkManagers defence I must say that it is very nice on my Eee PC, I just don't see the point on a desktop / workstation. The Eee PC is still downloading with preupgrade, so lets see how that goes.

Next hardware upgrades are for the firewall, backup server and htpc, which are all from 2002. I can mostly use hardware I already have and just get new cases and fans so that they stop sounding like a fighter jets landing. And I obviously have the spare M3A32 too, so that gets a Athlon X2 and goes into the htpc. Hardware can be so much fun ...

Oh ... and I am probably the last person arriving in multi core and 64 bit country. nice.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

my first python website

api.bicingwatch.com has now been up for two weeks. It is a small site with just a handful of html views and some JSON views.

I also use python now to scrape the bicing.com website and store the results in a mysql database. This does not include the data I had already collected over the last year, which I will import soon.

Today I also enabled disqus commenting on the station pages. I originally planned to write this myself, but this is way quicker and I can always change to the django commenting system later.

Overall I am very happy with python and pretty used to the syntax now. I really like the internal dicts and arrays, much better than the php version and on the same level as Perl. I also like the way errors are handled, which is always with exceptions. In Perl and PHP these are very much optional and are not used a lot.

What I don't like is the quality of some of the libraries, they clearly have to do some catching up to do with CPAN.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Han In - Korean


View Larger Map

Because my last restaurant review was so successful here is another one. It was also mentioned on the Python Meetup that it is a bit difficult to find good restaurants in Barcelona, because most of them are mediocre, especially for the lunch menu.

I have been there now four times and the food was always good and the service excellent. The lunch menu is very good value for money. For about 10 Euro you get a good sized starter, a main, dessert and a soft drink or wine.

Today I had tempura as a starter, which was very fresh and crispy. Other choices are gyoza style dumplings, korean tortilla, sea weed or miso soup. There is also always a complimentary serving of kim chi, pickled cucumbers and pancakes.

For mains I had spicy Korean beef with rice. In the evening you can get this and other courses also prepared on a barbecue, which is in the middle of each table. For this it is the best to order a few different items and share them between your group as you can always just put one onto the grill. Other options are sushi, noodles and tofu.

I usually don't take dessert but the rice sweets and fried honey bananas are good and my friends seem to like the ice too.

Altogether a very nice experience, all the food is fresh and the service is very friendly.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Paella

This is my recipe for paella. The picture was the most recent one I made. It was not perfect because it is my largest pan and it gets a bit difficult. I used two other recipes I found on-line and combined them.
  • olive oil
  • 2 chicken breasts cut in dices
  • 2 onions diced
  • 300 g paella rice
  • 750 ml chicken stock
  • saffron
  • handful frozen peas
  • 1/2 green pepper
  • 1/2 red pepper
  • mixed seafood: squid, prawns, octopus, mussels, shrimps, fish
  • parsley
  • dry white wine
  • lemon
Heat a paella or other big flat pan. Add olive oil and fry chicken for 2-3 minutes. Push to the side of the pan, add onions and fry until golden. Season with salt and pepper, but not too much as the stock is probably seasoned too.

Push everything to the side and put rice in the middle and coat it with olive oil until all of the rice is coated. Add most of the chicken stock, mix everything and cook for 10 minutes. Add vegetables and seafood and mix again. Crush the saffron and add it to the remaining stock, this also goes into the pan. Leave to simmer and add wine and water if it gets to dry. Serve with lemons slices and parsley on top.

The whole thing takes maybe half an hour, but you have to make sure that the rice does not burn or get too soggy.

If you want to go fancy you can fry some chicken legs and fresh prawns or crayfish and put them on top at the end.

Friday, November 07, 2008

A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind!


My current home office setup. The newest addition is the Samsung 245b 24" 1920x1200 TFT display. It is probably not the best one around, but is pretty good for the stuff which I do, which is mostly programming.

