Tom at 16

Week of April 29th, 2002

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Saturday May 4, 2002

Good day and happy Saturday. First time I've picked up a keyboard all day (although it was tempting at times) -- controlled restrain; time with family; wash the drive; etc, etc.

Holy Wow. Is my IBM tutorial ever getting a lot of PR. There I was, surfing away, minding my own business, and reading the latest on OSNews.com. Scroll down. You'll find a link to my Samba/PDC blatherings. On OSNews? Whatever. Publicity is good, especially when you're hunting for a raise ;-) I'd better get my errata notes into IBM. If you have concerns or comments, pls send them my way before Monday AM.

If you're a parent, this has no doubt happened to you. I'm sure it's happened to me in the past, but I don't think I was paying as much attention as I was tonight.

Danielle's been in the doghouse for several days -- sassy, difficult, and just being 7. Tonight she helps me get Landon to bed, vacuums the living room without protest, and helps clean up the dinner dishes. Mmmm. So I cut her some slack, and tell her she has a choice: She can put a DVD on or read a book. She picks the book!! And there she sits, across the room from me (I'm reading Douglas Adams -- it's been a long week and I need a giggle), totally engrossed in her book, and scrunching her brow just like I do when I'm trying to absorb a concept. Who says genetics is a groundless theoretical science.

Tomorrow is "Thompson Deep Clean" day. Big time. I'd better get some sleep, as it's going to be a long day.

Be good; be well.

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Friday May 3, 2002

Greetings. It snowed this morning. Yep, got the spelling right on that: S-N-O-W-E-D. Not only did it snow, but it snowed in a most blustery way. The flakes destined for our yard landed a block or so down the road. Sigh. This delayed Spring/Summer is starting to have a tremendous impact on my family. The kids can't play outside, which in turn is making Leah and I most bitchy. Hopefully we'll gain a LONG Indian Summer out of all this...

Like Greg Lincolna> I too have been on a "mission" for an HTML/XML editor. At a reader's suggestion, I tried out Arachnophilia (search on Google; you'll find it -- and for those who have similar learning troubles as me: java -jar Arachophilia.jar). One HUGE problem. I can find a way to get the editor to word/line wrap (if you know how, please email me). Other than this, Arachnophilia is fast and very, very extensible.

I've been using Greg's suggestion of JEdit for 24 hours now. Works well, and has some "kick-ass" error detecting stuff. It's a tad slow (written in Java), but it works. I'm pleased overall.

Which brings me to my latest point: Slowly, but surely, over the course of the last two weeks, I've built myself a Linux machine I can live (and work) with. I say this because it kinda snuck up on me. I started with Gentoo. I then added in my favorite text editors, console colors, etc. I then added KDE 3 into the fray. And KVIM. And the latest build of Mozilla. And Opera (faster than Moz, but still buggy in some regards). And finally, today, OpenOffice. Wow. Fast, stable, and useable. None of which I've experienced in the the past with OO. And seamless. I rec'd a document today from my boss with a ton of markup, ect in it -- loaded and viewable without effort; I also sent a spreadsheet to a commrade -- as far as he was concerned, it was an Excel doc. Very, very cool.

I have a functional, useable, extensible Linux desktop. I've tried in the past, but never succeeded. This time it did. The Linux revolution is a quiet but powerful one. No fancy announcements. No bright lights. Just useability without the hoops. Very cool. I'm a happy camper...

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Wednesday May 1, 2002

It's 03:30, very dark, I'm struggling to wake up, and as I type this it's trying to snow. Bleh. Welcome to May. Welcome to Saskatchewan. Welcome to my world.

As you may have already guessed, the move did not go exactly as planned. I lost DSL a day earlier than scheduled, got everything back up and running late Saturday (or so I thought), and took Sunday off to arrange our new home and enjoy a nice evening with some friends. Monday morning I get up, pumped to do a day's work, and I have neither connectivity nor phone service. Bother. To make a long day short, the connectivity issues were due to two failing CAT cables (sigh -- it seems nothing slight ever happens around here); the phone service was a telco problem -- I finally got a dial tone again late, late Monday evening. I still have to address long distance service, however. We have a long distance plan with another carrier. When we arranged the move a month ago, our phone number was not going to change. With that plan going for a big crap, and our long distance plan attached to our old phone number, I can't dial long distance from my new number. BIG Bother.

So here I am, almost 4am, trying to catch up from 5 days of Murphy's Law. I have a wee small voice inside me that says if I start when it's still dark, and finish when it's still dark, I just might -- one day -- catch up. I have a more intelligent voice inside that's trying to tell me "it ain't true, but if you need to be humored, go ahead..."

On the positive side of the ledger, we love our new digs. Bright, roomy, and lots of storage. For the first time in our lives, we have living room where we can go and talk without competing with the TV. We have a family room. And we have a kids playroom. 'Course Landon hasn't quite got the distinctions yet, and continues to run maddly around the house leaving a trail of toys behind for Leah and I to clean up. We'll get there.

On the computing side of things, I've got all systems but one (Phoenix) back up and hammering on all cylinders. I updated my notebook last night to the latest Gentoo kernel: 2.4.19-r1, with the preemptive patch, and a bunch of performance patches. It's fast, fast, fast. I remain delighted with Gentoo; it gives me just the right blend of choice. I can emerge what I choose, keep my programs on the cutting edge, or lock a particular application down at a specific level of stability. Gentoo is making a well-deserved name for itself in the Linux world.

Speaking of popular, my Samba-PDC tutorial appears to be a big hit. I'm getting lots and lots of very kind emails every day -- thank you if you've written. There's some errata to be slotted in, but overall everyone seems pleased and the contents are filling a needed gap in the community's knowledge base. I'm working very hard on the next one: Using LDAP as an Authentication Source for Samba. As I think I noted last week, it's one of the toughest pieces I've attempted to date. There's six or seven other HOWTOs on the topic, and each of them has it about 60% right and 40% wrong. The tough part is figuring out which is which. Hopefully I'll get it wrapped up today. I'll post a URL when I have one.

And congrats to Brian and Greg on their new venture, LinuxMuse. Drop by and visit -- they've put a lot of effort into assembling their new site. Considering the wealth of information Brian and Greg pack around on their shoulders, it outta big a huge hit. Good luck guys!

Speaking of which, I've got a ton of catchup to do today -- I'd better get after it... Later.

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