OS Agnostic

Busy Busy Busy

2009-07-10T18:10:54Z

Note: I wrote this last Thursday, but wanted to add a picture to the post. Unfortunately, my card reader is still lost in the depths of the tower of cardboard boxes in the new house. Decided I better just post it.

—

Well, I THOUGHT I was going to blog more anyway. Today is my first normalish day back after moving, traveling, and doing family stuff. And now Geoff and I have a house to get ready to sell and another house to unpack. Today, the plan is to get the food over to the new house (and throw out a lot in the process) so we can actually cook in our new, bigger kitchen.

Our move to the new place went very well - we ended up with 6 people helping, which was enough that we finished up in less than 4 hours. Of course, by “finished up” I mean “moved over everything that was packed and ready to go.” There was still a lot of odds and ends that needed to be dealt with. And, at the new house we ended up putting much of the furniture in the garage- so the new house is pretty bare apart from all the boxes. We also left quite a bit of furniture at the old house for staging purposes, so there’s not much to sit on (feel free to visit, but we’ll probably end up sitting on floor cushions.)

The day after we moved, I went to Washington DC to attend a couple of conferences (Digital Humanities 2009 and THATCamp, which I will blog about over at nirak.net). I had three days in which to do touristy stuff, and I took in most of the art museums, part of the museum of natural history, and the folklife festival. In particular, I really liked the Stanley William Hayter exhibit in the national gallery and the “Strange Bodies” exhibit in the basement of the Hirshhorn. I even got to meet up with a friend and fellow artist from Lincoln while in DC, which was great. I love going to museums with others that view the work obsessed with the question “how did they do that?”

My mom was kind enough to lend me her Verizon wireless internet card and cradlepoint while I was in DC- which I mostly used to get internet on my ipod touch. The experience made me want an iphone even more, but not so much I am willing to pay over $4300 over 2 years to own one.

The two conferences I went to (btw, these were not paid for by work) were really interesting and I was exhausted and my brain was full by the end. Monday I went to work 7:30 - 10:30 and after that went to a family obligation that lasted till 9:30 or so. I did some unpacking after that and tried to set up my computer only to find the install is broken somehow. So part or the plan for tonight is reinstalling Ubuntu (glad it’s Ubuntu because I have no clue where any of my system disks are). (update- install went w/o a hitch- smartest thing I ever did was putting the /home directory on another partition)

As we unpack we are making more tough decisions about what to get rid of. It’s a little easier to get rid of things now, as we don’t want to clutter the nice new house.

Obsession

2009-06-10T01:37:15Z

by flickr user A Y U M i (LoveLiveLaugh)

I tend to obsess about things (people who know me IRL are going “duh”). Whatever is going on in my life at the time becomes fairly all consuming - I will talk about it a lot, think about it a lot, sketch plans and ideas- obsess is a very apt word. I do this until a) I can implement my plan or b) I realize that what I want can be accomplished another way and for far less money, or is simply unimportant.

I think this obsessive aspect is healthy for me. As an example, I think about my computer network a lot. How to tweak it, how to to back up files, what OS’s to use (a particular and contentions point.) I research solutions, learn new tech to make it possible, and decide on what’s not important to me. So, rather than going out and buying a $500 solution to a problem, I can often work with what I have buy, say, putting together spare parts to make a file server or replacing an old router’s firmware. I learn a lot along the way, too.

Lately an obsession has been buying a house, and soon (since we close on the house Monday) it will be decorating and outfitting the house.

So the obsession thing is fine with me, though a little annoying for friends who have to hear me ramble on about my obsessions, and that brings me to my main problem: I have several places I create content online, and I don’t really want to add any more of them. I have trouble using the ones I have. In part, the problem is focus. I’ve probably read too many of those “10 tips to writing a better blog” articles, but I have the idea that I should stick to one main topic per blog. But I don’t want to split things up like that. On this blog in particular, I want to be able to ramble about whatever- but I worry that would be annoying to readers.