The main computer is an old Athlon XP 2400. I am currently waiting for replacement parts. I brought most of the stuff with me from London, which means it is from 2003 or older. At the moment the machine is running Fedora 9, but will be upgraded to Fedora 10 once it is out and the parts arrive. I think the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 is the only Microsoft product I use. It is the UK version, because I can't get used to the local versions. The mouse is a Logitech G9, just upgraded from a G5. I am not sure about the G9 just yet, the previous mouse somehow feels better in my hand.

I also got two old Dell Dimension XPS B600r. One of them is used as firewall and the other one as backup server. You can see in the picture that the backup server has a front mounted fan, otherwise the three disks stop working. Both of these computers run CentOS 5.

The computers and router are protected by APC UPS, because we have a lot of power problems here in Barcelona. In the cable jungle next to them is also the ADSL router, a KVM switch and a network switch.

Behind the monitor is also an old scanner to scan old photos and just off the picture to the right is a HP OfficeJet scanner/fax/printer combo.

The Sony TC-KA6ES tape deck is currently broken and I am trying to fix it. While this is not working I am using the Technics tape deck, the amplifier and the two JBL Control Ones to digitize my tapes with the tape recording software I am currently writing in python.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

The free world has a new leader (elect)

I am glad about the result and this shows that the USA can be a leader in democracy. My guess is that will take a long time until we see a president in a European country who is not white.

The news also speak about the amazing high turnout in this election. This might be high for the US, but does not seem so high for the rest of the world.

I also wonder what this election will change. I would love to see Americans loose some of their security paranoia and open up again.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

La Generalitat estudia obligar a los usuarios del Bicing a llevar casco | El Periódico de Catalunya | Barcelona

La Generalitat estudia obligar a los usuarios del Bicing a llevar casco | El Periódico de Catalunya | Barcelona: "El conseller de Interior, Joan Saura, ha manifestado hoy que en 'estos momentos' el Govern mantiene conversaciones con el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona para hacer balance del servicio del Bicing, y 'considerar la posibilidad' de obligar a los usuarios a llevar casco." -- That should put a stop at the problem of too many users at least.

Friday, October 31, 2008

tapetransfer

Even though my good tape decks are broken at the moment I have started on the software to transfer my techno and house mix tapes to the computer.

I have written the software before in C++. It basically waits for a sound on the input and then writes the music to a file until it notices a long quiet section at the end of the tape and stops writing. The software was using threads and used the lame lib to do on the fly mp3 encoding, to make it even quicker to digitize tape. It also notified the user of any buffer underflows and clipped samples.

This software is more than five years old now and all the libraries have changed and I can't be bothered to fix it all.

As I want to learn python anyway I decided to rewrite it in python and see how good I can make it.

Documentation for the (multiple) alsa bindings for python is pretty bad, so I googled around and found kissrec , which is a very simple command line audio recorder with a timer and VU meter. It is GPL, so I have started with that, but I probably rewrite the whole thing to make it (in my eyes) nicer code.

You can find the whole thing at http://tapetransfer.googlecode.com/ , but please don't look to closely - it is rather ugly at the moment.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Everything breaks

First my nice 32" LCD TV broke, which is annoying. But the TV is easily replaceable, it just takes some money. At the moment I am just using an old 21" CRT TV monitor instead, because it is no good to work on any more.

But now my beloved Sony TC-KA6ES tape deck broke. It was the best tape deck Sony ever produced. A three motor, three head
and Dolby B/C/S monster with manual tape calibration and a weight of half a ton.

I haven't used it for at least two years and this is probably the reason why it broke. Our flat here in sunny Spain gets pretty warm in the summer and it is also a very dusty city. This week I wanted to use it again, because I am working on a little python software to help me to transfer my many tapes to the computer. But now all I have left is a rubbish Technics deck.

I could try to find another good tape deck on ebay, which would set me back 100 to 350 Euro, depending on the deck. I also checked what new decks are available, but all of those are on the cheap end. I am very much in vintage territory now. I realized of course that tapes are not commonplace any more, but they vanished from the high end since five years or so now.

