Chris Chinchilla

Hands on with Lion, 10.7 - Installing

ChrisChinchilla — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:54:32 +0000

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I love living on the cutting edge, many times to my detriment, but it never ceases to dissuade me. So after a brief delay due to being away from home and nowhere near a backup drive (which, of course, is essential before a major system upgrade!) it was time to get my hands dirty.

One of the major criticisms of Lion has been the loss of control and the somewhat excessive wrapping in cotton wool of users. I personally have no problem with the replacement of physical media with a download, I have a small but growing collection of unwanted OS CDs and am very happy to not add to it. The download was relatively swift and trouble free and fortunately the installer gave me time to finish what I was doing before just restarting on me.

I let the installer run for reasonable period of time and nothing much seemed to happen, with the process seemingly freezing at around 33 minutes remaining with no real feedback as to what was happening. After some googling it seemed that a few people had experienced the same problem, with no definite solution. After digging into the installer logs I noticed several error messages relating to issues creating folders, so took the reasonable (and never a bad thing to do anyway) step of repairing permissions, several times. Still the installer seemingly hung at 33 minutes remaining, again with no feedback, so I delved into the logs once more. Nothing of note appeared in the error logs, but switching into 'all messages' mode I noticed something interesting. One of the options missing from the lion installer menus is the traditional disk utility and it appears the whole time the installer was 'hanging' it was actually checking/repairing the hard drive, which taking into account larger disks and any problems that may need fixing, could take some time... As indeed it was. So after waiting a little while, the installer finally completed and I was up and running with lion.

In summary, in Apples attempts to conceal as much of the internal processes to users as possible, and in their over assumptions that everyone's set up and situation is the same, this experience proves that occasionally a little more information is not only needed but necessary to those with enquiring minds.

More to follow…

London Civicon 2011

ChrisChinchilla — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:21:23 +0000

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At the time of writing this website isn't quite finished and maybe you can't quite tell that I love civicrm. I won't go into too much detail of why and what it is now, best you do a bit of searching and find that out for yourself.

Sadly I couldn't really spare the money or time to go to londons drupalcon, despite being in town at the time, but fortunately, running along side was the one day civicon, dedicated to civicrm. Here's my thoughts on the conference...

I attended sessions on civiengage, civicase, Ajax and civicrm, a mobile interface for civicrm, civicrm's API and a little bit more. The mobile session was the highlight, showcasing the beginnings of an amazing simple mobile interface that would be perfect for event registrations, face to face signups and many other applications. Personally I would have liked a few more intermediate sessions, but the balance of beginner and advanced sessions allowed for a really good mix of developers, users and systems admins in attendees. It was also fantastic to hear so many different accents and see a reasonable gender balance.

Civicon was a testament to the users of civicrm itself and the communities of people that use and develop for it. Primarily a system used by the community and not-for-profit sectors the attendees and speakers were very representative of this and thus were able to talk at a relevant level and cover topics that the vast majority would be interested in and would be applicable.

I left feeling excited, keen to be involved more and keen to explore the enormous potential of civicrm more.

Drinking control ad

ChrisChinchilla — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:46:35 +0000

I've sometimes been critical of drinking control ads in the past, generally wondering how effective they really are, but I really liked this one I found in a London toilet.

Why do I like it? Well:

It's well designed and laid out
The pint of water imitates some beer brands and marketing
The main slogan is a good play on words that may hopefully attract the people the ad is aimed at
The secondary slogan is also slightly clever, even though it's been echoed before.

Norwich

ChrisChinchilla — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 08:49:54 +0000

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After two weeks with staying with family, we were pretty desperate to get to Norwich and hang out with friends and kick back for a few days. Hence our enthusiasm on the journey there, punctuated by the discovery of a ridiculously cheap pub whilst transferring in Peterborough, that turned from a relaxing drink to a last minute mad dash to catch a train.

Norwich and Norfolk generally has quite a reputation for eccentric characters and odd behaviour, it could be said to be the "Tasmania of England", I think you'll get what I mean by that… However, aforementioned eccentric characters are more of an enjoyable novelty than a concern and we spent many a casual hour spotting individuals that were "normal for Norfolk", as the locals put it.