Of course, I don’t have to worry about annoying online readers as much as real life friends. Online content is more easily ignored. So, I’m not going to worry about it.

I guess what I’m saying is, I’m going to get a little freer with content posted here, and that may mean more rambles about random topics and a greater volume of posts about a particular subject for extended periods of time. Feel free to unsubscribe. I hope that at least some of what I write about holds some interest for regular readers, and I will still post content (hopefully more frequently) to my other main blogs - free-artwork.com (art related stuff) and nirak.net (professional stuff- but what that means is a little up in the air right now.)

Possible upcoming obsessions:

Building stuff: Furniture, etc. Also, setting up a shop to build stuff, stuff about power tools, maybe light house construction projects
Decorating: Paint colors, furniture, all that fun stuff
More stuff about Ubuntu/ open source for designers. Probably a lot of ranting about not having the options I want (Adobe CS4 on Ubuntu, ideally)
Cooking/gardening/yard planning

Yeah, I’m going to be busy.

Birthday party for Karin!

2009-05-08T23:56:37Z

If you are reading this and you know me (even vaguely) you’re probably invited to my 30th birthday party on May 23rd, 7:00 PM to whenever. If you don’t know my address, shoot me an email at karin@nirak.net.

I’m not sure exactly what I’m planning (I didn’t even know if I’d be able to have the party at my house ’till recently because of the house stuff) but there will likely be cake and booze. If you want something specific (i.e. beer) please bring it. I’ll try to pick some up but I’m forgetful about these things.

I don’t need any gifts, but if you really feel you MUST get me something, I always like pixy sticks. (mmmmm, pure sugar….) Besides, I’m probably going to lose my teeth soon anyway what with the getting old and all, right?

Found a house!

2009-05-08T21:45:25Z

Geoff and I put in an offer on a house Wednesday, and it was accepted. Yay! The house is near 7th and Washington- a nice, quiet little section south of downtown. The new house meets most of the qualifications we were looking for:

Walking

I photoshopped a few variations on painting schemes.

The walk to work will be a tiny bit farther than it is now (about 5 min more) but will be more varied, with lots of different routes to take. Also within walking distance is a grocery store, lots of places to eat, and coffee shops. The walk score of the house is a little lower than my last place at 57- mostly because it is completely blocked off in one direction by train tracks. But that also means it’s a quieter, less busy neighborhood, with less through traffic.

The “walk score” rating is a tricky thing. While my new house may not rate quite as high on the walk score site, I will be able to go weeks without driving- everything I need is within walking distance. This was one of my bigger goals in getting a new house. Our old location at 28th and T was mostly OK for walking, but the Alps grocery store, quite frankly, scared me (we have gone there several time to find all their milk expired). Plus, walking down 27th street just isn’t that pleasant.

Decent size yard/space from neighbors

We looked at a few houses that were great except they had tiny yards, which left no space for a garage, gardening, or any of the other things we’d like to plan for outside. The new place has a standard downtown lot size- 50×142, and the house site a decent distance away from the neighbors.

We are going to get rid of as much as this wall as possible to open up these 2 rooms.

Finished basement

we really wanted a finished basement, or, failing that, a non-scary, non-leaking basement. This, as it turns out, is fairly difficult to find downtown (basically, someone needs to have put in new basement walls at some point). The new house has a fully finished, very livable basement with some newer walls, a newer floor, and an egress window. So our bedroom will go in the basement, where we will be cooler in the summer and less affected by neighborhood noise.

Extra garage space

We wanted a two car garage- not so we could put both cars in the garage, but so I could have a woodworking shop permanently set up. The new house has a very deep one car garage, so it fits the bill. We’ve talked a bit about adding a two car garage off the alley, but we’re not sure yet.

Price

The house came in at more than $40,000 less than the top of our price range- which makes me very happy. We increased our buying range from $140,000 to $150,000 and then to $160,000 at the very top. We increased the price range because we just weren’t finding anything that met our specifications, but I am much more comfortable in the $110,000 range. If one of us were to lose our job, we could still make our utility and mortgage payments on one salary.