The other option is to find someone to fix the Sony, because it is probably just some rubber band or a dirty part. Fast forward and rewind still works and all the motors seem to work. But while repair shops like this are pretty common in Germany and London, they are difficult to find here. I might also try to fix it myself, as I can't break it much more than it already is.

I finish this post with a picture of my also lovely and broken Sony TC-C5. This one is a very rare five tape auto reverse changer. The tapes are on a carousel. I used it a lot in my time in university to record long techno and house mix shows on the Stuttgart radio. Depending on the tapes it gave me five to ten hours of music. It probably has a similar problem as the TC-KA6ES.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

eee pc 901

I progressed a step further in my quest to upgrade my computer systems at home from the outdated and unusable ones I am have at the moment. My workstation is way to slow and has a broken CRT and I have nothing portable at all.

Thursday before the phpconference I bought a Eee PC 901 (Linux version of course). As I am planning to get a proper desktop computer with a big screen for my home desk, I just needed something to take to conferences, on trips and maybe sometimes into town. I also use it at home to browse the web, when I don't want to sit on my desk.

I am used the preinstalled Linux version for a week, which is some kind of Debian based distribution. It comes with all the office and internet applications you usually need. Skype is included for example, which works with the build-in webcam. I enabled the xterm and installed emacs, eclipse and Django, which all worked pretty good.

As I am more used to Fedora and because I want a proper Linux distribution, I installed Fedora 9 though. It was a bit of a hassle to install from an USB memory stick, but worked in the end. fedoraforum has all the information about ethernet and wireless drivers. Everything else works pretty much out of the box. I used LVM to give me one big partition over both SSDs.

I probably will also upgrade to 2GB RAM, as swap is not really an option with the SSDs and eclipse or games need more memory than the stock 1GB. The CPU is pretty quick too, but that might just be compared to my other computers, where the newest is from 2002.

The worst bit is the keyboard. I don't mind it being small, but the layout is different from all other keyboards I have. The key which is usually left of the "1" is above it, to the right of the "ESC" and the "\" left of the "Z" is gone too, it is mapped with the "Fn" key onto the "Z". Having a Spanish keyboard and using GB mapping makes it not better.

So the summary so far:

Good:

  • cheap (350 EUR)
  • small and light
  • runs Fedora well
  • fast
  • long battery life, cool and quite
  • good screen
  • lots of ports
  • graphics chip supports compiz desktop effects
Bad:
  • keyboard
  • some things don't work in Fedora: multitouch touchpad
  • webcam could be better

Friday, October 10, 2008

green&wich

I tried a new restaurant for lunch today to expand the current set of choices. (not everything on there is good)

It is called green&wich, located at C/Villaroel and Gran Via, they don't seem to have a website yet. The location is nice, the space is open to the busy street, the design is minimal and the chairs and tables are a bit wobbly.

They have two menus. I went for the 7.90 one, which gives you a salad, a sandwich, drink and a coffee. I had a rocket, tomato and parmesan salad, which was soggy but still had hard stems in it. A pretty awful combination. The "asia" sandwich was ok, but not much better than the packaged ones you get in the supermarket. Barcelona really does need a Pret-A-Manger to show the locals what fresh a sandwich looks like. I had a cortado for coffee, which still contained coffee powder.

The search continues...

Monday, September 29, 2008

comparing class syntax in C++, Java, PHP, Perl and Python

As I recently started learning Python one of the things I noticed which I didn't like is the class syntax. So I wrote some minimal hello world programs in the languages I recently used to show the difference:

C++ hello.cc

#include <iostream>

class Hello {

private: char *value;

public: Hello(char *newvalue) {
value = newvalue;
}

public: void hello() {
std::cout << this->value;
}
};

int main() {
Hello hello("hello\n");
hello.hello();
}
I like the C++ syntax, it is the language which introduced me to OOP and it it clearly states what bits are what without too wordy syntax.