Another thing Norfolk seems to possess in droves is local ales and fortunately one of the friends we were staying with shares my passion and took great delight in showing us his favourite local watering holes including one of the best pubs I've ever been to, 'The Fat Cat brewery tap', which was oozing with good drinks, reasonable prices, friendly staff and a great atmosphere. For drinks to take home and enjoy was the equally excellent Two Brewers bottle store, breweries my taste buds can personally vouch for include (Or the ones I remember):

Drinking aside, we had a great few days chatting and enjoying our friends company, especially at the infamous Bellevue pub quiz, one of the most imaginative and fun quiz I've ever participated in, with sculpture and various quick fire fun rounds. The compare was great fun in an erratic way, the pub was vibrant and to top it all off, we came second.

Alongside the standard UK high street fayre, Norwich has a healthy (at least it looked that way) plethora of small niche shops including an old fashioned toy store, piled high with games, toys and nic-nacks that would please all ages. Heaps and heaps of charity shops and second hand stores and a market that nestled amongst the greasy spoon and tat stalls I found several stalls serving delicacies, including a vegan baker and an Australian trained barrista who helped sate my caffeine addiction.

One afternoon we took a 4 hour boat trip into the Norfolk broads, and whilst they may not be the most attractive waterways I've traversed, we were lucky to spot a few rarely seen birds including several Kingfishers, Cormorants, Grebes and Herons. It was also an interesting testament to old English towns and their relationship with heavy industry and trade in the past, businesses that are now far beyond their heydays, but at one point were the backbone of British enterprise and cities would undergo such transformations to their natural landscapes to ensure that they could trade most efficiently. This isn't to say that I necessarily agree with these actions, but still, you can't help but be fascinated.

The problem was, with all this fun going on we slightly forgot to visit any of the sustainability and community organisations we had noted… That said, we did make a couple of observations and there's no harm in listing the places we meant to visit is there?

Norwich City council has several separate waste collections, separating food waste, paper, other recyclables and all other waste.
The Green House
Alls Fair
The Greens
Slow food Norwich

Skegness wind farm

ChrisChinchilla — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:50:11 +0000

The Skegness Wind farm as you can see from the photos, they've located a wind farm in the sea, a great way to reduce NIMBYism.

Lincolnshire

ChrisChinchilla — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 08:33:30 +0000

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It's amazing what you can find in the country with a little digging…

We've been quite busy tucked away in this little corner on the English countryside known as Horncastle, which has a surprising amount of notable past residents, including Joseph Banks, for all my Australian and scientific readers.

Aside from catching up with a little freelance and Green Renters work, finally getting round to setting up my Drupal development environment after 2 years of attempting to do so (Features, Git, Mac OS X Apache and all sorts of other wizardry, with a few pains along the way) we've had quite a few unexpected antics.

Music and Trivia
it's size, Horncastle has a surprisingly good social scene and so far we've made it to an open Mic night at the infamous Old Nics (run by a couple who have also run pubs and musical venues in Melbourne for another twist of coincidence) where my Dad made a typical embarrassment of himself and I jumped up on the drums for a blues jam and proceeded to play them badly. We also made it to a pub quiz, in which (typically) we didn't know the answers to many questions, made up stupid answers and came last. Whilst these sorts of activities in larger cities and towns are a great place for new arrivals to meet and get to know people, so far we've found that in a small town they are the haunt of staunch regulars who almost look upon newbies as a worrying threat, still it beats watching TV.

Alternative community
I'll admit we didn't spend much time looking into any kind of political or sustainability type groups or events round Horncastle, but we quickly and easily found a fair bit in Lincoln, which is a relatively burgeoning University town and has a fair history behind it (nearly 2,000 years). Firstly we were lucky enough to be in town on Critical mass Friday, it was a small but dedicated turn out, but not having any bikes with us, we sent them on their merry way without us. Sunday was when we really had a good dig beneath the cobbled surface at a skills sharing day organised by the LUC (Lincoln Underground Collective). For a new group, organising a debut event, who only started organising it two months ago, it was a fantastic event, with a great turnout where we learnt a lot about activism in the UK and others learnt a lot about activism in Australia, take a look at the program for some of the topics covered and groups involved, I may talk about some of them in more detail in the future.