The rooms are a little small. We are having the wall on the right taken out, which should help.

The compromise: size

The house that started this all was quite large. And Geoff and I both really liked the idea of having a house with TONS of room, and really high ceilings, and oh, did I mention lots of room? Going back to that first post on “the dream house” these were my reasons for wanting the extra room: bigger art room, more garage space, and the ability to put litterboxes far away from living areas. The new house accomplishes a few of these things, but the litterbox problem will still exist. We’re working on solutions to that: building an outdoor cat run so the cats can go outside on nice days, and venting rooms where litterboxes will be outside to mitigate odors. (If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know!)

A view of the back of the house. Note the door that leads onto the roof on the 2nd floor.

My art room will be in the “master bedroom’ on the 2nd floor. There is more room than my old artroom, and a walk in closet to store stuff. There’s also, strangely enough, a door out onto the roof. We plan to build a balcony out there.There’s no water upstairs, but I would like to get a water recycling sink anyway.

There’s another bedroom on the second floor that we will use as a guest bedroom- it’ll be nice to have a place for guests to stay besides the living room.

There are advantages to a smaller house: we’ll be less likely to keep accumulating stuff (especially since there is less storage in the new place), energy bills will be lower, and there’s less to clean and maintain. I want to integrate more green features into the house like water collection and maybe solar panels, and that too will be easier on a smaller scale. I’ll have more posts about my plans for green additions later on.

I’m quite excited about our new house, now we just need to get our old house ready to sell. Hoping it sells quick!

House hunt v2

2009-02-04T03:15:42Z

By Flickr user McMorr

So Geoff and I have decided (again) to look for a new house. There are a few reasons which I won’t go into here, but mostly we just want a better house.

I am not entirely convinced of the wisdom of buying right now- prices on houses don’t seem to have fallen that much, which may be why there’s a glut of houses that have been on the market for a long time. This certainly isn’t a good time to sell a house, and we may have the rent the property for a while (anyone looking for a place with a month to month lease?). I have come not to trust my own financial advice much after realizing that I should have been putting all that money I put into stocks over the last two years into savings instead (god knows that would have made the house buying easier- we’d have enough for 30-40% out of pocket. sigh.)

The first hurdle, of course, if getting our house ready to sell. This means fixing a few odds and ends around the house, and it seems like every time we fix one thing we find another that needs to be fixed and I’m wondering if that process will ever end. Right now we’re doing the major things so a Realtor can come in to tell us what else we need to do.

Then there’s the fact that we have 5 cats. Luckily they have not destroyed the house, but we’ll need to figure out what to do with them (and the litterboxes) while we show the house. I’m not sure how other people handle this. And Geoff doesn’t like the idea of letting friends take care of at least a few of the cats while we are looking to sell, so I guess that’s out. :/

And yet, in spite of all this, we’re looking for a house. Go figure.

So my post grad school peace has been disrupted somewhat while we do housework and look at houses. Fun.

The Open Source Designer’s Conundrum

2009-01-13T03:59:02Z

Image by markhoekstra

Let me start by saying I love Ubuntu. I love how I can change it, how I can bend it to my will, how I can make it look like anything I want. I love how it doesn’t assume it knows best what I like- I am free to make that decision myself, even if it is ugly to others. That said, lately I have been seriously thinking of getting a mac again. The reason mostly has to do with the new job: I’m a designer again, no longer just doodling. I want to be able to run photoshop and other design apps on my computer. Yes, I have all the open source apps. I adore some of them (InkScape in particular) but they just aren’t enough. There’s also the font issue on Ubuntu. I wish adobe made things for Ubuntu. I would buy them. But they don’t. (And before you say anything, I have TRIED running them through WINE. It just isn’t good enough.)

Why NOT get a mac, you may ask? (I can HEAR the mac addicts asking it preemptively.)