Java: hello.java

class Hello {
private String value;

public Hello (String newvalue) {
this.value = newvalue;
}

public void hello(){
System.out.println(this.value);
}
}

class main {
public static void main(String args[]){
Hello hello = new Hello ("hello");
hello.hello ();
}
}
Also very nice, a bit clearer than C++.

PHP: hello.php

<?php

class Hello {
private $value;

function __construct($newvalue) {
$this->value = $newvalue;
}

function hello() {
echo $this->value;
}
}

$hello = new Hello("hello\n");
$hello->hello();
From the dynamic languages this one is the clearest. Except of the __construct() constructor, where I prefer the ClassName() syntax (which still works in PHP5)

Perl: hello.pl

package Hello;

sub new {
my ($class,$newvalue) = @_;
bless { newvalue => $newvalue }, $class;
}

sub hello {
my $this = shift;
print $this->{newvalue};
}

package main;

$main::hello = new Hello("hello\n");
$main::hello->hello();
I always hated objects (and functions) in Perl, there is no parameter syntax for functions or methods. Most of it is not enforced and you can use functions in objects in thousands different ways.

Python: hello.py

class Hello:
_value = ""

def __init__(self,newvalue):
self._value = newvalue

def hello(self):
print self._value;


hello = Hello("hello")
hello.hello()
A lot clearer than Perl, but also a lot of convention instead of forced syntax. I got used to the indention by now. But I hate that I have to specify "self" as the first parameters, the __init__ syntax and the underscore prefixing of private or protected variables. At least it has proper function parameters.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

phpconference.es

I just returned from the Barcelona phpconference.es . It was a small on day conference, with just a few talks and not many big names. It was also really cheap at 20€. The organization was very good, especially for Spain. It was held at citilab in Cornellà Centre, which is at the very end of one of the metro lines. There were two rooms with parallel talks. The talks were all in english, which was a change from the last PHP conference. Wifi was available everywhere and there were free drinks and food.

In the morning I got hassled a bit by companies looking for developers, though nothing which convinced me to quit my job yet. I am glad that there are companies like this available in Barcelona though, as they seem to be interested in improving the communitiy through supporting events like this instead of seeing PHP or open source just as the “free beer” option.

I enjoyed the talk about PEAR and the one about xdebug. But none of the talks was really advanced and each one was more or less just an introduction to the topic.

One thing I noticed was the number of netbooks in use by the attendees. I would say the distribution was 30% netbooks, 40% mac and 30% for the rest. I just bought a Asus Eee PC, which is my first portable computer – but more about this another time.

Overall I must say that I am probably not a conference person. I enjoy the talks, but I am not so much av crowd person and probably could get the same information spending a day in front of firefox and youtube. But I will give it a another try next time.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

My music podcast selection

This are the music podcasts I am listening too at the moment. It is mostly techno, but also house and some dub. And whatever last.fm thinks I would enjoy.


dailysessionhttp://dailysession.com/?feed=podcast
DE:BUG POD - a netaudio podcasthttp://www.de-bug.de/pod/wp-rss2.php
electro house & house & techno mixhttp://djbene.podspot.de/rss
Galaktika Records Podcast: Minimal, Electro and House hottests tunes!http://www.galaktikarecords.com/podcast.xml
Ibiza Voice Music Boxhttp://www.ibiza-voice.com/music/rss_podcast.php
Last.fm free recommended downloads for cdamian'shttp://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/user/cdamian/podcast.xml
Minimal(maximal) Techno DJ mixes by Louis de Bourbonhttp://www.graphicjuice.co.uk/podcast/podcast.xml
MinimalNethttp://www.minimalnet.org/feed
Minus Podcast:http://m-nus.com/podcast.xml
NetAudio Russiahttp://www.netaudio.ru/feed
Resident Advisor podcasthttp://www.residentadvisor.net/xml/podcast.xml
Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Acidhttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/acid/feed
Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Breakshttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/breaks/feed
Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - DJ-Mixhttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/dj_mix/feed
Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Drum and Basshttp://starfrosch.chdownload_music/drum_and_bass/feed
Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Dubhttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/dub/feed
Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Electronichttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/electronic/feed
Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Househttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/house/feed
Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Minimalhttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/minimal/feed
Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Technohttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/techno/feed
the fabric podcasthttp://feeds.fabriclondon.com/fabricpodcast


I would upload the OPML file, but blogger.com doesn't allow attachments.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Staying with Linux

Recently I was affected by the Steve Job Reality Distortion Field. After watching the demonstration of the iPhone developer kit and the iPhone in general I wanted one too.

