• I discovered a Raleigh-based hosting provider that offers FreeBSD-based virtual private servers (VPS): rootbsd.net. Pretty cool stuff!
• Gmail is now offering IMAP services, finally. Plus, they have upped the storage for those that host their own domain to 4GB.

I had switched from using Gmail for my domain to an account with Tuffmail but I may now consider moving back to Gmail. Tuffmail offers a great service with many cool email features, but it is nice being able to fall back to the Gmail web interface if necessary.

I received an "official invitation" to attend the KDE 4.0 Release Event at Google from January 17-19, 2008. I bet this will be a really great event and I would love to go. Hmmm... San Francisco in January? I bet the wife would enjoy it as well. We'll have to see what can be worked out. :-)

I am going to post another entry shortly with some good resources on Debian packaging.

I also did a live broadcast interview with the folks from the Northeast Ohio Open Source Society. Excellent questions from people attending live as well as via IRC made it great fun.

The Google afterparty was a good time, and it was a pleasure once again seeing and hanging out with my fellow Linux podcasters and the many Linux Reality listeners who were extremely gracious and flattering in telling me how much they enjoy the podcast.

Now, I just have to wait for my flights and get home. :-)

Last week, I turned 39 years old. The day before, I learned that a family member passed away, and I went out of town this past weekend to attend his funeral.

As I have blogged about previously, last year, a very generous benefactor (who shall remain nameless) gave me a nearly-complete copy of the entire Grateful Dead live recording archive -- almost 2800 shows. Now, I have been an avid Deadhead for (gulp) more than half my life now, and fortunately had the opportunity to see them perform many, many times, including some memorable shows in their hometown of San Francisco. For me, the Dead's music encapsulates the essence of the broad range of human emotions: love, loss, joy, pain, sweetness, melancholy, and everything in between. From Jerry's tender voice and liquid-sounding melodic six string, to Phil's heart-beat bass, to Bob's incredible jangly steel and rhythm guitar, to the Rhythm Devils themselves, the duo drummers Mickey and Bill, to the snazzy piano and keyboards by Brent and Keith, the music really hits home. So, perhaps it was the passing of another year, or perhaps it was the realization that I was going to be _40_ next year, but I prepared for the trip to the funeral by loading up my mp3 player with a large selection of cuts from a variety of Dead shows from my archive.

The funeral service itself was touching, and very humorous, since family and friends got to tell their favorite stories about this wonderful man. This individual was funny and sweet, yet had a mischevious twinkle in his eye -- a lot like Jerry Garcia, according to those who knew him. So as I drove up to the funeral and back, I listened and got lost in the music. It made me think of my relative and appreciate the gift of his life. It also allowed me to realize, not for the first time, just how lucky I am.

Also on site news, there is an update to PyBlosxom, but I have not upgraded this site to it yet. I am a little unsure of how to go about doing it, exactly. Unlike Blosxom, which was wonderfully simple as a single Perl script, PyBlosxom is a collection of Python files and other miscellaneous items, and the documentation does not really cover upgrades. I make frequent backups of this site, so maybe one day I'll just give it a shot and see what happens. If it breaks, I'll just reach for my most recent snapshot.

UPDATE: It seems Pamela Jones of Groklaw shares my fears. From her article:

This is starting to feel like Wonderland, where Alice finds that up is down and large is small and nothing is the same or logical. Think tea party strange.Why would anyone want Microsoft to participate? Seriously. Why? And no, patent deals with Novell don't make me like them. I despise them for what they did, and I know what it means. They intend to coopt Linux, destroy the GPL, and hop on board to make some money, honey. Oh, and kill it if it doesn't wish to be ridden, while isolating and rendering pointless and helpless all developers who won't go along. Why would you hope for that? Seriously. Why?

And to summarize, Jones states: "Indeed, I believe Microsoft will embrace Open Source only enough to Embrace, Extend and Extinguish it as it now exists and replace it with its own extended "Brand Microsoft" monopoly version, one that just happens to benefit and fit in to Microsoft's business model and that isn't open at all as far as control is concerned."

I agree with you, PJ.