Here’s the short list:

Price

This is far and away the biggest reason. You can get a computer with much the same specs as a new mac for less than half the cost. It’s not just the computer- everything is expensive: adapters, spare parts, getting it fixed. Price is by far the biggest consideration, because although I have a new job, I am not rich by any means. I’m also very concerned about saving for retirement, so I take out a large chunk of money out of every paycheck, which doesn’t leave me with a lot.

I have owned a mac before, one of the old imac’s. At the time I bought it, it was comparable in price to other computers with similar power-a bit more, but not that much. Now it is NOT EVEN CLOSE.

Image by Mendhak

And in this category of price, there’s just the fact that Apple, Inc. seems to assume that its customers all have endless wallets and are willing to pay top dollar for anything and everything apple branded. There’s the fact that user replaceable batteries will soon be a thing of the past as far as Apple is concerned, and every update to everything costs something. I suppose it’s worked for them, but for someone without endless money or endless enthusiasm for all things apple, it’s just annoying.

Little OS annoyances

No right click. Different keyboard shortcuts. No print screen button. These are the things that are annoying learning any OS, but it’s still enough of a barrier.

Don’t like any of the models

image by Kia storm =(^.^)= PetoMarmitta & friends

What I really want is a nice tower. But those start at $2700. Ack. The iMacs are nice looking, but I really dislike all in one units (my last iMac monitor went bad, and replacing it would have been half the price of the machine.) the mac mini’s aren’t very upgradeable and don’t have a lot of power. That leaves the macbook, which is OK, but I have the same problems with it as any other all in one.

The Good

So by now you may be asking “If you hate Mac so much, why even consider getting one?” I don’t actually hate Mac’s, I just prefer Ubuntu, and am sad I might not be able to stay with it (at least not completely- I would likely run parallels and/or dual boot Ubuntu if I got a mac and keep severl Ubuntu machines). But why Mac over a Windows computer, given the price? The main reason is that it is Unix based. I have been learning how to write bash files, etc, and I really don’t want to relearn how to do this stuff on a PC. Also, by staying with Unix, I can more easily make the leap back to Ubuntu if, say, Adobe released the programs I need for it (a distant possibility to be sure, but hey, you never know.)

I also must admit, I do love the programs in the iLife suite. iMovie is just fun to use. Garage Band looks fun too.

In any case, nothing will happen for a while - we’re looking at houses (again) and saving every penny for a down payment. And I have not made up my mind yet. Feel free to try and convince me one way or the other.

Evernote update

2008-10-24T00:19:30Z

I had a lot of comments on my last Evernote post on the blog and emailed to me. Since then, I learned that Evernote will likely never be available on linux, (they had a thread about this but it has since been deleted) and they don’t seem to be making it work any better through Wine either. So I have pretty much stopped using it. It is nice software, and if I only needed to sync and capture on Mac and and PC, I would almost definitely use it.

I have continued using Evernote for two things- to capture screenshots at work (since I ONLY use Windows @ work) and to store recipes at home on my laptop. It works exceedingly well for both of these things.

As for universal capturing and saving, I still have no real solution. I’m back to using Google Notebook most of the time, but that, of course, is not offline accessible (unless they integrated Google Gears sometime and didn’t tell me.) I have tried and like Microsoft One Note, but can’t use it consistently because it is Windows only. Also, the data model is less than transparent- I prefer my notes to be stored in plain text XML (which Tomboy notes does beautifully.)

If anyone has any other suggestions for global note taking I’d love to hear them!

Ditching the ‘pod

2008-10-23T03:58:40Z

My iPod, purchased for $100 from my mom, who bought it from my sister when she didn’t want it, who bought it from my other sister when SHE didn’t want it, has been limping along for a while now. It’s had weird battery problems since I’ve had it- this was OK, since I charged it every night. Lately though, it started only playing sound out of one channel, and then that channel started to cut out too.