Beer and food
I have been making the most of the good exchange rate (for the $AU) and enjoying many pints of good old fashioned, locally brewed real ale. So far I have enjoyed The Leveller, Idle dog, Idle Landlord and more that I've forgotten about :-/ It's great to see the real ale and micro-brewery industry in the UK experiencing a renaissance much like back in Australia, if you're interested in knowing more, make sure you take a look at the work of CAMRA (Campaign for real ale). Food has been as average as always in the UK, it varies greatly depending where you go and what you're willing to pay. We've had a very average roast, an awesome picnic, some delicious cakes and a few homemade treats along the way.

Skegness
Skegness is the epitome of 'Traditional' English seaside towns, representing almost perfectly the bad and good elements of such places. To say it's 'cheap & cheerful' is an understatement, £1 shops, tacky souvenir shops, fatty unhealthy restaurants, donkey rides, a pier, amusement arcades and the list goes on! Not wishing to cause offense, but the general populace and visitors to Skegness fall into a lot of bad stereotypes, being overweight, badly dressed and relentlessly talking about holidays in Spain, the plethora of chav comedy characters recently makes it hard to sometimes keep a straight face when confronted with such an onslaught. There were also heaps of elderly people (The town was voted top place to retire in 2005) in electric wheelchairs and scooters, shop mobility seems to be a thriving business in Skegness.
With the shear amount of tack on show we really needed some respite and that came in the form of the awesomely unexpected Church farm museum, a beautiful and tranquil respite from the town's main drag.

Links and resources

Seagull recycling and eco centre: I tried to visit this, but hadn't made an appointment and they wouldn't let me look round.
Hill Holt wood
Lincoln car share
Skegness Wind farm: You can see this in my photos, they've located a wind farm in the sea, a great way to reduce NIMBYism

Chinese receipts

ChrisChinchilla — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:21:51 +0000

I kept noticing these silver scratch panels on some receipts in china and assumed they were just some form of official symbol but it turns out there actually a cunning behavioural change policy on behalf of the Chinese government.

It turns out that a lot of Chinese businesses try to dodge paying tax as asking for receipts isn't common practise and then there is no record of what has been sold and thus no record of what tax should be paid.

So the government added these scratch panels to receipts, they are in fact a game for the public to play where they can potentially win small amounts of money, thus encouraging people to ask for a receipt.

Simple, but seemingly effective.

Beijing

ChrisChinchilla — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:15:35 +0000

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China is one crazy country. Even before we left Australia, air china gave us a taste of the break neck speed 'efficiency' some of the Chinese like to operate on. On air china there seems little regard for people or their requirements, rather getting food service out the way as soon as possible when you board and then (for longer flights) as late as possible before you disembark. The Staff are curt and treat any requests more like invonvenieces to their schedule than opportunities for customer service. Our outbound flight had on demand entertainment, but no instructions as to how to operate it, with most people giving up and a program guide that seemed to lack a foothold in reality. On our outbound flight, entertainment was preprogrammed onto shared screens with an odd mix of tv shows and films. Perhaps the worst thing about the flights, was the god awful turbulence. Australian and Chinese airspace can be a little rough, but Jesus, I have never felt so sick and/or nervous on a flight in my life and through all this, the crew insist on still attempting to serve food and don't seem to care wether the 'fasten seat belts' sign is on or not, allowing passengers to amble around the cabin even in high turbulence. Personally I think it may have been because for a long haul flight the plane was incredibly small and thus more susceptible to turbulence, but who knows why. Food was passable, bland, but not horrible and sadly crew seemed reluctant to dish out too many free drinks, vanished the back of the plane as much as possible. Still it was cheap!

Personally I far preferred Beijing to Shanghai, for a variety of reasons I guess. It is far more interesting and appealing for tourists. Whilst there are many people hassling you on the streets, they tended to only be in several places, not everywhere you went and those that did were generally less in your face and hassled everyone, Chinese and foreigner. We got to catch up with my old friend, which was awesome in it's own right, but also helped guide us around and explain things a little more.

With three days we only managed to get round to a few sights including the 789 arts zone, an old electronics factory chock full of contemporary arts practices that shows chinas so far generally untapped potential for cutting edge arts. We visited the police museum which was an intriguing insight into the enforcery wing of chinas political attitudes as well as the slightly odd (to western sensibilities) overly positive and unquestioning attitude to their activities and execution. We visited Tiananmen square, our first exposure to the stupendous scale that china does things, past and present. It is the wordls largest public square, and whilst it's a little drab and concrete saturated (Beijing has many green spaces, but most seem to be out of bounds and just for decoration), flanked by several large modern buildings and dynasty era gates, it's impressive.