I thought I get myself a nice Apple Power Book or maybe an Air plus the iPhone and start developing. As it is also very much UNIX based I could still go to the command line if I want too and most of the tools I use every day are available on Max OS X and work very well.

My girlfriend has been using her PowerBook Titanium since 2002 and it still works well. She now also got the iPhone, which is the best phone you can buy at the moment. For someone who just wants to use computers, these are perfect.

But after seeing the problems software developers have with the AppStore and the sharing of information about iPhone development, I decided that this whole closed source thing is not for me.

I have been using Linux since my Amiga days and Red Hat Linux since 3.0.3 and I just can't imagening using software which doesn't have the source code available for me to learn and thinker with. Most people now will say that you probably are not going to this, but it is not true for me. I fixed, patched and changed Apache, Rhythmbox, PHP and Perl. I build my own RPMs for the changed versions to keep my system clean and I want to have this option in the future.

But it is not only the source. It is also the community and things like open bugtrackers. If I report a bug with some Apple or Microsoft product there is no way of knowing if this was reported before or if someone has a fix already. This just happened to me again with a USB mouse problem on Fedora, I just hat a look at bugzilla and there was already a solution which I was able to apply before the fix goes into the updates.

I still need to upgrade my computer though. My Athon XP 2400 (IIRC) just doesn't do the trick anymore. I also want to switch to an ATI graphics card to use open source drivers. So I decided to spend 1000€ on an upgrade to the machine, which probably consists of:
  • 24" TFT monitor
  • some AMD four core CPU which doesn't use too much power
  • a passive cooled ATI card
  • 4GB of memory
  • ASUS motherboard
  • two 1T hard disks for RAID1
all running the Fedora of course.

I might also get an OpenMoko phone at some point, but I am not really a phone user so it would be just a toy.

The only close source products will be my iPod Classic and iPod shuffle. But they are well supported now in gtkpod and Rhythmbox.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

M_NUS @ BAM

Went to see Magda, Gaiser and Richie Hawtin at the Red Bull Music Academy M_NUS @ BAM.

It started at midnight, which is a more civilised time than the usual 3:00 we get here in Barcelona.

Magda was very good, Gaiser was ok and Hawtin had his good moments. I think Hawtin now has the same problem as Sven Vaeth, he is just too popular and his productions and studio mix sessions are way better than his live sets. It is a pity, because I remember a lot of good parties with him a few years ago.

The visuals were also especially good, I have to find out who created them. Also very minimal, abstract and like a good screensaver. It wasn't a projection, but a enormous LED display wall with one part below the DJ desk.

Very good times, can we have more of this please? 



  

Saturday, September 13, 2008

moving wikicalendar

I haven't updated it for ages. To prepare for some small changes I moved it to google code.  This also gives me subversion, which takes another bit of work of me.

The sandbox on krass.com will still serve as a testing area.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

learning something new

I decided that it is about time to learn something new. For some reason I decided on python and django.

It might have something to do with the google app engine and because fedora uses a lot of python.

I made up a small project, which is easy to start, but can grow into something bigger later.

At my day job I use mainly php, including the cakephp framework. One thing which I am always missing is a proper ORM. I used to do a lot of perl coding and we developed our own ORM, which was very similar to Class::DBI.

So I am quite happy that django comes with a nice ORM. I also like the views and template language so far. The only thing a bit annoying is the url setup and the specifying the locations of the templates. It would be nice if there was a nice default. There might even be one and I haven't found it yet.