I have two back up MP3 players- a 2 GB Sansa Clip and a 1GB Creative Zen Nano Plus, but I’ve never set up either for podcasts, which is what I use the MP3 player for about 90% of the time. The thing I LOVED about the iPod is that it would automatically download my podcasts and sync them when I hooked the player up to the computer, and would delete the ones I’d already listened to. As far as I know, no other MP3 player can replicate this functionality.

I can’t afford another iPod right now, though, so I started looking into the best possible solution for my Sansa Clip, which has a podcast folder separate from the music folder. One nice feature of the Clip is that you can delete files directly from the device. This took care of one of my problems- I didn’t want to have to go through all the podcasts every evening and figure out which ones I’d already listened to. The Clip will also remember where I am partway through a podcast. So all I needed was an easy way to download podcasts and get them on the device.

I have gone through this before. I went thorough every podcatcher I could find for Windows and every program had some little annoyance. So this time I tried Linux programs. I attempted Amarok first, but the podcatching features on that are a little… opaque. So after a little search, I hit upon gpodder. This little program does exactly what I want- lets me subscribe to a podcast feed, download new episodes, and transfer them over to the device. The one little catch is that you have to set the mode on the Clip (Settings -> USB mode) to MSC before Ubuntu will recognize the device.

I have been using my new setup for about a week now and am pretty happy. As long as I remember to delete the podcast from the device, everything goes smoothly. There are some advantages as well- the Clip is tiny, and I can clip it (big surprise, huh) to my clothes- esp. handy when I don’t have pockets. The 2 GB of space can hold a good number of podcasts- I save 1 GB for podcasts and the other GB for a “shuffle” selection of music. The Clip is a durable little player too- I’ve washed the player once, and it still works. I’ve dropped it multiple times. It has sat around in the bottom of my bag with my keys, and still looks (almost) new.

I was thinking of asking for another iPod for xmas, but now I am not so sure. I do like having all of my music on one device, but it’s really not that big a deal. The 120 GB iPod classic model is a little bit of overkill for me. The 16GB ipod nano would fit almost all the music I care to keep with me; that’s a little tempting. I worry about the durability, though- my old iPod scratched easily, and the way I mistreat MP3 players, I really need something durable. (Same goes for phones, incidentally)

I’ll probably stick with the Clip for now. Besides being cost effective, this means I can start moving away from the proprietary iTunes, which I find too big and clunky for my tastes. It also has weird non standard ways of storing things, which bugs me no matter what program I am using.

Image Credit: Clip on keyboard by BuhSnarf

Obsession

2008-09-02T02:16:00Z

Sometimes I see something- maybe an electronic gadget, or a book, a CD, or a piece of furniture, and am filled with all consuming WANT. Today, it happened again- this time, the trigger was a house.

The house, as you might expect, is beautiful. 2 stories plus an attic, finished basement, nice yard, garage. Wood Floors. Big kitchen. A wonderfully landscaped yard, and within walking distance of work (assuming, of course, that I continue working where I am now.) It’s also close to some friends of ours.

I can’t stop thinking about it.

What is it about this house that fills me with such desire? I have a house. It’s…. ok. I mean, it’s perfectly livable. Why would I need more than twice the livable space that I have now?

I can’t think of too many ways the space would change my life. Having a backyard not in view of a major street might mean I’d spend more time outside. A bigger art room might mean I’d embark on some larger paintings again. One of the biggest improvements would be the fact that we could place litterboxes gar away from living spaces, so I’d have to smell it less. A walk in closet might mean I have fewer wrinkled clothes an an easier time picking out outfits. The garage is large, so I could have a workshop set up instead of having to take out tools and move a car every time I want to make something. These are all little things.

I also wonder how much a beautiful house (rather than the OK house I have) would change my outlook. I doubt it would make me happier.

The house is much more expensive than our current house - which would be OK if I get a professional position. I also worry about the Diderot Effect - once I have a new house, wouldn’t I want new furniture and other stuff to go in the house? What about curtains, rugs, etc?