We also made it to the frankly indescribable forbidden city, well at least some of it. The forbidden city was the emperors residence for centuries and stands testament to the shear opulence, greed and disparateness from their people that many of the emperors subscribed to. It is exactly what the name suggests, an entire city, perhaps comparable (maybe slightly smaller) to the Vatican. I find it hard to judge the age of ancient Chinese buildings and relics and the fact that they seem to constantly touch up and repair older edifices with modern materials doesn't help. The forbidden city is gardens, museums, squares, streets, buildings and more besides, its size boggling the mind of most westerners, even our largest cities are really nothing on some Asian cities.

Food was quite variable and inconsistent, but we struggled to find anything particular similar to dishes you would find back home. From an extremely tasty and cheap street side restaurant to a bland food court eatery, to a Chinese muslim restaurant with dishes you would never expect to see on Chinese menus such as bread and chickpeas to restaurant with a strange tasting selection of dishes with a setting that felt like we had wander onto a secluded Mediterranean rooftop.

I find china, I guess specifically Beijing (and bear in mind that our exposure to the Chinese populace has generally been limited to relatively wealthy city dwellers) an extremely intriguing and increasingly appealing place. I can understand why many are drawn to attitudes of the country and people. It feels like a country where things are happening and moving forwards, a place of positive change and increasingly positive attitudes. It feels like people are generally proud of their country, it's achievements and their parts in it. An attractive and seductive attitude after many years spent in western cities that are becoming increasingly complacent, negative and fractured.

However china also scares me. The massive amount of people and their increasing levels of consumption freaks me out no end, the population strive towards a certain style of lifestyle they have witnessed from afar for decades and frankly who can blame them, but to meet that increasing desire will be a challenge for them, everyone else on the planet and the planet itself. On a small scale the Chinese population have a hotchpotch of contradictory environmental practices from flinging a ridiculous amount of litter left, right and centre, to slowly being encouraged to recycle and bring their own chopsticks to restaurants, to having a culture of over ordering food to cooking with just about every part of many creatures and plants. On a larger scale the Chinese government are big investors in many behavioral and infrastructure programs, but I still couldn't help almost agreeing with tony abbots statement along the lines that "anything Australia does in reducing carbon emissions is eclipsed by whatever china does or doesn't do", but if everyone, everywhere in the world adopted that attitude we would never get anywhere of achieve anything.

A fascinating visit to a fascinating place that just I was starting to get into the swing of it's rhythms and pulse, it was time to leave. Intimidating at times, overwhelming, hard to handle and understand, but highly recommended if you're up for a challenge.

Welcome

ChrisChinchilla — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:01:30 +0000

Ex Indie Rockstar, into sharing what I'm passionate about: technology, the web, the environment, inspiring ideas and the democratisation of them all.

I'm not a fan of jargon and try not to use it, but sometimes it's a quick way of getting ideas across, so…

What am I?

A digital trouble shooter… Offering ideas and solutions to niggling problems
An Ideas man… I'd happily sit around all day coming up with crazy and plausible ideas
A connection maker and lover of finding out who and what is out there and joining the dots… And I'm always happy to introduce you
Passionate…

What do I believe in?

I believe in talking to people, clarity and making complex concepts simple
I believe in spreading the word on good technologies, techniques and examples
I like to try to help as much as possible, I do also like to be paid for what I do, but won't rip you off and will give you good value
I like to try and contribute resources and ideas back to the foundations and developers behind the software I use.

What do I do?

I have knowledge, experience and expertise in print, digital, online and business operations, especially in not-for-profit, community and activist circles. Things like graphic design, web design, web development, mobile development, book publishing and setting up systems and processes that work for you.

Why on earth do you call yourself 'Chris Chinchilla'?
Hmm, yes it does sound rather silly doesn't it! It's a nickname I've had for over 12 years after a passing comment at school, I've carried it through all my fanzine and music years and quite like it. For those who are interested, a Chinchilla is a small (and very cute) South American rodent (And also a small town in Queensland, Australia) and is a real name in South America.
For those who are really interested, my real name is Chris Ward… Very dull.