My gut tells me that a house won’t make me happy. I also knows that the house will likely sell before I know if I have enough to purchase it. I know that selling my own house, right now, is a horrible idea, not only because of the market, but because I have enough on my plate as it is. I am rational enough to realize this isn’t going to happen.

But the irrational part of me will drive by the house again and again, until I see a little sold sign in the yard. Then I’ll feel a little pang of regret, but I’ll move on.

Network storage options

2008-08-16T02:34:46Z

Geoff’s computer recently died (we think the power supply went kablooey and damaged the HD). This has me thinking - yet again - that I need to seriously reconsider my backup options. That is, I need to start backing stuff up!

Here’s our setup:

5 computers at home- my main computer (Ubuntu) my media computer (Win XP) Geoff’s Computer (Win XP) and two laptops- one with XP, the other dual boot XP and Ubuntu.Also have hacked Xbox I watch things on, though this can access just about anything.

Right now, I keep my photos on my Ubuntu machine and share them across the network to me XP media computer when needed. The media computer holds my music and videos. Our router is only 100 M, so it’s pretty slow to transfer a lot of files between computers.

Recently, I’ve started thinking that perhaps instead I should get a network attached storage device and use that to keep all files centrally located instead. For off site backup, I think I’ll get a smaller USB drive (like this) and backup only the most important files (photos, music, art- not video files) and bring to work.

So here are the different option I am considering. What do you think?

Needed in any case:

A gigabit router - because file transfers are painfully slow otherwise. I’m looking at the D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router (~$100), but am open to suggestions.

Option 1: Keep linux box as main file computer.

Since I already use Linux as my main computer, I could just set it up as a file server too (well, I already do this, but I could do a better job, I think). I think I can fit one more drive in my computer, so I could spring for a 1 TB drive. I think I have MOST of the technical know how to do this, and my computer is plenty powerful enough to be both a file server and my main computer. I might have to update my Ethernet to a gigabit, not sure.

Pros: Already have most of the equipment, could start with drives I already have and expand later. Lots and lots of flexibility, no stupid limitations on what I can do, could also use as a MythBox later if I want.

Cons: Would have to leave computer on all the time, and it is a power sucker. Is on much of the time anyway, though.

Cost: I could do this with no money initially, but would want a 1 TB HD (about $170) eventually.

Option 2: Get a NAS for backup/file server

I’m looking at two models wight now: This D-Link DNS-323 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure and the HP MV2120 500GB Media Vault. Both will work with whatever OS I throw at it. The HP one comes with 500GB drive and then I can add more (I already have a 400 GB drive I can add), the D-link I’d have to buy an extra drive for. The HP can take 2 USB external drives too, so there’s a good amount of extra space that can be added. I would either backup the entire NAS to a external USB hard drive, or (more likely) mirror some content on other computers for backup. I have a lot of video files aren’t a big deal if lost.

Pros: Easier. I won’t learn as much, though. Having an external solution probably means a little more security (?) I’m guessing both of these use less power than my main computer.

Cons: not as much flexibilty, yet more hardware to maintain, etc.

Cost (if HP): $288.99 for device. Would use 400 GB drive I have to = 900GB total. Maybe expand HD later.

Cost (if D-link): $188 for device, and probably ~$80 for a hard drive.

Option 3: Build my own server

A third option, of course, would be to build my own media server from scratch. I like this idea because it’d give me yet another thing to tinker with, and I could make it a MythBox. I could research components to make somethign that’s not too power hungry.

Pros: Entirely customisable, most of the advantages of both of the above options

Cons: I’m not sure I have the time to set something like this up right now- and I don’t want to put off backups more than I have.

Cost: ??? I’d estimate at least $300- we have a few parts, but would probably need to replace nearly everything.

Verdict?

I’m wavering between option 1 and option 2 right now. Geoff and I have enough computers that we can back up files between them pretty well, so I don’t know that an NAS is REALLY needed. I might try setting up my computer as a full fleged server over the weekend and see if it is workable.